Patriot Games

I am about to give you some sad news and you have to be very strong now...Sean Bean dies.

Cause of death: impaling by anchor, followed by explosion (for good measure).

Now to the actual story of the film.

A group loosely affiliated with the IRA is making an attempt to kidnap one Lord Holmes, cousin to the Queen of England. What they did not factor in is that ex-CIA agent Jack Ryan would leisurely stroll by and throw himself in the middle of it all to not only save the Lord and his family but also take out a few bad guys while he's at it. One of them is little Patrick Miller, whose brother Sean (this is Sean playing Sean) is right there to witness his baby brother killed.

He is incarcerated, he swears revenge, his friends get him out of jail and while they still have their sights set on Lord Holmes, Sean has his eyes set on Jack Ryan. Yes, one of the members of the group of IRA guys going rouge is about to go rouge.

Shoot-outs, training camps in North Africa, a few explosions, cars forced off the road, a boat chase and the ultimate fight to death on a speeding, burning boat in the middle of a storm (because it wouldn't be an action sequence without there being a storm, obviously).

Yes, this is mostly standard action fare. Only, this has a way better cast than your random action movie. The original Jack Ryan is Harrison Ford. You also have James Earl Jones, James Fox, Richard Harris, Samuel L. Jackson, a very young Thora Birch - and those are just the supporting players. And of course there is Sean Bean and his brother in arms (until he falls victim to Sean/Sean's blinding revenge) is Patrick Bergin (whatever happened to him, I wonder).

6/10

Orlando

This is one story that is hard to explain, which makes it all the more impressive that Sally Potter managed to make a coherent film (well, as coherent as one can make it) out of it. And if you don't know what to expect, this may weird you out.

The film is based on the novel by Virginia Woolf. Orlando is a man and a woman and lives over several centuries, unfortunately during times when being a woman made you less of a person. The female Orlando could not own land and - when turning down a suitor - was told that she would remain a spinster and, well, lose everything.

Luckily, though, a suitable husband fall right at her feet. Well, actually, her face, seeing that she just fell face down herself. And even more luckily, it turns out she does not actually need him. But whatever I tell you about the story will only make it seem even more confusing than it actually is.

It is lavish and beautiful, with some dramatic use of music.

The only sour note (for me) was that even though the film lists Billy Zane as one of the main actors, he only shows up 1 h and 10 min into the film. And then he departs 12 min later.

7/10

Unforgiven

Normally, I am not much of a fan of wild west films. The cowboy romantic doesn't do it for me. What I require for me to enjoy this type of film is one of two things - (1) humor, (2) a good story. Unforgiven, luckily, covers (2) nicely.

A prostitue in a small Wyoming town gets her face cut up by one of her costumers. When the sheriff Little Bill Daggett (Gene Hackman) doesn't punish the cutter and his friend to the other prostitutes liking, they throw their money together and offer a $ 1,000,-- reward to have them killed. One of the groups gunning for the money are one young wannabe killer ("Schoffield Kid"), and two retired ones, played by Clint Eastwood (William Munny) and Morgan Freeman (Ned Logan).

The main problem anyone trying for the reward money face is the no-nonsense sheriff, who takes anyone's gun in his town and beats them up - sometimes for no reason other than them not having noticed the sign specifying that no guns are allowed in town. A real asshole, that one.

After the trio kill the first of their targets, Ned Logan gets captured by the sheriff's men and eventually tortured to death. The Schoffield Kid finishes off the second target (his first ever kill), the climax sees William Munny facing (and killing) Little Bill Daggett.

A sometimes brutal, sometimes sad film, that won the best picture award at the Oscars and established Clint Eastwood as a great director.

from Roger Ebert's review:A lot of the shots are from the inside looking out, so that the figures seem dark and obscure and the brightness that pours through the window is almost blinding. The effect is to diminish the stature of the characters; these aren't heroes, but simply the occupants of a simple, rude society in which death is an everyday fact.

6/10