3 films: The Constant Gardener to Factotum
The Constant Gardener (Fernando Meirelles, 2005). A female aid worker is killed in Africa in what appears to be a violent robbery, but her husband uncovers that her death was ordered by people in high places. A good thriller, interesting and gripping, but with a couple of flaws. First of all they do too good a job in the beginning of the film when they present the woman as being a rather bad person, and even though they try to make it appear like she did it all for a good cause the film makers don’t quite manage. Another flaw is the complete and sudden turnaround of the main character from indifferent to the peoples’ situation in Africa to very passionate. It didn’t feel motivated. [7/10]
Superman Returns (Bryan Singer, 2006). Superman has been away checking out his home planet, but returns to Earth to deal with Lex Luthor’s plan to destroy America. The film is continuity wise tucked in somewhere in the middle of the earlier films, but it was too long since I saw them to really care. I think they tried to present Superman as more human, being jealous and stuff, but what they managed to do was create a stalker with heat vision and tendency to fly in to young kids’ bedrooms. Creepy. Kevin Spacey did his job, as usual. [6/10]
Factotum (Bent Hamer, 2005). An alcoholic writer does temp jobs to support his drinking habit and his writing, but can’t keep jobs or women for long. I really like films about writers, and this is nice in a way. While I don’t agree at all with the message presented, that you have to suffer to be a true writer and that you should therefore torment yourself, it’s presented in a good way. Loosely, I think, I’m not that familiar with him, based on the life of real-life writer Charles Bukowski. [7/10]