American Beauty (1999)

Directed by: Sam Mendes
Cast: Kevin Spacey, Annette Bening and Thora Birch

Lester (Kevin Spacey), a family man suffering through a mid-life crisis, who despises his job, became apathetic to everything which he considered his existence pointless, even his relationship with his wife is very frigid. He is married to Carolyn (Annette Bening) who is an ambitious real-estate broker,  a miserable wife slowly driven by materialistic insanity and lacking sense of motherhood, her relationship with her husband as a wife has no time for any form of intimacy. Beneath the appearance of their marital happiness were the constant arguments, fighting and lack of love with each other. Jane (Thora Birch) is the low self-esteem 16 years old daughter. Next door are the new neighbors Frank Fitts (Chris Cooper) a retired US Marine Corp Colonel and his wife Barbara (Alison Janney) and their son Ricky (Wes Bentley) who smokes marujuana and a drug dealer, despite his strict disciplinarian father he managed to conceal his drug activities. Lester started working out to gain the attention of his daughter’s friend Angela.

The cinematography of the film was excellent with superb clarity by Conrad L. Hall, the red roses petals became a visual poetry in the film. The story was written well by Alan Bal. The characters were exceptionally played; American Beauty mirrored the American life in a dark, painful irony and cynicism way. The ending of the film was tragic but comical.   

References:

Nytime (2011) American Beauty [Online] Available at http://www.nytimes.com/library/film/091599beauty-film-review.html [23 March 2011]

Rolling Stone (2011) American Beauty [Online] Available at http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/reviews/american-beauty-19990915 [23 March 2011]

Salon (2011) American Beauty [Online] Available at http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/review/1999/09/15/beauty/index.html?CP=SAL&DN=110 [23 March 2011]

The Austin Chronicle (2011) American Beauty [Online] Available at http://www.austinchronicle.com/calendar/film/1999-09-24/140323/ [23 March 2011]

SF gate (2011) American Beauty [Online] Available at http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/1999/09/17/DD106066.DTL [23 March 2011]

Undertow (2004)

Directed by: David Gordon Green
Cast: Jamie Bell, Josh Lucas, Devon Alan and Dermot Mulroney

“Undertow” was directed by David Gordon Green known to his trademark of eerie pacing, pans stretched out like molasses and silences that span the whole oceans are perfect treatments for a story with the drawn-out tensions of murder, pursuit and fear. (Stylus Magazine)

Jamie Bell, Josh Lucas, Devon Alan and Dermot Mulroney are the cast of the film. Undertow is a drama / thriller  that ‘transcends the genre’(New York Post), set in an oppressively, depressing humid red rusted tin roof Savannah landscape of the Deep South rural farm in Georgia, where a single father John (Mulroney) raised his two children. Chris (Bell) is the eldest who does the most of the hard labor within their small farm and rebellious because of frustration and boredom. Tim (Devon Alan) is the younger brother with strange eating disorder. When ex-con uncle Deel (Josh Lucas) came to stay with them and eventually killed their father because of the gold coins, the two boys went on the run with the gold coins to escape from their murderous uncle.

The film has rich elements of a Savannah landscape, they used available lights. The interior scenes use a lot of deep shadows and minimal light which was effective on showing depth. The fast pace and cut-fast forward effect through the film was a good style which we still see this kind of style on other film.


References:

Stylus (2007) Undertow [Online] Available at
http://www.stylusmagazine.com/articles/movie_review/undertow.htm
[Accessed 27 February 2011]

Rotten Tomatoes (2011) Undertow [Online] Available at
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/undertow/ [Accessed 27 February 2011]

Celebrity Wonder (2011) Undertow [Online] Available at
http://celebritywonder.ugo.com/movie/2004_Undertow.html
[Accessed 27 February 2011]



 

Film Review: Unstopable

"Unstoppable" was directed by Tony Scott. Denzel Washington and Chris Pine are the two main characters as a train  engineers who will save an unmanned train (triple 777). This  train was going runaway and can not be stopped because the throttle went forward without anyone on board and the train cruises 70 miles per hour. Triple 777 was carrying large amounts of dangerous chemicals and needs to be stopped.–