Academy Awards, take notice! Great Acting and Great Scenery make for a Great Film. I was lucky enough to see Approaching Midnight in the movie theater at Cobb Theater in Clearwater, Florida. I plan on buying the DVD from Best Buy this week because I am a huge fan of military movies, crime movies and there's over 5 making of documentaries on this DVD.

The movie's co-star Jana Kramer (ACM's New Female Vocalist of the Year for 2013), Michelle Lynne Balser (Locked in a Room) Mia Serafino (Saving Mr. Banks with Tom Hanks) are awesome in the movie, and provide good acting with good scenery. Sam Logan Khaleghi's (director/actor) managed to do a perfect job of working both on and behind the camera, and joins so many others that have done so recently. I'm excited to find some of his earlier work as a producer. I really enjoyed this film and I was a fan of his previous work on MTV.

I heard it was filmed in Michigan which is a very popular place with filmmakers lately (ie the new Batman vs Superman and Transformers). It's hard to resist the beauty of the state, although the film takes place in a fictional all American city. It's action packed indeed, but aside from that, I loved the whole Main Street, Horses, Big Town politics versus Small Town politics dialogue that makes for an awesome script. I was at the edge of my seat during the entire climax of the movie, especially the courtroom sequence and it held my attention solid. The acting was probably the best part.

I'm starting my first year of film school and let me start by saying that I'm a huge fan of Independent Film and when I heard this film was playing at the Louisville International Film Festival I was so glad, because i missed it in theaters during its regular limited run.

There were a slew of celebrities at the LIFF this past weekend so it was worth my ticket. The movie studio representatives were very kind who represented "Approaching Midnight" and made sure everyone got a seat, so I saw some folks in line for 'Approaching Midnight' and decided to jump in too. It was worth the wait alongside "The Wedding Pact" starring Haylie Duff which I also enjoyed. Those two pictures why my LIFF 2013 choices.

"Approaching Midnight" is great source material for independent filmmakers. The clam but action driven narrative with very detailed character descriptions from scene to scene. The amazing world that was created here by the cast and crew is measured in theatrical wonders.

The cast is stellar. A breakthrough performance by Carollette Phillips as the wife of Brandon T. Jackson's "AJ Culpepper" is flawless, and I felt for every emotional tie she gives each scene.

The film is rated PG, yet pulls off the war scenes with sweetness and the violence is not gloriously graphic for a younger audience (as a note, my little sister was with me and she liked it too).

Background on myself, I have been an IMDb user for over several years, I am from the midwest area, but I support all mid-west arts, film and creative types. I saw this film in Chicago at the historic Wilmette Theater, and I REALLY enjoyed both great movies from Monterey Media this year that were coincidentally films made in Michigan including "The Citizen" and "Approaching Midnight". I am admitting to being slightly biased as a mid-west film scene supporter but praise has to be given to intense work from such amazing MoTown Filmmakers. As for this one, I don't want to give away any twist endings that the trailer almost gives away, but the film is stellar! I also loved Cinematographer Carl Ballou's work on this movie, it's like "The Thin Red Line," very Emmanuel Lubezki like, kind of reminded me of "Tree of Life" too. The movies soundtrack was very omniscient, and I have been watching the very cool works of composer James Stonehouse or a long time who created a track on this film that was a borderline of Hanz Zimmer and John Ottman, who scored the Usual Suspects. Which is funny, because when I was watching the film at the theater in the suburban Chicago area, the theater had an awesome 5.1 setup that fantastically captured the elements of the soundtrack.