Didn’t know this was coming, but interested in seeing it…..
Archive for the 'Movies' Category
Robin reviewed “Gone Baby Gone” a few weeks back and it has been on my list to watch ever since. It has also been generally very well received, so I was really looking forward to it, especially since I really love a movie that poses an ethical dilemma.
For me though, this movie just did not hit the spot. In fact, I hated the first hour so much that I *almost* turned it off.
Why? Well, to start with, Casey Affleck’s voice drove me absolutely MAD, the guy cannot pronounce his words. Instead something sounding half way between the kid from “The Year My Voice Broke” and Dirty Harry drips out.
Generally speaking, I have liked a lot of stuff by Marky Mark and the
Funky Bunch (Boogie Nights, Three Kings), and I like the unique style of Joaquin Phoenix, so I overcame some hesitation and watched “We Own The Night“
If you have some time this weekend, or actually even if you don’t, check 
out Juno. Filled with a million and one classic little one liners, with each flying past you like they are on the way to the pub for a coopers after living away from home for 8 years, you must stay alert!
Robin and I just launched a new movie blog. We are both buffs (me more amateur than him) and thought it would be good to not only track what each other are watching, but let you guys know too.
You might be wondering why on earth this blog is on “Sixteen O Six”.. well.. my mate Daniel wanted to blog on our own domain instead of blogging on wordpress.com Problem these days that is quite difficult to find a cool domain name that is free. So as the aussie type of guy that he is, he discovered that in 1606 Australie was found by the dutch!
“In March 1606 the Duyfken, a small ship owned by the Dutch East India Company (VOC), that had been sent out to explore the unknown waters south of New Guinea, chanced upon unknown territory. The continent that captain Willem Jansz had “found”, was Australia. ”
That was Australia and Hollands first collaboration, and this is our latest!
So! There you have it! What will this blog be about then? It’s gonna be about the movies that we watch and what we think of them..
It was amazingly bad, not a single redeeming feature, how did this ever happen.
Enough said.
Technorati tags: Spiderman 3
This is a great movie about the role of North African soldiers who fought for France in World War II, its a topic that I was reminded of recently. My parents and I visited the grave of a great Uncle on my fathers side in Ypres, Belgium, who most likely dies in the World War I battle of Passchendaele. It was an experience that affected me, and I think all of us, more deeply than we expected.
In the huge war memorial at Menin Gate there were dozens and dozens of names which were clearly not European. They were those of the Indian sub continent, Indians, Pakistanis and the famous Ghurkas. While was strange to see the Australian graves there, for some reason it felt even stranger that these young men would fall so far from home.
Anyway, this movie follows the men from recruitment until the last throes of the war, and it was clearly aimed at raising awareness of the sacrifices such men made despite the discrimination they faced. I’m sure it was an experience common to all those who enlisted from the “Colonies”.
If anything let the film down it was the final sequence, where the men were sent to hold a bridge until the Americans could arrive. Along the way a mine cut through their ranks, leaving just 5 of them behind. I found it hard to believe that, even with the mine incident aside, such a small number of men would have been sent for such a task. It did allow for the inevitable ”fight to the last” against enormous odds and to focus on the lead characters.
In the end, probably like all soldiers, they were fighting for no more than the man standing next to them.
The final frame of the movie is poignant, and in fact made a real difference. It made people aware of the policy of successive French governments to freeze the war pensions of the Indigenes. It was only after the film’s release that the government policy was changed so that their pensions were brought into line with what French veterans are paid. Of course too late for many.
The Ghurkas faced similar discrimination.
Technorati tags: World War I, indigenes, movie Review
Tonights movie was Zwartboek (yup, I’m watching a stack of movies with Petra away). Its a movie that I had heard lots about, naturally because it’s Dutch. Set at the end of World War II, it follows a Jewish women (Rachel Stein / Ellis de Vries) who has managed to hide from the Nazis until almost the very end. Losing her hide out, and then her family, she finds herself at the centre of the Dutch Resistance.
It is a really good movie, one of those that starts well, perhaps goes on a little too long, but then picks up for a great finish. The plot of the movie is one you have seen before, but there are eventually enough twists to keep you guessing right through.
I was a little disturbed about the humanisation of the character Müntze, the Captain of the SD (intelligence service of the SS), whom I’m sure was responsible for his share of occupier inflicted misery. Ellis falls in love with him while spying for the resistance, possible of course, but for me a little shallow and a bit of a distraction. He eventually dies in a way that makes you feel sorry for him, though I think justice would have caught up with him eventually.
The final final scene is also interesting, finishing in Israel in 1956, where there are Israeli soldiers surrounding the Kibbutz she now lives in. Gunfire and explosions are going off in the background. I’m not sure what the intention of this finale was, whether we are meant to feel sorry for her for not being able to escape war, of if we are to feel sorry for the region thrust into it as a result of European conflict. I think it was the former, but not for me.
The Breach is based on a true story, that of the worst case of espionage ever experienced by the US. Robert Hanssen sold secrets to the soviets for years from the safety of his high level job in the FBI. Overall it wasn’t a bad movie, historically it was interesting, though of course I’m sure Hollywood had its way with the truth, and it was generally pretty believable. Of course I had a massive chuckle at the scene where Robert Hanssen went through the FBI datacentre sprouting all sorts of tech related terms and acronyms in sentences that made as much sense as a teletubby episode.
A common weakness in this sort of movie, and one that for me left me feeling pretty frustrated, is of course the weakness of the main leads girlfriend. Far from being supportive they always seem to find it difficult to accept that as an FBI (or secret) agent there are things about his day job that he just cant talk about. This whole aspect of the movie just went too far, with the girlfriend going to the point of deception to try and find out what her boyfriend was up to. Maybe its just because this seems to ruin nearly every movie involving a dedicated, patriotic, all round American good guy secret agent, but it just never feels like the girlfriends reaction is reasonable, like if you were in that position that YOU would feel that way too….
But maybe that is just me….any girlfriends of secret agent out there care to comment?
Documentary on an Aussie beach “tribe” called the Bra Boys. My brother mentioned it to me ages ago, only just got around to seeing it, not sure if he has yet (??).
Anyway, going into it I wasn’t sure what to expect, perhaps another look at this strange Aussie habit of carving hero’s out of those who are not always the most law abiding of citizens (Aussies love Chopper, I certainly loved the movie). In the end it felt a lot like a movie about surfing, which it seems, is pretty much all the Bra Boys do all day.
It was interesting to me to get a perspective on some of the things that have happened at home while I have been away. The 2005 Beach Race Riots in Cronulla for example, and even the Bra Boys themselves, who I had never heard of. The documentary (complete with Russell Crowe voice over)however came across a bit too much like marketing for the group, lots of “we’re just misunderstood” type undertones.
With that said, it seemed to me that the “leader” of the boys did have their “communities” interests at heart, even if they considered getting into running battles near their beach “protecting” their community. If the documentary is to be believed they also offered some of the local boys, in what is a very poor urban area, a sense of family, one in which drugs and smoking is forbidden in favour of surfing. It felt a little bit like what playing basketball is to young black men in “the ghetto”, with the guys who lead the Bra Boys actually being professional surfers.
I will always be very nervous of any glorification of this type of group, I cant help but wonder what it must be like to be in their community and somehow find yourself on the wrong side of one of the boys.
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