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Marple: The Body in the Library (2004)
entertaining, but the plot doesn't really work
WARNING - SPOILER ALERT! it's not till the end, and i have put a second warning down below so that if you want you may read my comments till that point.
i disagree with many reviewers here, so i figured my comments might be useful to some.
1 - i think geraldine mcewan makes a wonderful miss marple. joan hickson was good, yes, but i do enjoy the cheekiness and energy than mcewan adds in her portrayal. hickson always seemed like she was about to keel over at any minute.
2 - the production values on this episode - the sets and locations, costumes, the saturated colors of the film - are lovely and quite enjoyable in themselves.
3 - overall, i was amused/entertained by the slightly over-the-top acting in this episode (the other one i've seen is "a murder is announced". it was much more subtle, and very enjoyable in its own way). but, simon callow, who i generally love, completely got on my nerves. his was WAY over-the-top acting, and it was totally irritating. hamming rather than acting. for a talent like him to do that is unfortunate. oh well.
4 - but the clincher - the plot absolutely DOESN'T WORK AT ALL. the switch in plot from the book to the movie seems to have forgotten that murderers need to have a MOTIVE. argh! i haven't read the book, so i can't compare it (actually, i wish i did know what the actual plot was! i'm still trying to figure out how it actually would make SENSE...) so... to get into more detail....
**** SPOILER ****
what is the motivation for the lesbian lovers to kill ruby? i don't see any at all! if they want to run off together, they could just up and leave, no? how at *all* did ruby threaten that? i agree with another commenter that the little girl would not believe that a woman was a big deal movie director. also, all SORTS of other things are left hanging (perhaps in the book too, i dunno). how'd the murderer get into the film star's house? how'd she know nobody'd be there? the film star is totally drunk when he drags the body into the library... you even see him using the handrail in the library when leaving... hello, FINGERPRINTS? speaking of dragging bodies around, how does josie get the body out of the hotel without anyone noticing? staff etc? and how does she get the keys to that guy's car? there are just WAY, way too many things left unexplained/implausible for this to be a really satisfying murder mystery. i'm left frustrated.
oh and also, i find it unfortunate that this movie ends up showing lesbians as being crazy enough for murder. of course smart people won't draw that conclusion but the way it all works is - all of a sudden you find out they're lesbian and then - boom! that's why they killed ruby... uh, great. what a wonderful stereotype to promote.
Dirty Dancing (1987)
an absolute classic. works on so many levels.
i don't understand why so many people have to hate on this movie. it works as a pure fun summer movie, and at the same time addresses much deeper political and social issues. every time i watch it, i see something new.
here's part of the new york times article that eleanor bergstein, the writer and co-producer, said really helped the movie get serious publicity:
The New York Times 'DIRTY DANCING' ROCKS TO AN INNOCENT BEAT
By SAMUEL G. FREEDMAN August 16, 1987
KELLERMAN'S, THE FICTIVE Catskills hotel that provides the setting for the new film ''Dirty Dancing,'' is meant to be more than the sum of its parts, which are golf, gossip and gefilte fish. It stands as a metaphor for America in the summer of 1963 - orderly, prosperous, bursting with good intentions, a sort of Yiddish-inflected Camelot. So when Frances (Baby) Houseman, the doctor's daughter at the film's center, loses both her virginity and her political naivete to a street-smart dance teacher, the collision should shake the audience, too, out of a certain complacency.
These, at least, are the intentions of Eleanor Bergstein, the novelist (''Advancing Paul Newman'') who both wrote and co-produced ''Dirty Dancing''. It will be up to critics and the public to decide how well Ms. Bergstein and the director, Emile Ardolino, have managed to embody such serious ideas in a movie that also aspires to be a summer divertissement - one part ''Flashdance,'' one part ''Baby, It's You.''
To Ms. Bergstein, the two poles of the movie are consonant. Growing up in Brooklyn, she moved effortlessly from tutoring inner-city students in the afternoon to shimmying in ''dirty dancing'' contests at night. Similarly, she says, the rock-and-roll that subverts the dance floor etiquette at Kellerman's during the film anticipates a whole array of exciting and disquieting things to come later in the 1960's - the antiwar movement, the sexual revolution, the uprisings in cities and on campuses.
''I meant 'Dirty Dancing' to be a celebration of the time of your life when you could believe that a kind of earnest, liberal action could remake the world in your own image,'' Ms. Bergstein said in a recent interview in her Upper West Side apartment. ''The film couldn't have been set a few months earlier or later. The summer of 1963 was the first one after the Cuban missile crisis, which everyone had been following on television. The effect on kids was to make them very scared, and, for the first time, very suspicious of their elders: maybe things wouldn't work out all right.
''But the thing that kept the optimism going was John Kennedy himself - young and energetic and sexy. So maybe you could have it all. It was the summer of the Peace Corps and the summer of the 'I Have a Dream' speech. It was like the last summer of liberalism. Because two months after the movie is over, J.F.K. is assassinated. And two months after that the Beatles are on the 'Ed Sullivan Show.' And after that, it's radical action.''
''Dirty Dancing'' had its genesis years ago in a more domestic image that fascinated Ms. Bergstein - two daughters in the same family, one raised to be beautiful, the other brainy.
Gradually, the writer's notion of the sisters coalesced with her sense of how some people live through dance and popular music. These ideas, in turn, dovetailed with Ms. Bergstein's autobiographical recollections of Catskills summers, ''dirty dancing'' contests and 1960's activism, providing a narrative framework for the screenplay. And by co-producing her own film, Ms. Bergstein retained a rare degree of leverage over its final form.
Unlike some recent films,''Dirty Dancing'' treats the idealism of the 1960's as a genuine expression of faith, not a passing fad.
Baby Houseman plans to study the economics of the third world and to enter the Peace Corps. Neil Kellerman, the grandson of the hotel's owner, expects to join the Freedom Rides in the South. Almost everything about Kellerman's attests to the heyday of New York, Democratic Party liberalism. Ms. Bergstein based her characterization of Kellerman's on memories of childhood summers spent at Grossinger's. She evokes some of the more familiar elements of the Borscht Belt, but with the affection of one who had shared in them.
''I didn't want to make it ugly and vulgar,'' Ms. Bergstein said of Kellerman's. ''It was a world of grace and elegance and - yes - liberal values. I remember that when my family went to the Catskills, you had busboys who were going to take a semester off from college to go on the Freedom Rides. When the three civil rights workers were killed in Mississippi, there was a candlelight vigil.''
But as ''Dirty Dancing'' shows in some moments and suggests in others, places like Kellerman's (and, by extension, Kennedy-era America) could not sustain their placid, satisfied existence. When Baby Houseman (Jennifer Grey) follows a friendly bellboy to the staff quarters at Kellerman's, she wades into a blue-collar life of jacked-up cars, raunchy rock-and-roll, and sneers at the affluent, all of it personified by a dance instructor named Johnny Castle (Patrick Swayze). She gradually gains some acceptance in this world by substituting for Johnny's pregnant dance partner in a mambo show at a nearby resort, after having lied to her father to get $250 for the partner's back-room abortion. Baby's father, Jake (Jerry Orbach), ultimately learns of the ruse, the abortion and his daughter's burgeoning romance with Castle; and the favored child, ''Daddy's girl,'' has to stand on her own. Baby becomes Frances.
...
Unzipped (1995)
a wonderful look into the creative process. and Isaac is a hoot to boot!
OK - so i decided to rent this because i get such a kick out of watching Isaac on his show. he's so funny and witty and entertaining - he could be that proverbial entertaining phone-book- reader. but the thing about this movie that is really so great and wonderful is not the "insider's look into the fashion world" or the "glimpses of stunning supermodels" or whatever - but rather the fact that this movie documents something rarely shown: how the creative process works, from the initial idea or spark, where it comes from and how it's developed (for Isaac - from movies and music - anything in the culture - and then he starts drawing and chatting about his ideas with family, friends and colleagues to develop it), all the way to making that idea into something tangible and concrete (and really, what i appreciate about what the movie shows, is how such a seemingly abstract or novel "idea" can be developed into an entire fashion collection). i study architecture, and the parallels are absolutely there for anyone in any creative or design field. i gave it a 9 out of 10 only because i wish it had been longer. PLUS another benefit of the movie: you get to see/hear Isaac play the piano. so fun. and his mother is a hoot! plus i really loved seeing a few of the really great style arbiters - Polly Mellen, Candy Pratts, Ingrid Sischy - on film. wish Andre Leon Talley had said more. and it was so fun to see mark morris and Sandra Bernhardt too! all in all a fabulous film for anyone in or interested in the creative and design fields.
Monsoon Wedding (2001)
a wonderful feel-good movie
this is a movie to be enjoyed and not really analyzed. it's a feast of colors and music and chatter and laughter, along with a few serious moments, that brilliantly depicts the life of upper-middle class indians today. the language, going between english and hindi and punjabi, was absolutely true to how indians speak today, and one of the most enjoyable aspects of the film. i had difficulty with it too, but i can't believe that people would lower their rating for a film because they couldn't understand what the actors were saying. i've seen many films -- mostly british, often irish -- where i can barely understand what the actors are saying, but i realize that the movie is great. the ones that come to mind right away are billy elliot and waking ned devine. i had the most difficult time understanding what was going on in these movies! anyway -- don't skip this movie because of that -- you're really doing yourself a disservice if you do that. monsoon wedding is a success.
The Portrait of a Lady (1996)
difficult to watch, but a brilliant movie
i had a really hard time watching this movie. one watches in slow motion as isabel archer willingly throws herself into the arms of the evil desmond. but jane campion pulls it off, and brilliantly. the pacing, camera angles, snippets of black and white films, the way she lingers on certain images, the switch between real and almost surreal scenes -- she really turns the period movie genre on its head. the acting is wonderful, especially nicole kidman as ms archer and barbara hershey as ms merle. i'll say it again -- this is a very difficult movie to watch -- i was squirming and was physically repulsed by many of the scenes between isabel and desmond -- but the film succeeds mightily in telling its unique story. watch it if you love period flicks and want to see a movie that really pushes the envelope.
Love & Basketball (2000)
it's not just about love and basketball -- it's about life
this movie really, really impressed me. i say that because not only did it move me (tears came to my eyes at many points), but because everything about it was impeccable. sanaa nathan was brilliant as monica. she was able to communicate so much without even saying a word. omar epps did an excellent job as well. and alfre woodard and dennis haysbert were fine in their supporting roles. the material they had to work with was so good -- the script is so well-written! it's so incredibly rare to see that in a hollywood movie. i was especially impressed by the childhood scenes between monica and q -- one never sees realistic depictions of childhood in american movies -- the french are so much better at it, usually -- and also by the basketball scenes, especially the one where you hear monica's thoughts throughout (it would have been nice if they'd done that again later on). the family struggles are especially honest as well. nothing was stereotyped or given a pat explanation. one might think that tomboy monica would clash with her girlie sister, but in fact they get along and you see the support that monica gets from her. it would have been easier to play it the other way around. the movie does have a somewhat cheesy ending, but given the rest of the movie, it works. anyway, i could go on and on but the bottom line is -- you want to watch this movie. i'm not even remotely a sports fan -- but the way basketball was used as a backdrop for multiple storylines around love, family struggles, men/women issues, our childhood dreams vs adult reality -- was just brilliant. hats off to writer-director gina prince-bythewood -- what a success!