February 2011

Finally, a Real Love Story!

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Lars and the Real Girl
  • IMDB: link

“The search for true love begins outside the box.”

Hollywood loves contrived love stories with insane stipulations and “humorous” misunderstandings.  Well I’ve got a little love story for you that knocks off the conventions of today’s chick flicks and presents an engaging, sweet, and enduring love story (between a man and his sex doll no less!).

Karin (Emily Mortimer) and Gus (Paul Schneider) are expecting a new baby, but the person Karin is most concerned with is Gus’s shy and awkward younger brother Lars (Ryan Gosling) who keeps everyone at arms length and seems to have trouble with intimacy and with social gatherings.  And who is terribly lonely, whether he admits it or not.

Out of the blue Lars announces he has met a girl on the Internet who has come to visit.  Bianca is a beautiful, smart, and kind paralyzed Danish-Brazilian missionary.  She’s also a Real Doll (a lifelike and anatomically correct sex doll made of silicone) who Lars bought online.  Now, given the state of gross-out humor popular today, you might think you know where the film is going, but you would be wrong.

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Finally, a Real Love Story! Read More »

I Don’t Know; It’s a Mystery

/ / Home Video, Theme Week
  • Title: Shakespeare in Love
  • IMDB: link

shakespeare-in-love-dvdJohn Madden gives us a new film version of Shakespeare by looking at the struggling playwright who has yet to become the great William Shakespeare.  The movie is centered around the love story between Will and Viola which will be his muse for writing “Romeo and Ethel the Pirate’s Daughter” er… I mean “Romeo and Juliet.”

Will Shakespeare (Joseph Fiennes) is a struggling playwright banished by his wife and child to London and tired of the constant attention and devotion garnered by renowned playwright Christopher Marlowe (Rupert Everett) which provides one of the films best running jokes.  With a little help from Marlowe and a the sight of his new muse the lady Viola De Lesseps (Gwyneth Paltrow who won the Oscar for Best Actress) Will begins to write what will become his great love story “Romeo and Juliet.”

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I Don’t Know; It’s a Mystery Read More »

Tough Love

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Lust, Caution
  • IMDb: link

lust-caution-poster

Not totally unlike his last work, Ang Lee‘s Lust, Caution is a love story lead down the wrong path thanks to forlorn circumstances.  And although Lee’s movie about gay cowboy’s may have worked more thoroughly, there’s still a lot to this Mandarin-language film worth checking out.

Taking place in a World War II China when the Japanese were posing a threat, Lust, Caution focuses on a group of theater students who decide to stop putting on patriotic plays and start killing those Chinese sons a bitches who turned coat to the east, using a young woman (Wei Tang) to infiltrate one such traitor household.  They find out their task is much easier said than done after their target, Mr. Yee (Tony Leung), disappears across the country suddenly and without notice.  All the hard work and planning of six young nationalists goes down the drain.

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Gotham City Sirens #19

/ / Comics

The latest issue of Gotham City Sirens is split up into two-halves. The first half concludes the Talia/Zatanna tale and the problem over the dangerous knowledge Catwoman carries.

The second half of the issue deals with the fallout from that encounter, the sirens getting a new pad, and Selina and Harley sitting down together for a heart-to-heart that leads one of them off the deep end. (I’ll give you one guess as to which one.)

It’s here where the sane, clinical side of Harley is shown (right before she journeys on another trip to crazytown). Given her various antics, it’s easy to forget the character was a psychologist before falling for the Joker and it’s nice to see that part of here honored here in her attempt to help a friend in need.

I also enjoyed how writer Peter Calloway juxtaposed the Catwoman/Batman relationship with that of Harley and the Joker. Harley’s internalizing of the pain Selina has endured at her relationship with a man who wouldn’t and couldn’t give himself to her fully sparks the crazy fires one more time as Harley sets out to find Mr. J. for a final confrontation. It’s not a great issue but the scene between Catwoman and Harley alone makes it worth a look.

[DC $2.99]

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