Author: Gerardo Orlando

“The Hours” is based on a 1998 Pulitzer Prize winning novel by Michael Cunningham which was inspired by Virginia Wolf’s 1925 novel “Mrs. Dalloway.” It tracks three women in three time periods over the course of a single day. Virginia Wolf (Nicole Kidman) is beginning work on “Mrs. Dalloway” in 1925; a young wife in the 1950s (Julianne Moore) is reading the novel and coming to grips with her own problems; and Clarissa Vaughan (Meryl Streep) is a modern-day version of the Mrs. Dalloway character as she plans a party for Richard, her friend and former lover. The movie is…

You figure out pretty quickly that “Memento” is unlike any film you’ve seen before. Guy Pearce (“LA Confidential”) plays the lead character, Lenny, who has suffered a head injury inflicted during a struggle with the man who killed his wife. As a result of this injury, Lenny is incapable of forming new memories. He can only remember his life through the time of his wife’s murder. All new memories fade after several minutes. He survives by taking Polaroid photographs and writing himself notes, many of which he has tattooed on his body. Next, the story is told backwards. The opening…

“Enemy at the Gates” is a dramatization of the rise of Vassili Zaitsev (Jude Law) as a Soviet war hero during the Battle of Stalingrad. The opening battle scenes in this movie tracking Vassili’s arrival in Stalingrad rival the opening scenes of “Saving Private Ryan.” The director captures the true horror of the German siege of the city, as thousands of Soviet soldiers are led to their slaughter in the face of the better-armed Germans, only to face the bullets of their own Soviet officers if they dare retreat. Khrushchev (Bob Hoskins) arrives in Stalingrad trying to turn around the…