Down with the Sickness

No, not the Disturbed tune.
Nor the Richard Cheese and the Lounge against the Machine remake.
I'm the one who's been ill, unable to leave the house or manage any of my plans for that matter. Frustrating. Seriously.
Instead, I did the only thing I was able to do: watching films. So here are some overviews - in chronological order [where chronological refers to the order in which I've seen them, fyi]:

1. Be Kind Rewind [2008]:

In his previous two fiction films, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and The Science of Sleep, Michel Gondry indulged his taste for whimsy and invention by setting his films inside the imaginarium that is the human mind; Be Kind Rewind, on the other hand, is set in the idealistic world of the cinema, on strips of magnetic tape, where a person can be made to disappear with just a little bit of creative on-camera editing and day turns to night with just the flip of a switch.
As with the other two films, Be Kind Rewind is also set, sometimes, in the real world, in the urban blight of Passaic, NJ; Gondry finds his pathos in the tragic disconnect between life and invention.

Keep reading this very well written appraisal on the Cinepinion blog.

2. Dirty Pretty Things [2002]:

Tagline: Some things are too dangerous to keep secret.
Plot: An illegal Nigerian immigrant discovers the unpalatable side of London life.

[from the IMDb film's page above]
This was a film recommended by our e-course coordinator on the week themed 'Smuggling and trafficking in human beings' - to give you an idea of how it reached me. I did however get most impressed with Sophie Okonedo's performance - whose contrasting part in Hotel Rwanda I had only seen weeks before.

3. Transsiberian [2008]:

Tagline: Arrive on time.
Plot: A Trans-Siberian train journey from China to Moscow becomes a thrilling chase of deception and murder when an American couple encounters a mysterious pair of fellow travelers.

[from the IMDb film's page above]
Titling this review ''Transsiberian' a thrill ride' is certainly most appropriate for defining the film's pace in simple words. That adrenaline surely did get pumped up!

4. Million Dollar Baby [2004]: this one doesn't really require any further introduction, does it?! Yes, it's only now that I've seen it.

aaand.. 5. The Secret Life of Words [2005]:

Plot: A hearing impaired factory worker gives up her first holiday in years and instead travels out to an oil rig, where she cares for a man suffering from severe burns.

[from the IMDb film's page above]
There's been a tight competition between this film and the one preceding it as to which one is more of a drama, and -though possibly with a margin of error- this one could be the winner. But then, I wasn't really in the mood to see 2 dramas in only one day - bummer!

And this sums it up for the day.