REVIEW: It's on top of my DVD player. The disc is round. It's got space for 4.7 gigabytes of content on one side. The other has a label. The disc is free from scratches, dings and dents.
The container it came in was a paper envelope from Netflix. It is white and red. It is some sort of slicked-up plasticy teflon paper. Liquids roll right off it, cat heavis does as well.
The movie has actors and actresses in it, but mostly actors. It was made with a crew of people (humans) and funding.
I plan on watching it.
Soon.
But that's my review so far.
The Sweet Hereafter
Moderators: AArdvark, Ice Cream Jonsey
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Ice Cream Jonsey
- Posts: 30451
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The Sweet Hereafter
the dark and gritty...Ice Cream Jonsey!
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Vitriola
Look, this isn't The Sweet Whenever You Get To It, The Sweet Torture Of Anticipation, or, gods help you, The Sweet Gotcha!!!! It's rapidly approaching The Bitter Late & Never, and you have to start this off so I the barking doberman of Pinback will take off after you and I can freely discuss it wihtout interference.
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Ice Cream Jonsey
- Posts: 30451
- Joined: Sat Apr 27, 2002 2:44 pm
- Location: Colorado
- Contact:
REVIEW
(Note! There are some spoilers here.)
I wish Ian Holm was around to direct my rage in one of the zillion times I have been in an auto accident. And any one of the characters that he's played would be fine, too, not just Mitchell (the lawyer protagonist in The Sweet Hereafter).
But that one would be good enough. I wouldn't go see a movie with him or anything, because motherfucker never turns his cellphone off (his daughter, Zoe, is completely out of control, what with the drugs, poor impulse control, sexual experimentation, and most tellingly, the extreme use of makeup) but he could worm around all he liked and ensure that when the spiraling, often out-of-control deathmobile I drove that one time (which time? every time) smacked into guard rails, concrete barriers, '79 Volvos and people, well, someone would be there to CTC for me. "Cut the check," as Rasheed Wallace told me.
The Sweet Hereafter is a movie about a bunch of people in a town with skeletons in their closets. A bus carrying the town's school children goes off a cliff and into a lake. If I remember right, there were two survivors: the bus driver (who wore a neckbrace and had a broken hand but was otherwise unscathed) and Nicole (played by Sarah Polley) who was paralyzed from the waist down.
We see, before the terrible crash, that Nicole is the recipient of incestuous advances from her father. Later, after Ian Holm's character has become her (and her father's) lawyer, she destroys everything they have going on from a lawsuit standpoint by lying and saying that the bus driver was operating the vehicle in a reckless manner.
So, for me, the movie essentially came down to one bit: is it OK to go submarine your entire town's opportunity at getting mad cash for a terrible disaster simply because you're pretty bent out of shape at your old man? I mean, Nicole wasn't just destroying her case, she was wrecking it for everyone. In this film we get to see at least one family of hippies react with strong, strong pain at the loss of their adopted son. Another guy, while being of some bad moral fiber (he's not an adulterer himself, but he's helping the woman he hooks up with engage in adultery) also dug waving to his kids at the back of the bus when they went to school each day, which is sort of tender when you consider the limited time frame movies often have to work with and so forth. Is it okay to decide for these people whether or not they can lash out with their own rage to those deemed responsible for the bus crash?
I didn't like the movie, because I don't think it's okay for one person (Nicole, in this case) to fail so miserably when she had the entire town on her back. Okay, so it didn't "end" the way I wanted it to -- neither did Star Trek II, but hey, I was still able to enjoy that. But the last few people in that town that weren't completely miserable became completely miserable after the accident, and I don't see how it's somehow OK to leave the money that was coming on the table just because things happen to suck. Any one of those townspeople who lost a child would be justified in screwing up their face Shatner-style and shouting, "NIC-OOOOOOOOOOOOOLE!!!!!!" I think the movie takes the stance that money wasn't really going to "solve" anything or make anyone happy, but Jesus. It can. I've never agreed with the viewpoint that it can't, and whether it meant to or not that's what this film was saying to me. There was a time in my life where I had to save for three weeks in order to afford a video card and there's now... where I can just go out and buy whichever one I want. The latter is almost infinitely better. Take my word for it. Money can make you happy. If one doesn't think so then I would never begrude that stance, but it's nobody's place to state that it would be bad for an entire town to have.
I get that Nicole wanted to get back at her father. And I accept the possibility that, because, growing up the only time my father ever got close to me he was either deservedly whacking me for being obnoxious or hitting me with curveballs that he wouldn't teach me how to throw (until -- SPOILERS -- I was 29) that I don't get the whole bad-touch thing. I understand that my own experiences may not leave me the target audience for this film. More, the whole Pied Piper bit that the movie has throughout is beautifully done. I was a really big fan of that and I think that in addition to Bilbo, Ash and Jack the Ripper we need a Ian-Holm-as-the-Pied-Piper flick someday. But I'm not a fan of just recklessly lashing out because one's own personal life turned to shit, as Nicole's did.
It's just that -- everything in the town of The Sweet Hereafter is pretty crappy. It's cold, someone's nailing your wife, your kid is dead, your husband is in a wheelchair and speaks like somebody -- probably the guy nailing your wife, doing some double-duty as an organ thief -- stole his tongue. Getting a check from General Guardrail Corp or A-1 Discount Bus Co. would have at least made it easy to move and get the hell out of there. Nicole decides for everyone that, no, they can stick around town and move only if they can afford it, too. A defensible decision, maybe, but throughout the entire film you can't help but compare and contrast her with Ian Holm's character's degenerate daughter Zoe. Hey, at least Zoe had the good sense to keep her meltdowns affecting only a few people.
At any rate. Did I need a film to remind me that incest is lousy? I in fact did not. The Sweet Hereafter depicts people trapped in misery, and it's not a worldview I subscribe to. Therefore I can't say I realled enjoyed seeing it depicted, even when it was depicted well.
(Note! There are some spoilers here.)
I wish Ian Holm was around to direct my rage in one of the zillion times I have been in an auto accident. And any one of the characters that he's played would be fine, too, not just Mitchell (the lawyer protagonist in The Sweet Hereafter).
But that one would be good enough. I wouldn't go see a movie with him or anything, because motherfucker never turns his cellphone off (his daughter, Zoe, is completely out of control, what with the drugs, poor impulse control, sexual experimentation, and most tellingly, the extreme use of makeup) but he could worm around all he liked and ensure that when the spiraling, often out-of-control deathmobile I drove that one time (which time? every time) smacked into guard rails, concrete barriers, '79 Volvos and people, well, someone would be there to CTC for me. "Cut the check," as Rasheed Wallace told me.
The Sweet Hereafter is a movie about a bunch of people in a town with skeletons in their closets. A bus carrying the town's school children goes off a cliff and into a lake. If I remember right, there were two survivors: the bus driver (who wore a neckbrace and had a broken hand but was otherwise unscathed) and Nicole (played by Sarah Polley) who was paralyzed from the waist down.
We see, before the terrible crash, that Nicole is the recipient of incestuous advances from her father. Later, after Ian Holm's character has become her (and her father's) lawyer, she destroys everything they have going on from a lawsuit standpoint by lying and saying that the bus driver was operating the vehicle in a reckless manner.
So, for me, the movie essentially came down to one bit: is it OK to go submarine your entire town's opportunity at getting mad cash for a terrible disaster simply because you're pretty bent out of shape at your old man? I mean, Nicole wasn't just destroying her case, she was wrecking it for everyone. In this film we get to see at least one family of hippies react with strong, strong pain at the loss of their adopted son. Another guy, while being of some bad moral fiber (he's not an adulterer himself, but he's helping the woman he hooks up with engage in adultery) also dug waving to his kids at the back of the bus when they went to school each day, which is sort of tender when you consider the limited time frame movies often have to work with and so forth. Is it okay to decide for these people whether or not they can lash out with their own rage to those deemed responsible for the bus crash?
I didn't like the movie, because I don't think it's okay for one person (Nicole, in this case) to fail so miserably when she had the entire town on her back. Okay, so it didn't "end" the way I wanted it to -- neither did Star Trek II, but hey, I was still able to enjoy that. But the last few people in that town that weren't completely miserable became completely miserable after the accident, and I don't see how it's somehow OK to leave the money that was coming on the table just because things happen to suck. Any one of those townspeople who lost a child would be justified in screwing up their face Shatner-style and shouting, "NIC-OOOOOOOOOOOOOLE!!!!!!" I think the movie takes the stance that money wasn't really going to "solve" anything or make anyone happy, but Jesus. It can. I've never agreed with the viewpoint that it can't, and whether it meant to or not that's what this film was saying to me. There was a time in my life where I had to save for three weeks in order to afford a video card and there's now... where I can just go out and buy whichever one I want. The latter is almost infinitely better. Take my word for it. Money can make you happy. If one doesn't think so then I would never begrude that stance, but it's nobody's place to state that it would be bad for an entire town to have.
I get that Nicole wanted to get back at her father. And I accept the possibility that, because, growing up the only time my father ever got close to me he was either deservedly whacking me for being obnoxious or hitting me with curveballs that he wouldn't teach me how to throw (until -- SPOILERS -- I was 29) that I don't get the whole bad-touch thing. I understand that my own experiences may not leave me the target audience for this film. More, the whole Pied Piper bit that the movie has throughout is beautifully done. I was a really big fan of that and I think that in addition to Bilbo, Ash and Jack the Ripper we need a Ian-Holm-as-the-Pied-Piper flick someday. But I'm not a fan of just recklessly lashing out because one's own personal life turned to shit, as Nicole's did.
It's just that -- everything in the town of The Sweet Hereafter is pretty crappy. It's cold, someone's nailing your wife, your kid is dead, your husband is in a wheelchair and speaks like somebody -- probably the guy nailing your wife, doing some double-duty as an organ thief -- stole his tongue. Getting a check from General Guardrail Corp or A-1 Discount Bus Co. would have at least made it easy to move and get the hell out of there. Nicole decides for everyone that, no, they can stick around town and move only if they can afford it, too. A defensible decision, maybe, but throughout the entire film you can't help but compare and contrast her with Ian Holm's character's degenerate daughter Zoe. Hey, at least Zoe had the good sense to keep her meltdowns affecting only a few people.
At any rate. Did I need a film to remind me that incest is lousy? I in fact did not. The Sweet Hereafter depicts people trapped in misery, and it's not a worldview I subscribe to. Therefore I can't say I realled enjoyed seeing it depicted, even when it was depicted well.
the dark and gritty...Ice Cream Jonsey!