While I am not the biggest fan of foreign language films, I am the first to admit that when a foreign movie is excellent, you get to the point where you don’t even notice you are reading subtitles anymore. You become so gripped by the film that it’s not just a great foreign film you are watching… but rather a great film. However, on the flip side, when a foreign film is terrible, it tends to drag and drag and drag. Part of that reason is that you’ve tuned out the movie so much that you have no idea where you are in the film when you do glance back. As a result, it becomes a dreadful movie experience. Almost all the foreign films I watch are recommended to me. Rarely will I be perusing Netflix, seeing a movie, and adding it to my queue because it’s a “foreign movie.” I am far more likely to skip a film with subtitles than to watch it. As a result, I rarely find a foreign film to be mediocre. I usually end up either liking the movie a ton or feeling like I just wasted two hours of my life. There are, of course, exceptions to the rule, and that is precisely what Two Days, One Night is. It is a mediocre movie in every sense. It had nothing to do with it being a foreign film. Had it not had subtitles, it would have been equally mediocre.
Category Archives: Drama
Straight Outta Compton (2015)
Straight outta Compton and straight into the Oscar buzz. It’s early, and this movie will be forgotten by Halloween (just like most of the great films released in the first eight or nine months of each year). Still, for now, this movie is hot with audiences (over $100 million grossed in its first eight days) and critics (89% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes), like just about any other movie of the year. As I will explain in my review below, Straight Outta Compton didn’t do anything (besides the music itself) that was amazing on its own, but it did do just about everything well. I wouldn’t call it the surprise hit of the year, as many other movies flew further under the radar (Ex Machina and The Gift are the two that come to mind for me). Still, it was a movie that could be very good or very bad, depending on the acting, which parts of the story would be told, and, most importantly, the direction. I’ll talk more about F. Gary Gray (The Negotiator, The Italian Job) later in the review, but long story short, he nailed it. Straight Outta Compton was his most challenging and impressive work to date. While I think it’s an extremely long shot based on the history of the Academy and its voting, his name could still be swirling around as a dark horse for Best Director come December.
The Gift (2015)
Joel Edgerton’s (Warrior, Exodus: Gods and Kings) The Gift is easily the surprise hit of the summer. Creepy and suspenseful, this movie is a clinic in developing characters and fully entrenching viewers in the storyline. I saw the film in a theater that was 75% full, and you could hear a pin drop during its quieter moments. Everyone was all-in on the story, and nobody seemed to know where it was headed because of the oohs and aahs at each new twist. Given its 93% “fresh” rating on Rotten Tomatoes, I did not doubt this movie would be good. However, I did not watch a preview beforehand (on purpose), nor did I know anything about the film other than what someone said the night before my viewing that they had heard it had a crazy twist.
Lions for Lambs (2007)
I think when I first saw the trailers for Robert Redford’s (Quiz Show, A River Runs Through It) Lions for Lambs, I thought it was a movie I had to see. The previews made the film look exciting, and it featured an A-list cast. Well, when the movie’s commercials became 15-second clips after the first week, and it scored a whopping 27% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, the need to see it quickly waned. The movie earned just $15 million at the box office. Box office earnings don’t necessarily reflect a film’s quality, but this movie was expected to generate significant revenue. While the production costs of this movie were low (I’ll explain below), stars like Meryl Streep and Tom Cruise commanded high-dollar figures for their appearances. This wasn’t a little indie movie. MGM produced this movie. On top of a film that was received so poorly by critics was a plot (stories about the war in the Middle East, especially politically driven ones) that had consistently kept moviegoers away back in the early 2000s. Lions for Lambs was a decent movie, but certainly not a great one. And it was by no means as exciting or as drama-filled as the trailers made it out to be. Lions for Lambs is a dialogue-driven movie that succeeds because of its excellent cast.
North Face (Nordwand) (2010)
If I could describe the German-released movie North Face in just a single word, it would be the word horrific. Based on the true story of a competition to climb the most dangerous rock face in the Swiss Alps, the subtitled movie gets better and better with each passing frame. For those moviegoers who aren’t into subtitled movies, I can sympathize. I tend to groan when I know I’m about to embark on one of those, too. Subtitled movies are ones that you need to prepare for, and, unfortunately, when a subtitled movie is bad, it almost becomes twice as dreadful to trudge through. But, at the same time, I have seen some fantastic foreign-language movies, and North Face ranks right up there with them. And, as with any good subtitled movie, when you are truly engaged, you don’t even notice you are reading the words anymore. I don’t know how I came across this movie, other than the fact that I love a good adventure movie (I am one of those people who tend to separate the adventure genre from the action genre).