Sunshine Cleaning (2008)
I just want to start this out by saying that Amy Adams should win every award that can be given in the field of acting – best supporting actor and best actor included – because this woman is amazing in everything I’ve ever seen her in. She’s beautiful, talented and just generally awesome.
Okay, now that I have that out of the way, Amy Adams is just one of the incredible performers that make up the cast of Sunshine Cleaning. Little Jason Spevack is adorable as Ocsar and Alan Arkin is brilliant as family patriarch and perennial screw up, Joe. Emily Blunt (whom I first fell in love with as Emily in The Devil Wears Prada)… what can I even say about Emily Blunt. Her performance as Norah in this movie is absolutely heartbreaking.
I had some problems with Sunshine Cleaning – namely the ending. Sometimes a more open, unresolved ending works, but I felt there needed to be more here. I wanted to know what happened with Rose, Amy Adam’s character, and the one armed model builder Winston. Surely it was love? Am I wrong here?
Aside from the unsatisfying ending, Sunshine Cleaning may have been one of my favorite movies this year. Just a word of warning though, considering the premise of the movie (two sisters need money and start a bio-hazard removal service, which basically means they ‘clean up’ crime scenes etc, after the body has been removed) there is a fair bit of blood. If you have a weak stomach you might have a hard time with this one.
Romeo + Juliet (1996)
September 13, 2009 by kitten
Filed under Romance, Tearjerkers
It’s hard to choose a favorite Romeo and Juliet remake because there have been so many great versions of this Shakespeare classic, but it I had to pick just one, it would have to be the 1996 version with Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes starring as the ultimate tragic lovebirds.
Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet is bold and visually stunning. Taking the actual Elizabethan dialogue and setting it against a modern backdrop was a brave step, but it works fantastically. There is nothing lost in translation here and that might be the biggest reason this film works so well.
The Secret Life of Bees (2008)
September 9, 2009 by kitten
Filed under Tearjerkers
Okay, Dakota Fanning, I demand to see some ID, because after watching you in The Secret Life of Bees, I do not believe for one second you were born in 1994. There’s just no way, not a chance, because there you are sharing the screen with enormous talents like Queen Latifah, Jennifer Hudson and Paul Bettany and it’s like we’re watching their contemporaries – not someone who is at the very least, ten years younger than the youngest of them.
The Secret Life of Bees is one of those great tear jerker movies that packs a heck of a punch from the very first scene. At times, it’s not easy to watch. You feel so much for Dakota Fanning’s charater, Lily, that seeing what she goes through is a harrowing experience. In the end, though, you are rewarded with a rich, fulfilling movie that makes you appreciate you family and friends.
