20 March 2011
Cast: Amy Adams, Christian Bale, Mark Wahlberg, Melissa Leo, Mickey O'Keefe
Script: Eric Johnson, Paul Tamasy, Scott Silver
Genre: biopic, sport
Setting: 1990s, Massachusetts
8 Stars
4 Comments
IMDb ; Metacritic Micky Ward is the youngest of a large family. All his life he has looked up to his older brother, Dicky, who once knocked down Sugar Ray Leonard in a fight. But Dicky is no longer the … Continue reading
29 March 2010
Cast: Jae Head, Kathy Bates, Lily Collins, Quinton Aaron, Ray McKinnon, Sandra Bullock, Tim McGraw
Script: John Lee Hancock
Genre: drama, sport
Setting: Dorset, Florida, Texas, USA
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I was a bit uncertain about this film. It sounded just a bit too heart-warming, as though it’d be full of overly sentimental “and everything works out in the end” stuff that makes me think of the flawed philosophy behind stories such as The Pursuit of Happyness:”":http://www.susanhatedliterature.net/2007/01/18/the-pursuit-of-happyness/, you know the sort of victim blaming that says you wouldn’t be poor if only you tried harder.
Luckily enough this film is not like that. Okay, it has the heart-warming aspect. Heart-warming by the bucket-full. But it is told in such a way that you just can’t help but smile.
7 March 2008
Cast: Ciarán Hinds, Daniel Day-Lewis, Paul Dano
Script: Paul Thomas Anderson
Genre: drama
Setting: California
4 Comments
It is hard to know how to describe this film. It is more of a character study than a story. Of course there is some plot, an oilman and his desire to suceed, but the story isn’t too important. What is important is the character of Daniel Plainview, as played by Oscar winning Daniel Day-Lewis.
The opening scenes show just how driven Daniel is. We watch him, working on his own, in a mine. No dialogue at all for around 15 minutes, just this man in a hole, digging, dynamiting up the earth, falling down the hole, injured and yet still having the drive to pull himself out of that hole and struggle back into town to get his bit of dirt evaluated.
20 April 2007
Cast: Martina Gedeck, Sebastian Koch, Thomas Thieme, Ulrich Mühe, Ulrich Tukur
Script: Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck
Genre: drama
Setting: 1980s, Germany
10 Stars
1 Comment
In 1984 in East Germany the secret police, or Stasi were everywhere, watching everything. This film details the activities of one officer, Wiesler, as he monitored a popular playwright. Wiesler doesn’t believe that Dreyman could possibly be as pro the party as he makes out. Too arrogant. So he suggests keeping him under surveillance, just in case. His superior officer doesn’t agree, at first, but then Minister Bruno Hempf mentions that perhaps he isn’t such a fan, and that perhaps Dreyman isn’t a favourite. It turns out that Hempf is more than interested in Dreyman’s girlfriend, the actress Christa-Maria Sieland, and so would like nothing better than to remove his rival by having him arrested and taken away.
11 November 2006
Cast: Asia Argento, Jason Schwartzman, Kirsten Dunst, Marianne Faithfull, Rip Torn, Shirley Henderson, Steve Coogan
Script: Sofia Coppola
Genre: biopic
Setting: 1790s, C18th, France
4 Stars
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8 March 2006
Call no: 920
Cast: Catherine Keener, Clifton Collins Jr., Philip Seymour Hoffman
Script: Dan Futterman
Genre: biopic, true crime
8 Stars
4 Comments
Truman Capote is best known for writing In Cold Blood and Breakfast at Tiffany’s, and this film deals with the six year it took him to write the true crime novel based on the murder of an entire family in … Continue reading
8 January 2006
Cast: Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal
Script: Diana Ossana, Larry McMurtry
Genre: drama, romance, western
Setting: 1960s
10 Stars
2 Comments
In a way it is a pity that this film has received so much press coverage, it’d be interesting to watch it not knowing what was going to happen between Ennis and Jack. But it is pretty much known as … Continue reading
28 November 2003
Cast: James D'Arcy, Paul Bettany, Russell Crowe
Script: John Collee, Peter Weir
Genre: Action, historical fiction
Setting: Britain - Georgian
8 Stars
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Just been to see Master and Commander: The far side of the Ocean and have to say I had a very enjoyable afternoon. Even before the film started I was entertained by the Irish Health Board’s anti-AIDs ad, even if … Continue reading