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Life at the Movies

DVD movie commentary It didn’t win best picture at tonight’s Academy Awards, but Mad Max Fury Road (2015, USA) took home six statuettes nevertheless, for technical achievements. It was also nominated for best picture and director. Is there more to this film than big budget special effects? What do viewers take with them, cerebrally, after…

Movie article Life can be so painful, we may curse it, or in order to survive, try and laugh at it. Sometimes, life can’t be laughed at—there is no doubt about that. But if people can handle their pain by laughing at it, that is a coping mechanism, even as the heart aches. The proverb says,…

In the young adult drama Paper Towns (2015, USA), based on the novel by John Green, Quentin has had a crush on his next door neighbor Margo since he was eight years old and she moved into his neighborhood. They became friends, but when she asked him out for a wild prank, he refused. That might…

A sense of utter desperation underlies Al Pacino’s voice as A.J. Maglehorn, a down-to-earth locksmith who is grappling with the loss of the love of his life, Clara. Pacino fills A.J’s angst with gravelly resonance on the soundtrack’s voice over. A.J. is writing love letters, which are an ode to her, but he is also stuck…

DVD movie commentary Absurdism, existentialism, and meaninglessness forms the backdrop of films like Accident (1967, UK) and Annie Hall (1977, USA), but for me the experience of those kinds of films are incomplete. The philosophy ruined it, though cleverly conceived. Fantastic Four (2015, USA) runs in a different philosophical direction, which is more on the…

Movie article Good versus evil is presented as another worldview that competes with other cosmologies, yet there is something intrinsically true to life about good versus evil. Humans tend to understand it implicitly as if ingrained on conscience and morality. A moral person knows the difference between right and wrong. Repentant people know they have…

Movie flashback The Adventures of Milo and Otis (Japan, 1989, English language version) sounded like innocent, wholesome fun. It is about a cat named Milo and a pug-nosed dog named Otis on a farm. The wilderness surrounds them, but when the animals run about the setting isn’t always clear. Having a cat and a dog…

What attracted me to the first Taken (2008) film–funnily enough for an action film–is that the story revolved around real issues, the (tragic) contemporary trafficking of humans sold into slavery and prostitution. However, action films often have an issue somewhere in there, but trafficking is a subject that is rarely raised at the movies and…

Ellen Burstyn in 2009 (Pictured) plays Alice. Image sourced via google images.       Alice’s husband dies and she leaves town with her son, as a widow. She’s hoping a new life is on the horizon. Probably far from Alice’s mind is having a meaningful relationship with another man, in the drama Alice Doesn’t…

  Romance seems to be the main feature of Valentine’s Day all over the world or at least the most eagerly publicized. Flowers and roses, caramel chocolates in boxes with bow-ties, and candy centered heart-shaped chocolate. Then there are the kisses and sweet words. For such a perfect world, I hear you cry. Far From…
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