9 Nov - "That's a real shite story"

Ondine (2009)
dir. Neil Jordan (The Brave One, 2007)

CAST
Colin Farrell (The New World, 2005)
Alicja Bachleda

Tony Curran (Blade II, 2002)

The problem with Colin Farrell is that I can never decide whether he's attractive or not. This movie was good -for a lot of reasons- because Farrell plays a salty fisherman who's a recovering alcoholic so he's supposed to be a bit worn out and ragged, but IS good looking enough to be a compelling romantic lead. That being said, Ondine is not all the way in your face romance. There's only one kissing/sexytime scene and it's a classy, pan out and then return once they're fully dressed deal.

So the theme of the story centers around the Irish Selkie legend. Basically, a selkie is like a mermaid, except they can appear as either a seal or a person. In the fairy tale, the fisherman steals the selkie's seal-skin and makes her be his wife. They have lots of children and are very happy, but one day the oldest daughter asks her mom why the father hides an old leather coat in the roof of their house. And then the selkie gets her skin back, and even though she promises that she's only going for a quick swim, to say hi to her parents and whatnot, she never comes back again and it's sad.

So Ondine starts with Farrell's fisherman, Syracuse, hauling up this girl in his fishing net. Ondine ends of paralleling the selkie legend in more ways than one, but something more sinister is actually going on. That's why I don't understand why netflix sorted this as a fantasy - obviously someone didn't watch until the end. It reminds me of how the cable company used to summarize episodes of the Simpsons after they had clearly only watched the first two minutes. Do you all remember how the Simpsons used to start with one storyline and then go in a completely different direction after the first commercial break?

That's all I have to say about that.

13 Oct - "all we can do is run and hope that we are fast enough"

The Secret of Kells (2009)
dir. Tomm Moore, Nora Twomey

VOICES
Brendan Gleeson (Mad-Eye Moody, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, 2007)

So I started watching Paranormal Activity last night around 10pm - but then it got to that part (Night #3 I think) when the camera slowed down at 2:09am and then there was a scary noise and I thought "Oh no! Something terrifying will happen and it's NIGHTTIME and I'm HOME ALONE" so I quickly turned it off and watched The Secret of Kells from my bathtub instead.

I'll try again some sunnier time.

Secret of Kells reminded me of some of the movies Hayao Miyazake makes. Actually, it was a lot like Princess Mononoke in that there's this dichotomy between where the people are (Kells Abbey) and the Forest (Which is where that Pixie-girl on the poster lives). The Abbey is under the threat of an imminent invasion by Vikings, to protect the Abbey, the Abbot builds an enormous wall and he forbids anyone to go outside of it. The other monks complain that the Abbot has forgotten the true purpose of the order, which is to make books, and he makes the monks spend all their time building instead. So, stuff happens and he learns the error of his ways.

The artwork is awesome. They really play around with perspective and depth and incorporate a lot of Celtic symbols into the trees. There's one scene where Our Hero has to defeat a monster which resembles nothing so much as the "snake" game you probably have on your cell phone, but stunning. That was my favorite part. My only critique is that the snake monster didn't have a long enough scene.

5 Oct- "It's hard to imagine a man's scream from here"

The Wind that Shakes the Barley (2006)
dir. Ken Loach

CAST
Cillian Murphy (28 Days Later, 2002)
Padraic Delaney
Frank O'Sullivan

War movies are harder for me. And for some dopey-do reason I spread this out over three days in which I was really distracted by stupid schoolwork. And there was lots of talking bits about whether they should accept the treaty and whether wealthy landowners should be buying guns for the IRA. With all the talking, I'm not really sure this should be called a war movie. It's really more of a political drama with some skirmishes.

Cillian Murphy is great though. But honestly, I didn't really know who he was until I recognized his face and did some internetting. I found out that he's from CORK, IRELAND and his wife is named Yvonne McGuinness and that there is a name that is the most Irish ever and that's it. Yeah, he's also super-cute and was in Sunshine and Dark Knight.

My favorite scene occurred between Damien (Murphy) and the English officer, in which our Irish hero demands that the English cease their occupation, and the English guy kinda freaks out and you can tell that he doesn't want to be there AT ALL,and this skinny young English kid holds up an enormous rifle and looks scared and then the officer gives the kid a pistol and orders him to shoot Damien in the temple and he's scared but he does it, but it just clicks empty and everyone looks very upset and impotent. It's a perfect scene, epitomizing the theme of the film quite succinctly.

Okay - so no more watching movies in chunks. In for a penny, in for a pound; that's what I always say. 'Cause it's October, I put a bunch of ScAAaaARry movies on my netflix queue. which means a lot of sleepless nights alone for me. All well. Look out for Jesse James next time.