In My Country: Review
Monday 08.21.2006
alice ttlg || 08:49 PM
Most of this movie is pretty standard fare, well-off white folks who deny they know what was going on when they really did but wouldn't face it with the usual comparisons to the Germans in Nazi Germany with a bi-racial romance thrown in with the obligatory "who's coming to dinner" joke. Samuel Jackson is his usual passionate self but he does have some good turns here and there. Juliette Binoche spends a lot of time with a horrified crying look on her face which gets rather repetitive and her own obligatory "must tell truth no matter what" scene is rather pointless.
The best parts are the ordinary black people talking about the savagery of the police and the ordinary policemen trying to win amnesty for their terrible crimes. The idea of forgiveness and that what hurts one hurts all of us reminded me of The Interpreter, of Nicole Kidman explaining the idea of justice and forgiveness (from the imaginary African country used in that film), that if the family of a murder victim lets the murderer die, they have justice but no peace, they'll spend the rest of their lives in mourning, but if they forgive the murderer, acknowledge that the world is not a fair place, then they'll have peace and move on from their grief.
The end of this film echoes this idea and is also a shocking rejoinder to all that has come before, unexpected, harsher and somehow more savage than all the atrocities that have been detailed in the rest of the film. I found myself caught up in those final minutes, in that one character's pain and surprise and it reminded me of the ending of The Great Gatsby:
"He had come a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night."
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Flightplan: Review
Sunday 08.20.2006
alice ttlg || 03:46 PM
Jodie Foster excells at these child-in-peril movies. Before Panic Room, I never would have thought she'd be particularly good in thriller/action films but she brings a control and determination to the freaked out mother characters along with a realistic ability to do what's necessary.
Peter Sarsgaard is excellent as the lawman and Sean Bean has a good air of gravity as the captain of the plane. The plane is a marvel, I found myself wanting to stop the action and take a tour of it, it's ultra-modern with a wonderful color scheme used to delineate the different areas and that's also effective as the action moves from one part of the plane to another, changing the mood as it goes.
While the plot is a bit thin in the end, it doesn't matter as it's really the battle of wits that counts and it fits the Hitchcockian genre very well.
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Proof: Review
Saturday 08.19.2006
alice ttlg || 09:08 PM
Anthony Hopkins and Gwyneth Paltrow give excellent performances here, wonderful chemistry between them. Hopkins is commanding as always and it fits beautifully with the character he's playing, just the tiniest bit of vulnerability showing in between his mad demands and odd behavior.
Gwyneth's performance reminds me of Sissy Spacek's edgy control in 'Night, Mother, she walks a very fine line between depression and madness, brilliance and despair. Jake Gyllenhaal is a marvelous surprise here, I hadn't realized he was in the movie until he turned up and he gives a great performance as a modern geek.
It's a play so it's about the dialogue which is very good, the triangle of Catherine, Claire and Hal plays out throughout the film, while a cast of thousands wanders in and about them, at the funeral and at the house after but never detracts from the primary three characters while Hopkins looms large in the background.
... more reviews of Proof
Charlie & Chocolate Factory: Review
Tuesday 08.15.2006
alice ttlg || 12:59 PM
In true Tim Burton fashion, this version is much darker than the original. Beautifully made with the kind of sets and atmosphere of the Edward Scissorhands, that lovely kind of Dr. Seuss crossed with Frankenstein and Dracula that he does so well, it's a delight to watch.
Although Johnny Depp looks like Michael Jackson somehow, something about his grayish skin, black hair and pink mouth, coupled with his awkwardness and gloves, it's rather distracting but also very fitting for the character. Burton has added on to the original story, embellishing the oompaloompas' back story, lending a touch of S&M here and there. But the original movie wasn't all sweetness and light either, it was a cautionary tale with the greedy and obnoxious children and/or their parents getting what they deserved and Tim Burton plays on that, taking it further with his twisted fairytale version.
The music, however, seriously sucks, the songs and dances are incredibly awful! Thank goodness for Mute!
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Things...Before You're 30: Review
Monday 08.14.2006
alice ttlg || 12:09 PM
This is a very good movie, good ordinary people stuff with lots of dialogue and excellent performances by all. It caught my eye for Dougray Scott but the entire cast is good. It focuses on a bunch of Sunday footballers who've hit 30 and are faced with being adults and no more play time. The movie charts their attempt to play their final game, their 500th and all their various ups and downs in their personal lives and friendships.
... more reviews of Things...Before You're 30
Kingdom of Heaven: Review
Sunday 08.13.2006
alice ttlg || 11:43 AM
Well that was a waste of 2 1/2 hours, well not entirely since I did other stuff while watching this movie but still...it stunk really and the moral/political patronizing at the end was the icing on the rancid cake. The only reason to watch is if you're a diehard Orlando Bloom fan as he does spend most of the movie looking dreamy and staring about, silently stoic and uprightly moral.
The most interesting character was the leprosy-ridden king, hearing only his voice, Ed Norton managed to steal every scene he was in. Eva Green playing his sister ate up scenery and looked gorgeous in the costumes but I'll have to watch something else to see the acting chops she's supposed to have, there wasn't enough here to tell.
Ick. Sure glad I didn't waste $9 at the theatre on this tripe.
... more reviews of Kingdom of Heaven
War of the Worlds: Review
Monday 08.07.2006
alice ttlg || 04:22 PM
The Tom Cruise/Steven Spielberg collaborations are interesting, not necessarily the best of movies but interesting nonetheless. I re-watched War of the Worlds on HBO last night and sinceI had to pause it to feed the cats, that meant I could also fast forward thru the too slow parts I couldn't stand (where they lose the van to the crowd and with Tim Robbins being a crazy guy) which made it better than in the theaters.
Things I liked best, the flawed hero, he's a rather lazy dad, doesn't know his kids that well and has given up making any serious effort to change that when the aliens come. After they arrive, he's scared but he keeps moving and is totally focused on getting his kids to safety in the form of their mother, because she's the adult, she'll know what to do, she'll be able to protect them. While the older son sees that as cowardice, to me it was the best thing he could do, the telling moment was when the son wanted to join the army convoy and the dad shouts that he should come up with a plan that doesn't involve his ten year old sister joining the army.
The aliens and all the special effects are very good, scary and fascinating and beautiful. Touches reminiscent of other films, the long metallic eye scoping out the basement reminded me of the watery finger thing in The Abyss, the metallic one here being the evil twin of the watery one there and both ended up chopped in half. The car he's hiding in being tossed and turned upside down reminded me of the similar scene in Jurassic Park where the tyranosaurus did the same with the park SUVs. The red weed growing everywhere, the red mist, all these little touches gave a wonderful eerie, spooky feeling to it all. The best spooky effect was the flaming train sweeping thru the crossing on the road to the ferry.
So all in all, a good movie, at least I could watch it a second time whereas I couldn't do that with MInority Report, found myself bored out of my mind five minutes in when I tried to re-watch it.
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Stormy Monday: Review
Sunday 07.30.2006
alice ttlg || 04:01 PM
One of Sean Bean's early films, before he did the Sharpe movies and the Bond movie and Lord of the Rings, I saw him in this, a small cult film-noir playing at the local art house theater, I went back and saw it several more times, not just for Bean, but also for Sting and Tommy Lee Jones and Melanie Griffith and the crazy Polish guys playing Jazz in Newcastle during an "America" celebration week.
It has all the best film-noir elements, brought to life with a brilliant cast, Tommy Lee Jones is perfect as the swaggering loud American out to take over Newcastle by throwing money around. Sting is perfect as the Englishman who is determined to thwart him just because *someone* should. Melanie Griffith looks and acts the part of the blond bimbo just right and Bean is excellent as the nobody trying to skate thru quietly and stay out of trouble.
And that Krakow Jazz Quartet! Arrghhh, awful stuff but a wonderful background noise to the smoothness of Sting and the nightclub atmosphere and they added a nice subplot to the movie.
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Winter Guest: Review
Sunday 07.23.2006
alice ttlg || 03:57 PM
This has an incredible cast, Emma Thompson, Phyllida Law (Thompson's RL mother) and a bunch of other not-well-known actors who are perfectly cast. It's directed and co-written by Alan Rickman, set in a very very cold frozen snowy Scotland, it follows four pairs of people throughout a single day, seamlessly interweaving Thompson & Law, two old ladies going to funerals, two young boys skipping school and Thompson's teenage son and a teenage girl.
It's a character film, yes, a talky people film that shows the kind of casual interaction we have daily as a way to expose these people, reveal the facets of their lives to the viewer.
Definitely fun to watch if you're sizzling in the summer heat right now, the setting will make you want to curl up in a blanket in front of a fire but the people will draw you in and fascinate you.
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Batman Begins: Review
Thursday 12.15.2005
alice ttlg || 07:09 PM
I was very disappointed by this movie, my brother loved it, I was looking forward to it, but the training stuff in the Himalayas(?) was far too slow and the rest was okay. The most interesting parts were setting up the batcave and Morgan Freeman's character with all the gadgets and gizmos and Alfred, he was terrific, should have had more of him and less of the other stuff. Bale does a good job as Batman, not quite as edgy as Michael Keaton but definitely good, but the rest of the movie and the plot simply weren't good enough.
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