Top DVD Picks: Winter 2010
The Brothers Bloom
"The Brothers Bloom" was an unexpected hit for me. The bare description of a comedy about a set of con artists doesn't do it justice. Yes, it is the story of two brothers bonded by the lack of family who became the only true family for each other. Becoming con artists was not really a choice for them as they had to go from one foster family to another and little theatrics made their tough life more fun and more profitable as the years went by. Both Mark Ruffalo (Stephen) and Adrien Brody (Bloom) are excellent here. Stephen is the mastermind behind their stories and Bloom is always the main character and actor. They have an oddball sidekick Bang Bang (Rinko Kikuchi who is as good here as she was in Babel), a Japanese woman who loves blowing up things and disappears as unexpectedly as she appears.
Bloom's first story took place when they were just kids and it was about a girl. So while sceneries change, there is always a girl in the story. Their biggest con brings them to New Jersey for an heiress Penelope Stamp (Rachel Weisz). Convinced she was sick for the majority of her life, she spent it in seclusion and then having lost her parents, she can't really exist in the normal world. She is quirky living her life through borrowed hobbies - she learns to do pretty much anything through books. Not surprisingly, she falls for the con and goes on board a ship with the brothers. What surprises both is that Bloom falls for the girl and his brother does everything to keep them together. Written and directed by Rian Johnson, this is a fresh film that you will really enjoy watching. It's oddball character, smart dialogue and fun acting are so entertaining.
Buy The Brothers Bloom
(500) Days of Summer
First things first, summer is not in reference to a season here but rather a girl, very ordinary by most accounts yet one who has a special effect on men. Zooey Deschanel (Summer) gets her quirky character to a tee, with a liking for the Smiths, opinions on dating alike men and picking Ringo as her favorite Beatle. She is living her life as casually happy days when she meets Tom Hansen (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) who has given up on love but is a total romantic. He has dreams of being an architect (having finished the architecture school) but spends his days writing cards for a greeting card company. When he falls for Summer, he is totally swept away. He mopes to his friends, he is elated when things go great and he is crushed when they are down. But he ends up with a girl, I just won't tell you how. "500 Days" is quite different with some interesting film techniques - animation, musical, shaky camera and my favorite - side by side of "expected events" and "reality". Reality is what makes this story so true - it seems real, you can believe these characters exist. This kind of honesty makes it easier to feel for the characters and believe and hope for them, or at least one of them.
Buy (500) Days of Summer
Knowing
There are a few implausible occurrences in this far-reaching movie with overly serious Nicholas Cage as the MIT professor John Koestler. However, I am willing to overlook them since the subject matter - that things are predetermined vs. accidental - is interesting and is worth jumping into the thrill ride of catastrophic events that unfold here. But the story doesn't start with John. It starts back in 1959 when a group of students at a Massachusetts school is making a time capsule to be opened 50 years later. Most kids put in a picture but one odd girl, Lucinda, writes a string of numbers until her fingers bleed. When the capsule is opened in 2009, John's son Caleb gets Lucinda's letter. Everyone is perplexed about the page but don't give it much thought. John who is still mourning the recent loss of his wife with whiskey, one sleepless night decides to look for a pattern. What he finds is both a shock and horror. The number pattern predicts all the tragic events of the past 50 years with the exact date, place and casualty count. The final three events are still about to unfold and John is in the middle of them. It is thanks to his son Caleb (Chandler Canterbury) who is now "possessed" like Lucinda was. Together they find her daughter (since Lucinda is now gone), with a great turn by Rose Byrne, who helps them find the truth. This film is full of suspense and terrific special effects. Nicholas Cage is just right for the part. You know there will be the end of the world references but you will never guess what happens in the end. This was one of the strangest yet thrillingly terrifying films I've seen this year.
Buy Knowing
My Sister's Keeper
If you've read Jodi Picoult's novel this movie is loosely based on, you may be disappointed for the ending is completely different which changes the point of the story. And this story is based on real life case. Cameron Diaz is a high-power attorney Sara and Jason Patric is her husband, Brian Fitzgerald who have to put their lives on hold when they find out their daughter Kate (Sofia Vassileva) is sick with leukemia. When they are not a match, they make a controversial decision to have a genetically perfect child (Anna) as a donor match for Kate. This child is a firecracker (a wonderful performance by Abigail Breslin) and when she turns 10 she decides to hire a wildly advertised lawyer Campbell Alexander (Alec Baldwin), with a 91% success rate of his own, to win medical emancipation from her parents. This comes at the time when Kate needs a kidney and this means Anna will have to make a lot of sacrifices by living the rest of her life without one of hers. Nobody has heard of such a case, but again it's rare to create a child to use that living child's parts for another one that's dying. This dilemma of what's ethical and how far a mother will go to save a dying child is at the center of the movie. It's interesting to see how the parents (particularly Sara) are so consumed by this need to save Kate that they completely forget about their older son, Jesse (Evan Ellingson) who spends more time around the city and to himself. Vassleva does Kate's part with a lot of realism - she is sick and sad about her life and her family falling apart, yet she is hopeful and she makes journals just like any other teen. A highlight of the movie was Kate's relationship with Tayloy (Thomas Dekker), another young leukemia patient who understands what she is going through. Their love is sweet and moving but it doesn't last just like a lot of things in this film. I found Cameron Diaz a bit over-the-top but the story is very touching. It is directed by Nick Cassavetes who also directed the Notebook, also a story where you expect a predictable start-end-finish melodrama but get a dose of reality in the end. Bring a Kleenex.
Buy My Sister's Keeper
