Personal Favorite: Insomnia (2002)

Tags

Al Pacino, Drama, Highly Recommended, Hilary Swank, Insomnia, Martin Donovan, Movie, Robin Williams, Suspense

whoa! dude, your breath smells like halibut!

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Al Pacino, Robin Williams, Hilary Swank, Martin Donovan

Ellie: A good cop can’t sleep because a piece of the puzzle is missing, and a bad cop can’t sleep because his conscience won’t let him.  You said that once…
Will: I did?  Well…sounds like somethin’ I’d say, doesn’t it?

In the midst of an internal affairs investigation, two Los Angeles detectives are sent to a small town in northern Alaska to assist in a murder case.  While chasing the killer along a foggy coastline, Will Dormer (Pacino) accidentally shoots and kills his partner, Hap (Donovan), but blames it on the killer, who managed to escape.  As the 24 hour daylight, and his own conscience, make it more and more difficult for Dormer to sleep, he also must deal with calls from the killer who knows exactly what happened in the fog that day.

This one is on my favorite movies list for a reason.  I can watch it many a time without getting sick of it.  I just love the way Christopher Nolan (yeah, the same guy that did the new Batman movies) directs a film.  He can really inject a lot of emotion into simple scenes, using certain camera angles and music (by David Julyan) to expand upon some quality performances.

I’ve seen people say negative things about Pacino in this movie, but I’ve always felt he gets it just right.  He’s a big time LA detective who enters the Alaska scene a bit overconfident.  As things start to spiral out of control, and the sleepless days pile up, Dormer (and Pacino) gets more and more zombie-like.  He plays it exactly as it should be.

Williams is pretty creepy as the calm, cool author, Walter Finch, who doesn’t really seem to think he’s done all that much wrong.  In his mind, the murder was just an accident, and he plans to write his way out of being caught.

Hilary Swank, as local detective Ellie Burr, is sort of the glue that holds the movie together.  In a way, she can be viewed as Dormer’s conscience personified.  She’s in charge of investigating Hap’s death, and as she gets closer and closer to realizing Dormer’s account of the incident isn’t true, the pressure is raised on Dormer to try to pin Hap’s murder on Finch.

It’s a well acted, well scripted, and beautifully shot movie with only a few flaws here and there.  I thought it maybe had a few scenes that weren’t edited terribly well, and the chase sequence was a little weak and unnecessary.  I mean, the use of stunt doubles was painfully obvious whenever Dormer had to do anything remotely athletic.

But hey, overall, great movie.  Now go get some sleep, Al!

Nightmute, Alaska is the halibut fishing capital of the world.  (Though, the googles say Homer, Alaska is actually the halibut fishing capital of the world.  Where does the truth lie?)

10 – .4 for a couple oddly edited scenes and continuity errors – .7 for the lame chase sequence = 8.9

No Impact Man: The Documentary (2009)

Tags

Colin Beavan, Documentary, Highly Recommended, Michelle Conlin, Movie, No Impact Man

wow, check out this totally organically grown grape!

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Colin Beavan, Michelle Conlin

Michelle: I’ve definitely found the food to be the hardest.  Like, right now I just want to go get a baked good.
Colin: Why do you think food’s the hardest for you?
Michelle: Ummm…because I can’t eat anything that tastes good?

A New York man, his wife, and their infant daughter embark on a year long project in which they try to make no net environmental impact.  They produce as little trash as possible, only eat fruits & vegetables from a farmer’s market, cut out any transportation that produces CO2, as well as many other restrictions.

So what would YOU be willing and able to give up from your life if it meant improving all of our lives on the planet?  That’s the basic question Colin Beavan wants people to answer for themselves.  They don’t all have to go to the extreme and get rid of everything that Colin and Michelle did, but just a little sacrifice here and there could help.

There are times when Colin is called self-promoting and attention-seeking (he’s an author writing his next book on the project after all), but the good thing is that he recognizes and owns up to that freely.  He even debates with himself over whether or not the whole idea for the project is stupid.  Especially the no-electricity for 6 months aspect of it.  That’s probably the toughest thing for them to deal with, though at least it gets them out of the house a lot more.  They begin exploring New York City in ways they’ve never done before.

This is an amusing and entertaining documentary with a likable family at the center (Michelle is particularly funny…and patient!).  It will probably get you thinking about your own consumption habits as well.  You will NOT want to go to the extreme of Colin and his family, but it could give you a better idea about what you could sacrifice, and how you could go about doing it.

My only real problem with the movie is that it seemed like some of the family trouble caused was glossed over a little.  I can’t say that for sure because it’s hard to know if something wasn’t included in the movie, but we start to go down some interesting roads a couple times that quickly got left behind.

Still, this is one worth checking out.  Even if you’re not overly concerned with your environmental impact (I’ll admit, I care to an extent, but I’m too lazy to do much about it), I think you could still enjoy this one.  Just don’t buy it on DVD because the plastic packaging would just be more trash in your local landfill…

Lack of refrigeration would be a very difficult obstacle to overcome.

10 – 1 for seemingly glossing over a few things – .3 because yeah, okay, Colin can get on my nerves from time to time = 8.7