"Fatal Reunion"
Release Date: 02/21/2005
Director: George Erschbamer
Genre: Drama, Horror, Mystery
Starring: Erika Eleniak, and David Millburn

Lal's Rating: 8/10

This movie is about a couple with two kids, who are in the throws of married life.  They start to have marital problems, and the wife decides that she wants more attention and support.  She reaches out to her High School crush.  This ends up being the mistake of her life. 

The story leads us to believe that the high school classmate has started to stalk the wife, but there is never any proof.  

Then, the police start to question the husband, putting doubt in our minds as viewers, but the wife still believes that her husband is innocent.  In the end, and this is the.............. 

******SPOILER ALERT!!!******

The killer ends up being a whole new character.  The old high friend turns out to be married, and he's married to a crazy woman, who has murdered in the past when she got into a jealous rage over her husband consorting with another woman.  

It was kind of obvious that the killer was the new character in the movie, as she finagled her way into the couple's life by acting as a lawyer of the high school friend, when he was accused of murder and was found innocent by a trial by jury.  

As usual Lifetime delivers movies that are both gripping and packed with emotional jargon.  I always enjoy these dramatic films.  

"8 x 10 TASVEER"

MY RATING: 7
Director:Nagesh Kukunoor
Writer:Nagesh Kukunoor (writer)
Release Date:3 April 2009 (India)
Genre:Mystery/Sci-Fi/Thriller

This is a story about a man,named Jai who has the ability to transport himself back into a picture and to visualize events as they occurred by the person he focuses on in the picture.
However, each time he goes into a picture, and into the past, he looses a bit of himself, and he becomes extremely weak. If he stays in the past longer than one minute, he can never come back into the present.
His abilities started when he was younger, and experienced a tragic, horrific event which shook his very being and changed his life. Since that time he had gained this other-worldly ability of being able to go back in time.

One day, his estranged father was killed and while on his death bed, his father was trying to tell Jai that he did not just have a heart attack but that he saw someone who was the killer. Jai was tormented with this knowledge, and kept trying to prove that his father's death was not by natural causes but was in reality a murder.
Each time he tried to convice everyone of his theories, he was accused of not allowing his father to rest in peace, and he was accused of becoming delusional and crazy.
Soon, Jai feel in love with a woman, and he did try to forget, however certain events kept occurring which brought back that same aching feeling that something was not quite right.
After many twists and turns in the movie, the finale was a bit crude, violent and bloody. The love of Jai's life turned out to be a woman who was really in love with Jai's twin brother, Jeet. Yes, Jai had a twin brother, who was actually supposedly killed in the traumtic event that occurred in their childhood. Jeet was found by a villager who tortured him, and he was never found by his family. Jai grew up in a wealthy setting. Jeet, filled with anger and rage vowed to avenge his brother, believing that his brother pushed him off a cliff and created his horrific life.

I did not like the ending when Jai convince Jeet that he loved him and that the whole thing was an accident. It was too dramatic, and unreal. It was crazy how Jeet just believed Jai in a matter of a few seconds. Just enough time to ward off a bullet aimed at Jai by his betrothed.

An extremely rushed ending to an otherwise beautiful and deep movie. Another more fluid ending could have been thought of.

DOUBT

DIRECTOR: JOHN PATRICK SHANLEY
WRITER: JOHN PATRICK SHANLEY
RELEASED: DECEMBER 25, 2008



CAST:
MERYL STREEP - SISTER ALOYSIUS BEAUVIER
PHILIP SEYMOUR HOFFMAN - FATHER BRENDAN FLYNN
AMY ADAMS - SISTER JAMES
VIOLA DAVIS - MRS. MILLER


The movie was released December 25, 2008, Christmas Day. Obviously not by coincidence. What a time to feel DOUBT...
This movie was set in 1964, in a Catholic School in the Bronx. Looming in political unrest, this was the first school who took on a black student. The school was predominantly Italian and Irish.
The movie starts us off showing how horribly strict and brash Sister Aloysius is with everyone, including all of the students and staff. She has to answer to Father Brenden Flynn, yet, she seems as though she runs the school. Her disciplinarian mentality is the old way and old ideas are hard to change. Father Flynn is more open to change and wants the church to portray a more friendly aura. Most people in the school agree, yet Sister Aloysius is stubborn and wants to teach with the old concepts of discipline through FEAR.
THE REAL ACTORS


Sister James, a young nun and also a teacher at the school notices Father Flynn showing more affection to Donald Miller, the first black student at the school. As we learn later, the young black boy is being abused at home by his father and he was placed in a catholic school so that he could stay out of trouble until he graduates. Father Flynn protects him from bullying by the other children at the school. The protection which Father Flynn shows is taken to mean possibly more than a simple fatherly love for a son. Sister Aloysius, having a innate dislike for Father Flynn, wants to see more into Father Flynn's interest in the boy.
The movie goes on to show how Sister Aloysius tries to do everything in her power to remove Father Flynn from the school. And in the end, she succeeds. It is not very clear whether Father Flynn or Sister Aloysius is in the right.

Obviously, this is why the movie is called "DOUBT". It is incredibly irking to watch the entire movie and just not know the truth. There is such doubt, due to no real evidence to convict Father Flynn. It really tickles your brain.


Supremely acted by Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman.