Movie Recommendations, Rants and Ruminations
Happy St. Patrick’s Day. Now, tonight you CAN go out and drink green beer with all the amateur drinkers. Nothing wrong with that, if that’s your thing.
OR you could settle in for some top shelf cinema set in recent Irish history – The Troubles of Northern Ireland. For eight fine films about The Troubles, see my Best Films About the Troubles (Northern Ireland).
Sparked by my pick of Shadow Dancer as this week’s DVD/Stream of the Week, I’ve posted a new movie list: Best Movies About The Troubles (Northern Ireland). The Troubles was the conflict in Northern Ireland between nationalists and unionists that lasted from the late 1960s until the 1998 Good Friday Accord.
2002’s Bloody Sunday tells the story of one of the most significant moments of The Troubles, the 1972 shootings in Derry, from the perspective of a key participant – Ivan Cooper, the leader of a movement to achieve a united Ireland through non-violent means. Northern Irish actor James Nesbitt is brilliant as Cooper, a man who is trying to do the impossible – lead a mass demonstration into a tinderbox and keep it peaceful. It’s possible that either or both the unionist paramilitaries and the IRA may provoke violence to further their own aims. The British are supposed to protect the marchers from the unionists, but they’re on edge and trigger-happy. Cooper is forced to play a desperate game of Whack-a-Mole to prevent violence.
Besides Shadow Dancer and Bloody Sunday, I discuss a number of other outstanding movies about The Troubles. One film contains one of the greatest surprise plot twists in movie history. You can see the list at Best Movies About The Troubles (Northern Ireland), find out how to watch them on DVD or stream them.
Now is the time to catch future Oscar contenders on the big screen, especially crowd pleasers like True Grit, The King’s Speech and Black Swan.
True Grit is the Coen Brothers’ splendid Old West story of Mattie Ross, a girl of unrelenting resolve and moxie played by 14-year-old Hailee Steinfeld in a breakthrough performance, and Jeff Bridges is perfect as the hilarious, oft-besotted and frequently lethal Rooster Cogburn. The King’s Speech is the crowd pleasing story of a good man (Colin Firth) overcoming his stammer to inspire his nation in wartime with the help of a brassy commoner (Geoffrey Rush). Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan is a rip roaring thriller and a showcase for Natalie Portman and Barbara Hershey.
I strongly recommend Rabbit Hole, an exquisite exploration of the grieving process with great performances by Nicole Kidman, Aaron Eckhardt, Diane Wiest, Sandra Oh and Miles Tenner. The Fighter is an excellent drama, starring Mark Wahlberg as a boxer trying to succeed despite his crack addict brother (Christian Bale) and trashy mom (Melissa Leo). Fair Game, the Valerie Plame/Joe Wilson story with Naomi Watts and Sean Penn, is also excellent. All are on my list of Best Movies of 2010.
I Love You, Phillip Morris is an entertaining offbeat combo of the con man, prison and romantic comedy genres. Red Hill is a stylish contemporary Aussie Western. Season of the Witch is a bad Nicholas Cage/Ron Perlman buddy movie set among the plague, crusades and witch hunts of the 13th century.
For trailers and other choices, see Movies to See Right Now. You can see the trailers of upcoming films at Movies I’m Looking Forward To.
My DVD pick is In the Name of the Father. For my recent DVD choices (including trailers), see DVDs of the Week.
Movies on TV include 12 Angry Men, I Want to Live! and Glory on TCM.
The great character actor Pete Postlethwaite died last week, and this week’s DVD pick honors his finest film work. In the Name of the Father (1993) is based on the true story of Gerry Conlon (Daniel Day-Lewis) of the Guildford Four, wrongly convicted of an IRA bombing that killed four British soldiers and a civilian. The four were coerced into confessions by torture and threats against their families. The real IRA terrorists, captured later for another act, confessed to the crime, but the British government suppressed the evidence of the Guildford Four’s innocence. Gerry Conlon wound up in prison with his father Giuseppe (Postlethwaite), also convicted of an IRA plot as a member of the Maguire Seven – and Postlethwaite’s performance is one of uncommon inner strength.
The film was nominated for seven Oscars and is on my 10 Best Prison Movies.
So how does A Prophet stack up against other films in that time honored genre – the Prison Movie? Can a French film rank high among the Alcatraz, Sing Sing and Folsom fare?
My top ten includes familiar themes – the fact-based stories, the great escape attempts, the characters who resist the oppressive authority and those who work the system to become crime bosses. Plus Death Row. My list includes American penitentiaries, British, French and Turkish prisons, enemy POW camps and Southern chain gangs. But some of the best known prison movies do NOT make the cut.
See my list of 10 Best Prison Movies.