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!
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 But unlike the later film, Terms of Endearment does not feel out of date.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.
Norbit
Eddie Murphy latest comic film brings Cinderella into the hood. Little Norbit grows up in an orphanage. His bliss comes to end when his buddy Kate gets adopted. Norbit is not the smartest fellow in the universe. But who says that Cinderella was a genius. This film has very funny scenes and at times is even moving. Murphy wrote, and directed the film, in addition to playing three different people, adult Norbit, his fat wife, and the Chinese owner of the orphanage.
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The Namesake
Biographical films often stumble precisely because they try to cover an entire lifetime. The viewer finds it disorienting when multiple actors play one and the same person during childhood, teenage years, adulthood and old age. Just when you have gotten used to a person and learned enough to feel a connection with her, a new actor severs the emotional tie you have developed to the character. Compressing a lifetime into 120 minutes makes it difficult to cover any period in sufficient detail that you feel you learned enough about the character to understand his or her actions. The Namesakesolves these challenges by only covering the first 30 years of Gogol’s life and by giving his parents, who are always played by same actors, equal standing in the film. The trailer for the film gave no hint that The Namesake is a marvelous film about the challenges of growing up in America as second-generation Indian immigrants. The film will be appeal beyond the large Indian immigrant community because the screenplay is based on a book by a Pulitzer Prize-winning author (Jhumpa Lahiri) who has a sharp eye and vivid imagination. I was so impressed with the story that I will buy Lahiri’s collection of short stories for which she received the Pulitzer Prize.
Shooter
Shooter is a reaction to the shenanigans of the Bush administration. Inspired by the deeds of Dick Cheney and his neo-conservative fellow travelers, the film suggests that a few powerful officials can manipulate the entire machinery of government to pursue policies that would never be condoned if the public truly understood what is going on. In Shooter, a senator gets away with organizing the assassination a foreign leader who is sitting next to the president. Recruited to help protect the president, a former special operations soldier (the shooter, aka Mark Wallberg), is getting framed for the assassination. When justice is not available to the Shooter, he follows the West traditions and takes justice his own hands, killing the conspirators. The premise of the entire film is unrealistic. Now that the public has realized that it was duped into believing the IRAQ war was necessary, the Bush government would not succeed in getting the U.S. into an unnecessary war.
Breach
Breach chronicles how the mot damaging traitor in the history of the FBI was caught. This film has non of action sequences that made Shooter suspenseful. Robert Hanssen, who sold very important secrets to the Soviet Union, is portrayed as deeply religious catholic man who goes to church every day. The film implicitly suggests that no direct link exists between religiosity and moral behavior. What the film cannot answer, perhaps because such a question cannot be answered at all, is why a person like Hanssen would betray his country and send American spies in the Soviet Union to their death. One is left with the realization that human behavior in some cases defies all explanation. For a culture that prizes coming up with reasons for everything this is a bit hard to swallow.
Flags of our Fathers
A few weeks ago, I sang the highest praises for Clint Eastwood’s Letters from Iwo Jima. My expectation was that Eastwood’sFlags of our Fathers would be an equally good movie, telling the story of the battle for Iwo Jima from the American side. To my great surprise, the prequel is stunningly inferior to Letters from Iwo Jima. The story of Flags of our Fathers seems historically inaccurate. The war scenes appear staged as if it had a much smaller budget than Letters from Iwo Jima. Both films are anti-war movies but in Flags of our Fathers the anti-war message feels contrived. On all levels [i[Letters from Iwo Jima is superior to Flags of our Fathers. It is almost impossible to believe that the same director and to some extent the same screenplay writer (Paul Haggis) are responsible for both films. The fact that the same people could make films of so different quality goes to show that the original story behind the film is crucial for making a great film. Iris Yamashita, the lead writer for [i[Letters from Iwo Jima wrote a better screenplay than then her partner, Paul Haggis, who was more responsible for Flags of our Fathers.
Bridge to Terabithia
Many people claim that it is harder to make good friends when you are an adult. I am not sure if this is true. Adults, perhaps having been disappointed more than once, may be less open than the average child to let a new person into their lives. The film celebrates the power of friendship and the human imagination. Leslie, the daughter of two writers, has a mind so fertile with imaginary images that she can teach Jesse how to leave behind reality and create their own make-believe. The two become best friends until something tragic happens. It is a great film for children, but it also has some sad moments that might be a bit depressing for too young children.
The Painted Veil
The film starts out slow and seems predictable. But after thirty minutes it takes unexpected turns. Beautiful landscape photos of China and a novel approach to fixing relationship problems give this movie considerable charm. This is the second film version of W. Somerset Maugham novel by the same name. Naomi Watt now has the role that was played by Greta Garbo in the 1934 film.
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