Shoot'em Up Sucked but Four Months Did Not.

Jesus, this was a terrible movie. I usually like action movies-if they have a brain, it's even better. So when I saw the Clive Owen, Monica Belluci and Paul Giamatti were in this movie, I thought I'd like it. Unfortunately, I found I hated it. Clive Owen accidently meets up with a woman (she runs by him at a bus stop-being chased by a gang) who is about to give birth-and be killed. Clive delivers the baby, the gang kills her, Clive shoots them and takes the baby. Where does he take the baby? To a brothel and the "mysterious" and lactating (convenient!)DQ. The rest of the movie is a series of gunfights-how will Smith escape from 40 guys sent after him? Why does Paul Giamatti want the baby? What part does the politician play? These questions are not very important to plot because sees a movie like this because of the plot. They go to see how Clive Owen gets himself out of a difficult situation by shooting everyone. He looked good, Monica looked good and Paul was sort of evil-it was hard to take him seriously, no matter how good an actor. If you want to see a movie that has trendous action sequences, brains and ideas and also Clive Owen, I recommend Children of Men, which so much better than this movie, it's ridiculous.

I also saw Four Month, Three weeks, Two Days. Words fail me on how devastating this movie is. Set in Ceaucescu's Romania in the 80's, where having an abortion means jail for both the doctor and the woman. Unfortunately, Gabita is a pregnant student who has a hard time taking care of herself-it's clear she relies on her friend and roommate, Otilia. Otilia is a daughter of a bookkeeper and a soldier, which automatically makes her "simple" according to her boyfriend's parents friends-but withouth her, Gabita would not know what to do or how to do anything. Otilia's intelligence helps her to arrange everything for Gabita but it also puts her into a series of situations, each worse than the last. The doctor who does the abortion is no friend to them0he wants sex from each of them instead of money-and when he said he had a wife and child, I couldn't help think that I was sure he would never want his child to run into someone like him. But they go through with it in order to get the procedure and so he does it and leaves some antibiotics just in case. And now otilia has to go to her boyfriend's parents house. It's his Mother's birthday and she HAS to go because otherwise it would embarrass him. The dinner party scene is one of the best scenes I think I've ever seen on film. The parents and their upper class friends talking about their jobs as doctors and professors, their mild snobbery when they discover Otila's background and Otilia's misery over what has happened to her and her friend this day, along with her worry over leaving Gabita behind to come to this party.
What awaits her back at the hotel (where they had to have the procedure) is a horror. Yes, Gabita is fine and everything went like it was supposed to...and Otilia not only has to clean up the aftermath (meaning the four month old fetus) but she must dispose of it as well, knowing that if anyone sees her, it will mean a very long time in jail. This movie took me from horror to horror and yet I couldn't look away. The final scene (to me ) was the most compelling. Otilia and Gabita sit in a quiet part of the hotel's restaurant. They have some water and a plate of unappetizing food and just look at each other and then look away. They can't talk about it, Gabita can't say thank you and that she's sorry, Otilia can't yell at her or even really look at her. It's every thing that they don't say that's important here and it was quietly devastating.