1999's Ravenous

Ravenous

Normally I pretty much agree with and find the ratings in rottentomatoes believable. Normally the consensus of what is good and what is not is what I use to determine if I should spend my time watching that particular movie. That and a bit on the synopsis of the movie.

Ravenous is one happy exception. Why I decided to watch this one I don't really know. Maybe hot on the heels of Proposition I wanted to see something else that Guy Pearce was in or maybe it was the strange subject matter that attracted me to it. I enjoy watching Guy Pearce movies and he brings about a certain intensity to the characters that he plays that I really enjoy watching.

What did I think? I loved this movie and I feel that the ratings of 40% on RT is accurate at least for me. My first impression of this movie was the score. It's a really strange score and imposes itself on you with this psychedelic and at first it was really off putting but as the story rages along it sort of grew on me.

Captain John Boyd played by Guy Pearce is the war hero and is back handedly promoted to Fort Spencer. On his conscience the act of cowardice that actually got him there. I am a sucker for conflicted heroes and here Guy's inner conflict shines through and even as he finally succumbs to depths of depravity, the glimmer of hope in his eyes is totally believable. Back to the story, a scottish stranger, suffering from frostbite and mumbling incoherently called appears at the fort the fort one day. After resting they find that his name is Colquhoun and tells the story of his party leader Ives turning his fangs on his fellow travelers after their expedition goes south. An expedition is mounted to the cave where all of this purportedly happened to find survivors and this is where the story really heats up. You have no other recourse but to start pumping adrenaline watching the scene from the cave leading to hill slopes!

Colquhoun is played effectively, though sometimes a bit over the top b y Robert Carlyle. Good stuff. I liked him here as much as I liked him in 28 weeks later. For those with weak stomachs, not to worry so much this movie does not really plumbs into that level of gore. Here for me, I found a movie like OldBoy harder to swallow (pun intended), heck the cannibalism scenes is just a walk in the park compared to OldBoy! So, swap your carrots and fire up the teppanyaki grill for this great movie!

Solid 8/10 for this one!

Times of Harvey Milk

This year I have seen a lot of documentaries by Michael Moore documentaries? I think they better called Drama-mentaries and there in lie their fault making them less memorable. The fact that they are "manufactured" by Moore makes their message less powerful. Case in point see The Cove for a one sided view to an argument.

Which brings us to our movie in question The times of Harvey Milk about Harvey Milk's fight to the height of his career and to his eventual bloody down fall in the hands of Dan White. All the facts are laid out plainly for the viewer to see and conclusions are left to the viewer. I like this. The scene where the lady announces that Harvey and the mayor has been shot by White is haunting and sad without trying to be so. We are brought and transformed to the era like one of the people that there in hall listening to the announcement. I could feel the pain and the anguish of Harvey's supporters as well as the eventual one sided result of the trail.

Good stuff 7 over 10.