Jaffa

Jaffa, an Israeli film whose title refers to a part of Tel Aviv, is an excellent and moving drama.  I wish movies like this got more press and had more fame.  The story is sad, realistic and compelling.

The movie begins in the family owned garage of an Israeli family, where father, son Meir, and daughter Mali, work alongside a young Palestinian named Toufik.  Meir is not the model son- rebellious, angry, ungrateful and disrespectful towards his parents and everybody else, he steals the attention from his quiet younger sister.  No one suspects that she is having a love affair with Toufik and that they are secretly planning on getting married.

Religious and other tensions start building between the two young men, Meir and Toufik, and the outcome is shocking and devastating. Mali makes an extremely difficult sacrifice, depriving herself of a normal life by keeping hidden a truth which only she knows.

All of the actors are magnificent.  The father is particularly memorable, always kind, trying at times to be a little bit stern, understanding of everyone throughout the film until his final, harsh condemnation.  The ending is extremely powerful- completely unexpected and expected at the same time.  Mali finally makes a choice for herself and we are left hoping that her life will be a happy one.  

This film brought me to tears on several occasions.  I watched it without Fabio as I wasn't sure what to expect and now highly recommend it to him and all my readers.

My rating: 9/10

Shutter Island

I hated this movie!!!!!  It was dark, gloomy, repetitive and uninteresting.  I thought I would probably not love it based on the trailer but still expected more from a Martin Scorsese film.  I am not sure why it is getting such rave reviews; it really surpasses me what people saw in it.

The thriller is set in the 1950's, with Leonardo DiCaprio interpreting a U.S. Marshal, and Mark Ruffalo as his partner.  Together they are investigating the disappearance of a dangerous inmate from an insane asylum on the very isolated Shutter Island.

The atmosphere and music are ominous from the start, much like the opening scenes of Scorsese's 1991 Cape Fear.  It rains constantly on Shutter Island and the decor is conveniently populated with cliffs and a towering lighthouse where a dramatic (if somewhat disappointing) plot twist later takes place. 

There are lots of twists and turns and psychological unraveling on the part of DiCaprio's character.  He is haunted by flashbacks of scenes he witnessed of concentration camps during WW2, and visions of his murdered wife played by Michelle Williams.  DiCaprio's performance was skillful and talented, as was Ruffalo's.  Ben Kingsley was appropriately dramatic in his portrayal of the chief psychiatrist at the institution.

The movie carried on for quite long and its ambiguous ending was not enough to redeem its exasperating, overly paranoid quality which veered too much towards the horror genre for my taste.  More boring than horrifying, I give it a 3.

My rating: 3/10
Fabio's: 4/10
Total score: 7/20

Arranged

A fellow blog reader suggested that I watch "Arranged" (2007).  It is a very nice film that I definitely recommend as well.

Arranged is about the friendship between two women- Rochel, an Orthodox Jewish school teacher and Nosira, a Muslim one.  The acting was very strong and credible and the story absorbing as the womens' relationship develops against all odds.  They find similarities in their situations despite great cultural and religious divides and solace in the fact that their parents are trying to arrange marriages for both of them with candidates who as the name implies, they cannot choose.

The actresses who portray Rochel and Nosira are beautiful inside and out and made this film a true pleasure to watch.  The ending was uplifting and charming; the movie all around very enjoyable.

My rating: 8

Nine

Since I am sitting here wondering how this movie could even have been made (by Rob Marshall) and how its actors could have agreed to be in it (details below), it boggles my mind even more how anybody could have liked it.

Not knowing where to begin with my long list of complaints, let me start with the plot or lack of it.  Daniel Day Lewis interprets Maestro Contini, a film director slightly past his prime who is trying within the movie we are watching to direct a movie called Italia.  The rest of the crew includes Marion Cotillard as his wife, Penelope Cruz as his mistress, Judi Dench as his costume designer, Nicole Kidman as his muse, Kate Hudson as an American fashion editor, Fergie as a prostitute from his childhood, and Sophia Loren as his mother.  If you don't have a headache already you can read on.

It is beyond me why DDL was chosen as the lead actor as his Italian accent sounded phony to me throughout and I could noticeably hear the Irish in it on many occasions.  Why couldn't they choose somebody who spoke Italian?  He is a great actor, no doubt, but not the right one for this role.  All of the other accents were terrible too, and worst of all were the songs and their lyrics.  The dances were pointless, laughable, fake, and overdone to the point that the women didn't even look remotely sexy.  The singing parts were long and painful to listen to, the dancing painful to watch.

DDL struggles throughout the film with lack of inspiration and script and it seems Nine has the exact same problem.  What was this movie even about?  Marion Cotillard's performances were the only redeeming bits of this movie.  She played quite well, as did Penelope Cruz as DDL's rejected mistress.  All the others were just stereotypical disasters. 

I am not a big fan of musicals to begin with but this was a serious waste of two hours.  I watched it without Fabio because I knew it would be bad but it was actually worse than I thought.  Certainly not a NINE!  

My rating: 2.5/10

Fish Tank

Andrea Arnold's Fish Tank, a Cannes Jury Prize winner, is a powerful and moving independent British film.  It paints a harsh, bleak picture of lower class life in England while at the same time managing to fill viewers with hope and beauty.

The acting by the main female lead, Katie Jarvis, is astonishing and incredible (this is the first time she has ever acted).  She plays Mia, a combative, lonely, often angry but mainly misunderstood teenager.  This is not difficult to surmise given the environment that she is being raised in.  Her mother, a physical cross between Kate Moss and Pamela Anderson, is totally self-absorbed, insults her children, drinks heavily, smokes all the time, loves to party and has boyfriends stay over.

Mia has been kicked out of school and has a hard time getting along with others, constantly fighting either physically or verbally with somebody.  A compassionate, softer side to this tough talking fifteen year old comes through when we see her visiting a chained horse daily and trying in vain to free it.  Mia's own escape is through dancing.  She is not a particularly great dancer but practices her routines with passion.

The story begins to unfold as Mia develops a bond with her mom's latest conquest, the attractive, easy-going, sexy Connor, excellently portrayed by Michael Fassbender (Hunger, Inglourious Basterds).  She is very drawn to this new man who treats her like an adult and pays attention to her.  A fine, eerie line between friendship or fatherly attention and sexual attraction is thus drawn.  This ambiguity and its subsequent developments and final revelation make for an intense, original, interesting and rich drama. 

The dancing sequences interspersed throughout the movie are captivating in their strangeness and appeal.  It is a poignant, bizarrely beautiful and exotic sight when Mia dances to "California Dreamin'" for Connor with enchanting outdoor light swirling in the background.  Or my favorite, at the end, a magical scene where she, her mom and sister dance to a hip-hop song together.  No words are spoken but the meaning is clear - they are a family no matter what.

I liked this film a lot although I didn't expect to.  It is strong and realistic and its protagonists will stay with you long after the movie ends.  I read that the actors were only given the script one week beforehand and did not know what would happen to their characters.  The director wanted their acting to be as natural and as real as possible.  Mission accomplie! 


My rating: 8.5
Fabio's: 8
Total score: 16.5

Brothers

Brothers, starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Natalie Portman and Tobey Maguire, is an interesting and profound drama about family values, war, and relationships.  The acting is fantastic.  I had hardly heard of this movie despite its all star cast so it was a pleasant surprise for me.

As the title implies, it centers on two brothers, portrayed by Gyllenhaal and Maguire, whose lives have taken them to different sides of the tracks- Jake's character has recently been released from jail and Tobey is a devoted family and army man.  Natalie Portman plays his lovely wife.  When Tobey is sent away to Afghanistan and rapidly presumed dead, the plot thickens.

Back at home, with everybody trying to cope and go on with their lives, nothing will ever be the same.  I will not write any more on the subject because although we found what happens next very predictable, you should still guess for yourselves!

The entire cast plays superbly.  Tobey undergoes a massive physical transformation and looks completely emaciated as he depicts the decline of someone who has lived through too much horror.  He shows us the mental destruction caused by war and his metamorphosis is truly scary at times.  Jake is really excellent as his sincere brother, torn between passion and brotherly love, guilt and devotion.  The two young girls who play Tobey and Natalie's daughters were very impressive and are earning lots of praise.

The supporting characters are less developed and the father seems to have just two states of emotion- praise and admiration for his army son and disdain for the ex-convict.  This is the downside that I saw in Brothers- that it tended to oversimplify many issues and too often contented itself with merely scratching the surface. For instance, though I have never been in a war so I cannot say for sure, the Taliban scenes seemed fake to me.  

Loyalty, love, faithfulness, duty, pain, grief, sorrow, joy.  All of these are present in this well above average but nevertheless not outstanding film.

My rating: 7.5
Fabio's: 7.5
Total score: 15

The Informant!

The Informant!, directed by Steven Soderbergh, sounded like it would be good; a kind of funnier, lighter version of The Insider.  It is about Mark Whitacre, the VP of an agribusiness giant, who turns into an informant working with the FBI to expose a price fixing scheme within his firm.

The film is a true story but that does not make it more interesting to watch.  Unfortunately I fell asleep - deeply- so this review will be short.  Fabio fell asleep too so asking him what he thought won't help either.

Matt Damon played very well, having once again eaten lots of burgers and pizzas to put on the necessary weight for his role. He sports a terrible hair do, mustache, and wears much too large suits, but makes them all work. 

There is a voice-over background narration during which Damon, as Whitacre, continuously spews out random, absurd, supposed to be funny facts, such as - do polar bears know that their noses are black, and his mispronunciation of centimeters (those are the only ones I remember).  These are meant to be comical but I only laughed once or twice as these phrases had absolutely nothing to do with what was going on on the screen. 

The movie was long; the first hour felt like two.  It was much too detailed and its bizarre quirkiness was not funny enough to hold my attention.  It was boring, dull, and although I missed more than half of it I think there was good reason.

The Informant!  Don't waste your time! 

My rating: 4.5
Fabio's: 5
Total score: 9.5