Category: Films

Happiness [1998]

Director: Todd Solondz
Actor: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Lara Flynn Boyle, Dylan Baker

If I could sue a movie for false advertising, I’d sue this one…Happiness, is not about happiness at all. It’s about failed relationships, loneliness and sexual deviancy. It’s about not getting what you crave, and when you do, it turning out to be a pile of dirt, instead of the pile of gold you were hoping for.

Mr. Solondz seminal work is incredibly well acted, beautifully shot, making very good use of colours to set the mood and the tone of the scenes, and it manages to portray bad people, with dispicable sexual preverences, as normal human beings, who have some serious issues to deal with.

A good movie. Honestly. Go see. Off you go.

The Life of David Gale [2003]

Director: Alan Parker
Actor: Kevin Spacey, Kate Winslet

This is a story of a learn’d man falling from grace, in jail for a murder he claims not to have committed, and ending up on death row, about to be executed. He agrees to an interview with a very specific journalist, and tries to get her to expose the real killers. The twist? The man was an avid activist against capital punishment.

Nice movie, very political without it feeling political. A bit too much drama, and far too easy a plot. I had it figured out way to soon. Good for a sunday afternoon.

Chicago [2002]

Director: Rob Marshall
Actor: Renée Zellweger, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Richard Gere, Queen Latifah
Cinematographer: Dion Beebe

Ahem. Very impressive dancing and singing, especially by Zeta-Jones and Queen Latifah, but please…for the love of everything that is interesting; was it so hard to include a bit of story!?

The Crow [1994]

Director: Alex Proyas
Actor: Brandon Lee, David Patrick Kelly, Michael Wincott, Ernie Hudson

This movie is pretty old, and doesn’t need a review. Anyone who claims to be a movie-buff and hasn’t seen it yet should go and stand in a corner and be thoroughly ashamed of himself. Instead, this post is a praise.

In short, this movie is about a man, who, together with his girlfriend, gets killed by thugs the night before they are to be wed, as a result of them spearheading a fight against a forced tenant relocation plan for their building. The thugs, ordered by the local crime lord, are to put a scare in them, but things get out of hand, and both die.

The man comes back to life, one year later, to take his revenge on the killers. Not only does he come back to life, but he seems to be invulnerable and he has some super-natural abilities to help him on his way. Guided by a crow, his link to the realm of the dead, and the source of his super-natural powers, he makes his way through a nightmarish urban setting in search of the killers.

This movie simply oozes atmosphere. With a relatively low budget, but with an incredibly sense of underlying urban horror, simply superb lighting and excellent cinematography, this movie has long-since been in top three of my favourite movie-list.

I’m going to have to channel Cazmonster: This movie has so much cool it hurts.

Frida [2002]

Director: Julie Taymor
Actor: Salma Hayek, Alfred Molina, Antonio Banderas, Ashley Judd, Edward Norton

The story is a biography of the life of Frida Khalo, a Mexican artist who, at a very young age gets injured in an accident. Shortly thereafter he career as a political activist and painter takes off, when she meets her future husband Diego Rivera, an artist, the leader of the communist party, and big-time womaniser. They fall in love and get married, which is the beginning of a long and stormy relationship, which fuels Frida’s artistic talent as much as her injury and her life of constant physical pain fueled her talent.

From her accident, to her trips abroad, through her entire relationship, right past her stormy affair with Leon Trotsky, to the moment when her body has completely given up on her.

I found the movie to be…plain, but not in a bad way. The special affects were sober, added a lot of feeling to the movie by bringing the artistic aspect come to life by shooting some of the scenes in a surrealistic way. The acting was superb. From Ms. Hayek’s excellent performance in which she obviously put a lot of work in, to Mr. Molina’s role, to Mr. Norton’s small, but fitting part as a Rockefeller…to the long forgotten dude who played Q on Star Trek as Russian dissident Leon Trotsky.