Prime
Another film at our local cinema, this time a chick flick but this one was recommended by Jenny so we though we would see how we liked it. We were a little wary after going to see Failure to Launch with Jenny and Ulf the last time they were here. We decided to depend on Meryl Streep and it was the right thing to do. She did a believable job even in the rather silly role she had to play and never once crossed the line into mindless comedy. This is not a film you have to see but it's a pleasant evening. I have no idea why it's called Prime. The German title was completely different.
April 27, 2006
Syriana
We would probably never have seen this film if it hadn’t come to our village cinema. Even though I’m a fan of George Clooney it didn’t sound like our kind of film, but we decided to give it a chance, especially since he had won an Oscar for his role. We were right in the beginning though that this is not our kind of film. It reminded me in part of Paradise Now in the story line about the suicide bombers but without the depth of that film – which I really didn’t like either. The way the film was put together also reminded me of The Constant Gardener. It took an hour to have any idea what it was all about and even then it was hard to know who the good guys were (I don’t think there really were any) or what the subplots were leading to. The message seemed to be that the Americans will do anything to keep control of the oil supplies and that there are people willing to kill themselves to stop them.
What now?
April 25, 2006
Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood
I saw this on a DVD on the computer because our DVD player was not working and we traded it in on a new one. We were without one for a couple of weeks until the new model that we wanted came out. I didn't even realize that I could watch anything on the computer. A new milestone in my continuing education!
Actually I wanted to read the book but didn't really want to buy it. No one I know had it so I opted for the movie. It was pretty good and having grown up in the South I could relate to a lot of the things that were going on. It reminded me of Steel Magnolias, which I think was a better movie, and also How to Make an American Quilt.
I like Sandra Bullock although she has played in a number of poor films. I think she gave a good performance in this one. It was also fun to see James Garner again (He used to be a favorite of mine way back in his Maverick days) and Maggie Smith is always good.
All in all not a great film but a watchable one.
March 10, 2006
Yes
Last night we saw the most unusual movie we have seen since Dogville. This is a low budget experimental film written and directed by an English woman, Sally Potter. We had never heard of her or the movie but it sounded intriguing so we decided to give it a chance. I think though that if I had heard beforehand that the entire movie is in verse, I might have chickened out. It took me quite a while to get used to it and I think maybe the German translation made it even more difficult at times to understand.
On the official poster for the movie there is a quote from The Washington Post: “It’s as if Ingmar Bergman, William Shakespeare and Dr. Seuss had collaborated on a project.” Yes, I think that’s pretty accurate.
The actors, especially the two main ones who are not named, are very good. But the minor characters are also interesting.
There is a very well done scene when She is about to have dinner with her husband in their completely sterile white apartment and after a period of silence she asks him how he is. He feels attacked by this and yells at her before storming out of the house. Ah, marital bliss!
Especially good in a weird sort of way are the commentaries of their maid who sees everything that is going on although she doesn’t really exist for her employers. She believes that in the end all she does is push the dirt from one corner to another. There’s no real way to actually get rid of it.
I think the film is overly ambitious and tries to cover too many political and social issues while at the same time telling a love story. But if you enjoy being challenged it’s well worth seeing.
The maid’s commentary at the end of the film:
And, in the end, it simply isn't worth
Your while to try and clean your life away.
You can't. For, everything you do or say
Is there, forever. It leaves evidence.
In fact it's really only common sense;
There's no such thing as nothing, not at all.
It may be really very, very small
But it's still there. In fact I think I'd guess
That "no" does not exist. There's only "yes".
March 7, 2006
Balzac or the little Chinese Seamstress
This was a book that was handed around among our friends until I think everyone had read it at some point. I really looked forward to seeing it as a movie but I didn’t manage to see it while it was playing, so I had to watch it on DVD. It didn’t disappoint me. It has everything you could want in a movie (unless you are an action fan) – very good actors, a lot of humor, a love story, political satire, breathtaking scenery and a poignant ending.
There are a few priceless scenes. Two teenagers are sent to the mountains of rural China to be “re-educated” as manual workers. One of them has a violin with him and when they arrive all of their belongings are examined. No one in the village has ever seen a violin before and it is passed around and scrutinized. Then he offers to play something on it. Asked what the name of the music piece is, his clever friend says it a piece by Comrade Mozart and is called Mozart Yearns for the Chairman Mao. The violin and the music thereby win the approval of the village.
This is a little jewel of a film and very enjoyable. If you watch it on DVD turn on the subtitles so you understand what the girls in the village are singing. Very amusing.
March 5, 2006
Rhythm Is It!
Frank and I watched this film again on TV Saturday night. We saw it last year in the movie theater but since I didn’t manage to keep a list last year I’m including it in this year’s list because it deserves to be remembered. We really liked it but we didn’t know if we wanted to watch the whole film again, especially since it didn’t start until a quarter past ten. Once we started though we didn’t stop. In some ways I liked it even better the second time.
The film is a documentary of a project involving the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and groups of 250 school children in a production of Stravinsky’s Le Sacre du Printemps. The film concentrates on one particular group of under privileged children, who had absolutely no prior experience in dancing, and their work with the choreographer, Royston Maldoom, over a period of about eight weeks. It also shows the orchestra rehearsals with Sir Simon Rattle and how much work there is behind a performance like this.
The children were amazing. Three in particular were shown, a young girl whose Berlin accent was so strong I could hardly understand her, a young black boy from Nigeria whose English was very hard to understand and an older boy with amazing talent. There were subtitles for the English in the film but I could have used a few subtitles for the German. Not that it mattered in the end. The film demonstrated how the children were taught discipline and focus and how extremely difficult it was and what obstacles each of them had to overcome in order to take part.
I don’t know why this film wasn’t more popular outside of Germany. Almost all of our friends here saw it. The only criticism I have is that they didn’t show the whole performance at the end but only a part of it. It was so lovely I was disappointed there wasn’t more, but Frank has learned that the whole performance is on the DVD. A very good reason to buy it!
March 6, 2006
Walk the Line
I'm a Johnny Cash fan from way back when. When I was still in school and before we had air conditioning (which I guess is equivalent to my grandmother saying "before we had electricity") I used to lie in bed and listen to the radio for hours because it was too hot to sleep. I heard a lot of his hits when they first came out before he was terribly well known. Did you know that he has the best selling album of all time? Not the Beatles, not the Rolling Stones, not Elvis, but Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison.
I was a little skeptical about the film, especially when I heard that Joaquin Phoenix sang himself. And I have to admit the first minute or two I found it a bit strange but he does such a good job that after a while you don't notice any more. Reese Witherspoon as June Carter is fantastic and certainly deserves the Oscar for Best Actress. She was definitely better than Keira Knightley in Pride and Prejudice and I haven't seen the others, but that doesn't keep me from making a judgment. I wonder if all the members of the Academy have seen all the films they vote on. I did read they have to prove that they have seen the foreign films before they can vote.
So I can recommend this film without any reservations, except maybe that they really didn't sing enough. I wouldn't have minded if the film had been an hour longer. It would only have been nine minutes longer than King Kong!
February 8, 2006
Paradise Now
We went to the movies last night to see Paradise Now. We might not have bothered because it wasn’t terribly high up on our list of must-see films, but it was playing here in our village cinema and we had seen a preview for it the last time we were there that was intriguing. It was very cold and there was still a lot of ice and snow on the streets, so I thought I would be smart and take the main street through our village, which is always cleared first. It turned out to be a mistake because people had shoveled snow from the sidewalks onto the bike path so that I had to veer out into the street quite often. I don’t have a rear view mirror on my bike, but I really need to get one. I made it without any trouble though. There were about 30 people there in all to see the film, which isn’t bad for a Tuesday night and for the kind of film it was.
Don’t read this if you still want to see it! Otherwise you may no longer want to!
The film is about two suicide bombers from the West Bank who are chosen to go into Jerusalem (at least I think it was Jerusalem) and blow up as many people as they can. It told from the point of view of the Palestinians and the problems they have are made very clear. The area they live in looks like an abandoned battlefield. There’s little or nothing for them to do. They are surrounded by military. It’s understandable that they go a little stir crazy. However, at the beginning of the film they both have jobs as car mechanics until one of them in a fit of rage at an (admittedly) annoying customer takes a sledge hammer to his car. End of employment. No new job in sight. I found it a little hard to feel sorry for him though. So one evening they are told at a meeting of some kind that they have been chosen to become martyrs and after a short period of shock they decide they rather like the idea. On their way to Jerusalem in a car they ask their group leader, “What happens afterwards?” “Two angels arrive to take you to paradise,” is his answer. “Are you sure?” “Yes, of course.” End of discussion.
This film is supposed to help us understand these men, but it really didn’t help me. I’m as at much a loss to explain their behavior as I was before I saw the film. The last scene is a real shocker. How am I supposed to react other than feel anger and disgust? Understanding? Sorry, I think that’s asking a little too much. So after we got home we turned on the evening news and what did we learn? This film has been nominated for an Oscar for the best foreign picture. I think someone is trying to send a political message here but the signals are awfully muddled.
February 1, 2006
In her Shoes
Our village movie theater is a very nostalgic place. I have no idea when it became a theater but it certainly has a 1950s feel about it. We lived here for several years before we ever saw anything there because I had heard that the seating was old and very uncomfortable. Maybe they replaced the old seats at some point but there’s nothing uncomfortable about them now. I don’t remember the first film we saw there but it was about two years ago. Since then we have seen a lot of movies that we would otherwise have missed. It’s run as a community theater now and they only charge € 4 admission, about half of what we have to pay in town, and we don’t have to pay for parking or bike in. So we keep an eye on what they have scheduled, especially since the films are only shown on two evenings.
Last night we went to see In her Shoes. I had first heard about this movie from Jennifer Weiner’s on-line journal which I read for a while, even though I have never read any of her books. I thought it was interesting when she talked about the casting of the film; she was so excited about the actresses that were chosen. So I knew it was a chick flick and I offered to find a friend to go see it with me, but Frank said he had heard it was good and wanted to see it too. He was one of the ten or so men in the theater but he has no problem with that.
It’s a good thing I got there a little early because there wasn’t a seat left by the time the movie started. My pants legs were a little wet because I had biked there in the rain but at least I had remembered to wear my warm boots, because the last few times we’ve been there I’ve had cold feet. Anyway, I soon forgot about any discomfort and got caught up in the story. We both enjoyed it, especially the last hour or so that takes place in Florida at an old people’s estate.
Shirley MacLaine is very good as the long lost grandmother (she was nominated for a Golden Globe for the role) and the elderly actors and actresses are very funny. It’s not just a comedy though. There’s a lot about the relationship between sisters and although this relationship is totally dysfunctional when the story begins, it still made me a little sad that I never had a sister myself. Cameron Diaz and Toni Collette both do a great job and are convincing in their roles.
I wonder a little about what it says about us that we didn’t enjoy the Woody Allen film we saw last week, but thoroughly enjoyed this one. I think it has something to do with expectations. I really prefer to go to films I haven’t heard a lot about, because often I am disappointed when my expectations are high. Maybe I should ignore all the publicity in the future and just go to films I know nothing about. If I’m not expecting to see a really good film, I’m often pleasantly surprised.
Next week King Kong is playing, all three (!) hours of it, and Frank wants to see it. That should really put my theory about expectations to the test.
January 21, 2006
Match Point
Sunday evening we went to see Woody Allen’s new film, Match Point. Frank was a little disappointed that I didn’t want to bike into town, but I decided it was a little too dark – like completely - and a little too cold – 32°F – for it to be any fun. I promised I would next time if he pumped up my tires. Maybe by then it will be a little lighter, at least for the ride in. We were looking forward to this movie as we both like Woody Allen and this particular one has gotten rave reviews here. I say we like him but I just had a look at the 41 films he’s directed and we’ve only actually seen eight or nine of them. Of course a few of them were for TV and most likely never shown here, but still, there are an awful lot of his films that we haven’t seen.
To be truthful we could have skipped Match Point. I like Woody Allen’s quirky ideas, like the hero in The Purple Rose of Cairo who leaves the big screen to join the audience or the Jewish mother in New York Stories who directs her son from the sky. There was very little of that in this movie, only at the very end, which was a surprise and quite amusing. And there was one ghost scene which was terribly vapid, maybe British ghosts aren’t so emotional but Nola Rice was American and should have had more spirit! (Isn’t that a clever pun…?) Another thing I usually like about his films is the dialogs, which are often witty and fun, but the dialogs in this film were flat and boring to me. Even when they were talking about modern art or literature, nothing particularly interesting was said. Okay, maybe it’s more realistic that way but I wasn’t looking for realism here.
Then there was the plot. The film is just over two hours long and the first three-quarters is so foreseeable that it’s boring. The last half hour was different, but it didn’t make up for the time I had spent watching a totally predictable story unfold. The acting was good, but some of the characters were such stereotypes that it was painful. The mother-in-law was exactly what you would expect, so completely uninteresting as a character. Some of the others had no development at all, but worst of all were the police. Everything else erred on the side of realism, but the police were so incompetent it was practically slapstick. Oh well, not every film can be what I think it should be. Maybe I’ll have better luck with the next one.
January 10, 2006
Pride and Prejudice
I was always a voracious reader and as a teenager I had long lists of must-read books that I plowed through with determination and little or no understanding. I think the worst I inflicted on myself might be War and Peace. I was completely incapable of keeping the characters straight and the battles bored me to tears but read it I did, if you can call it that. Some things stuck with me though, such as parts of Crime and Punishment or Thomas Mann’s Dr. Faustus, which was way over my head. The advantage of reading everything on lots of lists of required reading is that I found a lot of authors that I loved. I enjoyed Thomas Hardy and Charles Dickens, although I doubt I could make it through one of their novels now. Unsurprisingly, one of my favorites was Daphne du Maurier, although she isn’t in the same league at all, but I found Rebecca extremely powerful as a teenager and enjoyed the movie too when I later saw it on TV. My brother and I always spent part of the summer in Ohio at my grandparents’ because my parents both worked and once we abandoned Mickey Mouse the local library was a godsend. For some reason I particularly remember reading Quo Vadis and was very disappointed that after reading the whole book I still didn’t know what the title meant.
It wasn’t until my freshman year of college that I actually learned how to read. I had some fantastic literature courses that really opened my eyes and to this day I’m not sure why I didn’t choose literature as a major. But then I didn’t know that I would end up teaching English in a German high school. In all that time there were a few authors that remained unattainable for me, basically because they bored me to tears. Henry James comes to mind and even though he has been recommended to me by several people I respect highly, I cannot make it through his novels without feeling I’m torturing myself. I have to admit the Jane Austin also fell into this category. I never voiced this opinion very loudly, fearing to be held for some sort of freak by the Austin lovers that seemed to surround me. I think I read most of her novels at one time or another and was always put off by the goody-two-shoes that were her heroines.
Then a few years ago a friend of mine lent me the BBC TV series Pride and Prejudice. It’s five hours long and absolutely wonderful. As soon as I could, I bought it for myself and wouldn’t like to admit how many times I have watched it, even if I had any idea. Then the time came when I didn’t need to watch it at all, because it was all in my head. So for the past few years I have lent it to a number of friends who have all become big fans of Colin Firth at the very least. I saw Bridget Jones’ Diary on a plane trip, which was a good thing because I might have missed it otherwise. I think casting Colin Firth as Bridget’s Mr. Darcy was a stroke of genius. And one of the funniest scenes in The Age of Reason (the book, alas, not the movie) is when Bridget and her friends sit in front of the video of Pride and Prejudice and keep replaying the scene in which Mr. Darcy takes off his jacket and boots and dives - fully clothed - into a lake.
So it was with some trepidation that I went to our village movie theater last week to see the Hollywood version. How could it top the TV series? Well, of course it couldn’t. It had several handicaps from the very beginning. It wasn’t even half as long – 127 minutes to 300 – and it felt like the story was being presented in fast forward mode. There was no Colin Firth and Matthew MacFadyen didn’t even come close. Surprisingly enough, I didn’t mind Keira Knightley as Lizzy (probably because I liked her so much in Bend it like Beckham), although I thought Jennifer Ehle was better. They completely did away with several of the minor characters, which was smart to do but it left gaps that were painfully noticeable to me. There were a few things that were as good or better in the film though.
Judy Dench was great as Catherine de Burgh, probably as good as Barbara Leigh-Hunt, but her part was cut so much it’s hard to tell. Then there is Mr. Collins. David Bamber plays Mr. Collins as such as abhorrent character that I actually preferred Tom Hollander in the film version although I thought he could have been a bit ickier. The scenery was beautiful in both and the house and yard scenes in the film were probably more realistic. Maybe I should watch the series again soon after all.
But, you know, I still can’t get into Emma.
January 4, 2006
