April 29, 2006

  • Movies I've seen recently...

    Thank You For Smoking (2005)  A

    "Thank You For Smoking" is definitely a movie tailored made for me to love. It's about the
    art of argument and debate more so than anything else, which made for some very
    memorable dialouge. This is a talking heads movie folks, so if that's
    not your thing you may want to look elsewhere. The satire in the film
    is also nicely done, and are very amusing. You got characters arguing
    about who kills the most people, how eccentric the people are who work
    in Hollywood, the easily opinion swayed public, a senator who openly
    admits to wishing their opposition just die, and simply on how
    perception is a very tricky thing.

    Aaron Eckhart got himself another rich character to portray, and he
    plays the part to perfection. I despise smoking myself, but I can't
    help but root for a lobbyist for the tobacco industry. This guy says
    some despicable things, but damn is he brilliantly good at it.

    I'd like to point out though, that there were some visual tricks in the
    first half of the film that was used rather well in showing some
    character backgrounds or even subtitles explaining what a person
    "really meant." But it seems that creative energy runs dry by the half
    way point of the film, because by then said visual tricks are more or
    less gone, and I would have liked to have seen more done with that.

    Kudos to Jason Reitman on doing a splendid job on the screenplay and
    directing. I also like the nice touch in that for a film about lobbying
    for the tobacco industry, you don't even see one person smoking a
    cigarette.

    Hard Candy (2005)  B+

    I got a chance to see this indie film "Hard Candy." This is a story
    about Jeff; a 32 year old photographer, who meets a 14-year-old girl
    named Hayley through the Internet. At first it seems like the two are
    actually romantically interested in each other, but eventually we find
    that Hayley is a fearless avenger who set up the trap to make Jeff pay
    dearly for being a pedophile. It's easy to say that the guy deserves
    what he is getting, but at the same time the things she does to him
    felt rather extreme. The film even gives us a suggestion that Jeff is
    simply a flawed human being and not completely a dangerous pedophile
    monster. Or maybe he really is? The question also has to be brought up
    on how sympathetic should we really feel for Hayley, who might be
    finding too much pleasure in torturing Jeff. Yes, this is not a movie I
    can easily recommend for people to watch.

    Ellen Page did an impressively oscar worthy performance as the
    intelligent, calm, and methodical Hayley, and I believe that she was
    only 17 when she did this film. It can be argued that Hayley acts more
    like an adult than a 14 year old child though, but maybe that's because
    she really is a disturbed insane young lady afterall. Patrick Wilson
    also did an incredible turn by making his character as sympathetic as
    we can possibly feel for him, considering. You will most definitely not
    want to be him though.

    There's an admitedly simplistic nature to having a movie that only has
    two primary main actors in one set, mostly just talking (or yelling) to
    each other. There are also some things that seem intentionally or unintentionally unexplained or left with no conclusion. Director David Slade still does a good job complimenting
    the screenplay by Brian Nelson, by putting as much "action" into
    non-action situations, and making things as "in your face" as needed.
    As unsettling as the film can be, it's absolutely and completely
    fascinating to watch the turn of events that occurs.