Movie Reviews
Kolya
Louka is a cellist who, because of an ill-advised political statement, has been reduced to playing dirges in the balcony at funerals, before the coffin is rolled into the crematorium. These were the days before the Velvet Revolution, when the Soviets were still in control of Czechoslovakia and other Eastern European countries.
He is persuaded into a sham marriage with a Russian ... Read more »
Character
Winner of the Best Foreign Language Oscar for 1997. I have to say that though this was a watchable and sometimes entertaining film. I don’t see it as Oscar-worthy. Well, it wasn’t the first time the Academy made a mistake, and it wasn’t the last, either. For all I know the four other nominees were no better, but I’m unlikely to ever see them. It’s about a young man whose father is a ... Read more »
42nd Street
Though Busby Berkeley had previously choreographed huge musical numbers, including his trademark overhead kaleidoscope of chorus girls, and he would go on to direct even larger numbers than what we see here, this one, to me, is the granddaddy of huge musical films. It’s the one that has lasted the longest, and has become a classic. It contains all the lovely clichés of the backstage ... Read more »
Big Night
When we were traveling in our motor home we hooked it up at the Ocean Breeze trailer park in Oceano, California. We were about a hundred yards from the beach. Next to the park was an empty building. People started renovating it, which took an amazingly long time, but when it opened it was a pizza parlor. Behind it all was an old man who spoke no English, and whose plan was to introduce ... Read more »
The Walls of Malapaga
First, I have to say a word about VHS and box televisions. How quickly we get spoiled!!! Our odyssey through all 69 of the Best Foreign Film Oscars has to include a few VHS tapes, because they are only available in that format in the World’s Best Video Store, Movie Madness in Portland, or anywhere else. We feel lucky that MM has them at all. But I’ve been having trouble getting a VHS to ... Read more »
Indochine
Here is one of the prettiest movies you will ever see, with stinking ugliness just under the surface. It tells the story of an old French family who have lived in French Indochina for generations, stealing rubber and exploiting the locals. Catherine Deneuve is Éliane Devries, who runs the plantation, and who I instantly hated. She refers to her indentured workers as “coolies,” but “slaves” ... Read more »
Cinema Paradiso
Cinema Paradiso (Nuovo Cinema Paradiso) (1989) (Italy) I think there’s a sort of sweetness meter in my head that I can apply to movies. It’s a bit of a fuzzy line, but I usually know when a movie is not safe for diabetics, which I am (Type II). This movie skates right up to that line but never actually crosses, so it’s okay in my book. I don’t mind sentimentality in a movie, in fact I can ... Read more »
Tsotsi
Tsotsi means “thug” in either Sesotho, isiZulu, or Setswana, the three languages spoken in this film. There is also a wee bit of English. Setswana is the language spoken in Botswana, the site of the wonderful No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency novels.
The character Tsotsi (birth name: David) is a teenager in Johannesburg. He has a tin shack in Soweto. He runs ... Read more »
A Ghost Story
The perfect part for Casey Affleck, the most over-rated actor of his generation. Aside from a few minutes at the beginning where he can do his trademark mumbling and whispering, he spends the movie dressed in a white sheet with eyeholes in it, like he should be standing on your front porch, two feet tall, between Luke Skywalker and Snow White, holding out a bag and screaming for goodies. ... Read more »
Battle For Sevastopol
The Ukrainian title was Незламна: Indestructible. A reader recommended this one to me, but since Lee has sworn off war movies, I watched it on my computer in ten-minute increments late at night or when I was taking a short break from the things I’m supposed to be doing. I’m glad I did.
It tells the incredible story of Major Lyudmila Mykhailovna ... Read more »