Aah Havana,
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A city where the internet is slow and the vehicles are old, where the liquor is cheap and the coffee is strong. Although on the eve of the Cuban revolution in 58 it was a vibrant place to be and gambling was booming.
And so is Sydney Pollack’s follow up to his overrated, over sentimental hollywood as hollywood goes, Out of Africa.
Now, Robert Redford as I have mentioned before is a bloke i have very strong mixed feelings. I’m because complaining that he always plays charming superheroes without a single flaw. The invincible romantic type, nothing wrong with that… but with Downhill Racer and most certainly Indecent Proposal, his charm yet immortal perfection that no matter what misdeeds he does, he is forgiven. And that’s a problem.
But for at least the first 1hr or so it’s not here. Havana starts off as Sydney Pollack’s finest feature. An atmospheric beautifully shot, vibrant , neon lit , sharply written smooth cinematic piece. A film you can live and breath in ,you can almost smell the rum and the cigar’s and feel the energy and dancing with 50’s jazz music constantly playing as a background. It’s absolutely wonderful while Redford is finally given a character that fits him well. A vulnerable gambler reminiscing Downey Jr in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. He may be hot but he is in for the big shot swimming through Casino’s at night card gaming his way through some kind of heat fuelled addictive fever dream. Then he meets hottie Lena Olin at a boat. And the film morphs into Casablanca but less edgy and a lot more tropical.To read the full review click here.
I've never been one to watch Legal movies, but alas, I'm bound by my word, to finish every Tom Cruise movie before the stroke of midnight on December 31st so I watched The Firm on Amazon Prime Video.
At first glance, I wasn't looking forward to it, it seemed like a run-of-a-mill legal movie, or at least I thought it was going to be, and I was thoroughly surprised with the turn it took.
First, I enjoyed the chemistry between Cruise and Tripplehorn, and was surprised to see Ed Harris pop up since he wasn't advertised. Right from the start, I couldn't shake the sinister feeling the firm was giving off, which was obviously the point, and when the first deaths occured, along with Mitch (Cruise) heading to the Cayman's with Hackman, I was pulled in, realizing this wasn't going to be the standard courtroom movie.
From then on, it was just exciting to watch the conspiracy unfold. I don't want to spoil the movie too much in case anyone wants to watch it, but I give this movie 8 out of ten cruises
Since Death Becomes Her is next, I hope the friends take about 30 minutes to talk about how funny Sydney Pollack was. Not just in Death, but almost anytime he popped up as an actor.
So my girlfriend and I just did a double header of both Sabrina films, starting with the 50s one and ending with the 90s remake. I thought the 90s one was much more energetic, better written and better acted (Ford's performance as Linus is particularly better than Bogie's). My girlfriend likes the classic old world charm of the Billy Wilder version more and says the 90s version comes off dated. What you do you think?
While the information that Snowden released about the NSA a few years back brought the conversation of whether or not media should protect government interests or expose government secrets to the lime light, this is not the first time this concept has been discussed in the mainstream. Way back in 1981, just before media started to become the dominant conglomerate that it is today, Sydney Pollack released the film Absence of Malice which discusses themes that are still relevant to society today.
At face value I believe that many will see the film as an argument to enforce journalists to adhere by a code of ethics due to several issues the protagonist, Meghan Carter, makes such as promoting another character to commit suicide when she prints information supposedly off the record. But I think that after a deeper look into the film, one of the underlying messages of the film is that without Carter breaking ethics and revealing her source then certain acts of government corruption would not have been revealed. Therefore, in my opinion the film promotes the idea that when the press is dealing with the government they reserve the right to break journalism ethics if it means exposing government corruption.
For those of you that have seen the film what do you think about this conjecture? Is the film really crediting Carter to exposing he government or is the latter half of the film just a revenge story for Michael Gallagher?
By the way, if anyone is interested in reading more about my theory for the film I posted a full article on Absence of Malice on my website found HERE. Let me know what you think of the site as well.
