Comedy, Movies

Shall We Dance?

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Stuck in the airplane, I watched Richard Gere dance again.  Dirty Dancing or last year’s sequel Dirty Dancing Havanna Nights are filled with teenage lust and broken hearts. This film is the middle aged version of the earlier dance films. Everything is cleaned up. A young women makes a bored estate lawyer take up ball image [Read More]
Drama, Movies

I, Robot

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I am not much of a fan of the Sci-fi genre, but this film kept me entertained while sitting on a plane. It is based on a book by Isaac Asimonov, who was clearly informed about the debates philosophers carried out over the last 5 decades concerning artificial intelligence. Will it ever be possible image [Read More]
Comedy, Movies

Tom Jones

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This film, which received an Ocscar for best picture in 1963, takes an hour to become funny for someone who is not English. The first hour is filled with dry British humor. The second hour adds drama, making it easier for me to forget that I was standing on a stairmaster, trying to lose a image [Read More]
Drama, Movies

The Butterfly Effect

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The Butterfly effect was coined by scientists who discovered that small changes can have dramatic consequences over long distances (both in space and time). A hurricane in the U.S. may have been set off by the flap of a butterfly wing in Honk Kong. The film applies this idea to the life of individual people. image [Read More]
Drama, Movies

Cast Away

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I rented this movie because I heard that Tom Hank’s who plays an FedEx employee shipwrecked on a small island entertains you all by himself for an hour and a half. It is not true. The movie is painfully slow in large part because it has nothing significant to say.  I had so much time image [Read More]
Drama, Movies

Bad Education

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After seeing Almodovar’s two recent movies Talk to Her and All about my Mother, I left the theatre deeply satisfied. Both films were extraordinary pieces of cinema. I felt different about Bad Education. It took me some time to figure out what made this a good film yet noticeable inferior to his two previous image [Read More]
Drama, Movies

Grapes of Wrath

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One reason why people see the same film in very different ways is that we filter it through our past experiences and hopes for the future. Grapes of Wrath, made in 1940, documents the hardship of one family that can no longer make a living on the depleted soil of Oklahoma and leaves the Dust image [Read More]
Drama, Movies

A Streetcar Named Desire

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In contrast to On the Waterfront (1954), this film—also directed by Elia Kazan— feels dated although it is only three years older than On the Waterfront. Brando’s acting is not at fault. It is impeccable. The film has the timeless theme of the battle between men and women. But it is so much grounded in image [Read More]
Comedy, Movies

Election

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Unlike his later masterpieces About Schmidt and Sideways, this film lacks existential gravity. Instead of directing it as a comedy, Payne should have cast it as a drama with comic scenes. This is the style he uses in his later movies. But you can see already here Payne’s immense ability to bring onto the screen image [Read More]