7 posts tagged “movies”

"Chop Shop" is the first movie in awhile to get my Queue Worthy rating.

It's a 2007 movie about Alejandro, a Latino street kid who works in an auto-body shop on the outskirts of Queens, New York, and his sister Isamar.

The relationship between the two actors portraying Alejandro and Isamar is one of the key reasons I recommend this movie. Their way of speaking to each other, laughing together, and their movements convey a bond that exists well beyond the realm of the movie, even though the two actors had never met before filming.

The snap shop of life into Willets Point is another reason for watching this film. Basically a sprawling junkyard in the shadow of Shea Stadium, Willets Point is an example of the forgotten parts of America, where hardscrabble lives are endured daily. I'm always intrigued by these places, amazed they exist in what passes for a modernized nation.

Watching someone as young as Alejandro navigate his way through this world, exhibiting both child-like and adult behavior makes for a fascinating movie.

In So Much So Fast, Academy Award-nominated directors Steven Ascher and Jeanne Jordan capture the remarkable events set in motion when Stephen Heywood discovers he has amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease.

"I started having problems with my right hand when I was working," Stephen recalls. "I went to [Massachusetts General Hospital] for further testing, where unfortunately I did find damage in my other limbs. … I started figuring out what I wanted to do with the rest of my life."

We watched So Much, So Fast on Frontline last night and I cannot shake this film.

I cannot shake the unfairness of disease. The randomness of it.

A friend of mine has been talking to me about the law of attraction recently, and up until last night I was almost into it. In a nutshell the law of attraction says that our thoughts bring things into our lives. Positive thinking results in good things happening, and vice-versa. Makes sense to me, or it did. Now I'm calling bullshit.

There is no way that Stephen Heywood attracted ALS. In the film, Stephen's wife says "One day I said 'I can't fucking believe you have fucking ALS.' and he goes 'Eh, random.'

Babel, like Crash, is one of those movies that stick with you. It's grim and not very uplifting, but powerful.

The word babel is taken from an Old Testament story. Here is a summary from Wikipedia:

According to Genesis 11:1-9, mankind, after the deluge, traveled from the mountain where the ark had rested, and settled in 'a plain in the land of Shinar' (or Senaar). Here, they attempted to build a city and a tower whose top might reach unto Heaven, the Tower of Babel.

The attempt to build the Tower of Babel had angered God who, in his anger, made each person involved speak a different language which ultimately halted the project and scattered and disconnected the people across the planet.

Babel focuses on four such scattered families who are loosely connected by a hunting rifle that has changed hands over the years. Each of these families speak in its own language; Arabic, Spanish, Sign/Japanese, and English through the use of subtitles. Many will tout this movies as one that explores the interconnectedness of us all, and while it does that to some extent I feel the underlying study of sheer confusion and despair is more important.

I've had one scene in my mind for days. In it Cheiko, a deaf-mute Japanese girl, is in the middle of a crowded Tokyo nightclub. Hundreds of sweaty teenage bodies swirl around her, moving to the beat of hard, fast techno, while she stands still. The viewer alternately hears the music and then do not, invoking Cheiko's version of the world. This idea of being trapped by our own language barriers and other limits are what really made the movie worthwhile for me.

Idiocracy comes from the mind of Mike Judge, the same writer/director behind Office Space, and is probably destined to become another cult hit.

The story follows Private Joe Bowers who is put in hibernation for an army experiment originally supposed to last for one year. Of course things go awry and Bowers awakens 500 years later to find that America has become incredibly dumb, leaving him to be the smartest man in the world.

The first few minutes are hilarious, but the movie seriously falters from there. Judge and co-writer Etan Coen have a wonderful premise here, but it's not executed as well as it could have been. Idiocracy is still watchable and though not as funny as Office Space, it still has its share of quotable lines.

Judge has created a wonderful satire of our present culture and has painted a not-impossible version of our future. Sadly what he designed as comedy could have a basis in reality sooner than we think.

We finally watched Little Miss Sunshine last night and I enjoyed every minute of it. A funny and poignant film, deserving of all the buzz surrounding it. It's definitely Oscar worthy so if you've yet to see it do so now.

Pan's Labyrinth, directed by Guillermo del Toro.

Del Toro has created a movie that is both visually and mentally stunning, full of monsters both real and fantastical. Your eyes and mind are equally challenged and sated by the Spanish-born director's latest triumph.

The story centers around young Ofelia and del Toro does a wonderful job of helping us see the world through her child's eyes. As the movie opens Ofelia is travelling with her mother to live with her new stepfather, Captain Vidal at his garrison. The Spanish Civil War has just ended and Vidal is leading a group of fascist soldiers against the rebel uprising.

Monsters abound in this film, but Vidal is chief among them. His cruelty is held in check for no one and Ofelia hates him despite the fact that he is the father of her unborn baby brother. Ofelia has always read fairy tales to escape the life around her, and as one springs to life amidst this bleak backdrop she cannot help being swallowed by it entirely.

This movie is a fairy tale, but one decidedly in the Grimm vein. Once the violent acts begin Del Toro never lets up on the viewer, but it is far from gratuitous. Yes Ofelia does confront monsters in the fantasy world--the Pale Man who has to place in own eyes in the palms of his hand to see is a cinematic delight--but her greatest test comes when she faces Vidal, a man completely twisted by ideology.

Peter Travers of Rolling Stone writes "[Del Toro] means for us to leave Pan's Labyrinth shaken to our souls. He succeeds triumphantly."