Showing posts with label USA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label USA. Show all posts

09 September 2012

Book review: The Dark Tourist (2010), by Dom Joly, ***

Sinister looking WW I artillery on Monte Grappa
Synopsis

'Dark tourism is the act of travel and visitation to sites, attractions and exhibitions which have real or recreated death, suffering or the seemingly macabre as a main theme'

Ever since he can remember, Dom Joly has been fascinated by travel to odd places. In part this stems from a childhood spent in war-torn Lebanon, where instead of swapping marbles in the schoolyard, he had a shrapnel collection -- the schoolboy currency of Beirut. Dom's upbringing was interspersed with terrifying days and nights spent hunkered in the family basement under Syrian rocket attack or coming across a pile of severed heads from a sectarian execution in the pine forests near his home.

These early experiences left Dom with a profound loathing for the sanitized experiences of the modern day travel industry and a taste for the darkest of places. The more insalubrious the place, the more interesting is the journey and so we follow Dom as he skis in Iran on segregated slopes, picnics in the Syrian Desert with a trigger-happy government minder and fires rocket propelled grenades at live cows in Cambodia (he missed on purpose, he just couldn't do it).


01 September 2012

Film review: Mondovino (2004) by Jonathan Nossiter, **

Synopsis

Filmmaker Jonathan Nossiter, who loves wine, looks at the international wine business. He offers his personal view of how business concerns and the homogenisation of tastes around the world are changing the way wine is being made. 

Review

The movie is good in that it points the finger to a phenomenon that is pervasive in the world of wine, as it is in every aspect of our life: globalization. The director's thesis, which he does not spell out but appears clearly, is that this is a bad thing. I, on the contrary, think it is a good development for wine, mainly because it allows for greater choice.

Far from homogenizing the taste of the world's wines, globalization is making any wine, in any style, available everywhere in the world, and this gives each of us a chance to choose what we like, how much we want to spend.

He implicitly accuses Robert Parker (whom he interviews) to be in cahoot with American business, while in fact parker has been very beneficial to French wines and Bordeaux in particular. He received countless awards from France, including from the president of the Republic.

Nossiter is tricky as he often hides his camera and films without the subject being aware. That is not correct in my view, even for a documentarist.

He is also political, but out of context. He underlines how a mayor of a French town who rejected American money to invest in the local vineyards was a communist (good) while Italian nobles who accept to work with the same Americans has grandparents who supported fascism (bad). I find some of these people who live in their past rather disagreeable, but that says nothing about their wines. How totally irrelevant.

Finally, he never misses a chance to film any dog that happens to be in front of his camera. For example when he interviews Parker he goes at great length to emphasize how his dogs fart a log, and that is really too much. 

Today, no matter what Nossiter says, we have more diversified and better quality wines around the world than ever before.

Here is another good review of this film I agree with by Decanter.

See my other reviews of film about wine here in this blog.


 

20 July 2012

Film review: Julie and Julia (2009), by Nora Ephron ****

Julia Child in Time magazine
Synopsis

A culinary legend provides a frustrated office worker with a new recipe for life in Julie and Julia, the true stories of how Julia Child's (Meryl Streep) life and cookbook inspired fledgling writer Julie Powell (Amy Adams) to whip up 524 recipes in 365 days and introduce a new generation to the magic of French cooking. Stanley Tucci (The Devil Wears Prada) co-stars in director Nora Ephron's delicious comedy about joy, obsession and butter. It was to be the last of her movies, as she died in 2012. Bon appetit!


17 July 2012

Book review: Prisoner of the Japanese, by Tom Wade, *****

English prisoners freed in Japan, September 1945 (AP Photo)
Synopsis

On 15 February 1942, the Japanese captured Singapore and took 130,000 Allied prisoners of war. One of those prisoners was British Lieutenant Tom Wade. For the next three and a half years he was to suffer the indignity and hardships of captivity and the torture and brutality of his captors, first in Changi, then in Korea and finally in Tokyo.

This book is the story of those years in captivity. They were years of horror and despair, characterised by harsh treatment at the hands of sadistic guards who believed that a soldier who has surrendered has lost all humanity. At Tokyo Headquarters Camp in particular, Wade and his fellow POWs had to suffer the paranoid beatings and victimisation of Sergeant Matsuhiro Watanabe, who successfully avoided prosecution by the War Crimes Commission at the war's end.

Wade's moving account of his period of captivity is characterised by the sense of determination, hope and endurance which sustained all those who shared his experience.


10 July 2012

Film review: Sand Pebbles (1966) by Robert Wise, ****

Synopsis
"The Sand Pebbles" tells many stories. It's the story of China, a slumbering giant that rouses itself to the cries of its people - and of the Americans who are caught in its blood awakening. It's the story of Frenchy (Richard Attenborough, passionate!), a crewman on the U.S.S. San Pablo who kidnaps his Chinese bride from the auction block. It's the story of Shirley (Candice Bergen, not her best performance here), a teacher and her first unforgettable taste of love. It's the story of Captain Collins (Richard Crenna), ready to defy anyone for his country's defense. Most of all, it's the story of Jake Holman (Steve McQueen, who does great, maybe his best ever!), a sailor who has given up trying to make peace with anything - including himself. McQueen gives what is probably the best performance of his career. It's not surprising that he, Mako and the movie were up for Oscars. Portraying a character with conflicting loyalties to friend and flag, McQueen expertly conveys the confusion that leads into his final line: "What the hell happened?" It's to his credit that we already know.

Review
A movie made at the time the Vietnam was escalating and beginning to raise questions in America. The parallel is obvious: China in the 1920s was a divided country with foreign powers meddling in its internal affairs and supporting the opposing sides of the civil war. Japan had invaded, the USSR supported the Communists, the Western powers supported the Nationalists. Western powers did not invade but had a military presence on the coast and, as this film shows, inland as well.

It is an anti-colonial film too. It shows how China, while not strictly speaking colonized, had been in fact the object of foreign interference and prevarication for many decades. Yet the film also shows the brutality of the colonialists' victims, with Chinese killing Chinese, sometimes for very little reason.

The human dimension of the film reminds me of Vietnam too. Frenchy falls in love with a Chinese woman and wants to marry her amidst many difficulties, just as it happened for many GIs in Vietnam.

The Blu-ray edition also contains interesting extra features, like an interview with the director and cut scenes, as well as a "the making of" featurette. This was before any CGI of course, so it is interesting to see how special effects were done in those days.




09 July 2012

Film review: Pushing Hands (1992) by Ang Lee, ****

Synopsis

Mr. Chu is a recently widowed tai-chi master who moves from Beijing to New York to live with his son. Chu's American daughter-in-law, Martha, can't stand having him around the house. He finds her Western ideas on raising children and keeping a home to be curious at best. These conflicts test family bonds and Mr. Chu's highly developed sense of balance. This was the first feature as a director for Ang Lee (Sense and Sensibility) and has many of the hallmarks of his later, better-known works: finely observed characters, gentle yet pointed humor, and the ability to see and understand both sides of a cultural divide. The charismatic Sihung Lung (who also starred in Lee's The Wedding Banquet and Eat Drink Man Woman) plays Chu with strength and understatement, but Deb Snyder is miscast in a thankless role. The title refers to a tai-chi exercise that's at the center of the film's best scene, a standoff in the kitchen of a Chinese restaurant. --Geof Miller for Amazon


Review

Another great movie by Ang Lee and superb interpretation ny Sihung Lung. The eternal problem of how do deal with our elders. Difficult to keep them at home with our spouses, yet difficult to abandon them in a hospice for old people. It can be a lose-lose situation. Or it can be a win-win situation if all concerned make an effort. In the end, in this movie, the grandfather successfully blends his need to keep in touch with son and grandson, but without interfereing in their lives too much.

As always with Ang lee and Sihung Lung, food and cooking plays out all along the film. It is a healthy reminder of the central role food and eating together plays in family life in any culture. Tai chi is not a central part of this movie, and therefore I'd say the title is a bit out of context. Also, some of the fighting scenes where old Sihung Lung beats dozens of younger men while practically standing still are a bit exaggerated!

I found this movie thoroughly enjoyable and very perceptive. The movie is set in the US with a Chinese protagonist, and as such does provide insights into the problematic meeting of Western and Eastern minds, though the issues it addresses are really universal. Strongly recommended.

You can read a list of movies about China I have reviewd here on this blog.




06 July 2012

Film review: Bottle Shock (2008) by Randal Miller, ****


Synopsis

The build-up to the famous 1976 Judgement of Paris competition between French and Californian wines. Napa Valley's Jim Barrett (Lost Highway's Bill Pullman) has been plugging away for years with minimal success. A former attorney, Barrett runs Chateau Montelena with his wayward son, Bo (Chris Pine, the Star Trek prequel's Captain Kirk), who would rather do anything than assist his stern father. Bo's co-workers include Gustavo (Six Feet Under's Freddy Rodríguez) and Sam (Transformers' Rachael Taylor), who long to produce the perfect chardonnay. Naturally, the young men compete for the favors of the beautiful blonde (the movie's least interesting angle). Across the Atlantic, Steven Spurrier (Alan Rickman) struggles to keep his Parisian wine shop going (cheapskate American Dennis Farina is his only regular customer). Then Spurrier conceives a contest to attract customers.


Review

While based on a true story, the film takes some liberty at embellishing the facts with romance and family feuds, but this does not detract from it being highly instructive for wine lovers.

The title is a pun: the "bottle shock" is what may ruin a wine because of vibrations and temperature variations during protracted and unprotected transportation. It is also the result of the tasting, which shocked the wine world for what a bottle of California wine was able to produce.

The competition itself should have been given more time in the movie in my view, as it was the event that justified making the movie in the first place and changed the world of wine ever since.

Also, the movie does not make it clear that the competition was only for a few varieties, ie Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvigons/Merlot blends, and as such can in no way be interpreted to be an overall match between Californian and French wines.

Finally, one can not help but notice somewhat of a pro-Californian bias in the movie, but this is perhaps inevitable given the nature of the real historical events. I would like to see a film of the 2006 rematch, which California, again, won hands down, in fact by an even greater margin.

See the book "The Judgement of Paris" which I reviewed in this blog.

08 June 2012

Book review: The Girl in the Picture, by Denise Chong, ****

Kim Phuc and others after napalm bombing of Trang Bang. Photo by Nick Ut, AP

Kim Phuc
Today it is forty years since one of the most famous photographs of the Vietnam war was taken, by photographer Nick Ut of the Associated Press.

Synopsis

Kim Phuc was nine years old on 8 June 1972. Severely burned by napalm, she ran from her burning village and was captured on film. Denise Chong relates Kim's experience and recovery in this astonishing biography and history of America's shameful war. The photograph of Kim, seen around the world, was one of many to turn public opinion against the war in Vietnam. This is the story of how the picture came to be and also what happened to Kim after it was taken. It provides an insight into the country Vietnam became after the US army left, and explains why Kim finally had to flee to Canada, where she now lives.

You can also visit the site of the Kim Foundation.

24 May 2012

American Cemetery and Memorial in the Ardennes

Today I visited the American Cemetery and Memorial in the Ardennes. A quiet place where several thousand Americans who died during WW II are buried. K. and I are welcomed by the deputy director (or was it commander?), a retired American military himself. A few gardeners are meticulously clipping the grass around each cross. Stars of David mark the graves of Jewish soldiers. A sobering sight.

The Summer heat does not convey the idea of what these guys experienced during their last days on this earth, while fighting in the dead of Winter in the Battle of the Bulge, Hitler's last, futile and bloody offensive in December 1944. A small room displays a few paraphernalia from the war.

Definitely a recommended stop for anyone driving in the area, and absolutely worth a detour if you are not.


25 April 2012

Book Review: Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl Written by Herself, by Louise Meriwether Harriet Jacobs, ****

Synopsis

Louise Meriwether Harriet Jacobs in her narrative reveals how she refused to be victimized within her own mind, but rather chose to act instead from a steadfast conviction of her own worth....Hers is an example worth emulating even in these modern times.

Published in 1861, this was one of the first personal narratives by a slave and one of the few written by a woman. Jacobs (1813-1897) was a slave in North Carolina and suffered terribly, along with her family, at the hands of a ruthless owner. She made several failed attempts to escape before successfully making her way to freedom in the North, though it took years of hiding and slow progress. Eventually, she was reunited with her children.


20 April 2012

Film Review: Space Tourists (2009), by Christian Frei, ***

Synopsis
Frei's film takes a humorous and laconic view of the way billionaires depart our planet earth to travel into outer space for fun. Space Tourists succeeds in surprising its audience with images and situations that have very little to do with the futuristic fantasy of space-tourism. The Swiss filmmaker sets up encounters with the least likely people imaginable: places even stranger and more unknown than outer space itself. The film investigates the emotional oscillations of an expensive enterprise and questions the meaning and boundaries of the human spirit and our hunger for adventure and discovery.

Anousheh Ansari is a billionaire who allegedly spent some twenty million dollars (expensive but, as she puts it, how do you put a price on a dream?) for a 10 day flight to the International Space Station. She explains in her own words why she did this and what her Spiritual experience was. An interesting personality, an Iranian who left her country after the revolution and became American but never forgot her cultural roots. She specifically greeted the Iranian people from space, though she was not allowed to do so in Farsi. She also wore the Iranian flag, but significantly without the Islamic writings in the white part.

Review
This film is another Frei foray into the lives and vicissitudes of the most unusual of people. Ansari is a genuine enthusiast of space, her youthful and genuine passion transpires at all times in the film. She has a child-like naivete for looking at the earth from above, but at the same time a high degree of maturity when she speaks of her travel as a symbol for women's rights, especially in the region of the world where she comes from, where women often do not receive the same opportunities that men do. A spoiled girl's whim? Perhaps, but a great adventure nonetheless. And I can say I would have done what she has done if I had had the money! Go for it Anousheh and thanks Christian Frei for bringing her to us.

Buy your DVD here:



If you live in the US you can get your instant video here






21 March 2012

Film review: Forrest Gump (1994), by Robert Zemekis, *****

Synopsis

"Stupid is as stupid does," says Forrest Gump (Tom Hanks) as he discusses his relative level of intelligence with a stranger while waiting for a bus. Despite his sub-normal IQ, Gump leads a truly charmed life, with a ringside seat for many of the most memorable events of the second half of the 20th century. Entirely without trying, Forrest teaches Elvis Presley to dance, becomes a football star, meets John F. Kennedy, serves with honor in Vietnam, meets Lyndon Johnson, speaks at an anti-war rally at the Washington Monument, hangs out with the Yippies, defeats the Chinese national team in table tennis, meets Richard Nixon, discovers the break-in at the Watergate, opens a profitable shrimping business, becomes an original investor in Apple Computers, and decides to run back and forth across the country for several years. Meanwhile, as the remarkable parade of his life goes by, Forrest never forgets Jenny (Robin Wright Penn), the girl he loved as a boy, who makes her own journey through the turbulence of the 1960s and 1970s that is far more troubled than the path Forrest happens upon. Featured alongside Tom Hanks are Sally Field, Gary Sinise and Mykelti Williamson.


Review

Forrest Gump is a landmark film, touching on many delicate aspects of human life, love and values. "Life is like a box of chocolate: you never know what you are going to get." Oh so true! Fatalistic? Not really, as a strong implication of the movie is that you have to work hard at your life, no matter what you find in your box of chocolates.

It is just a "feel good" movie as many have written? I don't think so, it goes deeper than that. And in fact it did not make me feel good at all. In the end I could not help but feeling angry at Jenny for what she did to Gump. Of course, most of us men have had our "Jenny" in our lives. Mine (now history, thanks God!) even looks like Jenny in the film!

I could not help but smile at discovering that Bubba, the black shrimp fisherman in the movie, inspired a real company that is now very successful!

The Blu-ray disc is very good, containing interesting interviews with Hanks and the director, as well as other "behind the scenes" material, including the making of special effects which were painstaking to produce and quite advanced for the time. The European version on sale on Amazon.co.uk is in English, French, Italian, German and Spanish, with subtitles in these languages plus all the Scandinavian languages.


15 March 2012

Filw review: The Pacific (2012), by Carl Franklin and David Nutter. ***

recensione in italiano di seguito in questo post

Synopsis

This limited collector's Blu-ray edition includes a bonus 7th disc entitled "Inside the Battle: Peleliu."

The Pacific is an epic 10-part miniseries that delivers a portrait of WWII's Pacific Theatre as seen through the intertwined odysseys of three U.S. Marines - Robert Leckie, John Basilone and Eugene Sledge. The extraordinary experiences of these men and their fellow Marines take them from the first clash with the Japanese in the haunted jungles of Guadalcanal, through the impenetrable rain firests of Cape Gloucester, across the blasted coral strongholds of Peleliu, up the black sand terraces of Iwo Jima, through the killing fields of Okinawa, to the triumphant, yet uneasy, return home after V-J Day. The viewer will be immersed in combat through the intimate perspective of this diverse, relatable group of men pushed to the limit in battle both physically and psychologically against a relentless enemy unlike any encountered before

Inside the Battle: Peleliu: An exclusive look into the battle of Peleliu. Combining exclusive historian and veteran interviews with real footage from the battle of Peleliu, this featurette illustrates the massive undertaking of the battle for Peleliu in the Pacific theater of World War II.




John Basilone

10 March 2012

Film review: Taxi Driver (1976) by Martin Scorsese, *****

Synopsis

Paul Schrader's gritty screenplay depicts the ever-deepening alienation of Vietnam Veteran Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro in a tour-de-force performance), a psychotic cab driver who obsessively cruises the mean streets of Manhattan.

This edition has the following extras:
Introduction to DVD - Martin Scorsese - this was recorded in 2006 and lasts about 15 minutes during which Scorsese talks about the influences that created Taxi Driver (Jean Luc Goddard etc).

Introduction to DVD - Paul Schrader
Commentary - Paul Schrader
Commentary Robert Kolker (Author)
Loneliness and Inspiration - Documentary
Cabbie Confessional - Documentary
Producing a Cult Classic
Taxi Driver Locations - Then and Now
Animated Photo Gallery
Storyboard to Film Comparisons
Behind the Scenes Documentary
Theatrical Trailer
Filmographies


Review

A monumental film about human nature, about the aftermath of the Vietnam war, about New York in the seventies. These are the several layers of reading this film lends itself to and they are all worth the viewer's time. For this reason this is a film that must be seen several times to get all it has to offer. It can not be metabolized in one viewing. One of the best films of the seventies.

The BD version is very good, and quite a few extras complete an excellent deal.









05 January 2012

Film Review: Windtalkers, by John Woo, **

Synopsis
US Marine Nicolas Cage--with a scarred ear and a fed-up look--is given the job of looking after Navajo Adam Beach, whose complex language is the basis of a code being used to fool the Japanese in the Pacific during World War II. His orders are to protect not Beach but the code, (including orders to kill Beach if it looks like capture is imminent) which makes for an uneasy progress from hatred-at-first-sight through growing respect to agonised male bonding.

Recensione Film: Windtalkers, di John Woo, **

Sinossi
Durante la seconda guerra mondiale, l'esercito americano decide di usare il linguaggio degli indiani Navajos per codificare i messaggi segreti così da impedirne la decodifica da parte dei giapponesi. L'esercito giapponese a sua volta decide di catturare dei soldati Navajos per usarli come traduttori. Gli americani, venuti a conoscenza del fatto, assegnano ai Navajos dei marines come guardie del corpo, con l'ordine di ucciderli in caso di pericolo. Il film narra l'amicizia tra il soldato navajo Ben Yazzie e il sergente dei marines Joe Enders, che dovrà mettercela tutta per non far cadere il suo amico nelle mani dell'esercito nipponico evitando però la soluzione estrema.

21 December 2011

Film Review: Pacific Battleship Yamato (2010), by Junya Sato, ****

Synopsis

World War II action film set aboard the Battleship Yamato, the most fearsome ship in the Pacific fleet and still to date the largest warship ever built. Based on a book by Jun Henmi with a framing story set in the present day and through the use of flashbacks, Yamato tells the story of the crew of a WWII battleship, concentrating on the ship's demise during Operation Ten-Go.


20 December 2011

Film Review: Assault on the Pacific - Kamikaze (2007), by Taku Shinjo, ****

Synopsis
World War II epic about a squadron of Japanese Kamikaze pilots and their journey through training and first missions toward the terrifying destiny of their battle with the US Navy over the Pacific Ocean. It is essentially a backstage shoot, very little in terms of war action.

07 December 2011

Film Review: Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970), by R Fleischer, T Masuda and K Fukusaku, *****

Synopsis

Today is the sixtieth anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack. That is one reason to review a forty years old movie. Another is the publication of a stunning new Blu-ray edition. A Japanese-American co-production, director Richard Fleischer (Soylent Green) and two Japanese directors put together this ultrarealistic account of the bombing of Pearl Harbor as presented from the perspectives of both nations, as diplomatic tensions rise between the two countries. While the Japanese military plans its attack on American military installations, the American forces nearly stumble into a much greater calamity due to a series of errors and mistakes. As the two sides plunge closer to war, the tension escalates until the final, spectacular air raid, arguably the most realistic ever filmed.


26 October 2011

Book Review: Formosa Betrayed, by George Kerr, *****

Island of Tatan, off Quemoy with Nationalist flag
By way of background...

"Our experience in Formosa is most enlightening. The Administration of the former Governor Chen Yi has alienated the people from the Central Government. Many were forced to feel that conditions under autocratic rule [Japan's rule] were preferable.