Category: Film Reviews

Which story do you prefer?: Ang Lee’s interpretation of Yann Martel’s Life of Pi

Life of Pi is, after Sense & Sensibility and Brokeback Mountain, more proof of cinema artist Ang Lee’s curiosity, humanity, and versatility: the film, full of expressive faces, and the strange wonders of nature, imagination, and life, recounts the story an Indian professor in Canada tells to a Canadian writer who has lived in India, an encounter of survivor and writer recommended by the professor’s uncle; and the tale hardly could be more unique and yet it is difficult to think of who would not find it entertaining.

Shadows of Terror and Comfort on Dark Cave Walls: Adam’s Rib, Antony & Cleopatra, Argo, Bully, The Cabin in the Woods, The Dark Knight Rises, East of Eden, Killer Joe, Liberal Arts, Our Beloved Month of August and more

One takes a survey of the past and present at different times, trying to ascertain merit: and here, I consider Adam’s Rib, An American in Paris, Antony and Cleopatra, Argo, Bully, The Cabin in the Woods, A Clockwork Orange, The Dark Knight Rises, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, East of Eden, Farewell My Queen, Fur, Garden State, Killer Joe, King Creole, Liberal Arts, Midnight in Paris, Notorious, Our Beloved Month of August, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, The Portrait of a Lady, Rosewood, Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, The Shawshank Redemption, Silent Souls, Sparkle, Splendor in the Grass, and more.

People Change: Gary Ross’s Pleasantville, a film fiction on history and nostalgia, creativity, independence, sexuality, and television

In Gary Ross’s beautiful, funny, imaginative and intelligent film Pleasantville, a shy bookish brother who loves old television programs, especially the one set in the mythical town of Pleasantville, and his more indulgently sensual, pretty, popular sister—she chews gum, smokes cigarettes, and makes out with boys—argue over the television remote control on the weekend their divorced mother has taken a trip to be with her young boyfriend.

An Early Modern Masterpiece: Chaplin’s great black-and-white film Modern Times, on friendship and survival, factory life, labor strife, unemployment, and war

In Modern Times, Charlie Chaplin, a master of gesture, merriment, and pathos, a brilliant performer who became a storyteller, is the little fellow; and the little fellow’s work in a factory is attendant to automation, and he tightens screws on items on a moving assembly line, the repetition of the work rattling his nerves.