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Reviews
The Girl in the Café (2005)
Nighy and McDonald make the movie
The film can be separated into two distinct parts. The first half is a love story about a stuffy government adviser named Lawrence (Nighy) who falls in love with Gina (McDonald), a young girl he meets by chance at a café. The second half of the movie is about global social issues (poverty) after Gina vocalizes her political views known at the G8 conference.
The acting by Nighy and McDonald is incredible. Nighy does a great job of transforming himself into a shy, middle aged man who is vulnerable due to the lack of human interaction in his life. My only complaint is that the two parts explained above are great by themselves but clash when put together.
Film School (2004)
The difficulty of making films
Anyone who wants to attend film school and direct films should watch this series!
The film students selected for this show are varied and interesting. Each cast member brings a different perspective to the film-making process. One student is making a film about how MS effected her relationship with her mother. Another is making a comedic love story about a man who likes to scare people with a fake spider!
As someone who has worked on a few student projects the pain and frustration of the cast members is true to life. This series really shows that making a film is a GROUP effort, and without a dependable crew your project is dead in the water.
The Business of Strangers (2001)
Not Believable
The Business of Strangers is about a middle aged CEO Julie (Stockard Channing) who befriends and spends a night with a sadistic underling Paula (Julia Stiles). It's the old cliché: the criminal gives the successful non-criminal new insight about themselves by talking them into committing crimes.
Usually this makes a good movie but in this case it's hard to believe someone as powerful as Channing's CEO would allow Paula to order them around. And Stiles character is not deep enough to believe she would be capable of such acts.
Overall the movie misses the mark.
Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession (2004)
The IFC of the 80s
It's doesn't take a genius to see why the Independent Film Channel would finance this documentary. Basically the Z Channel was the first movie channel to play independent, little seen, and foreign films. Featuring interviews with directors Quentin Tarantino, Robert Altman, and Alexander Pane, "Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession" focuses on the effect the channel had on the film industry.
The station had among it's subscribers some of the biggest names in Hollywood. What I found fascinating about this film is the power a cable channel can have. For example James Woods credits his Oscar nomination to the Z Channel's constant playing of the little seen movie "Salvador" to the right people.
As a film geek I also enjoyed the generous amount of film clips by director Cassavetes. The film turned me on to movies like "Bad Timing" and "F is for Fake".
Drugstore Cowboy (1989)
Hard Working Junkies
It's funny because I remember when this movie first came out I was impressed by the hallucination sequences. Now they seem dated after seeing movies like Fear and Loathing in Los Vegas and Fight Club.
Like Jesus Son, Drugstore Cowboy takes place during the early 70's. Colors are drab and the soundtrack features 70s pop tunes. Both films feature main characters who struggle recover from addiction.
Usually drug movies feature junkies who score illegal drugs like heroin. This is the first movie i've seen with pharmaceutical junkies. Based on a novel by former addict James Fogle, director Van Sant incorporates many of Fogle's real life experiences into his movie.
The movie does a good job of conveying the powerful effect drugs have on an addict. What I found interesting is the EFFORT it takes Bob (Matt Dillon) and his crew to feed their habit. Similar to Trainspotting, Bob and his crew are forced to turn to a life of crime to feed their habits. They risk imprisonment by robbing drugstores and hospitals to get a pharmaceutical high. Also Bob and his crew are constantly on the run because they are forced to move on regular intervals to escape the police.
Recommended for fans of Trainspotting and Jesus Son.
Naked (1993)
And the Omelet Stinks
"You can't make an omelet without cracking a few eggs. And humanity is just a cracked egg. And the omelet stinks," a quote from Johnny (played by David Thewlis). Where do I begin? The film's lack of plot, hypnotic score and dialog took me to an "unfamiliar place". Major themes include attitudes towards work, urban decay, human relationships, biology, evolution, sexual brutality, and prophecies about the end of the world. The movie follows a drifter named Johnny as he encounters various working class people for roughly 24 hours.
What makes the movie great is the witty dialog. For example when asked about how he got here Johnny replies, "Well, basically, there was this little dot, right? And the dot went bang and the bang expanded. Energy formed into matter, matter cooled, matter lived, the amoeba to fish, to fish to fowl, to fowl to frog, to frog to mammal, the mammal to monkey, to monkey to man, amo amas amat, quid pro quo, memento mori, ad infinitum, sprinkle on a little bit of grated cheese and leave under the grill till Doomsday."
Unfortunately it is currently unavailable on DVD in the United States. Played recently on HBO.