MOVING ON

I would have seen this film on the big screen but something abrupt happened with the relationship I had with a previous regular date who I taught would be one of my enduring partners here in New York City for some time. But we parted ways, which led to my decision to watch this on its DVD format during 2 weekends when I was doing my part-time job taking care of a retired elderly man. I heard about this film from other unusual sources, being someone who loves unusual movies from other countries. And so I sought out ways to finally watch it as soon as I managed to get over the grief over the loss of the presence of someone I had always wanted to be with me.  My efforts were soon rewarded; I wasn't expecting an ending for a film as soporific as this one. Be aware that this is not an easy film to watch because of its many long moments when no dialogues nor monologues could be heard. You'd wonder what's happening and you'll get to think about other things that are more im...

I happened to have watched this movie with a good friend who recommended that we watched it one weekday evening in a theatre at Union Square in Manhattan. Inside the medium-size theatre during the screening, I found soon that it wasn't crowded although a size-able number of people showed up that time. I would soon find out that the movie's not all about sports, or about baseball per se. You don't really need to understand baseball to appreciate this movie. The movie's about racial discrimination and prejudice, and I found certain scenes difficult to watch. I think it's because we all will soon realize that racial discrimination is something very illogical, even if we catch ourselves practicing a form of discrimination each day of our lives. It's one of those games that our minds make ourselves play around with, and find out soon we've all been terribly wrong for having participated, indirectly or indirectly, in a very bad form of discrimination.  Of cou...

I heard about this movie from another good friend who posted something positive on his Facebook profile, and I was attracted to its features I would see once in a while on TV before the Academy Awards. I was curious to discover how Jennifer Lawrence won an Academy award for the kind of acting she delivered in this movie where she played a widowed, slutty-in-a-previous-life, an inspired dancer and a most loving and intelligent character you won't expect seeing in this kind of romantic comedy movie. Of course, you'd see the hallmarks of a commercially made Hollywood movie in this one, but you got to go out of your way to watch this film one of these days. I saw it with a good friend at the Angelika one weekend night, where I saw so many people lining up for another movie, ('Trance', another movie by the one who brought you 'Slumdog Millionaire' and 'Trainspotting'). I almost thought of exchanging our tickets so that we would watch instead the other m...

This film ( see a few YouTube vids on this movie here ), seen with an intermission of many years, reminds this reviewer of a lot of things that he thinks is bad about society (at large). No, this won’t be really a personal review (read: completely subjective), but will be more like how this film has touched aspects of the reviewer’s mind in between long periods of time when the film was first viewed (and seen again lately) – as all Stanley Kubrick’s films are considered to be works of art (with certain exceptions) that influence other artists’ works (no matter how suspiciously pretentious the notion can be to others). Artists look up as well to the best role model artists around them. And in this reviewer’s personal list, Kubrick ranks as among the best filmmakers ever. For a synopsis of the film, better read what Wikipedia has on its pages on this film, here . Continue reading here.