The Bridge on River Kwai

I recently watched The Bridge on River Kwai for two reasons. One being that it is one of my dad's favorites (and he generally doesn't love movies). The second reason is that it is a classic. It is definately a classic, and for good reason. The story is really quite tense, even though there are little to no action sequences. There's definate ethical issues being brought up about how we treat people during war, about facing daunting issues which need to be addressed, and about getting lost in our own initiatives that we lose sight of our duties and core beliefs. And uh oh yeah they whistle a famous tune.

What really kept me eagerly watching the entire time was the...well...it's really hard to say. Maybe I haven't thought it all the way through, but maybe not. I think it may be as simple as the plot structure. And there are definately strong characters. There's the unfair commander of the prison camp where the story takes place. And a captured American who's trying to escape, because the camp is extremely tough and they will probably all end up dying anyway. If there is a main character in the story, it might be a newly arrived British general, who demands (as the Geneva convention decrees) the commanding officers not do hard labor. He spends days and days in what's called the "hotbox," a tiny metal box, which almost kills him. He sticks through it and the commander finally gives in to reason. And then they start building the bridge, the right way. And, as the British officers says, everyone will remember what a great job the British army did while building the bridge. And the American, who ends up escaping, could find himself revisiting the prison he spent so much time in.

This movie is really a masterpiece and I loved it. I really wasn't paying attention to how long it was or whether it was good or not while watching it. I was just fixated on all the characters, the plot, the story. And it came out being somewhat philosophical in a way. This is an amazing movie which i loved wholeheartedly. And, one of the last lines was perfect. "Madness. This is madness!"

Gran Torino

If you're unfamiliar, Gran Torino is the new Clint Eastwood movie claimed as "vintage Eastwood." In the commercials, Eastwood growls the phrase "Get off my lawn." The movie may seem like another Dirty Harry or something like that by the way the commercials run, but it's really not very close.

Eastwood plays an elderly character who is extremely blunt and abrasive to everyone around him, including his neighbors, all of which are of several different ethnicities from himself. He is a Vietnam vet dealing with some issues, one being that his recently deceased wife asking a young priest to get a confession out of him. And some trouble arises when a local gang is trying to recruit his next-door neighbor.

The movie is full of racial slurs, but in a healthy way. Yes. A healthy way. Really very funny cultural conflicts arise when he finds himself at a party where he is the only white guy in the room. And this movie is full of spiritual content, which really makes it very three dimensional. It's a really different role for Eastwood, and he does such a great job that the movie was very fun to watch the entire time. There's racial issues, spiritual issues, and basic human issues of dealing with the past. This movie has great humorous parts, and great serious parts, all in the same step. This is a movie I was expecting mild entertainment from and instead was blown away. Finally, 2008 has some more real Academy Award material with some of the movies that came out at the end of the year. Great stuff.

Ghost World

Ghost World is the first film that we have watched in the Beyond Hollywood J-term class. It's an independant film made in 2001. It has Scarlett Johansson, Thora Birch, and Steve Buscemi (Thora was in American Beauty and Buscemi in Fargo). They, along with many others, play a set of really original and excellent characters which by themselves really start to pull together a certain theme, of which we discussed after it was over.

The main character is Enid, played by Birch. She and her lifetime friend don't want to act like all the preps, jocks, nerds, suckups, etc. They really put the 'rebel' act on quite potently. And they're up for anything, including looking through classified adds and playing a trick on Buscemi's character, Seymore. When Enid gets to know Seymore, though, she discovers he has an amazing taste in music and a room she calls her "dream room." Seymore is much older than Enid and there's really not much of a romantic interest, but they really become good friends and love listening to real music. And it's Enid's mission to get Seymore a date. She is somebody, but she is extremely unlikeable. Why? She seems really fake. There's nothing really special about her. This becomes a problem to Enid.

The story is really centered around the characters. Some are funny, some contribute more to the theme, some are just kind of there. With Enid's personality and the way she reacts, this is a really refreshing movie trying to search for something true and pure. It's thirsty for authenticity. It's excellent. It's a great movie, and I really recommend checking it out. There were some great moments which really hit home.

Leila

An Iranian film I watched while sitting in on the Beyond Hollywood J-term class. Leila is most definately a great example of a film rich in culture, conflict, and political agenda. And I think it to be near impossible to walk away from and not remember it, or to at least not respect it. That doesn't mean it's fast paced and exciting, or easy to watch. It is difficult, mostly due to subtitles, slow pace, and characters I wished would act differently.

Film is just like literature in that you start to see symbols, literary styles, and can draw different meanings from the same story. Leila is a great example of this, on the level of appealing both to humanity on the level of universal difficulties in relationships within families, and also on the level of being a political satire, which really only became apparent to me about halfway through.

It's a very simple story of a newly married Iranian woman, Leila, and the conflict that arises when she finds out she can't have children with her husband. This is particularly a problem because her husband is the only male in his family, and thus the only one who can carry on the family name (something very important in Iranian culture). He says he doesn't care, however. He loves Leila and will not remarry. Leila never really accepts the fact that her husband could not have children because of her barrenness. But this is mostly due to his mother, who is constantly calling and persuading and almost commanding him to marry someone else so the family can continue on.

How they all react towards each other's situations is really really well played out. That is really what makes this film work so well. And the director, as briefly mentioned after the movie, really knows his stuff visually. And it's too bad that the film has not been digitally transferred, otherwise we could a lot of shots a lot more clearly (it's really dark a fair portion of the movie).

Leila is a great Iranian film which speaks on multiple levels and is rich. For all the reasons I have listed, this one is definately a very great film.

American Teen

American Teen is a documentary filmed in Warsaw, IN. It follows about 5 teenagers at different stages of their senior year. There's a very likeable star basketball player, who's pressured by his father to make as many points as possible so that he can get a scholarship (because the family can't afford to send him to college). There's an awkward outsider, someone who basically loves video games and doesn't have much of a social life, but desperately wants a girlfriend. He fantasizes about his own life being a video game so that he can be a good-looking hero who defeats monsters and saves the girl, who falls in love with him. There's also an artsy girl, an "in-between," neither popular nor unpopular. She finds herself extremely depressed after a difficult breakup, also falling for a guy she didn't expect to (a jock), and she's constantly dreaming of going to college in California to become a movie director and making movies people will remember the rest of their lives. Another teenager is kind of a prep. Her life is centered around dealing with the death of her brother, trying to maintain friendships, and getting accepted to Notre Dame. The others in the documentary are somewhat just related to the previously mentioned characters.

So how do I critique this (as my uncle asked after it was over)? Well, my answer is that I enjoyed it, but it's difficult to critique. It's a cinema verite style documentary, meaning it's focus is not on cinematography or the director's position, but just hearing directly from people and editing it together. It seeks truth, to not slight what these teens were going through. Although I would say this documentary is not truly cinema verite. There are moments when the director does have some input, always as an after effects sequence where it illustrates what the teenagers are talking about. And they were pretty good. They were funny at times, and it broke up the dialogue very nicely. Speaking of breaking up the dialogue, I think the editting was a definate strong point of the doc.

So it was good. I enjoyed it-> and i think it's fairly representative of high school around the country, not just Warsaw (though there would definately be some differences across the country). While watching it, it was like "Oh, yeah. I remember why I didn't want to go to prom, why i didn't go to the basketball games, why I was nervous about picking my major and where to go to college."

Having said all of that, American Teen just kind of ends like that. It seems like it could be more. It was good, but I don't know how someone could justify calling it 'really good' or 'great.' But I guess that's my own personal opinion towards cinema verite documentaries in general. I seen several, and all of them were good, but I wouldn't call any of them 'great.' I personally seem to enjoy the ones which have more of a plot, ones with art direction or some interaction between the director and whatever the subject matter is. I mean, that's where using creativity to show something that you think is really cool (as a director) can be captivating. And some actually think that cinema verite is the only true documentary form. I just think it can be so limiting that you can really miss out on making a really cool documentary in the process. But i appreciate the goals of cinema verite directing-> to not misrepresent people or events, but to show them as they are. But my personal tastes i guess are slighted towards something more cinematic, more 3-dimensional.

American Teen is a good cinema verite style documentary following 5 or so teenagers during their senior year of high school. Definately worth watching. If nothing else, it's sure to be nostalgic.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

I saw it with my sister and brother-in-law, not really expecting that great of a story or movie going into it. I figured I could guess the entire plot from the first 10 minutes or from the trailer I had seen. I was wrong.

Though the movie is not without it's shortcomings, it really worked. It was a really magical story, not just some movie trying to be magical. And I didn't know Cate Blanchett would be in it (she is one of my favorite actors/actresses). It's style visually really helped it by being both stunning and properly setting moods. It had really great characters and interesting development.

Sometimes little things in it just didn't work or seemed forced, but its really not much, and doesn't take much away from the movie. The two things i can think of right now are a butterfly that shows up a few times and having Hurricane Katrina in there seemed forced and out of place.

If you are unfamiliar with the main character, he is born with a disease where he is born old and grows to be young (based off of a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald). This seems far fetched, but it doesn't seem so in the movie, which has a gritty spiritualism. Benjamin Button, as a result of starting old, is faced with adults situations while not yet being mature. I love the movies where the plot is based off of a character growing up. Anyways, I really recommend this movie. I went into it not expecting too much, but was extremely entertained and satisfied walking out. I would talk more about some of the themes in the movie, but I really don't want to ruin the plot for anybody who may read this and hasn't seen it yet. And I'm tired of typing.

The Spirit

I just came back from watching The Spirit at the Huntinton 7 and I have mixed feelings about it. It definately accelled in some areas, and seemed to totally ignore others.

It worked as a comic book. It failed as a movie.

The Good:

The strongest point of the movie was the visuals. It had the comic book visuals which were beautiful and very stylistic. Very bold, bright colors contrasted with black and white. And shades in between. And it had very good cinematography-> shot to shot, it worked visually. And the third strength was Samuel L. Jackson as "The Octopus." He was a perfect fit, and went all-out with it. And he added some strength to the acting all around. If he wasn't there, I probably would've lost interest an hour into the movie and just walked out.

The Bad:

As I mentioned, the only strong actor in the movie was Samuel L. Jackson. Everyone else was just kind of "there." They said their lines and made each sentance as dramatic as possible. Some may say that that is just part of the comic book style: to have the characters be simple and bold and spur on the whole comic book theme. And I agree; it does work as a comic book. It fell flat as a movie. With Miller not really having Rodriguez there for this movie, you can really see all of Miller's strengths and the absense of Rodriguez's strengths. This movie needed a director. And the writing was really quite poor. If you haven't already seen the movie and are planning to, don't count on well-developed characters or a good satisfying plot.

The Low-down:

Excellent stylistic visuals, one good actor, bad writing, little directing skills, tight transitions, unsatisfying plot or characters. If you want to watch a visually appealing comic book for 1 hr. 45 min., but don't really care about character development, plot, or timing, you can definately have fun watching The Spirit. But if you do, watch it on the big screen. It won't be worth renting when it comes out.