Village Vidiot

“Daddy’s Little Girls,” 26 August 2007, DVD.  My daughter, Bronwen, asked that I sit and watch this one with her. I was not enthused at first, but it was worth the time. It is overly well-meaning but has a good plot line as Monty, a good mechanic, dad, and neighborhood man, struggles to get custody…

  “Once,” August 17, 2007, theater.  We both really liked this small, sweet Irish musical about a street musician (Glenn Hansard, lead singer for The Frames) who is a fine songwriter. He meets Marketa Irglova as a lovely immigrant street salesperson of talent, taste, and charm. They write songs and sing them. They write songs…

“Notes on a Scandal,” August 17, 2007, DVD.  This is a remarkably well-acted, very tense, painful film about two terribly lonely women teaching at a municipal secondary school in England. Judy Dench (Oscar nomination) plays Barbara, a cold, bitter, and vicious history teacher (what else!) who lives primarily via her journal, which she keeps religiously….

“Volver,” 15 August 2007 (2006), DVD. Bronwen and I liked this latest Pedro Almodovar piece in praise of Spanish women and their ability to overcome and survive, but she liked it more than I did. Brutal and irresponsible males abound (don’t they always?) and all that’s left for the women is their cunning and solidarity….

  “An Inconvenient Truth,” 29 July 2007 (2006), DVD.  Watched this Oscar-winning message biopic about Al Gore and global warming at home and liked it, to the extent that one can feel pleasure about such issues. Everyone should see this film, even if you’re already on board with the ideas (as we are). Still…. As…

   “The Children of Men,” June 15, 2007  (2006), theater.  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…

  “The Last King of Scotland,” April 17, 2007, theater in Bahrain.    This is a very interesting look at Idi Amin’s (Forest Whittaker) reign in Uganda, charisma and sociopathology meet and destroy a nation and a young Scottish doctor seeking to live life to the fullest. Fun to see in Bahrain in a luxury…

“Casino Royale,” March 15, 2007 (2006), on plane to Bahrain.Good Bond workup that has no relationship to the book but is, nonetheless, worth watching. The new Bond, Daniel Craig, has enough sociopath in his role to really work, unlike the last few Bond thrillers. Much colder, he likes killing. A good watchable shoot’m-up. But…Bond playing…

  “The Departed,” March 15, 2007, on the plane to Bahrain.  I enjoyed this death-fest set in Boston with Jack Nicholson in the Whitey Bulger role, Martin Sheen as the chief of police, Matt Damon as one of the undercovers, and Leonardo DiCaprio as the other.  What can you say?  Jack is Jack, Leo surprises…

“The History Boys,” March 10, 2007 (2006), on plane to Bahrain.  Richard Griffith reprises his Tony-winning role in this Alan Bennett play-to-screen work. It’s well done, although it poses a false dichotomy of history as either knowledge for its own sake or history as a tool for self-advancement. Virtuous selflessness versus soulless opportunism, with the…

  “Monster,” 18 February 2007 (2003), DVD.    Very brutal, well done piece of work Charlize Theron’s Oscar-winning performance as Aileen Wournous, the profoundly damaged serial killer. She punishes men for the horrible abuses that frame her life. Her messed up affair with the naïve Selby Wall (Christina Ricci) is a caricature of male modeling….

  “Harry and Tonto,” 11 February 2007, DVD.  We’d watched most of this 1970s film, having forgotten how risqué it is, before our 12-yo daughter pointed out it was R-rated. Well, we blew it, but it’s a good film. Retired, old Harry (Art Carney) goes on the road with Tonto, his cat. A fun, playful…

  “The Three Burials of Melquiado Estrada,” 10 February 2007, DVD.  Tommy Lee Jones stars in this unusual story of western retribution. When his friend Melquiado is killed (not accidentally but not for the reason originally thought) by a border guard, Pete (Jones) kidnaps the guard and takes him and, retrieving the corpse, journey’s to…

  “Tsotse,” 3 March 2007 (2005), DVD.    This Oscar-winner (2005 Best Foreign Film) is in Sosha. Set in the townships of Johannesburg, it is a relentlessly painful look at the degradation of David, nee Tsotsi (thug). Abused as a boy by his brutal father and forced to desert his mother as she dies of…

“The Spy Who Came in from the Cold.”  January 15, 2007, TV.  We’d never seen this 1961 chestnut with Richard Burton about a cold war spy locked in a game of double deceits. This is John LeCarre’s first really big hit as a novel. A very fine movie of deception, duplicity, despair, and devotion to…

“Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World,” January 2, 2007 (2005), DVD.  Well, we started off the year with a turkey once again. Neither Bronwen nor I enjoyed this weak, whiny Albert Brooks vehicle about his being sent off to India and Pakistan to find out what makes Muslims laugh in order to improve US-Muslim…

    “2046,”  December 15 2006 (2004), DVD.  See this brilliant Wong Kar Wai meditation on memory. The followup to the interesting “In the Mood for Love,” it chronicles the post affair life of its lead, Tony Leung, in1960s Hong Kong. The cultural revolution plays out in riots in the city while he goes to…

“Borat,” December 15, 2006, theater. What can I say about this Sasha Barron Cohen Rorschach Test? It is outrageous, offensive, absurd, antitracist, hysterical (there’s a wrestling scene to die for or from), brilliant, mean spirited, sly, disgusting, and worth seeing all at once. Cohen’s alter ego, Borat, is the 6th best known TV news anchor…

September 17, 2006, DVD.  Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves in this nice little magical romance about a man and woman communicating and falling in love by sending letters to one another over from two years in the past and future. It seems to me as though the man’s father’s ghost is mediating (so to speak)…

“We Are Marshall,” 24 December 2006, theater.  Our traditional Christmas Eve movie, this time we chose an inspirational one “that the whole family could enjoy” or at least watch. And we did enjoy it. Matthew McConaughey. (spelling?) stars along with David Straithorn in this telling of the true story of a town/university/and individuals who rise…

  “Transamerica,” July 17, 2006 (2005), DVD.    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…

“The Terminal,” 17 July 2006 (2004), DVD.  Minor Spielberg. Tom Hanks stars as a visitor from Krachovia, some Eastern European country, who is stuck in diplomatic limbo when he arrives in NYC and can’t get out of the terminal because the US doesn’t accept his papers. He also can’t return home. Over time he becomes…

“The Talented Mr. Ripley,” July 15 2006 (1999), DVD. Matt Damon stars with Gwyneth Paltrow, Jude Law, Kate Blanchett, and Seymour Phillip Hoffman as a young man who aspires to be somebody and fakes it all the way. It’s a world of double-identities, duplicity, and murder. But it’s set in sunny Italy and the world…

   “United 93,” 13 May 2006, theater.  This is not a docudrama. It is a fascinating, painful dramatic exploration of the fourth 9/11 plane featuring the uprising of the hostages. It portrays a system caught with no plans for such eventualities and VP and Pres very much not in evidence or in charge. Quite fascinating,…

Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang,” 15 March 2006 (2005), airplane to Bahrain.  Robert Downey, Jr, Val Kilmer, Michelle Monaghan, quick witted, perhaps too quick witted, neo-noir piece about LA with a crook masquerading as an actor, a gay private detective, an actress and a producer running around one another. Very good dialogue but false through and…