WORTH WATCHING
3.5 out of 5
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Plot: 3
Imagery: 3
Originality: 3
Soundtrack: 3
Overall: 3.5
Reviews of Literature, music and Films: This is how we escape. Please feel free to agree or disagree with our assessments and write your own in the comments if you wish.
Probably the second most well-known book by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, at least in English, Love in the Time of Cholera is a vast, beautifully written, and meticulous novel, but it fails to reach the level of One Hundred Years of Solitude, a book of incredible scope, originality, and insight. This novel taps into the same desire for the fairy-tale resiliency of love that allowed for the recent popularity of the film Slumdog Millionaire (See our review). But despite its magical flourishes, Garcia Marquez's book is probably more realistic than the comparable film, if only because he allows his characters more hedonistic diversions and greater depth. His protagonist, the romantic and stubborn Florentino Ariza, is made to wait so long for the object of his childhood lust that his is driven towards countless affairs and other fanciful endeavors, and what begins as a youthful infatuation gradually becomes perverted obsession as he ages, and by the end the qualities which were acceptable in his youth have failed to mature. In that regard it is honest, as Garcia Marquez did not deny the inevitable developments, however unusual, of his premise. Still, people seem willing to abandon disbelief for the sake of a positive outcome these days, and this novel is certainly pleasurable to read.
A grainy old black and white reel begins this maritime journey, slowly opening into color as Fellini's massive ship takes off. With the help of a bumbling journalist, we learn the purpose of our voyage, which is in fact an elaborate display of mourning for a deceased opera star. Aboard the vessel is a collection of vain, powdery opera singers, gypsies, royalty, and even a lugubrious rhinoceros. The characters battle for our attention, performing various musical stunts - at one point, the Russian basso uses his deep, low voice to put a chicken to sleep. This is a colorful, humorous, yet solemn and mysterious film. Those who have difficulty with Fellini's earlier esoteric masterpieces may find more enjoyment in this quirky, musical adventure, though it too is the unorthodox product of a peculiar kind of genius.
A 26 year old, married, ex-high school basketball star known as Rabbit runs away from his child, pregnant wife, and small home town only to end up living in the connecting small town with a prostitute. "If you have the guts to be yourself," Rabbit says, "Other people'll pay your price." The protagonist is excruciatingly selfish and throughout seems numb to the effects of his actions, though his moments of remorse reveal he is acutely aware. Updike plays to the common American urge towards escapism, typically quelled by a carefully ingrained sense of responsibility. Rabbit's motives are left ambiguous, even to himself, though it becomes obvious his solution to his problems is (and always has been) sex. Rabbit, Run is a well written, non-intrusively didactic story that follows a lost and irresponsible young man through his struggles, fraught with intriguing, believable characters and a fast plot which plowed the way for 3 sequels and a novella.
We caught this classic Schwarzenegger film on cable in a cheap Saigon hotel room. An explosion-packed, action-centered romantic comedy awesome-fest complete with chase scenes and tangos: a sure thing if you're looking for mindless entertainment. Schwarzenegger, a spy who has hidden his profession from his bored wife, Jamie Lee Curtis, must save both his dying marriage and his terrorist-plagued country. With an excess of quotable one-liners this film is bad enough to be good.
This slim piece of Calvino is something to chew on, a new lens, new direction. It contains a collection of intertwined stories told through the interpretation of Tarot cards by mute travelers at a mysterious crossroads. As each individual story is laid down, it is discovered that common cards are needed to accommodate them all. Calvino gives us the first stories, those that are universal; each crosses and meshes, compliments and mirrors. But the interconnectedness of the tales is more than the surface crossing of the recent trend of showing multiple tangential plots in popular books and films (e.g. Pulp Fiction, Babel, etc.), which only meet on a one-dimensional plane. The sharing of Tarots highlights the interpretive nature of storytelling, and of experience itself. Even the well-known stories that emerge (Faust, Macbeth, and others) are not rigid, but are shifting, open entities. Calvino leaves us with the sense that there is no limit to the gradient of interpretation, or complication, of life.
Honeydripper is set in the 1950s in a small, fictional town called Harmony, Alabama where it is cotton picking season in the still segregated south. This simple story played out by unconvincing actors (headliner Danny Glover) in underdeveloped roles is almost so bad it's good. But not quite. The story line, about as original as Fruit Hoops cereal, of a music club that needs saving and a performance that saves it, has the potential to be made compelling by the obvious racial divides, but these relationships are instead glazed over. Between the bland emotions of the characters as they spout their flavorless and unrealistic lines, the camera shots held way too long, and the lack of any original ideas in the plot, this movie is one to skip. If you're in the mood for a musical drama watch The Blues Brothers instead.
India is undoubtedly the star of this film. The dilapidated landscapes, vibrant primary colors, clutter - even the music is mostly recycled from Bollywood pictures. Following on the heels of the weird maritime adventure The Life Aquatic, Wes Anderson's story of brotherhood and convalescence offers all of the same stylization but much less in the way of originality. The brief cameo by Bill Murray seems to be an admission that the film is lacking something desirable. Truthfully, I was much more intrigued by the hectic opening chase scene than the 'real' plot - that of three brothers from a wealthy family (who haven't been together for a whole year!) joining on an Indian train with a vague mission of healing. Owen Wilson plays his usual self, and Jason Schwartzman is a slightly older asshole than he was in Rushmore - the characters as a whole are much flatter than in Anderson's previous, quirky ensembles. Nevertheless, Darjeeling is a pleasure to the eyes, and has its moments of redemption, thanks in part to good production but also due to the setting.