Posted by barb on May 6, 2003 in
Movies 3/5 stars
While I enjoyed AI, I felt that it should have ended about 20 minutes before it actually did. However, Hollywood seems to have to add a happy ending to just about everything.
In the near future, the polar ice caps have melted, causing the costal cities to flood, and resources have become scarce. The government responds by regulating the number of children born — couples need a license to conceive a child. Monica and Henry had their child, but Jake is in cyrogenic suspension due to some kind of illness. The doctor’s tell them that they must move on — it may be beyond science to revive their son.
Henry’s company deals in mechas — mechanical humans who are built to serve human’s needs. They have developed a prototype mecha that can love. A child. But, for the protection of the “adopting parents” this mecha’s love can only be imprinted on one parent, and that love will last forever. If the parents decide to get rid of this “child”, he must be brought back to the manufacturer to be destroyed.
Henry and Monica are trusted with one of the first versions of David. After taking some time to get used to the idea, Monica has David imprint his love on her. Of course, shortly there after, Jake’s condition becomes curable, and he comes home. It becomes clear that David is a danger to Jake, not on purpose, but because he just doesn’t understand. Monica drives him back to the manufacturer, but is unable to let him be destroyed. David runs, with a “super Teddy” as his only friend.
From here, David begins a quest to become a real boy — sparked by hearing Monica read Pinnochio to Jake and him.
Not bad. However, the “happy” ending was just too contrived for my taste.
Posted by barb on May 4, 2003 in
Concerts,
Movies Andrew introduced me to Hesperus shortly after we started dating. In fact, the first fall we were together, he bought a season subscription for their local concerts. I’ve enjoyed all of the concerts we have attended (though I keep missing the Christmas, Dancing Day, concert). Hesperus performs early music (i.e. Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque) on instruments from the period (or reproductions of period instruments).
The concert today was a new score they had arranged for the 1922 silent film version of Robin Hood. They had chosen music from the time of the Robin Hood legends, and performed the score while screening the film. The music, obviously, was quite appropriate, though I remember thinking once that the hunting song they chose was a bit weird for the goings-on on the screen. The film was a lot of fun, though the “prologue” seemed to take up half of the film. In fact, we didn’t get to King Richard (the lion-hearted) leading his men off to the Crusades for about an hour. The “Robin Hood” part of the film took up only the last 45 minutes or so.
Posted by barb on May 3, 2003 in
Movies 3/5 stars
While I’m certain I haven’t seen this version of The Importance of Being Ernest before, I’m sure I’ve either seen another version or actually read the book. I don’t think I read the book, because I remember another section of my English class reading it, while my section read something else. I also can’t remember having seen a version before. Perhaps there is another movie out there based on the story?
Anyway, it was a fun 2-hour diversion. Two men each have a second personality, each with the name Ernest. Jack uses his “brother” Ernest, who has fallen into some bad times, to escape his country house and got to the city as another person. Algy uses his make-believe invalid friend, Mr. Bunberry, to escape the city (and his aunt). But Jack’s Ernest becomes engaged to Cecily, and Algy pretends to be Jack’s brother Ernest come to visit Jack’s country home.
Fun movie.
Posted by barb on Apr 26, 2003 in
Movies 4/5 stars
As Andrew pointed out, there are no real likable characters in this. I can see that someone might take pity on Phuong, but I had trouble feeling too much sympathy. Brendan Fraser plays a young American, Alden Pyle, new to Saigon during the war in 1952. He seems to be an idealistic aid worker. He becomes friends with a London Times correspondent, Thomas Fowler, played by Michael Caine. Fowler has a Vietnamese lover, Phuong, whom he can’t marry because his wife, in London, will not allow it (due to her religion). Pyle and Caine end up vying for her love in the backdrop of the politics of Vietnam.
Posted by barb on Apr 19, 2003 in
Movies 3/5 stars
I picked this one just for a fun little distraction. And that’s exactly what I got.
Posted by barb on Apr 18, 2003 in
Movies 3/5 stars
Another of Hitchcock’s movies. Andrew and I are going through them all (unless we get bored). The last couple that we’ve watched, Notorious and Saboteur, were kind of dull. I enjoyed this one more than Andrew did. I think it was partly because of Ingrid Bergman’s character. She is a psychiatrist helping a man suffering from amnesia and a guilt complex who posed as the new head of the institution (played by Gregory Peck). In some ways her character is a fairly strong female role model, especially for the time the movie was made. However, her lapse into puppy-dog-in-love woman got a bit annoying (and unbelievable).
Also, the closing scene was very familiar. I can’t think of where I’d seen it before, since I’ve never seen this film before. It’s the scene where a man’s hand holding a gun are seen in the foreground as the gun follows Ingrid Bergman’s character out of the gun-holder’s office. Then the hand turns the gun around so that it is facing the camera, and pulls the trigger. A flash of red, and the screen goes blank. This is going to bug me.
Posted by barb on Apr 13, 2003 in
Movies 2.5/5 stars
I watched the original Cube when it first aired (in 1998?). I’d enjoyed it, and when I saw that there was a sequel, I knew I had to watch. (My main complaint about Cube was Nicole de Boer, who played Ezri Dax on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. While she did a good job in Cube, I did not like her portrayal of the Dax character, so I had a hard time getting past that.)
Hypercube was equally well done. The characters climb from room to room trying to figure out where they are and how to get out. Some rooms are booby trapped, others have a time-differential. A cool twist was that, since they were in a hypercube, quantum-mechanical weirdness allowed for multiple realities. So we run into characters whose fate is different that we’d first seen. Unlike Cube, there seems to be a connection between the characters, but I still didn’t entirely understand the ending. I think I liked the open ending of Cube better.
Posted by barb on Apr 12, 2003 in
Movies 3/5 stars
This was a documentary on the “Hell House” done each year by the Trinity Church in Texas. The hell house is like a haunted house, but they portray people going to hell because of suicide, aborting a child, living as a homosexual, using drugs, or being part of the occult. The last two rooms of the hell house show heaven’s gate, where the few privileged who took Jesus as their savior (or called out to Jesus on their death beds) go through. The rest are chased away by figures in black. In the final room, we see hell itself. People are tied up to the wall being tortured, and there is a plexiglass cut out of the floor where people are seen trying to escape the burning fires.
More than once, the people running the hell house claim that they are not using “scare tactics” to get people to believe. Hmmm. The people they bring to God do not see the loving God of the New Testament. They are swayed into believing because they see a wrathful God out for vengeance against those who don’t believe. These new “believers” believe only to keep themselves out of hell. They believe just-in-case. They gave numbers of how many people had committed or re-committed their lives to Christ as a result of the hell house — they did not, however, say how many of those are still committed to Christ. My guess is that the numbers are much, much lower.
<RANT>
Speaking in tongues is when the holy spirit moves a person to speak in a language not understood by the speaker. However, if it is truly “speaking in tongues”, there will also be someone moved by the holy spirit present who can interpret for those around.
The minister of the Trinity Church encouraged his people to speak in their “love language” to the holy spirit, which everyone seemed to assume was the same as speaking in tongues. IT IS NOT! If you babble conversation to God in some unintelligible tongue, unless someone else is interpreting, you’re just babbling.
</RANT>
Posted by barb on Apr 10, 2003 in
Movies 4/5 stars
I looked into this movie, because a friend from New Mexico had a picture of it in his weblog. Now, some of the movies he likes are funny, and some are just plain scary. Fortunately, this one was funny. The basic premise is that Megan, a cheerleader, is sent to a lesbian “rehab.” Rehab is very pink (for the girls) and very blue (for the boys), and give everyone an opportunity to rediscover their “proper” gender roles. The girls bone up on housekeeping and primping, while the boys attempt to do manly things like chopping wood and tossing around a football. Quite funny.
Several of the actors were vaguely familiar, which bugged me throughout the film. The lead actress, Natasha Lyonne, was in Slums of Beverly Hills. One of the lesbians, Melanie Lynskey, had played a stepsister in Ever After. Another of the lesbians, Clea DuVall, had been in Girl, Interrupted and had made a couple guest appearances on ER. For some reason, I recognized Dante Basco immediately as playing the new “Pan” in Hook. Weird.
Posted by barb on Apr 4, 2003 in
Movies 2.5/5 stars
Ugh. I’d already seen this. Now I can’t remember if I’d rented it or actually gone to see it in the theater.
Not bad for a romantic comedy. Though J-Lo is still no Meg Ryan or Sandra Bullock. I think I enjoyed it more the first time around. Matthew McConaughey, of course, is very fine to look at and does a great job in an average film.