Daniel Day-Lewis does an amazing job portraying our 16th President, Abraham Lincoln. He conveys the humanity and intelligence, along with the awkwardness and sorrow. Lincoln was perhaps singularly suited to deal with the issues of slavery and union, with bringing our nation out of a time of bondage, and into an era of freedom. The film wasn’t what I expected. I’m not sure exactly what I expected, but I purposefully ignored reviews and articles about it, not wanting to have anything ruined for me. I think I expected it to handle more of his presidency. Instead, the film covers the period between his re-election and his assassination, a time in…

My MIL and I intended to see ‘A Royal Affair‘ on Wednesday, but though the newspaper and the internet both assured me that it was playing at our neighborhood theater, it was not. Frustrating. I wanted to see it, but now, I’ll probably wait until it comes to Netflix. Not to be deterred, however, since my MIL had driven 1/2 hour just to see the movie with me, we looked at their offerings, and found something else. We chose ‘The Sessions.’ Wow, I’m glad we did. If you’re not familiar with the plot, “The Sessions” is based on the true story of a late-30 something, Mark O’Brian (played by John…

If you like your James Bond movies full of action, adventure, PG sex, and some campy fun, this is not the James Bond movie for you. If you prefer action, adventure, PG sex, and a dark undertone of aging and at at least some level, not really liking your job, it is. Full disclosure here, I don’t really care for James Bond movies. They’re all a bit too shoot em up, far too sexist, and at their heart, boring, for me. I know, how can a person who loves to watch Flashdance dare to judge? The answer is, I can’t, and I won’t, I just thought you should know going…

Denzel Washington’s portrayal of Capt. ‘Whip’ Whit­aker in Flight is that of a thoroughly gifted airline pilot, but one who has nothing else going for him in life. He is a functioning alcoholic, one whose way of coping with a brutal hangover is to snort a line of cocaine. ‘Flight’ begins with Whip waking up in a hotel room with a beautiful (and very naked) young woman, who is an attendant on the flight he is piloting from Florida to Georgia in 90 minutes. He’s seriously hung over, snorts his coke, gets in a fight on the phone with his ex-wife, and then goes to work, where you would not…

cool graphic found here Cloud Atlas is a 2004 novel by David Mitchell, which I reviewed back in 2007 on this very blog. The book was so ambitious, and was such a treat to read. It was told in nesting chapters, with different characters, and different genres, which refer to each other and interconnect in interesting ways. I loved it. When I heard it was being made into a film, I wondered how the different genres would translate…Melvillian sea story, 20th century crime drama, post apocalyptic tale, amongst others. I’m happy to report that they did a darned good job with it. I’m not sure I loved it as much…

Ted and I went to see ‘The Perks of Being a Wallflower‘ yesterday. I really, really liked it. Here’s the quick wrap up, without giving anything away. Charlie is a damaged and shy high school freshman, excluded from groups that he had hoped to be included in…his senior sister and her boyfriend won’t eat lunch with him, his friend from middle school friend won’t eat lunch with him, and his older brother’s football teammates won’t eat lunch with him. He’s on his own. On his first day, he makes only one friend, and that’s his English teacher, which even Charlie knows is pathetic. Time goes by, and he finally makes…

Whilst Maya was off at her Homecoming dance last Saturday, watching in horror the spectacle that is ‘freak dancing’, Ted and I were at home with a DVD, watching in horror the extreme weirdness that is The Skin I Live In. Which is not to say that we didn’t like it. We both did, quite a bit. But God, it was strange, and sure left a person with some insane images. Picture Boxing Helena, but done well. (Let me stop here to say, if you’ve not seen Boxing Helena, good for you. Keep it that way. Seriously.) In The Skin I Live In, Antonio Banderas plays a brilliant but seriously…

If you are sympathetic with characters like Vivian in Pretty Woman and Holly in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, you’ll love Audrey Tautou as Irene in the 2006 French Comedy, Priceless. More like Holly than Vivian, Irene isn’t an obvious prostitute. But she is a loose woman, looking for a sugar daddy to pay her bills, so that she can live the rest of her life in comfort and ease, using her youth, beauty, and sexuality as weapons in the war of the sexes. She’s snagged a wealthy, wealthy man, who is ready to propose and keep her in the manner to which she has become accustomed. Enter Gad Elmaleh as Jean,…

Celeste and Jesse are best friends, and have been for decades. They adore each other, and want to spend every waking moment in each other’s company. Their time is full of inside jokes and laughter. They took the advice to marry your best friend, which it turns out, isn’t always the best idea. So now, they’re getting a divorce. But they’re clinging mightily to their friendship, unwilling to spend time apart or admit to anyone that they shouldn’t be together every minute of every day. Of course, they need to figure some things out. They need to figure out how to be friends and not be married anymore. Or actually,…

We went to see 2 Days in New York in Berkeley on Saturday, on our way home from Santa Cruz (which was lovely, by the way). If you’re a fan of Julie Delpy, then you should see (first) 2 Days in Paris, and (now) 2 Days in New York. I adore Delpy in the “Before Sunrise” and “Before Sunset” films, where she talks talks talks and is charming and French and lovely. In “2 Days in Paris” and “2 Days in New York”, she is more wacky and insane…or, more accurately, somewhat, almost sane, in a family of insanity. In “2 Days in Paris”, she is a Parisian (Marion) living…

Sam Shakusky (Jared Gilman) and Suzy Bishop (Kara Hayward), are in love, and will move heaven and earth to be together.  The fact that they’re only 12 makes the logistics a little difficult, but not horribly.  Suzy lives on a fictional New England island, with her parents (Frances McDormand and Bill Murray) and siblings.  Sam comes to the island every summer with his scout troop.  They fell in love at first sight, and planned a getaway via mail, so they could get to know each other better. I don’t want to tell you more than that about the plot of the film, because I really liked not knowing anything going…

The fictional Seven Oaks University has only recently gone co-ed, and the male students are still a bit unclear on the concepts of civility, bathing, and any slightest degree of self awareness. Enter the floral-named trio of Violet, Rose, and Heather, whose stated goal is to improve humanity, one dufus at a time. Rather than wasting their time on the cool, good looking, smart guys, they prefer to find a fixer-upper and strive to bring him somehow up to their almost ivy-league standards. To this mix, we add a new transfer student, Lily. The girls work at the campus Suicide Prevention Center, working to cure depression and suicidal tendencies one…

When I first saw the previews for ‘Young Adult’, I thought it looked like crap. Like another ‘Hangover’ or ‘Bridesmaids’ type film, but without much actual humor, and with a mean spirited protagonist. Then I heard that the people who made it also made two other films that I really liked, ‘Up In the Air’, and ‘Juno’, and I decided that I’d wait and see if the reviews were good. And they were, very good. Charlize Theron is Mavis Gary, a semi-successful writer of young adult books who lives in Minneapolis. We are shown a glimpse of her life, which seems to consist mainly of writer’s-block, drinking, trolling for men,…