Thursday, November 12, 2009

More Movie Reviews

The Good Soldier : I just saw a shortened version of this on Bill Moyers. It's riveting and devastating. Really and astonishing film. It interviews four veterans (I think five in the theatrical version) and they just tell their stories of being in war. One is an infantryman from WWII, two others are from Vietnam and a fourth from the Iraq War in 2003. Amazing.

Bright Star tells the true story of the romance between poet John Keats and Fanny Brawne in the early 19th century. Not usually my cup of tea but it got some wonderful reviews so I figured I'd try it. I found it drawn out at two hours long and had too little of his poetry. I'm not a fan of Jane Campion (don't get me started on The Piano) and this didn't change my mind, though while sitting through this and wondering how it got 83% on Rotten Tomatoes, I did realize that a lot of the shots are beautifully composed, many could be paintings.

What’s New Pussycat might have been fun in 1965 but it's horribly dated and didn't keep my interest at all.

The Damned United is the kind of small film that just can't get made in Hollywood anymore. Technically a sports film about British football in the late sixties and early seventies. Don Revie was the acclaimed coach of the number one team Leeds United. He moved on to coach the national team. Brian Clough took over Leeds after turning a small team at the bottom of division two into the champions of division one in a few years. The film shifts back and forth between his disastrous 44 day run with Leeds and his success with Derby County which built up his resentment for Revie. Michael Sheen (Frost/Nixon, The Queen) was great as Clough. The film spends most of the time on his famous battles with everyone and his obsession with beating Revie and I wish it had a little more soccer and a little more of his coaching skills as it implies that his assistant Peter Taylor (the always fun Timothy Spall) was responsible for all of the scouting and coaching success while Clough merely made deals happen. Still, a very interesting film.

Marley & Me was billed as a zany comedy but was a more serious relationship film about a couple with an uncontrollable dog. It covers about a decade and was better than I expected, but it seemed to want to be more than it was. It's based on the true story of a journalist who wrote about a column his life and his dog Marley and then tured it into a novel. I think it's probably better as separate columns, but not having read them or the book, it's not really fair of me to say so.

Endgame is a dramatization of the covert discussions that brought down Apartheid. The strong cast includes Chiwetel Ejiofor and William Hurt and Lester from The Wire plays Mandela. Still I didn't know the details of the story beforehand and found all the characters very difficult to follow. When it's a few of these people and their sitting across from each other at a table it's quite good but I think overall it's a bit of a jumble.

1 comment:

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