We’ve seen the story before, second chances at love in different shapes and forms that inspire us to get all warm-hearted. This romantic comedy follows the same formula with Sophie (Seyfried) who travels to Verona, Italy with her fiance (Gael García Bernal) who’s out of the picture a majority of the film due to a constant swing of ignoring his love. Bernal is, unfortunately, the most under-used; immediately shoved to the side as the would-be road block in order to make the budding romance between Sophie and Charlie (Christopher Egan) a lot easier to get to. Seyfried completely plays up the cute and determined young woman with a heart of gold to the core which works the most whenever she’s sharing screen time with Egan. His entertaining portrayal of the stubborn but soft-hearted Charlie passes, along with his striking features, enough to make the women in the audience sigh wishing they were Sophie.

In this case, the main love story between the two isn’t the most engaging but Claire’s (Vanessa Redgrave) quest for her long-lost love Lorenzo (Franco Nero, Django) gives you that flutter in your heart of hope. Redgrave shows off her solid skills in front of the camera and whisks away the audience anytime she appears.

Gary Winick handles the overly mushy chick flick material well enough to translate the heart melting script from the pages to the big screen. Tim Sullivan and Jose Rivera’s script is rather predictable to a fault all the way to a point where it’s easy to figure out all that would happen within the first fifteen minutes of the story. Then again when you have mainly fine performances and a gorgeous back drop of a foreign country completely enveloping you throughout the film, it’s forgivable. Letters to Juliet is the latest notch in a collection of romantic comedies or “chick flicks” that will easily sweep it’s demographic off it’s feet. If you want that warm and fuzzy feeling again from those true love tales you read and watch so much on, this is right up your alley.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

A banished hero (Fiennes) of Rome allies with a sworn enemy (Butler) to take his revenge on the city. The Magnolia Mae, Artemis Films and Hermetof Pictures production of Coriolanus is expected to come out sometime this year.:

“It’s a mix of a lot of things: it’s an historical thriller because it’s about who will succeed Queen Elizabeth and the struggle of the people who want to have a hand in it. It’s the Tudors on one side and the Cecils on the other, and in between [the two] is the Queen. Through that story we tell how the plays written by the Earl of Oxford ended up labelled ‘William Shakespeare’.”

“We have Vanessa Redgrave as Queen Elizabeth; David Thewlis as William Cecil, old and young; and Rhys Ifans as The Earl Of Oxford. It’s a true English cast and I’m really proud of it. There’s 12 main characters and 20 or 30 other characters, and each of the characters is really good.”

Principal photography is expected to start up in March all the way in Berlin with no particular release date set.

Kondracki recently wrote along with Nadia Benamara and directed the 2009 film “Viko”. Weisz is set to appear in the Peter Jackson directed film “The Lovely Bones” which is opening in theaters on January 15, 2010.

In How About You, a sentimental Christmas film adapted from a short story by Maeve Binchy, The Duchess’ Hayley Atwell transforms a bunch of old grouches into fun-loving saps. It’s one of those movies where the cure for misanthropy is snowball fights, some weed, and a good scolding by an adventure-seeking youngster. Surely a film where old people learn to love life again hasn’t been done before!

Kate (Orla Brady) runs a home for the elderly in Ireland. She is the “good” sibling – mature, discipline, and dependable. Her sister Elie (Hayley Atwell), on the other hand, is the out-of-work indulgent screw up that is certainly not reliable enough to look after the home by herself. But when Kate is called away on a family emergency, Elie must do just that. Soon she learns why every other resident but four have left – the remaining occupants are ill-tempered psychopaths.

The four elderly tenants are – Georgia (Vanessa Redgrave), a retired actress who still craves the spotlight; Donald (Joss Ackland), a retired judge who now battles with alcohol; and two sisters, Hazel (Imelda Staunton) and Heather (Brenda Fricker), spinster pool sharks who are in a constant state of bickering. It is Christmas, however, and the five remaining occupants of the home must learn to be a family. Before you know it, they’re dancing, singing, and smoking pot together.

There is a place for films like this one. It’s very slight and sentimental, but ultimately it is (or should be) endearing. But this one offers literally nothing new. If you’re going to use a plot that has been done a thousand times, the least you can do is give us some depth to the characters. Instead, however, it’s easy to assume that even the screenwriter couldn’t give you more than a short paragraph of analysis on each character.

I saw the film not knowing anything about it other than it’s cast. On paper, it certainly has quite the line up, and for the most part they don’t disappoint. Imelda Staunton in particular, who was so great in Mike Leigh’s Vera Drake, seems to have a blast chewing the scenery. For a film this melodramatic, such over-the-top performances are acceptable and expected.

How About You is a film we’ve seen over and over, and for that I can only recommend it if the veteran actresses on the cast appeal to you. If you’re looking for an engaging and insightful story on aging, however, skip this one.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

Source: CNN