The Brothers Bloom

"Is this the bathroom? No, this is camels."

I love it when you go into a movie not knowing what to expect (or not expecting much) and you're pleasantly surprised, or in the case of The Brothers Bloom, completely blown away. This is absolutely my favorite movie that I've seen in a long long while.

Stephen (Mark Ruffalo) and Bloom (Adrian Brody) are two brothers who spent their childhoods in foster care and grew up to be con men. Stephen is the schemer who writes their cons as epic stories. Bloom is the romantic who yearns for "an unscripted life." Bloom quits the con game, until Stephen ropes him back in for one final con - bilking Penelope, a lonely eccentric heiress (Rachel Weisz), out of millions. Bloom falls for Penelope (or does he?) as the con takes several twists and turns, of which even he is ultimately unsure of what is real and what is the con.

The Brothers Bloom is completely charming. It's clever and funny, and just plain entertaining. Adrian Brody is wonderful as Bloom, and I've had mad respect for Mark Rufallo since You Can Count on Me. It has a bit of the feel of a Wes Anderson movie, but not quite as quirky and with more energy. If you get a chance you should absolutely see this movie. I will be looking to buy it when it comes out on dvd in a few weeks, and I can't think of the last movie I actually bought.

Sin Nombre

I went and saw Sin Nombre at the Bijou on Thursday. Sin Nombre is a tale of illegal immigration, interwoven with the story of a Central American gang member.

Sayra is a Honduran teen whose father returns to take her to New Jersey to live with family members. They walk to Mexico, where they have to sneak across the border and jump on top of a train with hundreds of other people also trying to make their ways north. Along the way they face delays, the border patrol, children throwing rocks at them (it's interesting as an American to watch the reaction of Mexicans to people illegally their country), and eventually a trio of gang members who try to rob them. Casper (or Willy) is a member of Mara 13, a violent Central American gang. He ends up on the same train as Sayra, trying to escape from his "homies" after being marked for death. Sayra decides she is going to help him, and the two form an unlikely (and mostly one-sided) bond.

I don't usually like movies that deal with a lot of violence, but I enjoyed Sin Nombre. There wasn't a lot of graphic violence (unlike in Gomorrah, which I disliked for other reasons as well), and I found the immigration angle of the plot fascinating. I ended up shaking my head a lot at Sayra and the decisions she makes, but her journey follows a kind of Sliding Doors path in that the decisions she makes may seem bad, but you never know how things would have turned out otherwise.

Right after I saw this movie I read an article on CNN about French filmmaker Christian Proveda who was killed in El Salvador on Wednesday by the Mara 18 gang, rivals of the MS-13 who were briefly portrayed in Sin Nombre. Proveda had been working on a documentary about street gangs. After I read about that, I did a little internet research on these gangs (like they're going to have an official website), and discovered that there are around 50,000 members estimated to be in the US, many is Los Angeles. It's scary to think about kids growing up in areas where gang life is the norm and membership may even seem necessary for survival (a young kid joining the gang was another important charachter in the movie).

Overall, I really enjoyed Sin Nombre's story, and I think it serves well to put a face to illegal immigration and how much some people will go through to try to get themselves a better life in the US.