Meesh

Film Review: Brothers

“Brothers” is a borderline drama, a remake spawned from the 2004 Danish film “Brødre”. (Which I haven’t seen so this will be slightly biased) Taking place in both Afghanistan and Denmark the movie follows the lives of brothers Sam (Tobey Maquire) and Tommy Cahill (Jake Gyllenhaal). Tommy is an ex-con trying to find his footing in the family. At times he finds himself going head to head with his father who feels he’s shamed the family having served time in jail. Sam on the other hand has a wife and two daughters he’s also being deployed to Afghanistan.

While in Afghanistan a helicopter transporting Sam and his troop was shot down and Sam was presumed dead. Little did they know Sam was alive and being held prisoner by the enemy. The movie then follows Sam and his struggle to get back to his family. While Tommy spends time with Sam’s children helping them cope with their fathers passing and building a fatherly bond with the girls.

When Sam finally returns home he’s merely the shell of the man he was before. The war has transformed him into a jealous, paranoid and violent man. He’s lost the ability to nurture his children and his trust for his wife and brother has disappeared.

I feel like we were mislead in the commercial, I assumed that this movie would be filled with a lot more drama. I hate to say the best scenes had to be the ones where Sam’s being held prisoner. We felt how coldhearted his captors were and saw that a man would do anything for his family. In that same breath we saw how much of a coward Sam really was, he turned out to have a lot in common with the enemy.

This movie was just barely melodrama. At some point Isabelle (Bailee Madison) carries the movie and is a bit more animated than her co-stars. When the movie finally opens up with Sam exploding with the paranoia of Tommy and Grace’s (Natalie Portman) possible relationship the movie is practically over. Again I’ve never seen “Brødre” so I really can’t say if this is a better film or even a decent remake of that film. What I do know is this really isn’t worth the time to go and see. The viewer is constantly toyed with the entire time. Sitting in agony praying that something exciting happens we’d be happy if Sam really died at some point because watching him behave in such a manor was just entirely too awkward. Save your money.

Film Review: Hard Candy

It’s late I’ve struggled trying to do this review all day for my film class. I do love this movie but at some point this review is a little unclear I know for a fact that ending is a mess i’ll probably change it in the morning! whatever enjoy I guess….later!
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Hard Candy is every lecture you’ve ever given to your children about the dangers of chat rooms and online dating. Imagine 14 year old Hayley Stark (Ellen Page). She’s an honor student, loves Goldfrapp and, well she’s pretty much the vigilante version of Chris Hansen. (Dateline’s To Catch a Predator)

The film opens up with a Chat between Thonggirrr14 & Lensmen319, setting up a time and place to meet. Hayley (Thonggirrrl14) and Jeff (Lensman319) meet at a café called Nighthawks. Even here there is subtle foreshadowing. You learn later in the film that the date 3-19 has significant importance to Jeff.

While in Nighthawks Jeff explains that it’s best to know people on the inside because faces lie. Hayley shyly asks “Does my face lie?” He uses a cunning line to make her feel at ease as to what type of person he thinks she is. As the pair sit down over an assortment of chocolates and coffee, the camera rotates between them to show a flyer of a missing girl Donna Mauer.

“Hard Candy is film noir as bright-red lollipop: Its intoxicating visuals lower our defenses as effectively as the roofie that Riding Hood slips to the big bad wolf in his own lair.” – Rob Nelson (The Village Voice)
Hayley convinces Jeff that it would be perfectly fine for her to go back to his place. She trusts that he won’t do anything to her because he was seen out with her in a public place. Hayley seems to be a pretty forward teenager she even mixes few drinks back at Jeff’s house. After a few screwdrivers one spiked with a few too many drops of rophenol we see the tables have changed.

The scene where Jeff is waking up from being drugged had a few of my peers shocked. Like anyone else who viewed this film for the first time you thought that Hayley would be the victim. However Jeff is the one tied up. This pretty much shuts down Jeff’s original impression of Hayley. There were several variations with the lighting here. When the light was a bluish color Hayley was cold and angry.

When she’d toy with Jeff’s emotions and fill him with false sense of hope lighting was a gold color as if there was a little hope in his spirit. The light variations played out during the rest of the movie.
A majority of the film is a combination of tight shots. It makes the film that more awkward to watch at times. You have no choice but to focus on how mortified Jeff is or how creepy Hayley really is. It also proves that faces do lie.

“Though Jeff is clearly a creep from the get-go — he is meeting underage girls on the Web — Wilson adeptly shades him so that it’s open to question how sleazy he actually is.”- Kevin Crust (LA Times)
Not once did we believe that Hayley could turn out to be such a predator herself. At one point in the film Hayley’s torture is so bad that you begin to feel bad for the pedophile. You wanted to really believe that he didn’t hurt Donna Mauer. That is until he snaps and shows his true colors.

After a little more observation I noticed that there was more music that I thought. When Hayley started to really rummage around in Jeff’s house there was music and it fit so well with his panicky mood. As soon as Hayley found the safe the music stopped and Jeff’s eyes were wider than saucers. This is one of those movies where you’ll catch new things you’ve missed every time you watch it. There are so many small things like foreshadowing and the use of lighting &shadows that we just can’t see it all by viewing it just once.

Film Review: China Town

/sidebar: I hated this movie. It was boring and slow then the ending wasn’t at all what I expected. Seriously I sit down and watch this long dry movie, at the very least I expected a good ending is that so wrong?

Chinatown isn’t one of those films were the voice over’s are unbearable and the main focus is martial arts. It’s a neo-noir film that puts us right in the middle of a 1937 Los Angeles drought. J.J. Gittes is a former officer who use to work in Chinatown. He’s now working as a private detective and the nature of his work these days is shadowing adulterers. Gittes is hired by a woman to do a little surveillance on her husband Hollis Mulwray. During Gittes investigation he discovers that Hollis is spending a lot of time lurking around Water & Power related areas, not only that but Hollis was seeing a young woman.

After Gittes takes a few shots of the couple that later appear on the front page of the news paper. The real Mrs. Mulwray shows up with a lawsuit and a scowl. After Gittes convinces the real Mrs. Mulwray to drop the lawsuit he sets out to find out who really hired him and why. The film really gets heavy after the death of Hollis Mulwray. There are a few family secrets that emerge along with corruption within The Department of Water & Power.

There is a bit of back in forth with the night scenes. Most of The Department of Water & Power’s wrong doing happens at night. In one scene Gittes lurks around in a reservoir. He almost randomly drowns as water is being dumped into the reservoir. As he’s making his way out of the reservoir you just get the feeling that someone’s going to jump out of the shadows, and it happens!

The darkness serves its purpose as the goons appear out of the shadows you get a genuine sense of fear. The goons slash Gittes left nostril and threatened to do worse if his curiosity caused and further meddling.

Chinatown requires that the viewer pay attention, not because there are lots of twists, but because the plot is complex and doesn’t stop every ten minutes to bring slower audience members up to speed. -James Berardinelli (Reelviews.com)

This film proves the old saying true. Money is Power. Mrs. Mulwray was so afraid of her father’s influence that she couldn’t sit idle and let the police handle things. Then you had the department of water and power being underhanded to reap the benefits of the land that growers are forced to part with due to the drought. The fact that they are dumping fresh water is unbelievable on its own but once you found out the reason behind it you couldn’t help but be shocked. There’s so much going on here that the layers of the story get a little confusing after a while.

Like most noir stories, “Chinatown” ends in a flurry of revelation. All is explained, relationships are redefined, and justice is done — or not. – Roger Ebert (Sun Times)

I’m not quite sure if it’s just me but the film had one of those rushed endings. After all the cards were laid out on the table the next few scenes seem to run into each other. Then we end with the random death of Mrs. Mulwray in Chinatown. It could be that I was expecting one of the more current Hollywood happy endings. Guy gets girl, bad man goes to prison and or dies of a heart attack and all is well. Not the case here, the movie just ends with you feeling bad for Mrs. Mulwray and Gittes.