Here After

Directed by Clint Eastwood
Produced by Steven Spielberg, Kathleen Kennedy Frank Marshall

How does a spaghetti western actor evolve to one of the greatest and most sensitive story tellers of our time? In most of his movies, I have been left touched and fulfilled. He broke my heart in Bridges of Madison County, he continued to do so even more with Million Dollar Baby and now Here After. Even when he goes back to the genre that lifted him to fame, he weaves a tale that even a non-western fan can identify and be touched by.

Here After is a beautiful movie about the here after and even as a non believer, I accept, for the two hours, that this place exists. If you’ve ever lost someone close, you have no choice but to be drawn in and accept the possibility that there is that place. This is what movies are about and this is why we love watching them, to be enveloped by the possibility the film presents and to just let it take us there.

I love the way this movie is put together. It reminded me a little of M. Night Shyamalan in his earlier days when you were not quite sure where the movie was taking you. The tragedy about Shyamalan is that you now do, and the triumph of Eastwood is that you still don’t know what to expect and are happy to sit back and let the story unfold because at the end, you know it is something profound that you are going to come away with.

In this one, you have seemingly unrelated characters that you know and hope have to converge somewhere but not quite sure how or when. And when they eventually do, they fit in perfectly together. It is kind of like the peeled onion being put together, layer by layer, and the emotion also goes in reverse as the onion goes back to it’s original form. Ultimately no tears, and the world is as it should be.

I also love the way in which real life events help form significant moments in the movie. To reveal what they are would be to spoil the enjoyment so let’s just say these moments are heart wrenching.

What a wonderful story. I still think that psychics are master statisticians, but that did not take away from my enjoyment of this most beautiful movie.

Four spoons

Note: Matt Damon looks nothing like the poster image. Dude has aged, and he's allowed.
Another note: Incase you are still wondering whether to rent the dvd, the writer (Robert Morgan) also did screenplays for: Frost/Nixon, The Queen, The Last King of Scotland, and many others…
And yet another note: Clint Eastwood did the beautiful and haunting music for the movie as well.

Invictus

Been meaning to post something on this. Went to see it over at Maponya Mall last week. It was quite a treat. Morgan Freeman made a special appearance and took questions from journalists. Couldn't really here all that well the Q & As as I was sitting right at the back of the little wannabe VIP area that had been created.
Not only was Morgan Freeman there, but so was Chester Williams, whose character is featured in the movie.
And Winnie Madikizela Mandela, her daughter Zinzi, Justice and Constitutional Development Minister - Jeff Radebe and his businesswoman wife - Bridgette, were all there as well.
So about the movie...it was okay.
I think I appreciated that Freeman's depiction of Mandela wasn't all that bad so you actually got to follow the movie and weren't too concerned with how well he could pull a Madiba accent. That was nice. I could say the same about Matt Damon as Francois Pienaar.

Its a story of how Mandela used rugby to kind of unite the nation. I thought it was a nice idea for a story, but...just wasn't all that gripping really. There were some interesting bits of information that they included that I had no clue about - so it gave some insight into our history. But otherwise...at least the other half of the movie was just too rugby for someone who isn't all that interested in it.
That said, I thought they could have used James Small more in the movie. My memory, and it may not be all that good, tells me that James Small was like our answer to Jonah Lomu. Our opponent for him really and he did stop him in his tracks didn't he? I didn't think they used that bit of the World Cup win very well. I think they down played James Small too much.

What else? Thought it odd that they used Zinzi the way they did. It didn't seem to fit well with the rest of the script. And then they threw in a single ...okay maybe two scenes of Winnie happily in love with Mandela.
I suppose they had to use his family in the movie, it couldn't be just about Madiba and rugby...in which case they should have done a better job and had more family moments to make it more realistic.

Anyway...I wouldn't watch this movie again even if I got paid to. I'm not sorry I watched it though.