Plastic City & The Brothers Bloom

I must admit it was hard to find agreement about the two films we saw on Saturday at AFI Fest. While I highly enjoyed Plastic City (see video comments here), a gorgeous-looking and pretentious Hong Kong gangster film set in Sao Paulo, my fellow writer Anji hated it. However she did enjoy the con men comedy The Brothers Bloom (see video comments here - read the Brothers Bloom review) more than I did, as I found it wasn't more than a TV movie.

The Wrestler

Darren Aronofski's The Wrestler (see video comments here - read the Wrestler review) is a small film about a washed-up wrestler who comes to question the purpose of his life, following a heart attack. The film has a realistic feel while being drenched in irony. While it's not a masterpiece, this is a highly enjoyable film, which will mostly be remembered by the raw performances from its two lead actors, Mickey Rourke & Marisa Tomei.

The Gomorrah Class

Sunday was pretty satisfying, movie-wise. The day started with The Class (read the Class review), the film that won the Golden Palm at the Cannes film festival this year. I must admit, I was expecting some over-hyped heavy-handed patchouli message-driven picture but was left astonished by the multiple layers offered here, including a subtle commentary, which questions the - somewhat outdated - foundations of the French education system (check out my video comments here).

The following feature, Gomorrah (read the Gomorra review), proved to be as intense, giving us a realistic look at the mafia. While much has been said about how it de-glamorizes the mafia myth, which was already done with humor in the Sopranos, more important was its focus on the use of kids for all the dirty jobs, which makes it close from films such as City of God.