The Savages

01.31.10
The Savages
(2007)
Starring: Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Laura Linney


The Savages was a film that had caught my eye on the Sundance Film Festival list when it debuted in 2007. Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman are the stereotypical-indie-emotionally-disturbed brother and sister. The premise of this film revolves around the problem of these two siblings having to deal with the uncomfortable issue of finding a suitable nursing home for a once estranged Father. Each of the lives of Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney is carefully unfolded through out the film, so as to enhance the realistic nature and in-depth character development. The viewer travels the difficult and painful road of the two protagonists fighting not only to get along, but to deal with long supressed emotional hurt from their once absent "Dad." This pictture was on the list of movies for me to watch for my Women Directors in Cinema portion of my Independent film class. Realising that this film was directed by a woman, gave me a different perspective and a deeper understanding of the form in which The Savages was created. Tamara Jenkins wrote a very sentimental and detail oriented view of old age, death, and ultimately new views on life after closely dealing with the harsh reality of death. I would purport that a male director would not have been able to cultivate such a homegrown and saccharine thread that stiched the film together to a satisfactory end.

A Single Man

01.30.10
A Single Man
(2009)
Starring: Colin Firth, Julianne Moore, Nicholas Hoult


A Single man: words cannot describe how much i enjoyed this film. Rarely am i brought to tears in a film and even more rare are the occasions in which my eyes well up with salty teardrops in the first fifteen minutes. Colin Firth's performance is brilliant beyond words. Firth's emotions wrought with pain are perfectly captured in his facial expressions, maintaining the obvious without losing any of his distant-tortured charm.Nicholas Hoult's character interjected vitality and inspiration into the crisis filled life that Colin Firth was simply floating through. Julianne Moore plays the sentimental drunk who maintains a belief in imaginary importance on past personal blunders. As a whole the film was beautifully crafted by the design savvy hands of the brilliant Tom Ford. Many reviewers have accused Ford of creating an aesthetic feel that spoke more to an advertising campaign than that of a full length film, i would disagree entirely. I think that his design quality was seamlessly integrated with the pace, time period, mise en scene, and overall feel of the film. As far as the controversial nature of the subject that was covered in A Single Man, I found it to be presented in an extremely tasteful and innuendo-laced manner. Tom Ford created a story that ignored the controversy and focused on love and the overall beauty of the film and its' characters. Overall, one of the best films i've seen this year.

The Young Victoria

01.27.10
The Young Victoria
(2009)
Starring: Emily Blunt, Rupert Friend

The Young Victoria was one of the most beautifully crafted period pieces i have seen in quite some time. The set, location, and costumes were meticulously perfect and historically accurate. I have seen several other films, documentary and fiction alike, about Queen Victoria and Prince Albert and this seemed to capture the special sort of relationship that they had in a very inciteful and romantic way. I was shocked by the length of this film. When i left the magic lantern i felt that i had been watching for much longer than the short 105 minute running time, in the best way possible. The characters and historical events were fully developed in perfect tempo with the plot. I believe that the way that this film was constructed will appeal not only to people typically interested in the period piece genre, but many other genre viewers will be intrigued as well and will enjoy it as enthusiastically as i have. In conclusion The Young Victoria was a colorful and intriguing character display of historical figures given life through the wonder of film.

Doubt

01.27.10
Doubt
(2008)
Starring: Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Meryl Streep, Amy Adams

Doubt is an extremely controversial film that rocks that boat shaking popular views on the church, homosexuality, and moral relativism in its wake. Doubt was created originally as a theatrical screenplay, acted out upon stage. This knowledge creates a very interesting viewing experience. Many films, in the historical past, were created under these same circumstances and it gives a totally different up-close feel on the silver screen than viewers are typically used to in Hollywood. Doubt is an extremely ambiguous film that leaves the viewer with doubts festering in their minds far after they have left the theatre. Doubts on their personal views of the actions of all three main characters of the film are all relevant in todays society. The film, though very quiet and rather slow paced, has some extremely intense stomach-churning moments. Meryl Streep and Phillip Seymour Hoffman play their respective parts beautifully and Amy Adams does a wonderful job as an upcoming actress playing alongside some of the most currently decorated acting talent. Doubt is a film not intended for a viewer who does not wish to leave the theatre with heavy questions laying on heart and mind.

Do The Right Thing

01.19.10
Do The Right Thing
(1989)
Starring: Spike Lee, John Turturo, Samuel Jackson

Do The Right Thing is an awesome film by Spike Lee, one of my personal favorites of his. I watched this movie for my Independent film class for my African American Cinema chapter, this is the second time i've had the pleasure of seeing this film. Do The Right Thing is a colorful movie with equally colorful characters. Set in a New York neighborhood on a summer day of a scorching hundred degree heat, controversy reigns supreme. This movie is all about the far-reaching evils of racism and how they eat away at society. Spike Lee did not only just direct this film, but he stars as one of the main roles in the film. Many specific scenes in this film are very poignant and well developed to prove Spike Lee's point about the evil's of racism and reverse racism. Spike Lee does not just focus on the discrimination against African Americans but also of the African Americans discriminating unjustly against the white, korean, and hispanic communities as well. Lee is said to be equally as hard on his own people as other people are on his race. I think that this film is a difficult narrative sewn together only by the talent and vision of Spike Lee into a cohesive urban masterpiece.

Hurt Locker

01.13.10
Hurt Locker
(2009)
Starring: Ralph Fiennes, Guy Pearce,Jeremy Renner

Hurt Locker was a very interesting look into the daily lives of a unit on leave in the middle east. I was intrigued to find out that a woman had directed this war-focused film. Kathryn Bigelow had also directed K-19 Widowmaker. Jerry Renner plays the daring and reckless Sgt. William James, a man who has no fear of death. He dismantles bombs for the United States Army. Hurt Locker does not have a very concise plot, but i think it serves a purpose to create an experience for the viewer which allows them to see into the monotony of combat. Hurt Locker's premise is that war is a drug, this movie seeks to prove just that. The endless cycle of fighting, pointless and unpointless death, and adreneline charged players continue full circle, charging head on into another rotation by the end of the film.

"You lookin at me"

01.12.10
Taxi Driver
(1976)
Starring: Robert DeNiro, Jodie Foster, Harvey Keitel


Taxi Driver is an early Scorcese film about the transparently interesting character of Travis Bickle. Travis Bickle is a Vietnam war veteran, the essence of a "rebel without a cause." His character fixates on one specific person or idea and then maintains a violent tunnel vision concerning that idea. Bickle's character wants to do the right thing, he just doesn't know how to go about doing it. Throughout the film he is constantly attempting to do right by people and save himself from lonliness, but perpetually does something to negate any headway made with his fellow human beings. The whole film is slowly building to the last scene, the viewer isn't shocked by the violence, because it's been in anticipation for the entire film. I think Taxi Driver is mentally disturbing, not because of the violence, but because the violence seemed only a natural progression, an expected finale. I, as a viewer, had come to terms with the violence before it was ever transferred from film into my brain. This anticipation was built up through so many different stylistic qualities, but most influentially by color. The color scheme of this film is punctuated by the color red; starting out with small flecks (like the popcorn in the dirty movie concession stand) and building to the blood bath crescendo of one of the final scenes. It's as if the Scorcese planned the visual composition of the red to play like a stumbling, wounded man dripping a road map of red flecks and finally ending in the man collapsed in a puddle of sticky red blood. The scene where Travis goes to save the poor little misguided prostitute, is as if Scorcese is playing at the screen like Moses dipping his staff into the nile and turning it thick with blood. The end of the movie plays Travis off as a hero, but the viewer knows his mental state is about as stable as a grand piano balanced on the edge of a skyscraper in midst of an earthquake aftershock. Taxi Driver left me with a strangely unsatisfied feeling in the pit of my stomach.

PS: I think Robert DeNiro is a brilliant visual punctuation to Scorcese's invisible-off screen direction.

mean streets

01.10.20
Mean Streets
1973
Starring: Robert Deniro, Harvey Keitel



Mean Streets is a film I'm watching for my independent cinema class. It is one of the required films for our study of early American cinema. I watched this film twice in the past two days and i liked it even better the second time around. The soundtrack in this film is perfect, it sets the mood and scene in a way that no manufactured score could do. Apparently, almost all of the music used for the film was from Scorsese's personal record collection and a large portion of the small budget of this film was used in procuring the rights for those very songs. I love the way that Scorsese presents the characters environment in an extremely artistic manner without distracting from the livelihood of the characters. There is not much of a plot in this film, it's a "slice of life" sort of narrative. Harvey Keitel's smooth attitude plays as a catalyst to keep the entirety of the film cohesive. The opening lines of the film and the inner voice of Keitel's character was narrated by Scorsese himself. On the special features of this film there is a small special that discusses some fun facts about the film and the way Scorsese designed it as a way to glimpse into his past. Scorsese's mother apparently even plays a small role in the film, bringing a real sense of homespun charm to the dark and dirty world of these amateur mobsters. Martin's main concern for Mean Streets was that the people who were being fictionally portrayed would find it a legitimate and honorable representation of the tough life they lived. Needless to say they did.

Imaginary Witness: Hollywood and the Holocaust

01.08.2010
Imaginary Witness: Hollywood and the Holocaust
(2004)
Narrated by: Gene Hackman


I was drawn to watch this movie, because I've always been extremely fascinated by the Holocaust and honestly, besides written record, film is the only way that the Holocaust has influenced the lives of people beyond it's time stretch. I think that this film's premise is so important, because it recognises how Hollywood created the memories and impressions that many people have of the way the Nazi's genocide affected the world in the second world war. As i now live in a time period where Holocaust survivors are beginning to die off in entirety, i think having an objective and accurate understanding of the true goings on of the horror of the Holocaust is imperative to the avoidance of a future repetition of this grotesque genocide. Their were many things in this film that, although I've watched a multitude of Holocaust/WWII films, had no idea went on. I didn't know that early on Hollywood was in close quarters with the Germans and originally had, under the request of German political figures, fired all of the Jewish American workers working remotely in Germany. Imaginary Witnesses shows how the Hollywood of pre-WWII America depicted Germany almost entirely in an acceptable light and how the face of Nazi Germany on the silver screen changed into it's modern day perception over time. The US Senate had even created, pre world war the Nye-Clark Committee to investigate charges that Jewish influencers in Hollywood were attempting to sway the public opinion to propel the U.S. into war (1934-1936). Senator Nye was quoted saying that it was "Jews and not Hitler that posed the greatest threat to America" little did he know how wrong he was. Charlie Chaplin's film The Great Dictator was one of the films deemed unacceptable by this committee, it's on my list of must see films. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the Hollywood view of Nazi Germany changed, although immediately after the war most of the films were focused on the American conflict in the Pacific. It's strange how the leaders of Hollywood had no true idea of what was going on in Europe until after the war was finished, this film gives a detailed description of how the leaders of film were exposed to the gritty, appalling images shipped straight from overseas. Some men viewing this film apparently left the room to vomit, they were so disturbed by the reality that had been shrouded in secrecy until now. Jack Warner was quoted saying after he was exposed to the footage: "No one connected to motion pictures who has seen these things can allow themselves to assume responsibility for a screen which portrays only a make believe world." This film presents the idea that the U.S. didn't widely broadcast this footage to the public immediately, because it would have hampered efforts of the American public to rehabilitate Germany after the war. Not till the late 1950's was the subject revisited through the film about Anne Frank. Many directors were not so much scared of the idea of creating a film about the Holocaust, but about misrepresenting something of such great gravity. Schindlers List is given a large tribute in the movie, because it was a movie that set the standards for a Holocaust film. It most certainly was a film that defined my view of the Holocaust at a young age very violently, it has branded itself into my memory and the soundtrack is one of the most poignant film scores i've ever had the pleasure of listening to. A historian finishes out the film by saying, "The Holocaust has become the negative absolute in American society. In a world of relativism we don't know what's bad and we don't know what's good, but the one thing we can agree upon is that this is absolute evil. It has become the standard by which we judge evil and therefore the standard by which we begin to establish values. Part of it's attraction to filmmakers, part of its attraction to audiences is your touching the absolute as you come closer to the truth of the Holocaust. And, part of the failure of film, if it fails, is not to touch that absolute, not to go to the extreme." In conclusion, i found this to be a very informative film on a subject that is not often discussed by the general public. Having knowledge of how Hollywood affects the public's view on many political and historical issues is imperative to having an accurate worldview.


Films to Watch: presented in the film:
*films i REALLY want to watch or have watched
- I Married a Nazi (1940)
- Underground (1940)
- To be or Not to be (1942)
- Hitler's Madman (1943)
- Tomorrow, The World! (1944)
- None Shall Escape (1944) *
- Gentleman's Agreement (1947) *
- The Search (1948)*
- Singing in the Dark (1956)
- The Diary of Anne Frank (1959)
- Judgement at Nuremburg (1959)
- The Pawnbroker (1965)**
- Ship of Fools (1965)
- The Producers (1967)
- Harold and Maude (1971)
- Cabaret (1971)
- Holocaust (tv production 1977)*
- Kitty: Return to Auschwitz (1979)*
- Sophie's Choice (1982)*
- War and Rememberance (tv production 1988)
- Schindlers List (1993)*
- Jakob the Liar (1999)*
- The Pianist (2002)*

I Love You Man

01.07.2010
I Love You Man
(2009)
Starring: Paul Rudd, Jason Segel



Typically I’m not a fan of this sort of vulgar romantic comedy style Hollywood film, but this movie made me laugh aloud multiple times. The “bromance” that develops between the two main male leads is heartwarming and humorous. I slept through it mostly the first time I watched it, but this time around my brother and Kendra and I watched the unrated version and I think it was much funnier. Anymore, the unrated version barely pushes the envelope more than the typical Hollywood vulgarity that permeates most of the general film culture, so why not watch it?

Adventureland

01.07.2010
Adventureland
(2009)
Starring: Kristin Stewart, Ryan Reynolds

An awkard-Napolean Dynamite-esque real life drama about young college grads working at a theme park called Adventureland. The uncomfortable angst filled girl next door character played by Kristen Bell is playing the field between the nerdy boy character and the sexy-elusive-married man played by Ryan Reynolds. This movie caught me completely off guard, the cover and outlook of the film led me to believe that it was going to be a comedy and it was nothing of the sort. This movie was really disjointed and didn’t flow very well, overall an awkward viewing experience.

PS: Rush makes a debut in both this movie and I love you man, is this the new trendy thing????

A Year Long Challenge......bring it on.

" Film as dream, film as music. No art passes our conscience in the way film does, and goes directly to our feelings, deep down into the dark rooms of our souls."

- Ingrid Bergman

My new years resolution was to log down every movie i watch in 2010.....no exceptions, even of films I'm embarrassed to admit i watched.