Category Archives: Movies

Winter’s Bone – Movie Review

This 2010 drama, set in the Ozarks Mountain in the U.S. is the story of a community that is deeply rooted in the manufacturing of amphetamines. This is the story of a rural community where keeping your mouth shut is the first commandment.

The director of this movie, Debra Granik, lived for a while in those communities. So it’s only natural that her representation of the community in this movie feels real. It’s bleak, dark, haunting… She shows the poverty, the patriarchy, the holiness of family and everything that this holiness entails, the rural aspect of it in such a brilliant way that at times you feel like you’re watching a documentary about the region. Even the accent was perfected by the actors and actresses that you forget this is actually a quest, more than a community presentation.

The movie stars Jennifer Lawrence, a brilliant newcomer, as Ree Dolly, a girl who’s the only caregiver of her mother, there in body only, and two siblings. She drops them out of school, teaches them to hunt and care for themselves, just in case… Her dad, Jessup, has gone missing and in order to keep her house and property, she needs to find him – dead or alive. Or else she’ll lose everything.

Now insert this in a community that is, the least you can say, non-helpful and very rigid about following the aforementioned first commandment and you get a movie that is thrilling, haunting and deservedly so, nominated for best picture as this year’s Oscars.

Everything in this movie is vicious. Even the moments of silence in it are terrifying. You don’t know what the people of this secluded community would do to harm Ree. And you can’t but feel what Ree is feeling, as the 17 year old girl trying to keep it together.

Jennifer Lawrence is epic in this. She’s my favorite acting performance of this year as the girl who, on her path to find any information about her dad, she will go through everything you don’t expect a 17 year old to live through. She portrays this role with a resilient stubbornness, indicative of the hardships she has gone through but she lets you in certain moments glimpse at her soul. There’s one scene, in a boat, that will leave you shaken to your core. When you watch it, you’ll know.

On her quest in this patriarchy, she must go through the wives, not the men. And the wife portrayed by Dale Dickey is a brilliant contrast: ice-cold, non-caring but human. Ultimately, this is the whole society. Even Ree’s uncle, played by John Hawkes, is at the same time ruthless but loving.

All in all, if you’re up for a movie that is deep, cold, dark and haunting, this is the movie for you.

Stray Bullet (Rsasa Taycheh) – Movie Review

Currently in cinemas across Lebanon, this movie is a must-see to every Lebanese. It will leave some of you in tears, especially if you’ve actually lived some of the events firsthand. And if you haven’t and you actually can think for yourself, you will come out of it amazed. That was the case for most of the people in the cinema I went to tonight.

Let me start with what I saw when the movie ended. I looked around and there were grown men drying up their tears… men my dad’s age. This movie is that poignant.

Set in 1976 Lebanon during a period when people thought the civil war had ended. The story revolves around a 30-year old named Noha, portrayed by the ever brilliant Nadine Labaki – and we will be discussing her in due time. Noha is getting married to a guy she doesn’t love, in fear of becoming a spinster like her sister. And on the day that her family is preparing a dinner for her fiance’s family, she decides to meet up with her ex-lover.

The events that follow are what make this movie so real. The meeting with the ex-lover, the dinner, the family dynamics, the emotions expressed on screen, the witty dialogue…. This movie is very Lebanese. It was set in 1976 and yet it still feels very familiar. We have all had at least one scene in that movie happen in our households – regardless of how modern and classy you believe your household is. This movie brings us, with our mentality that we have come far since then, back to the ground, telling us: you are still the same people, 35 years were simply added to the date.

Apart from the heartfelt and close to home plot, the movie feels rustic. The art direction here is just terrific. I have no idea about the techniques with which they filmed this but it feels like the movie was actually filmed in those times.

Now to the acting… all the actors and actresses in this movie have apparently given their services for free, which rendered the budget a simple $0.5 million. And the acting is so brilliant, in fact, that I think the actors and actresses gave it their all. I honestly didn’t know Lebanese acting personnel had it in them to give such raw, gut-wrenching and real performances without coming off as fake.

Nadine Labaki, whom I repeat is as brilliant in what she does as brilliant goes, is terrifyingly good. Portraying the character Noha, she reminded me of a review I read by an American top critic of her 2007 movie Caramel. He said to look out for this woman, both directing and acting-wise. While she doesn’t showcase her directing chops in this movie, she more than excels in her acting. There’s one scene at her brother’s house that will leave you dumb-founded. Also the scene that follows that will leave you shaken to your core.

This movie’s title “Stray Bullet” is very poignant. And the content is even more so. It is reminding us, all of us, to beware of going back to times like the ones the movie illustrates without coming off as preachy. Some say the running time is too short. But I thought it was perfect. I wanted more. But I felt it ended right where it should have ended. It didn’t embellish the story with needless subplots. It just lets your mind fill in the blank with your own version of events.

Let me conclude by saying this: Stray Bullet will hit you straight in the heart. It’s that good and I think it’s an obligation for every Lebanese to watch it.

Love And Other Drugs – Review

Love And Other Drugs, aka one of the most hated movies of the year. But unlike the overall opinion regarding this movie, I actually loved it!

Love And Other Drugs stars Jake Gyllenhaal as Jamie, an ADD son of a doctor, who doesn’t want to follow in his dad’s footsteps, so he gets a job as a pharmaceutical sales rep for Pfizer, the company that later on brought the world Viagra. While trying to sell his company’s drug, he meets Maggie, the character portrayed by Anne Hathaway. Maggie has an early onset of Parkinson’s and this where the story starts.

The movie is very life-like. It’s about commerce (trying to sell drug to doctors who can be bought by gifts and schmoozing), ambition and ultimately love. Aren’t those things what life is all about? You have ambition to basically set a name for yourself. This ambition will lead you to make good money, fall in love and raise a family. This is where the life-like approach comes from.

Each one of the main characters of this movie has their own journey. Jamie’s path is to grow out of the careless womanizer that he is into a man. And Maggie’s growth revolves around trust in people, to let go of her own secure but fragile little world and let go.  Jake Gyllenhaal is heartfelt, engaging in his portrayal of Jamie. He draws you in and makes the character very likable. But the true star here is Anne Hathaway.

Anne Hathaway has very much grown since her The Princess Diaries days. And if the first hour of movie, which is basically sex, is not convincing enough, she blows you away (no pun intended) with the emotions she gets across in the second half. It’s not hard (again no pun intended) to like her in any movie that she does, be it the drug addict in Rachel Getting Married or as the sick woman in this one. Her embodiment of a Parkinson’s patient is very good. The tremors she makes, the way she lives the disease… it is all done with the right touch of credibility. And this is coming from a person who has lived firsthand with someone with Parkinson’s. The struggle to get the drugs, the disappointment when she discovers she forgot to refill her prescription… you live the movie and the character through Maggie’s eyes, predicting what she’ll do next: will she open up to Jamie or will she remain secluded? Will she let herself truly live or will she just keep in going by? It’s a multi-layered character, delivered brilliantly. And I’m not ashamed to say I prefer this performance over Annette Bening’s performance in The Kids Are All Right.

There’s one particular scene involving a vodka bottle that is very haunting. You can’t but feel sorry for her character at that point.

Some say that the nudity is unnecessary, especially with the amount it is in this movie. I disagree. The sex scenes in this movie are the vehicle by which these two characters communicate and get to know each other. Relationships usually start the other way around. This is not the case here. Instead of having their minds do the talking, their bodies do.

Moreover, you feel at times that the plot can be taken to an extra level. Sometimes, it feels as if the script could have used an extra draft to make this movie into one that could have actually been a very strong contender at this year’s award season. Some scenes are dispensable and very Hollywood-like cliche, in a movie that is not very cliche. An extra revision would have probably tied those scenes up and delivered a truly great movie.

To finish this up, I prefer Love And Other Drugs over all the other  movies in the Motion Picture – Comedy nomination at the Golden Globes. It’s not for all tastes. But I loved it.

Soul Surfer – Movie Trailer

This is the trailer of an upcoming movie titled Soul Surfer. It’s based on the true story of Bethany Hamilton, a champion surfer, who loses her arm because of a shark attack, fighting through her tragedy and getting back on her feet.

The movie stars Dennis Quaid and Helen Hunt as Bethany Hamilton’s parents. Bethany is played by newcomer AnnaSophia Robb.

And, my favorite artist, Carrie Underwood makes her acting debut as Sarah Hill, the youth counselor who helps Bethany get by.

The movie is released on April 8th, very close to Easter. Screening has already begun for select Church leaders across the United States, seeing as it looks to be a deep movie about Christian values.

Check it out!

 

Rabbit Hole – Movie Review

 

Rabbit Hole is an understated and well-written drama that is centered around the ordinary. Ordinary life troubled by an event. It is the story of a family coping with a tragedy.

Nicole Kidman and Aaron Eckhart are a happily married couple. At least that’s the case until their four year old son dies. The movie is not about the son. Most mentions of the son do not come until later in the movie (how he died, his name…). This is the story of this man and woman coping – or lack thereof – with the loss of their only child.

In my head, the plot is cliche. Parents lose child, etc. But what makes this very credible is how convincingly Nicole Kidman and Aaron Eckhart pull off the grieving parents. Each one of them portrays their coping mechanims so perfectly that you’d think they really lost a child. Some say they plot is undercooked. While you can easily see it that way, I don’t think this is what the movie promises to begin with; the promise being the “unusual” that we have come to expect from movies. This movie is rather the usual and how this usual can be made into a cinematic picture.

The movie is this slow progression of everyday life that is so ordinary that at some points, it takes your breath away. There is one particular scene involving a fight between Kidman and Eckhart that is very raw, credible, real.

There are many actors and actresses that make this movie what it is. Aaron Eckhart holds his own with his multi-layered character. But the movie’s centerpiece is Nicole Kidman, up for an Oscar for her role.

She is so astonishing in this movie that it’s very hard to think this is the actress everyone thought was past her prime. She shines as the woman trying to excise her grief, be it with her interactions with the support group or her mother… It’s hard not to applaud her fragile ruthlessness. And that’s precisely what she is: hell-bent not to feel what she’s feeling that she sets off on the most peculiar of paths: getting to know the cause of her son’s death.

This movie is based on a Pulitzer-winning play also titled Rabbit Hole. While I haven’t seen the play, I think it would have been a really interesting event to attend.

And in case you’re wondering why a movie about grieving parents is titled after an Alice in Wonderland term? Well, the way I see it: they are like Alice, wondering a world that feels so strange to them after their son disappeared from it… into a rabbit hole.