The Day after Xmas...

It is always an excellent day when I enjoy two trips to the theater! The day after Christmas, I did just that--I saw The Curious Case of Benjamin Button during the day and then Valkyrie at night. I enjoyed both films, despite Tom Cruise's "Tom-Cruise-ness" (he plays every role virtually the same way but I do not by any means hate that about him. It's a bit reassuring in some ways, something you can confidently rely on). Button, a film about a man who ages backwards, of course causes one to consider aging and death as being a natural part of life...and in addition may cause consideration of the drawbacks of doing what many stars try to do with botox and plastic surgery--reverse aging. Cate Blanchett is wonderful, as per usual, as the ballet dancing love-interest (and looks absolutely stunning due to make-up and lighting as she plays her character in her early 20s). Brad Pitt also manages to maintain--unlike Cruise in his film about a German soldier in which no one even remotely attempts a German accent--a decent New Orleans accent, at least to me. One of my favorite parts of the film which stayed with me long after I left, was a point at which Button relays the sequence of events that led up to a particular incident in the story, examining the reality of the intertwining and crossing of people's lives. Thinking about how events or choices that each of us makes can affect others is interesting and this idea came to mind today when the fact that I ran late this morning caused me to be at an unfamiliar bank in the early evening and witness a robbery. Had I just gotten up earlier, I would not have had the need to be at the bank later on.
Valkyrie portrays the story of a group of German politicians and soldiers who were not in support of Hitler and plot his assassination in order to institute a new government into power. What I find particularly interesting about this film is that it tells another side of the story; most films portraying Germans in World War II essentially present all Germans as in support of Hitler and/or as Nazi soldiers. (Another exception that comes to mind is Black Book which also reveals the resistance to Hitler's policies on the part of a Nazi soldier). The evils that Hitler did could not possibly have been supported by all Germans and I was glad to watch a film that recognizes and portrays this truth.

Quantum of Solace

Though I would by no means call myself a fan of Bond films, I nonetheless have a softspot for Daniel Craig as the new, rugged (and for most of both this film and Casino Royale, considerably beat-up) James Bond. Sure, Pierce Brosnan had the debonair looks that seemed to fit the character but Craig can pull off the action sequences like no other--and then clean-up exceptionally well. Quantum of Solace is fast-paced, slick and fun--and therefore recommended by Cineblog as a good-time action flick.

There are a couple of instances with impressive and eye-catching camera work by director Marc Forster. One shot in particular takes place during an altercation between Bond and an adversary--as they are falling together down through a window, if I remember correctly, the camera initially watches them fall away and then catches up in a really interesting way. Probably took a long time to get it just right. Quantum also makes use of some fun one-liners (Bond: "He was a dead-end," M: "Oh, no, he killed him, too!") that make for a good mix of action and comic-relief.

A couple things missing, however, are the fancy cars that formerly populated the Pierce Brosnan Bond films (outside of the very first sequence, cars are mostly Fords or Bond girl Camille (Olga Kurylenko)'s VW bug, which will surely disappoint some viewers. And no fancy gadgets from Q or R (both of whom are missing from the film as well) although the computer system at MI6 is fancy and reminiscent of a certain Tom Cruise vehicle called Minority Report...

Overall, a good time and worth the money to see it explode and crash on the big screen. So what are you waiting for?!

Oh, and one last note: Guess who, to my surprise, played bad-guy Dominic Greene? None other than the man playing the pivotal main role in The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. Interesting choice to follow-up with...

Tonight I watched a film that has been highly recommended to me...and as with most of us I think, when something comes highly recommended it almost always falls short. I felt the film was thought-provoking and had some very interesting camera work but unfortunately, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly just did not hit the note that other films (The Painted Veil as an example off of the tip of my nose) have done. It seems strange to say this but I truly felt like it should have! It is a sad yet inspirational story about a man who overcomes the most extreme form of disability to write a best-selling book--a most tedious task as each letter had to be said through the blink of an eye--but I was still disappointed. Maybe I wanted to know more about his actual life so as to understand who he was before. Although I suppose when you get down to it that was not the point now, was it?

The film shows us glimpses of his life before his accident: his trip with a lover to a city named Lourdes, him giving his father a shave and their interaction (it is apparent that he cares a lot for his father and that their relationship is a close one). For most of the film, however, these flashbacks and the dialogue of his visitors do not give us the impression that Jean-Do was a necessarily good man before his accident: he cheated on the mother of his children with a flighty, beautiful (and fair-weather) young woman; he never called a friend whom was a prisoner for four years in Beirut, etc. But upon further thought, it becomes apparent that Jean-Do is not a bad man--he is just human. We all make mistakes , say and do things we regret, but we are just doing the best that we can.

The former prisoner comes to visit Jean-Do and reminds him to hold on to his humanity...Which is, I suppose, a good mantra for us all. Hold on to your humanity, world.

I would love to start off my blog discussing a wonderful, independent film that completely astounded and amazed me--Unfortunately, the last one that I saw (Snow Angels) supremely disappointed me. So instead, I'm going to tell you how much I enjoyed Get Smart. Although not an academy award winner, this film definitely made me chuckle and there are a couple of one-liners that are pretty clever. (One of my favorites is when the Chief compliments Max on his essay about existentialism and Max says that he left it blank--and the Chief thought that was genius!) What I really wanted tonight was to have a laugh and Get Smart accomplished that with flying colors. Of course, some of the funny parts were seen in the preview but there is enough leftover to do the job. And I even laughed at the stuff I had seen before. All in all, a bit of fluff that I found pretty enjoyable. On a scale of four stars, I give it a 2 1/2 for cute fun.

Now to get a bit more serious--there is a must-see film that I had the opportunity to watch at the Chicago International Film Festival: The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. If you have the opportunity to see this film, do so. It examines the Holocaust through the curious eyes of an eight year old and truly puts the evil that adults do to one another in perspective. His innocent inquiries into the logic behind what is being done to his friend and others in the concentration camp effectively emphasizes the inhumanity of the atrocities that were committed during World War II.