CRIME NOVEL

Original title: Romanzo Criminale
In rapid fire Italian with English subtitles
Crime

PRINCIPAL CAST MEMBERS
Pierfrancesco Favino: Lebanese, the leader of the group
Kim Rossi Stuart: Freddo, aka Ice
Claudio Santamaria: Dandi

REVIEW
If you got 2½ hours to spare and want to see a litany of criminal activities including terrorism, kidnapping, corruption, drugs, prostitution, murder and hit-jobs all executed with heavy-handed tactics holding back none of the gruesome details then this is the movie for you.

It’s not for me and so I walked out.

CLASSIFICATION
for disturbing images, violence, nudity, language and some drug references.

SHOOTER

Action, political thriller

PRINCIPAL CAST MEMBERS
Mark Wahlberg: Bob Lee Swagger, ex-United States Marine Corps sharpshooter
Danny Glover: C.I.A. agent, retired Colonel Isaac Johnson
Michael Peña: rookie F.B.I. agent Nick Memphis
Alan C. Peterson: police Officer Stanley Timmons
Kate Mara: Sarah Fenn, widow of Swagger’s ex-Marine partner
Ned Beatty: U.S. Senator Charles F. Meachum

REVIEW
Certainly not the worst of its kind, once it gets going this non-stop action thriller is entertaining enough. Of course an essential requirement for viewing any movie like this is a suspension of disbelief and a willingness to forgive plot contrivances.

It would have been better had they cut out some of the action sequences to keep it under two hours. This is a problem common to these kinds of movies: if one explosion is good, four is better. Well, not for everyone.

CLASSIFICATION
for strong graphic violence and some language.

GREG AND GENTILLON

Comedy

PRINCIPAL CAST MEMBERS
Louis Durand: Greg, supposedly a funny guy
Thomas Michael: his buddy,Gentillon, the other half of the act
Paolo Mancini: their stay-at-home agent Paule-Émile

REVIEW
Any movie promoted solely as a comedy should provide some measure of amusement otherwise it is a rip-off. After 45 minutes without anything to even smile at I realised I had been took and walked out.

But not before three others who preceded me. The movie played on with only one person still hanging in.

P.S.
At the risk of giving away too much of the story, the best joke I heard was when one of them describing the name of their comedy stand-up act to a prospective agent as “G2, two G’s, Greg and Gentillon…get it?”
I could hardly contain myself.

PREMONITION

Drama, thriller

PRINCIPAL CAST MEMBERS
Sandra Bullock: Linda Hanson, homemaker
Julian McMahon: her husband Jim
Kate Nelligan: her mother Joanne
Nia Long: her best friend Annie

REVIEW
I don’t think they should shoot a movie based on the first draft of the screenplay. Especially when the main premise is about time-shift. There has to be some logic to it so we, the viewers, at least have a chance of figuring it all out by ourselves.

Had they done a rewrite, the movie would have been less convoluted and without so many loose ends. As it stands, it’s a mess and you walk out with that unsettling feeling of “wot happened?”

CLASSIFICATION
for some violent content, disturbing images, thematic material and brief language.

FOR NITPICKERS ONLY
When Linda is speaking with the priest his left arm is either draped over the back of the pew or bent in front of him depending upon which point of view is on screen.

P.S.
Product placement is so blatant: every shot of Linda in her SUV lingers on the Ford crest on the grill and when she goes to her husband’s office I swear every car in the parking lot is a Ford SUV, all nicely lined up facing us so we can see the crest. If you will excuse the pun all I can say is how pedestrian.

THE HOAX

Drama, true story

BACKGROUND
Howard Hughes was born in 1905. His father made his fortune by designing a special drill bit that enabled speculators to reach the large pockets of oil lying beneath hard rock. The Hughes Tool Company held the patent for the new drill bit and leased them to oil drillers.

When Hughes Jr. was just 18-years old, his father passed away. He received 75% of his father's million-dollar estate; the other 25% went to relatives. Hughes soon disagreed with his relatives over the running of the company. But being only 18-years old, he could not do anything about it because he was not considered legally an adult. Frustrated but determined, Hughes went to court and got a judge to grant him legal adulthood status even though he was not yet 21. He then bought out his relatives' shares of the company. Consequently, even though still a teenager, Hughes became full owner of The Hughes Tool Company.

He went on to become a pioneering aviator, engineer, playboy and film producer. Unfortunately during this time he contracted syphilis and much of the strange behaviour at the end of his life — his well-documented aversion to handshaking, for example — has been attributed to the tertiary stage of that disease. He became very much a recluse during the last ten years of his life. He died in 1976, aboard an airplane, while travelling from Acapulco, Mexico to Houston, Texas.

The term “Watergate scandal” refers to a 1972 break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters located in the Watergate Hotel, Washington, D.C. by members of Richard Nixon’s administration. The cover up lasted two years but the court ordered release in August 1974 of the so-called “smoking gun” tape brought with it the prospect of certain impeachment. Nixon resigned four days later making him the only U.S. President to have resigned from office.

PRINCIPAL CAST MEMBERS
Richard Gere: Clifford Irving, author of several novels and one biography
Marcia Gay Harden: his wife Edith, a Swiss/German artist
Alfred Molina: Clifford’s partner Dick Suskind
Hope Davis: Andrea Tate, Editor with McGraw-Hill Publishers
Stanley Tucci: Shelton Fisher, President of McGraw-Hill

REVIEW
A successful hoax can only thrive on the gullibility of others. And when that gullibility is laced with greed the outcome is often quite spectacular.

A great story that keeps pretty much to the facts combined with excellent acting and crisp editing make this a very entertaining movie. Some would say it’s great just because Richare Gere is in it. That too.

CLASSIFICATION
rating just for language: maybe the Rating Board was looking the other way when Nina shows up?

THE WATER-BEARER

Documentary
Original title: Le Porteur d'Eau
In French and Bahasa with English subtitles

BACKGROUND
Indonesia is a nation of about 17,000 islands in South East Asia. It’s capital is Jakarta and by sea neighbours Singapore, The Philippines and Australia. With a population of over 200 million, it is the world’s fourth most populous country and the one with the most populist Muslim-majority.
Indonesia is a republic having a presidential system with power concentrated in the national government. The President is head of state, commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces and responsible for domestic governance, policy-making and foreign affairs.
Until he was forced to resign from the presidency in May 1998 the country was run as a corrupt dictatorship by Suharto (like most Indonesians, he only has one name) and in 2004, for the first time ever, the people directly voted for the President. Things have much improved for the populace since then.

REVIEW
Gilles Raymond, was active in regional politics when living in Quebec. After spending some time in the Caribbean he eventually wound up on Flores Island in Indonesia. Shocked to learn that many poor villagers had to spend upwards of four hours daily fetching water, he took it upon himself to be the bearer of water with the help of the resident population.

This short documentary (only 50 minutes long) follows him as he organises several communities to bring in potable running water to their village. However his on-screen comments are more about himself than about his project.

CLASSIFICATION
for General Audiences

AMAZING GRACE

Historical drama, true story

BACKGROUND
Triangular trade is a historical term denoting trade between three ports or regions. They have tended to evolve where a region had an export commodity that was not required in the same region where its major imports entered the country. Typically from a British port supplies such as copper, cloth, guns and ammunition would be shipped to a port in Africa and sold in exchange for slaves. For the second leg of the triangle the ship would then make the ten-week journey to the New World and the slaves, having to endure horrific conditions while tightly packed like any other cargo, were sold for a good profit. The ships were then purposely sunk to get them thoroughly clean, refloated, drained of water then loaded for a return voyage to their home port. From the West Indies the main cargo was sugar, rum, and molasses; from Virginia, it was tobacco and hemp. The ship then returned to Britain to complete the triangle.

Thomas Clarkson (1760 –1846) in 1785 while at Cambridge entered an essay competition on the question “Is it lawful to enslave the unconsenting?” He read everything he could on the subject and was appalled by what he discovered. He became a leading campaigner against England’s involvement in the slave trade. The movement had been gathering strength for some years, having been founded by Quakers who submitted the first petition against the slave trade to the British Parliament in 1783.

John Newton (1725 –1807) at one time had been a master of a slave trading ship. Returning to England in 1748, the ship encountered a severe Atlantic storm. As the vessel filled with water he prayed for God’s mercy. That marked the beginning of his conversion to Christianity. He later went on to become the leading Anglican clergyman of the day and Rector of St. Mary Woolnoth church. He is best known as the author of the hymn Amazing Grace.

William Wilberforce (1759 –1833) in 1787 was introduced to Thomas Clarkson and the growing group campaigning against the slave trade. As a Member of Parliament, he was persuaded to become leader of the Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade.

William Pitt (1759 –1806) served as British Prime Minister from 1783 to 1801 under the reign of George III. During his prime ministerial tenure the French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars dominated the world scene.

Olaudah Equiano (c. 1745 –1797) at the age of eleven was sold to white slave traders and taken to the New World. He was bought by a British naval captain and was afforded naval training. His master sent him to school to learn how to read and write. He was then sold to a Quaker merchant in Philadelphia. With his literacy and seamanship skills, he was too valuable for plantation labour so was set to work in the merchant’s office. In his early twenties, Equiano succeeded in buying his freedom for £40.

Definition:
appeasement is a policy of accepting the imposed conditions of an aggressor in lieu of armed resistance, usually at the sacrifice of principles.

PRINCIPAL CAST MEMBERS
Ioan Gruffudd (pronounced YO-an GRIFF-ith): William Wilberforce (Wilber to his friends)
Romola Garai: his future wife Barbara Spooner

Benedict Cumberbatch: William Pitt, Wilberforce’s friend
Rufus Sewell: Thomas Clarkson
Albert Finney: John Newton

REVIEW
This biographical recounting of the legislative battle to abolish the slave trade in Britain makes for fascinating viewing if you are into that kind of thing. With first-class production values throughout (Cinematography, Production Design, Set Decoration, Costume Design) it looks and feels real (even to the point it’s raining in 75% of the exterior shots).

The acting is uniformly excellent although with so many people on the screen at one time during the debates sometimes that’s not easy to discern.

CLASSIFICATION
for thematic material involving slavery and some mild language.

P.S.
The title refers to the well-known Christian hymn Amazing Grace. It was written c. 1772 by John Newton. As with other hymns of this period, the words were sung to a number of different tunes before it became linked to the current one when it appeared in American hymnbooks in the 1830’s. The melody is believed to be Scottish or Irish in origin; it is frequently performed on bagpipes and has become associated with that instrument.