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jhobson
Reviews
My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002)
Ethnic humor transcends ethnicity
When I left the theater, I overheard a ten-year-old say to his mother, "I didn't laugh once." She replied, "In twenty years, you'll laugh." I think she was right. This is a comedy for adults, and specifically, the adult children of immigrant parents. (Incidentally, when I say that this is a comedy for adults, I do not mean that there was anything even slightly offensive about the language. I mean that it is one that adults will appreciate, not children.)
I am not Greek, nor am I married to a Greek, but I identified with this movie. My ethnic background is WASP on my father's side, and Middle-European Jewish on my mother's side. Toula's family reminded me very much of my Jewish family. The wedding reception could have been the party after my cousin Eli's bar mitzvah. Gus' comment about there being two kinds of people in the world, Greeks and those who wish they were Greeks could have been said by my Aunt Pauline, substituting the word "Jew" for "Greek". As I said to my wife, put yarmulkas on these peoples' heads, and they could be my relatives.
And it was a love story I could believe. It was not two impossibly beautiful people like Richard Gere and Julia Roberts, but two adults who did have real chemistry. (In the series of scenes in which Ian keeps dropping Toula off after their dates, I could feel the sexual frustration.) I believed these people, and I believed this family. Toula's brother's attempts to embarass Ian by feeding him inappropriate Greek phrases was really funny.
All-in-all, I enjoyed this movie, more than any other I have seen this summer.
First Knight (1995)
Connery vs Gere
I thought that this was a pretty poor version of the Aurthurian legend. While I was watching it, the one thing that kept going through my mind was "Poor girl, she has to choose between Sean Connery and Richard Gere". When I mentioned this to my wife, she said "Sean Connery, every time."
Independence Day (1996)
Cliche Day, but it works
This movie had every cliche that one can imagine, from the opening shot -- what makes the dust rise on the airless surface of the moon? -- to the last. Characters made from the finest cardboard, Harvey Fierstein playing the limp-wristed homo (if he had not made Torch Song Trilogy, I would not have forgiven him), Randy Quaid going from a crop-duster to the cockpit of an F-18 without missing a step, the stripper with the heart of gold, massive coincidences, shots stolen from other movies (compare Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum walking away from their crashed ship in the desert with Sam Shephard doing the same in The Right Stuff), "all computers can talk with all other computers", Jeff Goldblum writing a computer virus in an hour or two for a computer he knows NOTHING about, and so on and so on.
Yet, it was a very good entertainment. The special effects were great, the chase between the F-18 and alien ship in the canyons was edge-of-the-seat stuff, and much of the humour worked well.
Carmen (1984)
A first-rate movie of a first-rate opera
I really liked this production of Carmen. Unlike many I have seen, Carmen and Don Jose had a real chemistry -- I could see why Don Jose would throw off his military career for her.
The singing is great, as is the acting and the photography. When friends of mine have asked me about opera, I have played this tape for them.