Rabbit-Proof Fence (2002)

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Based on the book by Doris Pilkington, “Rabbit Proof Fence” follows the early nineteen hundreds when the government would take Aboriginal children from their villages and families supposedly for their own good where they would be placed in a concentration camp to be educated and trained to be civil. Three young girls are taken from their mother to be taken to the camp. After a while, the oldest daughter Molly decides to escape the camp with her sisters and trek over one-thousand miles to get back home to their mother and must dodge a skilled tracker who must take them back to the camp. What make this movie so heart-wrenching is the fact that these three children are willing to walk more than a thousand miles just to get back to their family.

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Far From Heaven (2002)

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Upon first glance of the opening scenes of the film, it somewhat resembles Rockwellian landscape where this family lives in a quiet and serene neighborhood with trivial problems that arise occasionally. But as the film progresses, director Todd Haynes slowly unfolds this world that resembles a painting and shows that no one ever has the perfect life. I really wanted to love this movie, but there were such drawbacks that inevitably kept me from truly appreciating the material.

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Secretary (2002)

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Lee Holloway (Maggie Gyllenhaal) just got out of a mental institution for cutting her self due to stress, and now comes home to even more stress including her overprotective mother (Leslie Anne Warren) and resorts back to her old habits. She soon decides to get a job in typing and instantly becomes skilled, looking for a job. She stumbles upon a small law firm run by a militant E. Edward Grey (James Spader) who is mostly professional and soon develops an odd fascination with her. They soon find they each have a fancy for the sadomasochistic. The aspect that makes this movie so unique is that both characters are so pathetic at times, and somehow become drawn to each other. Grey is a lawyer in a quiet and boring firm who quivers in his office, and Holloway is a nimble and meek girl who tends to hide behind her desk; self inflicted torture is what draws them together emotionally and sexually.

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Waking Life (2001)

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A nameless young man walks out from a bus station calling his friend from a phone looking for a ride and in come a man dressed as a sea captain driving a boat/car. That’s where the journey begins as the man talks about philosophy which the boy merely disregards as yammering. A young boy in a dream world confronts characters who impart philosophical and existential ideas upon him forcing him to come to grips with his own purpose and existence. What he doesn’t know is where he’s going which the man is talking about in front of him. I was intrigued by where this movie was going and became truly engulfed within the context and meaning of the film itself.

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Tadpole (2002)

l-2g30ny6km7d0b2Aaron Stanford makes his debut as Oscar Grubman, a fifteen year old intellect with an obsession for Voltaire who returns home to New York to visit his family. He has a bad crush on his stepmother Eve (Sigourney Weaver) unbeknownst to his inept father Stanley (John Ritter) but accidentally gets entangled in an affair with her flirtatious friend Diane (Bebe Neuwrith) who becomes infatuated with Oscar’s intelligent personality and begins to play mind games with him as he desperately tries to conceal the affair from his stepmother. Aaron Stanford skillfully portrays this kid who’s always one step ahead of everyone… or at least he thinks he is.

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Lovely & Amazing (2001)

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I was pleasantly surprised at how “Lovely & Amazing” exceeded all my expectations. We get a truly incredible heart-wrenching story about these women that face what everyday struggles involving body image. Director Nicole Holofcener also explores how petty these issues about image can be to a woman, and how it so ironically affects their lives inadvertently. “Lovely & Amazing” tells the tale intense tale of four women facing life and its many challenges. We meet Michelle (Katherine Keener) a woman in the crossroads of her life as she faces a dead-end marriage. She is an aging woman who is a struggling artist with a husband who shows basically no interest in her sexually.

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Brotherhood of the Wolf (Le Pacte des loups) (2001)

To say that this is a cool movie would be an understatement. I was very curious to see whether this movie was action or horror, when in fact, it was a hybrid of both. This is the first and possibly only French movie I’ve ever seen, and I have to tell you, if they can make movies like this then: viva la France!

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