| TransAmerica:Movie Review by J Johnson |
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In Transamerica , Felicity Huffman(Desperate Housewives) plays Bree(aka Stanley) a pre-operative transsexual living in Los Angeles who before the transgender operation finds out Stanley(Bree) has a son in jail in New York City.
She travels to New York to bail her(Stanley's) son, Toby, out of jail. After bailing Toby out of jail, Bree realizes her son has been making a living as a prostitute.
Toby and Bree embark on a cross country trek back to Los Angeles where Toby thinks he will meet his father, Stanley. Toby does not know that Bree is actually his father, but thinks Bree is a Christian missionary who came to help him.
Are you following the story line? I didn't think so.
The movie was good but so "passe" in the City by the Bay; Transgender in the Bay City is no big deal; everybody's doing it. I still remember my brother visiting years ago. We go to the movies. I go in and sit down and he doesn't follow. Finally, I go out and he's talking to this very attractive lady. Suddenly, I realize she's a transsexual: so funny (not in a philosophical sense because there is lots of pain involved). When I tell him who he was talking to, he didn't believe me.
I don't mean to make fun because the transgender issue is a serious one. The decisions, the ridicule, the insensitvity are very difficult and painful. One day, there's Phil and then the next day, Phil is Phyllis.
TransAmerica is a slow movie. The story was a little convoluted to me and so I left before it was over. Wait for the video. Two parachutes.
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| Match Point:Movie Review by J. Johnson. |
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MATCH POINT, a Woody Allen film, was very interesting and different and had some unexpected twists. It did hold me, but not much of a middle as my daughter would say(middle meaning boring, slow parts that make you wonder where the movie is headed).
I've never been much of a Woody Allen fan. I mean, the guy married a young Korean girl who was his ward or adopted daughter or something-pretty shameful but let us not judge here.
The movie revolves around former tennis pro Chris Wilton played by Jonathan Rhys-Meyers and his struggle to maintain social status, but acquire mad impassioned love. Chris has an affair and marries Chloe Hewett, played by Emily Mortimer, the daughter of a wealthy businessman. Chole is very much in love with Chris, but Chris meets Nola Rice played by Scarlett Johansson with whom he immediately develops mad passionate feelings. Nola just so happens to be dating, Chloe's brother, but this does not stop Chris's
pursuit. If Chris leaves Chloe, he will loose his grand lifestyle; therefore, he considers extreme measures.
I can't tell much more without divulging too much of the movie. Let me just say as a former tennis nut, the premise that the movie was based on was very subtle and a stroke of Woody's genius, if he thought it up. Sometimes your tennis ball hits the net and for a split second you just don't know: it can fall on the other side and you win the point game or match, or it can fall on your side and you lose. Yes, life is very much this analogy.
Jonathan Rhys-Meyers(Velvet Goldmine, Elvis mini series) really was by far the best actor in the film. Much of the story was told through his eyes -the struggle to do what's right, the manipulation and then trying to figure things out. Meyers goes from being a very empathic character to one very, very stupid guy who lets the wrong person direct him.
Scarlett Johansson is good but I will have to admit that there's something about her that makes me think that she is in the Al Pacino or Robert De Niro school of acting. In other words, merely playing oneself regardless of what the story is. It just seems she plays the same character whether it is the movie Girl with a Pearl Earring, Lost in Translation with Bill Murray, or this one.
Wait for the video. No, I take it back, go see it now. Good flick. Two and a half parachutes
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| A Nanny McPhee Movie Review by Ellen S. |
What a delight! It was just the pick me up from a serious case of the blahs. This movie was just the tonic. I met a girlfriend at the theatre and we fell in love with Nanny McPhee - if you haven't already seen it, please go.
Emma Thompson did the screenplay and plays Nanny and is so superb that I am in awe. I've always loved her and I'd go to see almost anything with Colin Firth in it.
The nuances throughout are grand. Truly, it is a jewel of a movie. I am especially enchanted with what happens to Nanny as her little charges learn the special lessons she teaches them...such an incredible transformation. Three parachutes. Feb 07 2006
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| About the DVD
Crash-Really Worth A Look
by Majorie O'Keefe |
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Someone said that the way one knows if a movie has any impact is if one is still thinking about it days later. Crash is this sort of movie (viewed on DVD). It won the Critic's Award for best ensemble and I understand why. Of course, there are ten thousand award shows and so...
The movie is really several vignettes and they are all about race in various ways. I will have to say that this is the first movie I've seen which is exclusively devoted to race. The other one I remember is Grand Canyon which centers on a single event that morphs into a story of race relations with black and white.
Crash deals with race in every single story line and not just white on black but almost every single ethnic group in America; it has a few twists you don't expect. And, it works.
It held me and as a self-diagnosed ADD, no small thing. The characters were believable, if not likable. And, as movies and TV can do, they can make anything happen they want to happen.
I don't want to give the various stories away, because this is a movie you should see. I would like to give it away as it is a movie I'd like to talk about.
The movie shows racism in all of us. The movie didn't tie up neatly every story as I would have liked, but it did "tie" up a few. And, if I were to use one word to describe CRASH; well, maybe two, they would be insight and redemption. The part where the movies can make whatever happen they want had to do with redemption: the cop who gets a second chance to undo a bad deed, the hoodlum who instead of dying, gets a second chance. The movie director who confronts who he is, the beleaguered shopkeeper who distrusts all, but in a desperate act finds "the angel."
See the movie and see it with friends or lovers or anybody who likes to go to movies and then talk about the movie afterwards. If you can't find someone like that, call me. Crash is a three parachutes movie. Rent the DVD!!!
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Grizzly Man is a weird documentary. I actually watched it "off and on" while I was doing other stuff. So, to say that it got my total attention might be an understatement. The documentary was primarily footage of Timothy Treadwell's life with grizzlies. Treadwell was obsessed with the animals and the film showed it.
The documentary is actually done by Werner Herzog, a filmmaker "who has made a career out of making documentaries and films that depict troubled people"(source:Amazon.com). Herzog compiled Treadwell's many hours of videotape to make Grizzly Man.
Many who see this documentary might think, Timothy Treadwell was a misguided nut, perhaps on an ego trip from normalcy. The end of life for Timothy Treadwell and his girlfriend, Amy, came at the hands of his beloved bears; they ate them. It seems somewhat macabre that he was eaten by the bears, maybe one bear. But no one can testify as to actually what happened.
Treadwell's flights of fantasy were pretty evident to an ADD(Attention Deficit Disorder) guy doing something else. He saw himself as a bear savior. Yet,there's no evidence that he did anything to enhance their lives or if they needed saving.I don't think Treadwell did anything productive other than living among them in the wild. He never seemed to accept the fact that there is no seamless existence between nature and man even as much as he might have wanted it.
Think about this: thirteen summers with the big grizzlies in Alaska. I mean, he's right up there with them. How he lasted that long is pretty amazing. He taped over one hundred hours of film. I was a little taken aback by some of the attitudes of those interviewed about him; they ranged from admiration by a former girlfriend to another saying, "He got what he deserved."
To end on a positive note: the Alaska wilderness added to the elusiveness and mystery of the film and the footage of the shy girlfriend added a little to the intrigue. The narrator, also the documentary maker Herzog, was poignant; and, in addition, used his words to add an air of mystery to the footage.
Rent the video just to see the bears and do a little wondering. two parachutes.DF(POSTED: JAN 16 05)
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| The "A Million Little Pieces Controversy" by Dan Foster(Does It Matter?)
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When I was a young preacher, I was always fascinated with the fact that most TV preachers and many of my fellow pastors always had lived these horrid lives before finding God and joining the ministry.
They were drunkards, beat their wives, neglected their children, and then they saw the "light." They were converted and they had stories to tell. From the wretchedness of sin to the pulpit. I was rendered speechless often, mainly because I didn't have any of those tales. How could I ever be a successful minister? My Mom and Dad were great. We were farmers and worked hard; and, as far as I knew, everybody supported everybody else. However, as a young minister, I thought one must be in the dregs of the mud and mire to be lifted out to pursue righteousness. It is the only way!
So, I was not surprised with all the flabbergasted sighs about James Frey and his terrific memoir, A Million Little Pieces. The book appears to be somewhat, if not downright, exaggerated. I can never say "I told you so" but I was suspect. Pat, pat, pat. Does this fact, if true, that Frey embellished his story somewhat, render the book any less readable? (Me thinks Frey protests too loudly, but afterall, Random House now wants to give people their money back, if they feel duped.) In my opinion, the story is slightly tainted, but still a good story.
Frey's book held me and I read almost every word,which for an ADD (attention deficit disorder) type, a big, Wow! Reading a book with no paragraphs, no punctuation, and capitalized words-which are not supposed to be-was a challenge; but, for this book, it works. One gets the feel that it is kind of like a journal. I could not put it down-spellbinding in a sense! And, I think, the book gave a rare look into rehab portraying addicts at their worst: the way addicts are-the way they talk, and how they think. Frey has described rehab to a "T."
When he did his self-assessment (one of the twelve steps of AA); however, I found it slightly hard to believe. If so, he was a young sociopath; I can hardly accept what he did to people as a youngster and got away with it. I have read enough about the drug culture (the hard scrabble life) and have had enough experiences counseling addicts to know that it would be almost impossible to get away with all the stuff he listed.This is where I get a little "put off" by the exaggeration.
If Frey's story about his run-ins with the law were true, he would have been in jail early on, killed or something. Maybe there is a slight kernel of truth here enhanced to make a good story, but it was not necessary, no need to do it.
But, we don't have to believe that Frey is bad news to believe the "rehab" experience. There's a slight bit of exaggeration in all our writing I think;
and, if there is self-loathing, sometimes there's a tendency to make ourselves as bad as we can be.
Overall, the book
is a good read; but, if I had been Frey, I would have put in a disclaimer. Something like, "These events and happenings are relatively true. Five people having the same experience will all see it differently. " But what happened in rehab happened(assuming that it is true), and I hope it sheds light on what rehab is."
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 Now Available: Newly revised paperback General Lee:Father of the Airborne. Order from Amazon.
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Recent Commentaries |
 My Grandma Has a Blackberry book signing for women with breast cancer .
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