Sept. Movie & Book Reviews
Movies at the Theatre
Lovely & Amazing
Very real. A snapshot of the lives of a family of women. An unusual family at that. The production quality threw me off at times, and the acting wasn't all completely solid, but later as I let it sink in I realized that I still rather liked it. The mother, apparently well off (and white), with two grown daughters dedided to addopted a five year old black girl, several years ago. This third daughter is now 10 (I think). They are dysfunctional and insecure. Mom is having a tummy tuck that ends up having complications. Daughter one, is unhappily married, and is wasting her life making weird little chairs. She's an artist, and there is no market for her art. The second daughter is an actress. A terribly insecure yet sweet girl. Breaks up with her boyfriend because he doesn't understand her. The youngest is having an identity crisis because her skin is diferent then her mothers. All very real.
Sex & Lucia
Michael had to point out to me that this is a fairy tale. I love fairy tales, why didn't I see that? Hmmm, I'm not use to seeing them done in any sort of modern context. Everything is devastating and then we go back see how lovely things were and we skip back and forth in time and bring all of the pieces and the people together. First I was confused about when we were at any given moment, and then I started to get a handle on that and was able to focus on how all the people related to each other. Hard when you see people in different times when and they look different because they've done a good job showing the characters with different hair and clothes. Too good. But I really liked the fairy tale ending that says 'this story doesn't end if you don't want it to, it has the advantage of hole at the end that you slip through back to the middle'.
Secretary
Absolutely amazing! I highly recommend that everybody go see this. All the things I feared could go wrong with such a movie did not happen. It had excellent pacing, I never got bored or confused. The acting is fabulous, some of the funniest bits are just from watching James Spader's expressions. They dealt very maturely with all the difficult issues that were brought up. All around wonderful.
Movies On Video or DVD
The Governess
I adore this film. It's beautiful and interesting and well acted. Minnie Driver as a young jewess has to find employment to help support her family after her father is murdered. She becomes a governess for a christian family in Scotland and must hide that she is a jew. While there she becomes interested in the scientific work of the family's father. Turns out to be the early days of photography and he is trying to discover a fixative for the images put onto paper. I think this fall into the category of a 'coming of age film' which seems to be my favorite.
L.A. Confidential
This is a really well made movie about dirty cops. Sullied only by the presence of Kim Basinger. I can't stand her and it's why I waited so long to see this. Luckily all of the other amazing actors more than compensate for her. Anyway, this film is set in the 1950's, has everything from a tabloid writer who pays a cop to help him get stories to the new cop he thinks he can avoid becoming dirty. Definitely worth seeing.
Artemesia
Here is another movie that I adore, and it is a good follow up to The Governess. Artemesia was the daughter of a painter in the 1600's. She inherited her fathers ability to paint. The problem is that women do not paint in those days. It's vulgar. But she has passion and she learns all she can from her father. The schools will not take her and her father wants to help but does not know what to do. Enter another famous, well off painter and she becomes his pupil. A scandal arrises over their relationship (which was scandalous for the time) and he goes to jail and she marries for convenience and continues to paint. She becomes well known and her paintings hang in some of the best museums around the world. Yes, she was a real person and this is based on her life. This is a beautiful movie, well scripted and acted.
Eddie Izzard: Dressed to Kill
He's smart and his jokes show it. He plays with the audience and milks certain jokes for all they are worth. He isn't just poking fun at every day life, he takes a look at history and how ridiculous parts of it are. We laughed out loud a lot. Michael laughed until his sides hurt and he couldn't breathe. Definitely a good sign when watching stand up comedy.
Eddie Izzard: Glorious
Almost as good as Dressed to Kill. Of course this one is older and it is good to see that he just gets better. He starts with the Old Testament and rambles around to Revelations, with lots of tangents. He makes fun of the audience and himself with equal joy. We laughed out loud quite a bit.
Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure
Michael had never seen this and it had been years for me. So we rented it. It was funny, but not as funny as when it first came out and I was a teenager. Michael wanted to see more falling down humor, but than he always wants that. *grin* I'm not going to tell you what it's about because if you don't know then you have been living under a rock. Just go rent it for goodness sake.
Books
Tamsin (novel), by Peter S. Beagle
A beautifully written story. I really love Beagle's style and ability. He has such a gentle and precise way of delivering a completely different world and point of view in every book I open. This one is told from the point of view of a 13 year old girl that gets moved from New York City to Dorset, England when her mother remarries. She is absolutely dead set against the move, but finds ghosts and boggles and magic and friendship, how can she possible stay mad about it.
The Citadel of the Autarch (novel), by Gene Wolf
A wonderful conclusion to the series! Or is it? This was the fourth book, and I thought the last, but it seems there is a fifth. Things in this book got crazier then ever, but Wolfe managed to tie up more loose ends than I expected. One or two that I didn't even see the point of, but I'm sure there probably was one that I missed.
Interested in buying one of these books or movies online? Try Amazon.com.
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