Sunday, January 15, 2012

Celluloid #139

In Home


Another Earth (2011) Cahill - When Rhoda is 17, she gets accepted to MIT (for something space-related), but kills two people in a family of three in a car accident caused by her looking out the window of her car at Earth 2. After four years in jail, she works as a cleaner and seeks out the remaining man from the accident. Meanwhile, it is discovered that there is "another you" on Earth 2. Rhoda and John develop a relationship while she keeps her mistake a secret. Rhoda also wins an essay contest to go to Earth 2. 4.5/5

Our Idiot Brother (2011) Peretz - Ned might be kinda stupid, as evidenced by his getting locked up for selling weed to an officer in uniform, but his actions come from a place of kindness. He just believes in honesty and in helping people out without exploiting them. After getting out of jail, he stays with each of his three sisters - Liz, an overprotective mother of two whose jerk husband is having an affair, Miranda - a career girl trying to break into journalism, and Natalie - Brooklyn hipster living in a space with too many roommates including her lesbian girlfriend. When Ned enters their lives,his naivete initially seems to ruin things, but really just gets everything out in the open. Sounds like it could be too indie cutesy, but actually works well except for the ending. 4/5

Sleeping Beauty (2010) Breillat - Modern retelling of Sleeping Beauty, but this time the spells cause Anastasia to live as normal until the age of 6, then to sleep for 100 years and wake up as a 16 year-old. During those 100 years, she dreams about traveling around and living with a family with a boy a little older than her. Once awake she searches for the boy from her dreams and has some sexual experiences of both a hetero and homosexual persuasion. Kinda boring and pretentious in an unenjoyable way. 2/5

Strictly Ballroom (1992) Luhrmann - Super campy Australian film about ballroom dancing championships. Scott gets dumped by his partner because she doesn't appreciate his new steps, which could get them disqualified. Fran, a beginner, approaches Scott and eventually the two begin practicing in secret and incorporating moves from Fran's Spanish background. Ultimate ugly duckling story with outrageous colors. 4/5

Westworld (1973) Crichton - In the future, the general public has the opportunity to visit virtual-reality type resorts where they can act out their fantasies. The resorts are Westworld, Medieval World, and Roman World. Once in the resorts, you can sleep with whoever and shoot at people without consequence because they are really robots. However, the robots seem to be malfunctioning and turning against the humans. Totally campy. 3.5/5

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