Movie reviews

Movie Reviews this week looks at the charming biographical drama An Education.
It stars the lovely Carey Mulligan (Bleak House) as Jenny, a very bright sixth former, on her way to studying English at Oxford, currently studying her A levels during 1961.
She is pushed by her well meaning father Jack, played with a great deal of melancholy by Alfred Molina (Dr. Octavius in Spider-man 2), and her supportive mother Marjorie, played by Cara Seymour (Hotel Rwanda), you can tell immediately from his demeanor that this is a little biographical if not the entire movie, there is a scene that gives an idea of how far things have changed where Jenny's boyfriend drives up to a black family waiting on the pavement playfully picks up one of the kids and takes them into an apartment, on returning Jenny asks how he knows those "Negroes"?.

As Jenny goes home one day after a cello lesson, a mysterious stranger David played by Peter Saarsgard (Jarhead), offers her a lift, well in fact he offers her cello a lift, saying he is worried such a lovely instrument would be damaged in the rain, and he wouldn't want her to jump in the car with a complete stranger, so she can walk while he drives. As a flirtatious teenager surprised at the attention she agrees, and after a short while walking and talking she enters the car and is dropped promptly at her front door.

He is charming enough, and soon he starts to stop outside of her school, and the inevitable romance commences, at first viewers may be a little perturbed why an older man would want to date a young school girl, but after sometime you do realise David does genuinely care for her. Surprisingly seeing he so well cultured, Jenny's father agrees to the liaison, then of course it is 1961, and he sees his daughter's options are either excelling academically and going to Oxford, or meeting a very wealthy and cultured individual, and being looked after, as he puts it "He wouldn't want you if you were thick".

David somehow manages to convince Jack to allow him to take his daughter on weekend trips, along with his friend Danny played by Dominic Cooper (The History Boys), and his girlfriend Helen played the gorgeous Rosamund Pike (Surrogates, there is a sarcastic scene where all four of them are in Oxford, and Danny mentions the dread of having to suffer for three years here, where Helen agrees, when in actuality Rosamund Pike did go to Oxford), and even to Paris.

Jenny after sometime sees the rigmarole of going to school and studying hard only to find a boring job and be in it for the rest of her life, as too depressing and she confronts her headmistress played by Emma Thompson (I am Legend), after it is found that she is dating an older man; that could interfere with her education. She states during this confrontation that her stance of leading a studious and boring life to get into Oxford only to enter into a studious and boring job for the rest of her life has to be justified, for future students who may have the same questions.

An Education is a brilliant and well made movie, and you can see immediately why it has Oscar nominations protruding throughout, especially for it's main character Jenny played by Carey Mulligan.
Movie Reviews is constantly updated with excellent reviews of great movies that are a must see.

Labels: 60's, Alfred Molina, An Education, biographical, Cara Seymour, Carey Mulligan, Dominic Cooper, drama, film review, film reviews, films, Movie Review, Movie Reviews, movies, Peter Saarsgard, romance, Rosamund Pike

This is a dark futuristic view of how the world could possibly become, where everyone has a surrogate, a robot with all the features of a human, that is controlled remotely by the owner, with the owner having all their senses interact with whatever the machine is encountering. The owner lives in a virtual world, where the surrogate lives his or her life for him or her, the plausible justification for it of course is that the owner is less at risk from disease and infection, and indeed any harm to their real body, they can virtually go to work, and play, with no worries about their real body, all the toll is taken on the surrogate.

From the opening credits we get introduced to the justification for surrogates, with first a machine where a monkey controls an arm containing a nut with just its mind, to people who are paralysed, controlling robots to do their daily tasks, and people in the army using surrogates for war without any fear of their real bodies being in danger.

Soon Congress signs in to law surrogates for the use in every day lives, but as usual there are objectors to this whole idea of surrogates, the main opponent of this is The Prophet played by Ving Rhames (Pulp fiction), who has set up communes where only humans are allowed. We meet our protagonist, a very young looking Bruce Willis (12 Monkeys) as Tom Greer along with his partner Peters played by the lovely Radha Mitchell (Pitch Black), who are investigating the murder of a surrogate, but in this case, the owner of the surrogate died at the same time the surrogate was destroyed. It turns out that the owner of the surrogate is non other than the son of the inventor of surrogates, Canter played by the dependable James Cromwell (L.A. Confidential).

It seems a weapon has been developed that not only can destroy surrogates, but can at the same time end the life of the operator connected to the surrogate. Tom has personally set himself the task of finding out who murdered Canter's son and getting hold of this deadly weapon, but he has a mountain to climb to get to the bottom of this, with the head of his department Stone played by Boris Kodjoe (Starship Troopers 3 : Marauder), not happy with his tactics, and Tom himself having doubts about the whole idea of surrogates, unlike his wife Maggie played by the gorgeous Rosamund Pike (The Libertine), who prefers this new life than any other, and looking at her surrogate and indeed virtually all of the surrogates, you can see why, as they all look young and flawless, there is a memorable scene where the real Tom comes into his police department and the clerk surrogate looks at him and mutters "you look terrible".

This of course is a warning about how the current state of the Internet could evolve, from people able to do many things online they previously had to do in person, to being able to do their daily tasks from the comfort of their computer.

Labels: Boris Kodjoe, Bruce Willis, film review, film reviews, films, internet, James Cromwell, machines, Movie Review, Movie Reviews, movies, Radha Mitchell, Rosamund Pike, sci-fi, Surrogates, suspense, thriller