A Simple Plan, a not so simple Outcome.

At first this movie struck me as kind of slow paced and nothing like Memento where you constantly had to pay attention and always had something going on that needed a second thought.  The movie shows us that we all have good as well as evil inside of us. A person is capable of anything, this is very evident with the scene where Sarah has the baby in hand while telling Hank to betray his best friend. It is a testament to greed, frailty of a person, and desperation. This movie puts forth some very intense characters such as Billy Bob Thornton's, Jacob who i connected with the most throughout the movie. I firmly believe that when we are born we have traits that destine us to be something and they usually don't go along with our lives or how we look. We can see this from Jacob's love and trust for his brother, he is the innocent in the movie. Sarah is the one who indirectly causes all of the killings and yet she is a small woman who is pregnant. Appearances are very decieving. Jacob is much more intelligent than his appearance makes him seem. It is evident from his understanding of their father's suicide that he is able to face the harsh reality of life. He sees what he has done to people and understands that he cannot live anymore. Even though Mr. Bennett will disagree with me on this one I believe the last scene with the black hole in the side of the house represents an empty shell that once held life. It is symbolic for how a man can destroy his own decency and essentially destroy their soul by killing and decieving the people around him.

OMG I Cant Wait!!!!

MEMENTO is one of my all time favorite movies. It has all the action, suspense, and twists of a thriller. It provokes deep thought and also deals with the themes of past memories, love. It is one of the most unique films i've ever seen. i believe it takes a great director to pull off this kind of movie and Christopher Nolan  does an exquisite job portraying this character. I admit it will be difficult watching it in seperate sittings for people veiwing it for the first time, but for me; maybe it will bring more insite watching it in different segments and being able to mull over the intricacies of the movie.

Another reason i really like the movie is because the main character (Guy Pierce) is also a respected body builder and leads a very accomplished life.

Dark City

I believe Mr. Bennet has read many times about motifs of mazes and foreshadowing, as well as, the combination of film noir and science fiction genres. Not to mention the amazing premise of the film. The edge of your seat suspense that keeps you guessing until the very end. This post will not be about the amazing cinematography or the camera angles.

This post will address the very pertinent questions this movie raises. What makes us human? What is the soul? Can it be defines as a sum of all our memories? Does love cross boundaries between lives? I believe the director's stand is that love does in fact prove the existence of the soul. The world they live in is a dystopian universe in which identity has become something easily manipulated and manipulated often. People's lives are changed around every night; they can never live any one life. In this way they disorient us. If this is in fact an experiment and the aliens are testing us to see the origin of the soul then they would be looking for something that stays constant amid the chaos. No matter how many times they morph the material world, no matter how many different situations the test subjects are dropped into, and no matter how many times a person's memory is wiped and toyed with one thing stays the same.  Love.  The only thing in the movie that Murdoch is ever sure of is his love for a woman that is supposedly his wife. This is evident in the scene where Murdoch and his wife talk through telephone receivers and Murdoch is not sure whether they are married, or even whether they had ever met before the the other night. What he is sure of is his love for her. Throguh this scene the director expresses that true love is the nature of the soul and it is the very thing the aliens are looking to understand in order to save their species.

It can be argued that Murdoch's love for her is purely a result of the memories imprinted into him by the aliens, but I believe the dialogue in the film between Murdoch and his wife shows that he is positive about his feelings toward her.