"Wonderland" with Val Kilmer and Kate Bosworth (201 )

This is a kind of fascinating story. It involves “Long” Johnny Holmes, the iconic porn star from the 1970’s. Along with Linda Lovelace and Marilyn Chambers, he blazed new trails in the adult entertainment business as far as bringing it to the forefront; putting porn right in your face, so to speak.

For all of the glamor and the drugs and women though, there was a price being paid. And director James Cox does an excellent job in keeping the whole thing in control. He is also one of the writers of the script for this film. As the main character, Johnny Holmes; played by Val Kilmer; spins out of control the careful direction helps in keeping sight of the larger story.

At the time of these events in 1981; including the murder itself; Holmes was estranged from his wife, while trying to keep his teenage girlfriend, and also struggling each day to get his “fix” without any real means of income. This is a recipe for disaster, don’t ya think?

When the police showed up at 8763 Wonderland Ave in Laurel Canyon they found 4 bodies. They were the drug dealers and the owner of the home. The wife of one of the dealers was still alive. They had all been bludgeoned with a steel pipe.  The investigation which followed turned the spotlight on the seamy world of Hollywood’s porn industry.

With suspects such as Johnny Holmes, a local nightclub owner named Eddie Nash, and Holmes's estranged wife Sharon and his teenage lover Dawn Schiller, the story was just made for the tabloids. While Holmes freely admits to robbing the guy the day before, his wife says he went back again on the day of the murder. But Holmes then also says he only set up the hit; he didn’t actually participate in the murders. With all the living parties pointing fingers at one another, who will the authorities finally believe? More importantly; whose version of this tragic story would you hang your hat on?

Excellent performances by veteran actors Kate Bosworth, Carrie Fisher and Lisa Kudrow serve to round out this film.

"21" with Kevin Spacey, Kate Bosworth and Laurence Fishburne

This is a very good movie! Jim Sturgess plays Ben Campbell, a seemingly "nerdy" student at M.I.T. in Boston. His goal is to win the $300,000 scholarship necessary for him to attend Harvard Med School. Ben has a mundane job and is working his way through college, but there is really no question, that without the scholarship, his dreams will likely never be realized.

Professor Rosa, played by Kevin Spacey, is Ben's Math teacher, who is very impressed with Ben's ability to think quickly under pressure. A chance exchange between Ben and the Professor leads Ben to be recruited into a select group of Professor Rosa's students who spend their weekends in Las Vegas, with the Professor, "counting" cards at blackjack tables in some of the biggest casinos. They are very successful, but "odds", being "odds", are never a sure thing.

Teammate Jill Taylor, played by Kate Bosworth, and Ben, develop a romance, which is completely against the "rules" of the team. Emotions color the ability to calculate, causing problems, which the Professor, himself a former "card counter", has warned the team about. But youth is folly, and as Ben's love for Jill grows, he loses his restraint, falling victim to greed. This brings about the downfall of the "team", for which Ben is penalized by losing all the profits he has made on the weekend gambling trips. In short, he is now, once again broke.

"Teamates" Choi, played by Aaron Yoo, and Kianna, played by Liza Lapira, all give credible performances in this fast paced and unusual drama as the team draws the attention of "the eye in the sky", that vast array of security cameras which adorn all major casinos, searching for "teams", just like this one, "counting cards."

Casino Security members Cole Williams, played by Laurence Fishburne and his partner Terry, played by Jack McGee are excellent as the casino security team who have seen it all before. As a matter of fact, through the magic of facial recognition software, they even know the Professor, who has been banned from every major casino in Vegas.

As Ben bounces back and forth between the two world's of being a student in Boston during the week, and playing a dot com millionaire in Las Vegas on weekends, the odds quickly shift from the cards to the heart of human nature. When he is finally busted by the security team, he is forced to make the toughest decision of his life.

A surprise twist rounds out this quirky, and off-beat drama, where everything is just as it seems, but somehow not quite the way it should be.