It's been awhile since I've done one of these postings. It's not that I've been neglecting to, it's just the Under the Radar movies I've seen recently, haven't been worth recommending. For example, The Savages and Smart People. I was so hoping The Savages was going to be good! I love Philip Seymore Hoffman, but alas, it wasn't that good. Smart People totally sucked.
Anyway, The Visitor! This is such a good movie! You guys have to see it. It's about a college professor who owns an apartment in New York City, even though he doesn't use it very often. He teaches college in a different state, and the college sends him to New York for a conference. He gets to his New York apartment to discover an illegal immigrant couple have been living there without his knowledge. They didn't break in or anything, they were victims of a real estate scam and thought they were legally subletting the apartment. Walter, the professor kicks the couple out. He then starts feeling kind of bad that he kicked them out, and goes looking for them. He finds them just sitting in the doorway of some building, and asks them to come back to his apartment. He has the room and he is kind of lonely because his wife had recently died. So he strikes up this great friendship with them. Especially with the man, Tarek who is a musician from Syria. The woman, Zainab, is from Senegal, and she is very quiet and shy. Tarek starts giving him drum lessons and invites Walter to play drums with him and his friends at the park. It is great. One day, Walter and Tarek are at the subway station after playing their drums. Tarek has to kind of jump over the turnstile thing because of the size of his drum, he put a token in the slot, but the security guards see him and think he is suspicious and they arrest him. So now, Tarek is facing deportation, Walter tries to help, Tarek's mother comes to New York to try and help. Tarek's mother lives legally in Michigan or someplace like that, and she and Walter become good friends. That's all I'm going to say about the plot.
I seriously highly recommend this movie. The characters are great. The guy who plays Tarek is wonderful. Tarek has the best personality, he really brings Walter out of his shell. Richard Jenkins plays Walter. He is one of those actors that has been in like a million movies, but never a lead role. The most significant role he has played was the father in Six Feet Under. (The dead father that comes back in ghost form all the time to his boys.) It's rated PG-13, so it's safe for everyone to watch. If you end up watching it, or have watched it, let me know what you think!
5 comments:
I reviewed my quewe at netflik last night I got the Visitor coming right after the one on the way (appolussa) (sp on all of this comment) Thanks for the recomendation, it looks interesting.
I'm glad you're going to give it a try! I watched it again after doing the post, and it is such a good movie. I hope you like it. Tell me how Apuloosa (sp?) is, it looks pretty good.
I watched Appollosa last night. I liked it, but not great. Ed Harris and Viggo Mortensen did their characters very well and was a good male bonding type couple. Low key and some comic lines. Jer. Irons is always good, but R. Zellwigner (sp) was just awefull. I hated her role and her looks , but I have never thought she was much since Jerry McGuire. Worth watching but not near a must see.
Cam and I just got done watching Appaloosa. We feel the same way you do dad, we liked it okay, but not a must see. We really liked Ed Harris, Viggo and Jeremy Irons. But Rene Zellweger was absolutely vile. She is horrid. I hated her and I hated her character. She did not deserve Ed Harris' love.
And I'm sorry, but neither one of us understand how people find Rene Z attractive. She is not! She has gross lips, weird cheeks and she can't open her eyes! Cam put it best he said "she looks like she could be the Grinch's wife". Cam also said that if she ate a sour patch kid her whole face would just collapse on itself. Man that made me laugh.
When I told Cam that she dated Jack White for a couple of years he was horrified. He lost a bit of respect for Jack and said he definitely has no chance with Jack because he (Cam) is just too good looking and Jack obviously likes ugly people. That made me laugh really hard too.
Back to the movie, parts of it kind of confused me. Was she having an affair with Bragg the whole time she was with Cole? Was she in on the whole get Bragg off the train from the beginning?
I don't think so. I think Viggo's statement that "she's just got to be with a man" was correct and it was just a quick fling. Besides, she wasn't smart enough to plan and plot the whole affair. I'm glad we see alike about Rene Z and also the movie.
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