QuickTime Quick Picks - Prozac, Kurds, Korea, & Crime

by , 11:00 AM EDT, May 30th, 2003

Every week, Vern Seward takes a look at Apple's latest offerings at Apple's QuickTime Trailer site, letting your know what's new.

Drama.

Mr. Webster defines it thusly:

A composition, in prose or poetry, accommodated to action, and intended to exhibit a picture of human life, or to depict a series of grave or humorous actions of more than ordinary interest, tending toward some striking result. It is commonly designed to be spoken and represented by actors on the stage.

Smart guy, that Webster. In the Mac world, drama can be seen in the eyes of a Mac user who just learned his company intends to "standardize" all of the desktop computers, and make them all Dells. A painful event, no doubt, but hardly the stuff of which memorable movies are made.

Real drama takes place all around us if we take the time to look and listen. It is a slice of life that is poignantly personal, but general in its scope such that many feel its affects. In this respect, it doesn't matter where the events takes place or the language being spoken, the drama come through regardless.

This week we look at several trailers that offer a glimpse of the dramatic.

Christina Ricci has always had a flare for the dramatic, even when she played Wednesday in the Adams Family movies. In the new movie Prozac Nation, Ms. Ricci offers us a peak at depression and excess as first year Harvard student, Elizabeth Wurtzel. The movie is based on a novel by the same name, written by Elizabeth Wurtzel. In this instance, drama can be as depressing to watch as it was likely to live. We would imagine this movie won't find a large audience, though it speaks to a very interesting topic.

Drama of a different sort is presented in Marooned in Iraq. There is obvious relevance given the recent war, but this movie takes place years before, right after the first Persian Gulf War. Set in Kurdish Iraq in the midst of retributive strikes from the Saddam Hussein's government after the war, the movie focuses on a Kurdish musician who risks his own life to find a singer from his past who is now performing for refugees on the Iran-Iraq border. The trailer makes the movie out to be an intimate portrayal of the Kurds.

Drama with a more family tilt can be found in the Korean movie, The Way Home. Little Sang-Woo is a typical city kid versed in the ways of the modern world. When he winds up spending a Summer with his mute grandmother, Sang-Woo must learn to adapt to a slower but richer life style.

Finally, Guy Pearce stars in a crime drama with a humorous side in The Hard Word. An Australian flick about 3 cons with a scheme to make money. This is likely the intellectual light-weight of the bunch, but it offers something different, like Jello after a 6 course meal.

That'll do it for this week. If you still need something else to watch you might try the Animated Angels series which depicts Charlie's Angels in a series of mindless, big busted poses. The AniMatrix, it ain't. Hey, what is?

Apple's QuickTime Trailer Site