Stream it now North Country Reset Status Want to Watch Already Watched Don't Want to Watch

i was sure reese witherspoon deserved the oscar for her role in walk the line, but this performance by charlize theron makes me wonder. she is dynamite as a woman struggling to raise a family while facing grueling harassment at work. she is among several women drawn by the high pay to work in the mines, there they are treated with mean spirited hostility from the men who feel they have no right to be there. the work place for them can be described as nothing short of a living hell. after taking all she can handle, she fights, even while possibly abandoning many of those around her. a little cheesy at the end, but powerful story overall.

North Country is a great movie about a strong woman and weak men.

North Country:
Starring Charlize Theron (The Italian Job, Monster) in this fictionalized film based from one of the first major sexual harrasment cases in the United States court case Jenson vs. Eveleth Mines 1984 lawsuit.

Charlize plays as Josey Aimes as one of the abused women that had been working at a mine that started hiring women due to civil rights issues. She was an abused wife that ran away with her children and even more problems floated her way once she started being able to support her family on her own. This is her story.

One of the most obscene displays of men in general and almost made me feel ashamed of all men including myself just because of some of the things these guys did. This may have been some nice hazing in the locker rooms from their high school days when it was legal, but it was just down right crude and immorral. Which it may be exaggerated for film viewing pleasure. Still it irked the heck out of me to watch the treatment they received. However Charlize performned wonderful and the drama was magnificent it just fell short of delivering a "wow" at the end of the film by not explaining the court case completely. It left you knowing what happened next without what happened in between.

Quote:
Bill White "What is this? A pet cemetary?"

Advice:
The film is a wonderful film to watch for people needing the fine lines defined and for all women and civil right intruiged viewers. I wouldn't recommend this film to the chump your playing halo with, this is a very serious film.


Walk the Line:
The actors in this movie need no real introductions but the main stars are Joaquin Phoenix (8MM, Gladiator) as Johnny R. Cash and Reese Witherspoon (Cruel Intentions, Pleasentville) as June Carter in this biography of Johnny Cash's career, family life, and the troubles along the way.

The film was wonderful honestly. The acting was perfect. The storey near flawless. However the tribute to the great Johnny Cash was left dwendling in the gutter. It is an enjoyable film, don't get me wrong. But it seemed as he was constantly and only interested in two things. Drugs and June Carter. Don't get me wrong, that was apart of his life. But it just threw in some concerts and some songs came about because of this and that, but never truely involved us in his music life besides the fact he went after it because he liked music, he was broke, and the songs were written here and there and who, but never got into the man behind the music.

It allways bothers me that the films like these displays idols as this as groveling bastards for a large proportion of the film. There was more to it than that. however this movie sumed up the life of Johnny Cash in the end alot better than Ray. However the movie Ray showed us the involvement of the music better than Walk the Line. The people who wrote the story lines on these two need to hook up on the next musician biography film.

Quote:
Vovoan Cash: "With you all dressed in black, you look like you're goin' to a funeral."
Johnny Cash: "Maybe I am..."

Advice: It's a good movie, go watch it and stop listening to my rumbling moronic arguments with the film.

Every time I see a disclaimer like "Inspired by a true story" or "based on a true story" or anything like that I have to be prepared for a dull show (based on my own experience). "Lord of War", "Monster", "Ray" and many others convince me of it though I can't deny many good films are based on true events. Anyhow there must be some inspiration in the real world for the screenwriters 'cause otherwise they would be inspired by comic stories.

Unfortunately "North Country" belongs to the category of films which are supposed to be good and usually regarded as good by critics and viewers who prefer to imitate critics' views 'cause they don't have their own. Every time there's a moving or dramatic story in our miserable life some smart filmmakers make a boring movie version of it. And every time the undertaking is credited to a woman (Niki Karo this time), the whole matter turns into a series of non-compatible events and rather a dragged and scattered plotline which is so simplified that it doesn't take any effort to guess the final happy ending (otherwise why shoot the movie?)

The story starts when Josey Aimes (Charlize Theron) leaves her husband and goes back to her parents Hank and Alice (Richard Jenkins and Sissy Spacek respectively) to try to start from scratch. Very soon she comes to the conclusion that her low salary isn't sufficient to make a decent living. That's why she has to ask for a job at the local mine and after all she succeeds in this (with some other women for good measure). Now she can afford to buy a house and is ready to enjoy her new life, but at the same moment she faces constant humiliation on the male part. She isn't the only victim of some rude men, but it's an effective system of humiliation which has been maintained for years and isn't likely to change at all. Miners behave as if the women were a bit of rotten stuff and abuse them in every possible way. Sometimes it's even hard to believe men can behave like that but from my own experience I can say it's quite possible though not to that extent as is shown in the movie. In my country such behaviour would be mostly limited to obscenities but not to physical and moral abuses. Here it's different and soon the atmosphere acquires a hostile flair, which makes Josey seek after justice - first from her employer who warns her off rather abruptly, and then in the court room.

By the way the whole movie is made a set of flashbacks of the events which led to the court hearings on sexual harrassment. Josey is supported by some friends - Glory (Frances McDormand) and Kyle (Sean Bean) and by her lawyer Bill White (Woody Harrelson) - in her righteous cause, but her own father and son oppose her in the undertaking. Mother stands aside and does nothing to help her daughter. There's some scenes which struck my imagination - the most impressive and most idiotic at the same time is when one of the miners leaves some sperm on Sherry's clothes (Josey's co-worker). Another good one is when Josey argues with her son in public. And of course the final one when women and men stand up to witness for sexual harrassement, which broke defence lines and "made history" as the movie tagline says.

All right, the movie plot is all right, and I can't see anything bad to it, but the realisation lackes in drive and motive. I couldn't understand some parts at all 'cause they didn't fit in the plot framework - e.g. Glory and Kyle who suffer from something (Glory even degrades rather quickly while the plotline unfolds). And the whole movie is over-the-top.

It isn't the first movie I see which is directed by a woman, and I understand women take reality differently, but is it so different in fact? Niki Karo made her emphasis on abuses and pre-story, but it didn't impress me at all. The only thing left to me was to wonder how long the movie is going to drag along the plot road, and which directorial mistake is going to be next on the list. I'm not a professtional in the sphere, but I can differ good from bad, and this one seems to be the latter. It calls for my emotion but gets nothing in response. Perhaps I'm too hard for its touches, but most probable it's too stale to be delicious.

The main thing in this film is the performances. Charlize Theron won the Oscar in 2003 for her portrayal of serial killer Aileen Wuornos in Monster. She was nominated this year, too, for her performance in this film as Josey Aimes, a mine worker who is harrassed by her male co-workers and tries to make a better working environment for the women workers. She was terrific and better than Reese Witherspoon in my opinion.

Frances McDormand gave yet another amazing and Oscar-worthy performance as Glory, a fellow mine worker, who has Lou Gehrig's disease and is slowly dieing. She is so touching and was also nominated for an Oscar this year. The supporting cast is terrific in this movie. Sissy Spacek, Woody Harrelson, Sean Bean and especially Richard Jenkins are all incredible.

The screenplay is great and the direction is amazing, too. Niki Caro directed Keisha Castle-Hughes into an Oscar nominated performance and she did it again here directing Charlize into an Oscar nominated performance.

Overall, this movie is spectacular and touching, yet too long and flawed in some parts.

STARRING CHARLIZE THERON, FRANCES MCDORMAND, WOODY HARRELSON, SEAN BEAN, RICHARD JENKINS, SISSY SPACEK, THOMAS CURTIS, JEREMY RENNER, RUSTY SCHWIMMER, JAMES CADA, LINDA EMOND, MICHELLE MONAGHAN, JILLIAN ARMENANTE.. RATED R FOR SEQUENCES INVOLVING SEXUAL HARASSMENT INCLUDING VIOLENCE AND DIALOGUE AND FOR LANGUAGE

Overall, 8/10. Terrific. :fresh: :up: (A-)


-Jesse Taylor-

Roman Polanski's version of Oliver Twist was the second best adaptation I've ever seen of Dicken's great book. Kingsley was a perfect casting decision for Fagin. Full of Sentiment and Heart, this movie was a great to watch.

North Country was a little melodramatic and the subject matter wasn't my favorite, but Theron and McDormand do give excellent acting performances.

The Devil's Rejects was worlds better than House Of 1,000 Corpses, but I didn't like how Rob Zombie tried to make you feel sympathy for the Firefly family. The ending was still cool with the Freebird guitar solo playing as the Firefly's fought to the death. Captain Spaulding is one of the coolest characters in movie history.

Weatherman- 8/10 - Weatherman was a hilariously sarcastic and dry comedy, but also had good messages. For anyone with a similar sense of humour to me who like odd, random things and laughing at people's misfortunes, you will probably like it.

North Country- 9/10 - One of the best drama's of 2005 also happens to be one of the last major films of 05 that I had yet to see. I highly recommend it to anyone who likes a realistic, gritty drama that makes statements and has fantastic acting.

Swimming Pool - 3/10 - Supposedly a great movie by the reviews I had read, but Swimmin Pool was nothing more than a boring drama with no plot twists and excessive gratuiotous nudity.

Elzabethtown- 5/10 - Pretty much as good as one can expect from the standard RomCom, Elizabethtown was fairly heartwarming though, and Kirsten Dunst is pretty much the best person in the world.

This film is very well written and acted. In a similar vein as Norma Rae and Silkwood, North Country tells a tale of injustice and inequality in the workplace and one strong women's struggle to set things right. I had a serious problem believing that (in the real world) "men" could act so disgustingly toward women regardless of the setting or circumstances. I was waiting for a hint of chivalry from any of the male characters, but it was totally absent from all the mineworkers (even Josey's father). Thank goodness for the Woody Harrolsen's character (Bill) and Glory's husband (Kyle). And don't get me started on that kid of hers. What a frickin' brat! The whole movie frustrated and irritated me up till the very end. But that did seem to be what the director was aiming for so WELL DONE

Okay, I am normally not that into this type of drama, especially not dramas based on true life. I mainly got this movie because it was filmed in Minnesota and about people in Minnesota. That and I thought my wife would like it. I was pleasantly surprized at how good this movie was. I thought the acting and dialog and everything was done just great. You could really picture and feel what was going on in the movie. This type of movie and subject matter will never make my all time favorites but I certainly can give this a solid recommend.

Those are the movies Ive watched since yesterday. I love Almost Famous so so so much. I was watching Pulp Fiction til my grandma came in and wanted to start watching Lifetime...Ill just finish it tomorrow. No new DH tonight :(:(:(:(: sadness