On a weekend with my siblings, we decided to have movie night while our parents were out of town. We chose to watch something ON DEMAND and all voted on Perfect Stranger directed by James Foley. One of the reasons we chose to watch this film because Halle Berry, one of our favorite actors, was starring in it. This movie is considered to some a neo-noir psychological thriller film mainly about Rowena Price (Berry) who is an investigative reporter and is pushed in to investigating the murder of her childhood best friend with the main suspect being executive Harrison Hill (Bruce Willis) of the best ad agency in New York. She has to go undercover under multiple aliases as the secretary at Hills's workplace and an online chatting buddy to Hill with the technological help of her friend Miles (Giovanni Ribisi). This movie definitely had my nerves wrecked while watching it.
The movie seemed to follow Rowena around the whole movie with dolly shots with exceptions to the camera switching back and forth from flashbacks of her childhood, earlier scenes in the movie and computer screens of the two characters "chatting". The movie was primarily a dark film with the gray cloudy skies of the winter in New York and dim light offices, apartments, and subways. For the most part Halle Berry was shot with a medium and close up shots to show the emotion of the character and long shots to show her closet full of designer clothes. Berry showed a fantastic and convincing job with the moments of rage, confusion, and grief with the help of the cinematographer's shots and angles. The cinematographer also showed many shots of low angles to show the power that Harrison Hill (Bruce Willis) had throughout the movie. I could also say that the film's pace was a bit jerky and fast paced which could add to the bit of confusion some viewers, for instance my sister, had while watching the movie. But, I think the jerky pace of the movie added to the suspense of the movie and had me on my toes.
I think that one important scene in Perfect Stranger was at the beginning of the movie going into introducing the rising climax. The scene opens with a dolly shot of Rowena (Berry) at a bar and celebrating the success of her big story with her partner in crime Miles (Ribisi). Shortly after, her editor comes and brings a pity party with him to tell her that her story can't be published. Rowena goes from being a drunken celebratory woman to being an angry woman filled with rage as the result of the bad news. This specific scene clearly shows Halle Berry's Academy Award winning skills to convince the audience of her upset. She soon after quits and walks out of bar showing the birds eye view of the street and setting. She then decides to walk to the subway and the murder victim, Grace, is introduced. Grace and Rowena's talk is about Grace's affair with Harrison Hill. In this moment there are many more dolly shots and evidence of the dark lighting. Also, the main conflict, introduction to the other characters/ suspects of murder, and Rowena's terrifying childhood secrets.
All in all, I actually enjoyed watching this film and I give it a solid 4.5 stars. I am not surprised that I liked this movie because I later found out it was directed by James Foley. James Foley also directed film favorite of mine, Fear (1996) with Mark Wahlberg and Reese Witherspoon another psycho-drama film. The cast list was created well and the film had a great twist at the end. Halle Berry was fantastic as usual and she made me really enjoy the movie. I think this film directs to anyone because it just a typical suspense filled affair themed movie. This movie was a great way to kick off my weekend.
Flight starring Denzel Washington was a film that my family members loved and raved about for weeks. This movie was simply about an experienced pilot that has a mechanical failure with his plane but also happens to be drunk and high on the same day while he's flying. Even though he lands the plane and saves all but 6 people, there is a trial and obstacles that he faces throughout the film. We later on find out that he has is an alcoholic and has lost his family and is about to obviously lose his job. For this blog post I read two top critic reviews to get the outlook of others. http://www.reelviews.net/php_review_template.php?identifier=2545 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/02/movies/flight-stars-denzel-washington-as-an-alcoholic-pilot.html?ref=movies&_r=1
The first article I read was rated at a mediocre 75% by the author, James Berardinelli. James included many points in his article including the director's, Robert Zemeckis', latest films and achievements like Back to the Future, Forest Gump, and The Polar Express. He compared Zemeckis' earlier films to this one because of the simple fact of that Flight is as Berardinelli says," uncompromisingly dark." This film is something different that no one expected from Zemeckis which intrigued some but not many viewers.
Berardinelli also speaks on the downfall or negative qualities about the film. He states it has: "an underdeveloped subplot about the blame game" and a too obvious ruse to let Denzel Washington back down his alcoholic path the same day of his trial, which felt a bit forced. Everyone who has seen the film could agree, but those things are minor things out of the whole movie. Viewers attention span was also spoken about in the article. Berardinelli thinks that viewers would get bored and wouldn't be able to endure the full movie of Denzel Washington destroying himself. The movie is not entertaining but very well put together.
The last review I read was in the New York Times written by Manohla Dargis and it gave Flight an outstanding 90 on its website. This review basically praised the whole film from its actors, camerqa shots, and director. Dargis felt like the film was something that everyone could connect to because it was so real and raw. She gives Denzel Washington and Robert Zemeckis a great deal of kudos for Washington's outstanding performance and Zemeckis' great use of racing cameras and his return to live-action cinema. After I seen Flight I didn't know what to think about it. I was sort of in the middle and I am actually glad that I am doing this research just to get different point of views. From Berardinelli's article, one thing he says really caught my eye. He states, "The acting is top-notch, the writing is on-target, and the material packs a dramatic punch. It may not be frivolously engaging but it is compelling." I totally agreed with this statement just because while watching the film I felt just a bit bored of Washington's character's same actions and words. He would constantly just abuse and misuse not only himself but everyone around him which was frustrating to watch. But, I also agreed with the New York Times article written by Dargis. She states, "...the accident in “Flight” is freakishly real; it’s one of those big-screen nightmares that will inspire fear-of-flying moviegoers to run home and Google car rental deals and Greyhound schedules. It’s a showstopper, with thrashing inverted bodies amid sickening screams and engine noises." I totally agreed with her opinion because as a person who is fearful of riding planes, this movie convinced me that what I was watching was actually real. Zemeckis' did a outstanding job with camera shots and editing throughout the movie.
If I never saw Flight and looked up reviews about the movie, I would honestly be more convinced by the New York Times article. The author did a wonderful job with vocabulary selection and keeping the reader enticed about her view of the film. I not only picked this article for the author's entertaining writing skills, but also for its more well known website and newspaper. I simply just felt like it was more of a dependable source.
Coming to the end of the review, topics that I would reveal on Flight if I wrote a review would certainly contain the great list of actors in this movie like Denzel Washington, Don Cheadle, and John Goodman. Seeing these well-known actors in the film just made the movie more interesting and compelling. I would also contain sporadic bits of humor the director would put in the movie. Zemeckis would use actors like John Goodman for comic relief to lighten the mood just a slight bit which I really enjoyed. All in all, I think that Flight was overall a very dark but interesting movie on a topic that many people could easily relate to.
