Archive for October, 2009
The Wrestler
A star of the 80’s, Randy “The Ram” Robinson (Mickey Rourke) was a champion professional wrestler. Now 20 years later, a shell of his formwer self, Randy he ekes out a living stacking shelves in a supermarket weekdays, moping around strip joints at night and performing fights for handfuls of die hard wrestling fans in high school gyms around New Jersey on the occasional weekend.
Money is tight and Randy never pays his rent on time, this former Headliner seems to have lost his money and the high school gym wrestling nights don’t bring that much coin.
So why does the aging relic put his body on the line time and time again? It’s because he never learned to embrace the real world – living rather for the fantasy that was his wrestling persona.
It’s this that makes The Wrestler a long hard watch – time and time again, Randy gets clear warnings that he must change his life, and even when he’s offered what he really wants out of life, he prefers to risk it all for one more night in the ring. Read the rest of this entry »
Bullrun
Bullrun is the world’s most glamorous car rally – based on 1981’s The Cannonball Run, but without the acting talents of Burt Reynolds and Roger Moore, Bullrun is a real life, fly-on-the-wall documentary series following the rich and stupid drivers who drive an 8 day rally across the Unite States – all for the fun of it.
Rally organiser’s stress that it is a rally, and that all participants must obey the road rules, including speed limit – but then set them daily distances that can only really be achieved if some degree of speeding is involved.
Of course, many of the drives are in control of half million dollar exotic sports cars, so breaking speed limits won’t be a problem – avoiding the cops and staying out of jail will be. Read the rest of this entry »
Jerusalema
Lucky Kunene knows exactly what he wants in life: a 7 series BMW. Unfortunately for Lucky, he is a poor black kid from Soweto who can’t get a scholarship. This doesn’t leave many options, until he is taken under the wing of a local gang boss and former guerrilla who sees potential in Lucky.
And potential is something Lucky has buck loads of, and he thrives in the car-jacking business. Raised by a God fearing mother who would rather he read the Bible than the how to be better at business books he’s currently feasting on, Lucky decided the life of crime is not for him, especially after witnessing just how far the former guerrilla is prepared to go to get money.
Settling down to a minimum wage job at a petrol station, is former crime boss calls on him for one final job, which Lucky begrudgingly decided to do – things predictably go South and Lucky decided to head to Johannesburg to get lost in the city and make an honest living for himself. Read the rest of this entry »
Fugitive Pieces
There are plenty of Holocaust films available – some would say too many. I guess the human drama of the Holocaust makes for a very emotive subject that often translates well on to the screen. Fugitive Pieces however wouldn’t probably be placed in the Holocaust genre, mainly because it deals more with the emotional effects of the Holocaust rather than the Holocaust itself. In doing so however, it manages to produce a human dram with real emotional grunt, and ultimately a positive storyline.
The story flutters along a time line that starts when Jakob Beer is a little kid in Poland, to his present reality as a writer in Canada. Tearing between 4 main periods in Jakob’s life, we get to see the terrible beginning when German soldiers come into his house, where his parents have hidden him, kill his father and take his older sister and mother away.
Rescued by a compassionate Greek archaeologist and smuggled into Greece, Jakob is raised by his Greek saviour, Athos. Of course, we don’t find this out right away as the story is weaved in a fashion that keeps us hanging on each and every carefully constructed and wonderfully shot scene, watching in awe as the story is revealed like the blossoming of a spring flower. Read the rest of this entry »
