TRH Movies – A Triple Header

So I’ve been on the ‘oh my gosh I have to watch all the Oscar-nominated films in one go’ streak lately. It’s not that I’m going to do well in any awards night polls because, well, I never do—I always vote from the heart, which is the kiss of death in those types of contests.

Annnywaaay.

Children of Men
On Saturday afternoon, the RRHB and I went to go see Children of Men with Tara and Dave. Many, many people have been raving about how wonderful this movie is and about how it truly should have been nominated for Best Picture. I can certainly see why. Based on P.D. James’s novel of the same name, the film takes place in the near future after the human race has, essentially, ended—all women are infertile. Society is barely functioning. England is exporting all of its immigrants. Eerily familiar bombs are being detonated in coffee houses. Violence and civil disobedience are everywhere. In short, it’s on the verge of apocalypse. And so soon! The film is set twenty years from now, which is one of the reasons it scared the bloody crap out of me.

Clive Owen plays Theo Faron, an alcoholic, downtrodden London office worker who finds a shadow of his former self when he’s enlisted to help his underground-movement-leader of an ex-wife smuggle some important human cargo out of the country. It’s a bone-chilling and brilliant movie that should have gotten a lot more kudos than it did. Where’s Clive Owen’s love? He holds the movie together, from start to finish, and man, is the movie the better for it. Add to the mix superior art direction, brilliant editing, a wonderful script and man, you’ve got a superior piece of film work. And it’s not often that I rave, rave, rave about a film. The crucial test is whether or not I’m still thinking about it days later, and I am.

Half Nelson
Okay, I’ve never downloaded a movie from the internet before. But, and I’m not saying who, a certain someone I know and love does it a fair bit, and he grabbed Half Nelson the other night. The two of us, perched on desk chairs and eating lasagna for dinner, watched this utterly captivated picture from start to finish on the computer. I felt guilty the entire time.

Ryan Gosling plays Danny Dunne, a junior high school history/social studies teacher and aspiring writer with more problems than the usual Mr. Smith standing at the head of the class. A functioning addict who uses the kids like an anchor holding him on board his own life, Danny is a total mess when he’s not at school. Like one of those truly tortured souls who can’t possibly be meant for reality, he develops an oddly patriarchal and somewhat inappropriate relationship with Drey (Shareeka Epps). From the first, tragic minute when she discovers his fatal flaw, the two dance around the issue of his drug use, until the penultimate moment where Drey, when confronted with the cold, hard truth of the life she’s in the middle of, is forced to leave her childhood behind far sooner than she probably should.

Gosling’s performance is haunting and hectic, full of addiction ticks that aren’t remotely stereotypical but the product of a man whose talent is so compelling it almost steams off the screen. He is so magnetic that your body tingles when you watch him. And Shareeka Epps shows such wisdom in her own performance that the pair of them are both captivating and, yes, heartbreaking at the same time.

I truly think that Half Nelson might be my favourite movie I’ve seen this year (I’m using ‘year’ in terms of Oscar-nominated pictures, of course).

Music and Lyrics
Another film I had to review for Chart, this film, a fun, whimsical romantic comedy starring Drew Barrymore and Hugh Grant turned out to be kind of charming and almost funny. And, seriously, watching it just for Hugh Grant’s dancing was enough for me, more to come on that one when I write my “official” review.