Fifty Dead Men Walking

Paul:
JP:

Plot: Based on Martin McGartland’s shocking real life story, Martin is a young lad from west Belfast in the late 1980s who is recruited by the British Police to spy on the IRA. He works his way up the ranks as a volunteer for the IRA whilst feeding information to his British handler and saving lives in the process; until one day he is exposed, captured and tortured to within an inch of his life. He escaped dramatically by throwing himself from a tower block window and is still in hiding today.

3:17 pm

Staying up past midnight and drinking several beers makes getting up at 6:30am difficult. It wasn’t brutal but not very easy either.
First movie today was called ‘50 Dead Men Walking’. It’s based on a true story of an Irishman who was in the IRA and was feeding information to the British to save lives. It starred Jim Sturgess and Ben Kingsley. It was very good (and interestingly it mentions Bobby Sands who was the main character in ‘The Hunger’ that we saw earlier this week) and I recommend it. Not much to add really.

Synecdoche, New York

Paul:
JP:

Plot: A theater director (Hoffman) struggles with his work, and the women in his life, as he attempts to create a life-size replica of New York inside a warehouse as part of his new play.

The second film… fuck how do you spell it? Something like ‘Synechdeche’…let me check…it’s ‘Synecdoche, New York’, I was pretty close. Anyways, it’s the new Charlie Kaufman film and it’s his directorial debut. I didn’t much care for it. I think directing it himself was a mistake as it was an over-indulgent mess. I liked the first hour but it lost me in the second half — it went on way too long and it went up it’s own ass. The premise is cool but it needed a Director to reign it in and make it coherent. It’s too bad cause there are some funny parts and Philip Seymour Hoffman was great.

Gigantic

Paul:
JP:

Plot: A comedy centered around a mattress salesman and the young woman whom he meets at his store.

Next up was ‘Gigantic’ starring Paul Dano and Zooey Deschanel. A small film by a first time director that we almost loved. I say almost loved because we loved everything about the film except for one really out of place recurring thing that made no sense and was totally out place amongst the rest of the movie. It’s too bad cause if you take those scenes out it’s a great film. Despite that I still recommend it.