Peaches (2004) Review

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(More customer reviews)No one should take either of the other two reviews presetly posted for this DVD seriously. Both betray a certain level of political correctness run amuck and failure to understand what this film is trying to achieve. Peaches is a beautifully realised character drama filled with deeply affecting performances. I'm a fairly cynical person, and fairly intolerant of film cliches...though the film vaguely covers territory a few other films touching on some of Peaches' themes cover, I didn't find it cliched or overstated, and I know many people agree with me...they just don't feel a particular need to validate their opinions through blowzy Amazon reviews.
Both other reviewers' snarky descriptions (one filled with laughable pseudoacademic jargon) of the romantic subplot in the film betray their real issue with the film, namely that they disapprove of the onscreen sexuality and of the age disparity of the characters involved. (Perhaps if George Clooney had played Alan there wouldn't have been so much whining on this general subject.) Plenty of viewers I've talked to have had no problem finding Steph's desires, or her frustration at growing up in a town with no perceived future, plausible. It's refreshing that any film these days can address this sort of sexuality without judgment or a presumption of female victimhood. Yes, the affair is doomed to fail, but one understands why these characters were drawn to one another, and what they gained from the experience. (Also, no matter how much you hate any film, posting major plot spoilers is tasteless and crass.)
Nor are are the script or performances melodramatic--in fact they're admirably restrained, and Weaving and MacKenzie do a great job of playing characters across two decades. Compared to much of what passes for character study in mainstream American films, Peaches is a revelation in its depth and lack of hand-wringing over its characters. It's not quite as astonishing as Craig Monahan's first film, The Interview, and not for all tastes, but deserves to be seen more widely than it has been, and deserves a break from the snide mischaracterizations of some reviewers who prefer opacity or imposed moral platitudes.

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Harlan County War (2000) Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Top rating deserved for subject matter and positive portrayal of unsung heroes, but falls short of hitting pure excellence in lack of research and failure to film in Kentucky. Holly Hunter would have won the Golden Globe if she had been allowed to spend any time in Kentucky before filming. The many Emmy nominations suggest true grandeur if the movie had actually been about the intended subject matter instead of Tony Bill deciding what he thought had happened.

The time line, scenery, and vocabulary were the most disturbing errors.

If they had gone to the actual place, they would have known that it does not take long for the women to get riled, and they take up sticks much faster than suggested. There are still laws on the books that compare the danger of a Kentucky woman with a stick versus two men with guns. Also, the incident of people walking up to each other and shooting them dead without comment was ridiculously downplayed. There was and is much more "just as soon shoot ya as look at ya" going on, and these are men of action not words.

Most painful was when Hunter looks out and comments that she has seen the same "mountains" all her life (and has only been to Lexington once). The scene shows a Canadian scene completely foreign to Kentucky instead of the Appalachians that are unusually beautiful in those parts. Everyone knows they are "hills" and that is what they are called. Lexington is referred to as the city, and young girls get out that way more often than once per lifetime. When a Kentucky woman looks out her kitchen window and says "its like heaven come right down to earth," it is obvious why she never wanted to be anyplace else, and that is what the movie lacks.

Other strange points include the presentation of hog brains as a delicacy. Maybe squirrel brains, but on the hog, the common thing would be the Rocky Mountain Oysters. Also, the repeated reference to "moon shine" although it is called white lightening or mountain dew (moon shining is bootlegging, and has a different connotation). The most ridiculous is when the one wife says her cover for sneaking out is to borrow some "pinto beans" from Hunter, but a pinto is a horse. I mean, everyone knows what "soup beans" are, but I do not think anyone ever heard the word pinto used to describe a bean in Kentucky. The director allowed several similar word choices that would have been corrected by having ever been there.

The movie has a wise old relative come up from Knoxville to remind the women that they used to call it Bloody Harlan. HELLO, Bloody Harlan & Bloody Breathitt, two of the four counties that never had to draft a man because they signed up 100% to go kill the enemy and still trade number one positions as the highest per capita murder rates in the nation. If the director had ever been there, he woulda knowed that.

Other than that, the movie was first rate. Whatever money was saved by filming in Toronto, would have been recouped by actually filming in Harlan.

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Academy Award-winning actress Holly Hunter stars as Ruby, the wife of a coal miner in Harlan County, Kentucky. After two senseless deaths, the union calls a strike against the mining company. What follows is one of the most violent, bitter and notorious union battles in history. With no end to the violence in sight, Ruby decides to fight the company her own way.

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