The Tree, 2010
Director: Julie Bertuccelli
Origin: France | Australia | Germany | Italy
Language: English
Running time: 100 min
After her husband's sudden death, Dawn must provide for her four kids despite her grief, while young Simone is convinced her father's spirit now lives in a giant fig tree in the yard. But the tree's roots soon threaten the stability of their home. (from Netflix.com)
U.S. box office: $71,158
----
Review of last week's film (Yi Yi, four stars)Steven says: This is a "let it soak in" film. At nearly three hours, there is a lot to take in, to process, to analyze. It is richly layered with everyday characters dealing with everyday events - school, ailing parents, money-borrowing relatives. It is how their stories intersect and interact that brings larger drama and larger questions. At the film's heart is the question: are you searching for something real in life or something magical? In the end, it seems that the magic is unattainable and even harmful, unless you give yourself over to something real first. I'm still thinking about it though, so these ideas may not hold true tomorrow.
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
July 25, 2012 - "Yi Yi" (2000)
Yi Yi, 2000
Director: Edward Yang
Origin: Taiwan | Japan
Languages: Mandarin | Hokkien
Running time: 173 min
Among movie critics' highest-rated foreign films of 2000, Yi Yi chronicles three generations of a Taiwanese family mired in a crisis of self-doubt. The film focuses mostly on computer worker N.J. (Nien-Jen Wu) and his wife and two children. A chance meeting with a former lover compels N.J. to question the assumptions on which his life is based. Warm and thoughtful, Yi Yi posits that truth is something we may never know. (from Netflix.com)
U.S. box office: $901,359
----
Review of last week's film ("Something Like Happiness", four stars)
Steven says: The theme of this movie centers around what passes for happiness. We've been here before with similarly titled films, but the relationships seem more real, more grounded in truth. For sure, the characters aren't normal - what would a movie be with normal people in it, right? But their struggles, emotions, and consequences are places we've been ourselves. The introductory scenes are sparse and lack engagement, but somewhere in the 20-25 minute range, everything clicks and there's no turning back. You'll love, despise, ache and cringe throughout this movie.
Director: Edward Yang
Origin: Taiwan | Japan
Languages: Mandarin | Hokkien
Running time: 173 min
Among movie critics' highest-rated foreign films of 2000, Yi Yi chronicles three generations of a Taiwanese family mired in a crisis of self-doubt. The film focuses mostly on computer worker N.J. (Nien-Jen Wu) and his wife and two children. A chance meeting with a former lover compels N.J. to question the assumptions on which his life is based. Warm and thoughtful, Yi Yi posits that truth is something we may never know. (from Netflix.com)
U.S. box office: $901,359
----
Review of last week's film ("Something Like Happiness", four stars)
Steven says: The theme of this movie centers around what passes for happiness. We've been here before with similarly titled films, but the relationships seem more real, more grounded in truth. For sure, the characters aren't normal - what would a movie be with normal people in it, right? But their struggles, emotions, and consequences are places we've been ourselves. The introductory scenes are sparse and lack engagement, but somewhere in the 20-25 minute range, everything clicks and there's no turning back. You'll love, despise, ache and cringe throughout this movie.
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
July 18, 2012 - "Something Like Happiness" (2005)
Something Like Happiness, 2005
Director: Bohdan Slama
Origin: Czech Republic
Language: Czech
Running time: 102 min
Monika (Tatiana Vilhelmova), Tonik (Pavel Liska) and Dasha (Anna Geislerova) are three friends from a small working-class Czech town. Living in a depressed cloud of industrialization spewed from one of the country's largest chemical factories, the trio dreams of a brighter life, each of the three finding solace through love, fantasy or escape. Ultimately, comfort and happiness surface as they learn to accept the things they cannot change. (from Netflix.com)
----
Review of last week's film (Happy, Happy, 3.5 stars)Steven says: For our main characters, happiness is a masquerade. It often takes external forces to help one figure out that happy is a matter of perspective, of circumstance and of choice. The journey from point A to point B is messy, sometimes funny, and educational. And by the time you end up at point B, maybe, just maybe you truly are happy, or at least headed in the right direction. "Happy, Happy" shows four people on this journey in a tightly woven narrative interspersed with its own version of an ironic Greek (aka bluegrass gospel quartet) chorus. You know these people. You might even be these people. Where is your happy?
Director: Bohdan Slama
Origin: Czech Republic
Language: Czech
Running time: 102 min
Monika (Tatiana Vilhelmova), Tonik (Pavel Liska) and Dasha (Anna Geislerova) are three friends from a small working-class Czech town. Living in a depressed cloud of industrialization spewed from one of the country's largest chemical factories, the trio dreams of a brighter life, each of the three finding solace through love, fantasy or escape. Ultimately, comfort and happiness surface as they learn to accept the things they cannot change. (from Netflix.com)
----
Review of last week's film (Happy, Happy, 3.5 stars)Steven says: For our main characters, happiness is a masquerade. It often takes external forces to help one figure out that happy is a matter of perspective, of circumstance and of choice. The journey from point A to point B is messy, sometimes funny, and educational. And by the time you end up at point B, maybe, just maybe you truly are happy, or at least headed in the right direction. "Happy, Happy" shows four people on this journey in a tightly woven narrative interspersed with its own version of an ironic Greek (aka bluegrass gospel quartet) chorus. You know these people. You might even be these people. Where is your happy?
Sunday, July 8, 2012
July 11, 2012 - "Happy, Happy" (2010)
Happy Happy, 2010
Director: Anne Sewitsky
Origin: Norway
Languages: Norwegian | Danish | German
Running time: 85 min
Set in a remote Norwegian town, this black comedy centers on cheerful housewife Kaja (Agnes Kittlesen), who is contentedly wedded to her loveless high school sweetheart but lands in hot water when a risqué encounter with her urbane new neighbor, Sigve (Henrik Rafaelsen), goes too far. With a full-blown affair on her hands and Christmas just around the corner, Kaja falls back on blinding optimism to get her through the snowballing scandal. (from Netflix.com)
MPAA rating: Rated R for sexual content including brief graphic nudity
U.S. box office: $44,947
Director: Anne Sewitsky
Origin: Norway
Languages: Norwegian | Danish | German
Running time: 85 min
Set in a remote Norwegian town, this black comedy centers on cheerful housewife Kaja (Agnes Kittlesen), who is contentedly wedded to her loveless high school sweetheart but lands in hot water when a risqué encounter with her urbane new neighbor, Sigve (Henrik Rafaelsen), goes too far. With a full-blown affair on her hands and Christmas just around the corner, Kaja falls back on blinding optimism to get her through the snowballing scandal. (from Netflix.com)
MPAA rating: Rated R for sexual content including brief graphic nudity
U.S. box office: $44,947
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)