Drama

What’s the Count?

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: 21
  • IMDB: link

“In Vegas you can become anyone you want.”

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The movie centers around Ben Campbell (Jim Sturgess), a promising mathematican at MIT who has been accepted to Harvard Medical School but lacks the funds to enroll.

Ben is approached by one of his professors (Kevin Spacey) and offered a unique opportunity to join a team of talented students (Kate Bosworth, Aaron Yoo, Liza Lapira, Jacob Pitts) who count cards in Vegas during the weekend.  At first Ben refuses the offer, but the temptation is strong, especially when the girl he has lusted over for months, Jill (Bosworth), begs him to join the team.  And after all Ben can always stop after he earns enough for school.  Yeah, right.

When the film deals with temptation, it works amazingly well.  Ben is thrust into a world, despite his intelligence and talent, he is ill-prepared for.  He becomes disconnected from his best friends (Josh Gad, Sam Golzari), lies to his mother (Helen Carey), and becomes completely infatuated with winning and the new lifestyle which comes with it.

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Wake Up!

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

“I’m pretending not to hate my life.”
 

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Joleen (Charlize Theron) is a mess.  She can’t raise her daughter Tara (AnnaSophia Robb) and has just been evicted.  Unable to deal with the harsh realities of her life, she pawns off her daughter on her only slightly more stable brother James (Nick Stahl), and takes off (for most of the film’s running time), without saying goodbye, with promises to return after she hits it big.

Trouble is James is almost as big a screw-up as his sister and promptly loses both his apartment and his job.  Tara is shipped off to Social Services and James goes off to live in a friend’s (Woody Harrelson) basement.

By this point your obviously wondering what the point of the film is.  I was too.  In fact after watching the entire thing I’m still unsure.

Unable to abandon Tara as her mother did James kidnaps her and takes her on a road trip back home to the farm where he and Joleen were raised.  There Tara meets her grandfather (Dennis Hopper) who, let’s just say doesn’t stand a good chance at winning grandfather of the year.

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The Other Boleyn Girl

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: The Other Boleyn Girl
  • IMDB: link

“Our daughters are being traded like cattle for the advancement of men.”

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The story centers around the two Boleyn girls.  The older, more conniving Anne (Natalie Portman) and the sweeter, though simpler, Mary (Scarlett Johansson), are thrust into a world of societal intrigue and deception for which neither is prepared.

The bond between the sisters is put to the test when their father (Mark Rylance) and uncle (David Morrissey) ask Anne to attempt to seduce King Henry VIII (Eric Bana) and become his new mistress, only to discover he prefers the attentions of the other Boleyn girl – Mary.

What follows are schemes upon schemes, plotting, lies and deceptions which will leave England a far different country, and the Boleyn girls far worse for wear.

The story was adapted by Peter Morgan (The Queen) from the historical novel by Philippa Gregory.  Although the novel became a best seller, the film always seems to be grasping for what made the story work on the printed page.

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War/Dance

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: War/Dance
  • IMDB: link

“In my heart I am more than a child of war.”
 

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The film tells the tales of three children – Nancy, Dominic, and Rose – from the Acholi tribe in the Pantongo region of northern Uganda.  These children live in a refugee camp among 60,000 other members of their tribe, displaced by a violent terrorist group known as the Lord’s Resistance Army.  Each has harrowing tales of tragedy to tell.

As the film opens these children, along with many others from the camp, are training and working towards winning the national dance competition in the town of Kampala.  This is the first time a primary school from a camp such as this has earned a spot in the final competition and the children hope to do honor to their tribe and bring a trophy home.

The documentary from Sean Fine and Andrea Nix does many things well including capturing the look and feel of the various settings in the film from the camp, to the open bush, to Kampala.  Facts and statistics are also inserted throughout the film in way that doesn’t make them seem forced or distracting.

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Meet the Savages

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: The Savages
  • IMDb: link

The SavagesWritten and directed by Tamara Jenkins (Slums of Beverly Hills) The Savages tells the tale of a dysfunctional family brought back together to deal with illness and the hovering specter of death.  With a bittersweet tone, finding humor in human frailty and the stark drama, it’s a film definitely worth you time.

Jon Savage (Philip Seymour Hoffman) is a college professor and writer of scholarly work in Buffalo.  Wendy Savage (Laura Linney) works temp jobs and is a struggling playwright in New York City.  The pair are brought back together to deal with their estranged father’s (Philip Bosco) increasing dementia and failing health.

This is a film about the tough choices and circumstances families go through with the ailing of their parents.  It doesn’t shy away from the pain and guilt inherent in the tough but necessary choices so many families are put through dealing with parents who can no longer take care of themselves.

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