Locut0s Reviews

Brazil (1985)

Not nearly as good of a film as I was led to believe it to be.

[7/10 · 14 February 2012]

This is essentially Terry Gilliam's ode to 1984 and while many aspects of it DO work Gilliam can't seem to let go of Monty Python long enough to make this the film it should have been. On the one hand we have a seriously strange and very successful dystopian, steampunkish 1984. On the other we have what feels like a 2 hour Monty Python skit. The two styles just don't play well together. What you end up with isn't a film that's 'strange good' but strange in its basic cinematic qualities. Everything from the set design, screen play, to dialogue is just too schizophrenic. One moment it's a dark and, I must say successful, take on a fictionary 'comunofacist' world, the next it's prat falls and over the top accents. You go the Ministry of Information to John Cleese's Ministry of Silly Walks. Even the characters can't seem to decide which side of the fence they are on with Jonathan Pryce's Sam Lowry switching from 1984s confused and scared to goofy and childish so fast it makes your head spin. If Gilliam could just have toned down the Python here we would have had the masterpiece so many claim the film to be.

Immortals (2011)

Think 300 crossed with The Matrix and you get the idea.

[6/10 · 19 November 2011]

Think 300 crossed with The Matrix and you get the idea. Cool visuals, and the art direction is quite good in places, but 300 was more consistent in this respect. Some of the costume work seems particularly sloppy here. The power the gods possessed was quite satisfyingly viscerally represented. Your typical slow mo kung fu bloodshed but better executed than in a lot of such films. Instead of a sword ballet they manage to convey a sense of awesome power better than you might expect. Sadly where any film really counts, characters, script, dialogue, plot, Immortals falls flat, sometimes laughably so. Theseus and his companions are mostly flat forgettable characters, and saddled with some horrible dialogue to boot. Mickey Rourke as Hyperion does a better job but that's not saying a lot. And I know his voice is naturally hoarse but by god if I see another film where he plays it up like he has throat cancer I'm going to walk out. Freida Pinto is suitably hot but is little more than eye candy. You have you typical scenes of armies thousands strong running across the desert, throngs of extras thwacking each other with cardboard swords, and yes a "rousing" speech by our protagonist. If all you want to see is comic book Greek mythology it's okay, notice I didn't say good, but even in the genre of comic book art house flicks there are much better films (Sin City for example). If story, character, plot, and the like mean much to you, you won't find much here. Still as a pure popcorn muncher it could be worse.

True Grit (2010)

Fantastic western with a capital W. But somewhat lacking in emotional involvement.

[8/10 · 28 December 2010]

As a standalone piece of film making it's very good but when compared to the rest of the Coens work it doesn't stand out as one of their best, which says something about just how amazing these guys are. Basically what we have here is an attempt, and a successful one, by the Coens at making a classic Western. I have to admit that I have never seen the original film nor read the book on which both are based. However one doesn't need to have done so to enjoy this film. The plot has us following extremely precocious and mature 14 year old Mattie Ross as she attempts to track down the man (Tom Chaney) who killed her father, who has fled into the wild west and has held up with a gang of outlaws. To track him down she has hired Sheriff Rooster Cogburn (well played by Jeff Bridges) a rough scraggly man, 1/2 alcoholic, 1/2 layabout, he would be a bum were it not for the fact that he genuinely does track down thieves and outlaws and clearly is an incredibly courageous man with a very good heart. Tagging along we have Texas Ranger La Boeuf (also very well played by Matt Damon) who has also been tracking Chaney. All of these characters are in classic western style larger than life, courageous beyond question, or equally heartless, tough as nails, bushmen par excellence, rough around the edges etc. etc. There probably isn't a famous western stereotype that isn't present here in some form or another. Mind you this isn't a bad thing as the Coens have obviously set out to make a Western with a capital W. And they have succeeded in this. Perhaps the unfortunate thing is that... well, they succeeded. We have many of the classic Coen Brothers touches here, black humour, excellently drawn characters, fantastic choreography, great music. But what IS missing that is so important to all of their best work is a sense of emotional investment. As good as the acting is, as good as the characters are, as good as the writing is, in the end it's not really about anything it's just a good story. Because of this there isn't that sense of emotional involvement that is so present in the best of their work. The sense of foreboding one gets from No Country, the emotional desolation found in Fargo. One could say that that just wasn't what they were out to make and I would agree but then one must raise the question of why they did make it. The Coens have shown that they can do fantastic comedy (see The Big Lebowsky) and of course fantastic Drama (see so much of their work) maybe this was their attempt at making fantastic but formulaic westerns? And it is just that.

Journey from the Fall (2006)

A moving portrait, in two acts, of a family torn apart by war.

[8/10 · 30 August 2010]

A moving portrait, in two acts, of a family torn apart by war. Journey from the Fall tells the story of a family forced apart by the circumstances of the Vietnam War. The father a former south Vietnamese soldier refuses to leave with the rest of his family at the fall of Saigon. His wife, mother and son escape to America through a harrowing journey as one of the Vietnamese boat people and after some time set up a new life there. Meanwhile the father is captured by the North Vietnamese and placed into a forced labour "reeducation" camp. In many ways there is little here that is really new, the suffering and inhuman treatment in the forced labour camps and the contrast to a new life in America has been told before in other films, though not necessarily about the same war or era, but Journey from the Fall manages to pull it off in a particularly poignant way. This is not an easy film to watch, you will likely find yourself genuinely moved to tears. It does however unfortunately overstep the bounds from moving drama into overt sentimentality a little too often. A few too many blurry childhood videos, coincidental meetings, and "sad music" all in the name of pathos. Thankfully the acting, directing and cinematography are all top notch so much of this, though not all, can be overlooked.

I mentioned that this is a story told in two acts and here is another place where Journey from the Fall falters a bit. Though interleaved somewhat we basically have act one telling the story of the father suffering in the camps back in Vietnam and act two telling the story of his family trying to make it in America. Though both stories are extremely effective we have a bit of an issue with the pacing of the two. Perhaps it would have been better if the two had been interleaved even more so that the two were told in parallel throughout from beginning to end. As it stands the first act is relatively fast paced and harrowing and stands in stark contrast to the second acts slow and steady pace. Both have their place and it works natively and emotionally, the wounds that are inflicted in the first act both figuratively and emotionally take their time to heal during the second act. However the contrast does make one feel like one is watching two separate films at times.

These issues aside this is still a very effective, moving, film and one well worth the watch if nothing else just to see the story of the war told from a different far too neglected point of view.

Inception (2010)

A fascinating movie that has a few frustrating flaws.

[8/10 · 19 July 2010]

OK let's get this out of the way first, despite the things that I will point out bellow I really enjoyed watching this film! Christopher Nolan does The Matrix does Batman! Or at least it certainly has shades of The Matrix, though it's a far better film. Like The Matrix this is a film rooted in the philosophy of "reality" or to put it another way the struggle with knowing what is real and what is not. The age old question of "how do you know the reality you are experiencing right now is real", how do you know you aren't just someone else's dream, etc etc... This is dealt with quite directly in the film in the ability, through yet to be developed tech, to enter into, in fact alter and create, someone else's dreams. DiCaprio here plays an extractor, someone hired by shady underworld figures to enter other peoples dreams to steal valuable secrets. DiCaprio's character is an emotionally wounded man who wishes to get back to his children by pulling one last "job" (a role that he seems to be reprising in one way or another a lot these days). He has been on the run from the law since being suspected of killing his former wife. Said job is thrown to him as a lifeline by the CEO of a major Japanese corporation (skilfully played by Ken Watanabe). Do this one favour to me and one phone call is all that is needed to clear you of your charges. Of course this job is anything but routine and in order to pull it off DiCaprio has to put together a crack team of "dream thief's". The job is to plant an idea in the mind of a man who is a commercial rival of Watanabe's. Doing this is called "Inception" a concept that is so tricky that few believe that it is possible and involves creating a fantastically complex dream-scape several layers or dreams deep, the idea of dreams within a dream. What the others on the job don't know is that DiCaprio caries with him a lot of emotional baggage that threatens at various time to throw the entire plan off the rails, quit literally. So in some ways we have a conventional heist film about a team of crack thieves on a mission to steal, or in this case plant, an idea. But this is anything but conventional and the way in which Nolan weaves layer upon layer of plot in the form of layers of different dream-scapes is ingenious. Each layer also subtly and sometimes not so subtly affects the layer bellow, in the same way that one might incorporate music one hears while sleeping into the dream one is experiencing. All of this is fascinatingly complex and masterfully well integrated.

Having said all of this there are a few glaring problems with the film that are all the more annoying for just how good a film this is. For one I found the whole corporate espionage angle and the reasoning for Watanabe's plan to be rather shallow. It felt like a rather lame excuse on which to hang the concept of Inception. The idea of planting an idea, or the seed of an idea here, is such a powerful concept that it really requires an equally powerful motivation to make it all seem realistic, in this case the corporate espionage idea falls short of that for me. Also Fishers' acceptance of the idea seems too perfect and complete for my tastes. I know they wanted to wrap up the film with Inception being successful but there are a couple of lines that Fisher says in the film at the end that are essentially right out of the mouths of DiCaprio and his team. This should have been done a little more subtly in my mind.

Those who hated the Matrix for some of its silly characters, remember The Keymaker?, may find a few similarities here. Though no where near as garish as in the Matrix we have our own share of comic book nomenclature, Architects, Chemists, and more.

The film also suffers from a paradoxical lack of imagination. The plot, time-line, and scripting are all wonderfully suffused with imaginative twists and turns but for all of this the physical locals that are after all supposed to be dreams seem to lack a certain sense of imagination. The streets of Paris, a hotel, a snowbound fortress (that reminds one of nothing more than a level from a video-game), and a mega megalopolis. Considering that we are dealing with the boundless possibilities of dreams these are rather mundane creations.

Still the film is so smart, so engaging, so well plotted, scripted and acted that these flaws can be forgiven. With its amazingly complex plot it's certainly a film that deserves at least a second viewing. There are plenty of things that I know I missed the first time around. But even if you don't get it all one certainly walks out of the theatre with the experience of having watched something uniquely grand (which is a rare thing in films nowadays). And of course the film ends with a neat little bit of ambiguity, is this world real or are we all just dreaming?

Snatch (2000)

Fantastically kooky British heist film.

[8/10 · 9 July 2010]

While my favourite film in this genre is still Lock Stock and 2 Smoking Barrels this is nevertheless a thoroughly enjoyable British heist film. Without giving anything away the film is about the heist of a huge diamond and the convoluted and comic path it takes as it changes hands between various members of the British underworld. Jason Statham is as usual pitch perfect as is, surprisingly, Brad Pit whom I don't usually really love. The rest of the cast is made up of a collection of very well cast character actors, all of whom shine. Especially noteworthy is a wonderfully sinister and kooky mob boss played by Alan Ford. The exception to this is Benicio Del Toro who plays a suave, slick, gangster / hand off man. His fake Jewish / eastern European / who the hell knows what accent is so thick and off the wall that one can't help but laugh at his character (and not in a good way). Brad Pit's accent may be just as thick but he manages to pull it off in a wonderfully goofy way while Del Toro just comes away looking stupid. Thankfully he plays a relatively small role. Speaking of accent, accent plays such a central role in this film, both as comedic relief and general backdrop that one almost feels that it becomes a character in and of itself. Like many such films in this genre it's well worth a 2nd watch just to unravel it's complex plot and character interactions.

A Serious Man (2009)

A seriously good film.

[9/10 · 3 May 2010]

Don't let those who tell you this is a comedy fool you. Not the the film won't make you laugh, in fact there is plenty of humour to be found here (and it's typical Cohen brothers humour at that), but at it's heart this is a black and disturbing work of art.

Meet Lawrence Gopnik. A physics professor about to get his tenure. He lives your typical 1960s suburban family life. A rancher home, a wife, 2 kids, a car. The American dream come true. But from the very start there's the creeping suspicion that there's something rotten at the core here. Through the course of the film we learn that Larry's wife is planning to divorce him for a man that can only be described as emotionally false and insincere in the worst way possible. He is being blackmailed by a student who wished to have his failing grade changed. He has a racist neighbour with whom he is having a property dispute with. He totals his car. His wife and children are stealing money from him. His brother who has moved in with him turns out to have a gambling addiction and is charged with soliciting a male prostitute. Basically anything that can go wrong does go wrong. And through all of this Larry tries in vain to understand "why me", "for what reason are these things happening to me"? He seeks help from a series of more and more ineffectual and downright uncaring Rabbis. Who give him the typical self help pablum, only packaged in humour only the Coen brothers could come up with. Of course the answer is right in front of Larry the whole time. There is no answer. There is no reason these things happen, it's not fair, it's just life. Larry is a man seeking answers yet the very subject he teaches, quantum mechanics, tells one that answers are fleeting. That the truth lies in how one observes the problem. Is the cat alive, or dead? There is a point at the end where we feel that everything is going to work out in the end, but at the very last second things take a turn for the worst. One can see this perhaps as punishment for a decision Larry makes (up till this point life simply happened to him only at this critical juncture does he make a mistake of his own) or perhaps it's all part of the same uncertainty. Life is a cruel joke and in the end we die. The palpable sense of foreboding and "wrongness" throughout the film comes to a head right at the end and is physically manifest in a particularly wonderful and disturbing way. One can not escape the injustices of life and in the end death claims us all.

Perfect Blue (1997)

Interesting but not Satoshi Kon's best work.

[5/10 · 3 May 2010]

The film revolves around a Japanese pop idol who leaves a girl group to start a career in acting. However she is uncertain about her move and is followed by ghosts both real and imagined from her previous life. Like in Paprika Satoshi Kon plays with the meaning of reality and what it means to be sane. The sense of paranoia and uncertainty of ones own senses when experiencing an emotional trauma is well conveyed here. However ultimately the film feels too flat for my tastes. Paprika is a lively colourful and imaginative romp into the world of insanity. This on the other hand is much more controlled and realistic, and while that would usually be something that recommends a film here it ends up falling flat. I kept hopping the film would sprout wings and explore the realm of paranoia and insanity the way only anime can really do so but it never really truly delivers.

Shutter Island (2010)

Not one of Scorsese's best, though not bad either.

[7/10 · 20 April 2010]

As a stand alone film it's not that bad but as a work of Scorsese it's something of a fail. there are certain aspects here that I really like but as a whole it's just too conventional of a film for me to rate it any higher. I won't say anything about the plot as it's basically your typical psych ward thriller type film in this regard. Scorsese does do a very good job at keeping us off our guard here and despite the fact that there isn't anything ground breaking here the sense of paranoia and uncertainty is extremely well conveyed. There is also some fine acting from the likes of DiCaprio and Ben Kingsly of course, especially from Kingsly. But I kept waiting for the film to turn into something more than a basic horror/thriller and sadly it never really delivers here. It certainly is better than just about 95% of any of the other psych horror/thrillers, and this is certainly because of Scorsese's hand, but it ultimately fails to step outside this rather clichéd and over trodden territory. There was potential here for something much better but it's never really utilized fully. Still if you like psychological thrillers I'd still recommend seeing it. It's not a bad film by any means it's just not anywhere near as good as one would hope given the talent behind it.

Public Enemies (2009)

A good movie that could have been great

[7/10 · 12 March 2010]

There's not much you need to know about the plot except to know that it's about the life and crimes of John Dillinger and his associates. The film is wonderfully directed and shot by Michael Mann and carries much of the same brilliance that his previous masterpiece Heat does. Mann is a master at ratcheting up the tension shot by shot, and Elliot Goldenthal's music (which sounds almost identical to that of Hans Zimmer) adds a wonderful deep plodding sense of inevitability to the film. Having said this there are some problems that prevent this from reaching the heights of say, Heat. For one I don't care for some of the casting options. Both Johnny Depp and Christian Bale are good actors who carry their characters well (though Depp is noticeably better than Bale), but they are just a little too perfect looking for these roles IMO. Heat could get away with it because it was something of a fantasy about a group of perfect criminals. Here however we are dealing with historic figures and as often happens in such cases the stars get in the way of the characters they are portraying. Bale and Depp are just too well known and their acting just not quite good enough for one to fully suspend ones disbelief. Also while the film I'm sure if historically very curate it could have used some editing to tighten things up as a film. There is a scene in the film that never takes place because Dillinger is killed before it happens and that scene is the train robbery. And while the final scene is almost perfectly shot it's almost anticlimactic in the face of the audiences expectation of a final confrontation aboard the train.

The Gold Rush (1925)

Chaplin at his best!

[9/10 · 5 March 2010]

Classic Chaplin film, widely considered amongst his best. Sadly I saw a 1940s reissue of the film with narration by Chaplin over-top of the original silent film. The narration is not needed at all and in fact reduces ones enjoyment of this classic, Chaplin's acting is really all you need to "get" the story here, get the original if you can. So what can one say about the film? Well it's cute, its charming, warm hearted and clearly influenced film making and TV in many ways in years to come. Being a Chaplin film don't expect anything deep here, you're basically watching a heart warming slapstick comedy but one in which the acting and "miming" is just pitch perfect. It reminds me a lot of the Bugs Bunny and Road Runner cartoons of the 40s and 50s and clearly the slapstick of this era owns much to this film and others of the period. Some classic examples being the house teetering on the edge of a cliff, the character chase where the chaser becomes the chasee and or morphs into something else, the hungry man envisioning his partner as types of food, etc etc... This is of course the film with the classic bread roll dancing scene and I tell you too this very day it's still one of the most brilliant pieces of comedic miming I've ever seen. Chaplin is a genius at using his whole body to mime out scenes. There's an early example where he's supposed to be blown away by a heavy wind and it's clear that there's nothing more than a fan on set but by god does Chaplin do a picture perfect cartoonish mime of being blown away in the wind. Again though a reminder, get the original non narrated version.

The Incredibles (2004)

Very good but not Pixar's best.

[7/10 · 27 February 2010]

While never achieving the hight of some of their later works like Ratatouille and Wall-E this is nonetheless still a very entertaining film. Expect the same masterful Pixar animation, rendering, and character design. Plot wise this is a twist on your basic comic book super hero. In this case we have a family of super heroes living in a world that no longer appreciates them. Think super heroes meet mid life crisis and you have the basic idea. Much of the film obviously borrows heavily from the James Bond genre from the music to the over the top villain and his evil super villain lair. One half expects to see Dr. Evil pop up somewhere. The writers have done a good job crafting a believable and charming family that you will actually care for, good dialogue goes a long ways here. They have also done a good job of finding creative and comical ways of using each characters super powers both individually and in tandem as a family super hero team.

My only complains with the film is that after watching the greatness of Ratatouille and Wall-E The Incredibles just sort of feels like Pixar was turning the crank with this one. It's still a very enjoyable film and heads and tails above most other animated works but it's not Pixar's best. It's a little too formulaic for that and the characters while charming never quite grab you they way some of Pixar's best creations do.

Caché (2005)

A film about guilt, selfishness and morality

[8/10 · 11 February 2010]

At it's heart this is a film about selfishness and guilt. It forces the viewer to ask themselves question about guilt and morality. Under what circumstances should one feel guilty for an action that has negative consequences on someone else's life. Should one still feel guilty if one was not wholly to blame, or perhaps not even mature enough yet to know what the consequences of ones actions. Perhaps one should never feel guilt, perhaps the guilt should overwhelm them. In any case far more questions are raised by Cache than are answered. This is not a film for people who do not enjoy ambiguity in their art, for it abounds here. At the simplest level this is a thriller that keeps one continually guessing. Is character A or B to blame? Will something horrible happen to the family at the centre of this all? There is a sort of sinister undercurrent that suffuses many scenes and one almost feels that this could turn into a horror movie at any point. But like so much else in the film the director simply leaves one with a feeling that something is about to happen then withdraws at the last moment. As a result we have a fascinating film in which not a lot actually happens in terms of incidence and is much more about the undercurrents than about the surface.

Avatar (2009)

Simple shallow cartoon of a movie that looks spectacular.

[4/10 · 5 February 2010]

Well let me put it this way it's a beautiful looking cartoon without any of the parts of the best cartoons out there (see Pixar). The characters are paper thin, the enemy is laughably clichéd, the good guys are laughably perfect. The dialogue is laughably bad, (unobtanium - are you !@$&% kidding me UNOBTAINIUM?!). The script was just cut and pasted from other James Cameron movies, aliens, titanic, with a bit of Disney thrown in for good measure. The music is just as clichéd, lots of "stirring" orchestral pieces, lots of deep drum beats. The Na'Vi are seriously like some 1960s hippies idea of what a perfect race would be like. In fact much of the movie seems like it belongs back in the hippie era. The annoying thing here is that being a liberal myself I basically agree with the message behind the film but FOR GODS SAKE I DON'T NEED TO BE HIT OVER THE HEAD WITH IT EVER SECOND WITH AN IRON CLUB! Yes I think what was done to the natives WAS horrible, yes I think we still have a lot of learning to do, yes I think the bush administration was evil, yes we are destroying the environment yes yes yes!! I agree with you James now shut the !@$&% up and go make a REAL movie we can watch.

The only redeeming feature here is the visuals. And I have to say they really pulled it off here for the most part. The film is wonderful to look at. The beginning scenes where you are first introduced to the forest are almost truly beautiful. But even here they went too far, does every !@$&% thing have to be bio-luminescent? I mean I get it it's a magical land where everything lives in harmony but enough with the glow sticks already. Note: If you DO want to see it for its visuals you really do need to see this in a theatre, even on a large screen and with Blu-Ray you aren't likely to get the whole effect.

Anyway it's the perfect example of why you don't need to have much money to make a good film and why tons of money doesn't make a good film (accept maybe in certain technical aspects that don't matter much).

An Inconvenient Truth (2006)

A somewhat simplified and self centred documentary, but a good overview of the issue!

[7/10 · 29 January 2010]

Unfortunately I don't think that Al Gore is going to be able to achieve what he so desperately wants to, which is to change the minds of people the world over one person at a time. The reason being that this has become such a polarizing issue that no matter how well presented the facts are and no matter who is presenting them you're mind is not going to be swayed if you already have it made. I must say however that this is an excellent presentation of the known facts on global warming so far. It boils the major scientific points down to easily understandable facts and displays the information in a hard to refute manner, if a bit too simplified. But unfortunately I must say that Al Gore is not the right person to be presenting this. He's too polarizing a figure. Too political, and somewhat too self centred. That's not an argument to stay away from the film however as it's one of the better documentaries out there, sadly one of the only, on the issue of global warming and does a good job of hammering home just how dire an issue this really is.

An Unreasonable Man (2006)

A conventional but eye opening documentary.

[7/10 · 26 January 2010]

You come to realize through watching "An Unreasonable Man" that Ralph Nader is the last of a dieing breed. A breed that we desperately need in this time of corporate greed, empty politics and back room deals. There's nothing revealed in this documentary that most don't already know about the man, and indeed it suggests that there is little else to the man than what the world knows about him through his public work. Indeed this is a very conventional documentary. Don't watch this expecting to see an expose on some fascinatingly complex character with great depths. Nader is not that type of man, he quite literally is his work and little else. This is a man wholly devoted to improving the lives of the average citizen through the tools of the laws of the land. To the point that when GM tried to dig up dirt on him and entice him with women into compromising situations they came up completely empty handed. Most people probably remember him from the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections where he was roundly criticized of helping to get Bush elected by stealing votes from the Democrats. The documentary does a good job here of showing the anger and bitterness left in the wake of his campaign on both sides. However ultimately Nader emerges here as a man of the people, someone who has tirelessly worked throughout most of his adult life to better the lives of the average person. However one views his latter political carrier there is little doubt left here that his legacy will live on in the seat belts, air bags, food and medication warning labels, and thousands of other consumer protections that we now take for granted.

There is little doubt in my mind that we need more people like Nader, now more than ever.

Turtles Can Fly (2004)

A somewhat difficult film to connect with. But also an eye opener!

[6/10 · 21 January 2010]

Let me say this off the bat. I never emotionally connected with this film the way so many others have. I wanted to, I tried, but for some reason it just didn't grab me. The story revolves around the children of a Kurdish refugee camp on the Turkish Iraqi border just before the American invasion. The story is almost entirely told from the perspective of the children and showcases the difficult lives they must endure. The desperation and hopelessness that these children have grown up in is very realistically depicted. Under their leader, a kid nicknamed Satellite, they eek out a living by clearing land mines from farmers fields and selling them to local merchants. As one might expect from such a dangerous occupation many of the children are missing hands, feet, and other limbs. The central story revolves around a brother and sister who have been forced to take care of the sisters child. The child having been born as a result of her being gang raped by the soldiers that killed their family.

Though the acting by the children is very good I can't help but feel that something was missing. I saw the destitution and the sorrow on the faces of the children and yet somehow the emotions weren't translated across the medium. Perhaps it has something to do with the character of Satellite and his role as leader of the town children. While I have no doubt that such situations arise in these cases something about it just didn't ring true. It felt more like a poor child's fantasy than a reality and the often light hearted scenes of him ordering his "troops" about, which he clearly greatly enjoys,somehow poorly contrast with the sorrow we are clearly supposed to feel for these kids.

Bubble (I) (2005)

How does loneliness affect the human condition ?

[8/10 · 16 January 2010]

Delightful little movie about the monotonous lives of everyday working class Americans. This is a film about love, loneliness, jealousy and rage. On the surface its a really slow paced film, in fact in some ways little of incidence happens throughout the entire film. But if you are willing to be patient with it you will be richly rewarded with both an interesting who-donit mystery and a much deeper tale of human suffering. Soderberg here makes use of real people, these are NOT actors, and it shows. That's not to say this is a bad thing, in fact it's one of the movies strengths, but it does take a little getting used to. At first it may seem like he is trying for deadpan humour or something but very quickly this feeling falls by the wayside and you instead get the feeling like you are looking through a window onto the lives of real people. In the end this is a story about the loneliness and emptiness in the lives of the working class, also a metaphor for any 'class', and how such emotional isolation and twist and tug on ones character.

51 Birch Street (2005)

No marriage is perfect. Some are less perfect than others.

[8/10 · 14 January 2010]

A fascinating slice of life documentary about a husband and wife and their marriage told through the eyes of their son. We all like to think that our parents lived happy lives, that their marriages were full of fulfilment, love, and happy memories. Sadly many of us know this not to be the case of their own families and that of their parents. This wonderful little documentary is told through the camera lens and emotional perspective of the son of a family that has just experienced the death of their mother. The son being a documentary film maker has filmed his elder family for many years, for as he states "posterity". Three months after the death of his mother his father remarries his long time secretary. The suddenness of this occurrence stuns the family and pushes the son to dig into the past lives of his mother and father. What he reveals is a fascinating look into the lives of two rather ordinary people who like so many of their generation married early for the wrong reasons and found themselves stuck in a family life where they found they just had to "make do". A wife who found herself at times bitterly lonely and unloved and a husband who buries himself in his work. She and intellectual at heart, he a much simpler individual who seems to find most of his pleasures in the quiet solitude of work. They are obviously wrong for each other, this much is clear. Yet they stick it out, for what? Well that's part of the mystery, they clearly show affection for each other at times if not ever much love. You won't find any truly shocking disclosures here, aside from infidelity on both sides, which in good part is what makes this such a gem. You really feel that these could be your own parents if circumstances were different and indeed makes one question the lives of ones own parents.