Director Damien Colboc’s short animated film is a bittersweet tale of how far we’re willing to go for our loved ones. Though there’s no dialogue and not a lot of set up, “Away” pretty much sets up the exposition through actions and sights. There’s also a lot of ambiguity that the viewer is capable of putting together by the time the film comes to a sad close.
Oliver Stone’s “Any Given Sunday” is a film that literally anyone can watch. Because while it’s certainly a sport films centered on the industry of football, its central themes are relatable to anyone. While on the surface it’s about business and athletes, and competing, mainly “Any Given Sunday” is about a group of people trying desperately to out run the clock of time, and gain some sense of security for their future before father time catches up on them. When we meet these people in the narrative, many of them are at the beginning of their short careers trying to build a future, while others find their windows of opportunity closing and desperately cling to any chance to secure their future for themselves and their family. Stone composes a very richly defined ensemble drama about the football industry and how demanding it is both as an arena for skilled athletes, and athletes anxiously trying to bank on the momentum of their popularity, as fleeting it may be.
It’s really tough to approach “The Slave” (also known as “Check To The Queen”) on a level where you would an average film. By all respects, Pasquale Festa Campanile’s drama is a unique and surreal drama based around a sadist-masochist relationship. For a long time I’d all but been convinced that “Secretary” was as good as film of this ilk got, but “The Slave” comes close to conquering this small sub-genre well. Pasquale Festa Campanile’s film is solely based around a young girl whose own lust for pain and humiliation is rivaled by her unusual obsession with her vanity.
In a dying world how far would you go to keep the environment you loved? And more importantly, in a world where you’ve lost the only person you’ve loved, can you ever really get them back? Is it worth trying to pretend you’re still where you were decades ago, or isn’t it just easier to let go and accept your fate? “Similo” is a brilliant and beautifully directed science fiction short that uses the world our character Heve lives in as an allegory for the relationship she lost a long time ago.
What’s most striking about director Jean-Marc Vallée’s “Dallas Buyer’s Club” is the way AIDS is depicted. From the moment Ron Woodroff is told he has terminal AIDS and thirty days left to wrap up his affairs, his life is literally running down on a timer, and he’s literally scrambling back and forth for a way to preserve it. And what begins as a means of self-preservation transforms in to a very eye opening exploration of the world and how AIDS is a very unbiased disease that isn’t restricted to the homosexual community that it’s been used to demonize for many years.
“Blended” is part old school Adam Sandler and new school Adam Sandler. It has the same dumb, pointless, physical humor, with the modern “family is everything, you’re nothing if you’re single” sentimentality that’s permeated like self righteous stink through his later comedies. To make the affair even more grating he teams up with Drew “nails on a chalkboard” Barrymore for a third time. The cynical side of me thinks that they teamed up again to complete a trilogy of pairings for a potential special edition release of their comedies. But the obvious seems to be Sandler re-visiting the well hoping for another hit. It’s just sad that never translates in to memorable entertainment. “Blended’ is a family oriented dramedy that’s never original, nor does it pose any sense of Sandler thinking outside the box in his early films.
After a zombie apocalypse has overtaken most of the country including New England, former baseball players Ben and Mickey have found themselves stuck together. They’re too frightened to be alone, and yet don’t like one another enough to stay together. Thus they form an uneasy pact with one another, roaming the more desolate landscape of New England looking for food, shelter, and new means to keep themselves from going absolutely stir crazy. With the rising population of the dead, and the lack of human contact, it’s becoming a task that’s increasingly difficult to conquer day by day.