Cinema Experts

“So much has been said about the girls over the years. But we have never found an answer. It didn't matter in the end how old they had been, or that they were girls... but only that we had loved them... and that they hadn't heard us calling... still do not hear us calling them from out of those rooms... where they went to be alone for all time... and where we will never find the pieces to put them back together.”
I'm uncertain why the daughter of a Hollywood icon would select as her first director effort a nearly unfilmable book of linguistic time bombs and nearly unspeakable tragedy. Jeffrey Eugenides's book The Virgin Suicides is one of the underappreciated gems of the 1990s and surely Sophia Coppola must have known that the critics would have it out for anything she did. So Coppola, daughter of Francis Ford, decided to do something unexpected: She made a gem of a movie that's easy to like and complex enough to savour.
Taking place "25 years ago" in "Michigan," The Virgin Suicides tells the story of a group of teenage boys and the Lisbon sisters, whose suicides changed them forever. The book is told with a rather unique choral narrator (the entire story is in the first person plural) which makes it clear that the focus of the story is not the Lisbons, but the boys and their attempts to restructure the events of what must have been their final summer of innocence. Similarly, the film features extensive voice-overs, culled from the book, coming from an unidentified member (or members) of the gang. You might wonder why you're never able to distinguish between any of the four or five or six males who wander through the story, or why at least several of the Lisbon girls also blend together, but rest assured it's intentional. The Virgin Suicides is very much about a baffled collective.
The movie begins with the first suicide attempt of the youngest Lisbon girl. When the doctor examining her asks why should would try to kill herself she offers the simple response, "Obviously, Doctor, you have never been a thirteen year old girl." The book and film are both really about men and how incapable we are of understand what it's like to be a thirteen year old girl or a thirty year old woman or really anything in between. And what's even more frustrating is the fact that women seem to understand men so devastatingly well (a trait perfectly personified in Kirsten Dunst's portrayal of middle sister Lux). The narrative such as it is marches inexorably through the gradual awakening of the narrators and the inevitable realization that they never knew anything.
Coppola, who also adapted the screenplay, makes decent use of the book's two metaphorical subplots - an outbreak of Dutch Elm Disease and a cemetery worker's strike. The rot of suburban life lies at the core of this story and Coppola wisely never overplays her hand. She loves using mythic imagery, generally revolving around Dunst, an actress beginning to produce the kind of resume that speaks of longevity. Coppola's background in costuming is also evident, displaying the decadence and tackiness of the observing characters, contrasted with the spare Puritainism of the Lisbons.
Coppola gets mostly good performances from the young generation of her cast. As the only two characters to get individual notice, Kirsten Dunst and Josh Hartnett do excellent work. She's the animal core of the film and he perfectly captures the perplexed, corrupted purity of the male side of the story. Playing against type, James Woods is excellent as the Lisbon's introverted henpecked father and Kathleen Turner is effectively scary as their domineering mother.The Virgin Suicides has perhaps too many moments of whimsy, where it seems too devoted to its source, even when the material doesn't translate properly. But still, it's the moments of magic - the Lisbon girls prom, an eerie family party, and phone conversation spoken only with records - that stand out… 8/10

"Making people laugh is hard, especially for someone who is not happy."
Hartnett was raised mostly by his father, Daniel Hartnett (a building manager), and stepmother, Molly (an artist). He grew up in Saint Paul, Minnesota and was raised Catholic, attending Nativity of Our Lord Catholic Grade School, where he played Huckleberry Finn in an eighth grade production. He later attended Cretin-Derham Hall High School before switching to South High School in Minneapolis, Minnesota, from which he graduated in June 1996. Hartnett played football in high school, but stopped because of a broken left knee. Hartnett attended SUNY in Purchase, New York. His first job was working at a McDonald's. He got his start acting at Youth Performance Company in Minneapolis.
In April 1997, Hartnett made his screen debut playing the role of Michael Fitzgerald on the short-lived television series, Cracker. He also performed in small plays and on national television commercials, before being cast in his first feature film, playing the son of Jamie Lee Curtis' character in Halloween: H20, which was released on August 5, 1998 and performed well at the box office.
Hartnett has since developed a steady film career, having appeared in several Hollywood films, including The Faculty, Black Hawk Down, Lucky Number Slevin and Pearl Harbor. He was originally set to play the role of Tino in Deuces Wild, but dropped out to star in Pearl Harbor. Hartnett was chosen as one of Teen People Magazine's 21 Hottest Stars Under 21 in 1999, one of Teen People's 25 Hottest Stars under 25 and one of People Magazine's 50 Most Beautiful People, both in 2002, and was voted Bliss Magazine's 3rd sexiest male.
Hartnett's most recent film is the drama-mystery The Black Dahlia, in which he plays a detective investigating the notorious real-life murder of actress Elizabeth Short. Hartnett was cast in the role five years before the film was produced, and remained committed to appearing in the film because he liked the subject matter. Among his 2007 roles are Resurrecting the Champ, a drama also starring Samuel L. Jackson, and the graphic novel-based 30 Days of Night, in which he plays a small-town sheriff; Hartnett describes the film as "supernatural, but kind of a western". Another film, The Prince of Cool, in which Hartnett may play trumpet player Chet Baker, is in the early stages of development and may begin filming in 2007.

“The unlucky are nothing more than a frame of reference for the lucky. You are unlucky, so I may know that I am. Unfortunately the lucky never realizes they are lucky until it's too late. Take yourself for instance; yesterday you were better off than you are off today but it took today for you to realize it. But today has arrived and it's too late. You see? People are never happy with what they have. They want what they had, or what others have. The grass is always greener on the other side.”
Two aging gangsters, once partners, have become rivals when Morgan Freeman's son is assassinated. It's thought that Ben Kingsley had it done so Freeman has who he thinks is a bookie named Nick Carter, Josh Hartnett, to murder his son in retaliation to cover an owed debt. Bruce Willis is Mr. Goodkat, a world class assassin who seems to be working for both Freeman and Kingsley..what his chief motivation could be is a mystery at the offset.
The key to the whole movie comes in a story Willis tells to an unfortunate who listens intently about a kid's father who borrowed from gangsters 22 grand for a horse bet he heard from his uncle(the specific horse, with an ironic name synonymous with the film, has been shot up with tranquilizers). That father and his wife are assassinated because of the bet, but we're not exactly sure about the boy child.
Stanley Tucci portrays a cop keeping a stake-out on both families, quite curious about why Hartnett seems to be in the hip pocket of both Freeman and Kingsley. How Hartnett is able to evade certain death is an unraveling of secrets that'll point out a lot of the mysteries concerning not only Willis' unusual behavior, but the reasoning behind his own.
Is Hartnett who he says he is or merely someone completely different than we could possibly perceive? Lucy Liu has an entertaining, but key role as a snooping coroner who falls in love with Hartnett as she tries to "help" him find out where his old buddy Nick Carter is.You see Hartnett tells Liu that Carter offered him a place to stay after some catastrophic happenings in his life prior to the invite. Liu takes it that Carter has set Hartnett up for disastrous occurrences stemming from unpaid debts.
Some might say this film tries too hard to be clever like a "Pulp Fiction" kind of way and that it succumbs to a convoluted plot. Others might think this movie works the way it tries to be and the way it turned out. I loved this film, by the way. I love how the film plays out and tries to keep you guessing until the end. This film will keep your attention from top to bottom. If you're one of those people trying to look for a thriller that tries to keep you guessing until the end, you will like this movie. 8/10