On Strawberry-Friday, Jacqueline will give her female views on some of
the latest DVD releases and sometimes older movies. She writes about it
from a female perspective and often writes about movies that are
catered specifically toward women.
New In Town (2009) Directed by Jonas Elmer
It's most women's dream; Having a beautiful life, with a good
job, including salary, which is enough to occasionally treat yourself
on a new pair of shoes, bags, clothes and everything in between of
that. This is exactly what the main character Lucy Hill (Renée
Zellweger) all has in this movie.
This is till she gets the opportunity to change her career,
drastically. She ends up in factory, in a small town, where she is
brought in to set things right. She is confident she can do this all in
a snap but like you would expect, this is not just simply the case for
her. She finds herself into a totally different life and lifestyle,
which she is not accustomed to.
At a welcome diner she makes her first big mistake. She gets into a
heavy argument with a guy, who is, as she later finds out, the union
representative (Harry Connick Jr.), which she gets to deal with a lot,
later on.
Later on in the movie, she gets stuck in the snow, with her car and she
ends up being saved by the very same union representative. This moment
marks the start of their romance, that is full with ups and downs.
Next to that, the movie its story is also about the business, inside of
the factory. Bankruptcy for it is right around the corner and the main
character is forced to deal with serious subjects, such as budget cuts
and the firing of employees.
I thought this was a movie that was very easy to understand and follow.
It's perfect to watch on the couch, on a lazy Sunday afternoon. The
story of its main character is very identifiable for most women and its
subjects are easy to relate to; The flirting with a man but because of
things happening around it, things don't exactly go as hoped and
foreseen. You try to create an independent position for yourself inside
of the team that you have to work with but sometimes you just simply
make mistakes. Thoug all of this, just like you would expect, gets
exaggerated in the movie.
When you are accustomed to these sort of genre movies, you already
exactly know everything what is going to happen in it. But all in all,
it's a real recommendable movie!
8/10
War Horse (2011) Directed by Steven Spielberg
This is a movie about a horse named Joey. The horse gets bought by Albert Narracott's father and young Albert (Jeremy Irvine) gets to train the horse, by saddling him and letting him plow the land.
When WW I breaks loose, Albert's father has to sell Joey to a British trooper, who makes the promise to Albert, that when the war ends and Joey is still alive, he shall return the horse back to him safely. Albert himself wants to go to war as well, just so he could take care for Joey and the two of them won't get separated. He however is too young to do so but this however does not stop him to join the military later on and the both of the them go through all kinds of different adventures, separately from each other.
The movies shows some beautiful imagery of the English countryside. The musical score adds a lot to these images and gives it an extra dimension. But it is not just the countryside that is being brought beautifully and skillfully to the screen but so are its action sequences. It completely captivated me!
The horse Joey is the one true main character of the movie. He plays the central and key role in every different storyline.
Next to Joey, there are bunch of other horses in this movie as well. They don't play a key part but they at times are some of the more important secondary characters. All of the horses 'act' brilliantly in the movie! I got emotional when seeing what happened to the horses at times; when they looked scared, seeing some of them injured and when some of them ended up dying.
You can tell that the movie is not based on any true events. Some of the elements that are being handled, won't play a role at all in real war situation, such as saving a horse in an open field, in the midsts of war trenches. However a lot of those moments still came across as realistic to me and I also often got emotionally involved with them.
I was able to find two different themes in this movie; war and horse. Men will mostly be interested in the war parts, while women shall pay more attention to the horse elements, just as I did.
The movie was a bit overlong at times, such as its beginning, that focuses on the training of the horse and his special relation with his owner Albert. Of course Steven Spielberg tries to focus on every different aspect and element of the movie to let its story come across but some moments could had been shorter, in my opinion.
If you don't mind watching a slower and longer, realistically brought type of movie- and if you love horses, this movie is still a very recommendable one.
7.5/10
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