Movies, Drama
The film highlights powerfully that in the European and American mind a black African life is worth less than a white life. A catastrophy that kills 500 Europeans is emotionally judged to be worse than the killing of 500,000 Africans. The latter event hardly makes the news. Don Cheadle stars in the true-life story of Paul Rusesabagina, a hotel manager who housed over a thousand Tutsis refugees during their struggle against the Hutu militia in Rwanda. The acting is spotty. Cheadle is superb, but Nick Nolte, for example, delivers a ghastly performance as an UN colonel. Roman Polanksi directed The Pianist with a sure hand, showing the right amount of cruelty and brutality to neither trivialize the suffering portrayed in the movie nor to numb the viewer. The ending of Hotel Rwanda trivializes everything you witnessed earlier.Hotel Rwanda
Movies, Phantasy
Would Pixar Studios be able to put out another movie in the league of Finding Nemo? During the first hour I became skeptical but the second hour proved this film to be amazingly good as well. I am awed by the creativity of Pixar. How do these people continue to crank out one commercial and artistic hit after another? The Incredibles manages to mix Superman, Spiderman, Catwoman, Speed, The Matrix, James Bond, and Austin Powers all into one film. Incredible, isnThe Incredibles
Movies, Documentary
Robert McNamara was a cold warrior with a soft heart. He led the Pentagon under John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson until the disagreements between Johnson and McNamara over Vietnam became too large. This film is one long interview with McNamara. The subtitle of the documentary is “Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara.” The lessons he has to offer are profound and some of them you have never heard before. I don’t want to give away some of the amazing things that he reports. Anyone living in the 21 century should see what McNamara has witnessed in his lifetime.The Fog of War
Movies, Drama
Is it more accurate to see life as a comedy or a tragedy? This is philosophical question gives Woody Allen the hook to explore the complications that arise when an old friend shows up at her friend’s dinner party with more than a little bit of baggage. I was intrigued enough to take another look at Woody Allen who has become too repetitive for me in recent years. The film gives you a few good laughs, particularly when Will FarrellMelinda and Melinda
Movies, Drama
Closer is depressing in every respect. Nobody gets closer to love, to beauty, to understanding. Not the writer of the script (Patrick Marber), not the director (Mike Nichols), not the viewer (you and me). Watching the film, I felt real anxiety about getting old. Almost 40 years ago Mike Nichols directed Who is Afraid of Virginia Wolf, a wonderful movie based on a play in the same name. Both movies focus on psychological warfare that can break out in relationships. But Closer has lost all sense of psychological believability, drowned out by what I now fear to be the tragic desires of old age. As a young man, Nichols had clear before his eyes that a highnoon shootout in a relationship is all the clashing of personalities, life plans, accomplishments and backgrounds. Skip Closer and get closer in Who is Afraid of Virginia Wolf.Closer
Movies, Drama
On an abstract level all novels are either stories about travel or character development. The first half of The Motor Cycle Diaries falls solidly in the travel category. Not being burdened by responsibilities for others, two young people decide to take a motorcycle tour through the different countries of South America. The camera captures arresting pictures of the landscape that made me want to pack up my bags and see the continent with my own eyes. Somewhat unexpectedly the second half of the movie tries to become a film about character development. At the end we are told that one of the two became a famous political figure. The character development mission of the film failed utterly to prepare me for what one of the two men ended up doing in life.The Motorcycle Diaries
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