The Movies - Autumn

Flightplan

Director Robert Schwentke employs Jodie Foster who portrays a modern mother Kyle Platt grieving at the loss of her husband while searching for a way to find her lost daughter Julia. We feel the dread of the traumatized mother who has lost her daughter on this Titanic like aircraft. Peter Sargaard’s Air Marshall Carson draws one into the story as a viewpoint that comforts the audience. Sean Bean’s Captain Rich gave us the authority figure that we helplessly follow. He reprises the decision making of Captain Smith in Walter Lord’s novel “A Night To Remember.” The rest of the cast supported the story and made the tension and the anguish Jodie Foster showed seem all the more real.

Like Hitchcock’s “The Wrong Man,” “Flightplan” makes us question our beliefs and experience our fears. It is worth the price of admission to see this one in a dark movie house.

"Flightplan"

On the flight from Berlin to New York, which seems more an allusion than a co-incident to the story “Flightplan”, Kyle Platt, a design architect for the company that built the aircraft on which our story takes place, reveals the movie’s mystery through confronting a system that she helped design. Drawing on her steadfast belief in herself and her belief that a methodical search is the only way to find her daughter, she takes action, then ponders her situation as she adjusts her inquiry as she plans her next move. As more information leads her to further question the premise that she has been provided, she endures the humiliation and the intimidation of the captain, the crew and the other passengers. On the airplane she discovers the truth about what happened only through her persistence. Kyle’s cunning allows her to save her daughter and reveal that the perceptions of those onboard were not real as the truth becomes evident to all.

“Flightplan” is an allegory about grief and fear in our 21st century security state. The established view that perception is reality is exposed and ridiculed at 30,000 feet. So long as ones life fits into our accepted ideas one is recognized and accepted. When that life seems outside our accepted ideas the security state prepares to transform that life to fit the accepted perception. The search for truth is an inconvenience. Indifference is our substitute for compassion.

Paradise Now A gripping movie that is so much better than it at first seems to be. Facing their grinding poverty and hopeless plans, two young men set out on a course that they believe will change the course of history for them and their families. It is in the story telling that we begin to see through the eyes of these lost young men; it is from their eyes to that we see the fatalism that engulfs their lives. Surrounded and immersed we can see, feel and think as they do. This is a provocative movie and worth seeing on the big screen.	Good Night, And Good Luck A movie that is worth seeing if only for the performance of David Strathairn as Edward R. Murrow. The director chose clarity for the viewer in a manner that a news reporter did then."In this climate of fear and reprisal, the CBS crew carries on and their tenacity will prove historic and monumental." There is a sense of nostalgia for the fear and reprislal then as we face the same today. "Everything old is new again." It's a good movie so take the kids.
Capote Philip Seymour Hoffman's Turman Capote entraps us as we are drawn into a gruesome world when director Bennett Miller re-creates the writing of "In Cold Blood." Catherine Keener's Nelle Harper Lee gives us full dimension. Thank Manitoba for this screen gem.	Corpse Bride Corpse Bride or "there has been a grave misunderstanding" works as a picture about a traditional love story with the wit and humor that allows us to see it in a fresh and vibrant way.
Match Point (opens December 25th) "A drama about ambition, the seduction of wealth, love, and sexual passion. Perhaps most importantly, however, the story reveals the huge part luck plays in events, refuting the comforting misconception that more of life is under our control than really is." -Dreamworks Promotion Copy	Breakfast on PlutoNeil Jordan directs this movie and makes it come alive. Cillian Murphy portrays the character Patrick "Kitten" Braden with a wistful insight so that one comes to identify with the character’s worldview. This wonderful story is certainly what a blockbuster should be. It is fun and entertaining with humor stitching together a very human story set in a border town in Ireland

The Wily Python Show

The Movies - This Fall

Reference Category

Movie Information

Flightplan

"Flightplan"