(no subject)

[apocalypsos]

So I went and saw Hotel Rwanda and Million Dollar Baby today.

Hotel Rwanda just ... hell, I haven't cried that hard in a theater in years. There's a scene in the movie that's hinted at in the trailer where the UN evacuates all of the non-Rwandans at the hotel and basically just leaves the Rwandans behind to be slaughtered. Joaquin Phoenix's character, as he walks to the bus that's going to take them away, whispers to his friend, "Jesus, I feel ashamed." And just when you think you're more uncomfortable than you've been in a while, suddenly a bunch of foreign missionaries run up with a group of Rwandan orphans, and the UN won't let the orphans on the bus. And just ... just ... *sniffle*

Don Cheadle in this movie was simply brilliant. The comparisons to Schindler's List are obviously apt to the situation, but it's incredible, the way he carries it off. He's not trying to save anybody but his family, and just gets swept into this place of having to keep as many people alive as possible using his well-honed skills as a hotel manager. I'd have to say that this had to have been my second-favorite performance of the year after Jamie Foxx in Ray. And Sophie Okonedo, who played his wife, was incredible.

As for the subject of the movie itself, the genocide in Rwanda, I think I whispered, "What the fuck is wrong with people?!" about five times during the film.

And then there was Million Dollar Baby. I take back any qualms I had about the movie. That was an incredible film, and I say that as someone who usually doesn't like anything that Clint Eastwood is involved in. (But I'll get to Clint later.)

The whole plot shift towards the end, with her getting injured and wanting him to pull the plug ... it's not as bad as it sounds. To be honest, it's one of the best portrayals of the subject I've ever seen. It's not annoying or heavy-handed or whacking you upside the head in an attempt to make you cry. I think the only complaint I had about it was that watching the injury happen is one big OW.

If Hilary Swank wins Best Actress, I won't be surprised, and I'll totally back it up. The same with Morgan Freeman, although I'm not sure his chances for Best Supporting Actor are as good as hers.

Now, for Clint and the Best Actor nomination. I'm going to state something that's probably going to get me bludgeoned to death in an alleyway by a bunch of angry fangirls. I've seen all five of the Best Actor performances, and in my personal opinion, Clint Eastwood did not steal Paul Giamatti's nomination -- Johnny Depp did. Now, I love Johnny, but my assessment of the Best Actor nominees goes in this order from best to worst -- Jamie Foxx, Don Cheadle, Clint Eastwood, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Johnny Depp, with Paul Giamatti probably coming right before Clint on that list. Johnny was great in the role as always, but Clint in that movie managed to make me love him and want to see him onscreen. And I love Clint, but I hate watching him on screen.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to watch something idiotic and absolutely not intended to make me cry. And hey, look, Snow Dogs is on. That's idiotic. Then again, it may make me cry, although more in mourning of Cuba Gooding's career than anything else.

Comments

[secretbutterfly.livejournal.com]

This may be a bit of a random question, but, what did you think of Cold Mountian? Because some of my coworkers said they thought the twist at the end up Million Dollar Baby was like waht happened to Jude Law's character at the end of Cold Mountian.
The reason I ask is my dad really wants to see Baby but he hated Cold Mountian for what happened to Law's character in that movie...
/nerdy question

[apocalypsos.livejournal.com]

Oh, God, did I hate Cold Mountain. Not so much for the Jude Law thing, because I kind of saw it coming (since the second thing he did after meeting up with Nicole Kidman was to have a incredibly hot sex scene in that I'm-about-to-impregnate-you-so-I-can-die-annoyingly way), but because Nicole Kidman was supposed to be under tremendous hardships and spent the entire movie looking like she had a day spa in her barn.

I think what differentiates what happens to Jude in that movie and Hilary in this one is that this one is dealt with as a much more natural progression in the plot. With Jude, even with all of the deserters being shot throughout the movie, it's supposed to be an "OMG DEAD JUDE!!1!1" moment. Whereas with this one, the clues are there throughout the story, but in a nice, subtle way. (Well, storywise, it's nice -- when you know what's coming, they pop up everywhere and it gets a wee bit creepy.) They establish that boxers get hurt and get hurt bad so that by the time it comes -- and it really ends up being a bit of a freak accident in the end -- you're shocked that it's happening but not that surprised. And the hospital parts are just emotionally painful.

[secretbutterfly.livejournal.com]

Thank you! Now I can warn my dad. For whatever reason he only seems to like movies with happy endings, escapism movies or that deal with dramatic subject matter "properly"

[conuly]

The Ragged Edge has a review of Million Dollar Baby here, an article on issues that may have been raised in the movie here, and also some commentary on Clint Eastwood here.

I spend way too much time reading.

[magalamb.livejournal.com]

Angsty movies... I was going to see Million Dollar Baby, but my companions opted for fluff and we went to go see In Good Company instead

[phillyexpat.livejournal.com]

I agree with all of your comments. Clint Eastwood blew me away in this movie-he was more nuanced than I've ever seen him.

The thing that made me lose it the most in Hotel Rwanda was when the Rwandan hotel staff were shielding the Europeans with umbrellas. The subtle irony of the situation made me weep.

[apocalypsos.livejournal.com]

I totally lost it when the missionaries were told only the Europeans could get on the bus, and Paul almost immediately jumped in and said, "Get on the bus, I'll take care of the kids." That whole sequence just killed me.

[kearie.livejournal.com]

I didn't know what Hotel Rwanda was about before, but now I really want to see it...

[apocalypsos.livejournal.com]

It's a really good movie, but it's also very hard to watch. Bring tissues, because you're going to need them, but you have to see it. It's incredible, the things people will do on both the good and evil ends of the spectrum.

[wufeidragon.livejournal.com]

I think the worst part was when they were driving over the bodies. And then when he got back and you saw him cry. Or when his son was covered in blood but it wasn't his. Ugh.

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

I swear I spent half the movie suddenly gasping and going "on no, oh no!" because it was like, how could it get any worse? The thing that made the road of bodies so horrible, I think, was that the man told them to take it because he KNEW what they'd see.

[wufeidragon.livejournal.com]

And then how that guy could betray him after driving through that. Oh my God. The horrible thing is that if you read anything about the manager (I feel awful that I can't spell his name) and the genocide is that all of this is true. For me this was a much more moving film that Schindler's List. I think because he seemed like a much more unwilling hero. Not to mention the more human aspect of his family, i.e. telling his wife to jump off the roof if the Hutu Interahamwe came. And the subject matter is so awful because it happened only 11 years ago. Not to mention the death rate was three times that of the Holocaust. 800,000 people died in three months. How could we let that happen? How could we possibly NOT lable that genocide. God damn. UN "peacekeeping units" are supposed to call in reenforcements after any of them are shot at or killed, but they didn't do it. They just ran away. The head of the UN peacekeeping troups said that he could have stopped it from happening if he'd been given the ok by the UN. The French actually helped the Hutus. I just don't understand.

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

I watched a documentary in May or so this last year about Rwanda, which was one of the reasons I was interested in seeing it. The approach of the documentary was analyzing the UN peacekeeping commander, Nick Nolte's character in the film. I wish I could remember what it was called, but it was a fascinating documentary, analyzing the growing situation from the point of view of the Canadian soldiers representing the UN. The commander, in one of the interviews, describes a day he had near the end of the massacre, where a group of stray dogs attacked these couple of goats that their office had somehow ended up living (more like wandering around) in the backyard of their base for a month or more, and the commander, when he saw this, just started shooting at the dogs and would stop until his subordinates forcibly interrupted him, because he was so stressed out by the bloodshed and his inability to act without authorization and how crazy the situation was making everyone.

The head of the UN peacekeeping troups said that he could have stopped it from happening if he'd been given the ok by the UN.

It was all the timing. At the beginning of the massacre, they could have stepped in if they'd been given the order. But by the end of it Belgium pulled out its troups and the remaining UN guys didn't have enough men to even hope to stop it.

[wufeidragon.livejournal.com]

Exactly. He could have stopped the genocide from happening.

The documentary sounds very interesting. What's it called?

I actually studied the genocide a little in my Holocaust class and we went to see the film together. Also read Phil Gourevitch's "We wish to inform you..." A very good read.

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

Damn. I've just been searching Google, and I can't find one that sounds like what I remembered watching. sorry.

[apocalypsos.livejournal.com]

I'm so tempted right now like I always am with movies that just move the hell out of me to read more about it, but I just know if I do, I'm going to get more and more pissed about how shameful the rest of the world behaved. *sigh*

I need to get this when it comes out on DVD, but God only knows how often I'll have the emotional fortitude to watch it. I think I was the only not crying at the end of Million Dollar Baby because I'd been cried out in Hotel Rwanda.

[apocalypsos.livejournal.com]

The thing that made the road of bodies so horrible, I think, was that the man told them to take it because he KNEW what they'd see.

Oh, yeah. Between that guy and Gregoire, the guy at the hotel who turned on them, I just got so disgusted with how low the human race could go.

[apocalypsos.livejournal.com]

Oh, God, when they were driving over the bodies ... when he broke down later, I pretty much broke down right with him. When I say I haven't cried that hard in a movie in years, damn, do I mean it.

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

I just watched Hotel Rwanda tonight! It was amazing and terrible to take in. You just watched Paul fall apart more and more as the movie went on, even as he tried so hard to keep it together long enough for his family to survive. The scene where he's trying to tie his neck tie, but he can't make it right, and he starts to break down, because inside he's trying to make EVERYTHING right but he can't do that either, and now he can't even make this little simple thing he's done every day for years right... Don Cheadle is just so amazing. This movie was so amazing.

[ajinamoto.livejournal.com]

I couldn't watch Schindler's List and I doubt I'll be able to watch Hotel Rwanda, which is a shame for me, because I miss great performances. But I can't watch these movies. I am way too sensitive. Heck, I get terribly upset when an animal is killed in a movie, don't make me watch innocent people, especially when it's a true story.

This doesn't mean that I only watch happy movies, but something like that is too much for me. I can't imagine how you watched these two movies in the same day, you're much stronger than I am, for sure.

[apocalypsos.livejournal.com]

I was all cried out by the time I got to see Million Dollar Baby, which helped. Seriously, during that evacuation scene in the movie, I don't think there was anyone in the theater who wasn't sobbing. Not just crying, but sobbing.

The whole thing was like they pointed out in the interview with Paul Rusesabagina I saw on the TV this morning, which is that the strength of the movie is that you really don't see all that much violence firsthand. You see the effects of the attrocities -- bodies everywhere, attacks from afar, and at one point, Paul's poor son literally soaked in blood not his own -- but you don't actually see that many characters killed onscreen.

What you really end up seeing is the heroism of Paul and those with him. I swear, if I'd seen that interview before the movie, I would have been too much of a wreck after the movie to do anything else but go home and cry. The man might not want to think of himself as a hero, but he's just amazing. Not to mention Don Cheadle, who just ... *hugs* God, I love that man.