"The Switch" Movie

I was lucky enough to go and see the preview of the movie today. Since it will be out in cinemas in UK only on September, 1st. Here is the review of the movie for you guys:

Cassie (Jennifer Aniston) is a 40 years old single woman, whose desire to conceive a child becomes so unbearable that she decides to place an ad looking for a sperm donor. The action is set in a professional part of New York.
On the other side there is Wally Mars (Jason Bateman), who is the best friend of Cassie. And he is totaly against artificial insemination, but he does propose to use his sperm, which Cassie rejects on the spot, saying, he is clumsy, not smart enough, she doesnt like it and so on... So, after him being to honest and slightly pushy about the whole idea which Wally doesnt like, Cassie tells him they need to have a time off in their best friends relationship.
So, Cassie's best friend Debbie (Juliette Lewis) is throwing a donor party, where Wally gets invited as well, along with the sperm donor Roland (Patrick Wilson) and his wife, who is in Roland's words is a life in his life, wind beneath his wings and the air he breaths with. :)
So, Wally being his usual clumsy self, gets a pill from Debbie, as she said, to feel more relaxed and he mixing it with alcohol becomes very drunk and even drops the food on himself, not mentioning he can hardly contain himself and walk. He introduces himself to Roland, the donor guy, as a best, the very best friend of Cassie. Obviously, Wally is very annoyed and jealous of the whole thing happening, because he likes Cassie and doesnt want to be just friends with her, whereas she sees him only as a friend. They dated before, but it didnt work out. All throughout the movie Wally is advising with his best male friend Leonard (Jeff Goldblum). I have to say, an amazing actor. He rarely plays in latest movies, but I like him and the way he plays and holds himself. His sense of humor is not possible to escape :)
While Wally is starting to feel worse and worse, he goes to the toilet, where he finds on the small offering plate on the shelf the "offering" of Roland, surrounded by the burning candles. So, Wally starts playing around, till accidentally he managed to pour the sperm out in the sink...  After thinking for long enough, he finds a magazine in the stack of toilet reads with an "average" looking  TV news reader and "does the job" :)  and doesnt remember a single thing happening to him right after he entered the party house.
He is feeling pretty rough next day, and Leonard also tells him how Wally arrived to his house at 3am in the morning, talking a bunch of hardly understandable crap.
Couple of weeks later, Cassie tells Wally she is pregnant (which kills him completely) and she leaves New Yourk for good, telling its not a good place to raise the kid.
Seasons pass, and years, and Wally keeps waiting and going with slow pace through his life, having enormous amount of blind dates, 2 unhappy relationships and a dog :)
Now, the story starts to take its speed - seven(!) years later, one nice autumn evening Wally gets a call from Cassie, saying she has returned to New York to live, she got an amazing job and would be nice to meet up and Wally could also meet Sebastian (Thomas Robinson/Bryce Robinson later in the movie), her son. That he is a little bit strange in her words and his favourite thing to have as a gift would be a photo frame, but without the photo... :)
When Wally meets Sebastian - you cant help yourself, but wonder, how amazingly similar looking son and dad are. Here thumbs up for an excellent job of casting on picking both actors with such similar looks.  Boy starts liking Wally immediately, even though in his strange way, cos he is exactly like his dad - thinking too much and is incredibly theoretically smart and has no interest in things little kids would normally have. On the gifted frame he comments: "Good frame, silver new edition! But where is the photo inside?"
"Which photo?"- Wally says
"The one they are sold with inside initially... :( this frame has been used.." - says his son.
On the same evening Cassie asks Wally to spend a weekend with the kid, since she needs to go to the parent meetings and also - she is meeting with Roland (her child sperm donor), to see how he is doing and also, thats the reason she didnt want to have an anonymous donor - so he could answer some questions which kid would start asking. Meantime we, viewers, find out that Roland is no longer married, since his wife has cheated on him..  Wally finds this out as well, and gets jealous.
Cassie meets with Roland and they hit it off from the first time and start seeing each other. Roland is also moving very fast in their relationship.

After spending a day with kid, Wally cant help, but wonder how similar they are and even lady on the bus commented on it. He spends an evening at Cassie's flat, and Cassie seems to have a certain feelings appearing for Wally.  So, he starts thinking about all this, goes to see his friend Leonard and finds out that kid is his (with Leonard's help he remembers that night 7 years ago and how he did the switch.)
He runs to Cassie immediately in his attempt to explain the situation to her and.. fails. Although, Cassie misunderstands him trying to tell her about how he hijacked her pregnancy, but she says that she thought they had an energy between them.. :) She gets angry when Wally says thats not what he meant to say.. and they hardly speak again. Then there is Sebastian's 6th birthday party, where Roland behaves like dad already and fails to establish a contact with kid (he is being too pushy and cant find a common language with a child). But he does notice how Sebastian is drown towards Wally and two man later on are having a drink together.
So it goes, Cassie is going out with Roland, Wally doing his job and gets on with his life, sometimes helping with kid. Like this one particular time when he was asked by Cassie while she was with Roland to pick Sebastian up, bring him home and spend an evening with him, also eliminating the lice from his head. With all the consequences of disinfecting the flat and the lice treatment.  So, (here goes the sensitive moment of the movie, you might even get tears), of the in bed conversation of father and son we finally find out what was so fascinating for the kid in those picture frames with the initial photos in them (the ones which some inserted from the shop). On those photos are normally some models representing a happy family or some happy time spending and Sebastian is dreaming about to have a dad, to have a happy full family and a granddad, so he invents stories for himself by looking at those photos. He keeps them by his bed, by the way.
In the morning Cassie arrives from the airport, to find both happily cooking breakfast, and also, she says herself and Roland are moving in together. Wally is trying to explain to her its not a right thing to do, that she is not happy, but she doesnt want to listen. Although, she does tell him, she will move in with Roland unless Wally has anything else to offer/tell her. Wally doesnt say a thing and leaves.
A while later Sebastian arrives to Wally's apartment, to tell him he got beaten in school just because he tried to do like Wally taught him to stand up for himself and act crazy. Wally decides to call a cab for a kid, but Sebastian demands Wally to bring him home. Also, he says he thought Wally would be proud of him. Awww, how sweet! :)
They arrive to the house party, where Roland shows a ring to Wally and he is going to propose Cassie in front of all his family. Wally, unable to get Cassie to speak in private about what happened, has to interrupt Roland's proposal and to tell in front of everyone how he hijacked Cassie's pregnancy and that he loves her, which he couldnt tell before... She listens, then slaps him wholeheartedly and tells him never to talk to them again.
Wally, visits his friend Leonard again, to tell how heartbroken he is and gets on with his daily life/job, until one day Cassie is waiting for him outside his office, to tell how Sebastian misses Wally badly and how she couldnt take it any more further with Roland, because...he is not like Wally. So, Wally asks whether she will marry him and she says: "I suppose I will have to.." :) They are kissing each other and then they are showing how the next birthday of Sebastian is celebrated in the family and friends circle, including Debbie, helping with cooking and Leonard, playing the piano. 
The final scene is showing us Sebastian's photo frames, filled with their family real pictures now... :)
A very happy ending movie, even though its not like sweet, sweet, sugary type of a girly movie. Its just about right to watch it with the guy or family, without being too embarrassed and to have a good time and a laugh.
My expectations before I went to cinema were: 5 out of 10. After I saw it I would give it: 8 out of 10. :)

Thank you for reading, hope you enjoy the movie!! :)
------------------
Jason Bateman (Wally Mars) commented on this movie:
"For me I kind of liked the message that, I don't know that people will pick up on, but it's certainly what I liked, which is that a best friend is not necessarily a bad candidate for a long term relationship. It's worked for me in my life, with my wife, so, that's kind of what this movie is saying."

Screenplay is by Allan Loeb (Things We lost in the Fire, 21, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps)

Here you can watch the movie trailer: "The Switch"

Inception (2010)

I had to watch this movie in the cinema today, since a lot of people keep telling how great the movie is.
My expectation was only 6 out of 10, since Di Caprio is a protagonist in the movie, and no, I dont have any dislike towards him, but not particular like either :) I watched it in cinema.
So, it starts:
Dom Cobb (Leonardo Di Caprio) is an absolute professional in a corporate espionage. He steals other's ideas and corporate secrets through a dream, when mind is very easy to influence and vulnerable. Victims dont know they are in the dream, whereas Cobb is fully aware of that, and when in doubt, he has a small totem which only he can touch, cos it holds a certain weight and touch, which if changed, will stop working. Its a small spinning wheel, which whenever Cobb starts spinning it, he knows he is not dreaming, but is in reality.




Before I watched the movie my expectation's score was 6 out of 10. After - 7/10 and only because you get a different experience in comparison to regular movie. Not because the movie was so exceptionally good. :)
When you quit the cinema, if you are watching it there, dont take your reality for a dream! ;)

The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

"Fear can hold you prisoner,
Hope can set you free."

I watched this movie yesterday for the first time. Funny thing is - 3 years ago, my friend gave it to me and said its a nice movie, why dont you watch it, I never did. And then, couple of years later I am watching this movie with the same friend. It has become my favourite of all the ones I have seen so far, and let me tell you, I have seen a lot. ;)
I started from the quote which is printed on one version of the DVD cover of the movie and that is the main idea, which goes throughout the whole movie as a thin, slightly visible line.
Action starts with the night settings and the man in the car, with revolver and couple of bullets, and a bottle of whiskey in the other hand. He is clearly lost and is very drunk. Then, there is court and a judge, and this man, whose name is Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins), is being made guilty in the murder of his wife and her lover. Because he hasnt got a proper alibi, rather than his word and he said he was in the car, in front of the lovers house, straight after his wife left him for a lover, she said she got tired of hiding. Andy wanted to discuss the matters with the lover, but never did, as was too drunk. So he left home and dropped his gun in the nearest river. That night, the couple was shot with the same gun caliber as Andy had. But since his gun was never found in the river by police...so the attorney tells Mr. Dufresne, that that is very convenient for him:

District Attorney: And that also is very convenient, isn't it, Mr. Dufresne?
Andy Dufresne: Since I am innocent of this crime, sir, I find it decidedly *inconvenient* that the gun was never found.
You notice straight away in the movie, how calmly and wisely Andy responds to the attorney. But, yet, it doesnt save him from the judgment and they put him to prison.
On the very first day, as soon as new prisoners arrive, we get introduced to another character: Red aka Ellis Boyd Redding (Morgan Freeman).
He and his team are betting cigarettes on who of the newbies will cry on the first night of being in prisons cell.
Red bets on Andy:
Red: That tall drink of water with the silver spoon up his ass.
Then the prison's warden, the main man in Shawshank, Warden Samuel Norton (Bob Gunton) tells prison rules to all of the newcomers:
Warden Samuel Norton: I believe in two things: discipline and the Bible. Here you'll receive both. Put your trust in the Lord; your ass belongs to me. Welcome to Shawshank.

Here is starts - first night one of the new guys gets killed by prison officers for crying in his cell and begging them to let him out, as he doesnt belong in there...
One month passes and Andy finally decides to speak to Red, as Red was the man who knew how and where to get things. Andy needs Red to get him a stone hammer.
Later on all of them are watching a movie with Rita Hayworth. Andy asks Red to get him her, and couple of weeks later, when Andy comes back from the hole, he finds in his cell a huge poster with Rita.
From his first day in the prison's shower, he was sized up by Boggs, local homosexual.
Boggs: Hey, anybody come at you yet? Anybody get to you yet?
[Andy looks at him in puzzlement]
Boggs: Hey, we all need friends in here. I could be a friend to you.
[Andy walks away]
Boggs: Hey... Hard to get. I like that...
So, after couple of months, Boggs with his team(they were called sisters there), catches Andy in the workers room, for a known matter. Andy fought, as much as he could, but, obviously, he could not do much against 4 men. So, thats how it went - for 2 years, sometimes Andy could fight back, sometimes he couldnt. But he always kept his head up and never told anyone about it. In his head he had something, which kept him going through years in Shawshank and nothing could break him. Thats how Red thought about Andy:
Red: I could see why some of the boys took him for snobby. He had a quiet way about him, a walk and a talk that just wasn't normal around here. He strolled, like a man in a park without a care or a worry in the world, like he had on an invisible coat that would shield him from this place. Yeah, I think it would be fair to say... I liked Andy from the start.
All the days in prison Andy spends reading the Bible, carving figurines out of stones and playing chess.
Then, thats where matters started to happen and the movie is taking on its pace - in the spring of 1949 the roof of the license-plate factory needs resurfacing and warden Norton needs a dozen volunteers for a week's work. With privileges being of working outside the prison.
After the draw, Andy gets chosen along with Red and his team. They are working on the roof and that when Dufresne hears a talk between officers, that one wants to find a way of getting a huge amount of money, but without enormous tax on that. Andy risks his life, because when he approaches officer in his direct and a bit strange way, officer decides to throw him down from the roof. Andy, being a banker in his life, advices officer to give money to wife, and asks nothing, but couple of cold beers for his inmates.
Thats when both inmates and officers started to - I want to say "like", but not quite there..yet. Thats when they noticed him in a good way.
After he comes back from that week of work, Sisters attack him again and he hardly survives there, but they have beaten Andy so bad, he has to spend a month in hospital. Whereas officers get Boggs and bit his so hard for that, that Boggs has been transfered in a wheelchair to a minimum security prison and for the rest of his life never walked and ate through the straw. And the rest of Sisters never touched him again.

You can see in here how officers stood up on the Andy's side, which would have never happened to anyone in the prison, unless the one has earned a respect.
Upon Andy's return, warden Norton offers his a job in the library, instead of laundry. And Andy joins Brooks Hatlen(James Whitmore). An old man with a kind heart and a bird lover (the flying ones ;) ). From the first day officers started to come and ask Mr. Dufresne for a financial advice. And thats how it goes - every day Andy gets a huge queue of officers for advice, and he is trying to improve the library, Red and his team are helping him. But what Andy wants is to get much more books for the library. So, he writes a letter a week for two years to a local community, till they send him a pile of books and a cheque for $200 and begging not to write anymore :) . After that, he starts writing 2 letters a week, and in a while they grant him a yearly allowance of $5000 for the library and loads of books. Brooks has been released from the prison and unable to cope with the outside life and work, he hangs himself, living a carving on the wall in the room he used to live. Note it here, cos we will come back to this room later on with you, my reader. :)
Meantime, Norton gets Andy to work on prisons budget and Andy is laundering huge amounts of money every day for him.
Dufresne puts this money on the account of some imaginary character, which whoever tries to find, will end up with nothing:
Andy Dufresne: If they ever try to trace any of those accounts, they're gonna end up chasing a figment of my imagination.
Red: Well, I'll be damned. Did I say you were good? Shit, you're a Rembrandt!
Andy Dufresne: Yeah. The funny thing is - on the outside, I was an honest man, straight as an arrow. I had to come to prison to be a crook.
So it goes.
Until one day new guy arrives to prison, named Tommy Williams (Gill Bellows), he is young and is a very simple and outgoing boy. Andy starts teaching him how to read and count and Tommy in his turn tells Red and Andy about the guy he met in prison before, who has admitted he has killed two lovers in their house, at night. So, they turned out to be Andy's wife and her lover.
Andy goes to Norton, asks him to help to move this case forward. Norton gets insanely mad, put Andy in hole for 2 months and by tricking Tommy, he calls him at night for a talk and a cigarette just outside the prison fence and gets him killed by a guard.
Then there is talk between Andy and Red, after Andy gets out of the hole. Andy asks Red, when Red gets out of the prison, to go to the field where Andy proposed his wife, under a certain volcanic stone to get something, which he wants him to have. Red thinks Andy is going mad little by little. Oh, and also Dufresne tells him about a town, which has no memory..

Andy Dufresne: You know what the Mexicans say about the Pacific?
Red: No.
Andy Dufresne: They say it has no memory. That's where I want to live the rest of my life. A warm place with no memory.
Andy's dream, which kept him going was to get free and buy a small hotel and a boat and live there peacefully.

Red: Let me tell you something my friend. Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane.
And here, from the conversation between two main characters, you can get the main idea of the movie, the one you need to get and the one which will keep you, the reader of this blog going on in life as well...>>>
Andy Dufresne: That's the beauty of music. They can't get that from you... Haven't you ever felt that way about music?
Red: I played a mean harmonica as a younger man. Lost interest in it though. Didn't make much sense in here.
Andy Dufresne: Here's where it makes the most sense. You need it so you don't forget.
Red: Forget?
Andy Dufresne: Forget that... there are places in this world that aren't made out of stone. That there's something inside... that they can't get to, that they can't touch. That's yours.
Red: What're you talking about?
Andy Dufresne: Hope.
Andy escapes from the prison very soon after, he has made a tunnel behind that poster of the girl on the wall with that mini hammer he asked from Red very first month. He goes through the tunnel, then through the sewage pipe 500 yards long. And leaves in the Norton's safe not the real accountancy books, like he did every night, but a Bible and a note for Norton: "Salvation lies within". Just like Norton said one day to him.
Next morning Andy goes around many banks in his suit and gets all the enormous amount of money he has transferred over past years to imaginary person and then takes of to the place where he always wanted to go - the Pacific.
Also, Dufresne sends those accountancy books to police and they go to arrest Norton, which in his turn locks himself in the office and shots himself dead.
Red gets granted rehabilitation and he ends up working in the same shop where Brooks worked a long time ago and living in the same room where Brooks hanged himself. Do you remember I told you we will come back to this room? So we did. Red leaves a carving with his name next to Brook's one, buys the compass and leaves to find the place which he promised Andy to find. Thats the only thing which kept him going and not killing himself, like Brooks. He has this hope which Andy left for him, hope for the better, even though its not his own hope and idea, but Andy's. But it still keeps Red going.

So, Red finds a box under that volcanic rock, with money in there for the ticket and a letter for Red. Andy says: [in letter to Red] Remember Red, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.
Red travels to Pacific coast, and meets Andy there, fixing the boat. Thats how the movie ends.

I will give this movie 10 out of 10. And thats the only time I have ever given this score - because the plot is amazing, Tim and Morgan are great actors and the lesson you learn from the movie - is the main lesson in life. Its priceless!! Whenever you get an opportunity, I HIGHLY recommend watching this. You will get inspired if not for the rest of you life, but for the part of it enough to make you want to change it.