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“You wouldn’t steal a car. You wouldn’t steal a handbag. You wouldn’t steal a mobile phone. You wouldn’t steal a DVD. Buying pirated films is stealing…Stealing…Is Against…The Law…Piracy: It’s a crime.” So goes the 2004 MPAA advertisement that precedes the content on many DVDs. But unfortunately for the MPAA, its call to good citizenship has fallen on many deaf ears, including that of former Fox News columnist Roger Friedman, who was fired after posting a review of “X-Men Origins: Wolverine,” which doesn’t hit theaters until May 1.

Friedman, who had enjoyed his position as Fox News entertainment writer for 10 years, posted a favorable review of the leaked film, saying that it “exceeds expectation at every turn.” You’d think that 20th Century Fox, which, along with Fox News, are both subsidiaries of News Corporation, might appreciate the advance praise, but apparently not. 20th Century Fox, with the help of the FBI and the MPAA, is now tracking the source of the film and promises prosecution of the source.

I’m not sure if I’ll go to the theater to see “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”. I’m thinking about it; but I’m not convinced yet that I shouldn’t wait for it to be released on DVD then rent it from netflix. It sounds like it might be interesting, but not necessarily so interesting that I can’t wait a six months to see it.

Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett look like they might be sexy together in a movie. Then again Brad Pitt is sexy paired with anyone in a movie.

While I debate whether or not to go see the film in the theater, I’ll share some of the interesting adjectives I’ve picked out from some reviews of “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”.

From Tom Charity CNN: risky, romantic, epic, grand, flawed, fabulous, sophisticated, oddball, entrancing, enervating, bittersweet, beautiful.

Rotten Tomatoes: Positive feedback: evocative, affecting, beautifully crafted, classic, charming, intelligent, magical, moving, impeccably detailed, richly textured, extravagantly ambitious, grand, eloquent, tantalizing, timeless, amazing, terrific

Negative Feedback: bland, passive, gloomy, over-ambitious, excessive, ordinary,  artificial, soulless, forgettable, lacking substance, full of itself

The film seems overall to receive more positive than negative feedback.

Jennifer Aniston movies are never interesting to me. I saw her in “The Good Girl”, “Rumor Has It”, “Along Came Polly”, and “Bruce Almighty”. Bruce Almighty wasn’t really a Jennfier Aniston movie admittedly. I think Jennifer is a decent actress, but she always plays one-dimensional characters who lack depth. In Marley & Me she pairs up with Owen Wilson who doesn’t seem to make very many interesting movies himself. I can hardly imagine this pairing will result in a film that’s worth a trip to the theater.

A movie in which a family learns an important life lesson from their dog seems like just the kind of thing Jennifer Aniston would appear in, something that attempts to be quirky, funny, cute, romantic, and turns out unbearably saccharin. Of course I haven’t seen the film, but anything starring Jennifer Aniston and Owen Wilson that also has a dog in it can’t be Oscar worthy, and if I’m going to spend money  to go to a theater to see a film it needs to be Oscar worthy.

So there you have it.

If you go by the reviews on Rotten Tomato, Will Smith’s latest flick “Seven Pounds” is not worth spending money to go to the theater to watch. Pretty much everyone was in agreement that “Seven Pounds” is a bit of an odd film, including the reviewers who rated it “fresh” as opposed to “rotten”. The film, starring Will Smith, Rosario Dawson, Woody Harrelson and Barry Pepper is described as an “emotional drama”. It presents Will Smith in the character of Ben Thomas who is an IRS agent with a secret past who “embarks on an extraordinary journey of redemption by forever changing the lives of seven strangers.”

Reviews are overall negative. One reviewer referred to the film as “manipulative dirge disguised as a deep rumination on sacrifice and redemption”, another called it a “well-intentioned misfire”. The movie has been described using words and phrases like, “indigestible grandiosity”, “distasteful”, “slow and sappy”, “convoluted”, “mawkish”, “disappointingly shallow”, “maddeningly coy”, “hollow”, “absurd”, “preposterous”, “rickety” , “overthought”, “unconvincing”, “ghoulish”, “dumb”, “half-baked”, “Inspirational misfire”, “ludicrous”, “morally beclouded”, “schmaltzy”, “falsely mysterious”, “muddled”, “wholly unbelievable”, “trite”, “somnolent”,”pretentious”, “dour”, and “Dispiritingly obvious”.

After reading the reviews I was left wanting to see the film because I find it hard to believe it could possibly be as bad as all that.

“Four Christmases” starring Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon, had been raking in major box office box since it was released November 26th. The film, a Spyglass production, is a romantic comedy about a couple who visit all four of their divorced parents on Christmas Day. The film co-tars Sissy Spacek, Mary Steenburgen, Kristin Chenoweth, Jon Voight, and Robert Duvall. It was directed by Seth Gordon.

The story plot: Brad (played by Vaughn) and Kate (played by Witherspoon) are a sophisticated San Francisco couple who have a tradition of avoiding holiday family chaos by going off on exotic vacations instead of spending the holidays with their family; however this Christmas mother nature forces a change in plans by sending fog to interrupt their flying plans. They end having to go visit with family; and since they each have two separate sets of families due to their parents being divorced, they end up having to do four different Christmas “family visits”. Hence the title of the film, “Four Christmas”.

Critic reviews of the film aren’t particularly great. Here’s a sample:

• Variety magazine called Four Christmases - “oddly misanthropic, occasionally amusing but thoroughly cheerless holiday attraction that is in no way a family film.”
• The Hollywood Reporter called Four Christmases - “one of the most joyless Christmas movies ever” with “an unearned feel-good ending [that] adds insult to injury”
• The Associated Press said of Four Christmases that the film was no more than - “noisy joylessness [that] sets the tone for the whole movie.”

Despite the negative reviews the film has done well at the box office, raking in $74.6 million worldwide since it was released.

If movies about teen vampires are not your cup of tea then you will not be wanting to check out “Twilight” at a theater near you. According to the information provided on the official “Twilight” website, the film is a love story about a teenage girl and a vampire. The girl’s name is Bella Swan. She’s described as “a little bit different”, a teenage girl who prefers to be her own person and doesn’t try to fit in with the in-crowds. She’s sent off to Fork Washington to live with her father when her mother gets remarried; and it’s there that she meets Edward Cullen, described as “mysterious and dazzlingly beautiful”. Edward is not like any boy Bella has ever met. He’s intelligent and witty and sees straight into her soul. He’s also a vampire; but not your usual vampire by any means. Edward doesn’t have fangs and he doesn’t drink human blood.

Bella and Edward fall in love and are soon caught up in a romance described as “passionate, thrilling and unorthodox”.

The movie is based on a the #1 New York Best-Selling series by Stephanie Meyer. There are apparently over 17 million books from the series in print. It is quite the cultural phenomenon, much like Harry Potter was a cultural phenomenon. There’s a dedicated fan base that’s said to be eagerly awaiting the release of the film. In the film Bella Swan is played by Kristen Stewart and Edward Cullen is played by Robert Pattinson.

The film is being called a “visual, and visceral Romeo & Juliet story of the ultimate forbidden love affair - between vampire and mortal”.

The Secret Lives of Bees is a film set in South Carolina in 1964. The film tells the story of a 14-year old girl, Lily Owens, who runs away with her caregiver to escape haunting memories of her deceased mother and a bad relationship with her father. Played by Dakota Fanning, the character of Lily and her caregiver Rosaleen (Played by Jennifer Hudson) flee to a town in South Carolina. Lily is taken in by the Boatwright sisters and into their world of beekeeping.
People who have seen the film “The Secret Lives of Bees”, vary in their opinion on whether or not the movie is worth watching. Some people call the film “wonderful” with one reviewer claiming it was “full of heart and soul”, and others felt the film was contrived, boring and forgettable.

For a list of 300 viewer reviews visit the yahoo movie reivew page for “The Secret Life of Bees“.

If you’re wondering if you should or should not go see the Changeling which stars Angelina Jolie and is directed by Clint Eastwood, you should definitely read what movie-goers have to say about the film. The opinions range from some calling the movie “amazing” and the “best drama movie so far this year”, to others calling it “too long”, “overacted”, “disturbing” and “boring”.

The Changeling is based on the true story of a woman in 1920s Los Angeles who goes through an ordeal where her son disappears and the LAPD brings back a boy claiming it’s her son. When she insists the boy is not her son she’s accused of being delusional and an unfit mother. The story is centered around the Wineville Chicken Coop Murders that involved the kidnapping and murders of young boys in Los Angeles and Riverside County, California from 1928 through 1930.

Some viewers claim the film is too graphic in some respects and will leave you feeling “emotionally bludgeoned”. One reviewer wrote, “the violence in this film is egregious, verging on inappropriate”. Another reviewer wrote, “It was just too brutal”; and yet another wrote “…the part I did not like was when they started showing the kids getting murdered. I couldn’t handle it and my friend and I left.”

The overall feedback appears to be that the film was well acted and well directed, but if you’re sensitive to gore and don’t have the stomach to see children being murdered with an axe you might not want to go see “The Changeling”.

Read more reviews of The Changeling

“Quatum of Solace” is said to be about James Bond’s “high octane adventures” as continued from Casino Royale. Quantum picks up days where Royale left off. On the heel of being betrayed by Vesper, the woman he loves, 007 must fight not to make his latest mission personal. He has captured “Mr. White” and, bent on uncovering the truth, learns the name of the organization that blackmailed Vesper into stealing his casino winnings. The mission is said to  be “complex” and “dangerous” involving “forensic intelligence”, bank accounts in Haiti, mistaken identity and a “feisty” chic named Camille who, naturally, has a score she’s itching to settle.

The film is not short on world travel with Bond’s mission taking him to Austria, Italy and South America, leading him to the discovery that Dominic Greene, the requisite wealthy, power-obsessed villain wants to “take total control of one of the world’s most important natural resources” and Greene is somehow managing to manipulate the CIA and the British government as he plots to “overthrow the existing regime in Bolivia”.

Quantum of Solace will deliver copious doses of explosions and gunfire and a fair enough amount of nudity to satisfy the true Bond fan. The film is receiving mostly positive reviews. However, if you are not a true James Bond fan and you tend to prefer your plots a wee bit more realistic, Quantum of Solace might not be your cup of tea.