My Week in Film

Well, it has been an interesting week. I got out to a two films in the theatre, Up the Yangtze and George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead. Odd duo, that is for sure but both films were great. Up the Yangtze is a powerful and moving documentary which I highly recommend seeing. It was also great to catch George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead, which is in fact the first of his films that I've seen and it was a lot of zombie fun I had a great time seeing it, and only have to cover my eyes a few times.

In a gentler mood, being Valentine's this past week I decided to try a romance that has been sitting on my shelf collecting dust. The 2005 version of Pride & Prejudice, directed by Joe Wright (Atonement) and staring Keira Knightly and Matthew Macfadyen. It was fine, but about 1/2 way thought I realized I did know the story from the 2004 Bollywood-inspired Bride & Prejudice so that took the whole trying to figure it out piece away. I don't think romances are my thing. At least not British period romances.



On to another genre! I'm still catching up on some western that didn't find their way to me during the blitz last November and in general, still enjoying them. I saw For a Few Dollars More, the 2nd of The Man With No Name Trilogy. It was quite good with compelling characters and great acting. It was pretty violent but not as much as The Wild Bunch, which I also started to watch but ended up turning off. The last western of the week was John Wayne's Oscar winning performance picture, True Grit. Definitely not his best film but it was quite good and the dialogue was fantastic between the three primary characters, one of which is a spitfire girl which was awesome to see.

I also caught up on the French short, The Red Balloon which was delightful. I was curious to see it, although it would probably have been better to see it before Hou Hsiao-hsien Le Voyage du ballon rouge, which I saw at TIFF 07. I also caught up with the Canadian Who Loves the Sun, starring Molly Parker in a Genie nominated performance. The film is a little uneven but does successfully capture the atmosphere of family drama.

What would be a week without catching some scary flicks? No fun I say! That is why I watched the 1960 classic Village of the Damned. Heh, I just realized I meant to get the 1995 John Carpenter version, but I'm sure I'll run across that another day. The film was freaky and totally creeped me out, although some of the effect feel a little off at times it is still quite a gem. Last but not least is Terry Gilliam's Brazil. I had not even considered watching this film as I knew it was disturbing. I'm not sure what changed my mind, but overall I'm gald I took a chance on it as it was a wild film. Highly creative in the world it creates and it's connection to out own, the production & art design are fantastic but it is quite disturbing in terms of imagery and even ideas.

Speaking of disturbing, on my way home from George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead I came across, the following. How fitting, and bizarre.



Odd preview of the week: Caramel. The film looks interesting for sure, but it feels like they are trying to 'hide' the fact that it's not in English by having an English voice over and mostly showing people laughing of saying words that require no translation. In my experience people have a strong opinion on subtitled films, so I don't think 'hiding' is a great choice. Here's the trailer (watch only 1/2 half is sensitive to spoilers)



This coming week I'm planning on seeing: The Band's Visit, Enchanted, The Hidden and hopefully 3-Iron.

How was your week in film?