Sometimes I feel if I wasn't a software engineer, I would have been a movie reviewer! who knows..
So ya, I was watching Mamma Mia! on HBO today. Though its not an 'awesome' movie. But Meryl Streep really proves her worth as a winner of 2 oscars for leading roles. The pick up line in the movie 'The Winner takes it all, the loser has to fall', which streep shouts out to Brosnan. All in all, a must watch for strong feminists.
But, Mamma Mia certainly wasn't what got me going for this post. Rather, it was the trailer on HBO of American History X. This 1998 movie deals with the extremely sensitive topic of racism in the States. And it does that with near perfection. Edward Norton, the man of the hour. Even though it was pretty much the starting part of his career, I would say it is easily his best performance till date. No other actor could better suit for this role (not even Al Pacino!). Many of you might remember him as the lean guy in the 1999 movie, Fight Club. In American History X, he is a hunk, man! I wonder how he managed to shed out so much muscle for Fight Club in few months. The pick up line from this movie has got to be the first line of norton's younger brother's study on norton himself, which goes as : "Hate is Baggage, Life is too short to be pissed off all the time". Expressed so plainly, and yet so very true. I try to follow this in life.
Talking of racism, who can not talk about Spielberg's Schindler's List. A classic. A black and white movie made in 1990s. (Well not purely black and white, there were couple of small intense scenes where red was used). The direction in this movie was spot-on. I mean here is a guy who specializes in directing sci-fi movies, and out of the blue he comes up with a period movie. Deservedly, he won his first oscar for Schindler's List. There were many superbly touching scenes in this movie, the one where the jews are being massacred in the streets of Warsaw and a little girl in red walking unknowingly, the scene where a german army officer is doing his sniping practice from his window on jewish forced workers. But the best scene for me was the one in which after Germany's demise, Oskar Schindler is preparing to run (and hide) from the allied forces and he breaks down saying "This ring, this is gold. could have got 1 more person". One of the very few movies in which my eyes went wet. If you havn't seen it yet, do it today!
Jewish struggle, hmmm..takes us to The Pianist. Quite on similar lines to Schindler's List. Both showed extreme atrocities against jews. But, The Pianist shows it from the perspective of a simple jew, rather than a self-realizing nazi businessman. The pick-up scene to me was where german soldiers barge into the home of a jewish family and order them all to stand up. An old cripple, on a wheel chair, ofcourse doesn't (can't) follow these orders. He is so simply, coldly, rather professionally thrown out of the window along with his chair. None of the family members could even try protesting. I don't even kill moths/spiders with such despair.
Alright, enough of Racism. I'll move on.
I just can't wait to talk about my "favoritist" movie. The Prestige
(to be continued tomorrow...)
