movie+reviews


 * The //Pursuit of Happyness// **



The //Pursuit of Happyness// is a 2006 American biographical film based on the best-selling memoir written by Chris Garden with Quincy Troupe. Directed by Gabriele Muccino and written by Steve Conrad, the film features Will Smith and, curiously, his real-life son, Jaden Smith, who plays Chris Gardner’s son.

The film is set in 80’s in San Francisco and tells the true story of Chris Gardner’s nearly one-year struggle with homelessness. Chris Gardner (features by Will Smith) is a smart salesman that invests all the family savings in a bone-density scanner, but the investment proves to be a white elephant, which financially breaks the family and consequently, his wife moves for another city. Totally broken, but extremely committed with his son Christopher, Chris lives full of twists and turns until he finally achieves success.

"Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" is a well-known phrase  in the United States Declaration of Independence  and considered by some as part of one of the most well crafted, influential sentences in the history of the English lan guage. It is the inspiration for the title of the movie and actually, if you realize that, it could make you more involved in the story. The film has a plain and easy to follow plot and the acting is first-rate, with both Will Smith and his son, Jaden Smith, giving completely convincing. For this performance, Will Smith was nominated for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe for Best Actor.

The soundtrack helps create an atmosphere of drama and suddenly you are in floods of tears when you realize that is a true story. The beauty of the film is its honesty. Obviously, you will only feel like that it you sympathize with the characters that what strikes you most in this film. To sum up, //The Pursuit of Happyness// is a light and entertaining Hollywood drama film, however it’s nothing like the usual success story depicted on-screen. I highly recommend it. I’d say it’s well worth seeing.


 * Angelica**


 * Dexter **

//Dexter// is a TV Drama Series. The American TV channel //Showtime// first broadcasted the show on October 2006 since then, the series has been a success. Currently there are 6 season in a total of 72 episodes, and the next season is planned to go on air on September 2012. Also, the producers had renewed the drama for an eight season that will probably go on air on 2013.

The first season was largely based on the novel //Darkly Dreaming Dexter// by the amercan write //Jeff Lindsay.// The book won the 2005 //Dailys Award// and the 2007 //Book on TV Award//. The Novel was used as the base for the TV series, but after the first season, //James Manos Jr.,// one of the main producers started to make some significant changes in the plot.

The main story is basically about Dexter Morgan, a serial killer that hunts others serial killers. He works for the Miami Metro Police Department as a forensic detective, specialised in blood splattering. This helps him to find his targets quite easily. He is always trying to fit in social groups, behaving like a ‘normal’ person, faking emotions and pretending to be lovely and most of the time, he succeed doing it. //Michal C. Hall//, the actor that gives life to the character do so with a respectful talent, and has won several prizes including the golden globe. The series has received excellent ratings by the critics and great results with the audience. Although it have a lot of violence, the show is an example of a well constructed plot, and do not distribute violence for free, that means that every death has its importance for the development of the main plot and the blood and gore scenes are not too much exploited.

Obviously the series has mature themes, but the series is so well produced and whole crew are all first class staff that you might give it a chance, even if you don`t like some of the themes.

Rafael Maia Bertho

** Departures **

//Departures// is Japanese film directed by Yojiro Takita. This film won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and Japan Academy Prize for Picture of the Year at the 32nd Japan Academy Prize. The story is about “No-kan”, a job that involves preparing the dead.

Daigo Kobayashi (Masahiro Motoki) is a cellist but loses his job when his orchestra is disbanded. He finds a new job as a No-kan. His wife Mika (Ryoko Hirosue) and his friends object to his new job. He also starts to think whether he should continue his job or not. However, he gradually finds the importance of his job and starts to be proud of it.

Dead bodies appear many times in this film. The atmosphere is gloomy and quiet. Some dirty languages are used in this film for example, Mika says “What you are doing is a disgusting!” to Daigo

Even though the atmosphere is heavy, it is still very beautiful film. It shows Japanese culture of making up dead bodies. This film was taken in countryside of Japan, and we see many beautiful scenes of nature. The soundtrack is recorded by a professional orchestra. It expresses warmth of people around Daigo. The acting is also wonderful.

To sum up, //Departures// is gloomy and quiet movie but it shows warmth and beauty of human being. “Even after death, put on makeup beautiful as if they were arriving” These words show us wonderful Japanese culture. This film is well worth seeing.


 * Yuko Tomizawa**


 * // Hide and Seek //**



There are many reasons why people choose which movies they want to watch. One of them is a leading actor or actress. I did the same when I decided to watch ‘Hide and Seek’ because I like Dakota Fanning starring in //Hide and Seek//. It was directed by John Polson. It is a 2005 horror film starring Robert De Niro, Famke Janssen and Dakota Fanning.

David (Robert De Niro) and his daughter, Emily (Dakota Fanning) moves to a small village because Emily is suffering from a trauma which is caused by her mother’s suicide. One day, Emily starts to talk about her friend named Charlie which doesn’t exist. In addition, bloody messages from Charlie are found at home and he kills close friends of David. So David tries to find who he is to protect his daughter and friends.

The movie is set in a quiet spot in countryside. There are few characters. It means that we can guess Charlie’s identity easily. Critics say that it has a transparent reversal. His identity is the most important device to impress audiences, but it doesn’t work properly. Meanwhile, some people have difficulty in understanding its reversal. The key point of ending is ‘multiple personality’ but it is very tricky to cope with the story related to this disorder. Unless the plot is well organized it will interrupt people to understand it. The plot of this movie doesn’t fulfil its role.

Although the plot makes us confused, there are many things to get into the movie. It flows at a slow pace in the beginning so that we can take time to prepare the heightened suspense at the end. Besides, Dakota’s acting is enough to cover up the weakness of the plot. This movie has five different endings, so we can interpret the same scene differently. After watching the film, we have lots of things to discuss. One of roles of movie is to make people think and discuss. It is such a nice movie to talk about with a friend.


 * TIA (JIHYUN KIM)**

=__**Review of the film Rabbit Hole**__=


 * ~ [[image:http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRYG9GjM_K1ZjosZdEa9zIm7GI0ojmI5V-dm7EONND745V0KqA8 width="40" height="39" link="http://www.google.com.au/search?um=1&hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&biw=1440&bih=713&tbm=isch&sa=1&q=star&oq=star&aq=f&aqi=g10&aql=&gs_sm=e&gs_upl=4624l4624l0l5502l1l1l0l0l0l0l398l398l3-1l1l0#"]] ||~ [[image:http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRYG9GjM_K1ZjosZdEa9zIm7GI0ojmI5V-dm7EONND745V0KqA8 width="40" height="39" link="http://www.google.com.au/imgres?q=star&um=1&hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&biw=1440&bih=713&tbm=isch&tbnid=kwZLK66kUagmIM:&imgrefurl=http://socraticmama.com/2012/01/17/star-stuff-ethics-for-freethinking-kids/secular-parenting&docid=x8oSW3ITXcr7SM&imgurl=http://socraticmama.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/star.png&w=600&h=585&ei=DX0fT6LQPOKriAeO0cnlDQ&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=399&vpy=210&dur=704&hovh=222&hovw=227&tx=110&ty=130&sig=100658756182262439250&page=3&tbnh=153&tbnw=152&start=49&ndsp=28&ved=1t:429,r:22,s:49"]] ||~ [[image:http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRYG9GjM_K1ZjosZdEa9zIm7GI0ojmI5V-dm7EONND745V0KqA8 width="40" height="39" link="http://www.google.com.au/imgres?q=star&um=1&hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&biw=1440&bih=713&tbm=isch&tbnid=kwZLK66kUagmIM:&imgrefurl=http://socraticmama.com/2012/01/17/star-stuff-ethics-for-freethinking-kids/secular-parenting&docid=x8oSW3ITXcr7SM&imgurl=http://socraticmama.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/star.png&w=600&h=585&ei=DX0fT6LQPOKriAeO0cnlDQ&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=399&vpy=210&dur=704&hovh=222&hovw=227&tx=110&ty=130&sig=100658756182262439250&page=3&tbnh=153&tbnw=152&start=49&ndsp=28&ved=1t:429,r:22,s:49"]] ||~ [[image:http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSBXPYQHVpVnwcbhv0uo2bQ37ST6cqC50LWO-9Ya4MA4Xr4bRfaYA width="30" height="30" link="http://www.google.com.au/imgres?q=star&um=1&hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&biw=1440&bih=713&tbm=isch&tbnid=DZcD_hApQUVeBM:&imgrefurl=http://abbot.us/DD629/official/battleStars.shtml&docid=l1CJXtGcF_HZYM&imgurl=http://abbot.us/DD629/official/star_silver.gif&w=514&h=511&ei=DX0fT6LQPOKriAeO0cnlDQ&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=1175&vpy=392&dur=111&hovh=224&hovw=225&tx=123&ty=150&sig=100658756182262439250&page=2&tbnh=157&tbnw=157&start=21&ndsp=28&ved=1t:429,r:13,s:21"]] ||~ [[image:http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSBXPYQHVpVnwcbhv0uo2bQ37ST6cqC50LWO-9Ya4MA4Xr4bRfaYA width="31" height="31" link="http://www.google.com.au/imgres?q=star&um=1&hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&biw=1440&bih=713&tbm=isch&tbnid=DZcD_hApQUVeBM:&imgrefurl=http://abbot.us/DD629/official/battleStars.shtml&docid=l1CJXtGcF_HZYM&imgurl=http://abbot.us/DD629/official/star_silver.gif&w=514&h=511&ei=DX0fT6LQPOKriAeO0cnlDQ&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=1175&vpy=392&dur=111&hovh=224&hovw=225&tx=123&ty=150&sig=100658756182262439250&page=2&tbnh=157&tbnw=157&start=21&ndsp=28&ved=1t:429,r:13,s:21"]] ||



Becca and Howie Corbett are a happy married couple whose life is turned upside down after their young son dies in an car accident. Both try to return to their everyday existence after that. Becca finds consolation in a strange relationship with a young comic book writer, Jason, who is the driver of the car that killed her little son Danny. Just to speak with Jason helps Becca to pull her away from memories of Danny. Nevertheless, the couple keeps trying to find their way back to a life that seems to be happy and beautiful.

Rabbit Hole is a sad tale. We think it is a meaningful drama but the storyline developed slowly. The movie is more suitable to people who are more mature. People who have kids or who have lost someone really dear might find this one a real pleasure. In addition, we think people who like dramas which are based on a tragic story and concentrate on the relationship between characters, will like this film. However, the younger viewers who enjoy mostly American-pie-style movies don't find it much interesting.

To sum up, we think the actor, Aaron Eckhart and the actress, Nicole Kidman performed really well in this movie but this kind of tragic movies might not be suitable for all ranges of audiences.

By Christine and Marisa