There is much you can tell about a movie from its start, the music, the images, and the tone. In Steven Spielberg’s new film War Horse, everything you need to know is spelled out in the first three minutes of dialogue and scenes. We have an over the top image of the countryside with overly cheerful but semi-epic music, giving the sense of a journey but with no real danger. (To bring this point home, the music is repeated several times over the course of the film, doing nothing to make the movie more intense, and gets very repetitive.) This sequence goes on for a while and we get to see a boy, Albert (Jeremy Irving), watching a horse grow up, and him obviously dreaming of owning him. So when his foolish father buys the horse instead of a work horse, for reasons of vanity, Albert and his new horse Joey instantly bond, as Albert tries to train him to be a work horse.
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Film Review – Punch-Drunk Love
As my last review was Reign Over Me, it seemed appropriate to follow up with Adam Sandler’s other big dramatic role in Punch-Drunk Love. Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson who would later bring us There Will Be Blood, Punch-Drunk Love was an offbeat romance starring Adam Sandler and Emily Watson. Sandler played Barry Egan, a small-business owner who is attempting to deal with anger and depression issues while keeping all seven of his sisters off of his back. The movie drew me in right away because of the somewhat bizarre opening. It began with and maintained a somewhat quiet nature with minimal dialogue and music. While it was a bit slow, the story was interesting enough to keep me watching.
