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sunkilmoontipton
Reviews
Spanglish (2004)
Spanglish proves a tasty but not gourmet treat.
The basic plot of Spanglish is that a Spanish speaking maid and her bilingual adolescent daughter face interaction difficulties while working for an affluent American family.
I don't know if others share my prejudice, but I always have difficulty when characters are too wealthy for me to sympathize with their problems. Such is the case here with the American mother (Tea Leone) and and to a lesser degree her husband (Adam Sandler). Sandler is a chef who owns a restaurant that gets too high a rating. Poor baby! Leone is a mother who can't buy her way into her daughter's heart. Aw shucks! Despite this though, the movie is still an enjoyable one. Good performances from Sandler, Leone, Cloris Leachman as the grandmother, and especially Paz Vega playing the maid, make the interactions interesting to watch and the dialogue ring true.
So, other than my lack of empathy and what I felt was a somewhat unresolved ending, the movie is still much better than most and I would recommend it.
The Manchurian Candidate (2004)
This movie is a candidate for the trash bin.
This movie is another classic example of what is wrong with so many Hollywood movies lately. They are all about flash and forget the substance. I picked up the Manchurian Candidate because Denzel Washington always delivers a watchable performance and because of the history of the original film (delayed release because of the Robert Kennedy assignation). I wanted badly to like it but the new, updated plot had more holes in it than I could excuse.
Don't get me wrong, I am not one of those movie viewers who demands absolute reality. I am willing to suspend my belief when the movie starts, but this one simply has too many gaps or weaknesses in its plot to allow anyone to do so. I mean, a vice-presidential candidate's hotel room with a fake closet and a brain surgery operating room on the other side to implant miniaturized computer chips commanded by his mother! Who okay-ed that little bit of silliness? I felt sorry for the cast, including Meryl Streep, who tried their best to rescue this film but in the end it deserves to be lost and forgotten.
Garden State (2004)
In Garden State, a young man (Zach Braff) returns to his hometown for his mother's funeral and finds love.
Garden grew on me. It kept replaying in my mind. It reminded me of the movie The Graduate (no slight praise) for many reasons, not the least of which was the soundtrack which included a song by Simon and Garfunkel. I mean, why include an old song by S&G in the middle of a host of contemporary artists - it must have been done on purpose - right? And the pool scene, although different than Hoffman's, still serves to illustrate Andrew Largeman's alienation.
Much like the Graduate, it was the little things that got to me. The escalators heading in two directions at the end, the making of a completely original dance, the touching of the father, the arc on the edge of the abyss, the silent Velcro...I could go on.
Natalie Portman got to me too. Playing the role of a goofy, epileptic but cute, hometown girl, she steals the show. She hits all the right notes. She is responsible for the death by tread-wheel of a loved one, she habitually lies, and she's slightly crazy, but Andrew and we can't help falling in love with her.
Movies like this are rare. Lots worth looking at, lots worth listening to, lots to think about, lots to feel good about. I hope Braff (star, writer, director) has a few more like this in him.