FILM DIARY: November 2010
The Harry Potter review is coming… I don’t know when, but it will come some day ;)
I’m currently struggling to make it more coherent, but I’m having trouble with that *sigh* It refuses to be anything, but a babbling, incoherent mess, but I’m working on that ;)
All the other (previously unreviewed) films I watched in November (apart from Essential Killing) are in this post.
{FILM DIARY}
Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire (USA, 2009)
Seen: Friday, 5th November 2010 (cinema)
Rating: +0 (Liked It)
Director: Lee Daniels
Cast: Gabourey Sidibe, Mo’Nique, Paula Patton, Mariah Carey, Lenny Kravitz
Plot: Set in Harlem in 1987, the story of Clareece ‘Precious’ Jones, a 16-year-old African American girl, born into a very abusive family.
It’s a much happier film than the subject matter would indicate. It’s sort of an underdog movie, but somehow a lot more real. There’s something very authentic about the whole reality portrayed in the film - the relationships between people, the way they cope… Even Precious’s colourful daydreams make the film feel more real, not less.
It’s full of very developed female characters. In fact, the only male character with any significance to the plot is a nurse ;) And all the performances are awesome too.
It’s definitely worth a look and I still don’t get why it took them almost 2 years to get it to Poland :]
Cherrybomb (UK, 2009)
Seen: Wednesday, 11th November 2010 (DVD)
Rating: -0 (Ok)
Director: Lisa Barros D’Sa, Glenn Leyburn
Cast: Rupert Grint, Robert Sheehan, Kimberley Nixon, James Nesbitt
Plot: Three Irish teenagers (Luke, Malachy and Michelle) have a very wild weekend full of drinking, drugs, violence and vandalism.
I got awfully frustrated with the characters :] Found it hard to like them, though I almost managed with Malachy (Rupert Grint) - he gets easier to like once it’s obvious he truly cares for the girl. I mean they were very well cast and all that, just difficult to like.
And Rupert Grint fascinates me - all that talk about how awkward it is to do kissing and love scenes and yet it turns out he’s rather good at them ;) A lot of actors seem to freeze up a bit during love scenes and things can become quite stiff (in the wrong way I mean ;-P). The scene in this film is nice though - they actually stay in character and portray all the emotional stuff that’s going on.
Eat, Pray, Love (USA, 2010)
Seen: Tuesday, 16th November 2010 (cinema)
Rating: +0 (Liked It)
Director: Ryan Murphy
Cast: Julia Roberts, James Franco, Javier Bardem, Billy Crudup, Viola Davis
Plot: After a messy divorce, Liz Gilbert takes a year off to travel and regain her appetite for life.
It was much funnier than I thought it would be and I enjoyed all of Liz’s partners a lot (Billy Crudup, James Franco and Javier Bardem). Liz herself isn’t the most involving of characters IMO (though Julia Roberts was better than I expected), but all the supporting characters and the way Liz’s relationships and friendships in the film were portrayed was great. I also liked how they shot Italy, India and Indonesia. Portraying foreign culture is the kind of thing that Hollywood often screws up, but here they did a really good job.
