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Yeah, he copied it. All the actor's names are links that lead to Ebert's site, and the fact that he put "BY PLANET NEWS" all conspicuous-like the first clue. For me, anyway.



A system of cells interlinked
Well, I will give it a go.

Terrible review, sir. With technique like that, you will NEVER get published. I mean really, who watches movies anymore? Pshaw! Your antiquated views on a clearly dead medium go to showcase how stunted your view of the world is on almost every level. As if people would actually sit down and stare at a screen for two hours in this day and age.

How's that?
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Registered User
Nice snippets, man.

The second half thinks these anime characters are justified to lounge about in really long, patient scenarios.
Very fair appraisal.

This isn't an intimate movie in any of Spielberg's usual ways. Which is unfortunate, because that's what the man does best
I disagree here. Whenever he does "intimate" films they're always about the same thing: a father reasserting control. I love this film, because it's about a father letting go and taking a look at the "bigger picture" which often seems ignored in Speilberg's sci-fis. He always tries to do silly things like making Jurassic Park (LIVE DINOS!!!!) a story about how a father regains family dominance. Sorry, but the father is made into the bad guy here and the Dinosaurs actually then become a good thing. Projected statements like "dad, you know if it hadn't been for those dinos..." come to mind.

Scorsese's knack for surreality is almost absent here.
As much as I like this film, I'd have to agree here. He's obviously trying too hard with all the John Cage music and super-bright lighting. I think those dream sequences are beautiful and moving, but not "disturbing" in the surreal sense.
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A system of cells interlinked
I really liked those dream sequences, and I think I can list them as my favorite moments in the flick. Alas, I have to agree that some of the other surreal stuff in the flick seemed a bit forced and...I guess calculated is the word.

After seeing blatant surreality done right in stuff like Mulholland Drive and Weir's Picnic at Hanging Rock, I can honestly say Scorsese should stick to the subtler surreality techniques like those used in Taxi Driver, which he just nails.

I really dig Close Encounters though - great film.



Favorite bit of Shutter Island is when

WARNING: "Batman Begins" spoilers below
Ben Kingsley straight up tells Teddy that he never had a partner and Leo plays along.
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Damage (1992)


I was eager to watch this film, knowing that it had Jeremy Irons and Rupert Graves in, and whilst the film is entertaining in a melodramatic sense, it is problematic.

The plot: a married middle-aged government man called Stephen, presumably something to do with global issues because he talks about climate change (Jeremy Irons), meets an art dealer woman called Anna (Juliette Binoche), who happens to be his son Martyn (Rupert Graves)'s girlfriend. They start an illicit affair.

The main downfall is that Binoche and Irons have no chemistry whatsoever. She looks rather repulsed by him and he looks like a depraved pervert. Unfortunately they have many sex scenes together, which are unintentionally humorous because of the totally unconvincing relationship and take up too much screen time. Apparantly Binoche had problems with Irons so it's not clear whether their characters don't like each other or the actors don't like each other. I know quite a lot of people find Irons attractive but I do not. Why Binoche's character would be attracted to him (he's scrawny and looks about 60) is a total mystery. She also doesn't display any signs of vampishness or irresistability. The two characters are presumably supposed to have an all-consuming passion for each other but this doesn't appear to be the case.

The second problem is down to the script. Anna is given a motivation- her brother hung himself when she was 15 and she has sort of given up because of it so she persues loveless affairs- but it is not particularly convincing. I assumed it was a lie for most of it until the mother says something that makes it slightly creepy. At least one might interpret it as self-damage though, so that fits with the title. Stephen is given no motivation whatsoever; the affair starts so early on that there's little time to build his character beyond anything other than a pest. Unfortunately it seems to be told through Stephen's point of view. The ambiguity of where our sympathies are supposed to lie- is Stephen taking advantage of an emotionally damaged woman or does she have no conscience about being a homewrecker, having relationships with the father and the son?- is potentially interesting but it's not played on enough. The director/actors seem to be unsure of which of the pair should have our sympathy so in the end, neither of them get much sympathy.

The final problem- probably a mix of script, director, and maybe even the novel it's based on- is that Stephen's family are underused. They are the sympathetic characters and yet they are shoved into the background. Miranda Richardson really gives a powerful performance at the end, when she is allowed some proper amount of screen time, and Rupert Graves is convincing as the oblivious son (how could Anna be so mean? He's adorable). As the affair is not convincing, splitting the film between affair and the damage the affair causes would have made a much more interesting film.

It's frustrating because it provokes a lot of questions but these are questions that clash with each other. It's not clear whether the film is supposed to be about the dangers of all-consuming lust or the mystery of why people embark on empty destructive affairs. Although ambiguity can be interesting in a film (although it works better in a novel because it's more obvious that it's intentional), it would have been more satisfactory to choose one of those and explore it in a greater depth.
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You cannot have it both ways. A dancer who relies upon the doubtful comforts of human love can never be a great dancer. Never. (The Red Shoes, 1948)



M. Butterfly


Truth is stranger than fiction. This film's based on a successful play, which is based on the real life story of a French consul who falls in love with an opera singer in '60's China but fails to realise that she's a man. Strange, non? In fact, how does one turn that into a play/film?

Jeremy Irons stars as Rene, the French consul. If anybody can pull off the role, it's him. He manages to smoulder and play the tragic lover as well as portray the deeper significance- that Rene is an example of Western aggression pushing their sterotypes onto the Chinese, unaware that the 'schoolgirl' is actually male. People will go to ridiculous lengths to deceive themselves and play out their fantasies- the audience know that Rene must on some level know the truth but arrogance or tragic delusion means he persues the romance to the end.

The stumbling block for most people is that John Lone doesn't really look like a woman but in a way, it creates dramatic irony and serves to make Rene's pathetic downfall and dubious treatment more tragic and the political allegory of the relationship more obvious. Film is a literal medium though- whilst theatre-goers expect metaphors, motifs and allegory, generally film-watchers expect realism and plausbility. Perhaps the film concentrated too much on the relationship and trying to portray it realistically...I don't know.

If you're willing to look past the implausbility of mistaking Lone for a woman, this is a disturbing but rewarding film- a tragedy based on cultural ignorance and arrogant/delusional fantasies, plus an ironic spin on Madame Butterfly (those who know French will understand why 'M' has a dot after it in the title).





Peeping Tom (Powell, 1960)

A guy is a lifelong voyeur who murders women when he can see the fear on their faces. Not only that but he has to film their deaths and seems to exhaust every possibility for self-reference about movie making and watching that a character in a thriller can offer. This movie then goes further by tracing everything in this main character's perversity to his childhood and his father who was a quack "scientist". The most chilling thing about Peeping Tom, other than its truly complex story - is the portrait of a killer who is crazy and knows it, but I feel like there is more room to recognize the irony of that last statement that the movie loses track of somewhere in Freud's shadow. Well worth seeing though.

+



Laura (Preminger, 1944)

Classic detective mystery where the detective falls in love with the woman who's murder he's investigating. Most of the strength comes from the smarmy characters he has to deal with in solving the murder and even though I guessed who the killer was and where he hid the real murder weapon midway through my first viewing of the film it's worth sticking it out to the end.

+



The Dream Team (Zieff, 1989)

Michael Keaton plays a writer who can't write because he's too busy making up bs, and was institutionalized because he has violent outbursts. This is mostly an actor's movie because even though it has a plot once it really starts moving there aren't very many surprises, and the idea of insanity is mostly as an excuse for zany antics and a heart-warming story rather than exploring it thematically. Unfortunately, besides Keaton you never really forget that the other four "crazy" actors are just pretending to be crazy by acting stupid.

-



Z (Costa-Gavras, 1969)

Awesome "true story" political thriller that keeps breaking away from a straight narrative as new actors and motives try to slide into the driver's seat, then breaks the fourth wall by having one of it's characters "report" to you directly what happened in spite of it all... Pretty harrowing stuff.

-



The Strawberry Roan (English, 1948)

I was surprised at how much I enjoyed this "singing cowboy" movie, which is the first of its kind that I've seen. Maybe because of that I'm rating it a little high but I actually found it pretty nuanced and engaging as far as this stuff goes. Gene Autry plays a character of the same name who works for a rancher breaking in horses and singing with his friends. This is pretty hokey but really no more so than thousands of other "classic" and contemporary movies and is pretty interesting aside from the music in that it's a western with plenty of shooting and some great stunts but no really bad guys.

-



Detective Story (Wyler, 1951)

A day in a Manhattan Police Station, told from a multiplicity of perspectives that is carefully selective to include a range of criminals (from first time offenders to lifers) and attitudes toward crime, tolerance and forgiveness. There's a big subplot about abortion that is presented very brutally and makes this of some interest aside from the very compelling manner in which it shuffles between four or five plots, Altman-style (but 20 years earlier).

+



The People's Republic of Clogher
The Box (2009, Richard Kelly)

1.5/5

What do you get if you cross Close Encounters with The Game?

A preposterous load of auld toot, that's what.

It's difficult to know how to precisely hack apart a film so slight. The Box's one hook seems to be (and thankfully one of the characters vocalises this near the end, lest the hard of thinking get confused) that its world exists in some kind of Purgatory.

It's purgatory sitting through 2 hours of treading water.

I'm sure that Rickard Kelly thought he was on to a winner here - The teenagers who got sucked into the Darko mythos have finished bleeding their parents through university and now want, like our loving couple here, a nice house in a nice suburb with a nice job and a nice spouse. They also want something that's got hidden meaning. An ting.

Unfortunately for the Jonathans and Chloes of this world, everything remotely oblique in The Box is so badly telegraphed that it's in danger of growing a beard before the director decides to put us out of our misery with a bit of exposition.

That aside, the two central characters are complete dullards who accept all this errant nonsense with nary a raised eyebrow and instead plod dutifully from one set piece to the next while the orchestral score builds behind them just a little too loudly.

Now, Cameron Diaz and James Marsden are hardly the most expressive of actors at the best of times and in a film that compels the both of them to spend long periods staring blankly into space hardly plays to their strengths (does James Marsden have any strengths to begin with?). In fact, poor Cameron frowns and pouts so much that the wrinkles on her face would hold a fortnight's worth of rain by the end.

No wonder she's now doing B Movies with Tom Cruise...

In its favour, The Box looks very nice. Though brown.

I can remember the 70s and it wasn't as brown as this - It should be more yellowy.

Frank Langella does his best, bless him, but the film is as hollow as what's in the package to begin with.



Brown!
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movie update part II. I'm kind of tired of hearing what I have to say at the moment so I'll just write up the first couple and if anyone wants to hear about any of the others please say so.



Red Desert (Antonioni, 1964)

This is an effective movie in that I think a large part of its intention is to collapse personal, social and environmental observation into an aesthetic critique of industrialization. The commentary is mostly in images and the excellent use of sound rather than in people or plot, so a lot of viewers will mistakenly think this is "pretentious" (a word I almost never use and never use pejoratively), but I think this message comes across pretty clearly and effectively. It even seems like a propaganda film to me. It uses color, form and sound to convey a feeling that this 1960s industrial Italy is corroding people's abilities to connect to the world or each other and perhaps even their minds and bodies. It even literally sucks the color out of organic forms when they're placed in an oppressive concrete place.

This is all a set up for a contrast with a woman's inner world that is pretty much the exact opposite of the real but is made to seem much more real in it's lushness and calm, here too the use of sound is very stong. The movie seems somewhat slow due to its lack of plot but I'm willing to allow that because it really is an aesthetically powerful and memorable film.





Gremlins (Dante, 1984)

This is definitely one of the best monster movies out there. It's suspenseful, gross, funny, and has some great moments of parody that all fit together pretty well.





Marie and Bruce (Cairns, 2004)




Gremlins 2 (Dante, 1989)




Fast, Cheap & Out of Control (Morris, 1997)


I also watched a couple feature-length film-maker interviews, bonus features on the My Dinner With Andre and Seven Samurai Criterion Collection dvds.



Where Angels Fear to Tread





This is actually the second time I've watched this- the first time was just after I'd finished reading the novel.

The problem with the film is that the novel (or novella really) is very short, and it's not so much about events as about the effect they have on the characters, therefore at times the film feels a little stretched out. (It's not an Ivory-Merchant film but a film by the guys behind Brideshead Revisited) Also, Helen Mirren is about 10 years too old to play Lilia, who is in her relatively early thirties, so it doesn't make sense that she would have to rely on her in-laws so much.

The story- Lilia (Helen Mirren), an impulsive English widow, marries a young Italian man (Giovanni Guidelli) and it all ends badly. Her former in-laws are sent over to clean things up. The protagonist appears to be Lilia at first but it's actually Phillip (Rupert Graves), Lilia's ex brother-in-law, so keep your eyes on him. The first time around, it felt a bit weird to switch my attention away from Lilia- it could have been cut right down. Also keep them on Caroline Abbot (Helena Bonham Carter), Lilia's companion and Phillip's unspoken objection of affection.

Guidelli sort of reminded me of a young Rupert Everett and he was serviceable rather than impressive; this may partly be down to Forster's novel. Although the novel is supposed to be on the side of the Italians and the working class, Gino is a rather two-dimentional character, being more of a symbol of manliness (although his final scenes are touching).

I find it very easy to keep my eyes on Rupert Graves. Phillip transforms from having a superficial love for Italy to being faced with reality and forced to admit his failings and Graves plays that brilliantly, both Phillip's formal role as man of the house and his realisation that he isn't really much of a man at all, more like a boy. And Helena Bonham Carter is subtle in suggesting Caroline's inner feelings and frustration at Phillip.

It's more of a thematic film than an action-packed film, but the morals- the English meddling in a foreign country and causing a tragedy with their carelessness, and how class and culture represses and causes unhappiness- are intriguing and it's well-acted. Even if you decide not to watch the film, do read the novel



I am burdened with glorious purpose
A "Collin" Film Fest!

I had a bit of a Collin Farrell night, and what a marvelous night it was!

I began with the film that jump started his career, Tigerland: (2000)



The film is a character-driven story with a narrow focus: the action follows a small group of men in training to go to Vietnam. They end their training in an area set up like the real Vietnam -- named Tigerland.

What an absolute surprise and delight! This is an incredible film, compelling, raw, and intense. It is also no wonder that buzz surrounded Collin's performance. He plays Bozz, a man whom we get to know and yet not know; he is a reluctant hero, he doesn't want to go to Vietnam and yet ends up helping other men get out of it. He's intelligent, a natural born leader, gifted with a rifle, a total rebel who is in and out of trouble, and yet... who is he?

I wouldn't say Joel Schumaker is a great filmmaker, but this is the kind of film that reinforces all the effort I put into being a cinephile. Looking for gems is like wandering into a cave and digging and digging for that shiny stone. I feel like I wander through a myriad of mediocre and plodding films and then I see something like this. A movie that reminds me why I love movies.

Speaking of gems, in the same night, and wanting more Collin, I decided to rewatch The New World:



I wish I had the energy and time to write a review of this film (and I keep thinking I have spoken about it before) but of all the Terrence Malick films I've seen, this is by far my favorite. I know it is not the critics' favorite, but so be it. Unlike Tigerland, Collin's performance isn't what makes the film; neither is a sweet and kind Christian Bale; it is the beauty of Malick's filmmaking style that shines along with the young actress, Orianka Kilcher, who plays Pocahontas.

The ending of this film should be seen, discussed, and reviewed by anyone who believes themselves filmlovers. Malick chooses an incredibly visual and poetic style here: we see her running after her son through the manicured lawns of an English estate as Malick gives us the wild Indian girl among a wilderness now tamed. Soon she will be gone as the land and world she came from. It is both tragic and beautiful and I defy anyone not to cry. Simply a breathtaking film and a heart wrenching ending. I nearly hyperventilate every time.

Another one of those times when you realize why you love movies in the first place.

Just last night, I watched another Collin film (Collin Firth, this time) and my feelings are not quite the same as they were during my Collin Farrell evening:



A Single Man

I desperately wanted to see this film and well, I made my way through it, wanting to love it, but, alas, I found it plodding and at times, boring. You know you have a problem when you suddenly get up and wash dishes in the middle of the movie. I hadn't exactly planned to do that.

Collin Firth was excellent, but that is not enough to recommend this film.

This is a film about loss and reaffirmation of life. Collin is a gay man who has recently lost his lover of 16 years. The film spans one day as he plans his suicide. Suffice it to say that we realize he is sad, and suffice it to say that by the end, he renounces his idea of suicide. In truth, the getting to that point had me feeling a bit suicidal as well.



This reminds me of those films that try to be a "gem," but for me, the two films with the other Collin were the true gems. This one just tried too hard.



Just so you know, both Misters Firth and Farrell spell Colin with a single L.
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28 days...6 hours...42 minutes...12 seconds
The Box (2009, Richard Kelly)

1.5/5
I agree with your review, although I was a bit more generous with my rating. I dug what Kelly wanted to do, but thought the way he presented it was pretty sloppy.

Once I saw the three portals, I gave up.
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Suspect's Reviews



Kenny, don't paint your sister.


A thriller filled with mystery and jump-out-of-your-seat moments. I was fairly engrossed into the mystery. Intrigued isn't a strong enough word. I really did want to know what was going on. Things are very effectively tied together, and while I thought I was going to hate it, I loved the ending. It's a little out there perhaps, but I liked it. The cast is well assembled including likable scenes from Kathy Bates and Rosanna Arquette. I heard that this was one of Costner's better performances, but I think this is far from his strongest. He seemed a little weak in the beginning, but he seemed to grow into the character. The script starts out great and even kind of witty, but it dwindled off and didn't turn out to be overall impressive. Well directed as well. A good quick mystery.

Dragonfly:
+




What really struck me about this movie is that it certainly has its own style. Brimming with racial undertones in the mystery plot, it's really an enjoyable watch. Washington is great in a role that could have been written for him. The supporting cast are all very good, but most memorable has to be Don Cheadle. His character provides plenty of hearty laughs as well as helps drive the plot. The mystery is well done, pieced together, and explained.

Devil in a Blue Dress:
+




I was not expecting much at all from this Rom-Com. It's probably ideal as a date movie. While Leary and Bullock aren't sizzling with chemistry, there's a lot of romance and their relationship makes up most of the plot. It's surprisingly funny. I laughed way more than I expected and then a little. Leary's goofball Frank provided almost as many laughs as his boss and the gang working for him. The FBI agent tailling them was even comedic. There's plenty to laugh at and a lot of love going on here. Certainly worth the time but don't set your sights too high, IMO.

Two if by Sea:
+




I watched this one split down the middle. As in half-way through, I quit for a long time and went back to finish it. I must say Arnold and Jamie are a great pair for this movie. This comedic action flick has all the laughs and explotions I would've hoped for. The ending felt like it was dragged out some though. Cameron's naturally got some good special effects that have aged quite well. The plot is funny in itself and the script has a lot of good dialouge.

True Lies:






I had very high expectations for this movie and it lived up to every bit of them. The superb, stellar, fantastic cast filled with a lot of my favorites all have great characters to soak up in a rather simplistic plot for Grisham. Bullock's headstrong and capable legal assistant may have been my favorite part of the movie. While I don't think McConaughey has a lot of skill, he may have been born to play this role. Jackson was terrifically cast. Spacey's character plays a bigger role than he does, but he was smart to get in here. Donald and Kiefer Sutherland both do a lot with their small roles. The script has moments of humor, poignant speeches, and great lines. Really something I think any movie fan would enjoy this underrated courtroom drama.

A Time to Kill:
+
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All good people are asleep and dreaming.
Eat Pray Love (Murphy, 1975)


Julia Roberts, about to eat or pray.

BY PLANET NEWS / August 11, 2010

Elizabeth Gilbert's book "Eat, Pray, Love," unread by me, spent 150 weeks on the New York Times best seller list and is by some accounts a good one. It is also movie material, concerning as it does a tall blond (Gilbert) who ditches a failing marriage and a disastrous love affair to spend a year living in Italy, India and Bali seeking to find the balance of body, mind and spirit. During this journey, great-looking men are platooned at her, and a wise man, who has to be reminded who she is, remembers instantly, although what he remembers is only what she's just told him.

I gather Gilbert's "prose is fueled by a mix of intelligence, wit and colloquial exuberance that is close to irresistible" (New York Times Book Review), and if intelligence, wit and exuberance are what you're looking for, Julia Roberts is an excellent choice as the movie's star. You can see how it would be fun to spend a year traveling with Gilbert. A lot more fun than spending nearly two hours watching a movie about it. I guess you have to belong to the narcissistic subculture of Woo-Woo.

Here is a movie about Liz Gilbert. About her quest, her ambition, her good luck in finding only nice men, including the ones she dumps. She funds her entire trip, including scenic accommodations, ashram, medicine man, guru, spa fees and wardrobe, on her advance to write this book. Well, the publisher obviously made a wise investment. It's all about her, and a lot of readers can really identify with that. Her first marriage apparently broke down primarily because she tired of it, although Roberts at (a sexy and attractive) 43 makes an actor's brave stab at explaining they were "young and immature." She walks out on the guy (Billy Crudup) and he still likes her and reads her on the Web.

In Italy, she eats such Pavarottian plates of pasta that I hope one of the things she prayed for in India was deliverance from the sin of gluttony. At one trattoria she apparently orders the entire menu, and I am not making this up. She meets a man played by James Franco, about whom, enough said. She shows moral fibre by leaving such a dreamboat for India, where her quest involves discipline in meditation, for which she allots three months rather than the recommended lifetime. There she meets a tall, bearded, bespectacled older Texan (Richard Jenkins) who is without question the most interesting and attractive man in the movie, and like all of the others seems innocent of lust.

In Bali she revisits her beloved adviser Ketut Liyer (Hadi Subiyanto), who is a master of truisms known to us all. Although he connects her with a healer who can mend a nasty cut with a leaf applied for a few hours, his own skills seem limited to the divinations anyone could make after looking at her, and telling her things about herself after she has already revealed them.

Now she has found Balance, begins to dance on the high wire of her life. She meets Felipe (Javier Bardem), another divorced exile, who is handsome, charming, tactful, forgiving and a good kisser. He explains that he lives in Bali because his business is import-export, "which you can do anywhere" — although later, he explains she must move to Bali because "I live in Bali because my business is here." They've both forgotten what he said earlier. Unless perhaps you can do import-export anywhere, but you can only import and export from Bali when you live there. That would certainly be my alibi.

The audience I joined was perhaps 80 percent female. I heard some sniffles and glimpsed some tears, and no wonder. "Eat Pray Love" is shameless wish-fulfillment, a Harlequin novel crossed with a mystic travelogue, and it mercifully reverses the life chronology of many people, which is Love Pray Eat.
Eat Pray Love BY ROGER EBERT / August 11, 2010

Eat Pray Love
A Confederacy of narcissists

Release Date: 2010

Ebert Rating: **

By Roger Ebert Aug 11, 2010

Elizabeth Gilbert's book "Eat, Pray, Love," unread by me, spent 150 weeks on the New York Times best seller list and is by some accounts a good one. It is also movie material, concerning as it does a tall blond (Gilbert) who ditches a failing marriage and a disastrous love affair to spend a year living in Italy, India and Bali seeking to find the balance of body, mind and spirit.

During this journey, great-looking men are platooned at her, and a wise man, who has to be reminded who she is, remembers instantly, although what he remembers is only what she's just told him.

I gather Gilbert's "prose is fueled by a mix of intelligence, wit and colloquial exuberance that is close to irresistible" (New York Times Book Review), and if intelligence, wit and exuberance are what you're looking for, Julia Roberts is an excellent choice as the movie's star. You can see how it would be fun to spend a year traveling with Gilbert. A lot more fun than spending nearly two hours watching a movie about it. I guess you have to belong to the narcissistic subculture of Woo-Woo.

Here is a movie about Liz Gilbert. About her quest, her ambition, her good luck in finding only nice men, including the ones she dumps. She funds her entire trip, including scenic accommodations, ashram, medicine man, guru, spa fees and wardrobe, on her advance to write this book. Well, the publisher obviously made a wise investment. It's all about her, and a lot of readers can really identify with that. Her first marriage apparently broke down primarily because she tired of it, although Roberts at (a sexy and attractive) 43 makes an actor's brave stab at explaining they were "young and immature." She walks out on the guy (Billy Crudup) and he still likes her and reads her on the Web.

In Italy, she eats such Pavarottian plates of pasta that I hope one of the things she prayed for in India was deliverance from the sin of gluttony. At one trattoria she apparently orders the entire menu, and I am not making this up. She meets a man played by James Franco, about whom, enough said. She shows moral fibre by leaving such a dreamboat for India, where her quest involves discipline in meditation, for which she allots three months rather than the recommended lifetime. There she meets a tall, bearded, bespectacled older Texan (Richard Jenkins) who is without question the most interesting and attractive man in the movie, and like all of the others seems innocent of lust.

In Bali she revisits her beloved adviser Ketut Liyer (Hadi Subiyanto), who is a master of truisms known to us all. Although he connects her with a healer who can mend a nasty cut with a leaf applied for a few hours, his own skills seem limited to the divinations anyone could make after looking at her, and telling her things about herself after she has already revealed them.

Now she has found Balance, begins to dance on the high wire of her life. She meets Felipe (Javier Bardem), another divorced exile, who is handsome, charming, tactful, forgiving and a good kisser. He explains that he lives in Bali because his business is import-export, "which you can do anywhere" — although later, he explains she must move to Bali because "I live in Bali because my business is here." They've both forgotten what he said earlier. Unless perhaps you can do import-export anywhere, but you can only import and export from Bali when you live there. That would certainly be my alibi.

The audience I joined was perhaps 80 percent female. I heard some sniffles and glimpsed some tears, and no wonder. "Eat Pray Love" is shameless wish-fulfillment, a Harlequin novel crossed with a mystic travelogue, and it mercifully reverses the life chronology of many people, which is Love Pray Eat.

Cast & Credits

Liz Gilbert Julia Roberts
Richard Richard Jenkins
Stephen Billy Crudup
David James Franco
Felipe Javier Bardem
Delia Shiraz Viola Davis
Ketut Liyer Hadi Subiyanto

Columbia Pictures presents a film directed by Ryan Murphy. Screenplay by Murphy and Jennifer Salt. Running time: 141 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for brief strong language, some sexual references and male rear nudity).



Yeah, PN was just being funny after Fiscal was busted for plagiarism.
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Yet another massive MoFo failure in detecting blatant satire.

Loner's right on the lightsaber line so I won't derep twice, but c'mon man. I'm trying to reach 500 before Yoda raises the threshold. At least derep a deserving post. There are many if you look.



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Red Desert (Antonioni, 1964)

This is an effective movie in that I think a large part of its intention is to collapse personal, social and environmental observation into an aesthetic critique of industrialization. The commentary is mostly in images and the excellent use of sound rather than in people or plot, so a lot of viewers will mistakenly think this is "pretentious" (a word I almost never use and never use pejoratively), but I think this message comes across pretty clearly and effectively. It even seems like a propaganda film to me. It uses color, form and sound to convey a feeling that this 1960s industrial Italy is corroding people's abilities to connect to the world or each other and perhaps even their minds and bodies. It even literally sucks the color out of organic forms when they're placed in an oppressive concrete place.

This is all a set up for a contrast with a woman's inner world that is pretty much the exact opposite of the real but is made to seem much more real in it's lushness and calm, here too the use of sound is very stong. The movie seems somewhat slow due to its lack of plot but I'm willing to allow that because it really is an aesthetically powerful and memorable film.

Finely written review. Antonioni is an untapped resource for me. Thanks for giving me a place to go after Blowup!



Carnival of Sinners/La Main du diable (1943) –
+
A story of greedy self-conflict and the choice between normalcy or unlimited love, fortune and talent… at the risk of eternal damnation. The film has fallen under the radar over the years. It’s extremely hard to find, but if attainable, it’s worthwhile.

Malefique (2002) –
+
The horror in Malefique might be too grotesque for some, but the thing that makes it so interesting is its attempt to keep the viewer captivated by the fear of the unknown (in true Lovecraftian tradition). Though much of its mystery is a little too predictable, the basic plot leaves a profound impact.

Razorback (1984) –
+ Camp rating:

The suspense scenes (especially the ending) often suffer from jumpy camera movement and a poor creature model that, thankfully, stays off-screen most of the time, but are aided by some very artistic lighting.

Considering that it was set in the Outback, and that it was directed by the man that introduced us to Highlander, I was hoping that this would turn out more entertaining than it was. The film doesn’t take itself too seriously, but it’s just uninteresting to watch.

Red Rock West (1993)
-
Its minor implausibility may bother some, but its plot craft and extremely effective tension make it well worth watching. As its protagonist falls deeper and deeper into a hole that he somehow dug himself, we get a neo-noir that crafts its sequences in a way that seems reminiscent of Hitchcock while still maintaining its own originality. This would make a great double-bill with Blood Simple.
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