Restrepo

A documentary made by journalist Sebastian Junger (The Perfect Storm) and photojournalist Tim Hetherington while embedded for a one-year Vanity Fair assignment with the Second Platoon unit of the 503rd Infantry Regiment (airborne) in the Korengal Valley in Afghanistan.

The documentary format brings a realism and credibility to what our troops are experiencing in this region, far from the western comforts of our living rooms and offices. This means the heightened adrenaline rushes of a firefight, the daily drudgery of manually building a new outpost, and the boredom that may permeate for days or weeks at a time.

There are moments of life at its fullest for these young men and yes, there is death...

A sobering companion to last year's The Hurt Locker, I don't believe that this film has a political agenda whatsoever.

A documentary is often limited by the footage shot while covering the subject. The "story" is then written in the editing room. There doesn't seem to be a shortage of footage here, however, my only criticism, and it's a slight criticism, is that the final story (which is best defined by Aristotle as simply a beginning, middle, and end) was not as strong as I expected. Ultimately this film allowed the viewer the opportunity to partially experience what our soldiers are dealing with in Afghanistan. This is an open, honest, and credible depiction of current conditions for this particular Platoon.

It won the top documentary prize at Sundance last year and has been nominated for an Oscar this year.

I saw this on DVD and of particular interest are the extras, the interviews with some of the soldiers themselves, and an update on where they are now -- after their 15-month deployment in Afghanistan.

Mesrine (Part 2)

The second part of this 4-hour Mesrine biopic.

In this second part of the Mesrine story, we follow this criminal as his crime's escalate to fulfill his need to stay relevant in the media. He becomes infatuated with his status as Public Enemy No. 1.

He robs banks back-to-back, he kidnaps judges and slum lord millionaires, and he violently murders a journalist that publicly humiliates him.

Part Dillinger, part Robin Hood, Mesrine is a criminal that does capture the imagination of the masses. His daring knew no bounds, once even remarking that "death is nothing to someone who knew how to live." Maybe it was this attitude that is captured so well in this film and that so many people may find enticing.

The end of this film brings a fitting end to this gangster's life as delivered by one of France's anti-gang units.

An extremely well-made film about someone who represented humanity's dark side to the fullest extent.

Part 1 probably glamorizes crime a bit too much and portrays this criminal in a sympathetic light but Part 2 certainly puts the viewer in the position of understanding that Mesrine deserved the fate that awaited him...

Mesrine (Part 1)

Jacques Mesrine was one of France's most notorious criminals of the 1960's and 1970's. He robbed banks, charmed women, murdered many, was imprisoned on several occasions, later escaped from those same prisons, and ultimately became France's Public Enemy No. 1, which is the subtitle of the second part of this 4-hour biopic.

In short, he was a gangster with charm.

Mesrine is brilliantly portrayed by French actor Vincent Cassell (who also appears as the ballet director in the recent Black Swan) and this first two-hour installment highlights Mesrine's journey from soldier in Algeria to his indoctrination into the French criminal underworld and ultimately into becoming a career criminal of escalating boldness. Gerard Depardieu portrays an underworld criminal kingpin with equal brilliance.

Sometimes violent, sometimes very touching, always entertaining, this is a well-made film that convincingly tells the story of one of France's most notorious criminals...

Black Swan

You'd have to be living in a bubble not to be aware of this film directed by Darren Aronofsky and starring Natalie Portman.

The story of a ballet dancer cast to play both the white swan and the black swan in a performance of Swan Lake, this film focuses on the delicate inner life of a performance artist who is pushed to her emotional limit and then some...

This film has received a vast number of accolades and awards already and may win a few more come Oscar time. The praise has mostly gone to Portman herself for this performance.

Aronofsky is one of the few directors working at the top of his game right now (Christopher Nolan is another) and has made some of my favorite films in recent years such as Pi, Requiem for a Dream, and The Wrestler.

While I enjoyed this film as a visual experience I have to admit that I was pretty disappointed in this much hyped film as my expectations might have been a bit high, especially with respect to the story.

Natalie Portman has been much praised for her performance in Black Swan, however, I'm not so sure that she's so deserving of it all. She delivers a good to a very good performance here rather than what many consider to be a great performance.

And it makes me wonder... have our standards fallen considerably with respect to our expectations of an acting performance for it to be considered great, or even remarkable? I think back to the heyday of the 70's and all those great films and their corresponding acting performances from the likes of Pacino, Brando, Duvall, Streep, DeNiro, Hackman, Hoffman, Nicholson, Spacek, Rowlands, etc...

Maybe it's just that too many entertainment outlets today have dumbed us down and lowered our expectations.

I wonder...

Conviction

Yet another film based upon a true story.

Brother and sister (Kenny and Betty Anne Waters) do not have the ideal childhood but they have each other and the bond that they develop will last a lifetime.

Kenny always had a wild streak in him and they were separated at one point and placed with separate foster families. But this probably only strengthened their bond...

Kenny is falsely accused of murder and suffers the consequences by having to spend the rest of his life in prison. Meanwhile Betty Anne, convinced of his innocence, happens to be a high school dropout, is married, and has two children. She vows to get him out of prison and somewhat like 127 Hours she does something that every viewer will ask themselves after experiencing this film -- if I were in her shoes, could I have done what she did?

What exactly does she do?

She uses the legal system to exonerate her brother. She first gets her GED. Then she goes to college part-time while working in a bar (keep in mind that she's raising two children at the same time) and gets a college degree. Her husband leaves her because he can't understand her obsession with getting her guilty (in his mind) brother out of prison. She can't afford to pay for an attorney so she goes to law school herself to be able to represent him legally. Remember, she's now a single mother raising two children, working part-time, and attending law school.

This is around the time that DNA evidence became more prevalent in cases like this and she pursues this with the help of the nonprofit organization known as the Innocence Project to find the DNA evidence needed to indeed exonerate him.

He entered prison in 1983 and was released in 2001... that's 18 years that she pursued an education to allow her to fight for her brother's release. And she... well, especially he, or better yet, they... won.

A story of struggle and triumph. Hillary Swank and Sam Rockwell gave two excellent, very worthy performances.

My only issue with this film is that the story, the way it was written and directed, seemed better suited as a top notch cable movie rather than a theatrical release. But that's a minor point...

The Fighter

Another film based on a true story.

Lowell, Mass. based half-brother boxers Mickey Ward (Mark Wahlberg) and Dicky Eklund (Christian Bale) are at the center of this poignant family drama, which also happens to have some pretty decent boxing scenes wrapped around its dramatic core.

Stellar acting across the board including Melissa Leo as their mom and Amy Adams as Mickey Ward's girlfriend.

Christian Bale showed me quite clearly in this film that he is a much, much better character actor than a lead performer. This acting performance should win him an Oscar.

This may also be Melissa Leo's turn to win an Oscar of her own as many believe that she was grossly overlooked a few years ago for her performance in Frozen River.

Eklund had his shot at the big time (he once knocked down Sugar Ray Leonard) and then quickly fell into a life of drugs and despair. He continued to train other boxers including his half-brother Mickey and it was only through sheer willpower that Mickey was able to march through the quicksand that was his family life and rise to become champion himself. But he did it, ultimately, with Dicky at his side...

A powerful story about family and a man's struggle to make something of himself...

Highly recommended.

127 Hours

If you know anything about the true story that this film is based upon then you will understand why I was very hesitant to see this.

And I'm glad I did...

I'm a fan of director Danny Boyle (Trainspotting, Millions, Slumdog Millionaire, 28 Days Later) and only he could pull this story off.

The central dramatic moment of this film arrives when the climber Aron Ralston (James Franco), whose arm becomes trapped under a heavy boulder, who is miles and miles from civilization, who has exhausted all of his food and water resources, makes the bold and necessary decision to cut off his own arm to save his life.

And that, my friends, is worth spending some time pondering...

Could you, if you were in a similar situation, actually cut off your own arm to save your life. Is your will to survive really as strong as that? Is it?

Thankfully most of us will never be forced to actually make a decision like this but it really makes you think about what is truly important in your life. How much are you willing to sacrifice to preserve your life?

This is the central moment of the film and the audience knows what's coming and that's part of the appeal, which is to see how Danny Boyle keeps us gripped in Aron's predicament leading up to that fateful moment...

A simple story, with one big dramatically central event, told with flair and respect.

The King's Speech

The films available here in our local Dublin cinemas, for the most part, have been the standard Hollywood fare this year. This means remakes of television shows, remakes of other films, more comic book superhero films, copycat romcoms, more sequels, and all I can say is...

...thank goodness for December, which marks the beginning of the release season for the majority of award worthy films.

Most studios tend to release their more serious films towards the end of the year to qualify for the Academy Awards. This means that, for me, the bar is now raised quite high on the cinema quality scale compared to what's usually available the remainder of the year.

Case in point... The King's Speech.

I walked out of this screening having felt that I just had the privilege of seeing an Oscar winning film. I have no idea if will even be nominated but it should win for something, I hope.

The heart of this story is the friendship between the King (Colin Firth) and his speech therapist (Geoffrey Rush). I wasn't aware that King George VI had a stammer and this film dramatizes in an excellent way how he had to deal with his speech problem at perhaps Britain's most difficult moment leading up to World War II, whereby the King most needed the respect and support of his people.

Colin Firth gave a memorable performance as the King as did Geoffrey Rush in his role as the King's speech savior.

This was a tumultuous time for Britain as King George V had recently died, leaving his eldest son, King Edward VIII to take the throne. Edward VIII later abdicated his royal position so that he could marry the love of his life, an American divorcee. This allowed George VI to become King in the middle of the Great Depression as Hitler threatened Europe.

Excellent performances all around (except for the actor portraying Churchill who played him as a caricature), excellent screenplay, beautiful cinematography and music, and of course the period costumes and sets were top notch.

I promise you that if you see this film in a theater that you will walk out with a more enlightened and humble spirit. I certainly did...