Spreadin' The Love Around For A Memorable Valentine's Day!
Feb 12 '06
The Bottom Line Hope this list is eclectic enough for you! ;-)
With Valentine’s Day approaching, I’ve decided to add another installment to my Spreadin’ The Love Around series. Instead of reviewing the following movies myself, I read some of the existing reviews for them by writers who do an excellent, interesting job, are not Top Reviewers (one was when the review was written) and need to be read. Many haven’t written reviews for a while and could use encouragement, perhaps.
I’ve enjoyed all these movies as well, some more than others, and love in unexpected places seems to be the theme underlying them. Downfall, for instance, has the main female character, also narrator, loving Hitler as a father. Crimes and Misdemeanors is also not a happy love story. Love isn't always going to make you happy, right?
I encourage you to read the rest of the reviews and to watch a unique kind of love story with your sweetheart!
Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride by mattygroves
Wow. What a fun film. The story, though simple, hooks the viewer in, and the technical wizardry is eye-boggling and mind boggling - all done with the type of stop-motion animation pioneered by Ray Harryhausen (who gets a name check in the film - the piano Victor and Victoria duet on is, according to the nameplate, a Harryhausen). It is visually bizarre yet wonderful, somewhat reminiscent of Gerald Scarfe's unique style of drawing, particularly in the people and animals - long of limb and thin of body (except those characters such as Victor's mother, who are meant to be fat). There is big hair on show, and strange creatures (many of whom are dead). Given Burton's penchant for confounding expectations, the underworld is a cheery and colourful place, whilst the Victorian(ish) world of the living is grey and dour.
Read the rest: http://www.epinions.com/content_211244519044
Heaven and Earth by RROYBLAKE
The story is, of course, the story of a Vietnamese woman. How typical she is we can only guess but it would seem that versions of her story abound in Vietnam. Her brothers went away to fight for "Charlie" and their stories put such a human face on "Charlie" that again it was almost painful to think that we devoted so much effort to his destruction. But "Charlie" is no angel either. Indeed a part of the story is the fact that she is raped by some of the Vietcong. She marries an American Psyops officer played by Tommy Lee Jones, and Stone only hints at the almost unimaginable efforts that were employed by Psyops in Vietnam.
Read the rest:
http://www.epinions.com/mvie-review-16E3-1138841C-3956DC43-prod6
March of the Penguins by miditrax
If you’re having a bad body image day don’t despair; here is a place where being fat has its advantages! These are birds as imagined by Botero - wide, waddling bodies with short, squat appendages. But the Obesity Police need not worry; in the process of gathering, pairing and coddling their eggs through the harsh Antarctic winter in their ancestral breeding grounds these Emperor penguins endure a starvation diet, losing about half their body mass. Amazingly it's the males who take on the egg-sitting, clustering together in a giant mass during the worst conditions while their mates go off to hunt.
Read the rest: http://www.epinions.com/content_212811878020
Shall We Dance? By arada392
Shall We Dance? could have easily been another one of those mindless off-color slapstick comedies that, according to many Western experts, are very popular in Japan. The plot, concerning a middle-aged salaryman taking dancing classes to woo an attractive girl he regularly spies on, would lead to many embarrassing and laughable situations typical with this kind of low-brow style of comedy. However, Shall We Dance? is above that. Admittedly, the film does implement stereotypical characters and situations, but the director, Masayuki Suo –who also wrote the script– does not take manners in a superficial way: he describes the story in a very subtle way, making the characters and situations flesh out slowly into an experience that is nothing short of charming.
Read the rest: http://www.epinions.com/content_18980245124#ow
Much Ado About Nothing by chrissy1018
It's one of Shakespeare's comedies that isn't studied as much as the other plays. It's the story of a group of soldiers led by the Prince (Denzel Washington) who come to stay at the country home of some friends. There the young captain Claudio (Robert Sean Leonard, who just won his first Tony Award) falls for his host's beautiful daughter, Hero. The Prince agrees to help Claudio win her hand.
Hero has a cousin named Beatrice (Emma Thompson), who is a bit too outspoken to ever marry. The Prince and Claudio think she's the perfect match for their friend Benedict (Kenneth Branagh), who has vowed never to marry. Working with Hero and her companion, they trick Beatrice and Benedict into thinking that each is in love with the other but too afraid of rejection and scorn to confess the truth of their feelings. This provides great, and witty exchanges between Beatrice and Benedict, and the parts are perfectly cast in this movie by then husband and wife team Branagh and Thompson.
Read the rest: http://www.epinions.com/content_26331876996
Crimes and Misdemeanors by monkey hoot
Immoral acts and conscience is the theme of Crimes and Misdemeanors. Every time my husband and I watch it we end up pausing it to have a philosophical debate about wrong acts and what makes them wrong. (Or another favorite topic: if the other woman in the movie has any reason for acting like she does or if she's just a nut job.) Granted, my husband and I both have our Master's degrees in philosophy, but you don't need these degrees to enjoy this movie.
There are three worlds that collide in this movie. 1)Judah Rosenthal's world (Judah is played brilliantly by Martin Landau) of wealth, a loving family and happiness. 2) Judah's secret world of his affair (the other woman played with Fatal Attraction like intensity by Angelica Houston). 3) Cliff Stern's world (Cliff is played hilariously by Woody Allen) of failed movie making.
Read the rest: http://www.epinions.com/mvie-review-6179-BAB3B64-39C38FA2-prod1#ow
Downfall by frwhiskey
A film with Hitler as the main character is bound to cause controversy, but Swiss actor Bruno Ganz, well known in the German-speaking film world, does an admirable job of showing one of the world's worst megalomaniacs. In the final weeks before Hitler's suicide, both he and his once-proud country were much the worse for wear and obviously doomed. Down to his moustache, his declining age and health, his palsied, trembling hand, his wrinkled face and disheveled appearance, this Adolph Hitler does appear as defeated as the nation he dragged down to an ignoble defeat, complete with the Battle for Berlin raging above his final days' comrades, the top brass of the National Socialist army, generals and all still in uniform until the end.
Read the rest: http://www.epinions.com/content_179087969924
The Goodbye Girl by MrsNormanMaine
Marsha Mason plays plucky Paula McFadden, an aging Broadway chorine who's a single mom to ten year old Lucy (Quinn Cummings). One day, she returns home to her shabby chic New York apartment to find that her latest boyfriend, Tony, has up and left her high and dry. Not only that, but Tony has sublet the apartment to another actor, Elliot Garfield (Richard Dreyfuss), recently moved from Chicago to make his name in New York in the title role of an off-Broadway production of Richard III. In true romantic comedy style, neither Paula nor Elliot can truly afford to make a go of it economically alone so they agree to become apartment mates at first loathing each other, their personal habits, and their approaches to life. Any student of Romantic Comedy 101 will deduce after ten minutes that they're made for each other and there will be a happy ending. On the way to that foregone conclusion, Elliot performs an unforgettable Richard, under the direction of a certifiable idiot (a brilliant Paul Benedict) and Paula attempts to re-establish her dance career with deep knee bends and a stint at the auto show.
Read the rest: http://www.epinions.com/content_97362546308
The Apartment by PKWBassGuy
For those of you unfamiliar with this masterpiece.. The Apartment is an Oscar-winning tale of a medium-level pencil pusher ( brilliantly portrayed by Jack Lemmon) who is put in the difficult position of having the most conveniently and cozily located apartment for many of his immoral work superiors to use for a love nest. Mixed in with this is Jack’s love for a both moxied and vulnerable elevator operator portrayed by a pre-other-lives-wacko Shirley McClaine. ( How wonderful it is to see this movie and just watch this brilliant actress ACT instead of suffering through the modern day problem of being unable to separate her bizarre real-life persona from her work that often happens when anyone watches her more recent movies.) Shirley is in love with a married superior of Jack’s coldly, maliciously and magnificently played by pre-My Three Sons Fred Mcmurray. ( Though it’s a movie buff’s given, it still astounds me to see how famous wholesome Steve Douglas was playing nasties before his legendary TV career.) Shirley has indeed rendezvoused with the married Fred at Jack’s eponymous abode and that brings me to my first example of why this movie falls into classic category number one as denoted in my list above.
Read the rest: http://www.epinions.com/content_119046573700
Doctor Zhivago (1965) by isinga
It's impossible to see this film and not see elements of yourself as you could be. I say "could be," because it all hinges on how willing you are to allow yourself to be vulnerable. If you are fortunate enough to have read Pasternak's novel, you will understand the inevitability of Doctor Zhivago winning the Nobel Prize for literature. It is one of those works that stands, even today, as a monument to humanity.
Sadly, for all his perceptiveness, Pasternak was cruelly mistreated by Communism, as was his hero. The character of Lara was modeled on his own real life love and long-time companion, Olga Ivinskaya. As in the book, Olga outlived Boris, who died in 1960. Olga died at the age of 82 in Moscow, in 1995. Boris, who should have received his Prize in 1958, was prevented by the Communists. Somehow, I think he would have approved of the filmization of his book.
You cringed a bit at my mention of vulnerability? No need to. Doctor Zhivago is a virtual study in the various faces of vulnerability -- all of which are necessary to life. Sadly, it is also a study of the myriad ways in which we resist our vulnerability.
Read the rest: http://www.epinions.com/mvie-review-FC4-FB206C-39EF8ABF-prod1#ow
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Member: Jan Peregrine
Location: Lincoln, NE
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