There is much to admire about Iraq in Fragments, director James Longley's Academy Award-nominated portrait of life on the ground in three parts of Iraq during the first year of American occupation.
Most striking is how it manages to be both immediate and reflective at the same time. Because Longley uses a technique that forgoes interviews and voiceover commentary in favour of observation and revealing juxtapositions, his movie puts you both in the chaos and just above it. As a result, it is easily the most thoughtful example of a veritable growth industry in non-fiction filmmaking: the Iraq doc.
Longley took his camera to three parts of Iraq in 2003-04 to record the impact of the U.S. invasion and Saddam's rout. While the situations he finds in these places have for the most part already been swept away by the country's state of constant turbulence, the snapshots they provide are still pertinent in terms of understanding the war's almost instant descent to the status of quagmire.
In Baghdad, Longley finds an 11-year-old Sunni boy named Mohammed. The son of a policeman who disappeared without a trace into Saddam's prisons, Mohammed works at a garage for an embittered veteran of the war against Iran and struggles mightily to learn reading and writing at school.
Beneath skies regularly intersected by U.S. choppers and aircraft, Mohammed lives in a world framed by uncertainty and hopelessness. Abused by his boss for his failures at school and estranged from his classmates because he's the oldest student in his grade, the boy seems doomed to fail everyone's expectations. Needless to say, these intimations of Mohammed's gloomy prospects are only made more poignant by the fact that the city he lives in has become that much more dangerous in the four years since the Mohammed segment of the movie was shot.
In two Shiite cities, Longley finds fundamentalist followers of the cleric Muqtada al-Sadr preparing for elections. Their zeal for justice sharpened on the hard edges of retribution and resentment, the Sadr followers are determined to enforce Islamic law at any cost, even if it means terrorizing alleged alcohol-peddlers at gunpoint.
As it was with Mohammed in Baghdad, the situation is most fascinating for what it portends: the imminent rise of factionalist violence among fundamentalist groups and the inevitable toll about to be taken by the unleashing of mutually unyielding ideologies.
Finally, in the Kurdish regions in the north, something approaching calm prevails, as Longley comes across a farming family for whom the American presence has actually delivered what the world was told it was supposed to: freedom from tyranny, persecution and the long-dreamed-of possibility of an independent state. But it's a qualified sense of hope. We already know what's raging in the south and we're fully aware that what we're watching already belongs to the past.
The war, nearly four years later, continues without end in sight.
Easily the most challenging, ambitious and technically innovative of all the films nominated in this year's Best Documentary category of the Academy Awards, Iraq in Fragments is also the hardest sell to a mass market. That's why it's all the more remarkable that it's even being considered, surely a sign of unsettled times.
::link source: http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/article/184853
::http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0492466/
Sep 12, 2007
'Iraq in Fragments': In the chaos (2007)
Turtles Can Fly (2004)
Turtles Can Fly (Kurdish: Kûsiyan jî dikarin bifirin [1], Persian: لاک پشت ها هم پرواز می کنند) is a 2004 film written and directed by the kurdish Iranian filmmaker Bahman Ghobadi. It was the first film to be made in Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein.
The film is set in a Kurdish refugee camp on the Iraqi-Turkish border on the eve of the US invasion of Iraq. Thirteen-year-old Kak (played by Soran Ebrahim) is known as "Satellite" for his installation of dishes and antennae for local villages looking for news of Saddam Hussein. He is the dynamic but also cowardly, bullying and manipulative leader of the children, organizing the dangerous but necessary sweeping and clearing of the minefields.
He then arranges trade-ins for the unexploded mines. The industrious Satellite falls for an unlikely orphan named Agrin (Avaz Latif), a sad-faced girl traveling with her disabled but smart brother Henkov, who appears to have the gift of clairvoyance. The siblings are care-taking a three-year-old, whose connection to the pair is discovered as harsh truths are revealed.
The question is, what happened to these children? There are so many, will the occupation make their lives better or worse? How could it get worse?
Awards
1. Glass Bear, Best Feature Film and Peace Film Award, Berlin International Film Festival, 2005.
2. Golden Seashell, Best Film, San Sebastián International Film Festival, 2004.
3. Special Jury Award, Chicago International Film Festival, 2004.
4. International Jury and Audience Awards, São Paulo International Film Festival, 2004.
5. La Pieza Award, Best Film, Mexico City International Contemporary Film Festival, 2005.
6. Audience Award, Rotterdam International Film Festival, 2005.
7. Golden Prometheus, Best Film, Tbilisi International Film Festival, 2005.
8. Aurora Award, Tromsø International Film Festival, 2005.
9. Golden Butterfly, Isfahan International Festival of Films for Children, 2004.
10. Gold Dolphin, Festróia - Tróia International Film Festival, 2005
External Links:
Long Road to Heaven (2007)
Long Road to Heaven is a 2006 Indonesian feature film about the 2002 Bali bombing, by Kalyana Shira Films. The film was directed by Enison Sinaro and written by Wong Wai Leng and Andy Logam-Tan.
It tells the story during three different times: the planning a few months before the bombing, its execution in 2002, and the trials in 2003. The story is not chronologically linear. It starts with the explosion and then moves from time to time until all three plots culminate one after the other. At the beginning of each scene, subtitles tell the date and location of the scene.
The film also tries to present both the bombers and victims viewpoints. According to Kalyana Shira Films:
“The movie itself is trying to capture the moment from many different point of views; the terrorists, victims' families and foreigners. Though categorized as a feature film, LRTH is based on factual research where every sides are presented in balance therefor we hope that the viewers can take side on humanity and peaceful heart.[1] ”
The screening of the film has been banned on the island of Bali.[2] An official from the provincial film board said Long Road to Heaven could "reopen old wounds". I Gusti Ngurah Gde, head of Bali's film board, said: "We fear people who do not understand it would trigger conflict and direct hatred at a certain group."
Chronological Synopsis
Planning Stage
This portion of the film takes place in a hotel in Thailand, where Hambali (Saputra) is meeting with other members of Jemaah Islamiah, including Muklas. Hambali wishes to strike back for the capture of the Jemaah Islamiyah agents in Singapore, where an attempted bombing was stopped. He also wishes to make a statement by carrying out the next attack in September, when remembrance for the September 11th, 2001 World Trade Center Attacks will be at its highest. Muklas presses Hambali to change to another, softer location because security in Singapore will be too tight for any plans to succeed, and they will be unable to make the attacks by September if they are to happen in Singapore. He also suggests Bali for the location of the bombing. After putting the idea to a vote, the bombing is approved for Bali.
Execution of the Attack
In Bali, Imam Samudra, as well as Amrozi and his brother Ali Imron begin making preparations for the attack. They pick Paddy's Pub and the Sari Club as the best targets for bombing because it will minimize Indonesian casualties because both cater exclusively to foreigners. The brothers then contact a bombmaker and request that he make a special bomb which will maximize casualties. The day before the attack, the garage where they are building the bombs is visited by police following noise complaints. Ali Imron manages to stall the police, giving the bombmaker time to hide any incriminating evidence. After the police leave, Amrozi congratulates his brother for his quick thinking.
The next day, Amrozi, Imron, and the person who will activate the bomb park outside the Sari Club and wait for the backpack bomb to explode. Imron shows doubt about what they are doing, but in the end does not stop the bombing. Amrozi and Imron leave, and everything goes as planned.
Across the city, Hannah Catrelle (Foulkes) is awakened by the explosion. She rushes out to the site on her motorcycle, and is asked to bring an injured man to the hospital, where he later dies of his wounds. Catrelle is asked to bring the body to the morgue, where she sees a scorched corpse wearing a necklace similar to hers. She returns to the site and helps Hajj Ismail (Pandelaki) co-ordinate the rescue efforts. She is approached by Tim Dawson (O'Hare), who asks her if she has seen his daughter, and shows her a picture. Catrelle recognizes the necklace, and says that she thinks that Dawson's daughter is in the morgue. She leads him to the body, but Dawson says that it is not his daugter. Catrelle shows him the necklace that the corpse is wearing, and Dawson collapses in grief.
Returning to the site of the explosion, Catrelle snaps at Hajj, asking him what Muslims want by causing grief such as this. Pak Haji tells her that he is hurt by her generalisation, and explains that Islam is a peaceful faith, and the perpetrators of the bombing do not have a proper understanding of Islam or the Qur'an. Catrelle apologizes and explains that she moved to Bali because it was her boyfriend's favourite place in the world. She then explains that her boyfriend died in the World Trade Center attacks, and they buried an empty casket because his body was never found. Haji apologizes, just before a rescuer rushes up to them and says they have found a survivor. Catrelle recognizes Julie Dawson (Treleven), and tells Dawson that her father is looking for her. Having found Julie Dawson, Catrelle wonders who the corpse is. Deciding that the dead victim shouldn't be buried namelessly, Catrelle asks around, and finds nothing. She almost gives up, but sees Tim and Julie Dawson one last time. Tim thanks her and walks off, but, after being asked about her necklace, Julie reveals that she gave it to a friend at the club. Julie then tells Catrelle the victim's name. Catrelle returns to the morgue, and writes the victims name on a piece of paper. A corpse with an elephant tattoo is also seen.
The trials
Seven months after the bombing, Australian reporter Liz Thompson (Hill) goes to Bali to cover the trials. She hires a taxi driver and translator, Wayan Diya (Komang), to take her around the island. Diya at first refuses, but Thompson pushes him and triples the amount she originally offered in order to pay for his service. They first go to the location of the bombing, where Thompson takes pictures of the site, then to the trial, where Thompson covers a portion of Amrozi's trial. While she is in the courtroom, Diya goes to a nearby restaurant to watch the trial, and later throws a rock in the direction of Amrozi while Amrozi is transferring to the police transport. Realizing how stressful it is for Diya, Thompson tells him that she is sorry, and says that she doesn't need any more help. In order to try and mend fences, Thompson inquires Diya about his elephant tattoo. Diya explains that it is Ganesha, and one day when they were drunk, he and his brother had it done together.
The film's cast is as follows:
* Raelee Hill - Liz Thompson
* Mirrah Foulkes - Hannah Catrelle
* Alex Komang - Wayan Diya
* Surya Saputra - Hambali
* John O'Hare - Tim Dawson
* Sarah Treleaven - Julie Dawson
* Joshua Pandelaki - Hajj Ismail
The following people were responsible for the planning and filming of Long Road to Heaven.
* Director - Enison Sinaro
* Writer - Wong Wai Leng
* Writer - Andy Logam-Tan
* Executive Producer - Larry Y. Higgs
* Producer - Nia Dinata
* Producer - Constantin Papadimitriou
* Co-Producer - Wilza Lubis
* Co-Producer - Dewi Umaya Rachman
* Co-Producer - Ninin Omar Faisal
* Art Director - Iri Supit
* Director of Photography - Ical Tanjung
* Sound Recorder - Suhadi
* Sound Supervisor - Satrio Budiono
* Co-Editors - Sastha Sunu and Cesa D. Luckmansyah
* Music - Thoersi Argeswara
* Line Producer - Wilza Lubis
* Post Producer - Dewi Umaya Rachman
* Post Producer - Elza Hidayat
References
Official Movie Site http://www.kalyanashira.com/longroadtoheaven/english/main.html
Movie Review http://www.thesupermovie.com/long-road-to-heaven/
Sep 3, 2007
Movie Review: Ratatouille (2007)
Synopsis.
Remy lives in a French country house with his pack, led by his father Django. Unlike his kin, Remy is a foodie. His innate ability to smell ingredients in food is unappreciated by the pack, who use him as poison sniffer. Remy has been sneaking alone into the kitchen, reading from the cookbook of his hero: the Parisian chef Auguste Gusteau (who had died after a brutal review by food critic Anton Ego).
An attempt to burgle spices from the kitchen with his brother Emile is short-lived when its occupant, an old woman named Mabel, wakes and discovers the rat pack. The rats escape, but Remy is separated from his family. Lonely, Remy imagines talking with Gusteau, who guides and comforts him. Remy finds Gusteau's restaurant, which has fallen on hard times since Gusteau's death. It has been taken over by Gusteau's sous-chef, Skinner, who has sold out Gusteau's image to sell microwavable food products.
Gusteau's has hired a new garbage boy, Linguini, for whom Skinner has no respect. Unknown to both Skinner and the boy is the fact that Linguini is Gusteau's son. Remy watches in horror as Linguini attempts to fix a soup he spilled by filling it with random ingredients. He enters the kitchen and fixes the soup properly. Linguini sees Remy, but is then scolded by Skinner, who realizes, not only that Linguini had been cooking, but that the soup had been given to a food critic, Solene LeClaire. To Skinner's surprise, she finds it delicious. Another chef, Colette, convinces Skinner not to fire Linguini, and Skinner agrees as long as Linguini can recreate "his" soup.
The rest of the cooking staff then discover Remy and Skinner orders Linguini to take him away and kill him, lest people discover that the kitchen has rats. Linguini discovers that Remy can understand him, and they agree to work together secretly, so that Linguini can keep his job and Remy can cook.
The next day, Skinner sets Linguini to work. Remy discovers he can control Linguini like a marionette by pulling hairs under his hat. After some practice at Linguini's small apartment, Remy uses Linguini to remake the soup, and Linguini is fully promoted to chef. Later, Skinner discovers Linguini's heritage. He fears that if Linguini finds out, the restaurant will go to him (as specified in Gusteau's will) instead of Skinner.
While trying to save face after an embarrassing incident, Linguini nearly tells Colette about Remy, but instead kisses her. They fall in love.
One night, Remy's brother appears to him, and takes him down to the new home of his pack. Remy fights with Django over his desire to cook, then he starts scrounging food from the restaurant kitchen for Emile and an ever-growing number of friends. He discovers documents concerning Linguini and his place in Gusteau's will, and, eluding Skinner, gives the documents to Linguini, who fires Skinner. Linguini becomes a rising star in the culinary world. Anton Ego is surprised that Gusteau's has recovered from his review. Skinner becomes suspicious of Linguini's success, and the occasional glimpse of Remy convinces him that he is responsible.
Linguini and Remy have a temporary falling-out, due to Linguini's inability to credit Remy for his success and the revelation that Remy had been stealing food. Skinner captures Remy, wanting him to create a line of microwavable products, lest Remy gets killed. With the help of his pack, Remy escapes and heads back to the restaurant. Linguini, who was unable to handle the kitchen, protects Remy from the alarmed staff and explains the entire ruse. All the chefs walk out except for Colette, but with Remy's help, the rats take over the job. Ego reviews the restaurant that night, and Remy serves him a dish of ratatouille, which reminds Ego of his childhood and warms his heart. Ego wishes to meet the chef, and eventually has the story explained to him and witnesses the cooking rats. Surprisingly, he writes a positive review.
Unfortunately, the rat-filled kitchen was witnessed by both Skinner and a health inspector and Gusteau's is shut down forever (and Ego loses his credibility and job). Linguini, Colette, and Remy open a new restaurant called "La Ratatouille." Ego is an investor in the restaurant, and Remy's pack lives in the restaurant's ceiling, eating fine food.
Check the movie credits on IMDB
Norman Mailer on His Films
A feature story by Paul Brenner - Copyright © 2007 Filmcritic.com
The Film Society of Lincoln Center fired the opening salvo into the armies of the night for a retrospective of the film work of legendary author and Id Monster, Norman Mailer, in conjunction with a two-week long Anthology Film Archives' series The Mistress and the Muse: The Films of Norman Mailer.
What made this opening evening of the series the Mailer special was not just the sucker-punch juxtaposition of Mailer's underground Maidstone with above-ground Tough Guys Don't Dance, but the further enticement of a question and answer session with Mailer between films, Mailer having a lot to answer for.
First up was Mailer's 1987 neo-noir masterwork Tough Guys Don't Dance (), based upon Mailer's hardboiled novel of the same name. Saddled with a tone-deaf performance by Ryan O'Neal, the film overcomes O'Neal's obtuseness with John Bailey's atmospheric cinematography (perfectly capturing the dank, off-season emptiness of Provincetown), the thoroughly wacky supporting performances of John Bedford Lloyd, Isabella Rossellini, Debra Sandlund, and Penn Jillette, and great scenery-chewing by Wings Hauser and Lawrence Tierney. And, of course, Mailer's very own purple prose. The one-liners keep piling up like cars in a chain collision:
"Any guy that marries a rich dame deserves everything he gets."
"My blood itself was turning mean."
"It's a full moon tonight, and you know how disturbed you get when it's a full moon."
"Mr. Regency and I make love fives time a night -- that is why I call him Mr. Five Times."
And, of course, the elegantly timed remark by Lawrence Tierney after Isabella Rossellini cold-bloodedly shoots a stroke victim that calls her "small potatoes" -- "I could've told him. Never call an Italian small-potatoes."
Maidstone () is a psycho-dramatic mish-mash of direct cinema, home movie excess, and over inflated ego or, as Mailer called it, "a guerilla raid on the nature of reality." Mailer plays Norman T. Kingsley, a sexploitation film director, who lords it over some poor schmuck's mansion in the Hamptons, holding court while directing a skin flick and simultaneously receiving political delegations as he courts a bid for the Presidency. Mailer lumbers around the film barking and pontificating, most of the time donning a leather cap that makes him look like a backup singer for The Clancy Brothers. Rip Torn is on hand as Kingsley's half-brother Ray, who steals the film at the climactic moment by hauling off and physically attacking Kingsley, accusing him of being Norman Mailer. This remark leads to fisticuffs and the two he-men proceed to pound, kick, and pummel each other until Mailer finally draws blood by biting Torn's ear. Off-camera, Mailer's real life children scream in terror and his shocked then-wife bursts into the shot and separates the two pugilists. The film is, as a character in Maidstone describes Kingsley, "indigenous, original, and, some would say, a bit bizarre."
Between bouts, Mailer appeared onstage. Appearing very frail, he tottered out to his chair with the assistance of several canes but, once seated, his physical fragility disappeared, as he described his cinematic oeuvre ("A certain kind of bad movie has its own kind of logic"). Mailer spoke of his three underground films like a proud poppa, calling them a collection of "wonderful faults and startling successes." Wild 90 was "a guttural symphony." Beyond the Law was praised for being the most consistent ("There is such a thing as being too daring"). Maidstone was cited by Mailer as having the most depth of all three films, but he bemoaned his personal financial loss of $300,000 in making the film, reflecting "I may as well have bought a yacht, taken it out into the harbor, and sunk it." An audience member not too enamored of Tough Guys Don't Dance asked Mailer what was the purpose Mailer had in making the film and Mailer responded, "I made the movie to convince producers to give me money to make more movies." Tough Guys Don't Dance was the last film Mailer directed.
The zen moment of the evening came when Jerry Stiller arose from the audience and praised Tough Guys Don't Dance: "It's a film about violence and yet there's hardly any violence in it." The audience responded by awarding Mailer with a vigorous round of applause. Lucky for Mailer that Rip Torn wasn't in the room.
Movie Review: Live Free or Die Hard (2007)
Reported from IMDB user's comments
Bruce Willis reprises his 19-year-old role as super-cop John McClane in what is easily the best sequel this year. The film has been high on itself for staying away from CGI stunts in favor of old fashioned stunt men and women. Willis continues to prove that he is one of the biggest badasses in movie history by delivering another incredibly strong performance in Live Free or Die Hard, directed by Len Wiseman(director of the Underworld movies).
The series is now fully accessible to any audience with this modernizing chapter of the epic set of movies. The story takes place in modern time, where computers run everything, and the villain in this movie, Thomas Gabriel(Timothy Olyphant from HBO's Deadwood) is a computer guru hellbent on revenge against the government that shunned him. His main mission in the movie is to show how vulnerable the United States' security system is by systematically taking down major parts of the system. Enter John McClane, who is called in to do a "favor" by picking up a college student who happens to be a computer hacker. When the student, Matt Farrell(Justin Long, Accepted) becomes a target for the terrorist group under Gabriel, McClane is drawn into the same old same old once again. McClane and Farrell have to work together to stop Gabriel from basically "resetting" the entire country. Add in McClane's daughter being kidnapped by Gabriel to keep John in line, and the conflict gets much more personal.
The movie may come as a bit tamer with the PG-13 rating, but make no mistake-this is a Die Hard movie through and through, and in my opinion, it's the best one yet. The film is the most spread out of the series, taking place across the entire eastern coast, as opposed to a building(Die Hard), an airport(Die Harder), or a single city(Die Hard: With A Vengeance). The movie trades in the claustrophobic environment of the original to make the entire eastern coast John McClane's personal playground, and it does a great job at that. The movie has some of the greatest action scenes of any movie, the pot, while a bit complicated, is still easy to follow and comprehend, and the dialogue is excellent, giving McClane a deluge of one-liners in his back pocket, per usual. The cheesiness of the original movies has also been traded in for a more serious, straight-to-the-point action flick that is on par with any great ones that have been released as of late, and surpassing many of those.
Looking at the Die Hard checklist, this movie has all the essentials. John McClane beats up on supposedly superior-armed terrorists: check. Sidekick that adds comic relief and keeps the story going: check. Well-played "bad guy" that pushes McClane to his limits: check. John McClane soaked in blood by the end of the movie: check. Tons of explosions, deaths, and "yippie kay aye motherf***er": check, check and check.
If you're a fan of the Die Hard movies, this movie will blow you away. It is excellently done and easily the best action movie thus far this year. A great modern-day entry into the classic franchise.
Movie Review: The Bourne Ultimatum (2007)
Bottom Line: A natural Bourne boxoffice killer.
"The Bourne Ultimatum," the culminating film of the trilogy begun five years ago with "The Bourne Identity," gets under way with a burst of nervous energy and extreme urgency and never lets up. It's a 114-minute chase film, dashing through streets and rooftops of any number of international urban sprawls with Matt Damon's redoubtable Jason Bourne hot on the trail of -- himself. That might be the genius of the series: A James Bond-like character who can escape any pickle and thwart any villain, but all in a quest for his own identity. Jason is not out to save the world -- though he might do that -- he'd just like to know his real name.
Director Paul Greengrass, who only made the astonishing "United 93" in the interim, returns for his second "Bourne" film (after 2004's "The Bourne Supremacy") to bring the roller coaster ride to an end in a dead heat where all the plot points and (surviving) characters of the three films converge. Audiences will eat it up: This is a postmillennial spy-action movie pitched to a large international audience. You hardly need subtitles.
The cool thing about this movie is that the real revenge is not against bad guys in the CIA, but against the high-tech world that maddens mere mortals. Your mobile phone drops calls? Your car needs towing after a parking-lot fender-bender? Well, Jason can switch phones and patch into the world from trains, subways, stairwells and undergrounds. Any car he steals leaps up sharp inclines, plunges off of roofs or smashes into other vehicles until reduced to smoldering metal yet can still outrace any car on the block.
And his body! Blow it up with a bomb, expose it to brutal hand-to-hand combat or throw it into the East River, and it gets up with a few manly scratches.
Yes, there are a few plot holes. But few are likely to care. A smart cast of veteran actors gives the film just enough emotional heft to carry you through the silliness. Damon has definitely made Bourne his own. For all his physical dexterity and killing instincts, Damon brings a Hamlet-like quality to the CIA-trained assassin suffering from a five-year spell of amnesia who can never quite tell who his friends are, or rather, which of his enemies might be a true friend.
Joan Allen returns as the CIA investigator who has slowly come to see that Jason might be the real deal. And Julia Stiles as an in-over-her-head agent again shows up for no credible reason other than the producers want her back. (They're right.)
Newcomers include a flinty and increasingly antsy David Strathairn as a head of a black-ops program that has its real-life model in all the extralegal programs sponsored by the current administration. At one point, he declares "you can't make this stuff up," and you know the filmmakers are nodding toward today's Washington.
Scott Glenn appears as a law-ignoring CIA director, though he might remind you more of the current attorney general, and Albert Finney crops up toward at the end as a Dr. Mengele figure behind a behavior-mod program that created any number of Jason Bournes.
The movie swings through Moscow (filched from the previous film); Paris; Turin, Italy; London; Madrid; Tangiers, Morocco; and New York as Jason hones in on who did this to him. (That's another thing -- he never has to endure airport security checks!)
A fatigue factor sets in somewhere; it might vary from person to person. Yet the sharp intelligence behind the screenplay by Tony Gilroy, Scott Z. Burns and George Nolfi (though other hands reportedly contributed) gives the plot, salvaged from the Robert Ludlum Cold War spy novel, a genuine buoyancy. The film is trying to get at something, no matter how crudely, about corruption within the American espionage system, with its secret reliance on renditions and torture in the name of freedom. This might not be the best way to illustrate the problem with credibility-stretchers at every turn. But then again, how many people look at documentaries?
Greengrass tops himself with each passing minute by staging terrific stunts and chases through crowded streets, buildings and rooftops. Cinematographer Oliver Wood and editor Christopher Rouse gives the film its lightning speed and jagged edges with a close, hand-held camera and quick edits while John Powell's score pulsates pure adrenaline.
THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM
Universal Pictures
Universal Pictures in association with MP Beta Prods. presents a Kennedy/Marshall production in association with Ludlum Entertainment
Credits:
Director: Paul Greengrass
Screenwriters: Tony Gilroy, Scott Z. Burns, George Nolfi
Screen story: Tony Gilroy
Based on the novel by: Robert Ludlum
Producers: Frank Marshall, Patrick Crowley, Paul L. Sandberg
Executive producers: Jeffrey M. Weiner, Henry Morrison, Doug Liman
Director of photography: Oliver Wood
Production designer: Peter Wenham
Costume designer: Shay Cunliffe
Music: John Powell
Editor: Christopher Rouse
Cast:
Jason Bourne: Matt Damon
Nicky Parsons: Julia Stiles
Noah Vosen: David Strathairn
Ezra Kramer: Scott Glenn
Sam Ross: Paddy Considine
Paz: Edgar Romeriz
Pamela: Joan Allen
Dr. Hirsch: Albert Finney
Running time -- 114 minutes
MPAA rating: PG-13
The Bourne Ultimatum
Bourne Again LTD
Universal Pictures
Credits:
Executive Producer: Jeffrey M. Weiner
Executive Producer: Henry Morrison
Executive Producer: Doug Liman
Producer: Frank Marshall
Producer: Patrick Crowley
Producer: Paul L. Sandberg
Associate producer: Colin O'Hara
Director: Paul Greengrass
Screen Writer: Tony Gilroy
Screen Writer: Tom Stoppard
Screen Writer: Paul Atanasio
Screen Writer: Scott Z. Burns
Screen Writer: George Nolfi
Director of Photography: Oliver Wood
Editor: Christopher Rouse
Unit Prod. Manager: Nigel Gostelow
First Assistant Director: Chris Carreras
Prod. Designer: Peter Wenham
Art Director: Rob Cowder
Art Director: Jason Knox-Johnston
Set Decorator: Tina Jones
Costumes: Shay Cunliffe
Prod. Coordinator: Suzie F. Wiesmann
Special Effects: Joss Williams
Sound mixer: Kirk H. Francis
Music: John Powell
Casting director: Avy Kaufman
Casting director: John Hubbard
Casting director: Dan Hubbard
Unit Publicist: Deborah Wuliger
Cast:
Actor: Matt Damon
Actor: Julia Stiles
Actor: David Strathairn
Actor: Scott Glenn
Actor: Paddy Considine
Actor: Edgar Ramirez
Actor: Albert Finney
Actor: Joan Allen
Check this movie on IMDB
Anna Nicole Smith: DEAD! According to her lawyer!
SPLASHNEWSONLINE HAS EXCLUSIVE VIDEO OF ANNA NICOLE HAVING CPR ADMINISTERED. STAY TUNED!
Anna Nicole Smith has died after collapsing at a Florida hotel according to her attorney Ron Rail.
The former Playboy model was “not breathing and unresponsive” when paramedics arrived at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Hollywood, where she was staying with her attorney boyfriend Howard K. Stern.
Paramedics were seen pumping her chest and desperately trying to revive her as she was rushed on a stretcher to a waiting ambulance.
“It didn’t look at all good for her. She seemed totally lifeless,” said a witness, who saw him dash into Smith’s hotel suite minutes after she collapsed.
“Her bodyguard flew past me like a bat out of hell.
“Howard Stern was running about like crazy. He was in a total panic. It looked like he didn’t know what the hell to do. He was in total panic.”
A nurse was called to 39-year-old Smith’s hotel room on Wednesday afternoon when she complained on feeling unwell.
She arrived at the hotel the previous evening on a private jet from her now home in the Bahamas.
She told hotel staff she was feeling “great” and wanted to know if there were any events going on that she could attend.
But people who witnessed her arrival said she was looking ‘tired and strained.’
Smith is embroiled in a number of bitter court battles and is due to give evidence at an inquest into her 20-year-od son’s mysterious death from a drugs overdose. Daniel died three days after she gave birth to the daughter she has always longed for. Daniel Smith had been with his mother and visited his baby sister just hours before his death in the Bahamas. This tragic turn of events has come four months after Nicole Smith won the latest round of her long-running court battle that could eventually see her become richer than the Queen.
The blonde star has been given the right to fight for half of her late oil baron husband’s GBP 800million fortune in the US Supreme Court.
If she wins, her fortune will be GBP 100m more than the Queen’s GBP 300m. The US Supreme Court said the former Playboy Playmate of the Year should have a fresh chance to pursue her claim in federal court.
She was 26 when she married 89-year-old wheelchair-bound oil tycoon J Howard Marshall II in 1994. When they met two years earlier, she was working as a topless dancer in a club in Houston, Texas. Marshall’s death 14 months later triggered a legal battle between Nicole Smith and Marshall’s son Pierce, who died unexpectedly earlier this year, aged 68. She claimed her husband promised half of his estate, but Pierce Marshall said his father only wanted her to have the GBP 3m-worth of gifts she received in 1994.
Legal experts say Nicole Smith, who has not received any money from her late husband’s estate since his death in 1995, was now looking the likely winner of the bitter battle over her late husband’s fortune.
In a string of court battles, she has accused Pierce of killing his father and trying to kill her. He alleges she was a gold digger who only married
The model and actress is one of the most famous faces in the world, with her rag to riches life taken straight from the pages of a Hollywood movie script.
She was born Vickie Lynn Hogan on November 18 1967 in Houston, Texas, to parents Donald Hogan and his wife-t0-be Virgie Mae.
As a child Smith’s family moved to the small town of Mexia, Texas, and when her parents divorced in November 1969, Smith was raised by her mother and her aunt, Elaine.
Movie Review: Death Sentence
A film review by Keith Breese - Copyright © 2007 Filmcritic.com
In Paul Talbot's excellent Bronson's Loose! The Making of the Death Wish Films, Brian Garfield, author of the original Death Wish novel, says he was disappointed in the 1974 Charles Bronson film of his book because it lacked subtlety. In fact, he wrote the sequel, Death Sentence, to counteract what he saw as the negative effects of the film. Death Sentence, the book, is about reformation and going legit. It's about why vigilantism just doesn't work. Man, did this movie screw up that message.
Director James Wan's (Saw) version of Death Sentence is practically a celebration of vigilantism. Sure, the film hammers home the message that the business of revenge is soul-rotting, but it doesn't offer up any other solutions. The legal system doesn't work. Cops are lazy and slow. Worse, they are helpless. And the bad guys always can and will find you. The only place a person is safe today is behind the barrel of a gun.
Kevin Bacon stars as Nick Hume, a VP who specializes in (or is just fascinated by) risk assessment. He's got a nice house in the suburbs, two beaming teenage boys, and a doting wife. Life is pretty darn good. His eldest, Brendan (Stuart Lafferty), is looking to play professional hockey (the old man's wish) and just might be able to make it to the big leagues.
That all changes when Nick and Brendan stop at a gas station in, gulp, the wrong part of town. There, Brendan is killed by a gang of tattooed hooligans. While distraught over the loss of his child, Nick is perhaps most incensed to learn that the "punk" who did it will serve, at most, five years. Rather than testify and allow that to happen, Nick decides to take justice into his own hands. He tracks down his son's murderer and kills him. When the gang, led by the merciless Billy Darley (Garrett Hedlund), catches wind of the retribution killing, they decide it's time to go to war with Nick Hume. By the end of the film, Nick, who has lost nearly everything, snaps and goes into what I'd dub "Travis Bickle mode."
Sure, there's something about vigilantism that is appealing. The audience I saw the film with cheered with Nick blew away scumbags with his shotgun. They hollered when he bashed in heads and sent thugs tumbling. It's wish fulfillment. Haven't we all, at one time or another, wanted to take the law into our own hands? And while Death Sentence taps into that wellspring of Wild West passion, it is ultimately let down by really weak performances, absurd characterization and creaky plot twists.
Get this: the killer gang is composed of tattooed skinheads (the kind you never see outside of Hollywood backlots) who ride around town in the most conspicuous vehicles imaginable (custom 1969 Ford Mustangs), shooting at nearly everything in sight... and yet the cops can't seem to track them down. Did they even bother checking the flophouse on "the other side of the tracks?" Bearing almost no resemblance to Garfield's source novel, Ian Mackenzie Jeffers' script is littered with heavy-handed allusions (the bad guys live on Stygian street), ridiculous caricatures (the gang makes meth in an abandoned mental asylum on the edge of town), and laugh-out-loud dialog (Aisha Tyler, playing Detective Wallis, gets the best howlers).
While best known for the incredibly successful but ultimately hokey low-budget slasher pic Saw, director Wan has a distinctively lowbrow style. He shoots Death Sentence handheld, with gritty lighting schemes and a real DIY aesthetic. There are some good action set pieces (the long single shot in the parking structure is a technical knock-out), but for every good sequence, he's got two or three really awful ones. Anytime the film gets sentimental, the soundtrack swells with ethereal female vocals that just drain away the emotion. And don't get me started on the "rock" songs used to pepper character entrances and dramatic highlights; Wan is not only incredibly heavy-handed but he has terrible taste in music to boot.
Death Sentence could have been an exciting and meaningful exploration of what vigilantism does to a society, to an individual. It could have been a thoughtful look at the impact of violence on our daily lives. Hell, I would have been happy if it was just a cold-blooded, old-school vengeance flick. As it is, Death Sentence is the embodiment of everything writer Brain Garfield hated about Death Wish: It's slap-dash, sleazy, and unsophisticated.
Movie Review: Halloween (2007)
A film review by Jason Morgan - Copyright © 2007 Filmcritic.com
Halloween's Michael Myers has seen many incarnations during his 29-year reign of terror. While he hasn't yet seen the vastness of space (boldly not going where most horror franchises eventually go), he has met a similar fate -- the remake. Although the majority of horror moviegoers are just looking for the next gore-fest, true horror fans are as rabid as Christians looking to crucify the latest blasphemously-filmed story of Christ. Luckily, director Rob Zombie is a member of the horror genre cult and treats his Halloween remake with the utmost respect, while amping up the intensity for a post-Saw audience.
From the 90-minute Abercrombie and Fitch ad that was 2003's Texas Chainsaw Massacre to the abysmal The Hills Have Eyes in 2006, classic horror films have been turned into exploitive, empty filler for the benefit of the box office. Zombie, on the other hand, explores the mythology of the original Halloween by psychologically deconstructing Michael Myers, instead of exploiting the original idea of "The Shape" -- the personified evil of the original. Zombie's film opens with the Myers family; of course, this is a Zombie film, so they are a white trash, long haired clan whose cursing would put sailors to shame. In this Halloween outing, we see Myers' transformation into the infamous serial killer.
As Zombie constructs a working profile of young Myers as a serial killer to be -- mutilating animals and obsessed with masks -- the irony is that we already know that Michael will kill his sister and run amuck through Haddonfield 15 years later. The hiccup in Zombie's artistic liberties is that we don't quite make the leap that young Myers is the unfeeling killing machine we know he'll be later in the film. Compared to his white trash family, Michael's childhood rage is, at very least, understandable. We want him teach the school bully, his mom's deadbeat live-in drunk and heartless sister a lesson. It essentially turns him into the anti-hero of the films first half and destroys the original terror of an unexplained evil that somehow exists naturally.
While the first half of Halloween is largely Zombie's creation with a dash of references to the original (Michael's mother is a stripper at the Rabbit in Red Lounge), the second half of the film completely relies on your knowledge of the first film. The setup of a sex-filled night planned by three teen girls is so quickly put into place that it will leave your head spinning and your mind asking "who's that?" and "what's going on?" if you don't already know the story. Given the iconic first film, it's likely that most horror fans will be able to fill in the gaps and spend most of their time anticipating the appearance of Tommy Doyle or the mention of Ben Tramer.
For those not in the Halloween-know, Myers' brutality and energy are enough to hold your attention. This is Michael Myers at his most brutal, but the terror doesn't come from exploitive gore. Ex-pro wrestler Tyler Mane walks Myers with authority and nothing can stop him -- doors, windows, walls, fences, bullets -- nothing. While Mane is bashing through everything in his way, Zombie's aesthetics fail to truly capture on that energy. His camera is mostly shaky, sometimes out of focus and generally ineffective.
Though his style hasn't really grown since House of 1000 Corpses, his storytelling ability has, to some degree. He takes stabs at the influence of music on child violence by putting young Myers in a KISS t-shirt and slashes at corporate America as Mr. Strode blames a large conglomerate convenience store for putting Nicholas Hardware out of business. Like the rest of the film, his thematic jabs are uneven, as the subtle social commentary is overpowered by heavy-handed motifs such as Myers' self-made masks -- one of which emulates a jack-o-lantern. But Zombie's cinematic heart is in the right place. Instead of trampling over the original, he builds on it and creates an homage that should motivate the new generation of horror fans to seek out John Carpenter's original with the respect and excitement it still deserves.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
