A racist, alcoholic prison guard finds himself falling in love with an African-American woman who just happens to be the widow of a man he helped to execute in this film from Marc Forster (Stranger than Fiction, Finding Neverland). Halle Berry is stunning in her Oscar-winning performance, but so is the rest of the cast, including Billy Bob Thornton as the prison guard, Heath Ledger as his disenfranchised son, Sean Combs as Berry’s husband on death row, and Peter Boyle as Thornton’s monstrous father.
A profound, yes profound, pitch black satire that has become an anthem for a “generation of men raised by women”. From a gender studies perspective, Fight Club speaks to the fragility of masculine identity and the disturbing lengths to which misguided youth will go to feel like they belong, to have identity, to be men. Fight Club is famously reviled for its graphic depiction of violence and nihilistic prophesizing, but under the irreverent comedy and pithy narration lies a frightening truth. Tyler Durden is eloquent about identifying the problem:
The story of Titus Andronicus is a fascinating dissertation on human violence, and in the hands of visionary director Julie Taymor (Frida, Across the Universe), it becomes an orgasm of cinematic delight.
It opens in the aftermath of war, as Titus (Anthony Hopkins) returns victorious to Rome, having just defeated the Goths and captured their queen, Tamora (Jessica Lange), and her sons. Fulfilling his religious duties, Titus disembowels Tamora’s eldest son and burns his entrails before her. This begins a downward spiral of revenge and madness that ultimately destroys both families and rattles the foundation of Roman government. In grand Shakespearean fashion, the story ends in a dinner finale in which nearly everyone is killed (and some are baked into pies!)
“What if a gun had a soul?” That’s how director Brad Bird pitched The Iron Giant to Warner Bros. Animation. The gun in question is The Iron Giant himself, a robot of unknown origin that crash lands on Earth in 1957, at the height of the atomic scare. He dents his head and can’t remember where he’s from or why he exists. He befriends a boy named Hogarth, a savvy little kid raised by a single mother, whose seen enough science-fiction movies to know how the public will react to his extra-terrestrial friend. With the help of a local beatnik artist, Hogarth keeps the giant hidden from a snooping government official, all while forging a poignant relationship with the impressionable robot.
