Movie Reviews

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
  • IMDB: link

The lens of childhood innocence is a powerful method to shine light on many subjects.  In The Boy in the Striped Pajamas the son of a Concentration Commandant befriends a young Jew in the “farm” next door.  As events slowly unfold young Bruno (Asa Butterfield) discovers the world isn’t the simple place he once believed.

Bruno is a normal 8 year-old boy with a loving mother (Vera Farmiga), a protective older sister (Amber Beattie), and a father (David Thewlis) who he is proud of.  Oh, did I forget to mention that the film is set in Germany during WWII and Bruno’s father is an SS officer?

When his father takes a promotion the family moves from Berlin to a fortified house in the country, near what Bruno takes for a farm filled with strange people in striped pajamas.  When he inquires about the new neighbors Bruno is ordered to stay far away, which, for a inquisitive, curious 8 year-old, is the perfect temptation.

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Twilight

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Twilight
  • IMDB: link

Capturing the sparkle of a diamond in the rough Twilight accomplishes its destiny. Twilight is a film to be reckoned with amongst teenage girls and fans of the novel series; even though it is not great, I would say it’s handsome nonetheless. The film itself is awkward and lacking a bit of finesse, but isn’t a monstrosity.

Twilight pulls on the uncomfortable realities in moving to a new school, state for that matter, and making new friends. It captures the awkwardness of first love and peaks our interests with a new perspective and persona for a vampire, a vegan vampire. No sharp pointy fangs, no spattering of blood and a complete lack of conformity for monster like features and going up in flames.

The film jumps from what could have been this generation’s The Lost Boys and moves into a better attempt at supernatural love and teenage interest than Blood and Chocolate or The Covenant.

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Synecdoche

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Synecdoche, New York
  • IMDB: link

“Knowing that you don’t know is the first essential step to knowing, you know?”

Caden (Philip Seymour Hoffman) is a theater director dealing with a myriad of problems, both physical and emotional which includes his inability to understand the passage of time (he can’t tell the difference between a few weeks and a few years), postules, eye and teeth issues, and his unsuccessful relationships with women (Catherine Keener, Michelle Williams, Samantha Morton, and others).

Into this dysfunctional existence comes a MacArthur genius grant (seemingly funded until the end of time) which allows Caden to create his own masterpiece.  Decades later the project takes up several square blocks, employs hundreds, has become a mirror to Caden’s failures (complete with extras who begin playing the extras, who have now themselves become characters in the play), and is no closer to being finished.

That’s about all I can tell you about the plot since its dreamlike nature makes it hard to say how much, or how little, is reality or Caden’s wild imaginings.

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Quantum Offers No Solace

/ / Movie Reviews, Theme Week
  • Title: Quantum of Solace
  • IMDb: link

“There is something horribly deficient about you.”

One word summarizes the latest Bond film – disappointment.  If Casino Royale was a step in the right direction in rebooting the franchise Quantum of Solace takes at least three steps back.  In the hands of a director who had never helmed an action picture, with a script not based on a Fleming story, and with few (almost none) of the Bond trademarks, Quantum of Solace fails to impress.  And the real tragedy is they should have known better…

The film picks up immeadiately after the events of Casino Royale (read that review).  After the worst car chase montage ever shown in a Bond film, more on that later, 007 (Daniel Craig) delivers Mr. White (Jesper Christensen) to M (Judi Dench) for interrogation.

Before escaping, with relative ease (and a confusing moment where no one, including the director or the four screenwriters it seems, are sure if M is shot), White informs MI:6 that they are hopelessly outmatched by his secret origination with its hands in intelligence organizations worldwide.

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Bond Reloaded

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Casino Royale
  • IMDb: link

Move over Pierce Brosnan, there’s a new Bond in town. Feeling some disconnect with James Bond and the movie going audience a new direction for the franchise was decided on.  Bond would be reborn.  The producers decided the series would relaunch the character in the present day still new to the game, snubbing their nose at 42 years of continuity and character development and removing him out of the crucible of the Cold War which formed him.

MI6 agent James Bond (Daniel Craig) is promoted to 00-status and given a license to kill, but gets in trouble on his first mission, which creates a PR nightmare.  M (Judi Dench) sends him on vacation only to discover Bond is continuing his mission in the Bahamas, tracking down a banker, Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen), who launders money for many of the world’s terrorist organizations.

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