Mahanagar (The Big City)

This Satyajit Ray film addresses issues involved in the modernization of societal roles of the sexes in India. The film concentrates on the personal difficulties of one family as their financial situation forces the daughter-in-law/wife/mother out of her traditional role in the home and into the work place. The father is furious, mother disappointed, husband humiliated, and the child confused.

The wife is very good at her job of door-to-door saleswoman and as she rakes in the cash her husband's life falls apart - very much like the patriarchal system itself. Out of work, the husband is jealous and suspicious of his wife, and while worrying about her he entirely ignores his father, who embarks on a shameful quest to collect money from his former pupils under the pretext of being neglected by his son. The movie ends on a hopeful note, with both bread winners jobless, the husband and wife equal at last and happy about it. Another not-to-be-missed, entertaining classic.

WORTH WATCHING
3.5 out of 5

Plot: 4
Imagery: 4
Originality: 3
Soundtrack: 3
Overall: 3.5

News of a Kidnapping - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

A nonfiction account of the kidnappings of affluent Colombians by the Pablo Escobar-led "extraditables," so called for the new controversial policy that allows for their extradition to the USA if caught or surrendered. The story begins in 1990 by recounting the latest abduction in a string of high profiled hostage taking - the cartel's angry response to the new policy. Next the tale drops back in time to explain the circumstances surrounding the kidnappings of other people held by the cartels. Marquez's gentle (Nobel Prize winning) prose presents the facts in a careful, believable story teller voice with none of the usual stuffiness of nonfiction. The guerrillas' behavior is neither vilified nor condoned. Their lower echelons are gentle, misguided and confused, while the top monsters appear oddly human and surprisingly unevil. The victims, for the most part, are not tortured or harmed; the pain of their experiences lies mainly in their captivity and absence from their loved ones.

The insight into Colombia's struggles proffered by News of a Kidnapping is priceless and the suspenseful story is difficult to put down. A must read for anyone interested in learning about the further effects of America's War on Drugs.

Important and Highly Entertaining
4 out of 5
Buy this book: News of a Kidnapping

Rescue Dawn

Werner Herzog's venture into Hollywood is an extension of his documentary Little Dieter Needs to Fly, which retold the story of a German-born American pilot who was shot down over Laos before the Vietnam War "officially" started. While in the documentary Herzog had the real Dieter return to the place of his capture and relive his terrifying experiences, Rescue Dawn employs high-paid actors. It is still undeniably Herzog, however, full of brutality, tension, and realism (Herzog is famous for doing anything to achieve the desired effect). While trailers of the film show a great deal of explosions and excitement, the film itself mostly portrays a group of malnourished captives whispering their plans for escape. After crashing in the jungle, Dieter is taken to a camp where he meets other prisoners, some of whom are steadily descending into madness. Little Dieter Needs to Fly offers a little more insight into the man and his peculiar mind, but the dramatization is an unsensationalized study of madness, hunger, and the limits of human endurance - some of Herzog's favorite themes.

WORTH WATCHING
3.5 of out 5
Buy the film: Rescue Dawn
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Plot: 3
Imagery: 4
Originality: 3
Soundtrack: 3
Overall: 3.5

The Beautiful and Damned - F. Scott Fitzgerald

A logical followup to semi-autobiographical This Side of Paradise, which followed its character through adolescence, this novel focuses on the adult life of the handsome and clever - but uninspired - Anthony Patch, who lives it up on his grandfather's dollar and struggles to forge his own way in life. After marrying the beautiful Gloria, his life degenerates until he exists in a state of selfish depravity, evidenced by increasing alcoholism and the alienation of everyone near him. Though it never seems his pinnacle of his life is very high, he manages to fall quite far. Centering on this semi-tragic story, Fitzgerald exposes the strange, separate lives of the leisure class - those who never know true work; whose entire existences seem to be one interwoven political game in which people are pieces and one succeeds only by arranging his or her position and fortifying it, and one's status can be determined by timely usage of a few cynical, pretentious phrases. Not quite as original or spirited as This Side of Paradise, nor as polished as The Great Gatsby, this is nonetheless a rich and honest book, full of the author's typical lyricism and bitter social commentary.

Worth Reading
3 out of 5
Buy this book: The Beautiful and Damned
Download for Kindle: The Beautiful and Damned

Spirited Away

This film, framed with a standard child escapist scenario, is a stunning, inventive adventure from director Hayao Miyazaki. A young girl wanders from her parents (who are gorging themselves on food) and suddenly finds herself in a different, parallel world, full of bizarre creatures and mysterious happenings. Combining Peter Pan-like fantasy with Japanese lore, the world sprouting from Miyazaki's fertile imagination contains a healthy amount of oddity and grotesqueness. Certainly, the film may be seen simply as entertainment, but there is commentary behind the fantastical situations, as in the presence of a greedy, ghostlike No Name monster that will do anything for attention and then devour those who have fed its desire (The black hole of consumerism? A needy, lonely weird kid?). The girl is endangered by a witch/bath house manager who steals her employees' names (and thus their identities) binding them into her service - perhaps a good message for anyone entering into a dismal corporate career. The animation is excellent and the story manages to breathe life into the old, well-used plot of a child lost in an imaginary world.

Worth Watching
3.5 out of 5
Buy this film: Spirited Away

Plot: 3
Imagery: 4
Originality: 4
Soundtrack: 3 Buy the Spirited Away Soundtrack
Overall: 3.5

At War With Asia - Noam Chomsky

This highly academic collection of essays from the early 70s is not exactly light reading. Pick this up if you have a serious interest in American foreign policy and the patience to wade through the facts and undecorated analysis. Chomsky examines - in great detail - the military involvement of the United States in the Southeast Asian nations of Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, drawing on extensive research and his own visits to the area. He is, of course, relentlessly critical of the American government and its policies - the general point seems to be that claims of good intentions and benevolence were/are all bullshit, and that US interventions there and throughout the world were/are really aimed at maintaining the dependence of developing countries on the United States (for the sake of expanding both military and markets). But he also looks home to America, contemplating the health (or existence) of a democracy that allows its government to wage wars against poor nations, especially when against public opinion. "Either the war will have to go," Chomsky says, "or the democracy." While these essays are mostly over thirty years old, they may offer more than just a critical look back in time, as the US has moved on to different regions but its motives remain essentially the same.

Worth Reading
3.5 out of 5
Buy this book: At War With Asia: Essays on Indochina

A Crude Awakening: The Oil Crash

While the theme of this documentary is important, it offers nothing in the way of information or insight into our oil problems that couldn't be earned from a few minutes of reading or searching around the Internet. A great deal of time is spent trying to fuel fear - we use oil for a great number of things, and we'll sure be sorry when it's gone. The film gives a brief and scattered history of oil productions; a limited look at the relationship between oil, politics, and war; and a fruitless, half-assed introduction to energy alternatives. The handful of interviewees throw out endless statistics and numbers - but their point remains uncertain. In the end it is a propaganda film with an obvious goal of frightening people more than educating them - but, while it repetitively asserts a dire need to brace ourselves for the impending oil crash and the problems it will bring, it seems to suggest that there would be no problem if the world's oil supply was limitless; there is no mention of the environmental implications of burning fossil fuels and the fact that we need to readjust our consumptive lifestyles and restricted thinking regardless of how much oil exists. A better film would focus on the possibilities for alternative energy rather than trying to insight paranoia and panic.

Um?
2 out of 5
Buy this film: A Crude Awakening - The Oil Crash

Plot: 2
Imagery: 2
Originality: 2
Soundtrack: 2
Overall: 2

Youth and The End of the Tether - Joseph Conrad

Two more seafaring tales from Joseph Conrad, both purportedly based on his own Eastern marine adventuring. 'Youth,' the first and significantly shorter of the stories, is well described by its subtitle: A Narrative. In it, a young man's enthusiasm for life is only strengthened by events of danger and hardship on the sea. The second, 'The End of the Tether,' tells of an old, well-intentioned sea captain on the opposite leg of life who finds himself suddenly tangled in a series of dishonest decisions (both his own and those of his mutinous crew). Though the captain is a worldly, respected man, his character displays a cringeworthy innocence as the troubles around him culminate. While at times his descriptions get a little out of hand, Conrad's expertise shines brightly through these contrasting stories of life, death, light, dark, good and evil. His strong voice steers his characters and plot with easy skill akin to that of a seasoned captain steering through well charted waters. This book is both impressive and fun to read.

Highly Entertaining
4 out of 5
Buy this book: Youth; Heart of Darkness; The End of the Tether (Our version is Out of Print)

The Wrestler

Apparently this film is supposed to be impressive because its story of a broke-down, aging wrestler seeking redemption is very similar in theme to the real life of its broke-down star, Mickey Rourke. Hollywood may love rebirths, but what is so exciting about an actor playing himself - especially when that mutual character is a worthless goon? Of course, the wrestler's pain is the spectator's joy - but the concept of self-sacrifice is a bit far-fetched in this case. The wrestler, known as 'The Ram,' is scarred and smashed up twenty years after his big fight - since then it seems his life has gone steadily downhill, though he's still wrestling and signing autographs. A sudden disaster sends the steroid junkie reeling, and he makes a couple half-assed attempts to put his life back together: trolling after an aging, broke-down stripper who insists she isn't really a stripper; and attempting to win back his estranged, college-age daughter who doesn't want him in her life. Can you guess what happens?

In other words, the story is ludicrous. A general weirdness permeates the film, simply due to the subject matter and 'backstage' look at the pro wrestling world, and it is shot in a somewhat gritty, realist style (the camera often follows the Ram's back, like a documentary) - but none of this manages to redeem the failures of the uninspired plot and flat characters. In the end, its attempts at rawness and authenticity are undermined, and The Wrestler is essentially a merger of Rocky, a porno, and a WWE show - unnecessarily graphic, smutty, and contrived.

BOOOOOOOO!
Rating 1.5 out of 5
Buy this film: The Wrestler
Download: The Wrestler

Plot: 1
Imagery: 2
Originality: 2
Soundtrack: 1 The Wrestler
Overall: 1.5

Into the Wild - Jon Krakauer

A true account of the adventures of 24 year old Christopher McCandless, an upper class East Coast suburbanite, who, upon finishing college, gave away and burned all his money and attempted a sort of "return to nature." McCandless travels around North America in a haze of youthful discontent, naivete and stupidity, relying on the kindness of strangers and dumb luck to survive. Eventually he heads north to the ever romanticized textbook wilderness of Alaska where his innocence becomes painfully clear as he dives into the Denali wilderness in April - his life prolonged once again by an astonished stranger who gives him some basic gear before he trudges out of sight. It is still winter, and he quickly realizes that his life is in peril; luckily, he finds an old abandoned bus which has been converted to a hunting cabin of sorts.

This is a cautionary tale, not a guidebook. The story has gathered a cult-like following worldwide since the release of the film. Everywhere we go, whenever we meet crazy, lucky-to-be-alive-for-the stupid-things-they've-done backpackers and they hear any mention of Alaska, their eyes star up and, like obsessed teeny-boppers, they gush over how their dream is to "disappear" into the Alaskan wilderness like their "hero" McCandless. Most add, as an afterthought, as though some crime of nature has been committed: "I can't believe he died." If you are one of these senseless, itchy-footed idolaters this book isn't for you. Otherwise, it is a well written story that shows many sides of America and its people: kind, selfish, idealistic, etc. and leaves questions about the honesty and accuracy of the American education system's portrayal of the West.

Worth the Read
3 out of 5
Buy this book: Into the Wild