Things We Lost in the Fire [HD DVD]
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Movie Reviews of Things We Lost in the Fire [HD DVD]
Movie Review: Great Actors Waisted
Summary: 2 Stars
If you enjoy ultra close camera work in HD (which ultimately is suffocating-did the director ever study the great directors-yes, they did use a wide shot to great effect) then be my guest with this "HEAVY" film which leaves your memory as quickly as a Texas rainstorm. Please put this filmmaker in Director Hell for at least two years before wasting our (and the actors and crew's) time again.Movie Review: I Didn't Get It??????????????
Summary: 2 Stars
I absolutely love and adore Halle Berry but this was not one of her better films. I didn't get the storyline at all. I still love Halle but I wish I hadn't spent $20 for this one.Movie Review: Poking Through the Ashes
Summary: 3 Stars
The two stars of this film, Halle Berry and Benicio Del Toro, are really beautiful people, and if you're satisfied to just soak up beauty, this film is for you. But if you're looking for characters who are truly "fluorescent," in the sense of being lit from within - I think you'd better look elsewhere. That's because this becomes just another film that automatically attributes depth and drama to drug addiction and that then follows one recidivist user into the AA platitudes of "my drug of choice" and "one day at a time." It's perhaps no wonder that so many people are turning to drugs, because only such descent and struggle seems to lend potential cinematic significance to one's life.
To be fair though, this film is about more than attempts at redeeming a drug user. It's also about coping with the death of a beloved spouse, and about what constitutes real friendship. Berry's bereaved widow character realizes that her husband's friend was more than just a leech, sucking up her husband's time and sympathy with his drug use. She realizes that Del Toro's character of Jerry contributed something very valuable to the relationship. He listened. He remembered. So when Jerry comes to his friend's funeral and subsequently moves in with the widow, she feels almost upstaged when she sees he knows more tender details about her children, about her deceased husband's likes and dislikes, about her - than she herself in all her daily busy-ness - ever stopped to appreciate.
This would have been a good premise to pursue. But the movie gets bogged down in slow, sparse exchanges exhaled into the ether. It also gets bogged down in improbabilities. For example, we see Berry inviting Del Toro platonically into her bed to massage her ear, a service she was used to enlisting her husband to perform for her in order to soothe her to sleep. Also, Berry's neighbor takes an immediate, unlikely shine to this recovering drug addict who has moved into Berry's garage. The neighbor encourages Del Toro to join him for daily jogs, and then tutors and sponsors him in becoming a mortgage broker. Del Toro is seen mastering the abstruse material for his broker's test in a mere sixty days, something that would be VERY unlikely to sustain a recovering drug addict's attention.
So much artiness is imposed on the relationships here, that despite some good lines (as when Del Toro describes his first hit of drugs like being "kissed by God") - the film drags down into standard, socially conscious angst. The problem is summarized by the directorial decision to have frequent close-ups of the character's eyes, or more typically, of one of their eyes off-center on the screen. These eyes invariably are red-rimmed and strangely, seem to have incipient cataracts forming over them.
That is sort of symbolic of this entire movie. It might have started with some vision, but its overlay of 12-step cliche clouds it all into dullness.
Movie Review: "THINGS WE LOST IN THE FIRE" BY MICHAEL ELLIANO
Summary: 5 Stars
Wow! I wasn't prepared to like this movie. It's one of those movies that you pick up for the hell of it and end up struck. Oscar worthy performaces and way under rated. This is a movie that will move you. You walk in their shoes and feel the movie. Better feeling from afar but not only a great script but a great movie. Watch it. This is an all around hit. Shame on Hollywood for not recognizing greatness. Oscars should have flowed ont this one. I can't stop praising it.... I know.Movie Review: Shhhh...Listen!
Summary: 5 Stars
When you first see a scene with Berry & Del Toro in it, turn down the volume & listen. Hear the sizzle? These 2 are hot! I'm not a fan or an unfan of Berry but now I'll be watching. Del Toro, however, I'd watch him if he were in an Adam Sandler flick. He is so captivating no matter what type of character he is portraying & as a recovering junkie, he is no different. Very simple character-driven film that works for me.