#70 (Leon: The Professional) #71 Middle Men
Film 71
Leon: The Professional
Directed by: Luc Besson
Starring Natalie Portman as Mahtilda, Jean Reno as Leon, and Gary Oldman as Stansfield
When this film was released, I was only 13...the same age as Natalie Portman as she made her film debut in this gritty, violent film that many people have passed over because of its content (it's pretty violent, with lots of cursing, and the bizarre relationship the main characters develop) or because it seems like Besson is trying to be like Tarantino, a bit too much. It seemed trite the second time around, for me, and even a bit mild, comparatively (against other films in the same genre). But, I can appreciate the acting. Natalie Portman is stellar as a 12 year old girl who hates the life she never chose for herself and when I read other reviews of the film, they shamed the director for putting her in such a "world" of seediness and drugs and death, claiming it was unreal and unnecessary. Here's the thing, yes, sometimes films are about escapism, but other times, you can't help but see the parallel to life even if you don't live in the same circumstances.
The thing is kids are thrust into these types of sordid lives and they don't really have any other choice. Now, this is coming from someone who considers himself lucky to have grown up in what I would call upper-middle class. Both parents were well-educated and educators, which in turn led to my own well-upbringing and education. I grew up in what would be called a suburb. It was a nice little circular neighborhood where everyone knew everyone (and their business...I'll still remember the neighbors that "told" on me to my father in regards to my smoking cigarettes for a brief 7 month period when I was 18 years old and thought to be untouchable).
Now that I've been a teacher for the past 5-6 years (in a school environment for the past 10 years, though), I can honestly say that kids get mixed into some pretty terrible shit, some unfortunate situations because the adults in their lives, in charge of their lives and upbringings, make bad choices. And I've always been good about not really letting it bother or get to me. I can can always go home to my own apartment where I know that I'll be safe and secure. But, this past year, as a teacher, has really destroyed me, emotionally, because I have many children who are really struggling when they leave school, whom I do worry about. I have a cast of characters that are unfortunate pawns in bad decisions the adults in their lives make.
So, for critics to lambast the film for its depiction of a horrible family and situation for this girl is ridiculous, to me. Yeah, it forces her to "Grow up" in sense much too quickly and the entire premise of her becoming a "cleaner" or hitgirl is a bit ridiculous, but she shouldn't have had to be treated as a pawn in her father's drug trafficking, either. Nurture versus nature.
On to the film, early in Mahtilda's entire family is massacred by a psychopathic DEA agent (obviously corrput), played by Gary Oldman (in a role that he seemed typecast into for many movies, until playing the "good guy" detective in the newest Batman series). This is how I enjoy seeing him, because he plays these characters so well. He is downright scary as a bad guy.
When she returns home to discover her family has been killed, Leon "saves" her and essentially takes her under his wing, unwillingly, at first because he doesn't think a girl of her age (or a girl for that matter) should do the things that he does. "It changes a person. Killing someone does." Mahtilda is very adamant that she will avenge her little brother's death (funny how she doesn't really care that the rest of her family was killed, because they treated her like shit...welcome, karma). So, Leon teaches her the ropes (through shooting paintballs). They end up living together in hotel rooms and a couple of apartments, which leads to the bizarre relationship that they develop. She weirdly but expectedly "falls in love" with him (but honestly at 12 years old can she/does she really know what love is, especially given the family she is coming from). At the climax of the film, Leon expresses his love for her, but I took it more as a fatherly love, so that criticism fell flat for me. I never saw that, the entire film, other than a 12 year old girl wanting more, but not really knowing exactly what she wanted, at the same time.
I really enjoy this film, whenever I watch it, but now, with a more critical eye, I can see how it over-reached, but it was still a fun ride to take, because of the 3 solid performances by the actors.
Natalie Portman has always encompassed the "girl next door" quality that I love in girls and she has been my number 1, epitome of women, Hollywood crush that I put on my "Forgiven List" (you know, the list of famous people you can be with, even in a relationship, and it will be forgiven by your significant other).
My "Forgiven" List:
1. Natalie Portman
2. Zooey Deschanel
3. Sarah Michelle Gellar
4. Dido
5. Jennifer Aniston
5. Kate Upton
(If you know me, though, the bottom half of the list changes quite often).
..............................................................................................................
Film 71
Middle Men
starring Owen Wilson
It's kind of a funny segue, talking about my "fantasy" Hollywood girls to a movie built around the internet porn industry and people's general fantasies at the onset of the internet craze. This is a film based on a true story, but after watching it, I wonder how much of it is true and how much is fabricated, not just for Hollywood's sake, but to meet the desires and fantasies of the guys at the center of the story. The entire story seems like something a dude would make up.
Here, we start with 2 bumbling, druggy guys (Gabriel Macht and Giovanni Ribisi, always stellar as a weirdo) who decide they need new material to "get off to." They hatch an idea to scan and download pictures from magazines, creating a link that other guys can pay via credit card to look at these same pictures. They charge $9.99 per subscription to multiple sites and within days they are raking in the money by the thousands and thus the internet porn industry was born. The trouble is...they got tired of that pretty quickly and wanted new material, so they go to a strip club and make a deal with a Russian mobster, who becomes an integral part of the deal as they are all making a ton of money.
Then, here comes Owen Wilson's character, a seemingly straight-laced married, family guy who happens to be a great businessman who knows a lawyer who knows the internet porn guys. He gets them together and soon Owen Wilson's character is thrust into a world he wants nothing to do with, but he becomes quite comfortable with his role and somehow becomes the "main guy" in the entire operation. He soon meets a porn star whom he has an affair with and then dumps when shit gets really deep (all the while, his wife is standing by his side as he plays out this "mid-life crisis," since that's the best description I can give for this entire situation). Shit goes down and Owen Wilson's character eventually finds himself bowing out and backing away pretty much unscathed by the entire fucked up mess!
See what I mean when I call it every man's fantasy? Millions of dollars. Porn star mistress. Mob connections. Happy ending.
I wanted to like the movie, but it all seemed quite unreal, and it was based on a "true" story. I found it hard to believe. But it was entertaining.
Jacinda Barrett plays his wife (you might remember her from The Real World: London. I do. And I remember her as Zach Braff's lover in "The Last Kiss"). She's actually a decent actress.
Leon: The Professional
Directed by: Luc Besson
Starring Natalie Portman as Mahtilda, Jean Reno as Leon, and Gary Oldman as Stansfield
When this film was released, I was only 13...the same age as Natalie Portman as she made her film debut in this gritty, violent film that many people have passed over because of its content (it's pretty violent, with lots of cursing, and the bizarre relationship the main characters develop) or because it seems like Besson is trying to be like Tarantino, a bit too much. It seemed trite the second time around, for me, and even a bit mild, comparatively (against other films in the same genre). But, I can appreciate the acting. Natalie Portman is stellar as a 12 year old girl who hates the life she never chose for herself and when I read other reviews of the film, they shamed the director for putting her in such a "world" of seediness and drugs and death, claiming it was unreal and unnecessary. Here's the thing, yes, sometimes films are about escapism, but other times, you can't help but see the parallel to life even if you don't live in the same circumstances.
The thing is kids are thrust into these types of sordid lives and they don't really have any other choice. Now, this is coming from someone who considers himself lucky to have grown up in what I would call upper-middle class. Both parents were well-educated and educators, which in turn led to my own well-upbringing and education. I grew up in what would be called a suburb. It was a nice little circular neighborhood where everyone knew everyone (and their business...I'll still remember the neighbors that "told" on me to my father in regards to my smoking cigarettes for a brief 7 month period when I was 18 years old and thought to be untouchable).
Now that I've been a teacher for the past 5-6 years (in a school environment for the past 10 years, though), I can honestly say that kids get mixed into some pretty terrible shit, some unfortunate situations because the adults in their lives, in charge of their lives and upbringings, make bad choices. And I've always been good about not really letting it bother or get to me. I can can always go home to my own apartment where I know that I'll be safe and secure. But, this past year, as a teacher, has really destroyed me, emotionally, because I have many children who are really struggling when they leave school, whom I do worry about. I have a cast of characters that are unfortunate pawns in bad decisions the adults in their lives make.
So, for critics to lambast the film for its depiction of a horrible family and situation for this girl is ridiculous, to me. Yeah, it forces her to "Grow up" in sense much too quickly and the entire premise of her becoming a "cleaner" or hitgirl is a bit ridiculous, but she shouldn't have had to be treated as a pawn in her father's drug trafficking, either. Nurture versus nature.
On to the film, early in Mahtilda's entire family is massacred by a psychopathic DEA agent (obviously corrput), played by Gary Oldman (in a role that he seemed typecast into for many movies, until playing the "good guy" detective in the newest Batman series). This is how I enjoy seeing him, because he plays these characters so well. He is downright scary as a bad guy.
When she returns home to discover her family has been killed, Leon "saves" her and essentially takes her under his wing, unwillingly, at first because he doesn't think a girl of her age (or a girl for that matter) should do the things that he does. "It changes a person. Killing someone does." Mahtilda is very adamant that she will avenge her little brother's death (funny how she doesn't really care that the rest of her family was killed, because they treated her like shit...welcome, karma). So, Leon teaches her the ropes (through shooting paintballs). They end up living together in hotel rooms and a couple of apartments, which leads to the bizarre relationship that they develop. She weirdly but expectedly "falls in love" with him (but honestly at 12 years old can she/does she really know what love is, especially given the family she is coming from). At the climax of the film, Leon expresses his love for her, but I took it more as a fatherly love, so that criticism fell flat for me. I never saw that, the entire film, other than a 12 year old girl wanting more, but not really knowing exactly what she wanted, at the same time.
I really enjoy this film, whenever I watch it, but now, with a more critical eye, I can see how it over-reached, but it was still a fun ride to take, because of the 3 solid performances by the actors.
Natalie Portman has always encompassed the "girl next door" quality that I love in girls and she has been my number 1, epitome of women, Hollywood crush that I put on my "Forgiven List" (you know, the list of famous people you can be with, even in a relationship, and it will be forgiven by your significant other).
My "Forgiven" List:
1. Natalie Portman
2. Zooey Deschanel
3. Sarah Michelle Gellar
4. Dido
5. Jennifer Aniston
5. Kate Upton
(If you know me, though, the bottom half of the list changes quite often).
..............................................................................................................
Film 71
Middle Men
starring Owen Wilson
It's kind of a funny segue, talking about my "fantasy" Hollywood girls to a movie built around the internet porn industry and people's general fantasies at the onset of the internet craze. This is a film based on a true story, but after watching it, I wonder how much of it is true and how much is fabricated, not just for Hollywood's sake, but to meet the desires and fantasies of the guys at the center of the story. The entire story seems like something a dude would make up.
Here, we start with 2 bumbling, druggy guys (Gabriel Macht and Giovanni Ribisi, always stellar as a weirdo) who decide they need new material to "get off to." They hatch an idea to scan and download pictures from magazines, creating a link that other guys can pay via credit card to look at these same pictures. They charge $9.99 per subscription to multiple sites and within days they are raking in the money by the thousands and thus the internet porn industry was born. The trouble is...they got tired of that pretty quickly and wanted new material, so they go to a strip club and make a deal with a Russian mobster, who becomes an integral part of the deal as they are all making a ton of money.
Then, here comes Owen Wilson's character, a seemingly straight-laced married, family guy who happens to be a great businessman who knows a lawyer who knows the internet porn guys. He gets them together and soon Owen Wilson's character is thrust into a world he wants nothing to do with, but he becomes quite comfortable with his role and somehow becomes the "main guy" in the entire operation. He soon meets a porn star whom he has an affair with and then dumps when shit gets really deep (all the while, his wife is standing by his side as he plays out this "mid-life crisis," since that's the best description I can give for this entire situation). Shit goes down and Owen Wilson's character eventually finds himself bowing out and backing away pretty much unscathed by the entire fucked up mess!
See what I mean when I call it every man's fantasy? Millions of dollars. Porn star mistress. Mob connections. Happy ending.
I wanted to like the movie, but it all seemed quite unreal, and it was based on a "true" story. I found it hard to believe. But it was entertaining.
Jacinda Barrett plays his wife (you might remember her from The Real World: London. I do. And I remember her as Zach Braff's lover in "The Last Kiss"). She's actually a decent actress.
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