Music, Pop

Silbermond “Das Beste”

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In a coffee house in Germany, this song drew my attention away from answering emails. Silvermond is a band that is billed as “punk rock.” You listen to the song. This is not punk in my mind. For all you romantics out there who understand German, watch the video of the song below. image [Read More]
Humor, People

George Bush’s Mea Culpa

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MAUREEN DOWD (NYT) ghostwrites George’s Bush “Mea culpa.” Don’t hold your breath. Nothing of the sort will ever come out of George Bush’s mouth. Who’s Sorry Now? There’s not much lately that we’d like to import from China. Certainly not the yummy steamed buns stuffed with shredded cardboard soaked in a caustic agent used to make soap. image [Read More]
Drama, Movies

Terms of Endearment

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It is difficult to put this film into standard categories. I would call it a tragic comedy. Set in Texas and Iowa in the 1960s, the film wonderfully captures the life and transformation of middle class America. The constant bickering between the mother (Shirley MacLaine) and her daughter (Debra Winger) reminded me of A Streetcar image [Read More]
Drama, Movies

In the Land of Women

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Terrible, terrible, even for an airplane movie! The movie is lame, cheesy and uninspired. Carter gets dumped by his famous L.A. girlfriend. Next he moves in with his ailing grandmother to write a novel about his high school time he has not been able to write for the past 8 years. Confirming that location image [Read More]
Drama, Movies

Norbit

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Eddie Murphy latest comic film brings Cinderella into the hood.  Little Norbit grows up in an orphanage. His bliss comes to end when his buddy Kate gets adopted. Norbit is not the smartest fellow in the universe. But who says that Cinderella was a genius. This film has very funny scenes and at times is image [Read More]
Drama, Movies

The Namesake

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Biographical films often stumble precisely because they try to cover an entire lifetime. The viewer finds it disorienting when multiple actors play one and the same person during childhood, teenage years, adulthood and old age. Just when you have gotten used to a person and learned enough to feel a connection with her, a new image [Read More]
Drama, Movies

Shooter

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Shooter is a reaction to the shenanigans of the Bush administration. Inspired by the deeds of Dick Cheney and his neo-conservative fellow travelers, the film suggests that a few powerful officials can manipulate the entire machinery of government to pursue policies that would never be condoned if the public truly understood what is going on. image [Read More]
Drama, Movies

Breach

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Breach chronicles how the mot damaging traitor in the history of the FBI was caught. This film has non of action sequences that made Shooter suspenseful. Robert Hanssen, who sold very important secrets to the Soviet Union, is portrayed as deeply religious catholic man who goes to church every day. The film implicitly suggests that image [Read More]
Drama, Movies

Flags of our Fathers

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A few weeks ago, I sang the highest praises for Clint Eastwood’s Letters from Iwo Jima. My expectation was that Eastwood’sFlags of our Fathers would be an equally good movie, telling the story of the battle for Iwo Jima from the American side. To my great surprise, the prequel is stunningly inferior to Letters from image [Read More]
Comedy, Movies

Catch and Release

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One should not be a reviewer of a film in which a colleague has a gig. Richard Roeper (who together with Ebert forms the Chicago Sun-Times film critic team) said that he did not like the film based on the trailer, but came to like it quite a bit. This is chick’s film and not image [Read More]