Month: March 2008

Gone Baby Gone

I just came back from the cinema, where I watched “Gone Baby Gone“, a movie about kidnapping, directed by Ben Affleck and starring his brother Casey Affleck, together with such well known names as Morgan Freeman and Ed Harris.

I was a bit worried that this film will be too dramatic with a lot of gory details of a kidnapping.  Kidnapping in this case is not just of any person, but of a kid, as in a little girl.  The film was indeed dramatic, but the kidnapping wasn’t the main part of the drama.  It was more about right and wrong, and how difficult sometimes it is to see the right choice, not to mention, to pick it.  A couple of times it was reaching so far that I had to ask myself which choice was the right one, and even then I had a few moments of hesitation.  Finally though I have to agree with the choices made and reasoned for by Casey Affleck’s character.

The directing of this film is interesting, it being Ben Affleck’s debut (he did some directing before, but two movies didn’t make it to the big screen, while the other one was a short movie).  I’d say he did pretty good.  He needs more practice and all, but it was better than many of those seasoned directors I’ve seen.  Two things were sticking out a tiny bit.  First, the lack of experience in drama.  There were a few places in the film which could have been done more dramatic.  Heavier.  Stronger.  If you know what I man.  Secondly, the film is based on a novel (read: book), and it is too obvious.  The book seems to be good, but it wasn’t processed enough to make a movie out of it.  This area needs a bit more work.  But as I said, overall it was pretty good.

As a whole, I enjoyed the film, and it gave me a few things to think about.  For that, I’ll give it a solid 7 out of 10.

Road to Perdition

I’ve seen “Road to Perdition” when it came to the movies.  A couple of years later I bought the DVD and saw it few more times.  But somehow it happened that I never described on this blog how beautiful this movie is.

It’s a piece of art.  Nothing more, nothing else.  It feels like nothing happened by itself in this movie.  Everything has its reason, and everything has been placed appropriately by the makers of this film.  The story, the acting, the directing, the sound and visuals – all of these work in harmony with each other.  And like any other talented piece of art, “Road to Perdition” can be watched over and over and over and again.

I  particularly enjoy the atmosphere of the 1930s.  Clothes, hats, cars, buildings – these all worked very well for the film.  It was also interesting to see how modern faces could be transformed into personalities of the past – Tom Hanks, Daniel Craig, and even Paul Newman, although he is a bit of a veteran.

Overall, a solid 9 out of 10.

The Process

“The Process” is an unwatchable piece of crap.  I can’t call it a film.  I can’t even call it a motion picture.  It’s just a piece of crap.  I only managed to watch the first 40 minutes and it was constantly getting worse with every second of the screen time.

Everything about it is bad.  Crappy story (which is very usual for martial arts movies), terrible acting, terrible martial arts, worst camera work ever, lights, sounds, directing… You name it – and it sucks in “The Process”.

Avoid at all costs.  1 out of 10. (0, if I can use zero).

The Pelican Brief

“The Pelican Brief” is one of the older movies (around 1993).  I guess, conspiracy fans and theorists would love it.  It is about yet another government conspiracy.  There seems to be some sort of conspiracy (coincidence? I think not!) in the cast for this film.  The director, Alan J. Pakula, did at least another film about conspiracy before – “All The President’s Men“, back in the 1970s, together with Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford.  Two leading actors in “The Pelican Brief” did conspiracy movies before too.  Denzel Washington played a part in “The Manchurian Candidate” and Julia Roberts played in “Conspiracy Theory“.

I, myself, am not a big fan of conspiracy movies unless they have plenty of action and surveillance technology.  “The Pelican Brief” didn’t have much in terms of technology and could use some more action.  Despite that, though, I have to say that it wasn’t too boring or anything.  I enjoyed it.  And, yes, both Denzel and Julia performed good and made them movie so much better.  Without them it would have been a total loss.

6.5 out of 10 (make it 7, if you need an integer).  Recommended, if you like conspiracy mysteries and scared Julia Roberts.

V for Vendetta

I just watched “V for Vendetta“. Back when it came out in 2006, I was a busy parent, and used any excuse I had to hate the movie.  Just so that I didn’t feel very bad about not going to the cinema to see it.  I saw a brief trailer of this film on TV and thought that it was yet another comics-based movie about another superhero or somebody like that.  Definitely, not something I wanted to see, especially back then.  So I passed.

I have to say that I am really glad that I rented it yesterday.  I picked it up just by chance.  I already had two other movies in my hand, and when I saw this “V” thing, I thought maybe I’ll grab three movies today, since the weekend is upon me.

Brilliant movie!  It has all the easy parts – the photography, acting, directing, special effects, etc.  Many films do these days.  But, this one goes beyond that.  It has a really good story.  An interesting one.  And the one that needs more attention. I’d go as far as call it a political movie.  It is about the role of government and mass media in our lives, how it used to be, and how things are changing, and how they aren’t changing for the better right now.  It’s a brave story too – not that many films are willing to risk the ensured profits of the entertainment industry by bringing in strong political discussion into a film.  But, as it has been proven many times, Wachovski brothers aren’t afraid of risks.

I really enjoyed how this political story was prepared and told.  It’s interesting, and it’s very human.  If I had to describe it in terms of other movies, I’d say that “V for Vendetta” is a very good mix of “Brazil” (think George Orwell’s “1984” ), “The mask of Zorro“, and “Invisible Man” (any version you like).  Yes, something like that.

This is also a film that can be watched over and over again.  The photography is beautiful, the soundtrack is great.  There are plenty of small details all around.  And there is this sense of style and class to it.

10 out of 10 (I know I’ve been giving away too many of high ratings recently, but it appears so that I missed a lot of really good movies)