MOVIE LOVERS CHOICE
As a movie lover I have found and enjoyed many movies usually overlooked because they have not been box office hits in America or their direct to DVD titles are unfamiliar to most viewers. In some cases they are older movies passed over by younger audiences who prefer the high-tech look of newer releases.
It is my intention to present the reader with additional movie choices by providing information about these movies. Even movies that are flawed may poses qualities of art or script that will be of interest to the avid movie viewer.
Some posts may just be background information or movie trivia.
I will apply my personal * rating to each film.
* - hated it
** - did not enjoy
***- worth watching
****- excellent
***** -excellent, highly recommended, worth watching more than once
All posts are my personal opinion . I welcome intelligent disagreement and suggestions from readers.
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COPENHAGEN - 2002 -NR * * * *
DVD
SPECIAL FEATURES: Prologue and Epilogue by writer Michael Frayn
DIRECTOR: Howard Davies who wrote the made for TV adaptation.
In 1941 a meeting took place in German occupied Copenhagen between German mathematician Werner Heisenberg (Daniel Craig) and Danish, half Jewish scientist Neils Bohr (Stephen Rea). Exactly what took place at that meeting which ended the long friendship and collaboration of these two men still remains a mystery but many believe that it had a major effect on the outcome of WWII. This film speculates on why Heisenberg asked for the meeting and what did he say that angered Bohr to the point of ending their relationship.
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The story is hauntingly written as if the characters, lack clear recollection of the events and are on a quest to explore their own recollections for the answer to what might have happened at that meeting. From start to finish this film involves the viewer intellectually and emotionally .
The actors, thoroughly engaged in their rolls deliver intense dialogue through director Davies brilliant storytelling. Using artistic lighting and seamless flashbacks and other techniques Davies involves the viewer in the process of discovery. Bohr’s wife (Francesca Annis) engages the viewer through verbal asides seemingly unheard by the two men. She fulfills her roll as “hostess” at their meeting by keeping them on track as the two characters choose to selectively reinterpret their past, and their relationship at the time of their mysterious meeting.
Without breaking stride, director Davies provides three distinct scenarios as the characters try to reconstruct their past relationship and find closure.
　
　
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POWDER BLUE -2009 -R -***
Indie Drama
Director: Timothy Linh Bui
This gritty drama chronicles the lives of four Los Angeles residents in varying degrees of despair during the days before Christmas.
The first rate cast includes Ray Liota as an ex-con, Forest Whitaker and ex-priest, Jessica Beil a stripper and single mom with a dying child and Eddie Redmayne as a lonely mortician.
The film is well made and the cast works well together. Director Timothy Linh Bui tells his story with good attention to visual detail and his four stories of love, loss, redemption and happiness that all flow well together.
This is much better film than the 2007 release “The Air I Breathe” which cast Forest Whitaker as an unhappy looser who just can’t get his life right. The character is identical. It seems strange that Forest Whittaker, who co-produced this film, cast himself again in this type of roll. He also interacts with a trans-sexual prostitute just as he did in “The Crying Game”. If you have seen the other two aforementioned films, I think the redundancy of this one might unfortunately detract from your viewing enjoyment. A shame really since this is a much better film with a better ending.
Trivia: This was the last film role for Patrick Swayze who plays, Velvet Larry a strip club owner (with a blond mullet). This film was released one month after his death.