Romance

The final installation of director Hiroshi Inagaki's samurai dramas, 'Ganryu Temple' tells the tale of humble samurai Musashi Miyamoto, who though being incredibly skilled is far from bloodthirsty, avoiding conflict whenever possible. A rival swordsman, the young, arrogant, nihilistic and completely unlikeable Kojiro Sasaki dreams of making his fortune by dueling Musashi.

I made the mistake of starting to watch Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008) just after midnight last night, and, although tired, I was not disappointed. The film is the brainchild of writer/lead actor Jason Segel (also of 2007's Knocked Up and CBS's How I Met Your Mother), who also wrote some original songs for the film. Segel plays Peter Bretter, a musician/composer working on a crime drama TV series. The title character of Sarah Marshall (Kristen Bell), his long time girlfriend of five and a half years, is the lead actress in the show, along side Billy Baldwin. The film opens up to Sarah dumping Peter, at first denying there is someone else, then saying there is to get out of an embrace. Peter has a hard time getting over being dumped, hence the need to forget Sarah Marshall.

2008 had some great films such as The Dark Knight, Iron Man, Slumdog Millionaire, and Quantum of Solace. But for every silver screen 'Yin' there's a 'Yang' and thanks to Paris Hilton we now know if you can get a reel of film and a leper you to can make $27,696 in two days!

 Let me get some things out of the way before we begin. This film is not my sort of thing at all ( I didn't even like the similar Moulin Rouge, which was well-directed and performed), I watched it out of interest as it is now the highest grossing film of the year in the UK (?) and my girlfriend was watching it, also out of interest. Also, it was a pleasure to finally review a film that I really didn't like at all. Finally, the only good ABBA based film is Muriel's Wedding, and the best crazy singing film is The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.

Alternately titled, "Cinderella Meets a Male Escort", Debra Messing's character 'Kat' is anxious (crazed, actually) over having to go to her sister's wedding, in which the best man is her ex-fiancee. To cope, she does something stupid -- she hires Nick (played by Dermot Mulroney), a male escort who'll be sure to make her ex-fiance feel stupid for having dumped her.

Mickey Blue Eyes has been out a few years now, and it is still as good now as the first time I saw it. Hugh Grant (Four Weddings & a Funeral, Nine Months) plays Michael Felgate, a struggling art-dealer opposite Jeanne Tripplehorn (The Firm) playing Gina Vitale, a schoolteacher. James Caan (Godfather, El Dorado, now NBC's Las Vegas on monday nights) plays Tripplehorn's father, Frank, who runs a restaurant called "The La Trattoria", or The The Trattoria. Grant proposes to Tripplehorn, who declines because of her father, because she didnt want Grant to become one of them. She runs off, and he can't find her, so he goes to her father's restaurant and meets "the family".

Bill Murray is an American movie star who is past his prime in this film from Sophia Coppola. (Yes, the one who ruined The Godfather Part 3.) Murray is in Tokyo to push a brand of Japanese whisky, and while he's there he starts a strange friendship and budding romance with a much younger American woman (Scarlett Johansson).