All reviews - Movies (88) - TV Shows (1) - Books (29)

Pretentious and Pyschodelic

Posted : 9 months, 1 week ago on 11 November 2007 06:45 (A review of Pi)

Pi is the story of a man with a possible mental illness and his obsession with numbers and some serious paranoia and hallucinations. First, it's filmed in black and white, and I tend to find that annoying. It's a cheap way of standing out without displaying any substance. From then on the movie is an film school project. The story is basic and overdone. The film is all about film techniques and not about the story or the acting. Good soundtrack. This tends to be a movie people either love or think is stupid. I am of the latter (my husband is of the former, don't tell him I didn't like it!)

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Full Throttle Cute

Posted : 9 months, 2 weeks ago on 3 November 2007 09:08 (A review of Martian Child)

Sweet movie about a widower who ends up adopting a slightly odd child. What I liked about the movie the most was they knew what the good stuff was...John Cusack bonding with the peculiar and cute kid. They didn't waste a lot of time on the overused plot devices to turn the "cute" scenes into a story. When the story begins, Cusack has been a widower for a couple of years and has already thought about adopting, they didn't spend half an hour getting us to this point, more like 5 minutes. It was nice for a change to see a movie filled with people I would actually like to know.

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Nothing New

Posted : 9 months, 2 weeks ago on 3 November 2007 08:57 (A review of Akeelah and the Bee)

The story of a young girl in South LA, who has a talent for learning to spell, and how she ends up at the National Spelling Bee. The story is heart-warming, and very predictable. Good Will Hunting, for the Junior High set ... only not as engaging or fleshed out. Fishburne and Bassett end up playing such cardboard characters and their talents are not used to their potentials. Sweet, but very forgetable.

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Scenes of Home

Posted : 10 months, 3 weeks ago on 30 September 2007 04:46 (A review of Ichiban utsukushî natsu)

I rented this movie because it starts out in Nagoya, a city that I occasionally visited when I lived in Japan. Little did I know that the rest of the movie would take place in the mountains that I lived near. And the cinematography was quite good! It's a simple story of a rebellious teenager sent to live with family up in the mountains, and how she becomes attached to a very old relative with increasing Alzheimer's Disease. The dialog was sparse (so I actually was able to understand a great deal of it without reading the subtitles) and they let the simple story be revealed through actions and moods more than words. This is not a movie for folks who need a lot of action, but if you are in the mood for something simple and sweet, this does a lovely job.

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Not As Enjoyable

Posted : 11 months ago on 25 September 2007 06:33 (A review of Children of God (Ballantine Reader's Circle))

As the sequel to The Sparrow, this book is very different from the first one. This one is filled with more political machinations and personal intrigues. In the first book, there really were no "bad guys", and rotten things usually happened by mistake or bad luck. This book however had some completely immoral things happen with forethought and deliberately. Although the characters were still well written, and the author took us to some interesting places in a very thoughtful way.

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Greek Mythology in interesting form

Posted : 11 months ago on 19 September 2007 10:50 (A review of The Dawn Palace)

Ms. Hunter takes some of the various myths surround Medea (not Medusa, with the snakes for hair) and weaves an interesting novel. Turns out it was written for young adults, but I didn't realize this until the book was over. Which just goes to show that it was never juvenile. Although I know some Greek Mythology, my knowledge of Medea was name recognition only. The author was able to create an interesting character, with flaws and strengths that kept me interested and craving to know more. I always like books that have a great story, but when it's over I have absorbed lots of knowledge without being lectured to. This book fits this bill beautifully.

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Beautiful and Low Key

Posted : 11 months ago on 19 September 2007 08:15 (A review of Good Night, and Good Luck)

Good Night, and Good Luck concerns Edward R. Murrow's decision to expose the McCarthy trials and the Government's hunt for Communists as outrageous and unconstitutional. As Murrow and CBS were up against very powerful people, this was quite risky. The movie is beautiful, taking full advantage of what Black and White can do, and enjoying the stylishness of the 1950's. It's a very smart movie, using rich vocabulary and not leading the audience around by the nose. And the music is not only excellent, but truly adds to the feel of the movie. With all that said, I have to admit to feeling let down by the story. I found it dry. It's as if they reshot a documentary, with fabulous film, sound and editing. I wish I had liked this sparseness, but I just never got involved with the characters, and didn't care how the movie ended.

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A Night of Frustration

Posted : 11 months, 1 week ago on 13 September 2007 07:08 (A review of The Death of Mr. Lazarescu)

This was a very well made movie, with interesting dilemmas in it. But be prepared to be frustrated. You follow along as a lonely old man decides he's sick enough to call for help. You see as he talks to his neighbors, gets assessed by the paramedics, and transported to emergency room, diagnostics and finally surgery and how everyone has an opinion about his health. But it's not so simple as that. You get to see people in the medical field work, some very helpful, some dismissive. It's very documentary in style, and in that way a very slow and deliberate movie. And although this is a Romanian film (with subtitles), this could easily be anywhere in the world. Everyone along the way has to make choices, including the patient. And this movie reminds you that of that huge web, and multitudes of outcomes of all those choices.

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No Redemption

Posted : 11 months, 2 weeks ago on 5 September 2007 01:54 (A review of Camberwell Beauty)

This is the story of two women who live on the same street and their families become friends. One woman is an all out bitch, and the other a door mat. The characters were well defined, and sometimes interesting, but the only reason to read about such unlikable people is for some sort of karma to bite them in the butt, and for their to be some sort of redemption. But that feeling never comes about. And maybe that makes for a more unusual book, but the book contains way too much bitching and moaning for that to work here. Unless you enjoy other people's whining I recommend you stay away from this book.

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Interesting and Exotic

Posted : 11 months, 3 weeks ago on 4 September 2007 08:46 (A review of Shiva's Fire)

Don't dismiss this book because it was written for young adults. The story of a girl who was born in India during an usual natural disaster. She has unusual skills and there are some mystical things that happen when she is around. But basically she is consumed by the thought of dancing. The story follows her life through her childhood and dancing school years. The mood and setting are beautifully written and the story is interesting and unusual. I guess the best thing you can ever say about a book is that you were sorry when it was over, and that was true for me with this exotic, interesting book.

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