Ondine (2009)

An Irish fisherman finds a mysterious woman in his net. His daughter believes the woman is a silkie, a mythical creature who takes the form of a seal and also a woman. 

    This is a rather sweet movie. It uses a very interesting concept to explore what truth is and its mystery keeps you watching. However, I felt it could have been a lot more powerful, and where it fell short is the acting. 

     The main problem I have is the casting of the daughter. She is supposed to be the wonder aspect of the movie, she is the character who drives the fairy-tale of the plot as she becomes convinced this strange woman is a silkie. The actress is sweet to look at, but she is very limited both in her voice dynamics and expressions. If she had inspired tears, the movie could have been much better. Also, I thought Colin Farrell could have improved his diction, he once again proved himself to be the least understandable Irishman EVER, his accent is so thick and so soft it's nearly impossible to hear about 40% of his lines. Other than that, he was decent. The Polish actress who played Ondine had the easiest role, I felt, she just had to look mysterious and alluring, and she did. Kudos to her. 

    The story was good. There were a couple of rather baffling moments, where we ask ourselves: why is this happening? Also, a couple of plot holes. To describe them would be to give the ending away. 

   All in all, this was a good movie, a lot better than most of the romance movies in theaters now, it's very classy, very beautiful, and it doesn't rely on formulaic funny moments or overdone plot twists, whatever surprises we find in the film were set up long before they happen, and so they make sense. 

Toy Story 3 (2010)

The "Toy Story" saga continues in this third installment, which features Woody, Buzz and the gang dealing with their owner, Andy, going off the college. 

   This is a great sendoff to the best trilogy in Hollywood. Everything about "Toy Story" is brilliant - the characters, the story, the animation, the franchise...this third one beautifully sums up all those things that make the movies great. 

    First, the story. It's magnificent. Some might think it's cheesy, but to me, no movies have better summed up the progression of children growing up while maintaining razor-sharp creativity than "Toy Story," and this third one captures the bittersweet aspect of growing up. Andy is going to college. He is moving on from childhood things, including his toys. This is the saddest movie of the three, but also the most touching. The final 5-7 minutes are sheer genius. Oh, and the movie also has hilarious moments. 

    The animation is amazing. Technology has come so far from the original Toy Story done in 1995, it's incredible the kinds of expressions these toys can have. The 3D is done very well, it's not distracting, it gives the movie that beautiful layered look. My favorite scene in the movie involves a tortilla and toys parts, and it amazed me how funny just those few simple items could be. 

    Pixar is absolutely brilliant. They spaced these movies out over the course of fifteen years, so when that final goodbye has to inevitably come, you really feel that you know and love these characters. I grew up with them. It also makes me very, very glad none of my toys are actually alive....or are they? 

    

Paris (2009)

A French film centered around the lives of various Parisians explores the culture of Paris and humanity in general

   More foreign films. This was my first French movie and it was VERY French. The film style was decidedly not American or German, the music was all very jazz-techno-cafe-like, and the acting was so natural some might see it as simply bad acting. However, it was a charming movie that very closely detailed just a short while in our characters' lives. 

    The color of the movie was interesting to me. It was all very brown, gray, and other pale colors. The only real color was in flashbacks of one of the characters, a sick ex-Cabaret dancer who wears a silver suit and blood-red shirt. It rained a lot in the movie, too, or snowed. It looked rather drab, but it added to the grungy realism. 

    The acting as stated before, was very natural. The emotions were raw, characters were neither bad nor good, and most of them were very confusing. Like real people. 

    This is a very long movie. It's over 2 hours, and I wouldn't recommend it as a first foreign-movie experience. It's so European that American audiences would find it tedious. As a film though, it's very well-done, if a little disappointing. 

The Young Victoria (2009)

The story of Queen Victoria's rise to the throne and her love for Prince Albert

   This is a cute movie, if any movie about English monarchy can be called "cute." A lot of people might find it very dull, as nothing terribly dramatic ever happens, but for history buffs and those who understand that true cinematic boredom is found in many films by Merchant & Ivory, it's quite enjoyable. 

    One of its advantages is that it's a short 1 and 44 minutes. It this movie had tried to be a sprawling epic, it would have fell flat. It's not about battles and wars and intrigue, it's about the challenging transition a young woman must undertake when she becomes queen at seventeen. 

   Emily Blunt is very charming as Victoria. She's much prettier than the queen was in reality, but she captures the queen's naivety and desire to work hard well. The actor who plays Prince Albert is also quite good, though very subtle. They have very sweet chemistry. 

    This was not an especially memorable movie, but it's a good family movie as there is no violence, no language, and only one brief sex scene - no nudity- taking place on a wedding night. 

As Far As My Feet Will Carry Me (2001)

Based on a true story, this German and Russian foreign film follows a German prisoner-of-war as he escapes from a Siberian work camp in a dangerous journey to find his way home to his wife and children. 

   Another foreign film. I enjoy them. They're intense and feature pieces of history few are familiar with. This raises interesting questions, like did any of these German soldiers "deserve" their treatment in Russia? Or is this an example of fighting evil with evil? Who should be held responsible for the crimes in WWII? The young German soldier forced to remove all his clothes and stand freezing to death by order of his Russian guard? More than this, it's a look into the strength and determination of one man as he fights to be with his family. 

    Our hero is played by an interesting actor. He captures the desperation and hysteria of a man subjected to things no man should ever be. His antics are both humorous and heart-wrenching. After having traveled across the frozen Siberian wasteland, he sees a small spindly tree and proceeds to run to it, laughing, and throw his arms around it shouting, "Du ist ein Baum!" or in English, "You're a tree!" For most of the movie, his eyes carry complete terror, as would mine no doubt.
    It's a long movie, but it's interesting because of all the different kinds of characters: the brutal Russian officer, the two cutthroat hunters, the indigenous healers our hero encounters, Central Asia street vendors...
   It's an incredible story. It's victorious. 

Heart of Darkness (1993)

A TV movie adaption of Joseph Conrad's iconic novella stars Tim Roth and John Malkovich as the infamous Kurtz. 

     Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" is probably one of my favorite books of all time. The author was able to capture perfectly the evil of King Leopold's conquest in the Congo as personified in the mysterious Kurtz without being preachy or judgmental. It's timelessness is almost horrifying, as that heart of darkness in mankind has risen up again and again, through the Holocaust, ethnic cleansing in Rwanda, modern war crimes, and countless other unnoticed incidents in society. This adaption tries so very hard to imitate what the text accomplished, but it just became rather sad and confusing.

    I thought the location was beautiful. It was exactly what I pictured when I read the book. You could almost see the heat rising off the jungles and the rivers, and there was no actor who wasn't gleaming with sweat and dirt. 

   There wasn't another especially bad with the acting, either. Tim Roth was a little blank, but given the text, Marlowe does seem rather unresponsive to the events around him. Malkovich was decent too, given what little screen time he actually had. I didn't dig the American accent, but that hardly ruined the entire character.

   I think the problem with this adaption was its overuse of symbols and subtlety. There were a lot of seemingly "unnecessary" scenes that one might only understand if the book itself had been analyzed in depth. It was very long, too, over two hours, and not much actually happened. I think "Heart of Darkness" is just one of those books that extremely difficult to transition to the screen. It's Conrad's words that really contain the power of the message, and so trading them in for a script and images waters down that power. "Apocalypse Now" had a better idea, I think: Take the message and change the setting to something fresh and still painful. I believe it served Conrad's message more effectively. 

Robin Hood (2010)

Featuring the "Gladiator" team of Russell Crowe and director Ridley Scott, "Robin Hood" takes a more historical look at the man behind the legend and how he became the outlaw as we know him.

    This movie is very close to being epic. It's not there, but it's so very close. I believe the main flaw was it assumed too much of its audience, it assumed that we were quite familiar with the actual history surrounding Robin Hood and would recognize subtle references to the Magna Carta, the reasons and results of King Richard's Crusade, and the mindset of English royalty as it had existed for many, many years. One viewer who wrote a review on IMDB complained that he/she had no idea what was going on. That's a problem.

     However, for me, a relatively astute historian, I respected the historical approach. The movie really did capture the heart of what was going on that time if not all the details and did an excellent job of setting up a serious, realistic base for Robin Hood's exploits as they exist in legend. It was good to see a Robin Hood movie where our hero doesn't resemble some sort of Medieval court jester and Marian actually has a personality of her own. 

    Speaking of Marian, I am SO glad they cast Cate Blanchett. For a while, they considered Natalie Portman, which would have been atrocious for many reasons, such as she is a terrible actress and way too young for Russell Crowe's somewhat-grizzled Robin. Blanchett proves yet again she can be simultaneously feminine and threatening, playing her Marian as a hard-working woman of the field who loves her family, her village, and her freedom. No way "Padme" or whatever her name is could pull that off. 

    In a nutshell, it's a worthwhile movie. It's very long, but it's definitely a worthy entry in your "Russell-Crowe-with-two-expressions-angry-or-angrier-and-still-somehow-being-completely-baddass-while-doing-it" collection. "Gladiator" is better, but "Robin Hood" is good.