The good father (Amore e rabbia) – Mike Newell

un film amaro e triste, dove due padri, gli straordinari Anthony Hopkins e Jim Broadbent, sono separati e con un figlio ciascuno e hanno problemi con la ex moglie (e madre dei bambini).

Anthony Hopkins è uno che ha i soldi e soffre la mancanza del figlio, ma sopratutto, forse, che non può vincere. Jim Broadbent si fa intrappolare in una causa contro la moglie (consigliato da Anthony Hopkins, che gli presta i soldi per l’avvocato).

dice Roger Ebert che questo è un film sulla scarsità di amore nel mondo.

bravi tutti, ma se anche ci fossero solo Anthony Hopkins e Jim Broadbent che chiacchierano al pub con una birra, i soldi del biglietto, o, meglio, del dvd, sarebbero ben spesi per questo piccolo grande film, sicuro - Ismaele

In The Good Father, Anthony Hopkins stars as Bill Hooper - a bitter, motorcycle-riding single father who seemingly holds nothing but contempt for his ex-wife. Bill has been separated from Emmy (Harriet Walter) for quite some time, and is relegated to occasional visits with their young son. After meeting Roger (Jim Broadbent), a schoolteacher who's in the process of splitting from his wife, Bill decides to direct all of his anger and resentment into securing Roger sole custody of his son (his soon-to-be-ex has declared herself a lesbian and is planning to move the boy to Australia). Based on the novel by Peter Prince, The Good Father casts Hopkins as a surprisingly unlikable figure - Bill mistreats most everyone around him, including his little boy - and yet, thanks primarily to Hopkins' charismatic, engaging performance, the character eventually becomes someone that we're rooting for. It certainly doesn't help that many of the supporting characters have been painted with extremely broad strokes (with a few exceptions, including Broadbent's Roger), something that's particularly true of a man-hating lawyer that actually wears a t-shirt that reads, "all men are rapists."…

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…"The Good Father" is filled with great supporting performances to circle around Hopkins' energy. There is Jim Broadbent as the easygoing man who is pushed into the courts by Hooper. Simon Callow (the romantic vicar in "A Room with a View") is the affected, cruel, priggish lawyer. Harriet Walter is Hopkins' wife, a woman who still wonders why they couldn't somehow have found a solution to their problems. And in a subtle and difficult performance, Joanne Whalley is the liberated young woman who briefly becomes Hopkins' mistress and is the catalyst for his breakthrough to more self-awareness.

There have been a lot of movies about the changing lives and roles of women in the last 20 years. "The Good Father" is a very rare film, a film that asks hard and fundamental questions about the role of men: such as, is it ever too late for a man to learn that he can never love himself until he first learns to love somebody else? The film was directed byMike Newell, whose previous film, "Dance With A Stranger," asked a similar question about women. Neither film is really about men's lib or women's lib, or even sexual politics, for that matter.

They are about the shortage of love in the world.

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Tir-na-nog (Into the west) – Mike Newell

un cast di bravi attori, i due protagonisti bambini, sopratutto, un bravissimo Gabriel Byrne (il nonno nel film è lo stesso de "La fabbrica di cioccolato", di Tim Burton, e appare anche un Brendan Gleeson più magro e giovane di adesso), per una storia avventurosa.
dalla periferia povera di Dublino due bambini zingari fuggono verso l'Ovest, portati da un cavallo speciale, che ha un legame speciale con Ossie, e tre zingari e la polizia alla loro ricerca.
uno di quei film che ti da più di quello che ti aspetti - Ismaele 

If I were to tell you that "Into the West" was about two boys and their magical white horse, you would of course think it was a children's film. But it is more than that, although children will enjoy it. The movie is set in a world a little too gritty for innocent animal tales. It concerns two young gypsy boys growing up in the high-rise slums of Dublin, with their father, who loves them but has grown distant and drunken since their mother died.

One day their grandfather, who still travels the roads in the ancient way in his horse-drawn gypsy caravan, gives them the gift of a horse. The horse is named "Tir na nOg", which means "Land of Eternal Youth," the grandfather explains, although he may be making it up as he goes along. Where are two city boys to keep a horse? In their apartment? Of course! But of course the neighbors complain, and the police are called, and one thing leads to another…

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Papa Riley (Gabriel Byrne), a widower, and his two young sons, Ossie (Ciaran Fitzgerald) and Tito (Ruaidhri Conroy), live in the run-down projects of Dublin. Their life is pretty bleak until the arrival of the boys' grandfather (David Kelly) with a glorious white stallion by the name of Tir na nOg, a figure out of Irish legends, who takes an instant liking to Ossie and Tito. Events conspire, however, to separate the horse from the children, as he is impounded by corrupt police officers and sold to a wealthy businessman. Never fear, though -- it's Ossie and Tito to the rescue. They steal back Tir na nOg, and, with their father and the police in pursuit, head westward.

Into the West is probably the first-ever Western to be set in Ireland. Actually, it isn't a Western per se, but more of a modern-day fairy tale. Certainly, a great deal of what happens is beyond the realm of reality and requires a willing suspension of disbelief. Director Mike Newell perhaps put it best when he said, "There are certain things that happen in the film that cannot happen unless the world is a very odd, mysterious, and unreal sort of place."…

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…Into the West is a spirited adventure combining mysticism, social realism, and action/adventure that transcends the facile Disney genre and has a universal appeal. If you think you are too jaded by modern society to enjoy this film, just close your eyes and remember how the world looked when you were 12-years-old. Now climb onto your magic horse and go where it goes. 

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