Advertisements were false about “August: Osage County.” The commercials made this film seem like it was going to be a dim-witted comedy, but it is just devastating. “August: Osage County” has its funny moments, but problems just continue to throughout the entire movie.

Meryl Streep is the lead who plays Violet Weston. Someone diagnosed with mouth cancer, a consistent smoker, and addicted to pills. This troubled character is intended to be negative and opinionated, but is surprisingly weak. Half the time experiencing Streep’s performance, you will ask yourself how much worse can things get with her?

“August: Osage County” is a sad version of “Love Actually.” So many big names such as Julia Roberts, Ewan McGregor, Dermot Mulroney, Benedict Cumberbatch, Chris Cooper, Abigail Breslin, Juliette Lewis, and many other names. The main star to deal with most of the problems is Barbara Weston (Roberts). She is motivated to help her mom understand the consequences of her actions, but lacks the support from her separated husband Bill Fordham (McGregor). The daughter Jean Fordham (Breslin), is distracted and getting into the phase of the bad teenage habits and is pretty checked out and not that caring of the situation of her grandmother.

The movie is a movie that is best to watch once. I felt the film would be uplifting at first but it is not that at all. The acting is brilliant but it is just drama after drama and nothing good comes of the movie. Two stars.

How intense does robbery get? As soon as “Panic Room” got intense, my fists clenched into feeling kind of scared by how suspenseful it gets. “Panic Room” is a clever thriller done by talented director David Fincher, but it just goes all out violent over an object criminals want in one room.

“Panic Room” gears on the character Meg Altman (played by Jodie Foster) who is seeking a home to take a break from her lying husband along with her daughter Sarah (played by Kristen Stewart). They all of  a sudden run into a home that has a new installation which is called a “panic room.” What happens all of  a sudden though is that at like one in the morning criminals go with a plan made in advance to steal million of dollars in the house that is hidden.

The criminals are Junior (played by Jared Leto), Burnham (played by Forest Whitaker), and Raoul (played by Dwight Yoakam). They all showed up at the home confused due to Junior’s mistake of misinterpreting when exactly they move in due to the research he does on homes to break into. Burnham is against the idea, since he is not a violent person but has financial issues. Raoul, on the other hand is the most dangerous of the three, he wears a face mask and actually has a gun. They decide to attempt to get the cash while the Meg and her daughter are in the home.

Given the fact that Junior is over his head and is loud and obnoxious, this causes Meg to realize people are in her home (thanks to the high-tech camera systems installed) and she snatches her daughter and they lock themselves into the steel room aka the “panic room.” Now with no phone connection, no way out, and criminals not leaving until they get what they want, Meg is in for a suspenseful, long night.

This film is grisly entertaining, and also funny at some moments. However, it just gets too violent. Fincher thought about making the film in pitch black darkness but figured that would be impractical therefore he left it light. That was a better idea given the fact that the film is already harrowing enough as it reaches its climax.

“Panic Room” is good and I like it but its not amazing. Two and a half stars.

I remember only have watching “Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind” once like four years ago. Now when I look back at it, I realized it is sensational with more of a satire tone rather than a tone that is dramatic, like “Magnolia.” “Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind” has the dramatic sense but is also able to make its viewers laugh at certain key moments. Writer and director Michael Gondry’s idea of the plot involving people’s memory being erased came from his buddy Pierre Bismuth. Bismuth gave him this idea where at one point he recommended to Gondry that a character gets a letter saying, “Someone you know has just erased you from your memory.”

The main character is Joel Barish (played by Jim Carrey), a man who just broke up with his darling girlfriend Clementine (played by Kate Winslet). Joel believes he can try and win Clementine back, however he realizes that at one point she did a procedure to erase Joel from her memory. Joel meets Dr. Mierzwiak (played by Tom Wilkinson), the one who did the procedure for Clementine and influences Joel to do the procedure as well. Once the procedure begins, Joel starts to realize that as his memories fade away, that he still loves Clementine, but it may be too late to correct his mistakes given how much memory was erased from Clementine’s mind.

 The three characters that run the night-long procedure are Stan (played by Mark Ruffalo) Patrick (played by Elijah Wood) and Mary (played by Kirsten Dunst). They are all basically the dim-witted associates of Dr. Mierzwiak. They get stoned, drink beer, and eat junk food and lose attention of the updates of what is going on in Joel’s mind. Also Patrick is in love with Clementine and this just makes the puzzle for Joel even more depressing. Now that Joel is trying to not remember Clementine, Patrick just makes Joel’s puzzle of sadness even more harsh than it already is. It is a puzzle that is suppose to be straight-forward but the immature behavior causes a generous amount of disputes.

“Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” is a masterpiece to me. I have never done anything relating to brain damage and have never lost any memories. The process of the memories being erased in “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” will make its audience wonder how they can learn from their mistakes and fix certain situations instead of always trying to forget about mistakes they regret.

Gondry had a visual process to make this movie an art form. He would give his camera operators earlobe headsets. As the operators were filming the actors, Gondry was able to have a say in all the angles no matter where the actors were. This led to lots of satire since it was the actor’s decision to have a long conversation sitting on a couch or by a window. This strategy also helped the actors improve their performance since they had to do numerous takes on based on gut feelings.

“Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind” may be a bore to some viewers at first. I had to watch it twice and really pay attention. Since the first time I never read the synopsis I just went straight to watching the movie. The second time, I read the synopsis, watched the movie twice, and thought it was brilliant. I can even tell that there were numerous takes of certain scenes. Since the film goes to the same scene two or three times in the process of Joel losing his memory. Will Clementine be with Patrick or Joel? Will Joel and Clementine lose their memories of each other and be happy? Or will the non-structured puzzle of regrets just keep getting messier? Find out and watch “Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind.” Three stars.