Until some miracle occurs and I regain my interest in chump-ass Hollywood movies, I’m going to leave you with the single finest dramatic performance by any man, woman, child or foetus ever. My favourite movie; my favourite scene; my favourite actor. Behold Alec Baldwin for the big, fat menace that he is. Bye for now!
Director: Mani Ratnam
Starring: Abhishek Bacchhan, Aishwarya Rai, Mithun Chakrabort
Reviewer: Faizan
There aren’t many filmmakers like Mani Ratnam. After all, there aren’t many filmmakers who have the distinction of one of their films making it to TIME magazine’s Top 100 Films of the Last Century (the classic “Nayagan”, and just for perspective, the other movies on that list include Citizen Kane, Casablanca, Star Wars and ET) …continue reading here …
Director: Alfonso Cuaron
Starring: Clive Owen, Julianne Moore, Michael Caine, Clare-Hope Ashitey
Reviewer: Reese Witherfork
Based on the novel by British writer, P.D. James, “Children of Men” is set in neo-fascist London in the year 2027. This is a grim dystopia, where immigrants are routinely rounded up and imprisoned, bombs go off in the streets willy nilly, and everyone dresses in grey clothes all the time. How drab!
Women all over the planet have been infertile for the past 18 years and, when a pregnant woman turns up, Clive Owen is sexy, unshaven, and the only person sane enough to smuggle this woman away from the smelly lefties, away from psychotic authorities, and towards the “Human Project” safe-haven.
Part thriller, part sci-fi, part social/political drama, this movie is full of action, bombs, zealots with machine guns, edge-of-your-seat suspense, and Clive Owen, being his gorgeous, wonderful, perfect self.
You know, Clive and I used to be so close, but I’ve noticed lately that he’s stopped sending me love letters disguised as “restraining orders.” He went to theatre school so he’s very creative in the way he communicates. I especially miss the way he’d encode sweet little messages when he wrote to me. Everyone knows that “you will be arrested if you come within 500 meters of Clive Owen” really means “please kill my wife with a hammer so you and I can get married.” It’s so sad when things don’t work out.
Anyway, I’ll give this movie 8/10. It was very good, but it was no “The Departed.”
Director: Gabriele Muccino
Starring: Will Smith, Jaden Smith, Thandie Newton
Reviewer: Reese
Based on a true story, Will Smith plays Christopher Gardner, a not-so-successful salesman who beats the odds to be accepted into an internship program at a prestigious stock brokerage. The internship is very demanding, offers no salary, and only one of the 20 interns will be hired at the end of it. The movie follows Gardner, a single father, as he and his son endure poverty and homelessness for the 6 months spanning his internship.
This is a film in the “inspirational story about an underdog who makes something of himself” genre and it’s very well done. Will Smith is a fine actor and he plays the lead character without any of the schmaltzy bullshit or unecessary histrionics that an inferior actor (like Don Cheadle - I hate that guy) would resort to. Gardner’s son is played by Jaden Smith (Will’s and Jada’s son). Gardner’s wife, who abandons the family early on, is played by Thandie Newton, who does this interesting thing where she sucks the food off her teeth as she’s talking. Little details like that really separate the good actresses from the crappy actresses who have no business acting and who should really just stick to posing nude, or anchoring the news, or bartending, or some other occupation suited for lazy people who need constant gratuities for doing something excessively simple that requires almost no training whatsoever.
The film is almost Dickensean in its portrayal of poverty and hardship and the only issue I have with it is that the story seemed to consist entirely of unfortunate setback after unfortunate setback. I know, I know, it’s a story of a real person’s life, but still… does it need to be so unrelentlessly bleak? A biopic is not, strictly speaking, an accurate depiction of its subject’s life anyway; it’s a calculated selection of events from their lives which, when put together, comprise a completely fabricated narrative … I’m just saying that they could have selected a few happy events (I’m sure there were some in this guy’s life, right?) to slightly restructure the narrative and relieve the constant pathos.
All in all, though, it was a really good movie. Very emotional, interesting, inspiring, and quite original. I recommend this movie highly.
8/10
Here’s Will Smith behind the scenes with the real Chris Gardner. I enjoyed this interview with Chris Gardner. He has a great attitude and seems like a very inspired individual.
