Creating, collecting, and sharing thoughts and ideas. And learning along the way.
Movies I’ve watched or half-watched, and the reviews I’ve written following that. And other miscellania about movies.
"We are not swans; we are all sharks." That's what Clooney, the motivational speaker/corporate layoff consultant tells his audience. Something to think about…
Multi-layered in themes with a brilliant performance by Clooney, the movie is a reminder about how complex the human condition is– on the professional and the personal fronts. Nothing simple to it ever.
Quirky Woody Allen humor that always cracks me up, even when he's saying the most ordinary things!
Sweet story of a dorky guy who gets the pretty girl in the end, against all odds.
Interesting account of Nelson Mandela's presidency and personal interest in supporting the sport of football, a national passion, and the first hosting of the World Cup in South Africa.Â
This is the poem that apparently inspired Mandela while in prison and was the inspiration for the name of the movie as well:
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
I came out overawed and underwhelmed.
Even in the midst of all the intellectual stimulation and gay partying, there may lie an emptiness that cries out to be filled– viciously sometimes.
In the end, all one really wants is to be loved. To love and to be loved singularly and steadfastly is the one universal human emotion that transcends all intellectual boundaries. The search for this may take a lifetime, and still leave you wanting, as was the case with Dorothy Parker. But Mrs. Parker used her losses to channel her humor and wit into creative writing, a far superior exercise than attempting suicide (at which she failed many a time). I can't help but smile at one of her famous lines:
Four be the things I'd have been better without: Love, curiosity, freckles and doubt. Or even this one: Razors pain you; Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you; And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren't lawful; Nooses give;
Gas smells awful; You might as well live.
Hitchcockian all the way! Luck is everything, or so it seems…
Mismatched expectations and broken dreams happen all the time, only, when they take place in the lives of seemingly happy, well-adjusted, accomplished and beautiful young people in glorious suburbia, you can't help but wonder how and why, and inadvertently begin to make comparisons and contrasts to one's own circumstances.
Winslet and DiCaprio give fabulous performances. The kids needed to have a more prominent role because relationships are complicated as they are, and even more so when there are children in the mix.
Disturbing and poignantly shocking, this is another excellent movie by the great Clint Eastwood. Big on drama, with superb performances by Jolie and Malkovich, this movie offers stunning color, cinematography and a haunting musical score that captures the 1920s of Los Angeles.
A grief-stricken single mother looking for her missing nine-year old son is forced to accept a stranger as her missing son, and when she resists, incurs the wrath of the corrupt LAPD. Although discredited by the LAPD and thrown into a women's psychopathic institution, hope stays alive in the mind, heart and body of this young woman who continues to fight to look for her child. What she finds is a horrifying saga that involves encountering a serial killer who may or may not have murdered her son. Although no clear and fast ending here, the larger impact of her case is the restoration of public confidence in the city's administration, the improvement of women's rights, and thanks in no small measure to the diligence of a local presbyter who uses his pulpit to highlight the inept state of affairs of the LAPD, an eventual overhauling of this law-enforcement agency, and eventually, bringing justice and closure by way of capture and termination of the serial killer.
On a less insightful note, I daresay one of the most memorable lines of the movie are uttered by a calm Jolie to her doctor-captor when she takes the advice of her inmate to stand up for her rights in refusing to sign off her sanity on a piece of paper when she tells him: F*** you, and the horse that you rode in on! Viva, Christine Collins!
