Sleepless in Seattle (1993)

When I tell people that I haven’t seen Sleepless in Seattle, they usually give me a surprised look.  One reason is that I am a huge fan of Meg Ryan and two its because this one is relatively popular.  I get it, I really do but I had TV restrictions when I was a kid and this hit right in that time frame of my life where I was in elementary school and it wasn’t really my dad’s sort of movie, so no, I never saw it until now.  Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks was a good pair in You’ve Got Mail and I’d really like to see how they did in this one.

Before I move on with the review, I’d like to direct your attention to MovieRob who has his Monthly Genre Grandeur with April’s genre being romantic comedies. Maybe you have seen a romantic comedy or you love the genre, you should send him a review and join in! I will be sending one over to him soon once I decide which to watch.  For more info, you should head HERE!

Okay? We’re good to go? Did you follow him so you can at least read up his awesome reviews?

Awesome! Lets carry on with this review 🙂

Director: Nora Ephron

Cast: Meg Ryan, Tom Hanks, Ross Malinger, Bill Pullman, Rosie O’Donnell

After the passing of his wife, Sam Baldwin (Tom Hanks) and his son, Jonah (Ross Malinger) decide to move to the West Coast to try to have new beginnings and move on.  However, having moved for over a year, Jonah sees that his father hasn’t moved on and doesn’t sleep so on Christmas Eve, he decides to call the local radio station and ask for the help of Dr. Marcia Fieldstone.  Reluctantly, Sam is dragged into this and as he pours his heart out about his marriage, women who are listening to this fall in love with him and he is nicknamed Sleepless in Seattle.  One of these women is the engaged Annie (Meg Ryan) who lives in Baltimore.  Although she is happy with her fiance Walter (Bill Pullman), she feels drawn to Sam and tries to get to know him better despite their distance. She writes him a letter in hopes that they could meet on top of the Empire State Building on Valentine’s Day.

I have no idea what Sleepless in Seattle  was about but see that reaction up there? That is how I kind of looked like when I was watching it and Tom Hanks gets the name of Sleepless in Seattle.  Plus, it had an extensive relating to An Affair to Remember which I only watched afterwards to understand better what they were trying to talk about.

All joking aside, Sleepless in Seattle was a good romantic comedy.  I can’t quite decide if I like You’ve Got Mail or this one more when I finshed but I have a feeling that I may like this one a tad more even though some parts didn’t quite make much sense (like the scene up there) but then rom-coms are really about making sense, its about the feel-good factor. Agree? Thought you would 😉 This flick is really the essence of defining love because its about magic, fate, destiny and all that stuff.  Whether you believe it or not, I do and I eat that stuff up.

Sleepless in Seattle has a charismatic cast. You already know that part, right? Tom Hanks is a phenomenal actor and even though him and Meg Ryan don’t really have many scenes together per se, they both carry each side so well.  Its pretty entertaining to watch them both carry themselves through this flick.  Meg Ryan’s Annie struggling between wanting and resisting the urge to know Sam more while Tom Hanks’s Sam tries to move on with a lady that laughs in a creepy way.  Plus, the little kid was just so hilarious. And how can I forget Rosie O’Donnell! She’s been poking through all of these movies I’ve been watching and she is just the most awesome part of the movie because she brings this energy and wit.

As a fan of romantic comedy, I have to give a round of applause to Nora Ephron for writing and directing a lot of them.  She knows how to put together a fun, heartfelt and especially romantic love story.  Sure, there is nothing epic about her stories but it always leaves me feeling warm and fuzzy and thats what feel-good movies should do 🙂

Another Meg movie scratched off the list, Paul S! Which next?

 Which do you prefer for Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan pairing: You’ve Got Mail or Sleepless in Seattle? What did you think of this?

 

Fantasia Festival: I’ll Follow You Down (2013)

This is what a World Premiere feels like! I went to see I’ll Follow You Down at the Fantasia Festival with my best friend and it was the world premiere yesterday evening.  One of the actresses, Susanna Fournier was there and the director, Richie Mehta was there also to make an opening speech.  After the credits, Richie Mehta and the producer or production manager (can’t remember which one they said), Lee Kim was there to talk a bit about the concept of the movie and then answered some questions from the audience. The experience was pretty awesome!

Director: Richie Mehta

Cast: Haley Joel Osment, Victor Garber, Rufus Sewell, Gillian Anderson, Susanna Fournier

In 2000 set in Toronto, 9 year old Erol and his scientist father (Rufus Sewell) needs to finish off a chess game before heading on a plane to a conference in Princeton for 3 days. However, when Errol and his mother, Marika go to pick up his father, they realize that he has vanished and the last person to see him before the mysterious disappearance was Erol’s grandfather Sal (Victor Garber), a professor at Princeton.  12 years later, Erol (Haley Joel Osment) and Marika both struggle to live after the disappearance.  By chance he learns that Sal is trying to figure out the research that his father was doing before he disappeared on wormholes and the concept that there are many spaces in time and that his father has accomplished going back in time to 1946 to meet Einstein.  He also offered that the only way he can retrieve his father back is to figure out how to re-create the time travel at a certain point in time.

I’ll Follow You Down is an emotional drama sci-fi mystery.  I’m not a fan of sci-fi usually but this one was pretty impressive.  The setting, lighting created a really suitable atmosphere and mood to the movie.  It was paced well and was a comfortable 92 minutes long (rare nowadays that movies don’t go over 2 hours).  To me, that make it effective as they simplified and let certain things be concise and direct, straight to the point.  It kept me engaged and wanting to figure out more.  Plus, there were a few twists that changed from the norm and because of that, it was definitely a good change. Time travel is a really tricky premise to do and it all comes down to whether the audience buys the concept.  In this one, the simplicity among the complex concept of the time travel really helps.  As technical as they tried to make it more believable, it was also explained in a way that it was easy to grasp what they wanted to do.

The cast was perfect in every way.  Although a lot of the actors and actresses are known but not completely active in Hollywood as much, this movie still shows their full potential.  For one, Haley Joel Osment was popular as a young actor back in 2000/2001 with the breakthrough role in The Sixth Sense and followed through with A.I. According to IMDB, he did a lot of voice work for video games and some animations.  Seeing him back on screen is different.  For one, he looks completely different and his acting has definitely matured.  I see him doing really great things if he get the opportunity.  He had to go through a spectrum of emotions in this movie from sad, happy, scared, nervous and being especially smart and perspective and he did it all.

As for the other cast members, they did amazing performances all around. I haven’t seen Gillian Anderson much, especially since X-Files was before my TV streaming days and with bunny ears I think I watched one episode of it and then Rufus Sewell, I only know from The Holiday as that jerk boss that takes advantage of Kate Winslet‘s character.  However, I am a huge fan of Victor Garber so I was super happy to watch him in this.

After movie chat by director Richie Mehta and production Lee Kim

However, just a note that it gave me a bit more to reflect on because I listened to director and production talk about the movie.  However, I didn’t feel the same way as what they said they wanted to portray.  As I think about it more, I understand what they want to portray with the concept of consequences but I can’t really go into too much depth without spoilers.  Lets just say, the director (and writer) of I’ll Follow You Down wrote this for over 10 years.  I applaud that effort because its amazing but however, if he wanted to portray “awareness of mindfulness”, I’m not exactly sure it did that.  Maybe I missed something.

Overall, I’ll Follow You Down is a solid sci-fi mystery drama based on the concept of time travel.  Its story is nicely paced and is not lengthy. It focuses on ideas such as fate and choices, and as the director mentions, consequences. The atmosphere is captivating and the cast acts really well, with special mention to Haley Joel Osment.  I highly recommend this movie! Its definitely one of my favorite movies of 2013 🙂

Are you a sci-fi fan? How about time travel? What do you think about cast in this: Haley Joel Osment, Victor Garber, Gillian Anderson, Rufus Sewell? Do you think this might interest you?