Now that I have access to netflix, I have been catching up on all the films I've been meaning to see. Recently I watched Rambo (the new one) and Lost in Translation. Strangely, both films center on platonic relationships between middle aged men and young women.
In Lost in Translation, wash up Hollywood star Bob Harris (Bill Murray) befriends Charlotte (Scarlet Johansen), a recent philosophy grad and newly wed. Both feel bored and empty despite their flashy surroundings in modern Tokyo. Harris shares his insights about life with Charlotte. In turn, Charlotte drags Harris out of his complacency.
signature line: for relaxing times make it Sonora time
signature scene: too many to choose from.
I thoroughly enjoyed Lost in Translation on many levels(it really deserves a post of its own). I cannot say the same about Rambo. In Rambo, John Rambo and a team of mercenaries rescue Christian missionaries (including a young woman who breaks through and connects to Rambo) from an evil warlord in Burma. The film brings out the conflict between pacifism and the throat ripping action of John Rambo (yes literal throat ripping). Needless to say violence wins out. To be fair, I thought the story was actually not bad for an action film. I appreciate Stallone's attempt to bring attention to the Burmese civil war. However, I could not take the film seriously because it was unrealistically gory. Heads are blown apart as bodies are thrown 50 feet by a single bullet. Rambo beheads a soldier with one swing of his machete. And everywhere blood and more blood spurt, ooze, and gush.I wanted to like this film but couldn't because of this unrealistic and sometimes comical depiction of violence.
signature line: live for nothing or die for something.
signature scene: Rambo hops on a truck mounted 50 caliber machine gun and splatters the driver from point blank. Rambo then mows down around 300 men and an armored riverboat.
