The Perfect Storm

Rent It!

This film shows the "real deal" when it comes to just how dangerous ocean fishing can be.  The towering seas, the life and death decisions. The tough choices.  The gamble that you'll not just return to port but that you'll return with enough catch to pay the bills and go out again.  This film touches me because, for those who may read this and not know, this blog originates from a community with close ties to fishing in one of the most dangerous places in the world to do it.  The mouth of the Columbia River where it enters the ocean is known as the graveyard of the Pacific for it's many sunken ships and lost lives.

It's a hard film to watch for that reason.  I'm not a fishermen but after seeing The Perfect Storm I do feel some appreciation for the job and a better understanding of what it takes to deliver that fish to my dinner plate.

Rent it!

Total Recall

Rent It!

It's fun. It really moves. It's completely different from the original.

The only failure here is the disconnection from the original plot concept. This movie would have done just fine without the memory implant scene. The writers could have used just about any plot device to trigger the protagonist's real identity and gone from there because it's not central to this version.   I suppose they wrote it this way to somehow make the movie seem less like the SciFi version of the Bourne Identity.

It's wonderful escapist fantasy nonetheless.  Rent It!

Hero

Rent It!

 

You don't need to be a lover of Chinese history, ancient folktales and, martial arts to love this film.  It may serve as the perfect introduction to the genre.  When HERO was first released in China in 2002 it quickly became the highest grossing film of all time in that country and the most expensive to produce.  It took two years, executives from Disney and Quentin Tarantino to get it released to theaters in the U.S. through Miramax which delayed the release a (so far) record six times.

HERO was Jet Li's first appearance in a film produced in mainland China.  The film's scope is enormous.

The one thing most people remember about this movie takes place when archers launch an attack with so many arrows at once the sky goes dark. 

The film was not without it's controversy as a product of the People's Republic with pundits citing aspects of the plot line that they believed to be sending political messages supportive of Chinese reunification.  I leave that to others.  It's just a very well made, exciting thing to watch. Rent it!

Dark City

Own It!

Considered a cult classic, Dark City tells the story of a man who suddenly awakens to find himself sitting in a bath tub with no memory of who he is or where he is. Little by little he begins to rebuilt his past and learns a terrible secret about who he was.  Then the story takes a turn as we discover nothing in Dark City is as it seems.

Director/Screen Writer Alex Proyas builds a case for alien abduction and experimentation unlike any we have seen before.  The story has little expository to help the audience as originally shot. Concerned that the audience might be lost early on the studio asked Proyas to add a narrative explanation in the introductory scenes. 

Dark City was nominated for Hugo and Saturn awards in the science fiction community and critics were largely positive but the film failed at the box office, soon to disappear.  

I discovered it quite by accident and it took some patience on my part to get through the first few scenes trusting I wasn't being led down a path going nowhere.  It was worth it.

The film scenic design is interesting.  You can't easily tell what era the story is taking place in. The vehicles are 40's and 50's vintage, the buildings could be in any large city from the same general decades.  The costuming is just as vague all lending to the mystery.

Then, just as things are beginning to fit together there comes a series of bigger and bigger reveals about the true plot of the story until there comes a very satisfying ending leaving you wondering why Dark City didn't become the subject of a television series at the very least.

I go back and watch this one periodically because it's a great story worth seeing again.
Rent it at least then OWN IT!