Juno is a very sweet movie about a sixteen year old girl who is smart, sarcastic, and dealing with a pregnancy after one unplanned evening with her best male friend. She considers "nipping this thing in the bud" but can't quite handle the abortion clinic, so she decides to find the perfect family for her baby. She sees having the baby and giving it to some deserving but unfortunately infertile couple as an altruistic, almost saintly act, and quickly finds affluent suburbanites Vanessa and Mark Loring, who seem ideal. But of course, she still has to get through seven more months!
Characters:
* Juno, a cute brunette teenager
* Leah, her best girl friend, a blonde teenager who changes her hair a lot
* Paulie Bleeker, usually called just "Bleeker", Juno's best boy friend, and her baby's father.
* Juno's dad, a bald, middle aged man
* Juno's stepmom, Bren, a middle aged woman with blonde hair
* Vanessa Loring, a thirtysomething career woman with long dark hair who is desperate to be a mom.
* Mark Loring, the prospective daddy, who has short hair and is a musician
I really liked this movie. The story is great and takes some unexpected twists, and thankfully did NOT go down one particularly cliche path that I was afraid of, towards the end. The dialogue is very fast paced and funny, sort of like the television show Gilmore Girls, to the extent that you think, "nobody talks that quickly and cleverly without a script." The music is also wonderful, especially if you like contemporary hipster music or older punk. You can listen to the soundtrack at the official movie site.
The only face confusion had to do with Juno's best girl friend, Leah. She changes her hair a lot. But just know going in that there is only one blonde teenage girl that the movie draws any significant attention to, and you will be fine. The main characters are pretty distinct from each other, and the sea of high school students other than Juno and her two friends are not important to the plot except as a mass of disdainful kids.
If you happen to be familiar with the television show Arrested Development, you will have a head start because Bleeker is played by Michael Cera, the same actor who played George Michael Bluth, and Mark Loring is played by the actor who played George Michael's dad, Jason Bateman. Vanessa Loring is played by an actress whose features, especially the mouth, may make you think she is Julia Roberts, but actually she is Jennifer Garner (though that may just be me). Don't be fooled!
All in all, a fun, touching movie with great music, and highly recommended!
RATINGS:
Good movie? 5/5
Good for FB Folks? 4/5
More reviews: Rotten Tomatoes
Official Website: Juno
Showing posts with label drama. Show all posts
Showing posts with label drama. Show all posts
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Pan's Labyrinth review
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!
Okay, by all accounts (just look at the Rotten Tomatoes link at the bottom of this page) Pan's Labyrinth is an excellent movie, artistically speaking. However, I went to see it this weekend. On the way to the theater I was in a fantastic mood -- smiling, happy, singing! On the way home I felt kind of dazed, I was so depressed.
It was violent, gory and relentless, and the elements of fantasy were not "enchanting" as I had been led to believe by pull quotes from reviews, but in fact disturbing and creepy. Make no mistake: this is a HORROR film. But the true horror didn't come from the otherworldly fantasy elements; it came from the inhumanity of the human characters.
Set during World War II, a few years after Franco had taken power in Spain, this movie follows a young girl and her pregnant mother as they join the mother's new husband, an insanely violent army captain, at the country house he and his troops are occupying. The girl has a penchant for fairy stories and soon finds herself completing tasks in order to win back the throne of a fantasy kingdom of which she is the reincarnated princess. Meanwhile, out in the real world, her mom's pregnancy isn't going so well and her stepfather is busy trying to kill anti-Franco guerilla forces who come out of the woods.
If you are a fan of artistic fantasy horror films, will you be able to follow this movie? I managed pretty well, but it did require a bit of floating. Also, it is in Spanish with English subtitles, so you do have to focus some of your mental energy on reading if you don't speak the language.
ORIGINALS
The main character is Ofelia, a little girl of around 11 or 12. She's the only kid in the movie. And of course, the fantasy characters are all pretty distinctive! There's also a doctor, who dresses and acts differently than any other man in the film.
WOMEN
Ofelia's mother is sick and pregnant. The only other adult woman the camera follows is Mercedes, who's sort of the head of the housekeeping staff. If you see a woman up and about, it's Mercedes.
SOLDIERS
None of the soldiers matter except Captain Vidal. And yes, that's him shaving, and yes, that's him that they call out to deal with the local man they caught hunting in the woods. If the movie is focusing on a uniformed soldier, it's probably the Captain. He has a couple of other high-ranking soldiers under him, but they are interchangeable as far as the plot is concerned.
GUERILLAS
The guerillas are harder to tell apart, and in fact one of them tricked even my non-faceblind partner. There are three guerillas who matter to the plot. One is wounded and the doctor comes to take care of him; after that scene you don't see him again. The other two are a stuttering man and the guerilla leader, who look similar enough to fool a non-faceblind person. At one significant point, I asked "Is that the leader?" and got the answer "yes!" But in the next scene, he stuttered, so we knew we were both wrong. It may have been all the subtitle-reading, drawing attention away from learning faces, or they could have been just that similar.
So, if you are going to see this movie, it's not the best from a FB perspective, but it's manageable. Just make sure to not worry about all the extra guerillas and soldiers, and prepare yourself for despair. And keep in mind that at least, as they always said on Saturday Night Live, Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead!
RATINGS:
Good movie? 3/5
Good for FB Folks? 3/5
More reviews: Rotten Tomatoes
Okay, by all accounts (just look at the Rotten Tomatoes link at the bottom of this page) Pan's Labyrinth is an excellent movie, artistically speaking. However, I went to see it this weekend. On the way to the theater I was in a fantastic mood -- smiling, happy, singing! On the way home I felt kind of dazed, I was so depressed.
It was violent, gory and relentless, and the elements of fantasy were not "enchanting" as I had been led to believe by pull quotes from reviews, but in fact disturbing and creepy. Make no mistake: this is a HORROR film. But the true horror didn't come from the otherworldly fantasy elements; it came from the inhumanity of the human characters.
Set during World War II, a few years after Franco had taken power in Spain, this movie follows a young girl and her pregnant mother as they join the mother's new husband, an insanely violent army captain, at the country house he and his troops are occupying. The girl has a penchant for fairy stories and soon finds herself completing tasks in order to win back the throne of a fantasy kingdom of which she is the reincarnated princess. Meanwhile, out in the real world, her mom's pregnancy isn't going so well and her stepfather is busy trying to kill anti-Franco guerilla forces who come out of the woods.
If you are a fan of artistic fantasy horror films, will you be able to follow this movie? I managed pretty well, but it did require a bit of floating. Also, it is in Spanish with English subtitles, so you do have to focus some of your mental energy on reading if you don't speak the language.
ORIGINALS
The main character is Ofelia, a little girl of around 11 or 12. She's the only kid in the movie. And of course, the fantasy characters are all pretty distinctive! There's also a doctor, who dresses and acts differently than any other man in the film.
WOMEN
Ofelia's mother is sick and pregnant. The only other adult woman the camera follows is Mercedes, who's sort of the head of the housekeeping staff. If you see a woman up and about, it's Mercedes.
SOLDIERS
None of the soldiers matter except Captain Vidal. And yes, that's him shaving, and yes, that's him that they call out to deal with the local man they caught hunting in the woods. If the movie is focusing on a uniformed soldier, it's probably the Captain. He has a couple of other high-ranking soldiers under him, but they are interchangeable as far as the plot is concerned.
GUERILLAS
The guerillas are harder to tell apart, and in fact one of them tricked even my non-faceblind partner. There are three guerillas who matter to the plot. One is wounded and the doctor comes to take care of him; after that scene you don't see him again. The other two are a stuttering man and the guerilla leader, who look similar enough to fool a non-faceblind person. At one significant point, I asked "Is that the leader?" and got the answer "yes!" But in the next scene, he stuttered, so we knew we were both wrong. It may have been all the subtitle-reading, drawing attention away from learning faces, or they could have been just that similar.
So, if you are going to see this movie, it's not the best from a FB perspective, but it's manageable. Just make sure to not worry about all the extra guerillas and soldiers, and prepare yourself for despair. And keep in mind that at least, as they always said on Saturday Night Live, Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead!
RATINGS:
Good movie? 3/5
Good for FB Folks? 3/5
More reviews: Rotten Tomatoes
Monday, February 12, 2007
Children of Men review
Hey, movie fans. If you are wondering if you should go see Children of Men, you probably won't have a huge problem from a faceblindness point of view. All of the important characters look distinctive, although I did figure out a little of the stuff I say below through "floating". If you can remember characters in books with lots of them and figure out politics and interpersonal cues, you will be able to figure out this movie. The camera work is a bit shaky, which gave my partner motion sickness, so if you are prone to that, look out.
Of course, whether you want to see this movie also depends on what kind of movie you like in general. I thought it was excellent, but it is very violent. It's set in a dystopian not-too-distant future England, where women have stopped being able to have babies. The world has pretty much exploded because without children in the world, a large number of people do one of two things: give up all hope for the future, or become violent religious fanatics convinced that God is punishing the world. The only stable country left is apparently England, but it's violent there too, and the government is violently removing refugees (referred to in slang as Fugees).
All I'll say about the plot is that our main character, Theo, is charged with the responsibility of shepherding a young Fugee woman, Kee, to safety.
Here are the characters. There is no one else you need to sort out.
Theo (also referred to as Thelonius and Amigo): Our main character. White man, in his late forties, with dark, short, curly hair, usually with stubble on his face. I think he is in nearly every single scene, and the camera follows him. There's hardly anyone to confuse him with except for one scene where you see his cousin Nigel. Nigel's wearing the gray shirt and his hair is fluffier at the top.
Jasper: An old white man with long, wild white hair. He has a wife, Janice, who is catatonic.
Julian (also called Julie, and at one point I thought I heard someone call her Joyce): Theo's ex. A white woman in her forties with long straight hair.
Kee: A young black woman with an African accent.
Miriam: A fifty-ish white woman with dreadlocked hair.
Luke: A forty-ish black man with short Afro-ish hair. If there's someone who meets that description in a scene, and he's talking, and he's NOT wearing glasses, that's Luke.
The Biker: I never caught this character's name, but he is white, appears to be in his late thirties, and has extremely long dreadlocked hair. He rides a motorcycle. If you see this man in any scene, he is the same person.
Sid: White man with very, VERY short hair who is kind enough to talk about himself in the third person, using his own name, all the time.
Marichka: Woman with long, dark hair who appears to be in her late fifties, and speaks an Eastern European language, very possibly Russian.
There will be a scene at a house with LOTS of people. You don't need to worry about who anyone else is. You can tell which man is Theo because the camera follows him.
So there are a lot of people in this movie, but as I've described, anyone who matters is visually distinctive. If you can tell people apart by cues other than faces and keep lots of characters straight, you'll be fine.
RATINGS:
Good movie? 4/5
Good for FB Folks? 4/5
More reviews: Salon.com
Rotten Tomatoes
Of course, whether you want to see this movie also depends on what kind of movie you like in general. I thought it was excellent, but it is very violent. It's set in a dystopian not-too-distant future England, where women have stopped being able to have babies. The world has pretty much exploded because without children in the world, a large number of people do one of two things: give up all hope for the future, or become violent religious fanatics convinced that God is punishing the world. The only stable country left is apparently England, but it's violent there too, and the government is violently removing refugees (referred to in slang as Fugees).
All I'll say about the plot is that our main character, Theo, is charged with the responsibility of shepherding a young Fugee woman, Kee, to safety.
Here are the characters. There is no one else you need to sort out.
Theo (also referred to as Thelonius and Amigo): Our main character. White man, in his late forties, with dark, short, curly hair, usually with stubble on his face. I think he is in nearly every single scene, and the camera follows him. There's hardly anyone to confuse him with except for one scene where you see his cousin Nigel. Nigel's wearing the gray shirt and his hair is fluffier at the top.
Jasper: An old white man with long, wild white hair. He has a wife, Janice, who is catatonic.
Julian (also called Julie, and at one point I thought I heard someone call her Joyce): Theo's ex. A white woman in her forties with long straight hair.
Kee: A young black woman with an African accent.
Miriam: A fifty-ish white woman with dreadlocked hair.
Luke: A forty-ish black man with short Afro-ish hair. If there's someone who meets that description in a scene, and he's talking, and he's NOT wearing glasses, that's Luke.
The Biker: I never caught this character's name, but he is white, appears to be in his late thirties, and has extremely long dreadlocked hair. He rides a motorcycle. If you see this man in any scene, he is the same person.
Sid: White man with very, VERY short hair who is kind enough to talk about himself in the third person, using his own name, all the time.
Marichka: Woman with long, dark hair who appears to be in her late fifties, and speaks an Eastern European language, very possibly Russian.
There will be a scene at a house with LOTS of people. You don't need to worry about who anyone else is. You can tell which man is Theo because the camera follows him.
So there are a lot of people in this movie, but as I've described, anyone who matters is visually distinctive. If you can tell people apart by cues other than faces and keep lots of characters straight, you'll be fine.
RATINGS:
Good movie? 4/5
Good for FB Folks? 4/5
More reviews: Salon.com
Rotten Tomatoes
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Dreamgirls review
Hello, faceblind person! If you were wondering, "should I watch the movie Dreamgirls?" the answer is, "yes and no."
"Yes" if you like music, particularly R&B, soul, and Motown. The movie was full of it! And although the plot seemed like it could have been too predictable, there were some surprises.
"No" if it's going to bother you that you can't tell anyone apart! This is the worst movie I've ever watched from the perspective of prosopagnosia. At any given point, all the men are wearing suits in the same style, and all the women are wearing the exact same dress and wig (because they're in a girl group), or at least very similar styles of clothing and hair when not onstage. The only people I could tell apart in the movie were Effie, because she was a bigger girl than the others in the group, and Effie's brother if his head was turned the right way, because he had odd, squared-off pointy ears. Oh, and Effie's little girl, because she was the only child, and later in the movie, the original promoter because his hair went white.
I could still follow it and figure out who was who from context, mostly. Well, I could tell that Deena was Deena because she was being focused on, and the other skinny girls were not focused on mostly. But it was a LOT of mental effort. A LOT. And I don't usually have much trouble following movies or TV shows at all. I guess because most movies have the characters look and dress more distinctively. With all the uniformity, this movie was like a prosopagnosia test with faces and no hairlines and so on!
My partner, of course, had no trouble whatsoever telling them apart. That kind of astounded me. I would have thought that they all looked similar enough for even a non-faceblind person to have trouble. Apparently not.
RATINGS:
Good movie? 4/5
Good for FB Folks? 1/5
More reviews: Rotten Tomatoes
"Yes" if you like music, particularly R&B, soul, and Motown. The movie was full of it! And although the plot seemed like it could have been too predictable, there were some surprises.
"No" if it's going to bother you that you can't tell anyone apart! This is the worst movie I've ever watched from the perspective of prosopagnosia. At any given point, all the men are wearing suits in the same style, and all the women are wearing the exact same dress and wig (because they're in a girl group), or at least very similar styles of clothing and hair when not onstage. The only people I could tell apart in the movie were Effie, because she was a bigger girl than the others in the group, and Effie's brother if his head was turned the right way, because he had odd, squared-off pointy ears. Oh, and Effie's little girl, because she was the only child, and later in the movie, the original promoter because his hair went white.
I could still follow it and figure out who was who from context, mostly. Well, I could tell that Deena was Deena because she was being focused on, and the other skinny girls were not focused on mostly. But it was a LOT of mental effort. A LOT. And I don't usually have much trouble following movies or TV shows at all. I guess because most movies have the characters look and dress more distinctively. With all the uniformity, this movie was like a prosopagnosia test with faces and no hairlines and so on!
My partner, of course, had no trouble whatsoever telling them apart. That kind of astounded me. I would have thought that they all looked similar enough for even a non-faceblind person to have trouble. Apparently not.
RATINGS:
Good movie? 4/5
Good for FB Folks? 1/5
More reviews: Rotten Tomatoes
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