Movies, Drama
A few years after the Second World War, a young writer moves from Virginia to New York. Rents are too high in Manhattan. (Doesn’t this sound familiar?). So he settles in Brooklyn, renting a room from an elderly lady in a pink Victorian house that seems to attract eccentric people like a light pulp attracts flies. Among the roomers are Sophie (Meryll Streep) and Nathan (Kevin Kline), who are lovers and quickly become the aspiring writerSophie’s Choice
Movies, Drama
I had no knowledge what the film was about. After an an intense day of work, I needed to distract myself and The Sea Inside seemed to be the most promising motion picture on the new title shelf in the video store. I would have written a somewhat different review, had I not found out after seeing the film that it was based on the real-life story of Spaniard Ramon Sampedro, who fought a 30-year campaign in favor of euthanasia and his own right to die. As a real-life story, the hands of the writer and director Alejandro AmenThe Sea Inside
Movies, Drama
Five years ago “The Sopranos” became a surprise TV hit on HBO. Who would have guessed that America would tune in every week to watch the family life of a New Jersey mafia family “cope” with the challenges of upper middle class while keeping a crime ring running. Even for a mafia family it is tough to get the manipulative grandma into a retiring home, the teenage son onto the football team and the daughter into Columbia university. Having the police breath down daddy’s neck is not helping either. The show was exceedingly well conceived and written. The creators had a good ear for contemporary American culture. A couple of weeks ago, I began to watch Season 5 on DVD. But after two shows I gave up. The team of directors and writers were simply out of ideas to make the show move forward with dramatic force. Good night Anthony Jr., good night Meadow, good night Camilla, good night Tony… The first four seasons will always remain one of the highpoints in the history of TV.Farewell to “The Sopranos”
Movies, Phantasy
The Island takes you on a surprising trip. You think that you will end up on a tropical paradise, but the films takes you to lands that you never expected. And it will make you think about your own life in ways that you may have never dared before. It’s a journey worth taking.The Island
Movies, Drama
Julia (Annette Benning) is the leading theatre actress in England of 1938. She is in midlife and she is bored. Her husband (Jeremy Irons), who owns the theatre in which she performs and with whom she enjoys a perfectly sexless marriage, introduces her to a young American fan, Tom. Tom confesses his love for Julia and seduces her. Old England seems to be saved by the vitality of young America. Before long, young America turns out to be recklessly deceitful and Julia finds herself deeply disappointed. For over an hour, I was quite bored by an uninspired portrait of theatre life in London and a superficial juxtaposition of English aristocratic values and American entrepreneurial cunning. But then Julia surprises everyone, including herself. Delivering a performance of a lifetime, Annette Benning restores the honor of England at least in this movie. In reality, England went on the lose its empire and America took its place as the leading nation in the world.Being Julia
Movies, Comedy
Mike Binder, who wrote, directed, and played a small part in The Upside of Anger, successfully pushes the boundaries of the “romantic comedy” genre. The humor takes place on a thick background of anger, despair and sadness. Terry Wolfmeyer (Joan Allen), an elegant suburban woman with four daughters ranging between the ages of 13 to 22 suffers an all too common fate of middle-age wives: the husband just takes off from one day to the next. Terry is devasted by the thought that the father of her four children would run off with his young Swedish secretary. She becomes an alocoholic, barely managing to keep her household going. She is full of anger, letting it out on her four children and the former baseball star, now low-life, neighbor Denny (Kevin Costner). What makes this film watchable is that it frequently creates funny dialogs between the angry Terry, her headstrong children, and the Danny, who quickly has second thoughts about getting her into the sack.The Upside of Anger
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