Requiem For a Dream



This film is so incredible I have a hard time describing it. It is a very depressing, yet beautiful look into the lives of four drug addicts; a pair of young heroine addicts, Tyrone Love and Harry Goldfarb, Harry's cokehead girlfriend Marion, and Harry's mother, Sara Goldfarb, who has become dependant on the amphetamine diet pills prescribed by her doctor. All the performances are stupendid; Jared Leto plays a wonderful desperate junkie as Harry, and Marlon Wayans shows how truly talented he is and how he can do so much more than the crude comedies he is known for, and Ellen Burstyn is particularly spectacular as the aging Sara Goldfarb, delivering a beautiful performance. The main theme song is what made this movie famous, no question, and for good reason, as it sets the perfect tone for this dark peak into these peoples' personal hells. It is an extremely touching film, and definately something you should be emotionally prepared for and not something to just watch on a good happy day with your friends, as it is, admittedly, quite a downer.

In Bruges

In Bruges is a dark comedy/thriller about a pair of hitmen, Ken (Brendan Gleeson), the old experienced veteran, and Ray (Colin Farrell) is an energetic and childish young rookie. Ray ends up botching his very first job pretty bad, and the two get instructions to hide out in a small Belgian town called Bruges. Ken is in love with all the beautiful sights and sounds of the city, while Ray sees it as the crappiest place on the planet. For most of the film, Ray is just portrayed as this kid in a man's body, not seeming to dwell too much on the horrible thing he's done to land them in Bruges in the first place, but by the end you can see just how much it has screwed him up on the inside. Colin Farrell is brilliant in this role, and I believe that's probably because that's what he's naturally like, and Brendan Gleeson shows just how good he is at being characters other than Mad-Eye Moody in Harry Potter.

Looper

I feel like this film to me was what Inception was like to most people. This was the movie that I loved from beginning to end and made me question reality and think about it nonstop. It got into my head. That's what most people said about Inception, but I didn't find it nearly as good as Looper. I heard no one talk about it when it came out but it was so amazing I would watch it multiple times in a day if I could. The cinematography is completely top notch, truly beautiful. The story was so much more incredible than when I first heard the plot and thought "Terminator rip off?" but I was so wrong. The premise is that in the future, about sixty years from now, time travel is invented, and then immediately outlawed, given the repercussions of altering the space time continuum and such. The only people who now illegally use it is the mob, because at this point in the future it is almost impossible to dispose of a dead body due to technological and forensic progress. So the mob kidnaps the person they want killed, tie them up, and send them back in time thirty years to a set destination and time, where there waits a hired gunman, called a Looper, who, upon the victim's arrival, immediately blow a large hole in their chest with the Looper's  blunderbust (shotgun thingy). Joseph Gordon Levitt plays a young, careless Looper named Joe, and things go a little haywire when one day future, old Joe (Bruce Willis) is sent back and escapes being killed by young Joe. Things get a little crazy as young Joe hunts down old Joe, determined to do his duty to the company he signed his life to, and old Joe tries to hunt down a young boy, who becomes a ruthless dictator in the future. The whole film is and intense and gory thrill ride and will leave you thinking about it for days.

Snatch

Snatch is somewhat like Lock, Stock's younger, more famous brother. A lot more people seem to know about it and love it for the exact same reasons they would love Lock, Stock. It's the same style, as in quirky London gangsters with a complex, interweaving plot. Boxing promoter Turkish (Jason Statham), and Tommy (Stephen Graham)  his close friend and assistant have arrangements with a certain nefarious gangster named Brick Top (expertly portrayed by Alan Ford) about the outcome of an upcoming boxing match, and so when their fighter Gorgeous George is unexpectedly incapacitated by a fast talking oddball gypsy Mickey (Brad Pitt) it creates a rather uncomfortable situation. Meanwhile, a huge diamond is stolen and makes its way through various hands and in true Guy Ritchie style, all the different stories blend into one.

Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels

This quirky crime thriller frm Guy Ritchie tells the story of four London pals who get mixed up in a whirlwind of shady characters and violent behaviour. Eddy is a card counter. He's very good at it, so him and his three pals decide to make a little money from it. They all pitch in 25 000 pounds, and in a very unfair turn of events, Eddy ends up losing it all. Now the kinda people you play poker with at 100 000 pounds are not the kind of people you want to not pay, so the boys find opportunity to profit from stealing stolen drugs, which in turn involves them with more dangerous characters. Very obviously the first of its kind, with the typical Guy Ritchie style of multiple sets of characters and events all winding together in the very end, it sets a standard for storytelling in cinema. The cast, comprised mainly of unheard of thick accented British actors, but also with some well-known stars like Jason Statham, Vinnie Jones, and Jason Flemyng, all deliver impeccable performances as the various types of criminals running the city, from the high level boss man, to the loyal and reliable errand man, to the brainless goons that do whatever is asked of them. This high-octane thriller will have you laughing and then shake you to your core as you witness the merciless world of thieves, drug lords, and unforgiving hitmen.