Change Your Image
Charlie-209
Reviews
Far from Heaven (2002)
A war movie for characters who didn't know they were in one.
Rating: Several Stars
The movie grabbed me. great jobs by Julianne Moore and Dennis Quaid (his character grew slowly but definitely on me)and the rest. Who doesn't try to think of how they, themselves, might act in a similar situation. I'd fall pretty short. I'd be more like the "friendly" neighbor, at least at first.
I couldn't help but think of Casablanca while nearing the end of this. Of course they're totally different movies. But in war romances, the characters sometimes realize they're in something bigger than themselves, and they act heroically and generously. Here, they were definitely in someting bigger than themselves but nobody told them (You could tell they were capable of heroism - of seeing a bigger picture and helping those around them to see it, too). They were instead told to be ashamed, to be guilty, to take "treatment.
They struggle to figure out the cause of the distress, moving from blame of themselves to both some kind of accomodation to and reaction against the racial and sexual limitations of the times. Having known families in "marriages of convenience" that really worked, where real love lived along with "non-traditional" (yet always-with-us if hidden) relationships, I couldn't help wishing Frank and Cathy could have stayed together a bit longer, at least, to help each other through the tough spots. They had no models for that kind of behavior, though.
I pictured a bit of sequel, with Frank moving to Frisco and Cathy to New Orleans. Hey, they could pack the whole family off to Rio or France. Frank might have continued to drink heavily and blame himself but would have had lots of company to assuage his guilt.
Housekeeping (1987)
wonderful movie with one directorial flaw
Years since I saw it in the moviehouse or video. NOT a comedy in the yuk yuk sense. I only wish I could have been on the set to say, "Bill, Focus more on the girls, not the aunt! You did them both so well!" It was just a question of balance in this absorbing movie. Christine Lahti had such a good, strong performance and Forsyth let her take the movie, or at least gave many viewers the idea that her character's the focus. Stunning scenery, wonderful evocation of family and place, and fascinates with its exploration of watery metaphors for our connection to and removal from people. Very faithful in tone to the book (a must-read by marilyn robinson, BTW), which I read after seeing the movie more than once. I wish I could see it on the big screen again.
Housekeeping (1987)
wonderful movie with one directorial flaw
Years since I saw it in the moviehouse or video. NOT a comedy in the yuk yuk sense. I only wish I could have been on the set to say, "Bill, Focus more on the girls, not the aunt! You did them both so well!" It was just a question of balance in this absorbing movie. Christine Lahti had such a good, strong performance and Forsyth let her take the movie, or at least gave many viewers the idea that her character's the focus. Stunning scenery, wonderful evocation of family and place, and fascinates with its exploration of watery metaphors for our connection to and removal from people. Very faithful in tone to the book (a must-read by marilyn robinson, BTW), which I read after seeing the movie more than once. I wish I could see it on the big screen again.
Az én XX. századom (1989)
a hopeful mix of human emotion lit by electricity.
In My Twentieth Century, the world begins to move electrically - dramatically, beautifully shown in electric dance costumes, marching bands and mirrored halls, spurred by a sad-faced (I really liked his face) actor as Edison, intoning toward the end that As god is magnificent for his creation, man is magnificent in learning how to harness it (not quite the line, but best I can do).
Meanwhile, twin orphan girls fall asleep, like the match girl in the Andersen story, hoping a lighted match will warm them on a snowy eve. Stars and a miraculous donkey lead well-dressed men to carry them to safety but in separate directions of compass and life. Later, one of them, now a poor anarchist, drops her copy of Kropotkin's "Mutual Aid" in the snow where a man finds it, reads it's message of cooperation and play among animals (in great distinction to the then popular capitalist theory of 'social darwinism' - "survival of the fittest" and "red in tooth and claw") through the night and becomes entwined in the narrative as he meets one of the young women and then the other, none of them knowing of the twin presence.
Kropotkin's observations, while brought in by a revolutionary, seemed to be the narrative of a playful counterpoint to the technologically modern world. I didn't see his words used as narrative as a turning back so much as a development that goes arm in arm with the other. His observations of rabbits "so drunk with play" they lack "fear of the fox" are juxtaposed with scenes of the man and the young women as they tryst happily and alternately take offense. While the anarchist seemed put off by the man's brusque manner (he had justifiably mistaken her for the more libidinous sister) the affairs seemed modern and innocent in consequence - no french lieutenant's woman fate, no scarlet letter. While Edison prepares to send a message by wire around the world, the young women and their man unite (it's vague but...) and wake to scenes of white pigeons in flight also carrying messages. Edison even confronts one before sending his own message.
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
Well done, but is it OK for my kid? And what does fantasy mean about our relationship to the real world?
I saw the Fellowship of the Ring on the pretext that I needed to preview it for my 8 year old daughter. She's reading the book and wants to see the movie (I read the books ages ago - maybe in the first age ;-). It's got lots of dark, scary images coming at you fast, and goes on and on. But other children her age and younger watched it, seemingly without difficulty. I'd like to see them after a night's sleep, though; Did they have nightmares?
I had a generally good time. It's better than I'd have imagined for a movie of its kind, but the fantasy fans are raving more than I am. I'm not a CGI fan. I like minimal fake scenery or any natural scenery. Of course, I said much the same thing about Matrix but watched it a couple times ;-). LOTR is well done, although I think Hugo Weaving suffers a bit (liked him as the blind photographer in that older film). He's very earnest, as is Cate Blanchett (spelling?) who nonetheless comes off better. Yes, Gandalf played by Ian McKellen is very good. Christopher Lee is fun if only for being Christopher Lee (Is he still alive or just "reanimated" like his Frankenstein monsters?). Actually, he could have overdone the Saruman role but didn't. Lee really fit his role. And I always appreciate Ian Holm. He's Bilbo the old hobbit in this. I've seen him play priests, gangsters, nice ol' guys, and now a hobbit. Always good. How do they make all the "big" people so big compared to the hobbits? And John Rhys-Davies - who I remember as a rather large actor in, among other things, the first Indiana Jones movie - is a dwarf in this. How? Sean Bean, last seen in 007 and MI2 action films as the bad guy, gets to have an ennobling and perfectly well acted... (shhhh! Don't spoil it.). The bad guys who arrive at the last scenes in the movie, on the other hand, look like parodies of Daniel Day Lewis in Last of the Mohicans. It looks like they fell in the mud and got pelted by pigeon poop, and are just real mad about it.
Why do I have trouble in this day and age with a totally white movie? Sometimes it's appropriate, like when it's a story that takes place in a totally white place or just between totally white people. But somehow it's not enough for me, in this movie, that there are elves and dwarves and hobbits as goodies. It worries me that "white" americans may escape not only to movies but to defacto segregated ones. This was, of course, written in the early part of the century, possibly as a WWI parable (Although why forget the colonial wars of that era - in China, Africa, Palestine, the Americas? Talk about the influence of Mordor!), and by someone steeped in the myths and languages of his islands. I have a twinge of fear that members of the audience might like to lose themselves in this never-never land, wanting to give up on the larger world. I liked Gandalf's line about us needing to choose what to do in our time. So, Enjoy. And then come back to reality.
Qiu Ju da guan si (1992)
I enjoyed this complex, warm view of china.
Really enjoyed this one. Qiu Ju is the wife of a man who has been kicked by a neighbor, his village chief. She presses for an apology, largely (if subtitles do it justice) because, even though his chest is what hurts longer, he's been kicked in the "privates" and she wants more than one child. She takes her quest for the apology up the chain of officialdom.
I couldn't get enough of the scenery - houses, city, carts, clothes, painted paper banners, dried peppers and corn - and the faces of people. As other viewers noted positively, the people in it didn't seem to be actors but real people, caught up in daily affairs and catching us up, too. The nearby village is somewhat familiar to her, but her trip to the city may have been her first. Watching her trying to find her way around, haggling for fair rates and help from a produce buyer, a bike-cart driver, a letter writer, a hotelier, and a lawyer was a lot of fun. Her trips seemed like a great introduction to the culture.
One of the things I loved was how the families and neighbors kept having complex interactions with each other throughout the ordeal. And the social roles in this were interesting: Farm/village chief to farmer, sister to sister, daughter-in-law to her in-laws, Party officials to their hierarchy and to citizens, country to city, women's role in general (as in what sex babies are preferred) and the strong stance of a specific woman like Qiu Ju, who seemed to be empowered as much as frustrated by the system and by her family and neighbors.
I read reviews of this as a negative comment on bureaucracy. If so, it showed a remarkably humane one. Flaws were on display but the overall tone was of acceptance.
The sudden ending left me feeling for the main characters. I seemed to see a judgment in it, but wasn't sure what that judgment was. I wanted to know how the story was interpreted in China, so I came to IMDB to at least see how others took it.