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agentotterFor my 101 in 1001, here are a few movie reviews.
[60] View and review 50 films. (3/50)
The Soloist *****
Stars Robert Downey Jr. and Jamie Foxx and is based on the true story of a Los Angeles Times reporter who happens upon a former Juilliard student, who is now mentally unstable and living on the streets of Los Angeles, playing a violin with only two strings.
This film is in theaters at the moment and it seems to have largely passed audiences by, which is a shame; I think both the leads ought to get Oscars out of this. It's an incredible story with incredible performances, and my favorite part was that it didn't flinch away from itself: it shows the musician's mental state as simultaneously wonderful and terrifying, it shows the reporter utterly blundering in how he's constantly trying to "fix" the other man's life by getting him off the street, getting him psychological help, getting him medications, and otherwise dictating to him what his life should be like.
The music in this film is fantastic, the cinematography and writing and everything else are top-notch, and there's one particular scene with Downey and Foxx that will knock your socks off. You really should go and see it. No, seriously. Right now. I'll wait.
Flow: For Love of Water *****
This is an incredible documentary film about how we manage water in our modern world, the inevitable water shortage that no one seems to be too concerned about, and the deep and profound absurdity of paying for tap water which is bottled and labeled as "spring water." There's also quite a bit of discussion about industrial pollution of water.
It's stunning really that with all we do (or pretend to do) to keep ourselves safe from illness, food-borne pathogens and the rest, the things that we allow to be dumped into our supply of drinking water, and the extent to which our water is not tested for harmful contaminants. There are also no protections in place for community water supplies; this film goes in depth into a case in the great lakes region where a bottling plant moves in and begins bottling local water to an extent that wells dry up, the water table drops, lakes and streams turn into bogs, and an entire town basically loses all of its water. The town took the bottling company to court... and lost. Apparently it's perfectly legal for corporations to deprive townships of basically anything they want. Awesome.
This film is incredibly enlightening, but I wouldn't recommend it if you're, you know... already deeply depressed about the state of the world and just need one more issue to push you over the edge into crazed homicide.
Running Free ***
Okay, so it's pretty much your standard sentimental horse movie. The plot isn't really rocket science, though I would say it's a bit more impressive than some others I've seen. (If you've ever been tempted by your love of The Black Stallion to see The Young Black Stallion, I will tell you now that that is the worst idea in the history of EVER. That movie is so bad, you'll want to cry.) Running Free definitely has a few things going for it, though. It's the story of a young colt who is born on a ship bound for South Africa, where he's separated from his mother, finds sanctuary with an orphaned stable boy, and naturally makes an enemy in the wealthy landowner's pampered stallion, Caesar. No, it isn't subtle. (Have I mentioned that the horse narrates his own story, a la Black Beauty?) It's rather overrought and the music will very loudly tell you when you're supposed to be moved to tears. I do think it's important to bear in mind that this is a film for children (and were I still a child, I probably would have loved it without reservation), but if your expectations aren't incredibly high and you're willing to watch it for the horsey eye candy, there's something here for you, and if you have kids in need of entertaining, this is definitely something you can watch together.
Firstly, the horses are gorgeous. This isn't one of those films where a horse person watching it would be sitting around and going, "OMG, why do they keep using that mare to play a stallion? And also why do they keep claiming that that quarter horse is a thoroughbred?" The horses are what they're supposed to be -- there is a moment where the Freisian refers to himself as a thoroughbred, but I'm guessing he was using the word in the context of "purebred," rather than the thoroughbred breed -- and the ones that are supposed to be stallions are very well-muscled and convincing in the part.
Also gorgeous is the scenery. The movie was filmed in Namibia, and the filmmaker definitely shows off the scenery. I was also completely in awe of how they'd even managed to get some of their footage; their animal wranglers must've been pretty freaking good. There are sequences where the main horse, Lucky, shares the screen with lion cubs, and then later befriends an oryx. (I realize they didn't go out and use wild lions and whatnot, but I'm always impressed when trainers get inter-species cooperation going that smoothly.) What I particularly liked about those sequences is that they aren't portrayed as fluffy animal friendships a la Bambi and Thumper... the lion cubs' mother comes along and almost has Lucky for lunch, and the oryx tolerates Lucky only until it finds another oryx, at which point it pretty much tells him to go fuck himself. The interactions are much like what you might see in the wild, if this domestic horse really had found himself in the South African desert.
Though the animals are pretty anthropomorphized as far as the narration goes, I was impressed with how realistic the on-screen action was; it was almost as if they'd filmed the animals behaving like animals, and then slapped on a kid's narration of why the animals were acting that way. Watch it on mute and you'd probably be thoroughly charmed. ;D The horses act very much like horses, and the animals that aren't meant to be well-broke -- which is basically all of them -- pretty much act that way. The animals' movement is natural, and you don't really see them looking at any off-screen trainer or performing some sort of trick by rote, except in a few spots where you can see that the horse isn't snuggling the human so much as he's snorfling up strategically placed snacks.
The main thrust of the story is the horse's journey, so you don't end up saddled with too much of an overabudnAlso, the horses are credited with their own title cards at the end of the film. I fucking love that. (Incidentally, the menacing Caesar is played by a gorgeous Freisian who is named "Fat Albert." Who in the world names a horse that terribly majestic "Fat Albert"? One of the foals was named "Noodle," which is so going to embarrass her when she grows up.)
On the human front, the acting isn't exactly subtle either, but it isn't so bad that you'll want to run away, either. Maria Geelbooi, the actress who plays a young native South African whom our heroes briefly befriend, is gorgeous and adorable and does not conveniently speak English. (Though the rest of our characters, who are actually German, do.)
In the end credits the filmmakers give thanks to the Namibia Feral Horse Fund. I didn't even realize that Namibia had feral horses (and okay, full disclosure, I would not have been able to find Namibia on a map), so I googled for the organization but they don't seem to have a website. The Namibia Nature Foundation has a lot of interesting materials, though.
[60] View and review 50 films. (3/50)
The Soloist *****
Stars Robert Downey Jr. and Jamie Foxx and is based on the true story of a Los Angeles Times reporter who happens upon a former Juilliard student, who is now mentally unstable and living on the streets of Los Angeles, playing a violin with only two strings.
This film is in theaters at the moment and it seems to have largely passed audiences by, which is a shame; I think both the leads ought to get Oscars out of this. It's an incredible story with incredible performances, and my favorite part was that it didn't flinch away from itself: it shows the musician's mental state as simultaneously wonderful and terrifying, it shows the reporter utterly blundering in how he's constantly trying to "fix" the other man's life by getting him off the street, getting him psychological help, getting him medications, and otherwise dictating to him what his life should be like.
The music in this film is fantastic, the cinematography and writing and everything else are top-notch, and there's one particular scene with Downey and Foxx that will knock your socks off. You really should go and see it. No, seriously. Right now. I'll wait.
Flow: For Love of Water *****
This is an incredible documentary film about how we manage water in our modern world, the inevitable water shortage that no one seems to be too concerned about, and the deep and profound absurdity of paying for tap water which is bottled and labeled as "spring water." There's also quite a bit of discussion about industrial pollution of water.
It's stunning really that with all we do (or pretend to do) to keep ourselves safe from illness, food-borne pathogens and the rest, the things that we allow to be dumped into our supply of drinking water, and the extent to which our water is not tested for harmful contaminants. There are also no protections in place for community water supplies; this film goes in depth into a case in the great lakes region where a bottling plant moves in and begins bottling local water to an extent that wells dry up, the water table drops, lakes and streams turn into bogs, and an entire town basically loses all of its water. The town took the bottling company to court... and lost. Apparently it's perfectly legal for corporations to deprive townships of basically anything they want. Awesome.
This film is incredibly enlightening, but I wouldn't recommend it if you're, you know... already deeply depressed about the state of the world and just need one more issue to push you over the edge into crazed homicide.
Running Free ***
Okay, so it's pretty much your standard sentimental horse movie. The plot isn't really rocket science, though I would say it's a bit more impressive than some others I've seen. (If you've ever been tempted by your love of The Black Stallion to see The Young Black Stallion, I will tell you now that that is the worst idea in the history of EVER. That movie is so bad, you'll want to cry.) Running Free definitely has a few things going for it, though. It's the story of a young colt who is born on a ship bound for South Africa, where he's separated from his mother, finds sanctuary with an orphaned stable boy, and naturally makes an enemy in the wealthy landowner's pampered stallion, Caesar. No, it isn't subtle. (Have I mentioned that the horse narrates his own story, a la Black Beauty?) It's rather overrought and the music will very loudly tell you when you're supposed to be moved to tears. I do think it's important to bear in mind that this is a film for children (and were I still a child, I probably would have loved it without reservation), but if your expectations aren't incredibly high and you're willing to watch it for the horsey eye candy, there's something here for you, and if you have kids in need of entertaining, this is definitely something you can watch together.
Firstly, the horses are gorgeous. This isn't one of those films where a horse person watching it would be sitting around and going, "OMG, why do they keep using that mare to play a stallion? And also why do they keep claiming that that quarter horse is a thoroughbred?" The horses are what they're supposed to be -- there is a moment where the Freisian refers to himself as a thoroughbred, but I'm guessing he was using the word in the context of "purebred," rather than the thoroughbred breed -- and the ones that are supposed to be stallions are very well-muscled and convincing in the part.
Also gorgeous is the scenery. The movie was filmed in Namibia, and the filmmaker definitely shows off the scenery. I was also completely in awe of how they'd even managed to get some of their footage; their animal wranglers must've been pretty freaking good. There are sequences where the main horse, Lucky, shares the screen with lion cubs, and then later befriends an oryx. (I realize they didn't go out and use wild lions and whatnot, but I'm always impressed when trainers get inter-species cooperation going that smoothly.) What I particularly liked about those sequences is that they aren't portrayed as fluffy animal friendships a la Bambi and Thumper... the lion cubs' mother comes along and almost has Lucky for lunch, and the oryx tolerates Lucky only until it finds another oryx, at which point it pretty much tells him to go fuck himself. The interactions are much like what you might see in the wild, if this domestic horse really had found himself in the South African desert.
Though the animals are pretty anthropomorphized as far as the narration goes, I was impressed with how realistic the on-screen action was; it was almost as if they'd filmed the animals behaving like animals, and then slapped on a kid's narration of why the animals were acting that way. Watch it on mute and you'd probably be thoroughly charmed. ;D The horses act very much like horses, and the animals that aren't meant to be well-broke -- which is basically all of them -- pretty much act that way. The animals' movement is natural, and you don't really see them looking at any off-screen trainer or performing some sort of trick by rote, except in a few spots where you can see that the horse isn't snuggling the human so much as he's snorfling up strategically placed snacks.
The main thrust of the story is the horse's journey, so you don't end up saddled with too much of an overabudnAlso, the horses are credited with their own title cards at the end of the film. I fucking love that. (Incidentally, the menacing Caesar is played by a gorgeous Freisian who is named "Fat Albert." Who in the world names a horse that terribly majestic "Fat Albert"? One of the foals was named "Noodle," which is so going to embarrass her when she grows up.)
On the human front, the acting isn't exactly subtle either, but it isn't so bad that you'll want to run away, either. Maria Geelbooi, the actress who plays a young native South African whom our heroes briefly befriend, is gorgeous and adorable and does not conveniently speak English. (Though the rest of our characters, who are actually German, do.)
In the end credits the filmmakers give thanks to the Namibia Feral Horse Fund. I didn't even realize that Namibia had feral horses (and okay, full disclosure, I would not have been able to find Namibia on a map), so I googled for the organization but they don't seem to have a website. The Namibia Nature Foundation has a lot of interesting materials, though.