Briony (Saoirse Ronan) is a 13-year-old daughter in a wealthy family in pre-WWII England. She's developed a serious crush on Robbie (James McAvoy), the son of the family housekeeper. She throws herself at him, even pretending to be drowning so he will rescue her. When he scornfully rejects her, and passionately declares his love for her older sister Cecilia (Keira Knightley), Briony decides to get even. When a youthful cousin is raped by a friend of her older brother, Briony gives false witness and identifies Robbie as the rapist.
Briony exhibits anti-social personality disorder, what we would call a sociopath (aka psychopath). She is able to lie, cheat or steal without any guilt, shame or remorse. Her goals are control and winning, and any action is permissible to attain the goal. She has no conscience, and only a hole where her heart should be.
Convicted of rape and imprisoned, Robbie accepts a wartime reprieve by agreeing to join the British armed forces fighting the Germans in France. Tragically, he dies of septicemia during the British evacuation at Dunkirk in 1940, and Cecilia later dies during a German bombing raid on London. So the lives of the two lovers are destroyed without their ever having had a moment of true happiness. And Briony lives with her secret for the next seventy years. Finally, upon learning that she is dying of dementia, an 83-year-old Briony (Vanessa Redgrave) decides to tell the truth in an autobiographical novel, she calls Atonement.
Atonement is the act of making honest and heartfelt amends or reparations for an injury or wrong; it is an act of contrition, of facing those whom one has wronged, and accepting the consequences and punishment for one’s actions. Briony doesn’t atone for anything; she waits until Cecilia and Robbie are long dead, and she herself is dying, before publishing the truth, which she admits isn't accurate, since she gives the lovers' story a happy ending in her novel. This isn't atonement - this is spineless cowardice, purely and simply. This is failure to accept responsibility and deal with the consequences. A more apt title for book and film would have been A Lie Told and Lives Destroyed.
While the film's production values are excellent, there is no moral and ethical foundation for the story. Its only value is in awakening us to the fact that roughly one in 20 (5%) of all adults are sociopaths, and when we cross them, they have the potential to destroy our lives. If you'd like to see Keira Knightley shine in a critically acclaimed, truly magnificent film, I highly recommend Pride and Prejudice.
Labels: drama, Keira Knightley, mystery, romance, tragedy, WWII
Internet Movie Database
Metacritic 85/100
RottenTomatoes Averages (critics=74, viewers=76)
Blu-ray
I must agree with film critic Roger Ebert's characterization of this as a mouth agape movie; during the film your jaw will hang open in astonishment as one preposterous event follows another. The concept is that treasure hunter Ben Gates (Nicolas Cage) wants to uncover the mystery within the missing pages of Lincoln assassin John Wilkes Booth's diary, so Gates can restore the good name of his ancestor Thomas Gates, who has been identified as the mastermind behind the assassination plot.
In the process Ben Gates discovers that the plot involved a treasure map and the search for Cibola, one of the seven Cities of Gold originally sought by Spanish explorers to North America. After traveling to Paris and London in search of clues, after surviving a ridiculous car chase by another team of treasure hunters led by Ed Harris' character, our three intrepid treasure hunters almost magically return to the U.S. where they learn that there exists a book of secrets that is passed from one U.S. president to the next, and never seen by anyone else, a book that contains all sorts of fascinating secrets, including, for instance, the existence of Area 51 in the Nevada desert, as well as clues to the location of Cibola. Since the existence of Cibola will prove that Thomas Gates was a loyal U.S. citizen and not Lincoln's assassin, the treasure hunters must find Cibola, which means they must actually kidnap the current U.S. president, and get him to let them look at the book of secrets! Amazingly, they succeed, and uncover the clue that sends them off to South Dakota in search of Cibola.
The screenplay features huge plot holes, unbelievable locations, improbable events and inane dialogue. Nicolas Cage, Justin Bartha, Diane Kruger, Jon Voight, Helen Mirren, Bruce Greenwood, Harvey Keitel and Ed Harris must have wondered what they were doing in this disaster of a film, besides collecting a paycheck. Caution - you will never get back the two hours you waste on this film.
Labels: action, adventure, Ferrari, mystery, thriller
Internet Movie Database
Metacritic 48/100
RottenTomatoes Averages (critics=48, viewers=72)
Blu-ray1
Blu-ray2
Blu-ray3
After living with a heart condition for most of her life since her mother's accidental death, Callie (Samantha Mathis) moves into the university medical center heart transplant ward to wait for a suitable donor heart. She meets Jasper (Peter Dobson) who's been waiting for a heart for several months, and has developed a rather macabre heart-transplant-ward sense of humor - he's thrilled about New Year's Eve because of the auto accidents, and thus the increase in number of potential heart donors.
After several weeks of waiting, Callie and Jasper both receive new hearts within a twenty-four hour period, and then they both mysteriously begin to experience dreams about a little girl named Cricket (Mary Matilyn Mouser), to whom they are strongly but inexplicably drawn. Callie discovers that their heart donors were Cricket's parents, both of whom had died in an automobile accident.
It turns out that Callie and Jasper are experiencing the phenomenon known as cellular memory. This is a touching, character-driven melodrama about how Callie and Jasper and their new hearts find themselves in love with each other, and how they reconnect with Cricket. This made-for-TV movie will be best appreciated by those who enjoy low-key, family-oriented dramas like Jack & Sarah - also starring Samantha Mathis, Hope Floats, Stepmom, and Return to Me, as well as fans of Samantha Mathis and Peter Dobson.
Label: romance
Internet Movie Database
RottenTomatoes Averages (critics=NA, viewers=68)
Mercer White (Lou Taylor Pucci) is nineteen and living in Eugene, Oregon when his mother dies of cancer. Naive and optimistic, he decides to find his older half-brother Arlen (Jsu Garcia), whom he hasn't seen in fourteen years and who doesn't know his mother has died. Stealing a Volvo station wagon from a carwash, Mercer hits the road, but before long the cell phone left in the car rings. The phone belongs to Kate (Zooey Deschanel), the car's owner. Surprisingly, she doesn't threaten to call the police, but instead is curious about Mercer and his motives. Eventually she agrees to let him take her car on his quest, and their phone conversation becomes a screen flirtation through which the two develop an unusual bond, although Kate is not seen for awhile.
From this point on, Mercer's journey takes some strange twists and turns. At a coastal art commune he's assaulted by a fellow from whom Arlen stole a set of tools. In Fallon, Nevada he's seduced by the sluttish Joely (Jena Malone), a former middle school classmate who plies him with Ecstasy. In nearby Reno, he steals a video camera from a porn director named Sergio Leone (Julio Oscar Mechoso), and in turn, he has the Volvo stolen. In Mojave, California he recovers the Volvo with the aid of a liquor salesman. And in Sacramento, Kate, envious of his experiences, unexpectedly joins him. Finally, Mercer finds Arlen in Ensenada, Mexico, where the reunion is disappointing, but where romance with Kate unexpectedly blossoms.
Written and directed by Martin Hynes, this road trip film is made unique by the vast possibilities of the open road, the opportunities for personal growth, the drama of the search for Arlen, and the romance with Kate. While Maura Tierneyand Judy Greer are good in supporting roles, this is clearly an independent production, with bleached-out cinematography and low-budget sets, costumes and soundtrack. If you enjoyed Zooey Deschanel in All the Real Girls, you might give this one a try.
Labels: comedy, drama
IMDb 65/100
MetaScore (critics=69, viewers=76)
RottenTomatoes Averages (critics=55, viewers=68)
Written, directed and narrated by Werner Herzog, this Oscar-nominated documentary feature reflects one man's curiosity about the continent of Antarctica, and the nature of the inhabitants of the American research base at McMurdo Sound. Herzog observes and interviews a diverse group of people including, among others: scientists studying the huge icebergs and their movements in the ocean currents surrounding Antarctica, marine biologists studying underwater animal life, zoologists studying penguins and Waddell seals, volcanologists studying the Mt. Erebus active volcano and the fumaroles on the volcano's flanks, a physicist performing a neutrino experiment in the stratosphere, a linguist cultivating tomatoes in a greenhouse, a survival expert conducting a training class for new arrivals, a plumber performing a pipe repair, and the driver of one of the largest buses in the world.
The one thing these residents all seem to have in common is a love of freedom and adventure. As one of them observes, it is as though anyone who is not tied down ends up at the bottom of the world. While Herzog tells us that the scientists he has met are uniformly alarmed about global climate change, and that many of them predict the demise of the human species, the effects of climate change on the continent and its animal life are not a subject of the documentary, and there is no visual evidence presented to show, for example, receding glaciers or crumbling ice shelves. As a result, this documentary is most likely to appeal to someone with a sociological or historical curiosity about Antarctica and its exploration and colonization, or to a scientist planning an expedition to Antarctica. Viewers expecting a consistently-themed, visually beautiful portrayal of Antarctica will be disappointed; this is not Planet Earth. Nor does it have the dramatic depth, character development and emotional appeal of Antarctica or its remake Eight Below.
Label: documentary
Internet Movie Database
Metacritic 80/100
RottenTomatoes Averages (critics=76, viewers=70)
Blu-ray
Silk is a meditation on a classic theme - a naïve Westerner goes on a journey to the mysterious Orient, and is captivated by what he finds there. Hervé Joncour (Michael Pitt) lives in provincial France in the 1860s, where a local businessman named Baldabiou (Alfred Molina) has a plan to reopen the town's silk spinning mills. Since all the silkworm eggs available from his Egyptian sources are diseased, he's decided to smuggle healthy eggs out of Japan. He convinces Hervé's father, the town's mayor, to let his newly-married son make the hazardous journey. Leaving his lovely young bride Hélène (Keira Knightley), Hervé makes his way across Europe and Asia to Japan, buys the silkworm eggs and returns to France.
While in Japan, however, Hervé is captivated by the concubine (Sei Ashina) of his Japanese host Hara Jubei (Kôji Yakusho). Hervé is obsessed with the girl, and makes a second journey, during which she seduces him. Although silkworm eggs have become readily available from other sources, Hara Jubei's devious plan has worked, and the besotted Hervé makes a third journey to Japan. He nearly loses his life during an armed rebellion and returns to France empty-handed. Over the course of his three journeys, Hervé grows more and more distant from Hélène, and she suspects that she has lost him to another woman.
This is a story without a happy ending; worse, it moves at a glacial pace. With the exception of Molina, the performances are wooden; there is little chemistry between Pitt and Knightley, and the love affair between Pitt and Ashina is constrained by its clandestine nature, and by the language barrier. However, the cinematography is beautiful and the musical score is lush and haunting. If you enjoyed similarly-themed films like Kiss the Sky, The Sleeping Dictionary and Lost in Translation, and you enjoyed director Francois Girard's last film, The Red Violin, you might enjoy Silk.
Labels: cross-cultural, drama, Keira Knightley, romance
IMDb 58/100
MetaScore (critics=39, viewers=60)
RottenTomatoes Averages (critics=39, viewers=54)
Ten years after joining the faculty of a California college, John Oldman (David Lee Smith) has decided that it's time to move on. He's invited seven of his closest colleagues to his rural cabin for a farewell party. The question arises as to why he's giving up his hard-earned tenure, and John decides to risk everything and tell them the truth. He tells them a fantastical story about being a fourteen thousand year old Cro-Magnon who's forced to move on every ten years or so, as people begin to notice that he doesn't age. His guests want to see and hear the evidence, the objective proof, and he tries to give it to them, telling them pieces of his history in rich detail. Of course it's impossible for him to give them absolute proof, and they have to decide for themselves. Inevitably, there's disbelief, fear, anger, outrage, threats; ultimately they force him to disavow his entire story as a fabrication.
As night falls, and the guests begin to leave, Sandy (Annika Peterson) who believes John and wants to accompany him on his journey, asks him what other names he's used recently. In revealing several previous identities, John discovers that he IS able to provide proof of his story's truth, although with tragic consequences.
The entire film takes place in or around Oldman's cabin, so it feels like a stage play, and some of the acting is mediocre at best. Shot using hand-held cameras, with ambient lighting and amateur audio, the picture is grainy and shaky. Nevertheless, if the idea of living thousands of years in a body that never ages intrigues you, or you enjoyed thought-provoking films like K-PAX, Orlando, The Quiet Earth and Solaris, you might give this film a try.
Labels: drama, fantasy, sci-fi, space-time
IMDb 79/100
RottenTomatoes Averages (critics=81, viewers=82)
Blu-ray
