Saturday 3 September 2011

2121 Four films at the end of August 2011

I enjoyed the family film using the latest computer animation techniques Find Nemo although the consequences for clownfish have been devastating as well as for their coral reef environment. First there was a huge demand for the colourful fish by the public to add to domestic aquaria and then when the impact was fully appreciated when aquarium owners understood what was happening they released the fish into the wrong ocean thus causing more problems for the fish and for the environment in which they were placed.

The films has universal appealing social messages, and as with Bambi all those decades ago, the film commences with a poignant and potentially traumatizing for some youngsters death of the mother fish and most of her offspring in the form of hundreds of eggs. Only one is saved for his proud father to obsessively protect and cling on to especially as the baby fish is born with one short potentially debilitating fin. This only serves to make the fish, Nemo, more adventurous and eager to demonstrate independence as well as normality. This perhaps explains why over 40 million copies of the DVD have been sold and it is in the top 25 of money earning films just short of 1 billion dollars and a profit over production expenditure of some 900%. The role of father’s in parenting and that disabilities do not mean that any individual is inferior or has to lead a life that has less potential anyone else. That is WoW,

Early in his life attending school he goes on an explore with others and is captured by a scuba diva who returns from the Australian Coral reef to his home in Sydney harbour, placing the fish in his domestic aquaria with a view to giving to his niece who is the kind of child who with the best intentions managed to kill all the previous fish gifts before departing from the premises.

The proud parent arrives on the scene to late to stop his son being taken and attempts to keep track of the boat on its journey back around the ocean. He befriends a Regal Tang fish called Dory played by Ellen DeGeneres who has a short term memory deficiency but who is good natured, optimistic and keeps the father on task. They encounter three recently born again vegetarian sharks but with one finding the desire to keep off fish too great a challenge (played by Barry Humphries), but as a consequence of the encounter the father manages to find a discarded scuba mask belonging to the kidnapper which has the home address, wow that is amazing. The pair become caught up in the huge mouth of a whale and after communicating with the creature it takes them to Sydney harbour releasing them through his blow hole, wow what luck.

Meanwhile Nemo has made friends with the other occupants of the fish in the office of the Dentist scuba diva and he is initiated into their club and they become protective on learning that the dentist plans to give Nemo to his niece. They work out a plan for escape

The story of attempt the by his father to find Memo has spread from their homeland to Sydney when after some early adventures the father explains his search to a shoal of young gossiping sea turtles and the story has reached a Pelican based in Sydney harbour played by Geoffrey Rush! He spots Nemo in the dentist surgery and tells the father on arrival in the harbour. But as with all similar adventures there are more problems and dangers to be faced.

The escape plan rests on the need for the dentist to manually clean the filter which from previous experience clogs up from the sand in the tank. The plan fails because the dentist has installed a new super filter. With the help of Pelican the two arrive at the Dentist Office only to witness what appears to be the death of Nemo (who is playing dead) and who is then flushed down the toilet. However I am wrong in this as according to Wikipedia he escapes down a sink plug hole. In any event this leaves the father in despair and deciding to try and make his way home. Nemo is free and is seen by Dory and his short term memory loss but on seeing the word Sydney regains memory and realises this is the son of his friend and rushes off to find the father and reunite the pair. This is still not the end of the adventure because in the process Dory is captured in a trawl net and Nemo sets out to rescue the rescuer with success. Back home father is able to allow his son the freedom that is natural. Meanwhile back in Sydney the new filter breaks down and the rest of the gang are placed in bags of water but manage to get to the sea but imprisoned in the bags. There are now Nemo theme park attractions, various computerised video games and a musical but as yet no sequel. Wow what happened?

I am not enthusiastic about the pass the time when tired film Takers which has Matt Dillon in the leading role as a Detective trying to solve series of successful crimes by a gang four sophisticated technology orientated criminals who lead the high life and are basically undone by their desire to prove they are the best and unmatchable, and the desire of a former colleague for revenge after he was left in jail, despite his former partners keeping his money. One other bone of contention is that one of the gang has hitched up with his former girlfriend. Another weakness proves to be the drug addicted sister who cannot cope with the rehabilitation programmes which her brother finances.

The released gang member successfully persuades them to become involved in a $30 million armoured vehicle hijack which involves getting the vehicle to fall down a hole created under the roadway close to its stop area and then for the robbers to get away from the adjacent link to the Metro system. It goes wrong of course being rushed and involved their former crime colleague.

The other complication is that the prison released robber has previously cut a deal with the Russian Mafia who want their promised cut. As the film draws to a close the surviving robbers find themselves in a shoot out with the Russians and one survives to hunt down the released colleague who he realises has been out to go off with all the funds himself. He finds the former girl fiend murdered.

A complication in the story early on is that Dillon’s Partner has made personal use of money found during an arrest but unknown to him the Feds have this on tape because of a stake out. He is now facing ruin so when he appears to be fatally injured at the end of the film this appears to be a good way out with Matt promising to ensure that from the family viewpoint the colleague and friend died in the line of duty.

Matt manages to survive the final shoot out which sees he last of the villain killed but he is also wounded with a question mark over his survival. The film had some box office success making twice the production costs but like me. I speculated from the ending that a sequel was already on the genre conveyor belt, but I gather a prequel is planned about how the gang of five came together with only one ending in jail. I can’t wait.

A third fill in time film was the Rebound with the adorable Catherine Zeta Jones who decides to abandon her conventional American suburban home and lifestyle with husband and two children after finding he has cheated with a friend. The reality is that she was discontented with who she has become and needed to find herself. She is able to do this with the help of a young man fifteen years her junior who become a welcome baby sitter and who is also trying to overcome a relationship with French woman seeking a Green card and citizenship who departs his life as soon a eligible to go off with her true lover who has posed as her brother. The two appear destined to have a relationship as the young man his family, children and women orientated having taken women’s studies and supporting feminine. His family are horrified at the relationship which falls after Catherine finds that she is not pregnant and realises she is not ready for motherhood again having re-embarked on a career which leads her to become a front of camera TV personality. They part.

He goes off to find himself travelling the world help out people in Africa, India and Asia (my memory fails at this point). They meet by accident in a restaurant 4 years later. Previously Catherine had learnt to express the anger she felt at her former husband directly to him when he visited to try and win her back and this had enabled her to find herself and create a life for herself and children now teenagers. The young man now in his thirties is joined by a young boy from the Indian sub continent who she assumes is his son by marriage but is in fact a son he was able to adopt from his travels. He is celebrating an event with his parents who are only too willing to make up one dinner party for a joint celebration of the present and what is to come and the couple hold hands under the table. Nice. A far from original story but Catherine is always good to look at.

Another individual who is good to look at although unlike the previous film I felt the word Fake described everything about the super glossy visual candy of Eat Pray Love with Julia Roberts throughout and Javiar Bardem towards the end

However I had better rephrase the introduction because the film is based on an autobiographical best seller by Elizabeth Gilbert. I must also admit that there is a time in my life when the existential search attracted although my interest was psychoanalytical, psychiatric and psychological than transcendental meditation, yoga and all that jazz.

As with The Rebound the film is about a marriage that did not work because the two individuals involved had different life agendas and as in The Rebound, a follow up affairs does not work out either, so the subject, played by Julia Roberts, sets out on a year long adventure of self exploration which takes her to Italy, India, Bali and back to India although I may have got the order of the adventuring wrong.

The trouble is that Julia Roberts looks good, fails to convey any of the insecurity uncertainty trial and error, the panic and misadventure which someone in that position would experience. The Fake aspect is the performance of Julia Roberts and the overall direction which has to show the countries visited at their tourist best and portrays a character who appears comfortable in whatever her surroundings. Life is not like that nor are individuals who engage in such experiences. The write of the original book might be closer to the reality as Oprah Winfrey devoted two of her programmes to the subjects covered.

I enjoyed the Italian experience best because it primarily consisted of Julia eating glorious meals in which she had to sample everything, usually at the same sitting. However far from putting on weight she remained her gorgeous self without taking exercise or deliberately making herself sick. I love Italy and the Italians, (despite the Mafia), because of their love of life, great climate and beautiful country.

I am impressed with the strides India is taking to do something about its unacceptable racism and poverty although the class barriers are more ingrained and perverse than in the UK when it is possible to move from the lowest to the top within the one generation and well as to drop.

I do admire the self discipline and self control that is at the heart of oriental spirituality although it is something which is for those already integrated with themselves and their environment rather than for those full of internal strife and relationships out of equilibrium although I make the observation at some distance. The aspect of the relationship with Bardem which had some reality is the need for some to have a partner who understands, with whom they can fight, who is themselves secure and uncertain sufficient to let them be free and fly away if needs be. The film also did well at the box office making 300% on production costs. The book and the film is reported to have had their critics.

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