Change Your Image
seira199
Reviews
Whatever Works (2009)
One of Woody Allen's Worst
When I went to rent a film yesterday I was thrilled to find a new Woody Allen. While I'm not a great fan of the man, I am a fan of his work, and generally enjoy his films immensely. I'm sorry to say, Whatever Works falls into the small category of WA films that I didn't like. This was definitely not one of his better efforts. First, I found it totally predictable: the older Jewish intellectual man from New York, sour on life, meets up with young, beautiful and intellectually stunted shiksa from the hinterland. But then, what a surprise, the old genius starts to like the girl in spite of himself. She has all those qualities he's missing: innocence, spontaneity, goodness. In this case, the old genius, a thinly veiled portrayal of Allen himself by Larry David, uses language that I also found trite: calling people "earthworms" and other insipid expressions of condescension, well, it just wasn't very effective for me. Perhaps because when I think of people like that, "earthworms" just doesn't do it.
Oh well, no artist hits the mark each and every time. It's OK, Woody. I'll just eagerly await your next work.
Elle s'appelle Sabine (2007)
I Am Left Confused
I am a clinical social worker who has worked with the severe and persistently mentally ill for over 20 years. I therefore recognized immediately the signs of a person who is over medicated, specifically with the psychotropic drug Clozaril, combined with an unknown number of others. Why I'm confused is because people who are autistic are not necessarily psychotic; there was no mention of this poor woman, Sabine, being psychotic, yet with drugs used to treat psychosis, she was transformed from a beautiful, intelligent, and talented, albeit autistic young woman into a neuroleptic casualty, complete with drooling, obesity, uncontrollable trembling and impaired cognitive abilities, seemingly because the doctors in the psychiatric hospital where she was left didn't know what else to do with her acting out symptoms. Throughout the entire film, I felt like crying, and wishing I could somehow get that woman to some place where they would know how to treat her and somehow reverse all the damage that's been done to her and retrieve some of her original beauty and abilities. I wonder if her beautiful and talented sister, Sandrine, looked in this country for treatment options.
Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus (2006)
The Key Word is Imaginary
Once I realized that this is an imaginary portrait, and not a real biographic portrait, I felt better about Nicole Kidman playing Diane Arbus. Before watching it I was ready to contact the casting director with a list of suggestions of who would have been more appropriate to play Arbus, including, but not limited to, Claire Danes and Lili Taylor.
Once I understood that this was a take-off on the great photographer's life, I accepted that Kidman could do this role. Her big blue-eyed stare, breathless voice, and willowy beauty could fit into this fairy tale portrait of a woman who voluntarily (or not) stepped into a world very different from the one she was born into. If anything, her beauty made her that much more different than the so-called freaks she was attracted to.
As a portrayal of a woman fascinated by people outside the norm, I found this film quite gripping. I would like to have seen Arbus, played by Kidman, getting into the photographic relationships she wound up having with her freaky subjects.
Born Rich (2003)
Thought Provoking About the Privileged
I watched this last night and wake up thinking about it so I conclude it was thought provoking, though I think it could have gone deeper. On the other hand, maybe the rich inheritors who were interviewed went as deep as they could! These are people who have the status that millions of us try to get each day as we shell out our hard earned bucks for lottery tickets. I believe we have to be somehow entitled to our karmic destinies, otherwise it would be impossible to justify why some people are born as natural lottery winners and others need 3 jobs just to pay the rent.
The one burning question I have after seeing BORN RICH is Where is Paris Hilton? Was she purposely omitted from this or did she decline? I would have been interested in getting the most famous heiress's take on being born rich.
Holy Smoke (1999)
Unexpectedly great movie!
I had bought the VHS copy of Holy Smoke several months ago in a 5 for $20 special at Blockbuster. I watched it tonight for the first time and was pleasantly surprised. It's really quite profound, I thought. Jane Campion presents the subject of people searching for something in which to believe, getting caught up in groups with gurus, sometimes known as cults. She also presents the family of the person who, as in this case, do everything they can think of to extricate their loved one from what they see as a terrible situation. Yet, the way the family is portrayed, one questions, who is really the crazy one here? Who is really in the terrible situation? Then there's the presentation of the person who is supposedly the expert on deprogramming the person who's been brainwashed, in this case Harvey Keitel, who is going to get Kate Winslet out of the programmed mindset from her Indian guru. I believe the characters are truly profound in their ambiguity. Who is really crazy? Who is really brainwashed and addicted? Who has the "right" values? In the end, there really are two values, love and kindness, that are worth anything, and love too often gets obfuscated by eroticism. So, really, there's only one thing that counts in day to day life, and that is Kindness, as the character Winslet plays and her mother, demonstrate at the end. Brilliant job, Jane Campion.
Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004)
A Radical, Revolutionary Film
This is one of the most important movies of our time. Michael Moore cannot get enough praise for having the courage to put out there what has truly been a great cover-up, and affecting all our lives. In a vastly entertaining, engrossing and edifying way, Moore has transcended the silence of the media and given us so much information that hasn't been reaching the people of the United States and the world. If it appears to be a conspiracy, well, it is!
Moore did his research, and presented the truth about the Bushes, et al., their buddies the Saudis, and how as ordinary people we are all suffering because of their greed for money and power. Moore has shown how a tiny group of the highest order of criminals are running our country and how powerless most people are to do anything. I thank him for doing what he's done.