Archive for the 'Book and Movie Reviews' Category

The last two movies I’ve watched

Neil August 16th, 2005

Movie watching is very much an up and down experience for me. You never really know what your going to get when you pick one to watch. Previews summaries don’t really help that much in this process. I guess the only way your really going to get the good ones (for you) to bubble to the top of the sea of offerings is to research them carefully. A process that can be very time consuming. Every time I don’t do it I get stung.

This week was a great example. Two movies in a row that I watched both really bummed me out. One an academy award winner and the other, one filled with big name actors.

The first one was “Million Dollar Baby”. A really compelling story line about a young woman who was born and raised in a “white trash” family. With single minded determination she desires to break out of that self propagating environment. She chose to do that through women’s boxing. With the help of a seasoned fight trainer she nearly makes it all the way to the top. In a fight with the top woman boxer for the womens welterweight title she essentially wins the bout but while returning to her corner receives an illegal blow from the champ that breaks her neck, reducing her to a state similar to what Christopher Reeves experienced. Then in the last 15 minutes of the story Clint Eastwood wraps up the story with the trainer assisting the young fighter in commiting suicide. This in my opinion this film is a very loud vote for “assisted suicide”. Which, as for me, is never appropriate.

The second film was “Dogville”. An art film of a period piece set in 1930′s America. Done in a surealistic play format.

The first half of the story appears to be one of love and acceptance of a young woman by the name of Grace who was running from the mob. The towns people reluctantly at first agree to protect her by hiring her to work for them doing things that they really don’t need done but later come to rely on. The second half of the story gradually descends into one in which the towns people exploit Grace in the most extreme ways that you can imagine. The story ends with the town and it’s people being anhilated by Grace’s mob boss father.

In my opinion the film seeks to portray the human situation (at least in America) as being little more than a sophisticated animalism. If you forced me to say that there was anything of value in the film it would be this. It clearly shows how we humans are so very adept at rationalizating a justification for whatever it is we want to do, no matter has base it may be.

With all this said, I’ve seen many very wonderful stories in film and think that it can be a powerful medium to make us think about and possibly find ways to better ourselves and the world in which we live.

The Testament – by John Grisham

Neil August 12th, 2005

A friend of mine talked me into taking this novel to read a few weeks back. I generally tend to be a non-fiction reader and so was somewhat reluctant to even try reading it – but I started reading it as a sort of favor to her. Also I’ve never been one to read best selling novel authors either. Much to my chagrin I really got into it after 50 pages or so.

It’s a story about a billionaire business man who writes a holographic will in front of 3 psychiatrist and 5 of his known 6 children. In it he wills to pay off the 5 children’s debts as of that day. He then wills the remainder of his assets to an illigitament daughter that no one but one of his attorneys even knew existed. A daughter who was a missionary in Brazil. He then promptly gets up from his wheel chair, strides over to the balcony of his high rise office building and does a rather ungainly swan dive to his death that splatters him on the street below.

A rather grusome and shocking beginning to a novel. However what really drew me into the story line were the themes that are woven throughout the story. Themes of regret, hatred, love, guilt and redemption. One thing you can tell for sure is that he doesn’t have much use for the current legal ethic in America. He portrays them as a money and power hungry lot.

Anyway, for me it was a very thought provoking read. I don’t know if any of his other novels are anything like this one but I really enjoyed reading it.