Archive for October 23rd, 2006

Troy (DVD)

Brad Pitt is the Rock Hudson/Jackie Chan of Ancient Greece. This epic movie, based on The Iliad, and The Aeneid, does take a lot of creative liberties with its portrayal of this noble period of Greek history. However, history exists to be interpreted by creative minds, and the result in this case is an uplifting couple of hours examining the human pathos.

“The face that launched a thousand ships”, the “Trojan horse”, the Spartan method of battle, the gods and the temples – all these images bring back high school memories of beginning awareness of different cultures and the romance to be found in history.

Brad Pitt’s portrayal of Achilles, with a battle style somewhere between dance and martial arts, and a body that would launch a thousand delicate hankies, (well, probably a lot more than a thousand) poses the soldier’s eternal paradox. Why indeed do kings not fight their own battles? And there are good men of honour who will die on each side of the battlefield. Achilles is remembered, and who better to remind us of his story than Brad? Perhaps one of the most fitting incidents in the making of the movie is the delay in shooting Achilles’ big fight with Hector due to an injury to Brad Pitt’s Achilles tendon.

Paris (Orlando Bloom) as prince, lover, poet and coward. This part of the story is open to interpretation, but Hector’s reluctance to kill him as he crawls to his brother’s feet is viable, and probably easier to portray than a rescue by a goddess. As the gods are continually being put into question during this depiction of Homer’s great epic, the mood of the story would be radically changed if a goddess actually intervened in the human drama.

This is a movie to purchase. It improves with multiple viewings, and not many movies live up to that type of scrutiny.

Riding the Bullet (DVD)

It seems as humans we get in trouble during puberty, either by doing things we really shouldn’t have, or by not doing things we should have. Either way, we are doomed to be haunted.

Alan Parker (Jonathan Jackson) didn’t ride the bullet after making his mom (Barbara Hershey) wait in line for this amusement park ride for hours. And that error of judgment, even though he saw at the time that he was barely stepping out of the grasp of the grim reaper by leaving, returned to torment him the fateful Halloween night he spent hitch-hiking to visit his Mother in the hospital after a stroke.

Halloween night is not the time for a young man who has already defied the specter of death on at least two occasions (although on one of these, the reaper was smoking pot, so was likely considerably more mellow than usual) to travel down a road past a graveyard. And Alan is foolish enough to wander in and take a look at the tombstones. He also didn’t show his higher education in his decision to swear at a couple of rednecks in a pickup. His Philos should have been more active at these times, but therein lies the plot.

Mick Garris’s screenplay adaptation of Stephen King’s 30-page novel doesn’t quite make it into the same class as “Sleepwalkers” and “The Stand”, but it’s still a must-see for those of us who are faithful King fans.

Proof (DVD)

With shades of “A Beautiful Mind”, Proof holds interest as the love affair/mathematics proof trundles on its treacherous path.

Gwyneth Paltrow is convincing in her role as the daughter of a brilliant mathematician who suffered from schizophrenia in his later years. After his death, there are questions regarding the authorship of a proof Catherine (Paltrow) presented to Hal (Jake Gyllenhaal), a teacher who was once her father’s pupil, as their romance blossomed. Combine this with a controlling sister ready to script Catherine’s life, and you have an emotionally charged, challenging story.

The brilliant script combined with the convincing acting make this a memorable movie with emotional impact. The only flaw is the lack of mathematical content – we do not know how Robert’s original proof impacted the world, only that it did. And we don’t have a clue as to what the later proof might purport, or why it would be significant. Even if we, the audience, have a limited understanding of mathematics, it would have grounded the story better if a premise and conclusion were included.