The Deal, Persepolis, 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, & Redbelt

The Deal is a fascinating look at the rise of New Labor through the pre-Prime Ministerial careers of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. Michael Sheen and David Morrissey are outstanding and well worth watching the movie. Maybe not as good of a movie as The Queen, but it was pretty darn good anyway. And for someone who prefers movies about politicians rather than royalty, I gotta say, I know The Queen is a better film, but I would vastly rather rewatch this.

Persepolis is basically the comic in moving picture form. And not like Watchmen, which didn't get the heart of the book, this is true to the comic and is thus as worthwhile. I didn't mention this last year, for some reason, but I did read the comic. It's quite good, an interesting look at the Iranian revolution and the Iran-Iraq war from the point of view of a young-ish girl.

4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days is a depressing movie about an abortion, but, in this case at least, the abortion itself isn't dangerous. It's the conditions around it, put in place by Nicolae Ceausescu's banning of abortion. All this does is cause pain for the women involved and lead to more crime. Making abortion illegal in order to combat falling birth rates is ridiculous.

Redbelt is a little twisty thriller from David Mamet, but even with an amazing cast (Chiwetel Ejiofor, Alice Braga, Emily Mortimer, Ricky Jay, Tim Allen, David Paymer, Joe Mantegna, Rebecca Pidgeon, Jennifer Grey, and basically a cameo from Ed O'Neill), it isn't nearly as good as most Mamet. Well, I'm a huge fan, but I don't think the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is all that good of a basis, compared to his normal crime milieu. Just a little disappointing. I think my problem may have been that it was not nearly as twisty as I like my Mamet (although The Winslow Boy wasn't particularly twisty, and I enjoyed that). And that it ended in a huge fight scene... ugh.