Category Archives: 2007

2007, Animated, DO NOT MISS, Feel Good For All

Ratatouille (2007)

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From NetFlix:

Brad Bird (The Incredibles) co-directs this Oscar-winning Pixar offering, following the antics of a passionate rat named Remy (voiced by Patton Oswalt) who yearns for a sip of the good life. Growing up beneath a five-star Parisian restaurant owned by a famous chef (Brad Garrett), Remy inherits a taste for fine food. But his culinary ambitions only anger his practical father, who wishes his son could just eat garbage like everyone else.

This Disney film, “Ratatouille”, is just not your mother’s Disney.
Times have changed. I suppose it’s OK for children,
but it is really an adult film. What child cares about
the intricacies of cuisine ? How do you explain to
a youngster why the only female cook in the restaurant
take a can of mace from her handbag when the cook’s
illegitimate son comes on to her ? (“Mommy, what’s in
that can ?”) And to find the real heir to the restaurant
the lawyer uses a DNA search. (“Mommy, what’s DNA ?”)

For me the film started out a bit slow, but stick with it.
The ending is a bit maudlin, but after all, IT’S DISNEY!

The only objections I have to the film are as follow:
o There is NO nudity!
o There is NO explicit sex!
o There is NO violence!
o There is NO profanity!

Considering the above objections, who in their right
mind would want to see such a film ?

2007, Explicit sex, Feel Good Not For Children

Feast of Love (2007)

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From NetFlix:

Set in a small, idyllic Oregon community, veteran director Robert Benton’s (Kramer vs. Kramer) charming ensemble drama features different lives intersecting at a coffee shop as they explore the depths of love and loss, joy and pain, and everything in between. Based on the popular Charles Baxter novel, this touching tale stars Morgan Freeman, Greg Kinnear, Selma Blair, Radha Mitchell and Billy Burke.

“Feast of Love” (2007) is fairly close to the book of the same name. Finally, a “date” movie that Kathy and I could watch together. Kathy thought the movie was better than the book. This B-movie has LOTS of nudity and sex. Many threads get resolved more or less happily at the end. Morgan Freeman and Greg Kinnear do a nice job.

Goes well with hand-holding,

2007, Not Feel Good, Violent

Gone Baby Gone (2007)

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From NetFlix:

When a 4-year-old girl goes missing in Dorchester, one of Boston’s toughest hoods, private investigators Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro (Casey Affleck and Michelle Monaghan) reluctantly agree to take the case. But the investigation proves tougher, riskier and more complex than they could have imagined. Ben Affleck’s directorial debut, adapted from the Dennis Lehane novel, also stars Ed Harris, Morgan Freeman and Amy Ryan (in her first Oscar-nominated role).

Gone Baby Gone is a “page-turner”. I found it a bit confusing to follow the details. But the real point of the movie is the final choice that Patrick Kenzie has to make. I would really like to hear what choice you would have made.

The real violence is not the shootings but the violence done to the little girl by her mother-from-hell (neglect, not beating) played to perfection by Amy Ryan.

2007, Detective, Not Feel Good, Suspense, Violent

We Own the Night (2007)

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From NetFlix:

Bobby Green (Joaquin Phoenix) manages El Caribe, a hot New York City nightclub, while estranged brother Joseph (Mark Wahlberg) has followed in their policeman father’s (Robert Duvall) footsteps. The two are reunited by dealings with the Russian mafia, which has a foothold in Bobby’s business. As Joseph puts pressure on the mob, its members turn the screws on Bobby. Eva Mendes and Tony Musante co-star in writer-director James Gray’s action-drama.

More than the above I will not write, because the plot has some original developments. Joaquin Phoenix once again does not disappoint. Similarly Eva Mendes, Mark Wahlberg, and Robert Duvall do a great job. The movie is violent but not especially so. More important are the personalities and how they change, some for better, some for sadder.

By the way, if you have not seen Joaquin Phoenix in “Walk the Line” (a movie for everyone), don’t miss it!

“We Own the Night” tells a great story!

2007, Feel Good Not For Children

The Nanny Diaries (2007)

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From NetFlix:

College-educated Annie Braddock (Scarlett Johansson) gets a crash course in child care when she plays nanny to the 4-year-old son of grossly dysfunctional parents (Laura Linney and Paul Giamatti). Directed by Shari Springer Berman (American Splendor), this all-star comedy was adapted from the best-selling novel by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus, who based their book on their experiences working for Manhattan’s wealthiest families.

Scarlett Johansson is a nanny for the son of unhappy, nasty rich New Yorker Laura Linney named Mrs. X. It’s a B-film with a happy ending. I could not really find anything wrong with this movie (slightly preachy climax). Paul Giamatti is Mr. X.

2007, Documentary, Unusual

Protagonist (2007)

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From NetFlix:

Four disparate lives intertwine with surprising results in this absorbing documentary, an official selection of the 2007 Sundance Film Festival. A German terrorist, a bank robber, an “ex-gay” evangelist and a martial arts student form the unlikely quartet. In her interweaving narrative, Oscar-winning filmmaker Jessica Yu explores parallels between human life and the formal dramatic structure of the Greek tragedian Euripides.

This is one strange film which features 4 talking heads telling their stories. You have to be in the mood for what is really a documentary. How did one man become a terrorist working for Carlos the Jackall and what was his salvation ? How did another become a bank robber and what turned his life around ? Why did a man become a self-destructive martial artist and how did he change ? A Greek chorus separates the stages of the lives of these men.

2007, Not Feel Good

Atonement (2007)

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From NetFlix:

In this drama based on the critically acclaimed novel by Ian McEwan, a childhood lie irrevocably changes the lives of several people forever. When 13-year-old Briony Tallis (Saoirse Ronan) misinterprets a moment of flirtation between her older sister Cecilia (Keira Knightley) and a servant’s son, Robbie Turner (James McAvoy), her confusion causes her to finger Robbie as the perpetrator of a crime. Brenda Blethyn and Vanessa Redgrave co-star in this Oscar nominee for Best Picture.

“Atonement” is a beautiful sad movie (think “Ivory Merchant”). This movie, in my opinion, is one of those “do not miss”. Some of the WWII scenes were a bit drawn out, however. And definitely not for children. The chronology of the film differs from that in the book by Ian McKewen.

2007, Acceptable Trash, Explicit sex, Suspense, Violent

Shoot ‘Em Up (2007)

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From NetFlix:

When a mysterious loner named Mr. Smith (Clive Owen, Children of Men) delivers a woman’s baby during an intense shoot-out, he inadvertently lands himself at odds with the ruthless Mr. Hertz (Paul Giamatti). Aided by the enigmatic DQ (Monica Bellucci), Mr. Smith is tasked with protecting the newborn from Hertz and his henchmen. Written and directed by Michael Davis, this bullet-riddled action thriller also stars Ramona Pringle and Chris Jericho.

“Antonio, you can’t be serious !!!” I make no apologies for having enjoyed thoroughly the wonderful escape offered by this violent, funny, outrageous, vulgar movie. This is a movie made for Clive Owen. And Paul Giamatti makes a great villain. Jackie Chan is quite an athlete and all the things he does are real. In “Shoot ‘Em Up”, on the other hand, nothing that Clive Owen does could possibly be real. During the movie he never misses a shot and kills possibly a hundred men. But the shooting sequences are works of cinematic art. The dialog and moments of sex are down and dirty. I loved this movie. But then, I LOVE TRASH !

2007, DO NOT MISS, Redemption, Violent

Eastern Promises (2007)

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From NetFlix:

Viggo Mortensen (in an Oscar-nominated role) reteams with director David Cronenberg in this intense thriller, starring as Nikolai Luzhin, a notorious London gangster. When Luzhin learns that a midwife named Anna (Naomi Watts) has discovered incriminating evidence against his “family,” he finds his normally steely resolve compromised. Vincent Cassel, Armin Mueller-Stahl and Sinéad Cusack co-star.

Naomi Watts is the midwife trying to find relatives for an infant orphan whose mother was a white slave of the Russian mob. Viggo Mortensen is a Russion mobster. Wonderful plot twists, excellent character development. It is also a redemption movie (often the case with violent movies). If you can stand the violence, this is Viggo Mortensen in one of his many amazing movies.

1001BeforeDie, 2007, Could Be Hard To Watch, Could Be Sad, Feel Good Not For Children, German, Redemption, Revenge

The Lives of Others (2007)

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From NetFlix:

Set in 1980s East Berlin, director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s debut feature (which earned an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film) provides an exquisitely nuanced portrait of life under the watchful eye of the state police as a high-profile couple is bugged. When a successful playwright and his actress companion become subjects of the Stasi’s secret surveillance program, their friends, family and even those doing the watching find their lives changed too.

For me this compelling film (recommended in “1001 Films To See Before You Die”) was a “feel good” because it has the most memorable and wonderful ending. In between there is a lot of sadness. Also the film is somewhat illustrative of the phrase “the banality of evil”. Not that those times were easy: the Stasi blackmailed ordinary people into spying on their neighbors.

The banality of evil is a phrase coined by Hannah Arendt and incorporated in the title of her 1963 work Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. It describes the thesis that the great evils in history generally, and the Holocaust in particular, were not executed by fanatics or sociopaths but rather by ordinary people who accepted the premises of their state and therefore participated with the view that their actions were normal. This concept has it critics. See The Banality Of Evil