What does one do with nearly 300,000 tons of deadly radioactive waste? Finland thinks it has the answer. In Michael Madsen’s documentary, “Into Eternity,” the Danish filmmaker examines the Finnish government’s efforts to bury its share of the world’s nuclear waste in a tunnel three miles into the earth. After its completion in 2100, the tunnel must remain untouched for at least 100,000 years. This intriguing and bold plan leads Madsen to raise many philosophical and technical questions throughout his film, providing a haunting take that is more poetic than scientific on a dire environmental issue. [click to continue…]
Tagged as:
Into Eternity,
Michael Madsen,
Tribeca Film Festival
Visceral is the word.
The Hurt Locker is about Iraq, and about men, and about war. It is certainly the most heralded film to emerge from the conflict. The plot centers on William James (Jeremy Renner). His rank: Sergeant First Class, US Army. His addiction: taking bombs apart. When James takes charge of a bomb-disposal squad, Bravo Company, he finds that the troops take issue with his methods. The newly anointed head man is a renegade to the rulebook. He seeks out fresh explosives to dismantle with a fearsome urgency, hunting them wherever they may be. All the while, James keeps count of successful disarmaments, the number whizzing steadily upward. Bravo Company lives in fear for unnecessary casualties on the heels of their leader’s relentless bomb-sniffing.
Director Kathryn Bigelow focuses in on the view of war espoused by writers like Chris Hedges. Her film highlights a quote of Hedges’: “The rush of battle is often a potent and lethal addiction, for war is a drug.” [click to continue…]
Tagged as:
Kathryn Bigelow,
The Hurt Locker
The Basterds are merciless.
Inglourious Basterds (2009) is Quentin Tarantino’s sauerkraut Western. Rather than the spaghetti scenery of conventional Westerns, we have WWII scenery. A much-revised WWII. In Tarantino’s war, the Basterds are a band of Jewish-American soldiers deep behind enemy lines. Their leader is Lt. Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt). Their goal: to terrorize the Nazis the same way the Nazis terrorized Europe. Raine orders his men to scalp a hundred Nazis each. And to relish doing so. (They will even get a stab at Hitler.) [click to continue…]
Tagged as:
Inglourious Basterds,
Quentin Tarantino
500 Days of Summer (2009) is as warm and tantalizing as the season that it takes its name from. And just like the finest season, you’ll treasure it as a rose-palette recollection. The flick mixes rapture and melancholy with a light heart.
500 Days of Summer, directed by Marc Webb, features Tom Hansen (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) recounting his five-hundred-day relationship with the wonderfully whimsical Summer Finn (Zooey Deschanel). The film opens with a narrator’s voice-over: “This is a story of boy meets girl. But you should know upfront, this is not a love story.” No, Tom and Summer are not dating. They do everything that couples do, but a couple they are not. Their conflict is a matter of perception – and Webb’s movie is about perception. Men and women simply see the same things differently. [click to continue…]
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