Skip to main content

Man On Wire

Man On Wire is an auspicious documentary that follows a french man's dream of walking on a high wire between the World Trade Center in the 70's. It was quite an astonishing feat when it occured, making headlines worldwide. You need only Google the name Philippe Petit to find endless articles on all his high wire acts.

The main story told is the WTC act, but stories of his other feats are also intertwined so that we get a sense of who he is and what other things he has accomplished. We discover that Philippe is a passionate man, one filled with hopes and dreams, and it was his dream as a young child to one day cross these immense towers... towers that at the time were not even constructed yet.

The story is similar to something right out of a heist movie a la Ocean's 11 or The Bank Job, with a clearly defined goal outlined in the beginning and then quickly assembling a team of experts for each task that needs to be completed.

As Philippe recounts the story, we are filled with suspense as more details, difficulties and challenges are revealed. It's sort of like watching a prequel or some movie where you know what's going to happen in the end, but it's so gripping that you're never sure and you want to see how the hero gets to the finish line.

Director James Marsh fills the movie with re-enactments of some of the difficulties that Philippe and his team went through. This was an interesting approach to telling the story, and if anything, helped put the audience in the situation and flesh out the intensity that the team went through.

After watching the movie you couldn't help but feel inspired having watched a man gracefully live out his childhood dream. The ending is even more charming as he tells us what happened after he was arrested. Philippe encourages people to never stop chasing those dreams.

The movie is available on DVD and I urge you to check it out if you want to see a heartwarming true story. Check out the trailer found here. Later geeks.
Labels:

Comments

Beka said…
I like heartwarming movies :)
December 8, 2008 at 3:59 PM
Beka said…
P.S I just read this through again, and laughed to myself again, with the first sentence.
The word "auspicious" makes me laugh every time now. You'll have to ask Keith why.
December 9, 2008 at 12:21 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The League of Denial (2013)

The topic of concussions in sports is a dialogue that’s been growing the past number of years.  Do a search on ‘concussions’ and ‘football’ and you’ll get several thousand hits on the controversy that’s surrounded the sport.  It’s a challenging topic as the research is all relatively new, and the topic itself challenges the mentality and philosophy adopted by football loving Americans.  Now, I’m not a fan of football or NFL but when I saw this book lying at the local bookstore, my interest was piqued.  Although I’m not a fan of football, those that know me know that I’m an unabashed fan of prowrestling.  Talks about concussions are also quite a hot topic even within the prowrestling sub-culture.  Earlier this year, one of the hottest wrestlers of the current era, Daniel Bryan, retired early at the age of 34 due to a history of concussion related issues.  Interestingly, he was not permitted to return to the ring due to the disapproval by WWE’s medic...
1 comment
Read more

Finally, the Xbox 360!!

So as I mentioned in a previous post, I received an Xbox 360 for Christmas from my dad. A great present it was! I've had 3 weeks to enjoy it so I guess I can give you my impressions of it now. First the controller. In truth, I haven't felt a controller this comfortable in my gaming life before. As a child who grew up on the 8-bit generation, with just a directional pad and 2 buttons, there was quite a learning curve getting used to using two analog sticks at the same time. You might say, "Hey Lam, how bout the PS2? You have that machine, and that has analog sticks". True, but of the twenty or so games I have for that, all of them used either only 1 analog stick, or allowed the option to switch on to the directional pad. Using 2 sticks at the same time was at first just uncomfortable. This made for all sorts of trouble as I was playing Gears of War . Luckily for me, I had computer controlled teammates that watched my back. I love the Media Center capabilities...
6 comments
Read more

MAX PAYNE was oh so PAYNEFUL!!!

What a failure this was. An EPIC FAILURE~! And I'll tell you why. This movie had everything going for it which was why it made the failure seem so huge. It had star power. It had a very competent director. The visual style was there. It had a simple storyline... a storyline that was basically fuck-proof because it's so basic. The effects (when there were any) were also pretty great. So where did they go wrong? Pacing. If the first two-thirds of the film was like the last third, I think it would have been a fine film. Not great by any means, but fine. I mean, there was hardly any action in the first hour. It was all talk and build up. Every 5 minutes I was saying to myself, "okay, something cool is gonna happen now". But it never came. I think had they added 2 or 3 big action sequences during that hour, that it would have helped the film breathe and flow better. I mean, didn't they realize that the source material was an action game? Max Payne is ba...
7 comments
Read more