EUROPEANS (seen on 7-2-2009) - a HBO movie
Director: James Ivory
Awards: Oscar for Costumes
Based on Henry James' novel
"It's the fall of 1850, a few miles outside Boston. The household of the dour Mr. Wentworth receives two unannounced visitors from Europe, Eugenia and Felix, the daughter and son of his half sister. Gertrude, one of Wentworth's two daughters, is instantly infatuated with her cousins, thinking them sophisticated and worldly. She turns her back on the local Unitarian minister, Mr. Brand, who has been calling on her, to delight in the pleasure and amusement Felix offers. Another wealthy neighbor, Mr. Acton, is attracted to Eugenia, who is going through a divorce with a European aristocrat. Are the Americans being used by the penniless Europeans? Or is there real affection?" (IMDB summary)
My comments: 1. Superb period recreation with all its costumes, manners, living style.
2. Filmed in the fall colors of Boston, each frame comes through as a great painting. Achingly beautiful.
3. James' novel now impresses me more as a 'humors' story, with each character flatly representing a typically desirable or despicable quality and not as rounded full-blooded individuals. But even with this artifice, one can glean the refinements and insights that are characteristic to great writing.
Saturday, February 7, 2009
Boys Don't Cry (1999)
BOYS DON'T CRY (seen on 7-2-2009) - a Netflix movie
Director: Kimberly Pierce
Starring: Hilary Swank, Chole Sevigny
Awards: Oscar
Said to be based on a true story in a tiny Nebraska town, this is abt a young woman who cross-dresses as a man with the name Teena Brandon and has fun with boys and girls. When the truth becomes known the boys are outraged and become unreasonably violent towards her and towards the girls who shelter her; they forcibly remove her clothes to confirm that she is a girl, gang rape her and finally (when she goes to the unsympathetic police) kill her off along with the girl who sympathises with her. This tragic end outrages us too, for as a hermophrodite she hasn't hurt anyone aroud.
Director: Kimberly Pierce
Starring: Hilary Swank, Chole Sevigny
Awards: Oscar
Said to be based on a true story in a tiny Nebraska town, this is abt a young woman who cross-dresses as a man with the name Teena Brandon and has fun with boys and girls. When the truth becomes known the boys are outraged and become unreasonably violent towards her and towards the girls who shelter her; they forcibly remove her clothes to confirm that she is a girl, gang rape her and finally (when she goes to the unsympathetic police) kill her off along with the girl who sympathises with her. This tragic end outrages us too, for as a hermophrodite she hasn't hurt anyone aroud.
Friday, February 6, 2009
Girl, Interrupted (1999)
GIRL, INTERRUPTED (seen on 6-2-2009)
Director: James Mangold (of 'Walk the Line' fame)
Starring: Winona Rider, Angelina Jolie (Oscar), Whoopy Goldbertg, Vanessa Redgrave, etc.
It's about the otherwise normal looking people being committed to mental institutions. Reminds you of ONE FLEW OVER CUCKOO'S NEST, but more intense with the screenplay often reaching great heights with its probing quality. This is based on SUSANNA KAYSEN'S novel of the same title. The film version is so good that one wants to go back to the novel and read it also.
Susanna Kaysen (played by Winona Rider) gets sent to a mental institution for what is called borderline personality disorder. But she is intense, sensitive, empathises with others' suffering, and intelligent. We are with her when she raises a number of questions through the film. For one, she asks the psychiatrists there, "borderline between what and what." There are several other memorable moments, but I can't recall the details of these moments. She is often bowled over by the insanity of the doctors themselves in their approach to their wards. At one point her lover visits her and offers escape (from the institution) to Canada but she firmly rejects it because she hates to leave her friends at the institution for whom she feels sorry. She bonds with a number of them and tries to help them in their moments of agony. She especially likes the bold aggressive and often brutally (and dangerously) honest Lisa (played by Jolie) with whom she once runs away. But eventually she is repelled by her brutal and insensitive frankness (causing the suicide of her friend) and returns to the institution. She decides to get well (which meant learning 'control') to leave the institution. She finally leaves but is sad to leave her friends behind. She wants to become a writer. The main reason why one ends up liking the film is its intense and sensitive moments and, of course, its screenplay.
Director: James Mangold (of 'Walk the Line' fame)
Starring: Winona Rider, Angelina Jolie (Oscar), Whoopy Goldbertg, Vanessa Redgrave, etc.
It's about the otherwise normal looking people being committed to mental institutions. Reminds you of ONE FLEW OVER CUCKOO'S NEST, but more intense with the screenplay often reaching great heights with its probing quality. This is based on SUSANNA KAYSEN'S novel of the same title. The film version is so good that one wants to go back to the novel and read it also.
Susanna Kaysen (played by Winona Rider) gets sent to a mental institution for what is called borderline personality disorder. But she is intense, sensitive, empathises with others' suffering, and intelligent. We are with her when she raises a number of questions through the film. For one, she asks the psychiatrists there, "borderline between what and what." There are several other memorable moments, but I can't recall the details of these moments. She is often bowled over by the insanity of the doctors themselves in their approach to their wards. At one point her lover visits her and offers escape (from the institution) to Canada but she firmly rejects it because she hates to leave her friends at the institution for whom she feels sorry. She bonds with a number of them and tries to help them in their moments of agony. She especially likes the bold aggressive and often brutally (and dangerously) honest Lisa (played by Jolie) with whom she once runs away. But eventually she is repelled by her brutal and insensitive frankness (causing the suicide of her friend) and returns to the institution. She decides to get well (which meant learning 'control') to leave the institution. She finally leaves but is sad to leave her friends behind. She wants to become a writer. The main reason why one ends up liking the film is its intense and sensitive moments and, of course, its screenplay.
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Perfect Murder (1998)
PERFECT MURDER (seen on 5-2-2009) - a Netflix movie
Director: Andrew Davis (of "Fugitive" fame)
Starring: Michael Douglas & Gwyneth Paltrow
Thing get snarky when the rich husband plots the murder of his philandering wife with the help of her lover and at the end results in tragic deaths of the murderers themselves. Exciting. Left Mom shaken.
A nice spin on the old Hitchcock thriller, "Dial M for Murder."
Director: Andrew Davis (of "Fugitive" fame)
Starring: Michael Douglas & Gwyneth Paltrow
Thing get snarky when the rich husband plots the murder of his philandering wife with the help of her lover and at the end results in tragic deaths of the murderers themselves. Exciting. Left Mom shaken.
A nice spin on the old Hitchcock thriller, "Dial M for Murder."
The Station Agent (2003)
THE STATION AGENT (seen on 5-2-09) - a Netflix movie
It's about a much despised dwarf who is an object of fun wherever he goes. The movie sets him down in a remote New Jersey village where a clutch of simple people strike friendship with the dwarf whom every body avoids normally. Thus they discover for us the humanity of this object of ridicule and laughter.
We liked it for its simplicity and originality and difference.
"When his only friend dies, a young dwarf named Finbar McBride relocates to an abandoned train station in rural New Jersey, intent on living the life of a hermit. But his solitude is soon interrupted by some of his decent simple neighbors who include a talkative Cuban..." Their friendship with him is touching.
It's about a much despised dwarf who is an object of fun wherever he goes. The movie sets him down in a remote New Jersey village where a clutch of simple people strike friendship with the dwarf whom every body avoids normally. Thus they discover for us the humanity of this object of ridicule and laughter.
We liked it for its simplicity and originality and difference.
"When his only friend dies, a young dwarf named Finbar McBride relocates to an abandoned train station in rural New Jersey, intent on living the life of a hermit. But his solitude is soon interrupted by some of his decent simple neighbors who include a talkative Cuban..." Their friendship with him is touching.
The Hunting Party (2007)
THE HUNTING PARTY (seen on 4-2-2009) - a Netflix movie
Dir.Richard Shepard
**Richard Gere and Terrence Howard (the black actor)
Five years after the Bosnian war, a discredited ace journalist Simon Hunt convinces his successful old friend Duck to join him in the rather improbable venture of hunting down a notorious war criminal (guilty of eliminating thousands of Muslims in Bosnia in what is known as ethnic cleansing) carrying a reward of five million. Hunt gets personally involved in this dangerous venture because his Muslim beloved was brutally murdered by Fox, the wanted war criminal. Along the way he is shocked to find that the international community--the NATO, the UN, and the CIA itself who have brokered peace in Bosnia--aren't interested in catching Fox although they have put a hefty reward on his head; in fact, they even protect the dreaded war criminal from being caught. So when Hunt miraculously succeeds (after many a brush with death) in catching Fox, he decides to bring the dreaded criminal into the midst of the Muslim Bosnia and leave him there to be punished there by the mobs.
The imaginative title plays upon the ironies of situation with both its words--'hunting' and 'party', what with the weak helpless journalist Hunt setting out on an impossible mission while the CIA, the UN, NATO stationed in Bosnia, with the best of resources at its command hypocritically sit ducks pretending to do something they are not doing. Is it a 'party' they were having!!
***
Dir.Richard Shepard
**Richard Gere and Terrence Howard (the black actor)
Five years after the Bosnian war, a discredited ace journalist Simon Hunt convinces his successful old friend Duck to join him in the rather improbable venture of hunting down a notorious war criminal (guilty of eliminating thousands of Muslims in Bosnia in what is known as ethnic cleansing) carrying a reward of five million. Hunt gets personally involved in this dangerous venture because his Muslim beloved was brutally murdered by Fox, the wanted war criminal. Along the way he is shocked to find that the international community--the NATO, the UN, and the CIA itself who have brokered peace in Bosnia--aren't interested in catching Fox although they have put a hefty reward on his head; in fact, they even protect the dreaded war criminal from being caught. So when Hunt miraculously succeeds (after many a brush with death) in catching Fox, he decides to bring the dreaded criminal into the midst of the Muslim Bosnia and leave him there to be punished there by the mobs.
The imaginative title plays upon the ironies of situation with both its words--'hunting' and 'party', what with the weak helpless journalist Hunt setting out on an impossible mission while the CIA, the UN, NATO stationed in Bosnia, with the best of resources at its command hypocritically sit ducks pretending to do something they are not doing. Is it a 'party' they were having!!
***
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Possession (2002)
POSSESSION (seen on 4-2-2009) - a Netflix movie.
This is about the love that blossoms between an American scholar (Aaron Eckhart) and the thrice-removed English descendant (Gwyneth Paltrow) of Christabel LaMotte, the Victorian era poet. They are brought together by their research into a secret affair between the nineteenth century poets, Randolf Ash and Christabel LaMotte who is believed to be a chaste spinster, while latter a married man devoted to his wife. Their work blossoms into a love while they together discover the hither-to unknown affair between the Victorian poets.
The treatment and the narrative held our interest. Good
This is about the love that blossoms between an American scholar (Aaron Eckhart) and the thrice-removed English descendant (Gwyneth Paltrow) of Christabel LaMotte, the Victorian era poet. They are brought together by their research into a secret affair between the nineteenth century poets, Randolf Ash and Christabel LaMotte who is believed to be a chaste spinster, while latter a married man devoted to his wife. Their work blossoms into a love while they together discover the hither-to unknown affair between the Victorian poets.
The treatment and the narrative held our interest. Good
Secret Window (2004)
SECRET WINDOW (seen on 3-2-2009) - a Netflix movie
Director: David Koepp
Starring: Johnny Depp
Based on Stephen King's novel
This movie is a bit of puzzle in that it begs the question of a writer confronted by a strange stalker who threateningly accuses him of plagiarising a story he published years ago. The truth of the matter was that he published his story prior to the stalker's and quite obviously there is no case for plagiarism. The film narrative makes this loud and clear at the beginning. This probably is a strategy to force us to read the story as an allegory. Whatever.
Mort Rainey (played by Johnny Depp) the writer faced with a bloc is distraught when a weird stranger begins to annoy him by menacingly nagging him to the fix the ending of his story, "Secret Window", as a punishment for plagiarism. (I must see the film again to vet by vibes about it, because I missed the part that suggests what the story was about) When he goes into a denial mode, the stalker persists and even burns down the house he gave to his ex-wife with whom he is now involved in the painful process of seeking a divorce (she took another man because he, according to her, was always 'lost'). After stiff resistence from him, he is finally cowed down and cornered (isn't that what happens to a writer who sits down painfully rewrite his own published and finished writing!!) and sledgehammered into "fixing" the ending. In the process he becomes the aggressive and violent stalker himself, donns the stalker's hat, and, in his new avatar, he owns up the two murders that his psychotic stalker (played by John Torturro) committed and, quite unlike his normal soft self, kills his ex-wife as well as her lover. After this he is at peace with himself.
The films is based on a novella by horrormeister Stephen King and is directed by David Koepp.
Director: David Koepp
Starring: Johnny Depp
Based on Stephen King's novel
This movie is a bit of puzzle in that it begs the question of a writer confronted by a strange stalker who threateningly accuses him of plagiarising a story he published years ago. The truth of the matter was that he published his story prior to the stalker's and quite obviously there is no case for plagiarism. The film narrative makes this loud and clear at the beginning. This probably is a strategy to force us to read the story as an allegory. Whatever.
Mort Rainey (played by Johnny Depp) the writer faced with a bloc is distraught when a weird stranger begins to annoy him by menacingly nagging him to the fix the ending of his story, "Secret Window", as a punishment for plagiarism. (I must see the film again to vet by vibes about it, because I missed the part that suggests what the story was about) When he goes into a denial mode, the stalker persists and even burns down the house he gave to his ex-wife with whom he is now involved in the painful process of seeking a divorce (she took another man because he, according to her, was always 'lost'). After stiff resistence from him, he is finally cowed down and cornered (isn't that what happens to a writer who sits down painfully rewrite his own published and finished writing!!) and sledgehammered into "fixing" the ending. In the process he becomes the aggressive and violent stalker himself, donns the stalker's hat, and, in his new avatar, he owns up the two murders that his psychotic stalker (played by John Torturro) committed and, quite unlike his normal soft self, kills his ex-wife as well as her lover. After this he is at peace with himself.
The films is based on a novella by horrormeister Stephen King and is directed by David Koepp.
The Name of the Rose (1986)
THE NAME OF THE ROSE (seen on 3-2-2009)
Original title of the film: Der Name der Rose
Director: Jean Jacques Annaud
Starring: Sean Connery
Imp: The IMDB tagline "who in the name of God gets away with murder" is the key
to the title and the theme of the film.
Based on Umberto Eco's best-selling novel, this films takes us to a Renaissance (14th century) Franciscon monastery to expose its perversions and superstitious practices. Interestingly Sean Connery who plays the lead role of William of Baskerville also plays (giving resonance to his name here reminding us of Doyle's novel, Hound of Baskerville), true to his film image, a Bond here to unearth the medieval corrupt practices in what is supposed to be a holy place. In this film he even defies the powerful Inquisition's verdict of condemning the innocent to stake (unlike in Shaw's St. Joan where the inveterate rationalist never swerves from his path of reason in dealing with the blind but powerful medieval Inquisition) and vindicates the truth. The title's suggestion that the rose--in this case the notion of an austere but erudite way of life of the monks at a Francison monastery--belies the name and notion it is meant to communicate, it seems to me, is justified by the theme of the film.
Original title of the film: Der Name der Rose
Director: Jean Jacques Annaud
Starring: Sean Connery
Imp: The IMDB tagline "who in the name of God gets away with murder" is the key
to the title and the theme of the film.
Based on Umberto Eco's best-selling novel, this films takes us to a Renaissance (14th century) Franciscon monastery to expose its perversions and superstitious practices. Interestingly Sean Connery who plays the lead role of William of Baskerville also plays (giving resonance to his name here reminding us of Doyle's novel, Hound of Baskerville), true to his film image, a Bond here to unearth the medieval corrupt practices in what is supposed to be a holy place. In this film he even defies the powerful Inquisition's verdict of condemning the innocent to stake (unlike in Shaw's St. Joan where the inveterate rationalist never swerves from his path of reason in dealing with the blind but powerful medieval Inquisition) and vindicates the truth. The title's suggestion that the rose--in this case the notion of an austere but erudite way of life of the monks at a Francison monastery--belies the name and notion it is meant to communicate, it seems to me, is justified by the theme of the film.
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