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

22 October 2013

Film review/Recensione: Finding Forrester (2000) by Gus Von Sant, ****

testo italiano in fondo

Synopsis

Talented basketball player Jamal Wallace (Rob Brown) has dreams of becoming a successful writer, and finds help in the form of William Forrester (Sean Connery), a reclusive novelist who lives in his neighbourhood. The pair meet when Jamal breaks into Forrester's flat, but a warm student-teacher bond soon develops between them, with Forrester helping Jamal improve his writing and Jamal helping Forrester overcome his reclusiveness. However, when Jamal rewrites a piece of his new friend's work for a school assignment, his vindictive professor Robert Crawford (F. Murray Abraham) accuses him of plagiarism, a charge which could seriously effect his school career.


Review

Finding Forrester is a movie that is hard to categorize. I would say most of all it is about human relationship and how an open mind to the unexpected can open the heart. Agoraphobic writer Forrester had locked himself up in his apartment and basically given up on life when he meets young James Wallace, to whom he can teach a lot but from whom he picks up a new lease on life, to the point that he wants to go back to his native Scotland to die. He then relates how this was the happiest period of his life, his Sunset, which is also the title of his second and final novel he leaves on his desk, unpublished, waiting for James to write a preface.

It is also about hope in the face of seemingly unsurmountable odds, as James, a black from the Bronx destined for crime and a life in the streets, can use his intelligence, his basketball skills and not a little luck to make a real life for himself.

The movie also says a lot about life in the Bronx (though things have improved there since) and about how elite American schools are ready to close an eye on academic performance to attract athletic talent in their recruitment process.

A good line to remember:  to impress a woman, give her an unexpected gift at an unexpected time. Well we all knew that, kind of, but good reminder.

This is the next to last appearance of Connery in a film before his retirement.









Sinossi

Da una piazzetta del Bronx, dove giocano a pallacanestro, alcuni ragazzi di colore guardano le finestre di un appartamento sovrastante. Lì abita sotto falso nome un misterioso individuo che da anni non esce più di casa. Un giorno uno dei ragazzi, Jamal, accetta per sfida di andare a vedere chi c'è veramente in quella casa. Si introduce, viene scoperto, scappa ma dimentica lì lo zainetto con libri e quaderni. Intanto un esclusivo liceo di New York ha messo gli occhi su di lui e gli offre una borsa di studio, soprattutto per le sue doti nella pallacanestro. Ricevuta indietro la propria roba, Jamal si accorge che sulle cose scritte nei quaderni ci sono correzioni e giudizi. Il ragazzo, 16 anni, va nella nuova scuola, comincia gli studi e scopre che quell'individuo è William Forrester, scrittore vincitore anni prima di un Pulitzer e poi misteriosamente scomparso.

12 June 2013

Film review: Flags of our Fathers (2006) by Clint Eastwood, ****

testo italiano di seguito

Synopsis

The film is about a photograph by James Rosenthal, one of the most famous war pictures of all times. Thematically ambitious and emotionally complex, Clint Eastwood's Flags of Our Fathers is an intimate epic with much to say about war and the nature of heroism in America. Based on the non-fiction bestseller by James Bradley (with Ron Powers), and adapted by Million Dollar Baby screenwriter Paul Haggis (Jarhead screenwriter William Broyles Jr. wrote an earlier draft that was abandoned when Eastwood signed on to direct), this isn't so much a conventional war movie as it is a thought-provoking meditation on our collective need for heroes, even at the expense of those we deem heroic.

In telling the story of the six men (five Marines, one Navy medic) who raised the American flag of victory on the battle-ravaged Japanese island of Iwo Jima on February 23rd, 1945, Eastwood takes us deep into the horror of war (in painstakingly authentic Iwo Jima battle scenes) while emphasizing how three of the surviving flag-raisers (played by Adam Beach, Ryan Phillippe, and Jesse Bradford) became reluctant celebrities – and resentful pawns in a wartime publicity campaign – after their flag-raising was immortalized by Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal in the most famous photograph in military history.


Review

A typically Eastwood approach. He takes a highly unusual point of view to reveal the lesser known aspects of a very well known subject matter, in this case the flag raising photograph of the battle of Iwo Jima. Of the six men, three were killed in action a few days later. This is not a film meant to show bravery, though there is plenty of it. It is a cynical film to show how the American war propaganda machine manipulated the three survivors of the flag raising to ... raise money for war bonds. We learn how the flag itself was a coveted object of contention among politicians and military leaders. And how in the end those who were less interested in the iconic photograph were the people in it. They were there to do a job, and being in a photograph was not part of it.

Pretty amazing CGI. For example, technicians artificially reproduce the Pacific theather as a background for the rugged terrain in Iceland where the film was actually shot! You can see it's not real, but it's pretty close to look real.

Watch this film together with "Letters from Iwo Jima", also by Clint Eastwood, that tells the story of the battle from a Japanese point of view. I will review this most interesting film soon in this blog.

Region free BD



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Recensione

Approccio tipicamente Eastwoodiano. Clint affronta l'argomento da un punto di vista molto inusuale per rivelare gli aspetti più nascosti di una vicenda ultranota, in questo caso la celebre foto della bandiera di Iwo Jima. Dei sei uomini nella foto, tre sono morti in combattimento nei giorni successivi. La macchina della propaganda bellica americana ha manipolato gli altri tre allo scopo di raccogliere fondi per finanziare il prosieguo della guerra. (Siamo a Febbraio 1945 ed il Giappone non ha ancora nessuna intenzione di arrendersi.)

Alla fine si capisce come i sei personaggi nella foto erano i meno interessati alla foto stessa: erano a Iwo per uno scopo ben preciso, e posare in una fotografia non rientrava nei loro compiti.

Buoni effetti speciali: i tecnici hanno ricreato lo sfondo dello sbarco e lo hanno inserito dietro le montagne islandesi dove si sono svolte le riprese. Sembra quasi vero.

Consiglio di vedere questo film con "Lettere da Iwo Jima", sempre di Clint Eastwood, che racconta come quella drammatica battaglia fu vissuta dai giapponesi.

BD in italiano



Compra il libro in italiano qui



24 March 2013

Film review: Namesake (2006), by Mira Nair, ****

Synopsis

Namesake is a Bollywood drama by Mira Nair, based on the best-selling novel by Jhumpa Lahiri. Ashoke (Irfan Khan) and Ashima (Tabu) are a young couple who are brought together in an arranged marriage and soon leave Calcutta to seek their fortune in America. Before long, Ashima gives birth to a baby boy, and pressed to choose a name, they dub the infant Nikhil (Kal Penn), though he soon picks up the nickname Gogol, after Ashoke's favourite author. By the time the child is old enough to attend school, he insists upon being called Gogol at all times, and he displays little interest in his Indian heritage.

Several years on, Gogol has decided he wants to be called Nick (and is now played by Kal Penn) and has become a thoroughly Americanised teenager, openly rebelling against his parents, smoking marijuana in his room, and dating Maxine (Jacinda Barrett), a preppy blonde from a wealthy family. Ashoke and Ashima are uncertain about how to deal with their son's attempts to cut himself off from their culture, but Nick begins expressing some uncertainty himself when he meets Moushumi (Zuleikha Robinson), a beautiful girl who also comes from a family of Indian expatriates.


Review

Multiple stories in this film. Indian immigration in the 1970s, with a bright young engineering student who finds opportunities at M.I.T., the dream university for many scientists around the world. What a coincidence, I went to M.I.T. in the seventies, same university and same decade! Some of my classmates and best friends were just like Ashoke!

Also a touching family love story, with the problems faced by parents of adolescent kids in every country.

The strong role of the family bonds in Indian culture is a message not to be missed, and from which we in the West have much to learn.

I found the puzzlement of the American born kids when they go back to visit India the most entertaining and amusing part of the film.

Everything rotates around the quirky name that Ashoke has chosen for his son, and the meaning of this name which only becomes clear to the son after his father's death.

See more of my reviews of films about India in this blog.

Buy your European Region 2 DVD here



For the US buy or download here




Buy the book here




17 March 2013

Film review: Escape from Alcatraz (1979), by Don Siegel, *****



Synopsis

One of Clint Eastwood's two most important filmmaking mentors was Don Siegel (the other was Sergio Leone), who directed Eastwood in Dirty Harry, Coogan's Bluff, Two Mules for Sister Sara and this enigmatic, 1979 drama based on a true story about an escape from the island prison of Alcatraz. Eastwood plays a new convict who enters into a kind of mind game with the chilly warden (Patrick McGoohan) and organises a break leading into the treacherous waters off San Francisco. As jailbird movies go, this isn't just a grotty, unpleasant experience but a character-driven work with some haunting twists. --Tom Keogh for Amazon



Review

This is a great movie that entertains with lots of suspense while telling the real story of three inmates who pulled off the only successful escape from the notorious Alcatraz prison.

Eastwood is his usual self: cool, smart and cynical to the extreme, but also human. Highly recommended. Other supporting actors contribute to a great film.


Buy your European disc here



Buy your American disc or instant video here (PAY ATTENTION NOT TO BUY REGION 2 DVD FOR US)




10 March 2013

Film review: Outsourced (2010) by John Jeffcoat, ****

Time magazine cover, 2006
Synopsis

Todd Anderson (Josh Hamilton) spends his days managing a call centre in Seattle until he gets the bad news from his boss his job has been outsourced to India. Adding insult to injury, Todd must travel to India to train his new replacement. He expects the worst experience of his life, and it certainly begins that way! As he navigates through the chaos of Bombay and an office paralyzed by constant cultural misunderstandings, Todd yearns to return to the comforts of home. But it is through his team of quirky yet likable Indian call centre workers, including his friendly and motivated replacement, Puro (Asif Basra), and the charming, opinionated Asha (Ayesha Dharker), that Todd realizes that he too has a lot to learn - not only about India and America, but about himself. He soon discovers that being outsourced may be the best thing that ever happened to him.


07 February 2013

Film review: The Thin Red Line (1998), by Terrence Malick, ****

Synopsis

After directing two of the most extraordinary movies of the 1970s, Badlands and Days of Heaven, American artist Terrence Malick disappeared from the film world for twenty years, only to resurface in 1998 with this visionary adaptation of James Jones’s 1962 novel about the World War II battle for Guadalcanal. A big-budget, spectacularly mounted epic, The Thin Red Line is also one of the most deeply philosophical films ever released by a major Hollywood studio, a thought-provoking meditation on man, nature, and violence. Featuring a cast of contemporary cinema’s finest actors—Sean Penn (Dead Man Walking, Milk), Nick Nolte (The Prince of Tides, Affliction), Elias Koteas (Zodiac, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), and Woody Harrelson (Natural Born Killers, The People vs. Larry Flynt) among them—The Thin Red Line is a kaleidoscopic evocation of the experience of combat that ranks as one of cinema’s greatest war films.


13 November 2012

Film review: Bananas (1971) by Woody Allen, ****

Synopsis

Woody Allen's second film as a director was a wild, unpredictable and unlikely comedy about a product-tester named Fielding Mellish (Allen), who can't quite connect with the woman of his dreams (Louise Lasser, Allen's ex-wife). He accidentally winds up in South America as a freedom fighter for a guerrilla leader who looks like Castro. Once he assumes power, the new dictator quickly goes insane--which leaves Fielding in charge to negotiate with the US. The film is chockfull of wonderfully bizarre gags, such as the dreams Fielding recounts to his shrink about dueling crucified messiahs, vying for a parking place near Wall Street. Look for an unknown Sylvester Stallone in a tiny role--but watch this film for Allen's surprisingly physical (and always verbally dexterous) humour. --Marshall Fine for Amazon


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