Hairspray
This comic musical is a lot of fun! It is not the history lesson about the struggle to integrate black people into mainstream America that captured my heart. I also did not laugh much. The film is not particularly funny. But the music and dancing is so infectious that many a times I wanted to leap from my chair and start moving my entire body. The choreography is flawless. My body is still moving to the sound of this wonderfully sexy film.
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The Bourne Ultimatum
How would you feel if you suddenly found out that you were a totally different person until a few years ago and if you did not remember anything about your previous life? (My fear is that I might discover out that I was George Bush. 
) For two installments Jason Bourne has been trying to recover his personal history. So far his enemies have prevented him for finding out who is really was before he lost his memory. In this third episode Bourne pulls out all the stops to discover his identity. This is the best action movie of the summer. Paul Greengrass directs the film with a sure hand, changing the pace frequently enough for the viewer to breath before the next action sequence glues you back into your seat.
Blades of Glory
This newest effort by Will Farrell is not nearly as funny as Bodega Nights. The basic idea behind the movie has some charms. Let’s use the gender wars to go for a real gender bender. Two guys compete in the Olympic pair ice-skating competition. I have been told many times that the top female player on the tennis circuit would have not chance against any of the top forty players on the men’s circuit. But in ice dance you imagine that female grace will make it impossible for two guys to win over the judges and win the gold medal in pair ice-skating.
Premonition
Sandra Bullocks plays a good-looking mother who is visited by the most awful kind of deja vu experiences you can imagine. She no longer knows what is real and what is simply a hallucination. I was moved by the film because it artfully highlights how we can quickly fall apart when our brains are no longer able to provide one coherent take on reality in which earlier events happen earlier and later event happen later—where we can remember things in the right order. Speaking of deja vu moments. The other day I sat next to a lady at dinner and I thought I had seen her many times. My brain is now scanning memories for her Doppelgaenger. She agreed to meet her if I can find the twin. I am curious to see their reactions when they first meet because they look eerily alike. Twins separated at birth without them knowing it? Uhhh.
Wild Hogs
This is probably the most inane movie I have seen in a long time. The characters are fake; the story is shallow. But here comes the real shocker: the viewing public made the film the bestselling DVD in month of September. Famous actors (Tim Allen, John Travolta, Martin Lawrence, William H. Macy, Ray Liotta, Marisa Tomei) seem to be able to sell stupid movies!
Ingmar Bergman, Famed Film Director, Dies at 89
By MERVYN ROTHSTEIN (NY Times)
Ingmar Bergman, the
Silbermond “Das Beste”
In a coffee house in Germany, this song drew my attention away from answering emails. Silvermond is a band that is billed as “punk rock.” You listen to the song. This is not punk in my mind. For all you romantics out there who understand German, watch the video of the song below. And if you are in really really in love right now, if you have butterflies in you stomach, think about him or her all the time, then send your Romeo or Julia a link this song. To view the video, click here.
George Bush’s Mea Culpa
MAUREEN DOWD (NYT) ghostwrites George’s Bush “Mea culpa.” Don’t hold your breath. Nothing of the sort will ever come out of George Bush’s mouth.
Who’s Sorry Now?
There’s not much lately that we’d like to import from China.
Certainly not the yummy steamed buns stuffed with shredded cardboard soaked in a caustic agent used to make soap. Or the tasty toothpaste laced with an antifreeze ingredient. Or the scrumptious seafood with a chemical kick. Or those pet foods with kibbles and bits of poison.
But there is one thing made in China we could use: mea culpas of high officials.
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Terms of Endearment
It is difficult to put this film into standard categories. I would call it a tragic comedy. Set in Texas and Iowa in the 1960s, the film wonderfully captures the life and transformation of middle class America. The constant bickering between the mother (Shirley MacLaine) and her daughter (Debra Winger) reminded me of A Streetcar Named Desire with Marlon Brando. But unlike the later film, Terms of Endearment does not feel out of date. It covers about 30 years in the life of tough-minded mother and strong-willed daughter. It has moments of great beauty. Jack Nicolson plays the mother’s austronaut neigbour, who not only chases young girls, but also develops a taste for the mother after she has her first grandchild.
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In the Land of Women
Terrible, terrible, even for an airplane movie! The movie is lame, cheesy and uninspired. Carter gets dumped by his famous L.A. girlfriend. Next he moves in with his ailing grandmother to write a novel about his high school time he has not been able to write for the past 8 years. Confirming that location is as important for romantic success as it is in retailing, Carter’s grandmother lives next door to a gorgeous mother (Meg Ryan) and her even more beautiful 16-year-old-daugther. This love triangle leads to predictable conflict. At the end grandma is dead, the mother continues her suburban life, and the daughter realizes that she loves the best friend of her former boyfriend, and not Carter. As far Carter is concerned, he returns home with a solid manuscript, but is not longer with any woman.
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