Deebeedee’s DVDs
I share with my brother-in-law a Blockbuster DVD Subscription Pass account, which put simply is a way for us to rent as many DVDs as we like in a month for a set price. My DVD viewing has increased considerably in the past month because of this. The first two movies I rented deal with the Holocaust: Academy Award winning The Pianist and the lesser known The Grey Zone.
You could say The Grey Zone starts off where The Pianist’s boxcar scene ends. The Grey Zone has an unusual cast of indie movie mainstays such as Steve Buscemi and Harvey Keitel (who is also the producer). It also features actors not normally seen in movies of this subject matter, Mira Sorvino and David Arquette. The ensemble speaks in unabashed American colloquial English, which is a departure from forced British accents normally found in historical movies like this. The Nazi characters, however, speak English with a German accent. Being that the movie’s setting is in the Auschwitz death camps, the film is bleak and depressing. I came away from it drained.
I also saw Nicholas Nickleby, a pretty good adaptation of the Dickens novel. It has a colorful cast of characters. Veteran actor Christopher Plummer is in it, as are Nathan Lane, Dame Edna and Alan Cumming. Nickleby’s love interest, Madeline Bray, is played by Anne Hathaway, who appeared in Princess Diaries with Julie Andrews. This makes Nicholas Nickleby the second time she’s worked with a principal of The Sound of Music (which, by the way, has a Nazi occupation subtext as well). Hathaway to me exudes rare beauty found in such women as Natalie Portman and Audrey Tautou.
This evening I watched Equilibrium, a movie about a dystopian world in the not-so-distant future. I would say this movie is a well-made B-movie. It’s been criticized for being derivative with its themes borrowed from The Brave New World, 1984 and Farenheit 451. A comparison to The Matrix is unavoidable as well. But I thoroughly enjoyed it. It takes the John Woo-style of gun battle to a new level. It stars Batman-to-be Christian Bale.