A Clockwork Orange

Malcom McDowell, Michael Bates, Patrick Magee

Directed by Stanley Kubrick

Rating: C

Alex (McDowell) is a young, rampant, violent, sex machine. He and his group of "brothers" go about stealing, fighting, and raping about in England until one day they don't want Alex as the leader and leave him to be picked up by the police. After murdering a woman, Alex is charged with a fourteen year prison sentence. After two years of good behavior, he convinces the governor to be picked for a new experimental treatment that cures bad men of their habits to never doing a bad thing again. After two weeks of a sickening process, Alex can't stand violence or sex or even Beethoven's "Ninth Symphony", driving him mad. Alex is the government's pawn in leading England free of crime.

A Clockwork Orange is a disturbing movie that crawls under your skin. It's intentions are to make the audience uncomfortable right from the first scene. Alex stares at the camera for a lengthy time; that's the only thing viewers see. The camera zooms out to reveal a room that Alex and his friends are sitting in, white plastic models of naked girls in uncomfortable positions leave watchers feel like averting their eyes. While Alex goes through a reformation process he is still slightly disturbed, retching and making belching noises when confronted with violence or sex.

Alex is a hard character for viewers to sympathize with. After seeing what he's done with his life, even after he has been "reformed", viewers don't feel so sorry for Alex. The audience may still think he may not have gotten what he deserved for all the wrong he has done. True, viewers might feel bad when his parents don't let him come live back in their house, but besides that, Alex is an unsympathetic character.

This is a movie that is loved or hated between many viewers. I think it deserves a "C" rating because on the whole, it's a very disturbing movie. I've always wanted to see it just because the name pops up every now and then but this is a movie you rarely watch. I would recommend this movie to those who are okay with uncomfortable movies, like The Black Swan or Trainspotting. While viewers may ponder if the main character, Alex, will ever be okay, the real question is, was he ever okay to begin with?

Dorian Gray

Ben Barnes, Colin Firth

Directed by Oliver Parker

Rating: 1 star

Dorian Gray (Ben Barnes) is an innocent and pure young man. He is easily misguided by Lord Henry Wotton (Colin Firth) and corrupted by Henry's antics. Basil Hallward (Ben Chaplin) wanted to capture Dorian's innocence by painting a portrait. Dorian wishes to trade his soul for his youth and unbeknownst to Dorian, his portrait takes on the sins he later commits. While Dorian remains young for years to come, his portrait grows old and ugly. Upon noticing this, Dorian hides his portrait and continues to live a corrupted life.

An erotic and horribly twisted version of Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray, this movie should never have been made. DO NOT SEE THIS MOVIE. I was deeply disgusted with this version and personally cannot believe someone could make a movie so bad. It was a very sensual and disturbing take on Wilde's novel. Honestly, it was a waste of time. Colin Firth made an embarrassingly bad career move when he took on the role of Lord Henry Wotton. Sure, he played it all right but it was such a horrible movie! And Ben Barnes, while he may be an ideal actor for Dorian Gray, unfortunately not even he could save this movie. The cast was fine, the content however is a different story.

(Warning: next paragraph may be disturbing as I describe some gruesome scenes from the movie.)

The movie had similarities to the book. It's been a while since I read the novel so I can't remember if they strayed too far but they got the main points. However, what wasn't heavily influenced in the book that was put in the movie was Dorian's sex life. What a scandalous young man! In the movie, he has sex with a young girl (teenager, he wasn't a pedophile) and when the mother comes looking for her in the bedroom, the young girl hides under the bed while he has sex with the mother! The ONLY thing I actually laughed at in the movie was the death of Sibyl Vane's brother because it was unexpected. I preferred his death in the book but in the movie it was humorous to see him die by falling in an underground railroad and run over by a train.

I would only recommend viewing this movie if you want to be disturbed.