Sorry for not making a full post out of each of these, but none of these really inspired me to write a positive, or negative full post. I’m going to post them in order of how much I’d recommend each.
Let’s get Started:
This Is England 
This Is England is the story of Shaun, a 12-year old boy struggling through the early stages of adolescence in England in 1983. Shaun is small for his age and is constantly picked on and getting in fights. One day, while walking home from such an incident at school, he runs into a group of skinheads. Skinheads in England are a little different from their American counterparts; this is mainly just a gang of troublemakers who dress like they’re in an old school punk band. After some initial hesitation, Shaun gets in with the group and finally feels like he has some friends who accept him and will stand up for him.
Things change when the gang leader’s best friend Combo (played admirably by Stephen Graham who was Tommy in Snatch) comes home from three years in prison. Combo is different from the rest of the group. He’s hardened. He’s the only one who really seems like a traditional American skinhead. We know trouble is brewing when Combo starts spouting off nationalist, anti-immigrant (specifically Pakistani) propaganda. It is a scene very reminiscent of a few of Edward Norton’s speeches in my favorite movie, American History X. Eventually Combo’s preaching causes a split in the group, and the pieces are set in motion to drastically alter the lives of three of the film’s main characters forever.
This is the only film in this post that I will directly encourage people to go out and rent. Thomas Turgoose nails the role of Shaun. He has been forced to become tough by his surroundings, but still has the heart and maturity you would expect of a child his age. Turgoose captures this dualism with uncanny expertise for such a young actor. Next time you’re looking for a movie and are deciding between whichever generic Hollywood blockbuster (e.g. I Am Legend) has just hit the shelves, do yourself a favor and check this out instead.
Marla Olmstead gained worldwide fame a few years ago when, as a three year old, her “abstract” paintings began selling for thousands of dollars. She was featured on TV all over the world and gained celebrity status. Director Amir Bar-Lev was planning on just doing a documentary on Marla and her art but ended up getting much more than he bargained for. After a few months of filming the documentary, CBS aired a 60 Minutes segment on Marla in which they inferred that it was not her, but her father, who had done the paintings. Overnight the nation turned on Marla and her family. Sales of her paintings dried up and her parents found themselves being accused of exploiting their daughter. Anxious to clear their name, the Olmstead’s turned to Bar-Lev to paint them in a favorable light through his documentary. Bar-Lev, however, remained committed to objectivity. The film doesn’t give you a definitive answer and really lets the viewer decide for themselves whether they believe Marla is a prodigy or not. I think that Bar-Lev did a great job with this and it’s something that I think most people would enjoy watching. It does, however, fall into the category of movies that I would watch on TV but not something I’d pay $3.99 to rent.
The Yes Men 
Mike Bonanno and Andy Bichlbaum are two corporate troublemakers. They got their start by running GWBush.com, a parody site designed to look almost exactly like Dubya’s official site, but with exaggerated versions of his policies. After the success of GWBush.com, they were approached with the idea for them to create a similar spoof site with the address GATT.org (GATT being another name for the WTO).
Once they got the site up and running, they quickly began receiving emails from people who, despite some of the ridiculous policies Mike and Andy had listed, didn’t realize the site was a fake. One of these actually led to the Yes Men creating the persona of Hank Hardy Unruh, a fake WTO official, and getting him on a “Crossfire” style show on the European CNN, where he made it through the entire discussion without anybody realizing he was an impostor.
The main focus of this documentary, however, is on the Yes Men’s trip to Finland, where someone has invited Hank Hardy Unruh to come speak at a conference about textiles. The guys develop an elaborate plan involving a speech on the benefits of remote labor and a suit made of some new “high tech textiles” that will allow executives to experience “optimal leisure and efficiency.” I won’t spoil the details, but I will tell you that it involves a giant phallic looking object with a video screen. Intrigued?
The movie is obviously slanted to the left (as indicated by an early appearance by Michael Moore), but as long as you’re not a hardcore laissez-faire conservative I definitely think it’s something you’ll enjoy. That being said it’s fairly short and, like My Kid Could Paint That, better suited to be something you’d watch on A&E in the afternoon than something to go out and rent. Good thing I get them through the mail.
I Am Legend 
The amount of positive reviews this movie received on Meta-Critic baffles me. Not because I think it was awful or anything, but it just came off as another generic Hollywood blockbuster. I’m leaning toward the idea that America’s movie reviewers really just have a collective man-crush on Will Smith. I’ll give them that he does a very solid job with the role, but I really don’t think the movie as a whole was anything to write home about. The visuals of a post-apocalyptic New York City are cool, but it’s nothing more exciting than the “After Humans” specials that the Discovery Channel was running a month or so ago. The zombies were also pretty lame in my opinion. They’re like a cross between the CGI in I, Robot and the infected from 28 Days Later, with a little bit of the creepy monsters from Silent Hill thrown in for good measure. Basically, after we get introduced to the zombies the movie heads down hill.
Smith nails all the emotions he should and is pretty convincing in his portrayal of how you would expect a man who hasn’t spoken to another human in three years would behave, but it isn’t enough from stopping this movie from being totally mediocre. Don’t bother renting it; just watch it when it starts airing three times a day on FX next year.
Ugh. This movie gets all kinds of respect and I didn’t see any reason why. The movie follows Enid (Thora Birch - American Beauty) and Rebecca (Scarlett Johanssen) in the summer after they graduate high school. Enid is the stuck up indie/artsy type, and really just seems like the stereotypical outcast. She’s the protagonist of the movie, but she is constantly spewing such overtly caustic sarcasm that I found her to be one of most unlikable characters I’ve ever encountered in a movie. Sure, she’s not a total villain, but that may have made it worse because I was expecting more from her. Scarlett Johanssen seemed miscast in this role. From a physical standpoint she doesn’t look the part and her character was just terribly boring. Steve Buscemi (Fargo) plays the sad loner who the girls initially pick on but Enid later befriends. It really seems like this is the role he was born to play. Buscemi does a great job with most parts he gets, but this one was exceptionally convincing. The movie’s one strength, to me, was the dynamic of the relationship between Thora Birch’s character and Buscemi’s. That being said, it’s nowhere near enough for me to recommend this movie to anyone. So, unless you’re an angsty high school emo kid leave this one on the shelf.
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