Like everyone else, I really enjoyed Slumdog Millionaire. Good date movie, even a good family movie for older kids who can tolerate some violence. Like some critics, I think it should have ended ten minutes earlier before dealing with the final contest question, but it's okay anyway (and end credits were excellent).
So I hope I have something original to say about it. The half-original musing is thinking it might not be well-received in India when it opens there this month - the hero is a Muslim whose family suffered from violent Hindu attacks, and it doesn't show India's downtrodden as being well treated. Should be interesting to see that reaction.
More original, maybe, is thinking there's a resemblance between this story and the Ramayana. Maybe it's just due to the fact that there's only so many ways to tell the "boy loses girl" plot, but that both stories take place over many years and that the hero is assisted by his brother seems interesting.
Anyway, definitely worth watching.
Showing posts with label movie review. Show all posts
Showing posts with label movie review. Show all posts
Monday, January 12, 2009
Sunday, October 05, 2008
Burn After Reading: we're all babies
While I don't like every movie by the Coen brothers, I am a pretty big fan, and I thought No Country was the best movie of the decade. I had to hesitate though before finally deciding to recommend Burn After Reading. See it if you liked Fargo, otherwise maybe not.
A line by George Clooney's character about being a baby is what the movie, and maybe the Coens, think about all of humanity. Their visual depiction of humanity is the expression on Brad Pitt's face when he and Clooney finally meet (watch for it though, you get to see it only briefly).
Acting was fantastic, especially Pitt, and may be another reason to see the movie. This is dark comedy with far more emphasis on dark than on comedy, though. Enjoy!
(BTW, comments are welcome as usual, but please warn if you post any spoilers.)
A line by George Clooney's character about being a baby is what the movie, and maybe the Coens, think about all of humanity. Their visual depiction of humanity is the expression on Brad Pitt's face when he and Clooney finally meet (watch for it though, you get to see it only briefly).
Acting was fantastic, especially Pitt, and may be another reason to see the movie. This is dark comedy with far more emphasis on dark than on comedy, though. Enjoy!
(BTW, comments are welcome as usual, but please warn if you post any spoilers.)
Saturday, July 26, 2008
My "Dark Knight" review: go see WALL-E
The only semi-compelling reason to see the new Batman movie is to participate in the undergrad-level, shoot-the-breeze political analysis going around the blogs. Not reason enough, though.
Yes, the Joker is interesting, but hardly mind-blowing, and the movie couldn't decide if it was about Batman, Joker, or the Harvey Dent character. To the extent this movie deals with deeper themes of free will and chance, "No Country for Old Men" is leagues better.
WALL-E, by contrast, is just a very fun movie. I think it's proof of the corrupt state of modern conservatism that they're offended by the "political" message that littering, waste, and indolence are bad. See this movie instead, or go see Hellboy 2 and tell me whether I should see it.
Yes, the Joker is interesting, but hardly mind-blowing, and the movie couldn't decide if it was about Batman, Joker, or the Harvey Dent character. To the extent this movie deals with deeper themes of free will and chance, "No Country for Old Men" is leagues better.
WALL-E, by contrast, is just a very fun movie. I think it's proof of the corrupt state of modern conservatism that they're offended by the "political" message that littering, waste, and indolence are bad. See this movie instead, or go see Hellboy 2 and tell me whether I should see it.
Friday, February 01, 2008
Don't bother with The Golden Compass movie
This film adaptation of The Golden Compass/Northern Lights book is just insipid and boring. The mildly-bad rating at Rotten Tomatoes is way too generous. They removed all that was good, or at least interesting, about the book - the ethical ambiguity, the dogmatic-religion-bashing - and left the rest as the level of the Narnia film.
The director has apparently promised to do a better job if sequels come out, which I've read is unlikely. That's probably a good thing instead of counting on the same team to do better in the future. I'd rather see this project die for a decade or so, and then have someone else do a much better job from the beginning.
If you want something more than reading the Dark Materials books, try the radio play version produced by BBC. Audible.com has it, and it's excellent. I'd be very interested in a DVD that just filmed the play that was made from the books, but I'm not aware of it having been filmed.
Also on the subject of fantasy/sci-fi, I watched Cube Zero, a mediocre and unworthy follow-up to the excellent if somewhat bloody Cube. I think I'll skip the other follow-up movie, Hypercube.
The director has apparently promised to do a better job if sequels come out, which I've read is unlikely. That's probably a good thing instead of counting on the same team to do better in the future. I'd rather see this project die for a decade or so, and then have someone else do a much better job from the beginning.
If you want something more than reading the Dark Materials books, try the radio play version produced by BBC. Audible.com has it, and it's excellent. I'd be very interested in a DVD that just filmed the play that was made from the books, but I'm not aware of it having been filmed.
Also on the subject of fantasy/sci-fi, I watched Cube Zero, a mediocre and unworthy follow-up to the excellent if somewhat bloody Cube. I think I'll skip the other follow-up movie, Hypercube.
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Review: "Deliver Us From Evil," both the banal and the blithe
The pedophile-priest documentary, Deliver Us From Evil, deserves its Oscar nomination based on how well and how gut-wrenchingly it does its job. It takes the abstract reality in the newspapers - pedophile priests, anguished victims, and a Catholic hierarchy that facilitated their crimes through coverups and parish transfers - and turns all of them into real people. I don't know how practicing Catholics can watch this, I found some parts of it truly horrible.
Banality of evil is cliched, but you see it up close in the videotaped depositions of Bishop (later Cardinal) Mahoney and other Catholic higher-ups. At least twice they lied to police and to families, saying the particular priest in this documentary would be transferred away from contact with children, when he was just shuffled to an unsuspecting new parish. They weren't initially worried because the first molestation reports was with little girls, which wasn't all that deviant to them.
The pedophile, Oliver O'Grady, was blithe instead of banal in his evil. Intelligent but with no self-understanding and completely selfish, he agreed to participate in the documentary and admitted wrongdoing, but not its importance. He first wrote a letter to his victims suggesting a reconciliation meeting and is taped speculating on how well it would go, but later decided it wasn't convenient. He claims two random acts of priests molesting him as a child along with a lot of sexual involvement with siblings, but appears to think it wasn't that harmful, which may be the basis for his being blithe. I don't know whether to believe him. Some people might be able to move past molestation more easily than others, although he did far more than two acts to many of the children.
So it's hard to watch but very worth watching. Another reason why the American legal system isn't all that bad, as it's the civil trials that finally have started shaking up the Catholic hierarchy.
Yet another reason to watch is this negative member review at Netflix: "This piece of film is inflamatory and disgusting. Documentaries such as this fuel religious hatred throughout the non-Catholic community. Whether or not this particular story is true has little to do with the image that it creates, depicting the Catholic Church as something it is certainly not." (My emphasis). Make that reviewer unhappy, and watch it.
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Also worth watching: The Woodsman, a fictional movie about a pedophile who's evolved partially, but only partially beyond O'Grady's level.
Banality of evil is cliched, but you see it up close in the videotaped depositions of Bishop (later Cardinal) Mahoney and other Catholic higher-ups. At least twice they lied to police and to families, saying the particular priest in this documentary would be transferred away from contact with children, when he was just shuffled to an unsuspecting new parish. They weren't initially worried because the first molestation reports was with little girls, which wasn't all that deviant to them.
The pedophile, Oliver O'Grady, was blithe instead of banal in his evil. Intelligent but with no self-understanding and completely selfish, he agreed to participate in the documentary and admitted wrongdoing, but not its importance. He first wrote a letter to his victims suggesting a reconciliation meeting and is taped speculating on how well it would go, but later decided it wasn't convenient. He claims two random acts of priests molesting him as a child along with a lot of sexual involvement with siblings, but appears to think it wasn't that harmful, which may be the basis for his being blithe. I don't know whether to believe him. Some people might be able to move past molestation more easily than others, although he did far more than two acts to many of the children.
So it's hard to watch but very worth watching. Another reason why the American legal system isn't all that bad, as it's the civil trials that finally have started shaking up the Catholic hierarchy.
Yet another reason to watch is this negative member review at Netflix: "This piece of film is inflamatory and disgusting. Documentaries such as this fuel religious hatred throughout the non-Catholic community. Whether or not this particular story is true has little to do with the image that it creates, depicting the Catholic Church as something it is certainly not." (My emphasis). Make that reviewer unhappy, and watch it.
-------
Also worth watching: The Woodsman, a fictional movie about a pedophile who's evolved partially, but only partially beyond O'Grady's level.
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
Being Caribou, and a personal note
Just watched the documentary, Being Caribou, about a Canadian couple's five-month, 1500 km hike from Canada to Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to follow migrating caribou. Their aim besides just going on the trip was to highlight the danger of oil field development in ANWR.
I highly recommend the documentary, it was a fascinating trip, and they had some great footage of wildlife and scenery (they saw wolverines, which I never saw in six summers in Alaska). While the couple had a slight New Age-y feel to their discussion about the caribou, it wasn't enough to get annoying, and they're very likeable. Their third partner on the trip was a plastic figurine of George Bush, who provided some comic relief.
One of my political heresies, though, is I'm not convinced that the caribou will be harmed by ANWR drilling. There's no evidence of harm in Prudhoe Bay, which has far more development than ANWR would. Nothing in the film changed my mind, although in their defense, it was an experiential film, not a science documentary. And while my best guess is drilling in ANWR would not be much of an environmental problem, I see no reason to rush in and disturb this pristine area - the oil's not going anywhere, so if we really need it, we can get it later.
The personal note - while this isn't a "personal life" blog, I just thought I'd mention that my girlfriend and I got engaged over the weekend, while snow-camping in the Sierras near Lake Tahoe. Karen's a very good sport and enjoyed our 8-day backpacking trip in Alaska last summer, but she informed me that for our honeymoon, we're not doing a 5-month backpacking trip like these people did. Oh well, maybe we can do a four-month trip.
I highly recommend the documentary, it was a fascinating trip, and they had some great footage of wildlife and scenery (they saw wolverines, which I never saw in six summers in Alaska). While the couple had a slight New Age-y feel to their discussion about the caribou, it wasn't enough to get annoying, and they're very likeable. Their third partner on the trip was a plastic figurine of George Bush, who provided some comic relief.
One of my political heresies, though, is I'm not convinced that the caribou will be harmed by ANWR drilling. There's no evidence of harm in Prudhoe Bay, which has far more development than ANWR would. Nothing in the film changed my mind, although in their defense, it was an experiential film, not a science documentary. And while my best guess is drilling in ANWR would not be much of an environmental problem, I see no reason to rush in and disturb this pristine area - the oil's not going anywhere, so if we really need it, we can get it later.
The personal note - while this isn't a "personal life" blog, I just thought I'd mention that my girlfriend and I got engaged over the weekend, while snow-camping in the Sierras near Lake Tahoe. Karen's a very good sport and enjoyed our 8-day backpacking trip in Alaska last summer, but she informed me that for our honeymoon, we're not doing a 5-month backpacking trip like these people did. Oh well, maybe we can do a four-month trip.
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