Friday, 14 March 2014
Thank you for smoking (2005)
Nick Naylor: Few people on this planet know what it is to be
truly despised. Can you blame them? I earn a living fronting an organization
that kills 1200 people a day. Twelve hundred people. We're talking two jumbo
jet plane loads of men, women and children. I mean, there's Attila, Genghis...
and me, Nick Naylor. The face of cigarettes, the Colonel Sanders of nicotine.
Nick Naylor is a man who loves his job and doesn’t care who
knows it. Nick is the Tobacco lobby’s top spokesperson in Washington and even
though he is completely aware of the harm he is doing, he is perfectly willing
to carry on cheerfully in order to “pay the mortgage”.
Nick desperately wants to build a relationship with his son,
in spite of his ex-wife’s hostility to his job and it’s only when his son
manages to use Nicks lobbying skill to convince his mother to allow him to go on
a business trip with him that we see a softer side to the supposedly
hard-hearted face of Big Tobacco. As the
film progresses, Nick is double-crossed by a journalist and invited to testify
in front of the Senate before finally leaving tobacco and lobbying for less
toxic clients.
What kind of person would consciously and voluntarily make
themselves so hated by the general population at large? Another question would
be why would the general population hate someone just because of their chosen career?
We make assumptions about people because of their job which surely can’t stand
up. What if Nick left tobacco and worked as a lobbyist for a charity? He would
not have changed but our perception of him would have.
All references come from IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0427944/?ref_=nv_sr_1
Click here to buy Thank you for smoking: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Thank-You-Smoking-Aaron-Eckhart/dp/B000KF0WKS/ref=sr_1_1?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1394803733&sr=1-1&keywords=thank+you+for+smoking
Il Divo (2008)
Giulio Andreotti: Thinking ill of your fellow man is a sin,
but you have guessed right
Giulio Andreotti is a respected seven-time Prime Minister,
an international statesman, a survivor of countess Machiavellian battles. He seems
unstoppable, until his downfall comes quickly as one after the other, a
sequence of Mafia turncoats name him as being the Mafia’s man in Rome.
Andreotti as a character is likeable and charmingly self-deprecating,
but there is a reason why he has survived when so many others have died or
fallen in disgrace. He is a strange character with many sides to him. We see
him confessing to his priest regularly, helping his poor constituents with
paying their bills and buying presents for their children. He knows his
constituents intimately, he knows their troubles and the hardships they face
and he does try and help them. On the other hand it seems pretty certain (they weren’t
able to say definitely because of legal reasons) that he had links to the top
leadership of the Mafia and that he was aware of, if not actively ordered, the
murder of several of his political enemies.
The message of the film, the strapline on the English version
of the DVD box, is that to do good, sometimes you have to do evil. The people
he has surrounded himself with are obviously corrupt and out for themselves,
but with regards to Andreotti the actions and decisions he took were done to
keep Italy safe against the threat (real or imagined) of a Communist rebellion.
That is what makes the character so
difficult to fathom out, we believe him to have done evil things but we find it
hard to see him as evil.
All references come from IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1023490/
Monday, 10 March 2014
Gettysburg (1993)
Lieutenant General James Longstreet: I don't know. I sometimes feel
troubled. Those fellas - those boys in blue - they never quite seem the enemy.
Lieutenant General James Longstreet: I used to command some of those
boys. Swore an oath too. Ah... I - I couldn't fight against Georgia, South
Carolina. Not against my own family...
General Robert E. Lee: No Sir. There was always a higher duty to Virginia.
That was our first duty. There was never any question or doubt about that.
Superbly
acted with epic battle scenes and inspiring speeches, Gettysburg tells the
story of the defining battle of the American Civil War, a battle that took place
over three days in Pennsylvania.
The
story moves from the Union to the Confederate forces with ease and gives us a
clear view of the characters in an incredibly detailed way which is unusual in
films, especially those concerned with war. The subject of slavery is only
brought up once, and because of the storyline we find it impossible to see
either side in the role of “good” versus “bad”. That would too simplistic a way
to show the reality of the Civil War.
The
film does a great job of showing the tragedy of broken friendships and
conflicted loyalties at the heart of the Civil War. The central themes of the
film are twofold. Firstly, it shows the way that the Civil War ripped the
country apart, especially in the pre-war officer corps. All the generals know
each other intimately and grieve for friends that are now fighting against
them. Secondly, the film makes the point that for many, loyalty to their home
State trumped loyalty to their country and even to their friends.
All references come from IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107007/
Sunday, 2 March 2014
Grosse Point Blank (1997)
Debi: You're a psychopath.
Marty: No, no. Psychopaths kill for no reason. I kill for
*money*. It's a *job*. That didn't come out right.
Martin Blank (John
Cusack) is tired of his job and
feels he had made a huge mistake in both his chosen career and his decision
years before to run away from home and leave his girlfriend waiting for him on
the night of the prom. When he gets an invitation for his 10-year high school
reunion he is initially conflicted about going. He feels, like many of us, that
he is defined in the eyes of others by his job. He worries how he will stack up
compared to his classmates as he has no wife and no kids. Martin Blank, by the
way, is an international assassin for hire.
Martin does go back home where he meets up
with old friends, including his old sweetheart Debi (Minnie
Driver), who he hopes to win back, all the while
dealing rival hitmen, government spies and a contract that he keeps putting off.
Filled with great eighties music, funny jokes and cool shootouts, Grosse Point
Blank is definitely fun for all the family.
The main point the movie tries to make is
that people are not defined by jobs or by past mistakes, however it doesn’t really
tell us what people exactly are defined by. Martin is tired by his job because
there is no excitement anymore. He isn’t particularly bothered by the fact that
he kills people, remarking that if he gets a job it must be because they did something.
He’s not even that interested in relationships (Debi not withstanding); he is
just unhappy and wants a change.
All references come from IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119229/?ref_=nv_sr_1
Click
here to buy Grosse Point Blank: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Grosse-Pointe-Blank-John-Cusack/dp/B00004CXYL/ref=sr_1_1?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1393784457&sr=1-1&keywords=grosse+pointe+blank
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