HIFF: Bob Marley: The Making of a Legend

Bob Marley's former girlfriend and filmmaker, Esther Anderson, has put together a film about Bob's life, mainly containing lost footage before he became the Bob Marley that fans all across the globe know and love. While there isn't really much of a storyline, Esther puts together clips where Bob is just laying around, smoking joints, and practicing some of his most favorite songs such as "Get Up, Stand Up" and "I Shot the Sheriff".

It's easy to see what kind of messages Anderson wanted to send to the world, she wanted to share what the world might not have known about Bob Marley, kind of a backstage pass time machine, all in a 90 minute film. We do learn about some of the origins from which some of Bob's songs started, for example, the inspiration for "Get Up, Stand Up" came after Marley visited Haiti and saw the living conditions and lives of the people there. One of my favorite scenes is Bob practicing some vocals for a song while strumming his guitar. As a Bob Marley fan, it was really something else to actually see him in his roots, and totally unaware that he would become one of the most famous global superstars.

HIFF: The Price of Sex

There are many dark corners throughout our world today. The majority of the world's population is poor and some people would do almost anything for money. The sad part is, that a lot of women today are tricked into the sex industry with promises of wealth and freedom. The Price of Sex is a documentary by photojournalist Mimi Chakarova who follows the societal causes that force women into modern day slavery.

Chakarova takes us to the poorer parts of some Eastern European countries such as Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Greece, and Dubai. The women in the documentary explain that when you live in a poor country, like the ones in Eastern Europe, you suffer from high levels of corruption and greed. One of the women we meet is Bika (I'm not sure if I spelled it correctly) who was approached by a woman when she was 19 years old who offered her a job as a waitress and promised her she would make hundreds of dollars a month. Instead of serving as a waitress, Bika would be serving as a prostitue in Dubai and was sold to a brothel owner (pimp), where she worked as a sex slave for four years before finally escaping.

Each girl we meet in the film is usually from a very poor country, where there is no opportunity to have a decent life where girls can make money or have a decent job. Jenea, another girl from the film, is from Moldova, where her living conditions were so bad, she couldn't resist a job offer from a woman who approached her while she was working in the field.

It's sad that we live in a world where women in outside countries sometimes feel like there is no other way for them to make money other than being a prostitute. These sex-trafficking business people will approach these desperate women and manipulate them into coming with them to other countries only to be sold, and the women don't know any better because all they want is to get out of their own way of living so they ignore their common sense.

This film really moved me, and definitely brought me to tears a couple times. It made me want to do anything I could to help these women who are suffering and even the ones who have escaped are now essentially broken and emotionally destroyed for the rest of their lives. This film really is an eye opener for those who don't know the reality of human trafficking and that we're still practicing modern day slavery.

HIFF: Knots

I honestly had no idea what to expect when I choose to go see Knots. I didn't really know much about it except that the whole movie was shot here in Hawai'i, which I thought was pretty cool. I actually ended up really enjoying the movie, especially since it seemed like a low-budget film. The film takes place on the island of Oahu in Hawai'i and centers around a mother and her three daughters who run a wedding consultant business. Ironically, all four women all have troubles of their own concerning their love lives.

Lily, the main character is terrified of getting married because she doesn't believe that two people can be in love with each other for their entire lives. Her mother, Miriam, is three times divorced and has two other daughters, Hoku and Twinny, who are Lily's half sisters. Twinny is pregnant and is worried that her husband might be cheating on her, and Hoku started dating Lily's ex-boyfriend Kai and wants him to propose. The film pretty much circles around that plot line with each character, as well as dealing with the crazy bridal clients.

I think the movie has a really good storyline, the best way I can put it is that it's definitely an untraditional romantic comedy. Most romantic comedies you see today always have happy endings and seem unrealistic at times. While this movie does have a happy ending, it seems more believable than your average chick flick. It has a more mature message for viewers and tells a story about three very different sisters who are all just trying to make it in this world and who are all still learning to grow up. It was definitely one of the more uplifting movies I saw and I hope I get a chance to see it again.

HIFF: Super 8

Yesterday I went and saw the film, Super 8 which is directed by J.J. Abrams and produced by Steven Spielberg. Before I saw the film, I really wasn't sure what the movie was about, since the previews didn't really convey any sort of story line.

The film starts out with a group of kids, probably all around 13 and 14 years old, who are working together to produce a scary zombie movie during the summer of 1979 in Ohio. The main character, Joe, lives with his father, Jackson (who is also the town deputy), and the two of them have an awkward relationship since the death of Joe's mother. One night, Joe and his group of friends go to the train station to film a scene for the movie, and they witness a truck drive into an oncoming train, causing a major derailment and total destruction. Joe also sees something kick open one of the train doors and escape, but he can't make out what exactly it was.

Over the next week or so, strange unexplained things start to happen in the town. People's dogs start to run away, kitchen appliances go missing, and people start to go missing too. Joe and his friends decide to investigate the situation and discover that the government air force captured an alien back in the 50's and have been keeping the creature in captivity ever since. The truck that drove into the train that night was only trying to set the creature free so that it could go home. The film comes to an end when Joe and his friends discover that ever since the alien escaped, it had been building it's own ship to go home, using metal objects such as the missing kitchen appliances. The alien's ship finally becomes complete and the creature starts his journey to his home planet.

What I didn't like about the movie was how similar I felt it was to J.J. Abram's other film,Cloverfield. Not necessarily concerning the story lines, but the aliens in both movies look so similar! I mean when I first saw the alien in Super 8, I thought, "Is this supposed to be a prequel to Cloverfield?" However I did appreciate that Super 8 wasn't shot documentary style like Cloverfield, because watching that movie made me pretty nauseous.

Overall I thought the movie was pretty good, there's much more to the story than the summary I just gave. There's a mini-love story that goes on between Joe and his crush, and we also learn more about the death of Joe's mother and how it has affected his relationship with his father, and another side plot describes the air force and how it could be parallel to our society today, given how much the government keeps from society and we have no idea.