第一篇：The day after tomorrow电影《后天》英文影评
后天The Day After Tomorrow英文影评
It is such a relief to hear the music swell up at the end of a Roland Emmerich movie, its
restorative power giving us new hope.Billions of people may have died, but at least the
major characters have survived.Los Angeles was wiped out by flying saucers in Emmerich's
“Independence Day,” New York was assaulted in his “Godzilla,” and now, in “The Day After
Tomorrow,” Emmerich outdoes himself: Los Angeles is leveled by multiple tornados, New York
is buried under ice and snow, the United Kingdom is flash-frozen, and lots of the Northern
Hemisphere is wiped out for good measure.Thank god that Jack, Sam, Laura, Jason and Dr.Lucy Hall survive, along with Dr.Hall's little cancer patient.So, yes, the movie is profoundly silly.What surprised me is that it's also very scary.The special effects are on such an awesome scale that the movie works despite its cornball
plotting.When tornados rip apart Los Angeles(not sparing the Hollywood sign), when a wall
of water roars into New York, when a Russian tanker floats down a Manhattan street, when
snow buries skyscrapers, when the crew of a space station can see nothing but violent storm
systems--well, you pay attention.No doubt some readers are already angry with me for revealing that Jack, Sam, Laura，Jason, Dr.Lucy Hall and the little cancer patient survive.Have I given away the plot?
This plot gives itself away.When cataclysmic events shred uncounted lives but the movie
zeroes in on only a few people, of course they survive, although some supporting characters
may have to be sacrificed.What's amusing in movies like “The Day After Tomorrow” is the
way the screenplay veers from the annihilation of subcontinents to whether Sam should tell
Laura he loves her.The movie stars Dennis Quaid as the paleoclimatologist Jack Hall, whose computer models
predict that global warming will lead to a new ice age.He issues a warning at a New Delhi
conference, but is sarcastically dismissed by the American vice president(Kenneth Welsh)，who the movie doesn't even try to pretend doesn't look just like Dick Cheney.“Our economy
is every bit as fragile as the environment,” the vice president says, dismissing Jack's
“sensational claims.”
Before long, however, it is snowing in India, and hailstones the side of softballs are
ripping into Tokyo.Birds, which are always wise in matters of global disaster, fly south
double-time.Turbulence tears airplanes from the sky.The president(Perry King)learns the
FAA wants to ground all flights and asks the vice president, “What do you think we should
do?”
Meanwhile, young Sam Hall(Jake Gyllenhaal)goes to New York with an academic decathlon
team, which includes Laura(Emmy Rossum of “Mystic River”)and Brian(Arjay Smith).They're
stranded there.Ominous portents abound and Jack finally gets his message through to the
administration(“This time,” says a friend within the White House, “it will be different.You've got to brief the president directly.”)
Jack draws a slash across a map of the United States, and writes off everybody north of
it.He issues a warning that super-cooled air will kill anybody exposed to it, advises
those in its path to stay inside, and then...well, then he sets off to walk from
Washington to New York to get to his son.Two of his buddies, also veterans of Arctic
treks, come along.We are wondering:
(a)why walk to New York when his expertise is desperately needed to save millions?
(b)won't his son be either dead or alive whether or not he makes the trek? And——
(c)how quickly can you walk from Washington to New York over ice sheets and through a
howling blizzard? As nearly as I can calculate, this movie believes it can be done in two
nights and most of three days.Oh, I forgot;they drive part of the way, on highways that
are gridlocked and buried in snow, except for where they're driving.How they get gas is
not discussed in any detail.As for the answer to(a), anyone familiar with the formula will know it is because he
Feels Guilty About Neglecting His Son by spending all that time being a paleoclimatologist.It took him a lot of that time just to spell it.So, OK, the human subplots are nonsense--
all except for the quiet scenes anchored by Ian Holm, as a sad, wise Scottish
meteorologist.Just like Peter O'Toole in “Troy,” Holm proves that a gifted British-trained
actor can walk into almost any scene and make it seem like it means something.Quaid and Gyllenhaal and the small band of New York survivors do what can be done with
impossible dialogue in an unlikely situation.And Dr.Lucy Hall(Sela Ward), Jack's wife
and Sam's mother, struggles nobly in her subplot, which involves the little cancer patient
named Peter.She stays by his side after the hospital is evacuated, calling for an
ambulance, which we think is a tad optimistic, since Manhattan has been flooded up to about
the eighth floor, the water has frozen, and it's snowing.But does the ambulance arrive?
Here's another one for you: Remember those wolves that escaped from the zoo? Think we'll
see them again?
Of the science in this movie I have no opinion.I am sure global warming is real, and I
regret that the Bush administration rejected the Kyoto Treaty, but I doubt that the
cataclysm, if it comes, will come like this.It makes for a fun movie, though.Especially
the parts where Americans become illegal immigrants in Mexico, and the vice president
addresses the world via the Weather Channel.“The Day After Tomorrow” is ridiculous, yes，but sublimely ridiculous--and the special effects are stupendous
第二篇：后天 英文影评(简短)
Imagine that you’re in another ice age, shuddering from stem to stern in the biting wind, struggling to find any possible food deep in the pristine layer of snow.This , however, can exactly be true, just as the movie
We can’t wait until the last day, since no one can afford to pay for it.Gazing at the lovely world around you, how can you imagine its extinction? To make a change is painful, but also necessary.
第三篇：后天影评
绝得灾难片也不在是以前映像中凭空想象出来的东西了它多了一些真实性，感觉其实离我们的生活很近，不禁心里产生紧张感。而这时，我觉得导演想要的效果就达到了。
看完《后天》，说实话，让我很是惊讶。想许多好莱坞的灾难大片一样，《后天》呈现给观众，在温室效应的影响下，冰天雪地的情景叫人惊叹不已。也叫人直感叹我们人类在自然面前的渺小啊。我觉得，我们看《后天》不仅仅是看它的灾难有多严重，人们面对时地惊慌又怎么样，我们应该通过电影看本质的，看出电影中导演想表达的更深一层的意思。
影片讲述的是由于温室效应造成地球气候变异，全球即将陷入第二次冰河纪的故事。《后天》中最大的看点，某过于那些通过特效喝成的灾难画面，而它力图展现和说明的是：如果温室效应和全球变暖的趋势继续发展下去，势必会引发全球范围内的重大灾难，这无疑是一个有着十分现实危机感的大背景。而本部片中，也汇集了许多顶尖特效，由于影片中的气候变异先是从海水因气温急速下降而结成的冰，因此一些大型建筑物包括自由女生像，埃菲尔铁塔，大笨钟等都被冻成了冰柱，场面极为壮观。当然，本片出了铺天盖地的自然灾害以外，也刻画了一段段在灾难危害面前，人们表现出的亲情，爱情，这种人与人之间刻骨铭心的情感刻画，也极为本片的精彩。
看完这部电影我只有一个问题，如果后天就是冰河世纪，我们可以怎么办？在这部电影里我看到了自然的力量，那些瞬间冰化的世界，可怕的龙卷风，汹涌的海浪，即时吞没一切。我被里面的情感动者，信任和亲情，帮助和责任，救护车出现的那一刻，杰克抱着萨姆的那一刻，总统认错的那一刻，太阳出来的那一刻……这些都是我们面对一切困难的时候最需要的信任和爱，不离不弃，我不知道有谁可以从电影里面真正认识到环境的重要性，尤其是那些领导人。也许什么冰川世纪是骗人的，我们也许不会面临这样的时候，但是我们每个人的心底里都知道，也许，我们迟早有一天会看到自然的报复的，我们不是在改造自然吗，自然也是可以改造我们的。我们都不希望看到坏结果，就算是电影吧，最后的镜头也是那些生存下来的人们，和一片灿烂的地球，可是我们现在所做的一切都是想着好的结果的方向发展了吗，我们问问自己……
绝得灾难片也不在是以前映像中凭空想象出来的东西了电影《后天》结尾，山姆和其他几个幸存者等到了前来营救他的爸爸杰克。纽约劫后余生的人们等到了营救他们的直升机。一个光明的结尾，一个抚慰人心灵的结尾，一个人们期待得到的结尾。像无数部好莱坞灾难大片一样，《后天》总算让我们吐出一口气，带着心有余悸的心满意足走出电影院。
看到这里，相信有人也会像我一样，悲观地在心里默念：山姆等到了杰克，但是谁来拯救我们的未来？
对资深影迷来说，会习惯性地挑剔拷贝的质量；会嘲笑冻裂楼体的严寒竟然像追踪猎物的猛兽一般，在炉火前停步不前；会诧异科考探险者居然能够把脸单独暴露在冰冻的天气下而若无其事。苛求真实在这里没有太大的意义 因为这个光明的尾巴无非是一个象征。包括杰克和山姆，包括“大人物”们，都无非是象征。象征着人类的理智，象征着人类的未来，象征人类的短视和反省。理智让我们对灾难保持警觉，未来命悬一线，而短视使我们对灾难毫无戒备并且自食苦果。在好莱坞大片里，每当地球和人类灾难临头，不管是彗星撞地球，还是外星人入侵，或者是致命病毒袭击，总会有一个凡人英雄，凭着超人的意志和九死一生的好运气，拯救人类于生死边缘。《后天》里没有“救世主”，在巨大灾难面前，谁也不能充当英雄，但却不乏智者和勇士，杰克就是这样一个主角。还有英国科学家莱逊。他们预见到了人类即将遭遇的悲剧性结局。在灾难片里，英雄常常是这样一些人物，他们所从事的职业在平时与“英雄”和“勇气”毫不沾边，比如杰克，一个古气候学家。而现实恰恰如此，假如不是“非典”，谁会知道一个叫钟南山的疾病防治中心的医生？
电影的主旨是提请每个人：关心我们的未来！片名“后天”(the day after tomorrow)无疑是一个警示——别以为灾难离我们很远，它就在眼前。
山姆得到了来自父亲的承诺，父亲履行了自己的诺言，没有弃自己的儿子不顾。可是，谁能给我们的后代以承诺，为他们的未来负责？
2012并不遥远，肯定是会有大灾难的，至于人类能不能活下去，更重要的是取决于我们有没有充分的准备应对灾难。
九十年 路漫漫, 水迢迢,我党依旧风雨如磐。幸逢90圣诞，愿我党与时俱进，成功从希望走向新希望
沧桑几度 风雨如磐
九十年 水迢迢
与时俱进 千锤百炼
九十年前
ml水迢迢
与时俱进 千锤百炼 九十年前
第四篇：《后天》影评
从电影中解读地球 期末影评 12359060 罗舒婷 2012级中文系乙班
第一部分：观后初感
不同以往的好莱坞大片 ——电影《后天》有感
“你有见过这么清澈的地球吗”这是电影《后天》ending时的最后一句话。在一场肆虐的灾难过后，我们的地球又变得如此美丽。看完电影便知这是一部制作宏大的灾难片，但相比较我以前看过的好莱坞英雄主义的大片，这一次导演并没有从某个人的伟绩上着手，而是频频在镜头前表现人类在自然面前的无力甚至是无助之感。
其中有三个镜头我的印象特别深刻，第一个镜头是一开篇，气候学家杰克霍尔要求他的同伴在冰下钻26米，孰料，冰面突然裂缝，刹那间冰层分开左右，镜头外拉，裂开的两地早已望不到头。此时观者我汗毛不禁竖起，为刚刚杰克去救那两个试验品而差点掉入深渊而不禁捏一把汗。加之背景音乐肃杀的气氛，一片冰冷冷的白，很好地渲染了灾难的可怕，给人以震撼。
接下来的第二个镜头几股龙卷风袭卷着洛杉矶城，一位大厦内的清洁工人对外面发生的事情好像全然不知。一支的白光闪过他的眼睛，这时导演特写他的脸部，带着惊恐和小心翼翼，他拿着吸尘器一步步走到门前，再推开一间屋子的门，却发现脚下已是深渊——龙卷风早已席卷了这座大厦，以至于把大厦的外皮刮落！此时镜头外拉，整个洛杉矶城一片废墟，满眼荒凉。不得不震撼于此片对于大自然力量反扑社会的表现，在一种有些混沌的深灰之中，加之象征着恐怖的黑 1
色，连人们的着装几乎一概都是深色系，银幕前光线一篇昏暗。引起观者我对接下来人类如何面对灾难的好奇。
第三个镜头，也是我自己最喜欢的一个镜头，山姆去为父母报平安，杰克对山姆说，儿子待在那，风暴旋会立刻席卷到你那里，尽可能的去烧火，一定要保暖，我会去救你。电话挂断，那一头山姆的父母相拥而泣，彼此为孩子的生死未卜，为杰克的北上而坚定信心。另一头，山姆和同学相拥，为活下去的希望而坚定。从这个镜头开始，此片便开始探讨起不同人对待灾难的不同，虽然手段不同，但目的却鲜明的一致，那便是活下去。
无论是杰克霍尔还是他的儿子山姆亦或是其他的角色，他们都不是英雄，他们没有拯救世界，从头到尾都只是在拯救自己，拯救朋友，拯救亲人，可正是这样，才让这部片子变得动人。这种打破原有好莱坞模式的故事情节，以一种现实的手法去表现在灾难面前的爱，在灾难面前人们的坚强，朋友受伤时的挺身相救，儿子遇险不顾一切的北上救援，这一切才使这部片子变得有意义起来。不去问这种好莱坞大片的制作利益，仅仅只是去探讨人性，去理解人类与自然的关系，带着这种初心的片子，才是我们观者所要去关注以及去探讨的。
“如果我们不在明天就即及时采取措施,那么灾难就在后天”，面对大自然的灾难，人类要意识到这些年人类对自然的肆意的掠夺的破坏性，一切皆有灵，就如总统在结尾所言：“过去的几周让我们深刻认识到人类有多渺小，大自然的反扑力量有多强大。一直以来，我们相信我们可以无休止地浪费自然资源而不会带来任何后果。而我想我错了，我们都错了”。是的，故事结尾我们再看到那一片美丽的地球，蓝白相间的它，清澈动人。人类是可以与自然和谐共存的，作为这样一部教育意义的灾难片，尽管一些科学知识的表现仍遭人诟病，但其深远的教 2
育意义，打破好莱坞传统手法的叙事方式，仍是值得每一个有心的观者静心学习。
第二部分：分析电影中的科学性
《后天》：57摄氏度的“冰冻飓风”
经典镜头：纽约瞬间冰封。在冰冻飓风卷过，纽约瞬间成了冰天雪地的极地，只剩下自由女神像伫立在那里，讽刺地看着只有冰和雪组成的大都市纽约。
科学谬误：对纽约被冰封的原因，影片中的科学家的解释是，飓风迅速从地球的对流层吸收了大量温度在零下100摄氏度的强冷空气，然后来到地面，所以威力足以冰封一切。但事实上，对流层的空气压力仅为地面空气压力的约十分之一，当空气从对流层下降到地面，空气的压力增大，体积减小，根据热力学第一定律，空气在体积减小的过程中会释放能量，同时由于空气是很好的绝缘体，被释放的能量不会流失，而是保持在空气中，致使空气温度升高。那么，被飓风吸收的零下100摄氏度的强冷空气到达地面后，温度是多少呢？答案是57摄氏度。这样高的温度，怎能产生冰封的效果？即使是最保守的计算，加入能量损失等因素，“冰冻飓风”的最低温度也就在零度左右，顶多叫“清凉飓风”罢了。【参考资料： 《好莱坞大片 作假没商量》(节选)作者:温俊华】
第三部分：电影中涉及到的地球科学知识的拓展介绍 冰河世纪的威胁 严重的温室效应
大陆冰雹，欧洲水灾、印度热浪、美国一天16次龙卷风，去年八月九日也创下百年最高温38.7°C。这一切让人不禁要问，地球究竟怎么了？世界卫生组织研究指出，温室效应是地球气候异变的元凶。气候暖化使得两极?融冰、海水增 3
温、洋流改变，世卫组织表示每年将有16万人因温室效应外围影响丧生，2020年死亡人数更会加倍。海平面上升更造成2500万人远离家园，第三世界将因洪水、饥荒、干旱和农作物歉收大举移民，欧洲老年人将死于热浪。
《后天》的历史原型--新仙女木冰期
美国大片《后天》中描绘了全球变暖带来的一个可怕的场景：由于格陵兰和北极的冰山融化，大量淡水进入北大西洋，降低了其盐度，最终导致墨西哥湾暖流乃至全球海洋的热盐环流完全终止，赤道和低纬度地区因而停止向极地和高纬度地区输送热量，结果导致这些地方温度剧降，进入一个新的冰河时代。
这是否仅仅是科学幻想呢？确实，出于戏剧化的需要，这部电影中有大量夸张和不合理的地方，但整体而言，此片中的情节在科学上是讲得通的，而地质学家指出，历史上地球确实发生过在极短时间内温度剧降的事件，其中最出名，对人类影响最大的就是新仙女木事件。
新仙女木事件名字的由来是因为在欧洲的地层堆积中发现了仙女木，这种现在只生长于北极地区的草本植物，证明以前欧洲气候曾经比现在冷得多。之所以叫“新”仙女木事件，是因为在更早的地层中，也发现过仙女木，故而仙女木事件不止发生一次。但是除了新仙女木事件以外，以前的历次仙女木事件和《后天》中描述的发生机制都不太相同。
新仙女木事件的独特之处，并不仅仅是平均气温降低---------历史上，地球的平均气温曾经降得更低，而在于她发生于冰川期结束，全球气温不断上升这样一个背景下。从18000年前的末次盛冰期，第四纪冰川期达到顶点开始，地球的气温就在不断上升，冰川在不断融化，但是在这个气温上升的过程中，却突然 4
发生了新仙女木这样一个气温骤降的反复，是非常有意思的，对我们今天研究全球气候变化也是很有意义的。
新仙女木事件的起因现在一般认为就是如同《后天》中所描述的那样，冰川期结束时，全球气温升高，北美大陆的劳伦泰德冰架开始融化，在公元前1万年左右的时候，冰川融解开始加速，大量淡水进入北大西洋，导致全球海洋热盐环流终止，高纬度地区气温急剧下降，积聚了大量冰雪，洁白的冰雪对阳光反射率较高，造成地球吸收的太阳辐射减少，气温进一步降低，而更低的气温又导致冰雪覆盖的面积进一步扩张，如此反复，使得地球在短时间内变得极其寒冷。
虽然新仙女木事件发生时气温下降速度并没有《后天》中那么夸张，但确实是极快的。对于冰芯最新的研究表明，当时北半球的平均气温可能在10年内下降了20度左右。
作为对比，北京和广州的平均气温相差大约10度。
那么，淡水进入北大西洋为何会破坏墨西哥湾暖流乃至全球海洋热盐环流呢？
墨西哥湾暖流发源于加勒比海，终结于挪威。因为北大西洋上盛行西风，故而墨西哥湾暖流的热量主要是通过空气输送给了西北欧（对北美也有加热作用，但小一些），造成西北欧的气候比同纬度地区要温暖、湿润得多。
但是，墨西哥湾暖流虽然源源不断地把温度较高的海水从加勒比海带到高纬度地区，加勒比海的海平面却没有下降，高纬度地区海洋的海平面也没有上涨，这说明，除了墨西哥湾暖流之外，一定还另有洋流，把高纬度地区海洋多余的水体带走，并补充给加勒比海，使得墨西哥湾暖流不中断。这就是全球海洋的热盐环流。
事实上，墨西哥湾暖流只是全球海洋热盐环流的一部分，只不过全球海洋热盐环流因为很多部分都是在海面下，所以不出名。
墨西哥湾暖流在向北流去的过程中，不断与空气进行热交换，水温降低；同时，因为墨西哥湾暖流在海洋表面进行，所以水分会不断蒸发，盐度升高。温度降低和盐度升高都会造成密度增加，当墨西哥湾暖流到达英国、挪威时，因为其密度已经非常高，就会沉入海底，再通过海底的洋流经过印度洋、太平洋，补充回大西洋。墨西哥湾暖流之所以能不中断，就在于北大西洋高纬度地区海洋表面的海水因为下沉、流走，把加勒比海地区的温水“拉”了过来；如果北大西洋高纬度地区的海水不下沉，就没有给加勒比海的温水的空间。而且，深海中的冷水流也会因为没有来源而停止，低纬度地区的海洋得不到补充，整个热盐循环就会终止。
而北大西洋高纬度地区海洋表面的海水之所以下沉，是因为其温度、盐度造成其密度较大；如果其温度高一些，或者盐度淡一些，则其密度就要降低；如果其温度足够高或者盐度足够淡，其密度可能就不足以大到下沉所需的密度，从而终止墨西哥湾暖流乃至全球海洋热盐环流。
如果足够多的淡水进入北大西洋，就可以把其高纬度地区的海水稀释到不足以下沉的密度；这就是新仙女木冰期的发生机制，也是《后天》中所描述的。
一旦墨西哥湾暖流终止，西北欧地区气温就会降到同纬度其他地区--------加拿大北部和西伯利亚的水平，冰川会在挪威、瑞典、芬兰和苏格兰等地开始发育，洁白的冰雪会把更多的太阳辐射反射回太空，减少地球所能获得的热量，进一步降低气温；气温降低又会促进冰川的发育，如此反复。虽然温度下降的速度 6
不会如《后天》中所描述的那么急剧，但是现在看，地球平均气温在10年内下降20度左右是曾经发生过的，以后再发生类似速度的降温也是可能的。
在新仙女木冰期，气温接近于末次盛冰期。中纬度地区即使在盛夏，最高气温也从不超过10度，而冬季中纬度地区的气温普遍在零下20度以下。从9月到次年5月，暴风雪几乎从不间断。站在直布罗陀海峡或者长江口，就能看到漂在海上的冰山。当冰期来临时，雪线和林线会下移和南移；大量淡水被锁在高纬度地区的冰雪中，低纬度地区的降水会剧减，这都会极大干扰人类的生活。新仙女木冰期对人类早期文明造成了极大的冲击，一般认为，北美大陆的克罗维斯文化的消失就是新仙女木冰期造成的。
当然，人类也会适应。在新仙女木冰期，西南亚和我国长江三角洲地区诞生了农业（欧亚大陆上其余地区的农业全部是由这两个地方传播扩散开来的），很有可能是寒冷干燥的气候造成的恶劣环境使得狩猎/采集不足以支持生存，逼迫人们转向农业。至于农业的发明并没有一般想象的那么困难，很有可能早期的狩猎/采集者发现，如果把自己吃剩下的果实留下一些扔到地里，第二年再来的时候同一个地方就会有丰富的食物；重复几次，农业就诞生了。现代分子生物学表明，在强人工选择的条件下，驯化农作物最短可能只需要30代（30个种植季）就能够获得足够好的品种。
新仙女木冰期大约持续了1000~1300年，约在公元前9500年结束。其结束的原因现在还不清楚，但她的结束和开始一样突然，大概是在几年内气温上升了7度。等到新仙女木冰期结束时候，人类进入了文明时代。【参考资料：百度百科】
以上是我看了电影《后天》之后，通过运用地球科学知识分析、查阅资料整理出来的期末影评，本学期的《从电影中解读地球》课程十分精彩，让我这一文科生也不得不感慨地球科学的神奇魅力，吴老师的授课更是令我受益匪浅，感谢老师一个学期18周的辛苦劳动！
祝： 工作顺利！身体健康！
罗舒婷 2013年6月
第五篇：经典英文电影影评
China: A Century of Revolution（中国，革命的世纪）
DISC ONE Part One: China in Revolution 1911–1949(1989)DISC TWO Part Two: The Mao Years 1949–1976(1994)DISC THREE Part Three: Born Under the Red Flag 1976–1997(1997)A film by Sue Williams co-produced by Kathryn Dietz
China: A Century of Revolution is a six-hour tour de force journey through the country’s most tumultuous period.First televised on PBS, this award-winning documentary series presents an astonishingly candid view of a once-secret nation with rare archival footage, insightful historical commentary and stunning eyewitness accounts from citizens who struggled through China’s most decisive century.China in Revolution charts the pivotal years from the birth of the new republic to the establishment of the PRC, through foreign invasions, civil war and a bloody battle for power between Mao Zedong and Chiang Kai-shek.The Mao Years examines the turbulent era of Mao’s attempts to forge a “new China” from the war-ravaged and exhausted nation.Born Under the Red Flag showcases China’s unlikely transformation into an extraordinary hybrid of communist-centralized politics with an ever-expanding free market economy.Monumental in scope, China: A Century of Revolution is critical viewing for anyone interested in this increasingly powerful and globally influential country.Slumdog Millionaire（贫民窟的百万富翁）2008 A gaudy, gorgeous rush of color, sound and motion, “Slumdog Millionaire,” the latest from the British shape-shifter Danny Boyle, doesn’t travel through the lower depths, it giddily bounces from one horror to the next.A modern fairy tale about a pauper angling to become a prince, this sensory blowout largely takes place amid the squalor of Mumbai, India, where lost children and dogs sift through trash so fetid you swear you can smell the discarded mango as well as its peel, or could if the film weren’t already hurtling through another picturesque gutter.Mr.Boyle, who first stormed the British movie scene in the mid-1990s with flashy entertainments like “Shallow Grave” and “Transporting,” has a flair for the outré.Few other directors could turn a heroin addict rummaging inside a rank toilet bowl into a surrealistic underwater reverie, as he does in “Transporting,” and fewer still could do so while holding onto the character’s basic humanity.The addict, played by Ewan McGregor, emerges from his repulsive splish-splashing with a near-beatific smile(having successfully retrieved some pills), a terrible if darkly funny image that turns out to have been representative not just of Mr.Boyle’s bent humor but also of his worldview: better to swim than to sink.Swimming comes naturally to Jamal(the British actor Dev Patel in his feature-film debut), who earns a living as a chai-wallah serving fragrant tea to call-center workers in Mumbai and who, after a series of alternating exhilarating and unnerving adventures, has landed in the hot seat on the television game show “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.” Yet while the story opens with Jamal on the verge of grabbing the big prize, Simon Beaufoy’s cleverly kinked screenplay, adapted from a novel by Vikas Swarup, embraces a fluid view of time and space, effortlessly shuttling between the young contestant’s past and his present, his childhood spaces and grown-up times.Here, narrative doesn’t begin and end: it flows and eddies — just like life.By all rights the texture of Jamal’s life should have been brutally coarsened by tragedy and poverty by the time he makes a grab for the television jackpot.But because “Slumdog Millionaire” is self-consciously(perhaps commercially)framed as a contemporary fairy tale cum love story, or because Mr.Boyle leans toward the sanguine, this proves to be one of the most upbeat stories about living in hell imaginable.It’s a life that begins in a vast, vibrant, sun-soaked, jampacked ghetto, a kaleidoscopic city of flimsy shacks and struggling humanity and takes an abrupt, cruel turn when Jamal(Ayush Mahesh Khedekar), then an exuberant 7, and his cagier brother, Salim(Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail), witness the murder of their mother(Sanchita Choudhary)by marauding fanatics armed with anti-Muslim epithets and clubs.Cast into the larger, uncaring world along with another new orphan, a shy beauty named Latika(Rubina Ali plays the child, Freida Pinto the teenager), the three children make their way from one refuge to another before falling prey to a villain whose exploitation pushes the story to the edge of the unspeakable.Although there’s something undeniably fascinating, or at least watchable, about this ghastly interlude — the young actors are very appealing and sympathetic, and the images are invariably pleasing even when they should not be — it’s unsettling to watch these young characters and, by extension, the young nonprofessionals playing them enact such a pantomime.It doesn’t help even if you remember that Jamal makes it out alive long enough to have his 15 televised minutes.It’s hard to hold onto any reservations in the face of Mr.Boyle’s resolutely upbeat pitch and seductive visual style.Beautifully shot with great sensitivity to color by the cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle, in both film and digital video, “Slumdog Millionaire” makes for a better viewing experience than it does for a reflective one.It’s an undeniably attractive package, a seamless mixture of thrills and tears, armchair tourism(the Taj Mahal makes a guest appearance during a sprightly interlude)and crackerjack professionalism.Both the reliably great Irrfan Khan(“A Mighty Heart”), as a sadistic detective, and the Bollywood star Anil Kapoor, as the preening game-show host, run circles around the young Mr.Patel, an agreeable enough if vague centerpiece to all this coordinated, insistently happy chaos.In the end, what gives me reluctant pause about this bright, cheery, hard-to-resist movie is that its joyfulness feels more like a filmmaker’s calculation than an honest cry from the heart about the human spirit(or, better yet, a moral tale).In the past Mr.Boyle has managed to wring giggles out of murder(“Shallow Grave”)and addiction(“Transporting”), and invest even the apocalypse with a certain joie de vivre(the excellent zombie flick “28 Days Later”).He’s a blithely glib entertainer who can dazzle you with technique and, on occasion, blindside you with emotion, as he does in his underrated children’s movie, “Millions.” He plucked my heartstrings in “Slumdog Millionaire” with well-practiced dexterity, coaxing laughter and sobs out of each sweet, sour and false note.No.2 Slumdog Millionaire（贫民窟的百万富翁）2008
An orphaned Mumbai slum kid tries to change his life by winning TV's 'Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?' in a feelgood fable from director Danny Boyle and the writer of The Full Monty, Simon Beaufoy Jamal Malik('Skins' star Dev Patel)is being beaten by Mumbai police for allegedly cheating on hit TV show 'Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?' One question away from the ultimate 20 million rupee prize, no one, including slick show host Prem(Anil Kapoor), believes a chai wallah(teaboy)like Jamal could know all the answers.As the tough inspector(Irfan Khan)replays Jamal's appearance on the show, it's revealed that each question corresponds to a specific life lesson from Jamal's tragic past.Raised in abject poverty in Mumbai's grimmest slum along with older brother Salim, then orphaned by a Hindu mob attack, Jamal and Salim are forced to fend for themselves on the streets through opportunistic petty crime.They pick up a young girl, fellow orphan Latika(Freida Pinto), escape the clutches of a vicious Fagin-like crime boss, lose Latika, and continue their picaresque adventures, one step ahead of the law.As adolescents, however, Salim becomes entranced by a life of crime and Latika's unexpected return sets brother against brother.Will Jamal salvage his girl, his fortune and his life on 'Millionaire'? Adapted by Full Monty writer Simon Beaufoy from Vikas Swarup's hit novel 'Q&A', Slumdog is an underdog tale.Beaufoy's lively screenplay scampers after Swarup's self-consciously Dickensian storytelling tradition, and is even built around the 'Millionaire' show, as iconic a symbol of Western capitalist entertainment as exists.Director Danny Boyle and cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle have evidently immersed themselves in India's sensory overload.The film revels in the sub-continent's chaotic beauty and raging colours, from Mumbai shantytowns to Agra's regal Taj Mahal.The thrillingly off-the-cuff digital imagery reflects a nation in a state of explosive flux, loo ming skyscrapers erupting from wasteland, slum kids turning into overnight millionaires through the kiss of television.The film's uniquely vibrant, headlong 21st century rush is that of the infinite possibilities of modern India itself.Slumdog's such a crowd-pleaser that some critics might brand it Boyle's best since Trainspotting.It even echoes a couple of that film's classic set pieces, notably a slum chase reminiscent of Renton and Co's opening Edinburgh dash and a lavatorial incident so stomach-churning(yet hilarious), it makes Trainspotting's infamous toilet scene seem like Ewan McGregor took an Evian bath.In fact, the likable Boyle has been on great form for some timethough, true to form, he's insistent here on crediting co-director Loveleen Tandan, whose major contribution seems to have been unearthing the wonderfully naturalistic kids to play Jamal, Salim and Latika.Verdict A spirited underdog fable marinated in modern India's melting pot.Danny Boyle's still the master of spices.Tess(苔丝)1979 Thomas Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles, which Roman Polanski has turned into a lovely, lyrical, unexpectedly delicate movie, might at first seem to be the wrong project for Mr.Polanski in every way.As a new biography of the director reports, when Tess was shown at the Cannes Film Festival, the press pointed nastily and repeatedly to the coincidence of Mr.Polanski's having made a film about a young girl's seduction by an older man, while he himself faced criminal charges for a similar offense.This would certainly seem to cast a pall over the project.So would the fact that Hardy's novel is so very deeply rooted in English landscapes, geographical and sociological, while Mr.Polanski was brought up in Poland.Finally, Tess of the D'Urbervilles is so quintessentially Victorian a story that a believable version might seem well out of any contemporary director's reach.But if an elegant, plausible, affecting Tess sounds like more than might have been expected of Mr.Polanski, let's just say he has achieved the impossible.In fact, in the process of adapting his style to suit such a sweeping and vivid novel, he has achieved something very unlike his other work.Without Mr.Polanski's name in the credits, this lush and scenic Tess could even be mistaken for the work of David Lean.In a preface to the later editions of Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Mr.Hardy described the work as “an impression, not an argument.” Mr.Polanski has taken a similar approach, removing the sting from both the story's morality and its melodrama.Tess Durbeyfield, the hearty country lass whose downfall begins when her father learns he had noble forebears, is sent to charm her rich D'Urberville relations.She learns that they aren't D'Urbervilles after all;instead, they have used their new money to purchase an old name.Tess charms them anyhow, so much that Alec D'Urberville, her imposter cousin, seduces and impregnates her.The seduction, like many of the film's key scenes, is presented in a manner both earthy and discreet.In this case, the action is set in a forest, where a gentle mist arises from the ground and envelops Tess just around the time when she is enveloped by Alec.Alec, as played by Leigh Lawson, is a slightly wooden character, unlike Angel Clare, Tess's later and truer lover, played with supreme radiance by Peter Firth.Long after Tess has borne and buried her illegitimate child, she finds and falls in love with this spirited soul mate.But when she marries Angel Clare and is at last ready to reveal the secret of her past, the story begins hurtling toward its final tragedy.When Tess becomes a murderer, the film offers its one distinctly Polanski-like moment—but even that scene has its fidelity to the novel.A housemaid listening at a door hears a “drip, drip, drip” sound, according to Hardy.Mr.Polanski has simply interpreted this with a typically mischievous flourish.Of all the unlikely strong points of Tess, which opens today for a weeklong engagement at the Baronet and which will reopen next year, the unlikeliest is Nastassja Kinski, who plays the title role.Miss Kinski powerfully resembles the young Ingrid Bergman, and she is altogether ravishing.But she's an odd choice for Tess: not quite vigorous enough, and maybe even too beautiful.She's an actress who can lose her magnetism and mystery if she's given a great deal to do(that was the case in an earlier film called Stay As You Are).But here, Mr.Polanski makes perfect use of her.Instead of a driving force, she becomes an echo of the land and the society around her, more passive than Hardy's Tess but linked just as unmistakably with natural forces.Miss Kinski's Tess has no inner life to speak of.But Mr.Polanski makes her surroundings so expressive that her placidity and reserve work very beautifully.Even at its nearly three-hour running time, Mr.Polanski's Tess cannot hope for anything approaching the range of the novel.But the deletions have been made wisely, and though the story loses some of its resonance it maintains its momentum.There are episodes—like one involving Tess's shabby boots and Mercy Chant, the more respectable girl who expects to marry Angel—that don't make the sense they should, and the action is fragmented at times.That's a small price to pay for the movie's essential rightness, for its congruence with the mood and manner of the novel.Mr.Polanski had to go to Normandy and rebuild Stonehenge to stage his last scene, according to this same biography.As is the case throughout his Tess, the results were worth the trouble.The Pursuit of Happiness（当幸福来敲门）2006 With a title like The Pursuit of Happiness, you expect the characters to get to the promised land.They do, but if the journey matters more than the destination, this is a movie to skip.The Pursuit of Happyness is long, dull, and depressing.It expands into two hours a story that could have been told more effectively in one.This is not the feel-good movie of the season unless you believe that a few moments of good cheer can redeem 110 minutes of gloom.Sitting through The Pursuit of Happiness is a chore.Downbeat movies aren't inherently bad(in fact, many are powerful), but this one provides artificial characters in contrived circumstances.How is it that movies “inspired by a real story” often feel more fake than those fully embedded in the realm of fiction? Will Smith has generated Oscar buzz for his portrayal of Chris Gardner, the real-life guy whose rags-to-riches story forms the basis of the movie.(Impoverished guy becomes capitalist poster boy.)While it's fair to say that this is one of the best straight performances of Smith's career, it didn't blow me away.In and of itself, the acting, while effective, is not Best Actor material, but it wouldn't surprise me if the movie's prestige factor and Smith's popularity earn him a nod.Meanwhile, his female co-star, Thandie Newton, isn't going to be considered for any award.Newton spends about 90% of her screen time doing an impersonation of a harpy: screeching, bitching, and contorting her face into unpleasant expressions.Smith's son, Jaden, is okay as the movie's child protagonist;it's unclear whether his occasional deficiencies are the result of his acting, Steven Conrad's writing, or Gabriele Muccino's direction, but there's not much personality behind the cute features and curly hair.Chris Gardner(Will Smith)is down on his luck.It's 1981 San Francisco and his self-employed business of selling portable bone density scanners isn't doing well.His wife, Linda(Thandie Newton), does nothing but yell at him and give him a cold shoulder, and the lack of domestic harmony is impacting the disposition of his beloved son, Christopher(Jaden Christopher Syre Smith).That's when Chris' life turns into a country song.His wife leaves.He is evicted from his home.He goes to jail, neither passing GO nor collecting a much-needed $200.He gets hit by a car.He is robbed.He makes his son cry.He alienates a friend over $14.He gets to spend a night in the cleanest public restroom in the history of public restrooms.But there's a bright spot, although you need a dark-adapted eye to find it.Despite having no experience, Chris applies to enter an internship program at Dean Witter.He would appear to have no chance to get in until he amazes the head of the program(Brian Howe)by solving the Rubik's Cube puzzle in the back of a taxi cab.It's a blessing that the movie doesn't use a stock villain to impede Chris' herky-jerky trip to the top, because that would have tipped the movie into the empire of the unwatchable.However, the lack of a strong conflict makes the two-hour running length seem very long.Thankfully, there's also not much in the way of overt melodrama, but that could be a byproduct of having characters who are not deeply realized and have narrow emotional ranges.It's tough to connect with Chris and his son.Although they are played by a real-life father and son, there's no chemistry between them.We're constantly told how desperately Chris loves Christopher, but it takes a long time before we begin to buy it.Most of the time, Christopher seems like an annoying piece of baggage that Chris drops off at daycare when he has other things to do.The film's most compelling scenes are those that show Chris struggling to enter the rat race.Granted, this is no Glengarry Glen Ross, but it shows the pressure these salesmen are under and how important the contact lists are.In the overall scheme of things, however, these sequences are background noise.They are neither plentiful nor lengthy.The movie spends more time following Chris on his futile sales rounds for the bone density scanner than it does accompanying him during his broker training.The moral of the story is as trite as they come: don't let anyone convince you to give up on your dreams.Disney animated films have been doing this better for decades.The Pursuit of Happyness concludes with a caption that tells us what happens to Chris after the end of the movie;it promises a better story than the one we have just watched.The film is also marred by a persistent(although not verbose)voiceover that adds nothing to the story while frequently jerking us out of the experience of watching it.I don't need Will Smith telling me: “This part of the story is called 'riding the bus.'” This is the English-language debut of Gabriele Muccino, who has made a name for himself in Italian cinema.The Pursuit of Happiness has the kind of slow, drab tone one occasionally associates with a director raised outside of the Hollywood system.What can be an asset in some circumstances is a detriment in this one.The Pursuit of Happiness isn't enjoyable, and its meager pleasures, including the eventual “payoff,” aren't enough to justify the unrelenting misery.The Pursuit of Happiness is competently made and gets lots of the details right, but when it comes to the emotional core of the story, it loses the pursuit and misses the “happiness.”
No.2 The Pursuit of Happiness（当幸福来敲门）2006
Will Smith plays a San Francisco medical equipment salesman who resolves to change his life and become a stockbroker, but is made homeless in the process The sort of film the Oscars are designed for, The Pursuit Of Happiness should induce nausea.There's the cheesy dialogue(“You want something, go get itat least for a while.There isn't a scintilla of intellectual humor in the whole movie, and the repeated bashings and burnings received by the hapless villains get tiring after the first hour.There also seem to be an inordinate number of jokes dealing with the crushing, mutilation, or incineration of male reproductive organs.Young children will also laugh at this film, but there's a question about whether the content is suitable.With Home Alone, most of the damage done to the thugs was relatively minor, at least compared to what happens in Baby's Day Out.This time around, the cartoon mentality is taken to its Wiley Coyote absolute, with the Stooges constantly surviving crippling or should-be-fatal accidents.Somehow, it's more disturbing than funny when it happens to reel people, as opposed to animated creatures.Other than the slapstick, there's little to recommend this movie.A subplot involving how a status-obsessed mother comes to grips with her missing child is horribly misplaced, and these strains of melodrama are cloying.Whenever Lara Flynn Boyle appears on screen, it's the fervent wish of nearly every member of the audience that the movie turn its attention back to the baby.Like Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern before them, the trio in Baby's Day Out make amusingly inept crooks.Baby Bink is cute, but that's what little kids are supposed to be, and most of the impressive baby stunts result from ILM's work, not the incredible athletic ability of the Worton boys.Maybe the worst thing to happen to John Hughes was the success of Home Alone.Since then, with the exception of Only the Lonely(which was already in production by the time Kevin's family left without him), the filmmaker hasn't released a movie with even a spark of originality.Before Culkin, Hughes occasionally came up with something entertaining.Now, he has become redundant and tiresome.Doubtless, if Baby's Day Out makes money, there will be more of this fare to come.And, with the protagonists getting younger with each new picture, one wonders if the next release of this sort might end up being called Adventures in the Womb.Captain Corelli's Mandolin（战地情人）2001 If you've been longing to visit the Greek islands but haven't the time or money to make the journey, you could do worse than spend a couple of hours soaking up the scenery in ''Captain Corelli's Mandolin.'' Filmed largely on Cephalonia, the island that is the setting of Louis de Bernières's much-loved 1994 novel, ''Corelli's Mandolin''(from which the film was adapted), the movie shimmers with a bluish-gold luminescence reflected from the turquoise waters of the Ionian Sea.This light lends the craggy landscape a hot coppery radiance that seems to emanate from inside the earth.Cinematographically(John Toll supervised), the movie is a glorious ode to the sun-baked island on which it was filmed.Although the drama that storms across this rugged paradise encompasses a war and a major earthquake, not to mention oodles of star-crossed love, little of it comes to life.Directed by John Madden(''Shakespeare in Love''), ''Captain Corelli's Mandolin'' wants to be a lofty, red-blooded wartime epic in the style of ''The English Patient,'' daubed with ''Zorba the Greek'' earth tones.But as the movie methodically plods forward on a screenplay(by Shawn Slovo)consisting entirely of clichés and watered-down exposition, it becomes sadly apparent that its only reliable asset is the gorgeous view.Artificial Intelligence（人工智能）2001 Expectations were high, perhaps unreasonably so, for A.I., the firstmovie to bear the monikers of cinematic heavyweights Stanley Kubrick and Steven Spielberg.Yet, while A.I.is consistently involving, and has moments of near-brilliance, it is far from a masterpiece.In fact, as the long-awaited ”collaboration“ of Kubrick and Spielberg, it ranks as something of a disappointment.Plus, the movie may end up falling short of the industry pundits' high box office predictions.A.I.should do sufficiently well to join the $100 million club, but it is unlikely to possess the clout necessary to outpace a certain rampaging animated ogre.By now, the story behind A.I.is well-known.Kubrick had been nursemaiding this project along for almost two decades, awaiting the time when technology could produce visual effects at the level demanded by his perfectionism.Over the years, he spoke in some detail with Spielberg about A.I., and, after his death, Spielberg decided to shepherd the project to completion.To that end, he attempted to wed his own style to Kubrick's.The late master's name appears in the opening credits(the movie is presented as ”An Amblin/Stanley Kubrick Production“), and Kubrick's brother-in-law and long-time executive producer, Jan Harlan, is listed as one of two Executive Producers.I can't help but wonder if the inherent conflict in Kubrick and Spielberg's life views is the reason why A.I.seems so disjointed and uneven.Kubrick had a dim, cynical view of human nature.(What else could one say about the man behind A Clockwork Orange and Eyes Wide Shut?)Spielberg, on the other hand, is an optimist.A.I.shows both sides, and not always to good effect.It is at times life-affirming and positive;at others, cold and grim.The film's final half-hour is a curiosity, and not a successful onea synthetic who can actually love.In this case, the object of his incompletely-understood emotion is his ”mother“, Monica Swinton(Frances O'Connor).Monica's husband, Henry(Sam Robards), who brought David home as a pilot project from his workplace, Cybertronics of New Jersey, is more wary of the robot child.And, when one of David's actions endangers Monica and Henry's natural son, Martin(Jake Thomas), Monica is forced to take David into the woods and ”lose“ him.He is quickly found by a group of anti-robot fanatics, and, while being held captive by them, he befriends Gigolo Joe(Jude Law), who becomes an invaluable ally in his escape.Like the real-life science surrounding the development of Artificial Intelligence, the movie is top-heavy with moral and ethical questions.What is life and where is the line that divides sentience from a programmed response? If a robot can genuinely love a person, what responsibility does that person bear in return? How can an immortal robot cope with outliving its organic creators? Writers from Mary Shelley to Isaac Asimov have been fascinated by these dilemmas.(The film Bicentennial Man, which explores similar terrain, is based on an Asimov-penned piece.)Perhaps Spielberg attempts too much with A.I.To some degree, by trying to tackle all of these issues, he fails to effectively present any of them.Plot threads are dropped at an alarming rate.A.I.is an ambitious film that, when it misses its mark, does so because it strives for so much.The script does not insult the audience's intelligence, and it gets us thinking about ”big issues“, such as love, life, god, and our place in the universe.It's unfortunate that as much thought didn't go into structuring the narrative as went into crafting the movie's thematic content.And those who have come to equate science fiction with action will be disappointed.A.I.is a drama with little in the way of adrenaline-boosting sequences.Spielberg has consciously slowed things down, relying on viewers' curiosity about the ideas and identification with the characters to keep them involved in the proceedings.The acting, as is usually the case with a Spielberg film, is top-notch.Osment, who is still best known for seeing dead people in The Sixth Sense, is compelling as the Pinocchio-like David.He imbues the robotic character with genuine humanity, but, by slightly exaggerating his mannerisms and some vocal inflections, constantly reminds us that David is not human.All of this is subtle;there are no herky-jerky movements and he does not speak in a monotone.Frances O'Connor(the Australian actress who starred in Mansfield Park)is credible as the conflicted Monica.And, in the part of Gigolo Joe, an android made to give women pleasure, Jude Law is spry and sprightly.The always-dour William Hurt plays David's creator(he also serves as the mouthpiece for much of the film's expositionuntil a big iceberg gets in the way of their new-found happiness.Cameron is no stranger to spectacle, and the amazing boat-sinking effects paper over the cracks in the story so well that even the most cynical viewer is drawn in.Verdict You don't like Winslet.You don't care about DiCaprio.You're grimly aware of every hyper-efficient emotional trigger and fast-forward through whole tranches of bad acting and writing, but in the end, Cameron's monumental epic still prises open the tear ducts.Forrest Gump(阿甘正传)1994 Ever find the grind of life getting you down? Is the day-to-day struggle threatening to drag you under? If so, there is a movie out there that can replenish your energy and refresh your outlook.Passionate and magical, Forrest Gump is a tonic for the weary of spirit.For those who feel that being set adrift in a season of action movies is like wandering into a desert, the oasis lies ahead.Back when Tom Hanks' movie career was relatively new, the actor made a film called Big, which told the story of a young boy forced to grow up fast as a result of an ill-advised wish made at a carnival.In some ways, Forrest Gump represents a return to the themes of that earlier movie.In this case, the main character remains a child in heart and spirit, even as his body grows to maturity.Hanks is called upon yet again to play the innocent.Forrest Gump(Hanks), named after a civil war hero, grows up in Greenbow, Alabama, where his mother(Sally Field)runs a boarding house.Although Forrest is a little ”slow“(his IQ is 75, 5 below the state's definition of ”normal“), his mental impairment doesn't seem to bother him, his mother, or his best(and only)friend, Jenny Curran(played as an adult by Robin Wright).In fact, the naivete that comes through a limited understanding of the world around him gives Forrest a uniquely positive perspective of life.During the next thirty years, Forrest becomes a star football player, a war hero, a successful businessman, and something of a pop icon.Through it all, however, there is one defining element in his life: his love for Jenny.She is never far from his thoughts, no matter what he's doing or where he is.A trio of assets lift Forrest Gump above the average ”life story“ drama: its optimism, freshness, and emotional honesty.Though the movie does not seek to reduce every member of the audience to tears, it has moments whose power comes from their simplicity.Equally as important is laughter, and Forrest Gump has moments of humor strewn throughout.During the 60s and 70s, no topic more inflamed the turbulent national consciousness than that of Vietnam and those who were sent overseas to fight.Forrest, as might be expected, has a singular viewpoint on his time spent there: ”We took long walks and were always looking for this guy named Charlie.“ In this observation can be found the essence of the title character's nature.Through the miracle of visual effects, Forrest meets his fair share of famous peopleone that appeared in the same 'Different Seasons' collection that spawned the films Stand By Me and Apt Pupiland provides a narrative pay-off as satisfying as it is heart-warming.Using a voiceover narration, much of which is taken verbatim from King's story, the film's great triumph is its sincerity, and even those moments that might have felt mawkishachieve the dignity of genuine tragedy.At nearly two and a half hours in length, it's a film with plenty of time on its hands yet, thanks to engagingly warm performances by Robbins and Freeman, it very rarely drags.Robbins in particular locates a deep-seated humanity in his enigmatic banker(who unexpectedly benefits from his accounting skills), while the issues that Darabont is concerned withare woven seamlessly into the fabric of the story.he director returned to Stephen King for his belated follow-up, The Green Mile, which failed to live up to the promise of his debut, replacing its warmth and subtlety with sheer bulk.Here though Darabont achieves that rarest of goals and creates a film that not only stands up to repeated viewings but which, for its legion of dedicated fans, approaches the power and significance of on-screen therapy.Verdict Powerful, poignant, thought-provoking and finally irresistibly uplifting.Thanks to quietly dignified performances and Darabont's own inventive direction, The Shawshank Redemption remains a first class example of how to approach potentially weighty issues with conviction, style, lightness and wit.No.2 The Shawshank Redemption（肖申克的救赎）1994
”The Shawshank Redemption“ is a movie about time, patience and loyalty--not sexy qualities, perhaps, but they grow on you during the subterranean progress of this story, which is about how two men serving life sentences in prison become friends and find a way to fight off despair.The story is narrated by ”Red“ Redding(Morgan Freeman), who has been inside the walls of Shawshank Prison for a very long time and is its leading entrepreneur.He can get you whatever you need: cigarettes, candy, even a little rock pick like an amateur geologist might use.One day he and his fellow inmates watch the latest busload of prisoners unload, and they make bets on who will cry during their first night in prison, and who will not.Red bets on a tall, lanky guy named Andy Dufresne(Tim Robbins), who looks like a babe in the woods.But Andy does not cry, and Red loses the cigarettes he wagered.Andy turns out to be a surprise to everyone in Shawshank, because within him is such a powerful reservoir of determination and strength that nothing seems to break him.Andy was a banker on the outside, and he's in for murder.He's apparently innocent, and there are all sorts of details involving his case, but after a while they take on a kind of unreality;all that counts inside prison is its own society--who is strong, who is not--and the measured passage of time.Red is also a lifer.From time to time, measuring the decades, he goes up in front of the parole board, and they measure the length of his term(20 years, 30 years)and ask him if he thinks he has been rehabilitated.Oh, most surely, yes, he replies;but the fire goes out of his assurances as the years march past, and there is the sense that he has been institutionalized--that, like another old lifer who kills himself after being paroled, he can no longer really envision life on the outside.Red's narration of the story allows him to speak for all of the prisoners, who sense a fortitude and integrity in Andy that survives the years.Andy will not kiss butt.He will not back down.But he is not violent, just formidably sure of himself.For the warden(Bob Gunton), he is both a challenge and a resource;Andy knows all about bookkeeping and tax preparation, and before long he's been moved out of his prison job in the library and assigned to the warden's office, where he sits behind an adding machine and keeps tabs on the warden's ill-gotten gains.His fame spreads, and eventually he's doing the taxes and pension plans for most of the officials of the local prison system.There are key moments in the film, as when Andy uses his clout to get some cold beers for his friends who are working on a roofing job.Or when he befriends the old prison librarian(James Whitmore).Or when he oversteps his boundaries and is thrown into solitary confinement.What quietly amazes everyone in the prison--and us, too--is the way he accepts the good and the bad as all part of some larger pattern than only he can fully see.The partnership between the characters played by Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman is crucial to the way the story unfolds.This is not a ”prison drama“ in any conventional sense of the word.It is not about violence, riots or melodrama.The word ”redemption“ is in the title for a reason.The movie is based on a story, Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, by Stephen King, which is quite unlike most of King's work.The horror here is not of the supernatural kind, but of the sort that flows from the realization than 10, 20, 30 years of a man's life have unreeled in the same unchanging daily prison routine.The director, Frank Darabont, paints the prison in drab grays and shadows, so that when key events do occur, they seem to have a life of their own.Andy, as played by Robbins, keeps his thoughts to himself.Red, as Freeman plays him, is therefore a crucial element in the story: His close observation of this man, down through the years, provides the way we monitor changes and track the measure of his influence on those around him.And all the time there is something else happening, hidden and secret, which is revealed only at the end.”The Shawshank Redemption“ is not a depressing story, although I may have made it sound that way.There is a lot of life and humor in it, and warmth in the friendship that builds up between Andy and Red.There is even excitement and suspense, although not when we expect it.But mostly the film is an allegory about holding onto a sense of personal worth, despite everything.If the film is perhaps a little slow in its middle passages, maybe that is part of the idea, too, to give us a sense of the leaden passage of time, before the glory of the final redemption.Gladiator（角斗士）2000 Ridley Scott revives the Roman epic with computer generated imagery and a mighty performance from Russell Crowe.Not to mention the last stand of the late Oliver Reed Hulking great buildings, hulking men, hulking utterances are the blocks that Ridley Scott's film is constructed from.But at the heart of Gladiator's epic recreation of the ancient Roman world sits an effectively simple tale of loyalty and love.Maximus(Crowe)is a respected warrior, a general loyal to the visionary emperor Marcus Aurelius(Harris).However, when Marcus Aurelius dies, Maximus is double-crossed by the dangerous, nay deranged, new emperor Commodus(Phoenix).All Maximus wants is to avenge his family.After being sold to gladiator trainer Proximo(Reed, serving up his final role with brute nobility), the experienced soldier fights his way up the gladiatorial league charts until he's the darling of the Colosseum.The David Beckham of bloodshed.Soon he gets a chance to face the father-murdering, sister-loving cause of his woeswe see very little blood and gutsthe mismatched pair thrown together by circumstance, who gradually learn mutual respect.But Fincher and Walker take these hackneyed ingredients, play with them in the context of a brilliantly cohesive plot, and present something consistently freshand very, very dark.Wuthering Heights（呼啸山庄）1970
Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon take on the roles of Emily Bronte's star-crossed lovers in this 1930s adaptation of the classic novel Samuel Goldwyn said that this was his favourite of all the films he produced.It received no fewer than eight Oscar nominations back in the days when that really meant something and critics have often said that it's the greatest romantic film ever made.Unfortunately, for modern audiences at least, it doesn't live up to these grand expectations.The ”vagabond gypsy boy“ Heathcliff(played as a child by Rex Downing)arrives at Wuthering Heights and is taken in by the kind owner, Earnshaw(Kellaway).Heathcliff and the young Cathy Earnshaw(Sarah Wooton as the child)quickly become inseparable, though Heathcliff is loathed by the brattish Hindley(Scott)who spends most of his time horse-whipping him and throwing fake looking stones at his head.This is the weakest section of the filmand her entirely superfluous interlocutor Mr Lockwood(Mander)-abreast of what's going on.Fortunately matters improve as time moves on and the action intensifies.Heathcliff disappears and Cathy(now played by Merle Oberon)breaks both their hearts by marrying the moneyed Edgar Linton(David Niven).There are some genuinely intense scenes and Oberon is consistently impressive as the wild yet vulnerable Cathy, while Olivier musters some tenderness for the tragic and impressive final scenes.Verdict A torrid half an hour of passion at the end of this picture doesn't quite make up for the hour of drudgery that goes before it.And Laurence Oiivier's Heathcliff is nothing like as impressive as Timothy Dalton's from 1971.A Beautiful Mind（美丽心灵）2001 Earnest thriller-cum-weepie starring Russell Crowe as a maths genius whose life is wracked by schizophrenia.Stamped all over with 'Hollywood prestige project' and showered with awards Russell Crowe gets the chance to act his heart out in Ron Howard's A Beautiful Mind.Not only does he portray a maths genius(based on real life Nobel Prize-winner John Forbes Nash Jr), he portrays a maths genius crippled by schizophrenia.And he ages 47 years!He turns in a chunky, twitchy performance which, though not on a par with his more subtle turn in The Insider, is admirable.He is complemented by a less flashy, underwritten turn from Jennifer Connelly.Princeton, 1947.Awkward but arrogant John Nash arrives on a maths scholarship, determined to come up with an original idea.Not bothering with classes, he obsessively writes theorem(plotting the movements of pigeons, for example).His only friend is raffish roommate Charles(Bettany), a rich source of wisecrackshis name was Johnny Walker”represented by Ed Harris' mysterious agentI have a chip on both shoulders“his most explicit statement against technological advancement and capitalism.It is, in fact, a quasi-sound film, but with all voices emanating from various machines instead of the actors, except for one moment when the Tramp sings a gibberish song.That the machines can talk, yet the people don't, is all part of their dehumanising effectit's all here.The Godfather is much more than fodder for bad parodies, though.It is testament to this engaging and intricate film's quality that the three hour running time is a blessing rather than a curse.The detailed plot revolves around the Corleone family, Italian immigrants that have been guided to Mafia supremacy through the questionable ”business“ dealings of family head Don Vito Corleone(Brando in an Oscar winning role).A fresh-faced Al Pacino undertakes his first big starring role as Michael Corleone, son of Vito and recent returnee from the battlefields of WWII.What distances Michael from his family, however, is a desire to go legitparticularly the increasingly ruthless Michael.Featuring note-perfect performances from everyone involved, a brilliantly written Oscar-winning script from Coppola and Puzo and deft direction, The Godfather satisfies film lovers on any number of levels and will have them salivating in anticipation of the equally brilliant(and, for many, superior)Part II of the trilogy.Verdict A multi-generational epic that never leaves the audience less than enthralled, this is the godfather of all gangster films.The Bridges of Madison County（廊桥遗梦）1995
A housewife and a freelance photographer embark on the relationship of a lifetime.Romantic drama starring Meryl Streep and director-producer-composer Clint Eastwood The Bridges Of Madison County ought to be one of those romantic dramas that comes with a health warning on account of its high sugar content.That this adaptation of Robert James Waller's unspeakably bad bestseller is more than halfway watchable has everything to do with Clint Eastwood.An unlikely choice as director and producer, it's thanks to Eastwood's relatively thin sentimental streak that the film doesn't fall headlong into a lagoon of schmaltz.Of course, the subject matter dictates that Madison County has its mushy moments, but weigh the finished film against what might have happened had first-choice director Steven Spielberg signed on and you'll see that we have a lot to thank Eastwood for.Clint is Robert Kincaid, the freelance photographer who's come to remote Madison County to snap the region's roofed bridges for 'National Geographic'.On the way to his assignment he bumps into Francesca(Streep), an Italian-American mother of two with whom he immediately strikes up a friendship.Then, as Francesca's grown-up children discover as they pour over their late mother's diaries, the unlikely pair embark on a short affair that will colour the rest of their lives.The sort of story Mills & Boon might have scotched for being too sappy, it's only great professionalism that keeps Madison County afloat.The contemporary scenes in which adult offspring Annie Corley and Victor Slezak argue about their mother's infidelity are a particular delight, at their best recalling the short stories of Raymond Carver.As for Eastwood and Streep, it's refreshing to see two late-in-life lovers who aren't desperate to disguise their age.That said, Eastwood's lack of eroticism and Streep's self-conscious performance make their's a peculiarly passionless romance.Still, compare their coupling to the fraught relationships of most romantic dramas and their measured maturity is something of a saving grace.So too is the producer-director's muted score, the subtlety of which many a more experienced composer would do well to consider.Verdict Okay for what it is, and far better than it couldhave been.The Legend of 1900（海上钢琴师）1998 Tim Roth stars in the first English language film by Cinema Paradiso director Giuseppe Tornatore.A fantastical, historical fable about a gifted pianist born and raised on a cruise ship Though Italian director Giuseppe Tornatore's Oscar-winning Cinema Paradiso was one of the surprise hits of the 80s, subsequently his profile has been low.Perhaps in an effort to rectify this, here he presents his first English language film, a lavish and unashamedly sentimental fable based on a monologue by Italian writer Alessandro Baricco.Given a ruthless studio edit before its release, more than once it threatens to drift off into whimsy, but remains on course, thanks to the firm presence of Tim Roth in the title role.Told in flashback, it's the story of Danny Boodmann TD Lemon 1900(Roth), so-named because he was found as an infant in 1900, lodged in a crate of lemons aboard a luxury cruise liner.Growing up at sea, it swiftly becomes apparent that 1900 is a giftedpianist.His legend spreads and jazz giant Jelly Roll Morton(Williams)even comes aboard to hear him play.Years later and narrator/former band member Max Tooney(Vince)is pawning the trumpet he blew alongside 1900 when he hears the ship is to be sunk.Could it be that 1900 is still somewhere on board, mooning over a mysterious beauty known only as 'The Girl'(Thierry)while working up a lonely rag? To an extent it's a film uncertain about its own destination and some wobbly dialogue means 1900 himself remains a bit of an enigma.En route, however, are some great set-pieces such as 1900's knuckle-busting keyboard duel with Morton and his ride round the room on top of a piano.Ennio Morricone's score ensures the music is at least as important as the sumptuous visuals, and is supplemented by some great jazz piano numbers by Scott Joplin and(the real)Jelly Roll Morton.Verdict By turns compelling, confounding, and occasionally just downright odd, Tornatore's ocean-going epic contains much to admire.True, there are moments when it threatens to sink beneath a tide of sentiment, but an understated performance by Tim Roth and the music which forms the film's heart make this an unusual but worthwhile venture.The Sound of Music(音乐之声)1965
How do you solve a problem like the Nazis? By becoming the von Trapp Family Singers and hoodwinking the SS with your floral costume and patriotic songs, of course However much it may be ridiculedthere's no denying that this is one of the best screen musicals ever made.As Maria, the lapsed nun who becomes governess to the von Trapp brood and weds their rather chilly papa(Plummer)before helping them outrun the Nazis, Andrews exudes a vibrancy that's hard to resist.But the real secret of the film's success lies in its brilliant songs('Do-Re-Mi', 'Edelweiss', 'The Lonely Goatherd', 'My Favorite Things'), every one of them a toe-tapping classic which will buzz around your head for days.So, ignore those reservations and enjoy.Escapist films about, well, escaping, don't come any better than this.Verdict A film virtually immune to criticism, The Sound Of Music delights and repels with the sureness of Marmite.All About Eve（彗星美人）1950
Bette Davis excels as an aging diva in the six times Oscar Winner.Sit back and 'Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy night' Davis gives one of the performances of her career portraying aging stage diva Margot Channing with a painful air of authenticity: the camp star, still awesome but aware of the ravages of time and the threat of younger actresses snapping at her heels.What she needs is someone to follow her around, look after her and worship her, and that person seems to arrive in the form of Eve(Baxter), an apparently innocent, adoring fan.But of course appearances can be deceptive, and we know from the opening scene that somehow the mousy, unassuming Eve has herself become a big star.Mankiewicz triumphs as writer and director.The piece fizzes with energy and the bitchy lines flow, largely from Davis' wickedly crooked mouth.The entire cast is on top form(Marilyn Monroe makes an early, fleeting cameo appearance), although among the actors only Sanders won an Oscar for his superb turn as the louche theatre critic, Addison De Witt, who also serves as the film's narrator.Verdict One of Hollywood's finest backstage dramas.If nothing else Davis should have been rewarded for services to the tobacco industry.M*A*S*H（风流医生俏护士）1970
Robert Altman's anti-establishment comedy set during the Korean War but satirising the US Vietnam war effort.Stars Donald Sutherland, Elliot Gould and Robert Duvall
'I wonder how a depraved person like that could have reached a position of responsibility in the Army Medical Corps,' enquires the straight-laced 'Hot Lips' Houlihan(Kellerman)of anarchic surgeon Hawkeye(Sutherland).'He was enlisted,' comes the deadpan reply.From this exchange, it's clear that Robert Altman was never going to be anything other than merciless in his critique of the absurdity of the military.Based on a novel by Richard Hooker and following the fortunes of a group of rebellious surgeons stationed in a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital(MASH)during the Korean war, M*A*S*H is actually a thinly veiled indictment of the Vietnam conflict(Altman removed all references to Korea just to be sure).The puerile antics of Hawkeye, Trapper(Gould)and Duke(Skerritt)are juxtaposed with graphic, bloody shots of surgical cases to highlight the terrible waste of life that war brings.With its grainy, washed-out colours and documentary style camera-work, Altman has created a film that looks like authentic newsreel footage.His trademark overlapping dialogue technique is used to full effect, exposing the pointless bureaucracy inherent in military terminology.The largely improvised script drips with sarcasm, and Sutherland and Gould spark off each other with rapier wit and devastating put-downs.On its release it was the perfect summation of the politically charged times and everything that Mike Nichols' adaptation of the similarly iconoclastic Catch 22 should have been.Quite simply, it's Altman at his irreverent, hilarious best.Apocalypse Now Redux（现代启示录）1979
Francis Ford Coppola's legendary Vietnam epic, now with 50 extra minutes of footage.Only a restored sequence set in a French plantation truly enhances our understanding of the film As wonderful as it is to see Coppola's epic back where it belongs, Apocalypse Now Redux comes with a caveat.Whatever you might have heard about the 50 plus minutes of new footage, there's little here that qualifies as must-see material.A new scene with the Playboy bunnies, a bit more splashing about in the surf, bonus footage of Brando mooching aboutthe French plantation sequence, glimpsed in the excellent documentary Hearts Of Darkness, is so enlightening, it's hard to see how the movie worked without it.Besides providing Clean(Fishburne)with a send-off, the scene satisfyingly rounds-out the character of Chef(Forrest), who, as a New Orleans native, speaks French and is actually a chef.And in Christian Marquand's landowner, Hubert De Marais, we find the embodiment of why America's war effort is as stupid as it is doomed to fail.Of course, some will argue that adding more minutes to Apocalypse Now simply makes a big, pretentious movie bigger and more pretentious.But for all the film's indulgences, it's still the small moments such as Lance(Bottoms)'burying' Chief(Hall)that remain the most powerful.And if Apocalypse Now is what happens when a filmmaker reaches too far, we can only hope that i)more directors follow suit and ii)Coppola stops wasting time on trivia like Jack and gets back in the boat he never should have got out of.Gone with the wind（乱世佳人）1939
The definitive Technicolor romantic epic.Rhett, Scarlett, burning sets and a whole slew of nostalgic and/or reactionary values, this is creator-producer David O Selznick's finest hour and a cornerstone of the Hollywood monolith Winner of 10 Oscars, hugely successful at the box office, containing one of the most quoted lines from the movies...With its place in film history assured, there is a distinct air of never mind the quality, feel the width when watching this with the cynical eyes of the modern viewer.Hugely expensive for its time, it has every dollar evident on screen, and it is easy to be seduced by its sumptuous visuals, to feel the heat of Atlanta burning.But this is Hollywood style over substance writ large, almost casually sexist and racist, using the Civil War as a convenient backdrop without ever addressing its social or historical significance.Dissecting it further, the plot is pure soap opera and the acting, particularly from Gable, is often wooden.Hollow and tasteless, it would be difficult to get angry about if it were not glorified and revisited so often.Verdict Grand old Hollywood at its most magnificent and melodramatic.Say what you like about the soapy characterisation and plotting, the spectacle flattens all in its wake.Leon the Professional(这个杀手不太冷)1994
”The Professional“ is a superficial yarn about a hitman(French star Jean Reno)who is befriended in his New York apartment building by an abused 12-year-old girl(newcomer Natalie Portman).When her family(to include her father, stepmother and two half-siblingsslow-motion explosions, starkly lit bodies flying through the air.However, Sam Peckinpah he ain't.Casablanca（卡萨布兰卡）1943
Some people feel it’s impossible to really see Casablanca for the first time, because it’s such a popular reference.Inevitably you’ve seen clips, heard As Time Goes By and admired those film stills of Humphrey Bogart looking smart in a white dinner jacket.You may even be familiar with the plot line: American ex-pat runs bar in Casablanca, clearing point for people trying to escape WWII.He runs into his old flame, now reunited with her husband.Much anguished conversation and poignant recollection of the Paris occupation, along with some mild run-ins with the Nazis and corrupt French police.Great ending too.There are really so many reasons why you ought to see this movie, but in the style of back-to-the-land religious weirdos everywhere, I scaled it down to a list of ten:
1.Ingrid Bergman has never looked so beautiful
2.You can never hope to look as good as Bogey in a white dinner jacket, but at least now you can try.3.As Time Goes By, totally sentimental and sappy, but secretly you will love it and sing it to yourself in the bath for the next month.4.All the immortal lines in context: “Play it again, Sam” “Of all the gin joints in all the world, you had to walk into mine” “Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon, and for the rest of your life!” 5.In this movie, even political asylum seekers get to hang out and drink champagne.6.The great thing about this era of American filmmaking is that everyone is always ready for scotch and sex.And if you like this, you should see The Big Sleep, and all The Thin Man Movies.7.If you’ve seen this movie, you can now fake your way through virtually any conversation in which films are being discussed, even if the last thing you saw in the theatre was The Phantom Menace and think M.Night Shyalaman is the greatest working director.8.You can take someone you’re thinking of dating to this movie and they’ll think you a)have very good taste and, b)must be terribly sophisticated to even know about movies made before 1975.9.You can inform your family that you’ve been attending enriching cultural events on the evenings you don’t spend in the library.10.If you hate this movie, feel free to go back to renting Shallow Hal and its ilk unmolested by pretentious hipsters.Air Force One(空军一号)1997
It's difficult to take seriously any film in which the President Of The United States manages to lay waste to a whole bunch of hijackers without so much as loosening his tie, but then again Petersen's movie is so full of such inconsistencies that you go along with it in spite of itself.Ford is the Pres, the only man who can save his titular planeload of croniesfrom the sneering Oldman and his terrorist buddies.A very silly picture, but an ultimately thrilling one;taken as a big dumb slice of popcorn entertainment it more than delivers the goods.The Fugitive（亡命天涯）1993 There is a kind of magic when a superb cast, a truly gifted director, and a literate script with equal parts 'over-the-top' action, riveting suspense, and rich characterization, come together.The end result attains a luster that only grows through the years, as new audiences, through DVD and VHS, experience the same excitement we felt, viewing it on a theater screen.In the last decade, only a handful of suspense films could be called 'great'...and on top of the list is THE FUGITIVE.Based on the popular David Janssen TV series, the film faithfully follows the same premise;a doctor is accused of his wife's death, but escapes before his execution, and tracks down the 'one-armed man' responsible for the murder, as a driven law officer attempts to recapture him.Being a big-budget film, however, the scale of everything is expanded...Dr.Richard Kimble is now a brilliant vascular surgeon, at a major Chicago hospital;the handicapped killer is a dirty ex-cop working on orders from crooked board members of a billion-dollar pharmaceutical firm;and the lawman is no longer a solitary police lieutenant, but a deputy United States Marshal, and his team of agents!While some fans of the original series complained that the 'intimacy' the series had was lost, director Andrew Davis only used the 'bigger' aspects as plot elements, placing the focus, wisely, on the dual stories of Kimble's search, and Gerard's pursuit.Despite the esteem the film has achieved over the years, Harrison Ford has gotten a bad rap for his very understated performance as Richard Kimble.While Tommy Lee Jones certainly had a far flashier role(earning him an Oscar as 'Best Supporting Actor'), Ford's intent wasn't to play 'Indiana Jones', but a man whose whole life was dedicated to his career as a surgeon, and his wife(played, in flashbacks, by the lovely Sela Ward).Seeing his wife brutally murdered devastated him(his scene in the police interrogation room, going to pieces, was largely improvised on the set, and displays some of his finest acting).His search for the killer was not the confident quest of an action hero, but based on uncertain, spur-of-the-moment decisions made by a desperate man, whose medical background was his only tool.Fear does not lend itself to flashy theatrics...Jones, as Marshal Sam Gerard, on the other hand, was a seasoned veteran, the best at what he did, and pursuing a fugitive was 'old hat' for him.With a confidence bordering on arrogance, he ordered people about like chess pieces, multi-tasked without breaking a sweat, and still could charm with a wicked smile and sarcastic remark.Of COURSE he wins the audience's heart!Featuring some of the most spectacular action scenes ever recorded on film(the train/bus wreck that frees Kimble, the dive off a dam into the churning maelstrom of the reservoir), as well as two slam-bang fistfights when Kimble finally gets 'justice', THE FUGITIVE still is remembered primarily for the suspenseful Jones/Ford 'cat-and-mouse' chase, cross-country, and the grudging respect that grows between them...which, ultimately, was what the TV series was best remembered for, as well.There is magic, here!
The Patriot（爱国者）2000 Mel Gibson is a movie star.A really big one, even.He's got charisma and presence and lights up the screen and is pleasingly handsome in a rugged, non-pretty-boy kind of way.He's funny and charming on talkshows and makes lots of money for all of the above.This much we know.What remains a bit of a mystery is how he maintains such status.His star-power is firmly rooted in the seemingly ancient Lethal Weapon series and the quip-throwing, fast drawing, scene-chewing character he plays in it seems to have overtaken his public persona as well.Does anyone actually know anyone who even saw Lethal Weapon 4? The more appropriate question perhaps being: does anybody remember it? Does anybody care?
Since Mel Gibson is a movie star by trade, he is also tangentially an actor.And in his new film, The Patriot, he has a listless taciturnity that one could diplomatically describe as ”understated“ or, if so inclined, ”Gary Cooper-ish.“ Ultimately, though, Gibson's performance just seems false--hollow in an utterly competent, completely professional way.In the age of Jim Carrey and Fight Club, Being John Malkovich and Ben Stiller, Gibson's style of acting doesn't seem so much old school as plain inadequate.This is not to run roughshod over classical notions of subtlety or interiority, but merely to say that if he was once emblematic of his time, Gibson's moment has passed.Perhaps he is simply inching towards some exclusive hideaway of insignificance, where he can commiserate over the rising price of jet fuel with Kevin Costner and Harrison Ford.It's not all his fault, either, The Patriot.And it's not even that it's a bad movie, it's just not good either;it just is.Created by the director/producer team of Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin, The Patriot is caught in the double bind of wanting to be two semi-incompatible things at once.On the one hand, the project has the air of an important, high-style heritage picture about a simple farmer trying to escape his past sins and keep his family together during trying times.But set against the backdrop of the Revolutionary War, the movie continually feels an alternate pull towards being a blood-and-guts actioner.Over the course of its 2 1/2 hours, the film often seems at war with itself--every time it starts to move with a steady flow, building momentum, it suddenly finds itself in a little narrative eddy, taking time out for a funeral, or a wedding, or to reiterate how bad the bad guys are(as in not good)and how the good guys are simple folk just trying to get along and colonially do their thing.Jaws（大白鲨）1975 Great White Shark to the audience the impression is of course a no bloody role, as long as the game saw him on at all to get is definitely the movie of ”rape angle." The story of the great white shark be shaped to a very strong image, not only bulky, but lethality is also very alarming, is definitely the most dangerous sea creatures.However, you have not thought about the film than we humans may be more frightening in the great white shark? We can see from the human point of view, because we are a group of ideas, but we can justifiably hurt the other different types of creatures, and even their own selfish desires in order to harm his people.In comparison, What do you think are the world's most dangerous species? Jaws? Or us?
David Starkey's Monarchy(大卫 斯塔基的君主政体)Monarchy is more than the biographies of the kings and queens of England, it is an in-depth examination of what the English monarchy has meant in terms of the expression of the individual, the Mother of parliaments, Magna Carta, the laws of England and the land of England.In this series the eminent historian Dr David Starkey brings to life powerful individuals and colourful characters using his unique and engaging gift as a communicator.
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