With the release of
With the release of ‘Mammoth’ this week, Movies.ie brings you some of the best movies to prepare yourself for Gael Garcia Benal’s new role Lukas Moodysson’s ‘Mammoth’. Mammoth is the story of Leo (Benal) and Ellen Vidales (Michelle Williams), a young professional couple living in New York. Leo is the owner of a very successful gaming company and his wife Ellen is a surgeon, their careers have brought them the good life but now begin to pull them apart with their daughter stuck in the middle. When Leo embarks on a business trip to finalise a deal that will earn him his fortune, his journey sets in motion decisions and moments that will impact on all those around him, from his wife and daughter, to the woman who takes care of his child.
The Butterfly Effect
You might think this a little odd to throw in here considering the Butterfly Effect doesn’t really lend itself to modern social commentary or debate but it does have a right to be in the list. The movie centres around Evan Treborn (Ashton Kutcher), a young man who finds a way to turn back the clock on his life and alter decisions and choices he made in the past. However Evan soon realises that each time he goes back even the slightest change to the past can have a crippling effect on the future and by undoing one disaster he leaves his future open to countless others. The film also stars Amy Smart and later spawned a direct to dvd sequel The Butterfly Effect 2.
Lost in Translation
The movie that catapulted Bill Murray once more into the spotlight also stars Scarlett Johansson as two strangers who meet late at night in a bar in Tokyo and a relationship begins to blossom. Critically acclaimed the movie, directed by Sofia Coppola, examines the cultural and generational differences despite a globalising society, alienation and loneliness. Murray is Bob Harris, an aged actor in Tokyo filming a commercial a commercial about whiskey when he meets Charlotte (Johansson) a recent Yale graduate in Tokyo with her husband. Together the pair explore the city and for their brief time together try to stem their growing fears of loneliness and while coming to terms with a whole new culture.
In America
Cultures collide in Jim Sheridan’s ‘In America’ as an Irish family torn apart by their grief and torment over the death of their youngest child decide to leave Ireland and move to New York for a fresh start in the US. The story is told from the perspective of the family’s oldest daughter Christy (Sarah Bolger) and when the family arrive in the city, illegally, they take up residence in a rundown apartment in Hell’s Kitchen. There amongst, the violence, drugs and poverty the family try to make a new start, mother Sarah gets a job working in a store while Johnny, an actor continues to struggle with the death of his son. The two girls are bewildered by the new world around them and soon befriend a neighbour and artist Mateo. Ariel believes she is granted three wishes by her dead brother and the young girl sets about making things right in the lives all of those around, three wishes that will have a greater impact than she could ever imagine.
Babel
Nominated for seven Academy awards and winner of Best Original Score, Babel tells the story of how small our little world really is despite what we might think at times. It is centred around a connection between several individuals, who unbeknownst them are all linked together. Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett are Richard and Susan a couple on holiday in Morocco, Chieko is a young deaf Japanese girl struggling after the death of her mother, Yussef and Ahmed are two Morroccan boys and Amelia is the Mexican nanny to Richard and Susan’s children. One simple accident decision change all of these people’s lives without any of them ever having to meet.