The Orphanage is a Spanish horror movie from the year 2007.

In the leading role is Belen Rueda (Laura) who lives in the old house with her husband Carlos and son Simon. The house used to be an orphanage and Laura spent her childhood there until she was adopted. Laura’s son is also adopted but he doesn’t know it at the beginning of the movie. He is the only child in the family and that’s why he has a lot of imaginary friends.  Laura is a bit worried about Simon because of these friends: Simon says that his friend told him that Laura and Carlos aren’t his real parents. Simon is HIV positive and because of that he must take medicines every day.

When Laura was a child there wasn’t a lot of children in the orphanage -only six, including Laura. And now, Laura is going to open the orphanage again and take there only a few child. But when Simon disappears the plans about opening the orphanage again are cancelled. After Simon’s disappearance Laura starts to see these Simon’s imaginary friends and soon she realizes that they are the children who lived in the orphanage with her when she was a child. There is only one strange thing: these children haven’t grown up at all. And in a really complicated ways these children try to help Laura to find Simon.

Casting of the film is very successful, though first it was a bit weird to see Rueda in a movie like this because she is probably best known from the Spanish series ”Los Serranos”. This movie is a horror movie and there is a lot of scary scenes (of course music has a big part in this: without it the scenes wouldn’t be so horrible) but it isn’t really that traumatic, like some other movies in this genre.

Toy Story (1995) was the first entirely computer animated feature length film which is directed by John Lasseter and produced by Pixar. Toy Story follows the adventures of the toys who belong to a kid named Andy. Andy has lots of toys for instance Mr. Potato Head, Slinky, Rex and all of them are very important to him but his favorite toy is a sheriff called Woody. He is the leader of the rest of the toys. Everything was fine, until Andy got for a birthday present a new toy called Buzz Lightyear. Woody gets jealous to Buzz and he accidentally knocks him out of the window. Feeling very bad about the situation, Woody is going to rescue Buzz and bring him back home to Andy, before Andy’s family moves to their new house.

To me music is an important part of the movie and that’s the reason why Toy Story is a great film since the music of Toy Story is really great. I really like the songs in this film which are composed by Randy Newman, especially the main title song called ’You’ve got a friend in me’  which plays during the beginning of the film. The second thing I like in this movie are the characters. Every character has its own personality. My favorite character is Woody. He is a little bit selfish but after all he is everybody’s friend. Up to this day the animation looks pretty awesome and animators have probably spent hours and hours to make this movie look good and I really appreciate it. And it really was worth it. Thank you! The one last thing that pops into my mind,is the movie’s voice actors. Tom Hanks, Tim Allen and the others did a great job. I also like Finnish voice actors, they were great too.

Toy Story is very big part of my childhood. I have watched it dozens of times and it never gets old. I would give to Toy Story five stars out of five and I really recommend it. In my opinion, Toy Story is one of the greatest movies of all time.

The Quantum of Solace is a James Bond film and belongs to the genre of action movies – and of course the right genre for this movie. It was released in 2008 and it is directed by Marc Foster. The premiere was in Britain 28^th October and in Finland 7^th November in 2008. The stars are Daniel Craig as James Bond, Judi Dench as M and Olga Kurylenko as “the Bond girl” Camille. The movie is produced by Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson. The previous James Bond film was Casino Royale (2006 ) and the latest film is Skyfall (2012). The most famous British agent is created by Ian Fleming. Most of the Bond films are based on his books. Fleming is also one of the scriptwriters.

The plot of the film is quite simple, but not so fascinating. At the first scene James Bond and M get almost killed by an international terrorist organization, Quantum. Bond starts to investigate the Quantum and finds himself in Haiti where he meets Camille who wants to revenge her parent’s death to General Medrano (Joaquin Cosio) whereas Medrano is planning a coup d’etat in Bolivia. Bond finds out that a wealthy business man, Dominic Green (Mathieu Amalric) is a member of Quantum. Bond surprises the meeting of Quantum in the middle of opera show in Austria and accidentally slays a bodyguard of Prime Minister that leads to troubles with MI6. After the uncomfortable accident there is only one man left that Bond can trust, Rene Mathis (Giancarlo Giannini). Unfortunately Mathis gets killed and Bond and Camille need to head for Bolivia without Mathis. It turns out that Greene’s target is the water reserves of Bolivia. CIA is interested in the oil and has promised that it won’t stop the coup if it gets oil fields. Greene and Medrano are going to do a contract which says the new government will use Greene’s company as the water supplier and Greene will own 60 per cent of water reserves. Bond and Camille find their way to the Atacama Desert where Camille kills Medrano and Bond forces Greene to tell everything about Quantum.

Bond movies are famous for the soundtracks. The soundtrack of The Quantum of Solace is Another way to die which is made by Alicia Keys and Jack White. It is a rock song with a modern nuance. Personally, I have heard better Bond film theme songs than Another way to die, like Diamonds are forever.

In my opinion this wasn’t the best Bond movie which I have seen. My favorite James Bond movie is the Skyfall because the plot is better than ever before in James Bond films.

I chose the movie Nine. It released in 2009. Nine is musical romance film directed and produced by Rob Marshall and the screenplay are written by Anthony Minghella and Michael Tolkin. In the leading roles are Daniel Day-Lewis, Marion Cotillard, Nicole Kidman, Judi Dench, Penélope Cruz, Sophia Loren, Kate Hudson and Stacy Ferguson.

Nine tells about almost 50-years-old movie director man, named Guido Contini ( Daniel Day- Lewis). He is struggling with a middle age crisis: his new movie doesn’t seem to finished (even the script it’s not ready) and his relationships are mess. He is trying to get his work, his arts and his private life to balance. Guido has to solve his relationships to the women of his life; his wife (Marion Cotillard), his secret lover (Penélope Cruz), his muse (Nicole Kidman), a costumer and a loyal friend (Judi Dench), an American journalist (Kate Hudson), prostitute from his past (Stacy Ferguson) and his mother (Sophia Loren). The movie’s location is Italy in 60’s.

The first impressions after seeing movie were that the movie is very artistic and you can’t loose your focus because of the flash backs of Contini’s childhood. Sometimes it felt so stupid that the characters spoke English, even when two Italians spoke to each other English. Overall the characters were believable. For example when Luisa Contini (Guido Contini’s wife) sang about their marriage, you could almost felt her pain.

The dancing scenes were spectacular. The choreograhies were big and massive. Of course when there was dancing there was also singing. Every character had his or her time to shine with singing. My own favorite dancing scene was when Stephanie (Kate Hudson) singing Cinema Italiano.

The casting is very interesting but also succeed. I couldn’t think some else in the male role. Daniel Day-Lewis sound like a real Italian. Kate Hudson and Penélope Cruz suprised me by their singing. Judi Dench who I had only seen in Bond films made very impressive work as an costumer and Guido Contini’s loyal friend. Nicole Kidman was like usually perfect to her role as Contini’s muse. Penélope Cruz succeed her role more than perfect; I almost believe that she and Daniel Day-Lewis are lovers.

The flash backs made nice twist to the film. Those were black and white. The way how those were coloured got you understood easier what it now and what it’s past.

Genre is musical and it’s one of my facorite genre so that made this more fun. Nine is more fascinating because the singing scenes are separated so well from the other scenes than usually in musicals. That’s why I think it’s easy musical for everyone.

Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist is a romantic comedy which was released on October 3, 2008. The film is written by Lorene Scafaria and directed by Peter Sollett. It is based on the novel which has also the same name. Leading actors of a film are Michael Cera (Nick) and Kat Dennings (Norah). The film was filmed in New York.

The film tells about Nick who meet Norah in the club when Norah ask him to be her boyfriend for five minutes. That is when all begins. Actually the whole film tells about one night when Nick and Norah try to find Norah’s drunk friend who is lost and also their favourite band’s secret gig place. At the same time Nick and Norah get to know each other better even though they have just met. After some difficulties they finally find Norah’s friend in some club where someone also starts a fight with Nick. After all Nick and Norah just leave the club and the film ends on the escalator where they share a kiss.

The characters of the film are very different. Nick is very sympathetic and at the beginning of the film he is a little bit depressed because he has just broken up. Norah is from rich family but she doesn’t seem to be ostentatious. Rather she is very sweet but also quick-witted. In turn Norah’s best friend Caroline loves to party and she is drunk through the whole film. There is also many other characters in the film but Nick and Norah are the main characters.

Music is a big part of the film as the name suggests. The songs are mostly rock music and they are played in clubs where Nick and Norah visit during the film. The band called ”Where’s Fluffy?” plays indie rock and it is both Nick and Norah’s favourite band.

Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist is a romantic comedy as I previously told. The film contains sensitive moments but also funny and hilarious scenes.

I chose this film because I have seen it a long time ago but I didn’t remember anything about it so it was nice to watch it again and this time without subtitles! I think this film is worth of watching and it’s a good thing that it’s not too short but it’s not too long either. I recommend highly this film for everyone!

“The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas” was released in 2008.
The film based on the novel of the same name by Irish writer John Boyne.
It is a historical-drama film, directed by Mark Herman and produced by David Heyman.

This film has an interesting and new perspective to a difficult topic. A young boy Bruno befriend with another child Shmuel. Strange is that Shmuel is on an adjacent camp and Bruno’s father leads the camp. Friendship of these children will end tragically.

There are two main characters; eight-year-old Bruno who is a son of the Nazi commandant and Bruno’s friend Shmuel who is a Jewish inmate.
Bruno is really naïve and ingenuous, because he doesn’t even think of questioning of the purpose of adjacent camp, whereas Shmuel had to try to survive alive there.

Bruno’s father is also very important character in the film. He is a Nazi commandant but his children don’t know it. There are two totally different sides in his character; a loving family man and the other hand a heartless killer. His wife Elsa knows little bit of her husband’s job. Consequently, she has to suffer because of this secret. Bruno’s sister called Gretel thinks most of the time herself rather than the cruel world around her.

Asa Butterfield as Bruno is a quite good on his role even though he seems too naive order to be credible. However he is a skilled actor, in addition, he is only ten-years-old in the movie. Actor of Bruno’s father is David Thewlis. I think he wasn’t doing his best role in this film. He was way too bland. Jack Scanlon (as Shmuel) plays eight-year-old Jewish boy in the film. In my opinion he was the most plausible actress because he wasn’t trying too much.

The soundtrack for The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is composed by James Horner. Music is big part of this film because almost in every scene you can hear some music, which wasn’t a good thing . The soundtrack is beatiful but it just doesn’t match with the film’s tough topic. Those songs would work better in some love story.

I had read the book before I see the film. I think the book is really impressive so my expectations were high when I started to watch the film. After seeing the film, I was disappointed. Characters weren’t feel as real than they were in the book. The ambience was different. All in all, the main difference between the book and the film is that in the film the denouement reveals too quickly.