Movies (In ascending order)
Kingdom of Heaven
I came into this movie expecting a swords and kings epic better than Troy, King Arthur, or Alexander. I was not disappointed. I was disappointed, however, that for a movie that was Ridley Scott taking on the Crusades, it was rather mediocore. The writing was shitty, the dialog clichéd, and the story predictable. Like many modern epics, this one had a major problem with scale, always falling short of the epicness it was susposed to encapsulate. And for all people talked about its ramifactions regarding Christian and Muslim relations, hardly any time was spent on history and politics. Even then, what was trumped-up as a more complex view of the situation, was just the fact that no force was really deomonized, probably because little time was spent on investigating them or their motives. The movie was not all bad. It certainly looked nice, having the dark hue that can be expected of Scott’s movies. Liam Neeson and Jeremy Irons were good and Orlando Bloom, who I expected to really drop the ball came through with a passable performance. Lots of these movies have been using fast frame rates and such to make flashy, sped up fights, but here Scott shows he’s truely the master of this. The problem being that whenever he stops going fast, he always seems to enter periods of really awkward slow motion. The directing has certain flourses at some points, but has enough screw-ups to feel sloppy knowing what Scott is capable of (Gladiator, Black Hawk Down). Overall: Not as bad as it could have been, not as good as it should have been.
Dirty Pretty Things
Somewhat amaturish, but effective and somewhat charming small film about London’s underground organ swapping network. Star Chiwetel Ejiofor is great as a Nigerian doctor, turned cap driver/bell-hop in London. Through him and his Turkish kind-of girlfriend, the movie shows us how shitty it is to be an immigrant in the U.K. The story is true to life, the acting is mainly good, and some of the movie has a nice modern look to it. Some of it is a little, like I said, amature. It sometime feels mundance where it should be effective and gritty. All in all, a good little film.
In The Name of The Father
This is the second of Jim Sheridan’s movies about the “troubles” in Northen Ireland that I have seen (the other being The Boxer, which also starred Daniel Day-Lewis). There’s less ambiguity in this tale, but that’s not to say it is malicous or unfair. It’s the true story of a young Irish youth and his friends and father who are wrongly imprisioned for an IRA bombing in London (after he has been forced to confess at the threat of violence). The movie shows in a striaght-foward manner the dispossestion of Irish youth and the prejudice of the British judicial system. Daniel Day-Lewis is superb as a drifter who then garners himself national popularity by crusading against the government for his release. Pete Postlewaite is excellent as his excursiatingly stright-arrow, honest father, who ends up serving time in the same cell as his son. Their relationship is a compelling one, as is his confrontation with the men who sent him away (aided by bleeding heart lawyer Emma Thompson). The kind of movie that makes me want to hone my non-exisitant Irish accent
In The Mood For Love (Fa Yeung Nin Wa)
This movie, by Hong Kong’s Wong Kar-Wai, confirms basically my sterotypes of Asian cinema. The romance is guarded and subtle, it finds beauty in everday things, and it takes place in small, cramped working class apartments. Its about two neighbors who realize that their spouses are cheating on them with each other and strike up a friendship that never really reaches a trist. Both Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung are fantastic as quiet-soft spoken people who bond over lonliness and martial arts serials. Wong Kar-Wai expetly illuminates their apartments and offices and makes great use of the rain and a repeted, evokotive classical riff to get the emotion just right. I called Dirty Pretty Things a “small film” and that label could apply to this movie if you look at scale, but if you look at the craftsmanship and daring of filmaking then this film is unquestionably bigger than Dirty Pretty Things and much bigger than Kingdom of Heaven.
I came into this movie expecting a swords and kings epic better than Troy, King Arthur, or Alexander. I was not disappointed. I was disappointed, however, that for a movie that was Ridley Scott taking on the Crusades, it was rather mediocore. The writing was shitty, the dialog clichéd, and the story predictable. Like many modern epics, this one had a major problem with scale, always falling short of the epicness it was susposed to encapsulate. And for all people talked about its ramifactions regarding Christian and Muslim relations, hardly any time was spent on history and politics. Even then, what was trumped-up as a more complex view of the situation, was just the fact that no force was really deomonized, probably because little time was spent on investigating them or their motives. The movie was not all bad. It certainly looked nice, having the dark hue that can be expected of Scott’s movies. Liam Neeson and Jeremy Irons were good and Orlando Bloom, who I expected to really drop the ball came through with a passable performance. Lots of these movies have been using fast frame rates and such to make flashy, sped up fights, but here Scott shows he’s truely the master of this. The problem being that whenever he stops going fast, he always seems to enter periods of really awkward slow motion. The directing has certain flourses at some points, but has enough screw-ups to feel sloppy knowing what Scott is capable of (Gladiator, Black Hawk Down). Overall: Not as bad as it could have been, not as good as it should have been.
Dirty Pretty Things
Somewhat amaturish, but effective and somewhat charming small film about London’s underground organ swapping network. Star Chiwetel Ejiofor is great as a Nigerian doctor, turned cap driver/bell-hop in London. Through him and his Turkish kind-of girlfriend, the movie shows us how shitty it is to be an immigrant in the U.K. The story is true to life, the acting is mainly good, and some of the movie has a nice modern look to it. Some of it is a little, like I said, amature. It sometime feels mundance where it should be effective and gritty. All in all, a good little film.
In The Name of The Father
This is the second of Jim Sheridan’s movies about the “troubles” in Northen Ireland that I have seen (the other being The Boxer, which also starred Daniel Day-Lewis). There’s less ambiguity in this tale, but that’s not to say it is malicous or unfair. It’s the true story of a young Irish youth and his friends and father who are wrongly imprisioned for an IRA bombing in London (after he has been forced to confess at the threat of violence). The movie shows in a striaght-foward manner the dispossestion of Irish youth and the prejudice of the British judicial system. Daniel Day-Lewis is superb as a drifter who then garners himself national popularity by crusading against the government for his release. Pete Postlewaite is excellent as his excursiatingly stright-arrow, honest father, who ends up serving time in the same cell as his son. Their relationship is a compelling one, as is his confrontation with the men who sent him away (aided by bleeding heart lawyer Emma Thompson). The kind of movie that makes me want to hone my non-exisitant Irish accent
In The Mood For Love (Fa Yeung Nin Wa)
This movie, by Hong Kong’s Wong Kar-Wai, confirms basically my sterotypes of Asian cinema. The romance is guarded and subtle, it finds beauty in everday things, and it takes place in small, cramped working class apartments. Its about two neighbors who realize that their spouses are cheating on them with each other and strike up a friendship that never really reaches a trist. Both Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung are fantastic as quiet-soft spoken people who bond over lonliness and martial arts serials. Wong Kar-Wai expetly illuminates their apartments and offices and makes great use of the rain and a repeted, evokotive classical riff to get the emotion just right. I called Dirty Pretty Things a “small film” and that label could apply to this movie if you look at scale, but if you look at the craftsmanship and daring of filmaking then this film is unquestionably bigger than Dirty Pretty Things and much bigger than Kingdom of Heaven.