Another Beat-Down

Conditions: Fair.

Desperate

In amongst the doom of a possible ebola outbreak in Dallas there’s at least some good news: the dog of the nurse infected is not going to be put down after all. What a relief.

Bentley, the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel belonging to Dallas Ebola patient Nina Pham, is being held in isolation and watched closely, but it is unlikely that he will have to be euthanized, Dallas city officials said.

Spanish authorities' decision to put down an Ebola patient's dog as a precautionary measure last week sparked mass protests on social media and spawned a Change.org petition that garnered over 400,000 signatures. But a city of Dallas spokesperson told Mashable that they are committed to "reuniting Bentley with his family" and that the chances that the dog will meet the same fate are very slim.

- mashable.com/

You have to wonder sometimes just how desperate people are for good news amid the bad. Yes, thousands of humans have died from ebola, and it seems there isn’t a cure, but the dog will not be killed. Now we can sleep.



Film Review: Before I Go To Sleep

Man I needed this. After a constant diet of superhero movies and explosion fests, I desperately needed something with some substance to it. You can tell the summer season is at last over. Finally, a film for grown-ups. Before I Go To Sleep tells the tale of a woman (Nicole Kidman) who wakes up one morning and has no idea who she is. Her husband explains to her that she is his wife, and that several years ago she suffered a head injury and now wakes up every morning with no memory. He then gets dressed and goes off to work, leaving her with the ...well, everything. Of course there’s more to it than meets the eye, and it starts with a friendly doctor who wants her to find a video camera she hid the night before. Turns out she’s leaving video messages to herself about who she is and what she thinks is going on. We gradually slide into a maze of lies and half-truths, not knowing exactly which person to trust, and getting knocked about with one revelation after another.

There’s a little bit of Memento in this films DNA, but only a little bit. While it’s initially confusing and based on the plot device of Constant Amnesia, it’s not sliced and diced to bits. It’s a perfect role for Nicole Kidman, who plays the scared and confused amnesiac terrifically. Mark Strong and Colin Firth play the other sides of the dice. Gradually the tangled web is pulled apart and we understand what really happened and what’s really going on.

It may be a little forced in places, and perhaps a bit cliched, but I enjoyed it all none the less. It’s fun to have a proper film that relies on characters and plot instead of just explosions to get to the finish. It’s a great chance for Colin Firth to show some teeth as well, sort of breaking away a bit from his traditional weak sauce roles. He may go a bit mad in the end, but so what. Three and a half blows to the head out of five.



Film Review: Sin City – A Dame To Kill For

Time marches on everywhere except, it seems, in Basin City. Ten years after the first film the combination sequel/prequel has come out, and it’s very much cast from the same mold. The men are brutes, the women are whores, and violence isn’t so much second nature as it is first nature here in the streets and back alleys. Again the film is split into three different stories, but this time they don’t really mingle and compliment each other as they did last time. And there is one concession to the passage of time in the fact that a number of characters have had to be recast due to availability of the actors. Some being too busy doing other things, some unfortunately having passed away.

On paper this film is basically the exact same as the previous film. Hard hitting neo-noir with a heavy dose of fatalism and violence. But it’s not the same. Where the first film had some subtlety, and some cool ideas - and approaches to them, this one just seems more a by-the-numbers affair. Mickey Rourke does most of the heavy lifting, as Marv essentially gets used as a wrecking ball in all three films. The Dwight character get’s taken over by Josh Brolin this time around, and Jessica Alba’s Nancy gets a surprisingly listless revenge story. Joesph Gordon-Levitt gets a story that frankly doesn’t make any sense at all, which is an odd and jarring choice. But the problem is there’s no real development for these characters this time around. They’re really just along for a ride.

Joesph and Eva Green are the stand-out performers, but again for both of them they seem more like fish in a bowl than characters in a story. Trapped before they even started. So while it looks terrific, and it’s suitably stylish and violent, it just doesn’t really have the guts and the smarts it had the last time, all those years ago. Two Marvs out of five.



- Peace out