Author: Village Vidiot

We really liked this disturbing 2010 pairing of colonialism/neo-colonialism. A Spanish film crew comes to Bolivia (!) to make a movie about Columbus, the abuse of the indigenous peoples, their resistance, and the emergence of opponents among the guilty Spanish clerics. They go to Bolivia. because it’s cheaper than filming in the islands and there…

We really enjoyed this film exercise (a one-take, 96-minute moving film) about spirits in the Hermitage in St Petersburg. Excellent discussions about the meaning of being Russian in a place where the past is always alive. You’ll either love it or hate it. Great jaunt through the astounding museum. We saw parts of the building…

We really enjoyed this 8-episode Brit murder mystery featuring David Tennant (Dr Who) as DI Alec Hardy and Olivia Coleman as DDI Ellie Miller. The murder of an 11-yo boy in an idyllic Dorset town sets off a series of events exposing both the complex and fractured relationships in families and the community as a…

We really enjoyed this 10-part first season about post-Katrina New Orleans. I found M Leo’s character a bit too sincere and virtuous for my taste (she is, apparently, modeled on a real NO lawyer) but the rest of the piece is a wonderful and joyous presentation of the city with all its flaws, corruption, and…

We must be the last folks in the country to see this Tom Hanks/Meg Ryan light-Nora Ephron comic drama about a boy who calls up a radio shrink because his dad (mom dies in scene 1) needs to find someone and can’t act. Ryan, of course, is hooking up with a nice guy but the…

We loved this exciting and entrancing animated look at the Japanese spirit world. A young girl and her family get caught in the bath house of the spirit world (in a deserted amusement park). When her parents become pigs, she has to figure out how to get them all out. It is really engrossing and…

We loved this excellent Pedro Almodavar film about two men joined by their love for women in comas. Very creative, quirky and fascinating. One, a writer, is in love with a woman bullfighter hurt in a ring accident (Almodovar’s bow to gender transgression, usually he has junkie, transsexual nuns and prostitutes). The other, a shy…

We loved this excellent film about food, Italian-American immigration, culture, love, capitalism, the American dream, language, and lots more. It’s stellar. Very well acted by folks like Stanley Tucci (he wrote, directed, and stars), Tony Shaloub (you’ll never believe he can’t really speak Italian), Minnie Driver (my new crush but only as a character actress),….

We loved this Denzel Washington produced, directed, star vehicle filming August Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize and Tony winning 1983 play of the same name. Washington and Davis recreate their Tony-winning performances (for the 2010 Broadway revival) as Troy and Rose Maxson for him and Viola Davis. The acting is superb and both are up for Oscars….

We loved this 1962 Anne Bancroft/Patti Duke tour de force. I hadn’t seen it since it came out. Don’t confuse this with the remake that, I think, had Duke in the Annie Sullivan role. See the original. Black and white film covers story of Helen Keller’s early years and her coming to consciousness (rarely a…

We liked this well done biopic about Ray Charles. And yes, Jamie Foxx is simply channeling Charles. It’s remarkable. The supporting actors are good and the discussion of the music business is enlightening. Charles manageing to keep control over his work is amazing enough, but to do it the way he did while blind is…

We liked this somewhat formulaic Oscar winner about a tea deliverer from the slums of Mumbai who competes for millions on India’s version of who wants to be a millionaire. The poverty is palpable. The questions lead us through two decades of his very hardscrabble life. We watched it with b and she was shocked…

We liked this interesting directorial conceit about Harvey Pekar, the Cleveland writer who chronicles his own life in the comic books he doesn’t draw. Paul Giamatti and Hope Davis are really great as Pekar and his wife Joyce, and they appear as themselves as well, as do many of his friends. The comic books also…

We liked this Coen Brothers remake of the John Wayne classic quite a bit. It stars Jeff Bridges as Rooster Cogburn and Matt Daman as LaBeuf, the young Texas Ranger out to track and capture Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin), the man who shot Mattie Ross’s (Halie Steinfeld) father. She’s excellent. In fact, everyone is quite…

We liked this Alfonso Cuaron-directed dystopian fantasy about our world in the near future where there can be no reproduction. Theo, played by Clive Owen, is ‘recruited’ by Julianne Moore, his radical ex-wife, to guide a pregnant girl to a ship that may exist, staffed by scientists who might be able to help save humanity…

We liked the cartoon characters in this fast paced piece with Brendan Frasier and Jenna Elfman as the human straight men. Steve Martin is terribly over the top and not effective. Not my favorite toon/human mix. See “Roger Rabbit” again for a really good time!. This one starts well but flattens out. As ever, I…

We liked but were also perplexed by this Todd Haynes (Superstar, Far From Heaven, Safe, etc) movie about Dylan that featured 6 Dylans, including Cate Blanchett, Heath Ledger as bobbie/Robbie/the band, Richard Gear as bobbie/Billy the Kid, and Christian Bale as Jack the Christ who remains true to Christianity, Ben Whishaw as Bobby/Arthur Rimbaud, and…

We finally got to watch this excellent German film about the German plot to counterfeit American dollars and British pounds and destroy the allied economy during WWII. . They relied on Jewish concentration camp inmates to do this, including a renowned counterfeiter. Quite an amazing story made more real by the interviews with a participant…

We finally got around to watching this excellent conventional film starring Jeff Bridges (the 2010 Oscar for Best Actor, deserved) as Bad Blake, a once famous country star drunk and on the skids, and Maggie Gyllenhall as his younger love interest. Robert Duvall in a small role as his friend and bar owner who helps…

We enjoyed this very well acted stage play-become film written by Israel Horowitz about an American man (Kevin Kline) who inherits an apartment in Paris with an entailed viager or former owner (Maggie Smith) and her daughter (Kristen Scott Thomas). First rate acting from this trio of thespians as the layers are peeled back from…

We enjoyed this very American film about a m2f pre-op transsexual, Brie (Felicity Huffman), who learns she has a son one week before she’s to have her gender reassignment surgery. She has to fly to NYC and bail him out of jail. He’s an adolescent male hustler who aspires to work in the porno business….

We enjoyed this rather traditional biopic about Edith Piaf starring Marion Cotillard in a marvelous performance. Excellent side work by many including Gerard Depardieu, who has truly learned how to subordinate his ego to his craft. Cotillard ages in breathtaking and horrifying manner as she experiences the crippling effects of arthritis and many other ailments….

We enjoyed this more serious martial arts film starring Chow Yun Fat and Michelle Yeow. It had some silliness about people flying or walking on water based on their martial arts training, sort of like Peter Pan meets Bruce Lee, but it was well done. Chow is amazing and truly holds the screen, and he…

We enjoyed this M Moore polemic against Bush and Republican idiocy. Some stellar footage, although Moore is an inconsistent demagogue and really should decide if Bush is too weak or too tyrannical. What is he disgusted by beyond the whole package?. A double barreled attack that’s worth seeing despite its flaws. It drifts into sentimentality…

We enjoyed this Disney feature that both satirizes and reaffirms Disney’s artistic and ideological matrix but in a very funny and creative way. Princess Giselle meets and falls for her “one-true-love” Prince Edward. They are to be married immediately when the evil Queen sends Giselle to the real evil world of NYC (the irony here…