Oh, man, what a fantastic movie is. This was actually my second viewing of The Hours. I first watched it back in 2010 and remembered being extremely surprised by how much I enjoyed it. I would not have given this movie a chance back when it came out in 2002, but my interests in films have changed dramatically since then. Now that’s not to say I still can’t enjoy a blockbuster (I actually watched Captain America: Civil War earlier in the same day and loved it), but I am much more into the human aspect of independent dramas like The Hours than I am about action movies or comedies. This movie deals with depression, a topic that I am, unfortunately, very familiar with. And it does it from three different time periods with three different stories that are loosely at times (and not so loosely) during others. This movie knotted Nicole Kidman (Cold Mountain, Rabbit Hole) with, surprisingly, just her third nomination to date (as of May 2016) and her first and only win. With a prosthetic nose, she was virtually unrecognizable as Virginia Woolf. But it wasn’t her physical characteristics that stood out. It was how she immersed herself in the role of a woman who you would think had it all but was so mentally troubled that she could not find any happiness in her life. An accomplished actress, this is the performance of her career in a movie that shouldn’t be missed by anybody who views life with a cup half empty sort of mentality.
Continue reading The Hours (2002)
Category Archives: Nicole Kidman
Secret in Their Eyes (2015)
Billy Ray’s (Breach, Shattered Glass) Secret In Their Eyes is a movie with a trailer that makes it look amazing. With an all-star cast that includes two Academy Award-winning actresses, a mystery/suspense/drama, and a murder of a teenage girl with close ties to the main character’s plot, this movie was sure to be a surefire hit, right? Not so fast. When the mixed reviews started rolling in, you had to wonder what was keeping this moving from being great. There were enough negative reviews that would have saved me from seeing this review or at least had me wait for a home viewing if I weren’t a person obsessed with seeing as many movies as possible in the theater. It turns out I could have easily waited for or maybe skipped it entirely. While entertaining, it’s not a movie that needs to be seen. When all is set and down, I can’t see this landing as even one of the 25 best movies I’ve seen this year. It wasn’t the most disappointing movie I saw this year because I had tempered my expectations, and it still held my interest the only time. However, it was very uneven, pretty far-fetched, and didn’t have an audience for it. I think these suspense/mystery/drama-type movies are losing their audiences (at least in terms of watching them in the theater). With the influx of superhero movies, Pixar and other excellent animated films, and more and more quality independents, movies like Secret In Their Eyes are slowly becoming a dying bread. Of course, there are exceptions, especially when a movie is excellent or win it is based on a book that just about everybody reads (see the astounding Gone Girl for both of these exceptions). But if a movie such as Secret In Their Eyes gets just average or even slightly average reviews, it’s just unlikely to do well in the theaters anymore, regardless of which stars are on it.
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The Railway Man (2014)
The biggest flop of 2014? Possibly. Jonathan Teplitzky’s (Burning Man, television’s Broadchurch) grossed under $5 million in the theaters but cost $18 million to make. This movie should have been great. But then again, so should have been Unbroken, the underwhelming Angelina Jolie vehicle that showcased the 47-day survival of two men living on a raft after their plane was shot down during World War II only to be held in a prisoner of war camp. This movie did just fine at the box office (doubling its budget costs), but it still did not come close to expectations. The Railway Man had lesser expectations than Unbroken, but it did have a better cast and weaker competition at the time of its release. A 66% on Rotten Tomatoes isn’t bad, but usually, you want to see a slightly higher (at minimum) for a true story-based historical drama. I am uncertain of why I watched this film. I had convinced myself I was not going to. But it showed up on my Showtime OnDemand list one day when I was trying to find a movie to watch and decided to give it a chance. I’m glad I did. It is certainly not a great movie but is better than expected. It is a much more complete film than was Unbroken.
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Rabbit Hole (2010)
Had it received a release date in any other year, Rabbit Hole would have made my Top 10 Movie of the Year list. But as I’ve stated many times in my reviews, 2010 was, without question, the best year for movies in my lifetime. Rabbit Hole is a very well-acted, directed, heavy-hitting drama about the grieving process and the obstacles we must overcome to recover from the unexpected loss of a child. Nicole Kidman (Moulin Rouge!, Cold Mountain) earned her third Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role Academy Award Nomination (she won the award in 2003 for her role as Virginia Wolfe in The Hours) for her role as Becca, a grieving mother who struggles to comes to terms with her life after her four-year-old son is struck and killed by a car after running into the street while chasing the family dog.