Iranian fashion designer (Sahar Biniaz) in Canada struggles, mildly, with marriage, morality, and a lesbian boss (Heather Doerksen) who wants more from her than her sketches. With characters who lack any meaningful motivation for their behavior, a why-bother conclusion, and distinctly passionless prurience. A slow-mover that is too shallow and literal to be hypnotic and too tepid to be entertaining.
**
Iranian fashion designer (Sahar Biniaz) in Canada struggles, mildly, with marriage, morality, and a lesbian boss (Heather Doerksen) who wants more from her than her sketches. With characters who lack any meaningful motivation for their behavior, a why-bother conclusion, and distinctly passionless prurience. A slow-mover that is too shallow and literal to be hypnotic and too tepid to be entertaining.
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*** Lying brat ruins the lives of the two women who run her boarding school by accusing them of having a lesbian affair. Sufficiently dramatic to hold interest, but too stagy (it was based on the Lillian Hellman play) to entirely work as a movie. Indeed, every aspect of the film comes with its own theatrical caveat: Audrey Hepburn and Shirley MacLaine turn in good, if somewhat mannered performances, the dialogue is apt and well-written, yet occasionally stilted, and so on. It does, however, restore the specific lie and the ending of Hellman's play, both of which were changed when Wyler first filmed this story in 1936 as These Three. This version, in spite of this, suffers by comparison to the much more cinematic original. Young Veronica Cartwright, who plays bratty Karen Balkin's thieving classmate, is a bright spot. Well-intentioned, but rather tame. **** Fine character study, even if the author himself doesn't appear to understand him. Meursault is a young Algerian man who never quite does anything the way society expects him to, including murder. He drifts through life entirely in the present, without regrets, without deep attachments, without empathy, and without a conscience. He is, in a word, pathological. The character is both beautifully consistent and remarkably true to life, and because Camus himself introduced murder into the equation, it might be said that this book provides excellent insight into a type of real life murderer, showing us that they aren't Jekyll and Hydes at all but how instead, for them, horror and normality spring from the same source and are connected by indifference. Nothing really frightening happens in this book, yet it is one of the scariest books you will ever read. Yet Camus later wrote of Meursault that he is a man "condemned because he does not play the game," which makes the poor guy sound like a victim himself. In fact, he is, just not for the reason Camus offers. At one point in the story, Meursault muses that he could have done things differently had he chosen to, and Camus seems to believe this. Yet the portrait he draws proves just the opposite: that Meursault is a man who is what he is, a victim of the genetic lottery, even less likely to act against his nature than the rest of us, being somewhat simpler than everyone else for the lack of certain basic human characteristics. This lack makes him fascinating, but we might all be better off if we reserved the bulk of our sympathy for his victim. ***** Tense, exciting, and ultimately moving legal drama that takes place almost entirely in a jury room, where twelve men must decide the fate of a young man from the slums accused of killing his father; at first, only one man (Henry Fonda) believes the kid may not be guilty, but can he convince the others? Excellent script, superbly acted, full of animosity, prejudice, and reason as the jurors kick around the evidence and each other. Fabulous cast includes Lee J. Cobb, E. G. Marshall, Jack Klugman, Martin Balsam, and others. Powerful ending. **** Couple takes student hitchhiker sailing. Understated Polish drama, beautifully photographed (in black and white) by Jerzy Lipman. Ought to be boring, but isn't, as Polanski artfully draws suspense by mixing the mundane with the mysterious (the unknown quantity of the hitchhiker). Builds to a satsifying and unexpected conclusion. With excellent performances by its cast of three: Leon Niemczyk, Jolanta Umecka, and Zygmunt Malanowicz. Polanski's first feature length film. **** Intelligient, perceptive, and well-voiced tale told by and about an alienated and undisciplined 17-year-old boy whose social and academic failures are a complete mystery to himself. The kid, Holden Caulfield, isn't always wrong in his antisocial observations (that is, he's rarely entirely wrong), which makes the book that much more readable, but may make it of questionable value to younger readers who may find in it more validation for similar views than cause for concern. Absolutely on the mark, though; so much so that the setting -- Pennsylvania and New York in the early 50s -- is almost irrelevant. Written with verve and humor, and, concerning Holden, not entirely depressing. **** Delightful film starring Humphrey Bogart as a self-reliant fishing boat captain in Martinique shortly after the fall of France. Ernest Hemingway's novel is used primarily as a springboard to retell Casablanca, as Bogie gets mixed up with the French resistance, Vichy police, and a woman -- Lauren Bacall, in this case, making her screen debut (and shooting sparks all over the place). Fast-paced dramatic script, leavened with considerable humor and fabulous dialogue. Also with Walter Brennan in a terrific performance as Bogart's good-natured alcoholic pal and Hoagy Carmichael as a piano player. Written by Jules Furthman and William Faulkner. **** The lives of a woman, her best friend, and her fiance are disrupted when an incorrigible child falsely claims that the latter two are having an affair at the women's boarding school. Smartly cinematic adaptation by Lillian Hellman herself of her 1934 play The Children's Hour, and a powerful drama with splendid performances all around, including those of the children. Notably alters the bratty girl's lie (because the Hays Code wouldn't allow any suggestion of lesbianism), but beautifully preserves the essence of the story, proving that the best adaptations aren't always the most literal. Hellman also alters the ending, which should please all but the clinically depressed. Hellman's original story and title were restored in the 1961 remake, also directed by Wyler. *** Marijane Meaker's first book, written under the first of several pseudonyms she was to use during her career, and generally credited with ushering in the lesbian pulp fiction genre. Chock full of guilt, shame, and melodrama as a naive coed joins a sorority and falls tragically in love with a beautiful girl hiding her true sexuality behind a randy boyfriend. Good, honest pulp, written with an awkwardness at times that works to its credit by charmingly reflecting that of the heroine. With suitably extreme plot twists and a pro forma ending that isn't fooling anyone. Men take a beating, but male readers get a fascinating glimpse of life in a 1950s sorority. Meaker explains in a foreward to the Cleis Press edition that the title was suggested by her editor who was hoping to cash in on confusion with James Michener's recent bestseller The Fires of Spring. The working title was Sorority Girl. ** Two teenage girls (Claire Danes, Kate Beckinsale) take a trip to Thailand, meet a smooth-talking stranger, and get arrested for drug trafficking. Facing 33 years in a Thai prison gives them plenty of time to learn such things as that the Thai government is corrupt, the silent treatment works, and having a roach burrow into your ear is decidedly not good for your health. A movie as naive as its protagonists and equally shallow. Doesn't even work as a travel advisory, as the prison itself, though culturally different, isn't any worse -- and is in some ways better -- than a good old American lockup. Pointless. With Bill Pullman as a do-gooder lawyer who tries to help the girls. |
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