Friday, 2/19/10

Finally, some good movies.

Shutter Island - 3 1/2 stars

I really enjoyed this. The movie looks incredible, and the performances are great. Within the first 10 minutes, I was loving it. Sometimes you can just tell when you are watching a movie directed by a master filmmaker. It looked like Scorsese was trying to make the movie look like it was filmed back in the 50s (except it was in color). The score was over the top dramatic, which in the hands of a lesser director would have been lame. But Scorsese knows exactly what he's doing. You know some bad stuff is going to happen on this island.

I only have a few complaints. One is that the great Max von Sydow was not in it enough. I wish he had like 10 more scenes. The other is the movie is too long. Its 2 hours and 20 minutes, and it could have easily lost a half hour. There are a lot of dream sequences and flashbacks, and those should have been shortened.

Some people will not like the ending. I had no problem with it. It's the type of movie that you have to see twice, because the second time you will see a different movie. I can't wait to see it again.

The Last Station - 3 stars

Christopher Plummer plays Leo Tolstoy and Helen Mirren plays his wife. They are both nominated for Academy Awards for their performances. Tolstoy is close to death and wants to give the copyrights for his books away. He says his work belongs to all of Russia, and his wife is scared to death of that. She thinks that if that happens, she and their children will starve to death after he is gone. Paul Giamatti plays Vladimir Chertkov, the leader of Tolstoy's philosophical / religious movement, and the one trying to persuade Tolstoy to give his copyrights away.

James McAvoy plays Valentin Bulgakov, a naive young man who goes to serve as Tolstoy's secretary / personal assistant. He is a huge follower of Tolstoy's teachings, which include sexual abstinence. Which means that not only is he a virgin, but as the movie progresses he will fall in love and lose his innocence. Throughout the movie Bulgakov is torn in two directions. Chertkov warns him to beware of Mrs. Tolstoy, and Mrs. Tolstoy is trying to convince him that Chertkov is an evil man who just wants Tolstoy's fortunes for himself.

I liked the movie, and it made me want to learn more about Tolstoy. I knew he was a great author, but I had no idea that he created a movement with many followers, or that his philosophies would influence Gandhi.

Oscar Shorts

I have only seen a couple of the shorts. I liked Instead of Abracadabra, a Swedish movie about a Napolean Dynamite - like guy who wants to be a magician. He puts his mom in a box, plunges a sword into the box, and what happens is pretty much every magician's worst nightmare. Kavi is about a boy born into slavery in India, and it was also very good.