“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.
In the wake of the Watergate scandal and the waning Vietnam War, a Connecticut family reunites for Thanksgiving while simultaneously pulling away from each other for private indiscretions. While the characters play in moral shades of gray — drugs, adultery, petty crimes, and sexual experimentation included– the namesake storm arrives, causing a tragedy that puts things in perspective. Based on the book by Rick Moody and directed by two-time Oscar-winner Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain, Life of Pi), The Ice Storm is a very well-acted and superbly crafted piece about personal rebellion and the ties that bind.
Ian Holm gives a career highlight performance in this Atom Egoyan adaptation of Russell Banks’ novel. Holm plays a lawyer who travels to a snowy, rural town to incite a lawsuit after a bus crash robs the community of its children. Naturally, no one trusts Holm at first, but the more he digs, the more secrets are uncovered, and the more the community unravels.
