Much can be said about Sweet Sixteen. It is a truly emotionally raw movie about how far a boy will go to achieve a better place in life. I found this movie reading Interview magazine which raved highly about Martin Compston who supposedly has gone into modeling. Which figures because his body is like a rail. Like seriously, 8 pack. But anyways, this movie really made me sit back and think at the end. I'd highly recommend it. However, I had to watch this IRISH movie with English subtitles, haha, because I seriously couldn't understand what was going on. lol.
BBC Films review: Opening in Greenock, a rundown town near Glasgow, "Sweet Sixteen" follows teenage scally Liam (Compston) as he struggles to prepare for the release of his ex-heroin addict mum from prison. Desperate to try and build them a proper family home, Liam needs money. And fast. Muscling in on his mum's boyfriend's drug business, Liam and his pal Pinball (Ruane) set themselves up as dealers, displaying an entrepreneurial skill that has little other outlet on Glasgow's unemployment-ridden estates. Taking place in the shadow of the closed-down shipbuilding yards, "Sweet Sixteen" rages against the callousness of a capitalist system which abandons its workers. As Liam works his way up through the ranks of the local underworld, director Ken Loach and screenwriter Paul Laverty put an ironic spin on the Thatcherite ethos of entrepreneurial self-help. Liam's astute business sense (in one hilarious scene, he convinces the local pizza delivery boys to work as his drug couriers) is an insightful inversion of the very forces that have crushed this community. Sparkling with wit and insight, the drama never loses sight of the social and economic factors that drive these characters towards their fate. As the film's unforeseen conclusion hits, you suddenly remember that this young man is really nothing but a boy after all. Loach's films are often shunted to the sidelines as 'political' or 'difficult'. But "Sweet Sixteen" is outstanding film making and the director's best film in years.
And if you do one thing this weekend...it should be to watch Manic which stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Since after Mysterious Skin, I now have a total enfatuation with him. The movie blew me away. Again, I think this 3rd Rock boy is a truly unbelievably talented actor.
Lyle (Joseph Gordon-Levitt, the wisecracking teenager of ''Third Rock From the Sun'') is the newest resident of the high-security wing, having landed there after beating a schoolmate nearly to death. For all of his uncontrollable inner violence, Lyle is attracted to the painfully shy, withdrawn Tracy (the superb Zooey Deschanel). When the two begin a clandestine relationship, it proceeds more from movie star logic (the two most attractive people in any film are destined to become a couple) than it does from dramatic necessity.
And with this review, who could pass this up?!
Comments