Belief and Suspension of Disbelief

Pursuit Of Happyness

This is a great movie to see during the holidays, particularly if you suffer from holiday-induced depression; its a feel-good injection.

The true story of a man with a dream struggling to make ends meet, gets worse and worse and worse. For the bulk of this film I felt exhausted watching this poor guy chasing a dream only to get clobbered and run ragged all over San Francisco. But the message seems to be that if you truly believe in yourself, you will prevail. Its just a matter of how much crap you can take before belief starts to fade.

I love Will Smith, I don't know why, I just do. I go to see all of his films and usually I am not disappointed. This one was particularly good in the context of story-line and acting, although I think they could have left out the wife character and had a more fluid progression of events and tighter focus on the goal he was trying to achieve.

What made this film more interesting was that Will Smith's real son was playing his son on screen. I didn't realize it until the credit roll but I kept thinking to myself - "You know, this kid looks alot like Jada Pinkett Smith". I think little Jaden Smith has a career at a mere 8 years old.

8.0/10
Pursuit Of Happyness



Deja Vu

This film was not at all what I was expecting but I found it utterly fascinating!

Much like The Matrix there is a sizeable suspension of disbelief you have to engage before it will be enjoyable. My advice, swallow it in one big gulp and enjoy.

Imagine, if you will, that you can tweek little bits of the past then watch how it effects the present, understanding of course, that you have no power to predict any specific future. This is exactly what happens to the characters in this film. What makes Deja Vu so interesting is the way they visually present the juxtapostion of past and present simultaneously while cloaking the future in a very suspenseful way.

What might make this film a little tricky is keeping up with what is past and what is present. I followed it well but Mistress Lauren was having some difficulty at the end (I think she was looking at the new ring her husband bought her rather than the screen during a critical scene :)

Denzel Washington does a great job, as always, but as we both noticed he seemed way more natural in this film than he has in other recent ones. I still can't believe he is 52, we should all look that good at 52.

8.5/10
Deja Vu