Frenchy’s Fracas

General Info
Title: Infamous
Year: 2006

In Short
Literary giant Truman Capote has almost everything that he wants; he’s the cream of the crop of the New York social elite, his books are well-read and enjoy great reviews, and he can live his life with his lover in a relaxed manner in the still homophobic 1950’s. Then he reads an article about a rich farming family that were brutally murdered and he is immediately fascinated. He decides to go the scene of the murder in rural America to explore the story..

The Movie
Visuals
Hmm.. The New York scenes are okay, nothing very special about the socialites and their lifestyle. The opening scene was quite well displayed, liked that. The rural scenes were much better, especially during the scenes where Capote’s interviewing the locals. I particulary enjoyed the train station scenes, reminding me a bit of Bad Day At Black Rock.

Plot
A story revolving the Capote character delivers what you’d expect: sharp dialogues, very nice! The story has a nice pacing, never feeling too rushed or too slow; nice and well portrayed character development. For a pseudo biopic it never tries to explain waaay too much, you have to wonder if people who don’t know anything about the writer and his works can keep up with the story, I’m guessing it works fine for them too.
That’s also where the plot is very, very strong for me: I remember reading In Cold Blood and the chills that went down my spine while reading. The story kept triggering those shivers without any actual triggering it seemed, I liked that.
The handling of the new love angle was very unexpected, no hold on, the whole new love angle was very unexpected, but it was handled okay. Another male-on-male liplock without the whole Brokeback Mountain brouhaha.

Cast
Main lead Toby Jones was excellent, the annoying voice even seemed less irratable after twenty-odd minutes; but the actor did just more than that, he went out of his way to depict a larger than life character with a fine attention for detail.
The Hollywood Cameo set with the likes of Sigourney Weaver, Gwyneth Paltrow and Isabella Rossellini weren’t really impressive as the New York elite, but were quite entertaining. Sandra Bullock as the quiet and intelligent author Harper Lee kinda worked for me; I think Bullock is working very hard to get more serious and interesting roles for herself. I wonder if she’ll succeed..
Extra credit for Daniel Craig, the new 007 shows a great bit of thought-provoking talent. The way this guys performing his roles could make the James Bond franchise very exciting again.

Conclusion
Tricky stuff.. I know that the book and its impact on my psyche weigh very heavily on how I experienced the film. It sure as hell didn’t disappoint, that’s for sure. I was having flashbacks from the book and the movie version from 1967, and like I said earlier: I enjoyed being triggered by the movie. But take away those positives, does the movie itself have any good points? Definitely, although it did take me some time to realize that: nicely
written, well performed, okay visuals.
I didn’t expect the love interest in the story and I was very much curious about the real facts behind that story, but Capote and his biographer could be playing around with the truth.

Rating: (sharp and witty, sometimes thought-prevoking)

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General Info
Title: 300
Year: 2007

In Short
191 BC - Persian God-King Xerxes comes to Greece and brings along all of his human and sub-human fighter slave army to conquer the place. Everybody’s shaking in their boots except King Leonidas of the Spartans. He will stop the mighty invaders with his small non-sanctioned army of just 300 men.

It’s a comic book!
Yep, sorry for all those with a fixed opinion about the genre, but 300 is a comic book, written and illustrated by one of the greats of the biz: Frank Miller.
The story isn’t his of course, it’s his interpretation of the legendary Battle of Thermopylae. And mister Miller does love his fighting stories..

The Movie
Visuals
Kaboom! From the opening scene to the closing titles: Kaboom! You get blown away.
Now, after quite some years of over the top computer graphics, you’d think you’d be kinda done seeing the stuff, but the way the effects are applied in this movie is incredible. What I really liked was the dark-brown ancient feeling they used and while you know it’s all fake, you get to enjoy a great suspension of disbelief, visuals-wise.

Plot
Ah.. well.. Not much to say: a small band of heroes fighting of a way, waaaaaay larger group of “evil men”. Hey, everybody roots for the underdog. It’s classical (no pun intended) storytelling - not really great in quality, but just a great bedtime story adventure thingy. Works for me.
There was even some political commotion from Iranian politicians and commentators that the movie was vilifying the Persians (Iran’s ancestors) - which was funny, I guess..

Cast
Not really any performances that stand out - the cast does work hard in realizing director Zack Snyder’s vision.

Conclusion
I enjoyed the movie coz I got what I expected: over the top macho muscle entertainment without any real heavy cerebral challenges. But that’s what some blasphemers think of Spartacus..
It’s also a comic book made to a movie and like Miller’s previous movie success, Sin City, you can sense the comic book feeling that dominates the movie. And that’s a tough job to accomplish, kudos.
I read that Snyder’s working on the filming of the movie version of Alan Moore’s in-frigging-credible Watchmen and judging by his work on 300, I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt. Just a little bit..

Rating: (remember the Trojans Spartans)

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General Info
Title: Das Leben Der Anderen
Year: 2006

In Short
Life in the German Democratic Republic (or the DDR as us Europeans called it) isn’t a bed of roses. Well, probably exactly like a bed of roses if you skip the flowers and think of the thorns, I guess..
The government has a tight grip on lives and minds of its subjects and an ultra-loyal playwright is selected for some serious monitoring. His house is bugged and he and his girlfriend are watched constantly; but one of his observers gets a bit too closely attached to the subject’s life and his girlfriend.

The Movie
Visuals
Very toned down and cold visuals; nothing over-dramatic, but just enough gloom to make you wish Uncle Sam’d storm into your living room and ravage your wife in the name of fast food and liberty.

Plot
Meh, very predictable stuff - you see how this things gonna develop waaay before it happens (read my short description again, that’s it..). More than two hours to show the viewer some very obvious plot developments, hmm…

Cast
Easy pickings: Ulrich Mühe is the only one who gives a solid performance as the introvert and fiercely loyal Stasi snoop that gets too involved with his snoopees.

Conclusion
Too long, too obvious, too late, too nice.
Too late, because this movie deals with the settling of emotional scores concerning the dramas during that period in the GDR. And that should ‘ve been done in the first five years after the Berlin Wall fell. Now it just doesn’t have that much of an impact.
Too nice, if you want to show the frustrating sadness of life in a totalitarian regime, you have to put much more pain and suffering into it. No, I’m not that kind of sadist, but you have to include more emotional elements as used by George Orwell in his book Nineteen Eighty-Four. I know it’s easy to fault this movie by comparing it Orwell’s work, but come one, at least give it a try.. Hey, maybe it never was the writer’s idea for this movie to be scary, maybe they wanted to simply make a thriller or something..

Rating: (And it won an Oscar?!?)

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General Info
Title:The Departed
Year: 2006

In Short
Two sides of the harsh life in Boston: one rookie cop going undercover to infiltrate the mob and one young mobster returning the favor by infiltrating BeanTown’s Finest. Their deception is directed by their superiors like pawns in a chess game (waxing metaphorically, me..). Both guys are trying to stay alive in a very hostile environment and at the same time finding out who’s the rat on the other side.

Extra Info: this is a remake of the super-incredible Mou Gaan Dou (Infernal Affairs) - a Hong Kong cinema classic!

Extra-extra info: my pal Harlem Ron, movie buff extraordinaire, will be adding his two cents to this little review.

The Movie
Visuals
Harlem Ron
Meh.. Too heavy on the symbolism, for example: the office scene with Matt Damon where he senses his time has finally come; just not working.
frenchy!
Great shot of a great city, Boston brings back memories! Nothing special, visually sound work. Lighting in the opening scene was classic.

Plot
Harlem Ron
Way too convoluted, Keep It Simple, Stupid! The writer and the director (the ever enigmatic Martin Scorsese) deliberately chose to skip the original script and tried to add their own sensibilities to the storyline. But this was a not very satisfactory, quite a lot of missed opportunities and the story got worse as it went on and on..
frenchy!
Well, for me from the start I couldn’t separate the original story from this movie experience: I kept comparing it over and over during the first half of the flick. I lowered my expectations for the second half and behold, I was less disappointed..

Cast
Harlem Ron
Jack Nicholson’s opening scene: man! He still is the one and only scene stealer. Leonardo DiCaprio’s on top of his game. Matt Damon’s a big nobody in this film.
frenchy!
I was again impressed by DiCaprio: still laughed my ass off when he drowned in Titanic, but the last coupla movies he’s been doing some great acting. Nicholson got on my nerves after a while: his over the top performance isn’t going anywhere, acting like nobody ever saw Pacino’s Scarface. Matt Damon? Ehm.. Next!

Conclusion
Harlem Ron
Quite some things bothered me about this movie. First off: the score. Scorsese’s movies almost always have a great score to accompany the great story (GoodFellas for example), but now it was incredibly incoherent. This movie has to be compared with the original flick and the remake falls short of the epic feel you get from the Hong Kong version. And that final scene, with the rat? Why?!?
Seems to me that Scorsese’s in a slump these last couple of movies. The Departed scores 2/5 as a remake (changed the whole feeling of the movie) and a 3/5 on its own strength.
frenchy!
Well, Harlem Ron was more positive than me during the first half of the movie and more disappointed by the second half than yours truly. I was kinda appalled at the way some stuff was handled like the elevator scene at the end of the story: why add to the body count in that scene? Why?!? I really wondered how people would rate this flick without ever seeing the original. A friend of mine, MeekeMar, liked it and thought it was entertaining. I remember some people leaving the theatre discussing about the ending: I’m not sure if everybody liked the story.
As a remake: 1/5. As a movie on its own: 2/5

Rating: Oscar Winner?

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Wow.. I’m on Wikipedia! Well, not me personally, but one of my posts is listed on the List of Film Documentaries About Iraq entry
It’s my review of the Baghdad Blogger/Salam Pax - Video Reports from Iraq I saw at the IFFR.. Who said blogging wasn’t an ego thing? Heheh..

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