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The Prisoner

Tuesday, March 9th, 2010

I haven’t been watch­ing many movies lately because I’ve been stuck on anime and minis­eries. My favorite minis­eries lately is The Pris­oner. It’s about a guy who wakes up in ‘the vil­lage’ where every­one thinks there is no place in the world other than that place. The pro­tag­o­nist, played by Jim Caviezel, has pieces of mem­o­ries of another place but he doesn’t know any other name than the num­ber he has been given. The entire com­mu­nity, is run by one man, num­ber two, played by Ian McK­ellen. In the vil­lage every­one is a num­ber. What unfolds over the six-part series is the pris­oner try­ing to escape, insist­ing that he is from some­where else while the leader of the vil­lage makes no small effort to con­vince him and oth­ers that may be like him, otherwise.

This Pris­oner minis­eries is a remake of sorts of a 60’s British series that is quite famous but I have never seen it. The minis­eries was aired on AMC and will be aired again this month. It’s also avail­able on Net­flix. When the series starts, it was imme­di­ately clear that there was a lot more going on that was obvious. I thor­ough enjoyed this series and tried very hard to fig­ure it all out as I went through it but except for a few points was unable to. That’s the mark of a good story for me.  I watched the begin­ning of it with friends and they were quite taken with it right away. It’s too bad they didn’t make this an ongo­ing series. I def­i­nitely would have watched it. I give it a four out of five marks. I think you’ll enjoy it.


09.03.2010 Drama, Miniseries, Mystery No Comments

Peaceful Warrior

Friday, February 5th, 2010

Peace­ful War­rior was both famil­iar and unfa­mil­iar at the same time. It was famil­iar in that it told the story of a tal­ented young per­son who with the help of an enig­matic trainer goes through painful growth phys­i­cally and spir­i­tu­ally to find out who he really is. The unfa­mil­iar part was that there was no one for the pro­tag­o­nist to beat in this film but him­self. There is no real vil­lain. In the begin­ning I thought I was going to be watch­ing some remake of Karate Kid but what I got was a movie that was inspir­ing and some­what thought pro­vok­ing. There were many times where I was look­ing for Nick Nolte, who played the trainer, to have some magic pow­ers but except for a few tricks and some dream sequences you begin to won­der if he really has any great abil­i­ties at all. In fact I’m not totally sure the char­ac­ter even existed except for in the mind of the protagonist.

The story is about a young and tal­ented gym­nast who is train­ing to be in the Olympics. He is hav­ing the time of his life but some­thing isn’t quite right for him. It starts in his dreams and leads him to a gas sta­tion atten­dant played by Nick Nolte who offers to teach him the way of the war­rior but in order for him to go to the next level, he has to leave some of him­self behind. The lead is played by a young actor named Scott Mechlow­icz who I’ve never seen before. He car­ries the part well and is believ­able in gym­nas­tic action even if it’s prob­a­bly not him in those parts. I enjoyed the whole movie and left it feel­ing inspired. I give this film a 4 out of 5 marks.

05.02.2010 Drama, Sport No Comments

Blindness

Sunday, January 31st, 2010

Blind­ness is a kind of ‘end of the world’ movie. Here the demise of mankind is their loss of site. You never really find out what causes it but you see it start and spread like any other untreat­able dis­ease. What hap­pens next is the government’s reac­tion to some­thing they can nei­ther con­trol nor stop but that’s not all of the story. The movie really seems to find it’s stride when it explores what hap­pens to a spe­cific group of blind peo­ple over time once they’re rounded up. Things become very intense and the film paints a tragic and depress­ing pic­ture of what human­ity might become or per­haps already is.

There are a few famililar faces in this movie. Julianne Moore plays the wife of an Eye Doc­tor who is played by Mark Ruf­falo. Julianne’s char­ac­ter is some­how immune to the dis­ease and shares that secret with her sight­less hus­band. The dis­ease does not dis­crim­i­nate so peo­ple of all kinds includ­ing, doc­tors, pros­ti­tutes, thieves, would-be philoso­phers, and chil­dren find them­selves herded together and form­ing a forced com­mu­nity. It get’s really bad towards the end and parts seem to resem­ble ‘Lord of the Flies’.

I don’t think I liked any char­ac­ter in this film but that didn’t stop me from watch­ing it through to the end. Watch­ing human­ity devolve day by day until they are lit­tle more than filthy ani­mals held my atten­tion sur­pris­ingly well. I give this movie a 4 out of 5 marks.

31.01.2010 Drama, Mystery, Romance, Thriller No Comments

Bound

Sunday, January 17th, 2010

Bound is a crime thriller writ­ten and directed by the Wachowski broth­ers, the same guys who wrote and directed The Matrix. This movie is no Matrix but it is a great movie nonethe­less. It’s a noir kind of film and every­one in it is dirty. I say that to express that there are no inno­cents here. Jen­nifer Tilly and Gina Ger­shon pro­vide mul­ti­ple scenes of girl on girl action and at first I thought that was all the movie was going to be. I might have been sat­is­fied with that too but then the movie turned into this mob movie com­plete with money laun­der­ing, hit­men, blood, and Joe Pan­to­liano shout­ing and wav­ing a gun. I had no idea how it was going to end.

The sex between Jen­nifer Tilly and Gina Gershon’s char­ac­ters was intense but not out­ra­geous. Both women played their part well and their sex­u­al­ity seemed to ooze from the screen and believe it or not, with­out the sex, the rest of the movie wouldn’t have worked. Once it started being all about the money, the film leapt into sus­pense mode and never let up until the movie was all but over. It’s easy to know who to root for but since every­one in this movie is a bad guy of some sort, you just don’t know for sure until it’s over. Joe Pan­to­liano was at his mani­a­cal best in this film, almost as if the role was made  for him. I enjoyed this movie from begin­ning to end and give it an enthu­si­as­tic 4.5 out of 5 marks.

17.01.2010 Crime, Drama, Thriller No Comments

Sugar

Thursday, January 14th, 2010

Sugar tells the story of a young man from the Domini­can Repub­lic who tries to make a career for him­self in base­ball. He’s a pitcher and his ulti­mate goal is to play for a pro team in the USA and pitch in Yan­kee Sta­dium. Sugar, the char­ac­ter is very like­able and easy to feel for. He has to suc­ceed not only to pur­sue his own dreams but to help his fam­ily. He is young and in over his head for most, if not all, of the film. It would be easy to say this movie is all about the plight of it’s title char­ac­ter but that wouldn’t be quite right. It’s about the Amer­i­can dream, what some peo­ple will go through to get it and what can hap­pen to them if they fall short. It’s also about immigration.

You’re not likely to rec­og­nize any of the films char­ac­ters. Since the main char­ac­ter is from the DR, and part of the story takes place there, most of the movie is in Span­ish so if that’s not your lan­guage then you’ll need to invoke the sub­ti­tles. That doesn’t take away from the film thought. It is sur­pris­ing engag­ing and heart warm­ing as well, though not overly so. This wouldn’t have been a film I would have taken a chance on in the the­ater but I found it to be a great film to watch at home in inti­mate com­pany. I give it a 3 and a half out of 4 marks. It came close to get­ting a 4.

14.01.2010 Drama, Sport No Comments

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