Young Adult: 2011
Ran: 1985
Young Adult follows Mavis Gary (Charlize Theron) as she returns to her small Minnesota hometown after spending several years in the big city. Mavis attempts to break out of her rut by reconnecting with Buddy (Patrick Wilson) and rekindle their high school romance. Her plan to disrupt Buddy's marriage shows her lack of depth, thought, or consideration for others. Mavis's growth from high school appears financial rather than emotional or spiritual. Mavis magnifies her suffering whenever possible, claiming her life is supposed to go a certain direction.
Ran is a retelling of King Lear. An old warlord passes his kingdom on to his oldest son. His youngest objects, and the father banishes him. The newly-empowered son humiliates the father and drives him from the land. The warlord spends the film watching his kingdom collapse and his sons murder each other. Nothing in his life survives his past choices and his kingdom collapses.
Ran works as a traditional tragedy, where a life of war ends in death for all involved. Young Adult is smaller in scale, but the choices Mavis made early in life made her unable to understand life. The warlord's pursuit of glory through combat sowed the seeds of his destruction. Mavis' character and narcissism damaged her past relationships and brought her to desperation. Her life, while not tragic, is shallow and empty. A sparse apartment and trashy TV were her only companions. She had no family, no real friends, and a stagnant career. Rather than help others or act understanding, Mavis cuts people down at any opportunity.
Young Adult ends with Mavis returning to the city in the aftermath of embarrassing herself in front of everyone she knew. Much like Ran's blind man left alone on the tower, the ending was isolating. The blind man was doomed to be stuck because his sister and mother were killed, meaning he could not survive alone in the world. Mavis, by contrast, knows that her old world wouldn't help her and she needs to move back to the city. Mavis' romantic visions of life were proven false, but Mavis learns other people envy her urbane life. Mavis returns to the city not in triumph but the same. The film never states she learns something or grew much because she left with the same attitude (perhaps a little less nostalgia). Both films deal with the past as something impossible to change, so the character must accept fate.
Monday, March 26, 2012
Monday, March 19, 2012
Week 11: Tortured Genius
Films:
Crumb: 1995
The Skin I Live In: 2011
Karl Rove, I Love You: 2006.
Each of the three films deals with the torture of genius in different ways. Crumb follows Robert Crumb, underground cartoonist and author. The Skin I Live In is difficult to describe without spoiling, but it focuses on a mad surgeon and his revenge on the world. The last film is a mockumentary about a man falling for the genius of Karl Rove.
One films claim genius, or inspiration, eventually lead to madness. The Skin I Live In has the protagonist's mother claim madness was, "In my entrails." Crumb's entire family seemed mad, so maybe madness does stem from entrails.
I didn't feel inspired to write this week, so I basically took the week off. Next week will be more robust.
Crumb: 1995
The Skin I Live In: 2011
Karl Rove, I Love You: 2006.
Each of the three films deals with the torture of genius in different ways. Crumb follows Robert Crumb, underground cartoonist and author. The Skin I Live In is difficult to describe without spoiling, but it focuses on a mad surgeon and his revenge on the world. The last film is a mockumentary about a man falling for the genius of Karl Rove.
One films claim genius, or inspiration, eventually lead to madness. The Skin I Live In has the protagonist's mother claim madness was, "In my entrails." Crumb's entire family seemed mad, so maybe madness does stem from entrails.
I didn't feel inspired to write this week, so I basically took the week off. Next week will be more robust.
Monday, March 12, 2012
Week 10: Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie and The Lorax
Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie, 1995
The Lorax, 2012
What makes a bad movie?
The cast of Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie, the film adaptation of the popular show where comedians and puppets mock a bad film, tended to pick on the schlocky conventions of science-fiction. This Island Earth, the film they chose to mock for their film, had terrible casting, bad acting, cheesy effects, and a silly script. Being selected for any MST 3000 production meant there were deep problems with the film, but something charming in the production.
This Island Earth had a plot that made no sense (how would a race that mastered interstellar travel fail to understand atomic power?) and men in rubber suits. Godzilla overcame both of those problems because it ad a human core. The leads in This Island Earth delivered clunky dialogue like bricks. Cal, the leading man, seemed chosen more for his deep voice and handsome looks rather than acting talent. People in the film didn't seem to buy the concept (such as the Metalunans), so they posed rather than acted. The effects, while groundbreaking, demonstrated the basic problems with new technology.
This Island Earth was one of the first science-fiction films in Technicolor. The colors, while vibrant for the time, showed the basic flaws of rubber suits in color: Abstraction was difficult in color. Rubber suits were easy to accept in black-and-white because fine details were lost in grays, and the film itself looked unreal. Audiences suspended their disbelief with the film color, so the monsters were easy to accept when the audience already accepted a monochromatic world. Although audiences may have loved the colors at the time, This Island Earth uses the same cinematographic techniques one would use with a black-and-white film. The film was worth keeping because it showed that difficult transition from black-and-white to color, and functions less as a film and more as a "look at our new technology" film.
Was the movie bad? In a way, yes, but the film could still charm fans of the genre. The film was a quick cash-in on atomic-powered monsters and spaceships, and classic science-fiction films had that theme, too. In the process of making the movie, there were a few interesting points. Although there were some less-than-stellar performances, it was clear that some people tried really hard to make a bad script work.
The Lorax was bad because it had a good script and threw it away. Instead of going for the emotional core and difficult message of the original story, the studio that brought us Despicable Me ruined a great book by tacking on a happy ending. The original story acts as a frame for Ted (Zac Ephron) to attempt to plant a tree in order to impress Audrey (Taylor Swift). He attempts to dodge an evil CEO who profits from selling fresh air in a plastic town.
The first problem with the story was that Ted never cared much about the environment; Ted cared about getting the girl. He became interested in the tree because the girl was interested in trees. If the girl was interested in destroying the last tree, Ted would have done that as well. Ted never had a sensible transition from caring about his own desires to the larger global issues. We are supposed to see that Ted was inspired by Once-Ler's story and just flips without cause. Dr. Seuss' original work scared the reader into action, but the film resolves everything with a dance number and a new tree.
The Lorax lacks any pacing or emotion. Nearly every shot had some kind of joke, meaning there were no breaks. Comedy is about space and timing, and The Lorax has neither. Every joke is thrown up, no matter how obvious or dumb, so I felt inundated by jokes. Worst of all, many of the visual jokes are fat jokes at the expense of a chubby bear. The script could have been better with half the jokes because then it could have highs and lows.
Like Despicable Me, the ending cheapened the emotional tone. Instead of the call to activism present in the original Lorax, we get a Hollywood ending where old friends reunite. Despicable Me avoided the tender moments that would have shown character development in favor of a goofy dance number. Unlike the Pixar and Disney films, Universal fails to grasp that animated films can still have heart. In fact, hard messages slide by easily because of the abstraction. Wall-E dealt with the problems of environmental preservation in ways The Lorax avoids.
Is The Lorax a bad film? It would be below-average if not for the source material. The joke-a-minute formula sold worse franchises, but one of Dr. Seuss' most controversial books needed a better script and ending. The Cat in the Hat was just a silly story, but real activists cite The Lorax as something that inspired them to care more for the environment. The Once-Ler in the book was not evil but short-sighted. The film makes his slide into corruption into a goofy song where he towers over former friends and snubs them, thus losing the thread. This Island Earth was bad by accident, but The Lorax was bad by design.
Other films:
Reel Injun, 2000
Stalingrad, 2003
The Lorax, 2012
What makes a bad movie?
The cast of Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie, the film adaptation of the popular show where comedians and puppets mock a bad film, tended to pick on the schlocky conventions of science-fiction. This Island Earth, the film they chose to mock for their film, had terrible casting, bad acting, cheesy effects, and a silly script. Being selected for any MST 3000 production meant there were deep problems with the film, but something charming in the production.
This Island Earth had a plot that made no sense (how would a race that mastered interstellar travel fail to understand atomic power?) and men in rubber suits. Godzilla overcame both of those problems because it ad a human core. The leads in This Island Earth delivered clunky dialogue like bricks. Cal, the leading man, seemed chosen more for his deep voice and handsome looks rather than acting talent. People in the film didn't seem to buy the concept (such as the Metalunans), so they posed rather than acted. The effects, while groundbreaking, demonstrated the basic problems with new technology.
This Island Earth was one of the first science-fiction films in Technicolor. The colors, while vibrant for the time, showed the basic flaws of rubber suits in color: Abstraction was difficult in color. Rubber suits were easy to accept in black-and-white because fine details were lost in grays, and the film itself looked unreal. Audiences suspended their disbelief with the film color, so the monsters were easy to accept when the audience already accepted a monochromatic world. Although audiences may have loved the colors at the time, This Island Earth uses the same cinematographic techniques one would use with a black-and-white film. The film was worth keeping because it showed that difficult transition from black-and-white to color, and functions less as a film and more as a "look at our new technology" film.
Was the movie bad? In a way, yes, but the film could still charm fans of the genre. The film was a quick cash-in on atomic-powered monsters and spaceships, and classic science-fiction films had that theme, too. In the process of making the movie, there were a few interesting points. Although there were some less-than-stellar performances, it was clear that some people tried really hard to make a bad script work.
The Lorax was bad because it had a good script and threw it away. Instead of going for the emotional core and difficult message of the original story, the studio that brought us Despicable Me ruined a great book by tacking on a happy ending. The original story acts as a frame for Ted (Zac Ephron) to attempt to plant a tree in order to impress Audrey (Taylor Swift). He attempts to dodge an evil CEO who profits from selling fresh air in a plastic town.
The first problem with the story was that Ted never cared much about the environment; Ted cared about getting the girl. He became interested in the tree because the girl was interested in trees. If the girl was interested in destroying the last tree, Ted would have done that as well. Ted never had a sensible transition from caring about his own desires to the larger global issues. We are supposed to see that Ted was inspired by Once-Ler's story and just flips without cause. Dr. Seuss' original work scared the reader into action, but the film resolves everything with a dance number and a new tree.
The Lorax lacks any pacing or emotion. Nearly every shot had some kind of joke, meaning there were no breaks. Comedy is about space and timing, and The Lorax has neither. Every joke is thrown up, no matter how obvious or dumb, so I felt inundated by jokes. Worst of all, many of the visual jokes are fat jokes at the expense of a chubby bear. The script could have been better with half the jokes because then it could have highs and lows.
Like Despicable Me, the ending cheapened the emotional tone. Instead of the call to activism present in the original Lorax, we get a Hollywood ending where old friends reunite. Despicable Me avoided the tender moments that would have shown character development in favor of a goofy dance number. Unlike the Pixar and Disney films, Universal fails to grasp that animated films can still have heart. In fact, hard messages slide by easily because of the abstraction. Wall-E dealt with the problems of environmental preservation in ways The Lorax avoids.
Is The Lorax a bad film? It would be below-average if not for the source material. The joke-a-minute formula sold worse franchises, but one of Dr. Seuss' most controversial books needed a better script and ending. The Cat in the Hat was just a silly story, but real activists cite The Lorax as something that inspired them to care more for the environment. The Once-Ler in the book was not evil but short-sighted. The film makes his slide into corruption into a goofy song where he towers over former friends and snubs them, thus losing the thread. This Island Earth was bad by accident, but The Lorax was bad by design.
Other films:
Reel Injun, 2000
Stalingrad, 2003
Sunday, March 4, 2012
Week 9: Ali Zaoua: Prince of the Streets
Ali Zoua: Prince of the Streets, 2000
This film attempts to capture Moroccan street life in an unflinching way. The film takes place on the streets of Casablanca, using many former (and sadly, current) street kids as cast. When the title character dies in the opening of the film, his three friends struggle to raise money to bury him with dignity. The boys need to dodge gangs, poverty, addiction, and violence to survive without parents, money, or security.
Although the film has French producers, the film feels Moroccan. Rather than show beautiful skyscrapers and progress, the film focuses on the small streets and crowded circles. The attention to detail, such as school uniforms and advertisements, makes the film pop. Much like City of God, the run-down settings add to the desperation, with the geography acting as a character. The boys are attached to the harbor as a place to sleep with relative security from gangs.
The film takes an unflinching look at street violence and the types of children exiled. Dib, the deaf leader of a gang, uses violence and rape to maintain order among the boys in his gang. When one of the boys is raped in retaliation for leaving the gang, he finds peace in glue-sniffing. Inhalants are a big problem among street people in Morocco, and a scene where one of the boys enters the store to buy nails shows the problems of Moroccan society. A boy goes to the counter and the man gives him glue right away. When the boy demands nails for a project, the man gives him the cheap ones. The boy says he needs better nails, but they are too expensive.
Although the film has subtitles, the richness of Moroccan street slang is lost. The film takes, "You are when you left school as when you started from, "You entered school as a bucket an left as a bucket" (literal meaning). The word "sTl" means "bucket," but is a slang term for "stupid." Translating the film into standard English prevents the film from aging, but it lacks the streetwise vernacular of the kids. Subtitles, even excellent ones, always have limitations.
Other films:
Take Shelter, 2011
This film attempts to capture Moroccan street life in an unflinching way. The film takes place on the streets of Casablanca, using many former (and sadly, current) street kids as cast. When the title character dies in the opening of the film, his three friends struggle to raise money to bury him with dignity. The boys need to dodge gangs, poverty, addiction, and violence to survive without parents, money, or security.
Although the film has French producers, the film feels Moroccan. Rather than show beautiful skyscrapers and progress, the film focuses on the small streets and crowded circles. The attention to detail, such as school uniforms and advertisements, makes the film pop. Much like City of God, the run-down settings add to the desperation, with the geography acting as a character. The boys are attached to the harbor as a place to sleep with relative security from gangs.
The film takes an unflinching look at street violence and the types of children exiled. Dib, the deaf leader of a gang, uses violence and rape to maintain order among the boys in his gang. When one of the boys is raped in retaliation for leaving the gang, he finds peace in glue-sniffing. Inhalants are a big problem among street people in Morocco, and a scene where one of the boys enters the store to buy nails shows the problems of Moroccan society. A boy goes to the counter and the man gives him glue right away. When the boy demands nails for a project, the man gives him the cheap ones. The boy says he needs better nails, but they are too expensive.
Although the film has subtitles, the richness of Moroccan street slang is lost. The film takes, "You are when you left school as when you started from, "You entered school as a bucket an left as a bucket" (literal meaning). The word "sTl" means "bucket," but is a slang term for "stupid." Translating the film into standard English prevents the film from aging, but it lacks the streetwise vernacular of the kids. Subtitles, even excellent ones, always have limitations.
Other films:
Take Shelter, 2011
Sunday, February 26, 2012
Week 8: Recycle and The Trap
Recycle: 2007
The Trap: 2007
As my job hangs in jeopardy, I watched a few different films. I decided to focus on films where the main characters were forced into tough ethical situations because they had no hope. Each film presents different issues, but the underlying problem is each character overcoming the struggle between economics and ethics.
The world of Recycle is unflinching in its realism. Abu Amar is a former mujahedeen who returned to Jordan after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The film follows Abu Amar through his struggle to support his family by gathering cardboard. Abu Amar lived on the same street as Al-Zarqawi, the former leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, and the two shared many similarities. Both Zarqawi and Abu Amar had humble origins and rough situations, and the film made clear that the path to war in Iraq was always open to Abu Amar. Although the film injects pieces of politics or current events, Recycle is a film mostly about the desperation of the poor.
Jordanians, especially poor Jordanians, found themselves unable to make ends meet. With few opportunities, some turned to jihad while most chose immigration. Many Jordanians in the film claim the latter was un-Islamic (a few said both were). A few loyal Jordanians attempt to eek out a living between the cracks of a wealthy society, and an even smaller number of them hope to accomplish things to help a large cause. Abu Amar spent his days writing a book he hoped to publish. He bagged hundreds of small slips of paper with ideas scribbled on them in a defunct coffee shop. Abu Amar filled his days with gathering scraps and his nights working on the book.
Near the end of the film, a suicide attack takes place in Jordan. Abu Amar, clearly innocent, is rounded up as part of the investigation. After four months (none of which was filmed), he is released. The film closes with Abu Amar's decision to leave Jordan. Although he was one of the people who considered leaving un-Islamic, he never explains his choice in the film.
Abu Amar's choice to leave was one of many desperate moves he made to support his family. During one unfilmed sequence, Abu Amar and a friend attempt to sneak over 50 cars into Iraq by tying them together with rope. Shiite militia attacked the pair, so they hid in a hotel and shaved their beards to blend in. When one of the ropes broke, they tried to tie it back up. An American patrol spotted them, almost shot them, and the two fled back to Jordan without finishing their trip. Both men escaped with their lives but stayed in a desperate situation.
The Trap focuses on a man constantly trying to escape from a tight spot in post-Milosevic Serbia. When Mladen (Nebojsa Glogovac) nearly loses his son to a heart defect, he decides to commit a murder for a wealthy man. Mladen's initial misgivings increase when he discovers the man he must kill is married to someone he knows. Mladen kills the man but discovers the money isn't forthcoming. Mladen battles with what he's done and keep his family together while attempting to get the money from the man who hired him.
The film is a portrait of a desperate society where certain people have absurd wealth while others can't afford basic care. Those unable to afford survival must make compromises in order to succede. Marjia (Natasa Ninkovic), Mladen's wife, teaches a wealthy and entitled student. The student demands private lessons in front of the class, which Marjia rejects because a teacher tutoring her own student is unethical. When the student cites the ad Marjia put in the paper asking for donations as proof of Marjia's need, Marjia ejects the student from class. Later in the film, Marjia arrives at the student's home for tutoring. Marjia asks about an empty frame in a living room and the student says her father bought the frame for 30,000 Euros (the price of the boy's operation) but couldn't find a worthy picture. Marjia returns home crying saying, "They just expect us to go extinct."
Serbia in this film is a place without ethics. The poor must constantly compromise to survive, for the wealthy and connected compromised earlier. The original "Man from Moscow" reveals himself to be in debt to the gangsters and set up the murder to keep his house. Mladen gets drunk one evening and accuses the wealthy teenagers of having parents who stole enough to be rich. After Mladen gets beaten soundly by the teenagers (deservedly because he threw a rock through a windshield), the police accuse him of starting the fight. When Mladen drunkenly confesses to the murder, the police consider him a crank and let him go. A man like Mladen is low enough to be ignored, even when confessing to a crime.
It's hard to say if the old communist Serbia would have been better for Mladen, but he clearly got into capitalism too late. Those who left the state-run enterprises for private business had all the tawdry trappings of wealth while he struggled to maintain his crew. Mladen asks his bank for a loan, and the teller rejects him with a smile. When Mladen asks what amuses the teller so much, the teller says that the foreign bosses will fire him if he stops smiling. Those who were quick to "adapt to the new order" are successful, and those who stuck by older ways (or didn't get out at the right time) are left to "go extinct."
Both Mladen and Abu Amar lived simple lives in honest careers. However, their societies never allowed them to advance above a certain station. They both lived in societies in transition, but neither person nor their society is ready for change. Despite both men attempting an honest living, their situations force them to make impossible choices: Preserve their families or their ethics. The men both choose their families over their own pride, but both films want us to understand that selling one's pride is not easy.
Each film shares a similar cinematography. Recycle's award-winning shots show a world of decay and difficulty. Two girls play in old wedding dresses, clearly second-hand items from a Western wedding, in a film where adults struggle to maintain their self-respect while they think their culture dies next door. The Trap is full of dull florescence and grey days, implying the bleak conditions of the situation. The boy's second-hand Dallas Cowboys jacket is a nod to the poverty of the main characters, for the wealthy children have designer fashions from Europe.
Although both films take place in foreign lands, we in America should recognize our own situation. The film John Q has Denzel Washington holding doctors from a high social class hostage in order to get his son a heart transplant. A film adaptation of Nickled and Dimed would be America's version of Recycle. While our society may lack the appearance of desperation, it's because those films haven't been made (yet).
Other Films:
The Laramie Project: 2002
The Trap: 2007
As my job hangs in jeopardy, I watched a few different films. I decided to focus on films where the main characters were forced into tough ethical situations because they had no hope. Each film presents different issues, but the underlying problem is each character overcoming the struggle between economics and ethics.
The world of Recycle is unflinching in its realism. Abu Amar is a former mujahedeen who returned to Jordan after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The film follows Abu Amar through his struggle to support his family by gathering cardboard. Abu Amar lived on the same street as Al-Zarqawi, the former leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, and the two shared many similarities. Both Zarqawi and Abu Amar had humble origins and rough situations, and the film made clear that the path to war in Iraq was always open to Abu Amar. Although the film injects pieces of politics or current events, Recycle is a film mostly about the desperation of the poor.
Jordanians, especially poor Jordanians, found themselves unable to make ends meet. With few opportunities, some turned to jihad while most chose immigration. Many Jordanians in the film claim the latter was un-Islamic (a few said both were). A few loyal Jordanians attempt to eek out a living between the cracks of a wealthy society, and an even smaller number of them hope to accomplish things to help a large cause. Abu Amar spent his days writing a book he hoped to publish. He bagged hundreds of small slips of paper with ideas scribbled on them in a defunct coffee shop. Abu Amar filled his days with gathering scraps and his nights working on the book.
Near the end of the film, a suicide attack takes place in Jordan. Abu Amar, clearly innocent, is rounded up as part of the investigation. After four months (none of which was filmed), he is released. The film closes with Abu Amar's decision to leave Jordan. Although he was one of the people who considered leaving un-Islamic, he never explains his choice in the film.
Abu Amar's choice to leave was one of many desperate moves he made to support his family. During one unfilmed sequence, Abu Amar and a friend attempt to sneak over 50 cars into Iraq by tying them together with rope. Shiite militia attacked the pair, so they hid in a hotel and shaved their beards to blend in. When one of the ropes broke, they tried to tie it back up. An American patrol spotted them, almost shot them, and the two fled back to Jordan without finishing their trip. Both men escaped with their lives but stayed in a desperate situation.
The Trap focuses on a man constantly trying to escape from a tight spot in post-Milosevic Serbia. When Mladen (Nebojsa Glogovac) nearly loses his son to a heart defect, he decides to commit a murder for a wealthy man. Mladen's initial misgivings increase when he discovers the man he must kill is married to someone he knows. Mladen kills the man but discovers the money isn't forthcoming. Mladen battles with what he's done and keep his family together while attempting to get the money from the man who hired him.
The film is a portrait of a desperate society where certain people have absurd wealth while others can't afford basic care. Those unable to afford survival must make compromises in order to succede. Marjia (Natasa Ninkovic), Mladen's wife, teaches a wealthy and entitled student. The student demands private lessons in front of the class, which Marjia rejects because a teacher tutoring her own student is unethical. When the student cites the ad Marjia put in the paper asking for donations as proof of Marjia's need, Marjia ejects the student from class. Later in the film, Marjia arrives at the student's home for tutoring. Marjia asks about an empty frame in a living room and the student says her father bought the frame for 30,000 Euros (the price of the boy's operation) but couldn't find a worthy picture. Marjia returns home crying saying, "They just expect us to go extinct."
Serbia in this film is a place without ethics. The poor must constantly compromise to survive, for the wealthy and connected compromised earlier. The original "Man from Moscow" reveals himself to be in debt to the gangsters and set up the murder to keep his house. Mladen gets drunk one evening and accuses the wealthy teenagers of having parents who stole enough to be rich. After Mladen gets beaten soundly by the teenagers (deservedly because he threw a rock through a windshield), the police accuse him of starting the fight. When Mladen drunkenly confesses to the murder, the police consider him a crank and let him go. A man like Mladen is low enough to be ignored, even when confessing to a crime.
It's hard to say if the old communist Serbia would have been better for Mladen, but he clearly got into capitalism too late. Those who left the state-run enterprises for private business had all the tawdry trappings of wealth while he struggled to maintain his crew. Mladen asks his bank for a loan, and the teller rejects him with a smile. When Mladen asks what amuses the teller so much, the teller says that the foreign bosses will fire him if he stops smiling. Those who were quick to "adapt to the new order" are successful, and those who stuck by older ways (or didn't get out at the right time) are left to "go extinct."
Both Mladen and Abu Amar lived simple lives in honest careers. However, their societies never allowed them to advance above a certain station. They both lived in societies in transition, but neither person nor their society is ready for change. Despite both men attempting an honest living, their situations force them to make impossible choices: Preserve their families or their ethics. The men both choose their families over their own pride, but both films want us to understand that selling one's pride is not easy.
Each film shares a similar cinematography. Recycle's award-winning shots show a world of decay and difficulty. Two girls play in old wedding dresses, clearly second-hand items from a Western wedding, in a film where adults struggle to maintain their self-respect while they think their culture dies next door. The Trap is full of dull florescence and grey days, implying the bleak conditions of the situation. The boy's second-hand Dallas Cowboys jacket is a nod to the poverty of the main characters, for the wealthy children have designer fashions from Europe.
Although both films take place in foreign lands, we in America should recognize our own situation. The film John Q has Denzel Washington holding doctors from a high social class hostage in order to get his son a heart transplant. A film adaptation of Nickled and Dimed would be America's version of Recycle. While our society may lack the appearance of desperation, it's because those films haven't been made (yet).
Other Films:
The Laramie Project: 2002
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