Change Your Image
Aimee Natal
Reviews
Princess Caraboo (1994)
good story
This film is a good story, and you do think more of it once it's ended than you might while watching it. One of the main points is that it is hard to be who you want to be. But it's also hard NOT to be who others think you are. Other than that, it's hard to talk about the actual story without influencing others viewing of it. I saw the film with no knowledge of it other than what was on the back of the video box. That's a good way to go into it. Mr. Gutch (Stephen Rea), the newspaper reporter, isn't who he wants to be. Mrs. Worral, the rich aristocrat who takes the Princess under her wing, isn't who she wants to be. The servants aren't allowed to be anything other than who they are supposed to be. Throughout the film, you see how the Princess inspires others- with jealousy, lust, greed, and also with admiration and love. Good story.
Entertaining Angels: The Dorothy Day Story (1996)
nice film but feather light
For those unfamiliar with Dorothy Day, having never read any of her writings, this film might seem like a nice one. However, if this is all anyone ever got of the "Dorothy Day Story," they wouldn't really have much of the story. It's a shame, because her writings and life were so interesting, as was her daughter Tamar's. The Catholic Worker Movement, which Day founded, still exists with over 120 communities across the USA. The film is at its best in portraying Day's life in New York City while she lived a "bohemian" life as a reporter, working for a socialist newspaper. It is too shallow in dealing with her conversion to Catholicism, leaving no real explanation for it. If it at least makes some interested in this woman's life, that is to be highly commended. I would recommend reading Day's own autobiography, The Long Lonliness.
Dead Man Walking (1995)
does the punishment fit the crime?
This film is about a nun, Sister Helen, and a convict, Poncelet, who's on death row. That and the fact that it is a very good film is surprising, refreshing. It is about much more than just capital punishment- but about poor southern whites, like Poncelet, raised without a loving, responsible father- about the racial divide that still exists, evidenced by Poncelet's bigoted racist speech and Sister Helen's work amongst the poor black children- about the effects of bad company, using drugs and being drunk, which led to the horrid, brutal crimes committed landing Poncelet in prison- and then yes, about death by legal injection as punishment for those who've beaten, raped and murdered. *IF* the film's point was to make the viewers abhor capital punishment, it did not work on me. It almost had the opposite effect. It made me rethink the whole issue. When you see a reenactment (as tastefully done, I think, as it could be) of 2 teens being brutally beaten, the girl raped twice, stabbed, shot in the head, et cetera, and Poncelet staying as callous as he could for years afterward about the whole thing, right up until his date is set for execution, it left me thinking that perhaps capital punishment does indeed fit certain crimes. And I thought for sure the film would have the opposite effect on me, when I first read about it.
A Home of Our Own (1993)
gripping story of the ups and (mostly) downs of real life
The narrator of this story is supposedly the 13 year old, oldest son of the family the film is about, and he starts out by saying it's all true. Kathy Bates plays Mrs. Lacey, the mother to 5 children, the widow of an Irish Catholic SOB, as she repeatedly refers to him. They're poor, and on a lurch, pack up and leave their dumpy apartment in L.A. for who knows where. They end up in Idaho, working for a Japanese man who's also a widow, making a home out of a shack on his land. You see (feel) the struggles of a parent, a mother, and not only that, but a single parent and mother of 5 children who has practically no money. You see the relationships between siblings and between the children and their mother. You see the resourcefulness and hard work ethic of the mother, sometimes taken too far, to the detriment of her own children (shunning the priest's attempts at helping out with free clothes or food or Christmas presents). You see the struggles of the oldest boy, a 13 year old son, taking on responsibility as the "man of the house," yet also being told to go get his father's belt for whippings from his mother. The mother finds work in a bowling alley, and you see her struggles with dating the bowling pro who works there. Every penny meant so much to them, that when their house is burning down, the oldest daughter risks her life to run inside and find the money jar, and cries on her mother when she has to tell her she couldn't find it. One of the sons discovers a junk yard on the way home on the schoolbus and ends up making many visits, scavenging various items for the house, pulling it all the way home on a make-shift wagon. As someone else already commented, the Christmas morning scene is poignant, as is the ending of the film. The ending was just another beginning, I would think, for this family.
Le huitième jour (1996)
Georges- a special part of creation
This film is about 2 worlds colliding- the one of a yuppie motivational speaker on the fast track, the man Harry, and the other of another man, Georges, who has Downs Syndrome.
The cinematography alone is so fresh and exciting- as a visual feast alone the film is worth watching. But the story! Takes you by surprise- its richness and depth.
I just viewed it last night and the scene of the ballet class inside the "mental institution" was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen via a television or movie screen.
I also haven't laughed so hard in a long time. The laughter of Harry is infectious. Enough to break through Georges hard shell...
Cry, the Beloved Country (1995)
Vignette of Apartheid
This film brings to life the lives of a black, country priest and a white wealthy landowner in South Africa in the 1940's.
Religion, politics, faith, healing, mercy and justice- all of these themes are present, but not in an overt, overbearing patronising way.
The two men meet due to unfortunate circumstances related to the activity of their respective sons' in the city, though they have lived in the same country area all of their lives.
The Field (1990)
A man, his son and the land...
This film is set in the early half of the 20th century in a small village in Ireland. It begins and ends at the edge of a cliff overlooking the sea.
Bull McCabe has rented and nurtured land from a widow that was once land owned by his forefathers. Bull ties his identity up with the land, and cannot accept that his son does not.
When the land is threatened with being covered over with concrete by an American, the story unravels...