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ISBN: 1795100229

Movie Review:

When I first saw Narnia I had recently seen Lord of the Rings and I compared them unfavourably. Not so, the books. When I read the books of The Lord of the Rings and later The Chronicles of Narnia there was no such comparison. Tolkien and C.S.Lewis, who were good friends, by the way, produced such different works in style and scope there was no thought of ranking them at all. Both are wonderful works and the two movies are also both wonderful in a very different way. Narnia’s beautiful prose is easily read by upper primary children but the Lord of the Rings is best left until high school. The director of Narnia has taken C.S. Lewis’s amazingly clear and simple writing style and transferred it to the screen as well as may be possible. Perhaps one day someone will do it better but none of the other attempts I have seen is as good as this movie. I am a bit sad that some of the people who see this movie will not see beyond its surface to the allegory of Christ represented by Aslan the lion but it would work without that understanding. I love the director’s making little Lucy the key character and am sure Lewis would have enjoyed that immensely. To me, this movie avoids the common trend to make the bad creatures in movies too realistic. I saw a movie in my childhood that lingers in the memories of my sisters and I as too scarily realistic. Have children become tougher? I think many have but we all know sensitive children and I don’t believe every child is emotionally capable of watching some scenes from recent children’s movies without real fear. Congratulations director Adamson for producing a children’s movie that is really for children and is set at their level.

ISBN: 1558905731

Review:

It’s pretty standard to knock a sequel, natural enough too because the novelty value is not there and don’t we love novelty? Personally, I love Sandra Bullock’s style and I would never tire of her. She is just a naturally funny lady and extremely enjoyable. Sure, this movie is not quite as good an experience as the first one was but it is still great entertainment. It is so hard to believe William Shatner is the same guy who played the fearless Captain Kirk in Star Trek years ago. The ingratiating coward who appears on your screen in this movie would surely have spelled danger to The Enterprise and even the unshockable Spock would have raised his strange eyebrows. There are plenty of laughs in this movie as Miss Congeniality sets out to rescue the dippy Miss United States and recovers her toughness, which has been temporarily put aside in favour of glamour.

Heather Burns is suitably bubble-headed as the kidnapped beauty queen who speaks with sincerity in as predictable phrases as any true beauty contestant would use. Regina Butler as Agent Sam Fuller is a full-on agro-chook (excuse the Aussie slang) who outdoes Gracie Hart in the wouldn’t want to know her category. The males have no chance against Hart and Fuller even when they hate each other.

It’s a great movie and I’m sure it will make me laugh a few times in the future although I’m not one for watching films many times over.

ISBN: 0788848291

Review:

Steve Martin reveals his serious side in this movie, by writing the book, co-writing the screenplay and by hardly cracking a smile through the whole movie as one of its leading actors. And hey there, he succeeds! It is a calmly flowing movie that might seem a little overdone to some in the early scenes when Jason Schwartzmann’s character, Jeremy, first bumbles on to the screen. Why would Mirabelle be interested in him? The flow carries us along and builds credibility for this relationship, losing a little when Jeremy becomes hooked on self-realization, motivation and meditation, emerging as a super cool guy. Only a momentary glimpse of Mirabelle’s dad enlists our understanding of what might draw her to him. However, what seems like a caricature of Jeremy as I write it is transformed into a real person by the directors’ skill. We come to love Jeremy and sympathize with his inadequacies. Martin underplays the role of Ray Porter with some excellent portrayals of private emotional struggle so that his rich guy with everything exterior doesn’t convince us, but he captivates the maiden for a time. We don’t like him but we don’t hate him because we suspect there are things we don’t know about why he lives the life he does, and we think they might be sad reasons. We never find out. Claire Danes is everything she ought to be, the country girl alone in the big city, the romantic young woman desperate to reveal her passionate side, and the matter-of-fact mistress who knows it will all end some day. In the magic way of women she understands it all intuitively though her mind is having difficulty sorting through it all and she’s going to survive because she expects the worst will come. Like Jeremy and Ray we fall in love with her, at least for the duration of the movie and a little while after. She’s gorgeous and we can’t resist her. The directors’ sparse approach, rejecting the temptation to use Martin’s comedic talents to enliven Porter, rejecting erotic intensity in the love scenes, avoiding deep and heavy psycho-theorizing on the characters’ behaviour, just draws us deeper into the complex of relationships and leaves us still diving at the end of the movie. Well done director Tucker and well done Steve Martin for stepping out of your public stereotype. Which is the real you? You have created a very un-American movie full of quiet humour, thought provoking and replete with meaning, European in its depth. Congratulations to Jason Schwartzmann, Claire Danes and the rest of the cast. It is a movie I won’t forget, I’m still thinking about it.

ISBN: 1415711003

Review:

Enduring Love is a disturbing film for those of us who are secure in our male bodies, believing we are safe from the horrors of violence mainly inflicted on females by males. The film begins with a man running with other men to try to save a boy in a hot air balloon which is having problems. The men all grab hold of the basket or a trailing rope and try to encourage the boy to jump out. In his fear he just hides in the bottom of the basket and then the balloon starts to rise. Most let go but one man hangs on until he falls to a horrifying death. Two of the men run to where his body is. One of the men feels a strong bond for the other and that is what the story is built on. Rhys Ifans (Jed) plays a man with a strange obsession for the other, played by Daniel Craig (Joe). Craig’s character has a definite case of post traumatic stress disorder, but, a rationalist philosopher, he refuses to believe he could have such a thing. Then Jed turns up and the stress rises and finally Joe realizes that he is the love object of a stalker. The drama rises in this unusual thriller till it reaches its unusual conclusion, or is it unusual? Only for men? It’s all too possible and all too common amongst women. Maybe we men should watch out too.

ISBN: 0740742206

Review:

After seeing this movie I thought to myself, Will I be able to review this? Where is my unique voice in it? Well, the problem is that the movie itself has no unique voice. It is a technical exercise relying on plot twists and clever inventions. The team work as a team and the same can be said of the acting. It is an integrated team effort. Efficient and characterless. If anyone stands out at all it is Catherine Zeta Jones who really sparkles amidst the men, who just do their job. It’s a pity Julia
Roberts didn’t have more to do. She was excellent in what she was given. The film is so so, as most Chinese speakers of English would say, seeking to find a translation of the Chinese ‘mamahuhu – horse horse tiger tiger’. Well, that will have to be a different blog. This is a movie that you can watch on an off night to pass the time but no more than that. I don’t recommend it unless you’re so obsessed with one of the characters that you have to see all their movies. That’s all I’ve got to say this time.