An Amazing Nordic Tale
David Brooks reports an amazing Nordic Tale that I want to see made into a movie.
The Hard and the Soft (NY Times)
The United States, a nation of 300 million, won nine gold medals this year in the Winter Olympics. Norway, a nation of 4.7 million, also won nine. This was no anomaly. Over the years, Norwegians have won more gold medals in Winter Games, and more Winter Olympics medals over all, than people from any other nation.
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Up in the Air
What is a perfect night at the movies? A splendid dinner before! Short ticket lines! Then a surprisingly deep film with George Clooney in the lead! The words “deep” and “George Clooney” typically don’t go hand in hand. But a strong novel by Walter Kirn and a director (Jason Reitman) who can bring into focus at the same time life’s joys and disappointments provide a platform for Clooney to deliver a compelling performance. Clooney is Ryan Bingham who travels some 320 days a year from one American city to another to fire people on behalf of their employer. Once in a while he also gives motivational speeches that have become so popular in many American hotel conference rooms. Among the 300 odd million Americans, there may not be a single person who completely fits Bingham’s profile of being rather content although he has no family, no significant other, no close friends, and not even place to come home to.
Somebody’s Mother
by The woman was old and ragged and gray
And bent with the chill of the Winter’s day.
The street was wet with a recent snow
And the woman’s feet were aged and slow.
She stood at the crossing and waited long,
Alone, uncared for, amid the throng
Of human beings who passed her by
Nor heeded the glance of her anxious eye.
Tiger Woods 15-minute Apology
Parts of the 15-minute “mea culpa” are cheesy. But other parts are remarkable. Tiger claims that he never took performance enhancing drugs and that his wife never hit him.
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Candy
The first half of the film was so painful to watch that I considered turning off the DVD player. Strangely enough when words on the screen announce that we are now entering HELL (this is after the two lovers Dan (Heath Ledger) and Candy (Abbie Cornish), according to earlier words of the screen, were in HEAVEN and then came down to EARTH), moments of poetry give us reprieve from the self-destructive ways of two beautiful junkies. For the most part, it is simply depressing to see two young people throw away their lives because of drugs. Now that Heath Ledger is dead after too many drugs found their way into his blood, the film is even more painful. Candy is worse than bitter sweet. Don’t try it.
Romance in the Age of Facebook
Here is a great story by Joe Flint in the LA Times about the challenges about starting and ending a romance with facebook.
More than just Facebook friended
Two longtime acquaintances connect on the website, and it’s like a whirlwind—it sweeps them up together and then hurls them apart.
It was my first romance of the Facebook era. With it came the promise of contact, the ecstasy of connection, the neurosis of being able to peer into her world when she wasn’t looking and the torment of trying to figure out what she was thinking through her status updates and posts.
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Girl Power comes to Texas. Drew Barrymore’s directorial debut is weak. But I enjoyed learning about the sport Roller Dirby. I had never seen it before. The sport is a bit rough yet fun to watch. Hey, what do you expect of Texas!
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An Education
The skill of con artists is not specialized to particular types of people. The best of them such as Bernie Madoff in recent times fool almost everyone. That is what makes them so dangerous. Teenage girls falling for the bad guy is not news. But parents falling for the bad guy is an underexplored theme in the movies. If you are a parent of a teenage daughter, this film will be an educational experience. It does a very nice job in capturing the mood of 1960s Britain. We follow the journey to adulthood of a 16-year-old daughter who comes from a lower middle class family. Father and mother’s only wish for their talented daughter is to attend Oxford. But suddenly a much older man appears on their doorstep and he shakes the very foundations of this socially ambitious family.
UP
It is difficult not to repeat myself in reviewing Pixar movies. Once again the studio has made a superb film. Unlike many sequel franchises that tend go downhill pretty quickly, Pixar’s line of films is one wonder after another. Like all the other Pixar films, UP works for young and old. This time even the very old. See this movie with the entire family and embark on a marvelous adventure to South America.
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