justin1-1

I love movies that take me totally by surprise. Turned on the TV, saw a Russel Crowe movie I'd never heard of was starting in a minute and decided I'd give it a whirl. For the next 100 minutes, I don't remember breathing. What could be described as a formulaic detective, on the lam movie was packed with the little things that make movies worth watching.

It has a stellar leading cast who evolve in totally unpredictable ways over a very short period. Throw in your typical colorful Aussie characters, tribal Afghan crazies, and Japanese you'd never see act that way in Japan and let the bullets fly.

Maybe I also really enjoyed it because in a cast of misfits and crazies, the one who turned out to be the craziest (who starts off the sanest) is driving around the countryside on my motorcycle, a beautiful black Triumph Thunderbird (although it could have been a bonnie, but I don't think so).

But I really enjoyed the subtle things that separate good movies from bad. There are thematic (and landscape) shifts, accurate and slightly ugly social commentary, a little philosophizing, Afghan woman with hijaab as computer hacker, and tasty Aussie back-country scenes (the corner country bar, B&S dance), and some father/son dynamics to go with typical on the lam love developing.

So see this movie, I bet you'll find things you like about it too.

I have been a longtime fan of Mike Leigh, always fascinated to see his slice of life take on England. Because of his well known creative process, the intrigue would be to see the actors and the characters and dramas (and comedies) they created. They were always worth watching in a voyeuristic way due to Leigh's unobtrusive camera work.

Vera Drake is well worth seeing for these same reasons, but Leigh has made a bigger and better movie than ever before, even with all of Topsy Turvy's bombast. His ambitions as director are greater than ever. First of all, to take on the subject of abortion is very brave. But I'll leave that for others to discuss. What was of interest to me from the opening shot was that this was going to be a visual tour de force, and it was.

Painting the scenes in dark, crushing browns and greens, with tight camera angles or letting the light in, each scene had the feel of a well thought out canvas, even the cut aways between scenes were new, inventive and beautiful.

And the acting is great and the scenes of the family interacting in close quarters, moving in synch are so pitch perfect you feel they have been doing this for decades.

So if you're thinking of seeing this movie, sit back, relax, and prepare to be taken on a slow, masterful ride.

I just finished watching 12 Angry Men on Court TV. Watching this incredible cast was a joy. Not a lemon in the bunch. I especially enjoyed watching William Peterson go against type and play a relatively bumbling character with no confidence. Kudos to him for taking the part.

*** Spoilers of a sort from here****

However, a couple of things gnawed at me throught the movie. They both revolved around things not discussed, evidence and race. As far as evidence, two things seemed to be ignored by the screenwriter. First, no one seemed to catch on to the fact that according to the witnesses, the perpetrator ran out of the apartment as soon as the body hit the floor, yet the perpetrator also took time to clean the weapon flawlessly. Well, which one is it. Then, and this one bothered me even more, there was no mention of blood on the boy's clothes. If he was the perpetrator of a stabbing with a stilleto knife, with multiple strikes going down, there would be a lot of blood. There was no mention of blood on the boy's clothes when he got back from the movies, and he supposedly left too quickly to change, and no bloody clothes were found.

Next was how an issue that I thought might be presented by a juror, especially a black juror, but was not. And that is the distrust of the evidence based on the distrust of authority. The muslim said he did not trust the shrink, but no one questioned the collection of the facts by who collected them or presented them. Having lived in New York City for over a decade and having served on a number of juries here, that is a feeling that more than one in 12 possesses, and that I thought would be presented here. I think the fact that this is a remake of an older movie is the reason for this. A script like this written today would have to deal with that issue, with all of the talk of racial profiling (I know Chicago is dealing with this now, and that the frustration of this and other justice related issues have obviously been on the minds of many in Chicago, especially the south side, since long before this 1997 movie) and the high amount of lawsuits against cities for police harassment. It didn't come up, and to me, that seemed false. I don't mean to offend anyone by this paragraph, I'm sure others will disagree with me, but that was my perception.

But thanks to this altogether stellar cast, mainly I just enjoyed the powers of twelve fine actors stuck in one room for two hours with no quick cuts, car chases, needless love stories, digitization, etc... Baz are you watching.