Village Vidiot

B4 and I watched this Michael Moore jeremiad about the American health system at home. It’s long, with some really painful truths about how awful we are and we don’t even know it or, worse yet, simply lie to ourselves that everything’s ok. Boy, I really envy the French. Our society is going down the…

B3 and I watched this while our daughter had a sleepover. Funny, crude look at an unintended pregnancy when a YUPPY TV person becomes pregnant due to a one-night stand with a chubby Jewish slacker. It is funny. It is also very wrong, very, very unreal albeit in a forced romantically pleasing way. It is…

B3 and I saw this lovely 1ittle 1987 film (called “Out of Rosenheim” in the somewhat longer German release) with Marianne Sachebrecht (Jasmine) and CCH Pounder (Brenda) when it first came out and it holds up very well. We wanted our daughter to see it, and our neighbor, Ron Pounder, loaned us the DVD. Two…

B3 and I liked this simple, elegant, and kind 1998 Miyazaki anime much more than b4 who felt it was pretty boring. Two young girls and their father move to the country to be closer to their mom’s hospital. The younger and older girl encounter the spirits of the forest and their old house. It’s…

B3 and I both really liked this 2006 look at the Irish rebellion of 1920-21 from Ken Loach. An exciting and sometimes brutal look at the horrors of the events of that period. Torture is the name of the game in all imperialist battles. The film won Cannes’s Palm D’Or that year. Very tough to…

B+ and I really enjoyed this look at a man chronicling his own last year of life, the banality of his work, his marriage, his parenting, his failed adulthood, and much more. It is a fine film, especially as a first movie, and is very well acted by Kevin Spacey, Annette Benning, Chris Cooper, and…

B and I watched this longish Chinese film about young people, their lives before, during and after Tianenmen Square. Very well acted, very explicit sexually, this explores 20 years of chaos in Chinese history/culture/life. It follows a young woman, her lovers, their lives, and their affairs from their times as passionate students probing desire to…

B and I really liked this Carrol Ballard directed story of a 14-yo girl, (Anna Paquin) who goes to live with her dad. (Jeff Daniels) in Canada after the death of her mom. Distraught, she adopts a clutch of goose eggs, hatches them, raises them, and then leads them to North Carolina and sanctuary, teaching…

Awful, although Eugene Levy has a couple of nice moments. The rest, Steve Martin and Queen Latifah, should be embarrassed. I was

Avoid this moronic and offensive piece of supposed comedy. What a waste of some talented people. Ed Asner is positively embarrassed and Renee Zellwenger should be. Chris O’Donnell is beyond salvation. Write him off. Only Hal Holbrook manages to seem even remotely worth watching. The plot concerns a young man who inherits $100 million if…

Avoid this Billy Crystal/Bette Midler comedy about ‘goofy’ grandparents sent to mind their overly modern grandkids. . Even Marisa Tomei, who I adore, seems weighed down by the trite dialogue. Still, I admit I laughed a few times

Ashgar Farhadi’s stellar, Oscar-winning look at the result when a teacher/actor’s actress wife is assaulted in their new home Emad and Rana are both in a production of Miller’s “Death of a Salesman” (he plays Willy) and this evokes parallels with the changes in humanist Emad’s view of his life and the world around him….

As you may

As I was telling my students, I don’t usually go to see romantic movies. If there is any romance, it’s accidental. The films I see are usually as weird as I am. “Brooklyn,” now up for an unjustified Best Picture nomination is an exception, and one I’m happy I made. Why would I say that…

Antonio is the English and Latin teacher we all wish we had in what appears to be a sex-segregated middle school in 1966. He uses Beatles songs to reach his students and wishes he had those lyrics down more precisely. If only the Beatles included lyric sheets with their albums. He also protects his students…

Anthony Weiner’s fall from lion of the liberal political establishment to punchline is chronicled in this painful look at his disastrous 2013 run for mayor of New York. Sexting scandals that reflect personal need for adulation , connection and intimacy with women, [psycho-historians will have a field day with this] lead to his resignation from…

Another year another film from Mike Leigh. This one chronicles a very happy, centered couple (Tom and Gerri-Jim Broadbent and Ruth Sheen) over the course of a year as they work, garden together (B loved that),. and interact with family and friends who aren’t anywhere near as together or happy In particular, it follows Mary…

Another positive review?. Gee, I don’t know if I can stand being so predictable. Both Bronwen and I really liked this rock and roll fantasy staring Jack Black. He’s the failed rocker who fakes his way into a gig in a private school to pay some debts. There he discovers that his class is full…

Another painful Russell Banks look at the dark side of small-town New England/NY life. This time with Paul Schrader directing, sometimes over-directing. They sculpt an anguished look at a small town sheriff/road worker with a toothache (Nick Nolte) who is slowly falling apart as his mom dies. His daughter rejects him for her divorced mom…

Another kid’s flick from Nick. Not the best, but interesting about urban development. Silly in the extreme, but so what?.

Another interesting film from Mike Leigh although I have my criticisms. This one looks at the sad and emotionally distanced life of a group of English working-class families. Indeed, my big criticism is that it is so bleak that it’s impossible to imagine people living through this without blowing their brains out. The women are…

Another film from Alejandro In~a’ritu (it really doesn’t look like that), writer/director of “21 Grams” and “Amores Perros”. Uxbal (Antonio Banderas), is a man living on the edges of criminality and the trade in illegal workers. He’s the connection for African and Chinese laborers-exploiters in Barcelona. He cares as a single parent for his two…

Another con/heist flick with Cooney and the gang, including Julia (well, not intentionally at first). It’s ok until it just becomes too cute about her looking like Julia Roberts. Fun in parts and worth watching just to see the gang work together again, including Reiner, Pitt, Roberts, along with Catherine Zeta Jones, but nowhere near…

Another children’s story based on the book, but oh so much more interesting and better done. Rather painful sometimes, but the happy ending is worth the wait (although I am not a fan at all of Rosie O’Donnell and don’t like her work here either). Unfortunately, there are parts of the book that are ‘implied’…

Anita Hill’s story and the battle over Clarence Thomas’s nomination are brought to light in this 2013 documentary by Frieda Mock. It examines the impact of Hill’s allegations of sexual harassment and their long-term effect on her and the issue more broadly. I was disappointed that I didn’t learn very much new from the film,…