Julie and Julia was a pleasant surprise for me.  Of course I knew it was about Julia Child, but funnily enough, I didn’t know it was also somewhat about blogging!  I remember watching Julia Child on PBS when I was a kid and thought she was the funniest thing.   Meryl Streep has to be one [...]]]>

Julie and Julia was a pleasant surprise for me.  Of course I knew it was about Julia Child, but funnily enough, I didn’t know it was also somewhat about blogging!  I remember watching Julia Child on PBS when I was a kid and thought she was the funniest thing.   Meryl Streep has to be one of the best (if not the best) actresses of all time.  She played Julia sooooooo well.  I’ve loved Amy Adams in other movies, but to me she was a little disappointing in this film.  All in all, though, I really liked the film.  I most enjoyed learning more about Julia’s life — she was quite a character. [Side note:  Did you know Julia was 6'2" tall?  Her husband made special kitchen counters for her!]

I don’t even like cooking all that much except for a few dishes that my family loves me to make, but I may just have to get Julie Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking.  The recipes looked and sounded delicious!

Grade: A-

Words cannot describe how much I loved this movie. It’s a film about love, hospitality, and above all, faith. Ushpizin means “holy guests,” and when Moshe and Mali have unexpected guests [...]]]> I watched this movie from Netflix instant viewing to wrap up my Jewish Literature Challenge. I also used it for the Orbis Terrarum Film Challenge.

Words cannot describe how much I loved this movie. It’s a film about love, hospitality, and above all, faith. Ushpizin means “holy guests,” and when Moshe and Mali have unexpected guests during the Succoth holiday, their faith is not only tested, but also their love for one another. This is a must see if you are interested at all in the Jewish experience. Highly recommended.

A+++

Book

I absolutely loved Fear and Trembling.  I actually watched the movie first and loved it as well.  I must say it follows the book almost exactly.  It’s a fascinating study of the clash of cultures.  The book is translated from the French, and the film is a combination of French and Japanese with [...]]]>

DVD

Book

I absolutely loved Fear and Trembling.  I actually watched the movie first and loved it as well.  I must say it follows the book almost exactly.  It’s a fascinating study of the clash of cultures.  The book is translated from the French, and the film is a combination of French and Japanese with English sub-titles.

In this short semi-autobiographical novel, Amelie Nothomb describes the experiences of ‘Amelie’ during her year at a Japanese corporation.  Amelie is smitten with Japan, knows the language, and is ecstatic that she obtained a corporate position as a translator in the country where she was born.  The job is not all she hoped, but she tries her best to stick out her position the way a Japanese person would.  I found this book (and movie) to be truly fascinating.  Nothomb obviously loves Japan and Japanese culture, but even she finds that the differences of East and West are sometimes difficult to overcome.

In speaking of the Japanese woman:

“It is best to avoid any kind of physical pleasure because it is apt to make you sweat.  There is nothing more shameful than sweat.  If you gobble up a steaming bowl of noodles, if you give in to s*xual craving, if you spend the winter dozing in front of the fire, you will sweat.  And no one will be in any doubt that you are coarse.

The choice between sweat and suicide isn’t a choice.  Spilling one’s blood is as admirable as spilling sweat is unspeakable.  Take your life, and you will never sweat again.  Your anxiety will be over for all eternity.”

I own two other books by Nothomb – The Character of Rain and Sulphuric Acid — and I’m very much looking forward to both!

1999, 2001 for the English translation, 132 pp.

4.5/5

Anyway, I thought my internet provider was going to start limiting my monthly usage to an unreasonably and ridiculously low amount (5 GB – are you kidding?) in January, so in December I started my own Netflix Net-a-thon and started watching as [...]]]> (This post is book-related as the movies I’ve watched have mostly been book adaptations.)

Anyway, I thought my internet provider was going to start limiting my monthly usage to an unreasonably and ridiculously low amount (5 GB – are you kidding?) in January, so in December I started my own Netflix Net-a-thon and started watching as much stuff as I could ‘instantly’ online.  It’s unlimited through Netflix but of course not necessarily through your internet provider.  I keep going to my provider’s site to see if they’ve implemented the limit, but they haven’t yet so I keep on expanding my ‘instant’ watching.  Let me tell you, I’ve watched some gems!

Where to start?  How about:

Bleak House by Charles Dickens – 450 minutes – A+

Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell – 375 minutes – A

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte – 159 minutes – A

Where Angels Fear to Tread by E.M. Forster – 112 minutes – B

Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens – 351 minutes – A-

I really adored all of these, but especially Bleak House.  Excellent!  Where Angels Fear to Tread just felt like it had an abrupt ending, but perhaps it’s because the other ones I viewed were so long and well-developed.

I also viewed two Japanese language films because I’m doing the Japanese Literature Challenge.  I love foreign films.  I started watching them when my kids were small and would be noisy playing whenever my husband and I would rent DVDs.  The kids could be as loud as they wanted to when we were watching the subtitles!  I truly hate dubbing.  I want to hear the original language of the film.  I don’t mind sub-titles at all.  Hearing the original language is part of what makes foreign films so wonderful.

The two I viewed:

After Life -118 minutes – A
Last Life in the Universe – 103 minutes – B+

In After Life, after they die, people go to what looks like an abandoned school of sorts and they get to choose one memory of their lives to be re-enacted.  This is a slow, but beautiful movie.  I’m just the geeky sort to love slow, thoughtful movies, though, so I loved it.

In Last Life in the Universe, a Japanese neat-freak librarian is living in Bangkok and is constantly thinking of committing suicide.  After a tragic event, he meets a Thai girl who is a total slob.  Opposite attract, though, right?  Very weird but interesting movie.  It would have received an ‘A’ except there was quite a bit of bad language.  In Japanese, Thai, and English.

I’m really having fun with these and will probably be watching more.  I’ll keep you posted with any interesting titles.

I haven’t read the books yet, but I went to see Twilight today and dragged my husband and sons along. My kids were familiar with the basic story because all the girls (and a few boys) at their school are reading the series. They liked the movie but aren’t sure they’ll start reading [...]]]>

I haven’t read the books yet, but I went to see Twilight today and dragged my husband and sons along. My kids were familiar with the basic story because all the girls (and a few boys) at their school are reading the series. They liked the movie but aren’t sure they’ll start reading the books. I think they were secretly hoping the movie would be awful so they could make fun of it at school.

I used to be an advocate of always reading the book before seeing the movie adaptation, but that is slowly changing.  Earlier this year I wanted to just enjoy the latter two Harry Potter movies just for the movies themselves so I watched The Goblet of Fire and The Order of the Phoenix before reading the books, and I was glad I did.  I’ll probably be glad I did in this case as well.

My thoughts on the movie without having read the book:

First, I always think it’s cool when the author (or director) has a cameo.  I was glad I saw Stephenie Meyer’s scene.  I didn’t even know about it before hand, but of course, I knew what she looked like, so I was able to tell my kids who she was when she came on screen.

I thought the acting was okay but not stellar.  Some of it was shaky in spots.  I did like Bella’s dad.  He was great.

I didn’t think James was scary enough.

I thought the baseball scene was cool.

Overall, I liked it, and I’m happy for Stephenie Meyer as this looks like it’ll be a successful movie series as well.  I’ll be reading at least the first two books of the series, probably next year.

A Wrinkle in Time. You’ll enjoy this if you’ve read and liked the book by Madeleine L’Engle. If you haven’t you probably won’t. My family didn’t think this was an absolutely fantastic movie, but we did enjoy it. Rating: [...]]]> I’ve watched 3 movies over the last two weeks, and I enjoyed them all.

A Wrinkle in Time. You’ll enjoy this if you’ve read and liked the book by Madeleine L’Engle. If you haven’t you probably won’t. My family didn’t think this was an absolutely fantastic movie, but we did enjoy it. Rating: B

******************

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. What more can be said about this one? I’ve finally read the book and watched the movie and enjoyed them very much. Rating: A

******************

The Island. Wow, it seems quite a few people didn’t like this one. I loved it and very much wish I would have seen this in a movie theatre. I like almost all dystopian films and books, though. Rating: A-

Why not do a ‘twin’ review since I read them relatively close together? I had seen both of these movies before I read the books, and I recently re-watched The Hours because it was available for online viewing through Netflix. I’d like to watch Mrs. Dalloway again as well. The [...]]]>

Why not do a ‘twin’ review since I read them relatively close together? I had seen both of these movies before I read the books, and I recently re-watched The Hours because it was available for online viewing through Netflix. I’d like to watch Mrs. Dalloway again as well. The movie of the The Hours follows the book very closely-there are a few minor changes. Nicole Kidman does an outstanding job in this film. I was most interested in the Virginia Woolf storyline, so I was happy she was so well portrayed. It’s funny that Meryl Streep ended up playing Clarissa when she (Meryl Streep) is actually talked about in The Hours (the book). I don’t remember the movie Mrs. Dalloway much at all, hence the reason I wish to re-view it.

Well, on to the books. The Hours won the Pulitzer in 1999. It’s a cleverly told story that intersects the 3 women’s lives very well. However, it does change the story of Mrs. Dalloway into homos*xual relationships. It was interesting to see the twist in the storyline, particularly if you know the real one, but I couldn’t help thinking, “Doesn’t Clarissa (in The Hours) know that her life is too coincidental with the characters’ names from Mrs. Dalloway?” To me, it would have been a better story if Cunningham had left out all the references to the actual book itself. The reader knows that’s what it’s about, so why keep referring to it? It makes The Hours too unbelievable. It’s an interesting book, and I’m glad I read it, but I can’t help having mixed feelings about it.

Mrs. Dalloway. I must be too dense in the literary sense, because I just don’t get this book at all. I had to stop reading it every half hour because it was just too much otherwise. I felt a similar way this year when I read Inheritance of Loss. I just don’t enjoy a book when I have to read it that way. I don’t get into planning parties or the minute details of such. In fact, I avoid that like the plague. I’m not into social scenes, either. In this book, everyone loves Clarissa, but isn’t she the most shallow character in it? I don’t get it. I would like to re-read it again in a few years to see if I feel any differently. At least I feel more enlightened that I have finally read Woolf. I’d actually like to read more about her than by her.

For The Hours:
1998, 226 pp.
Rating: 3.5
Pulitzer, 1999

For Mrs. Dalloway:
1925, 194 pp.
Rating: 3

Equilibrium stars Christian Bale and is a fantastic dystopian film. The storyline is sort of a mixture between We by Yevgeny Zamyatin and The Giver by Lois Lowry (two books I LOVED) and has many film elements of The Matrix. Christian Bale is amazing [...]]]> I’ve seen three films recently that I want to recommend.

Equilibrium stars Christian Bale and is a fantastic dystopian film. The storyline is sort of a mixture between We by Yevgeny Zamyatin and The Giver by Lois Lowry (two books I LOVED) and has many film elements of The Matrix. Christian Bale is amazing as always (I’ve been in love with him ever since Empire of the Sun), and the movie also stars Emily Watson, Angus Macfadyen (Robert the Bruce in Braveheart), and, in a small part, Sean Bean.  You’ll especially appreciate this if you’ve read either of the books above. I was so pleased that my husband and sons enjoyed a movie that I picked out for them. Warning: there is quite a bit of violence! Rating: A

The Painted Veil stars Naomi Watts, Edward Norton, and Liev Schreiber. Loved this as well. Based on a W. Somerset Maugham book, the story is about a spoiled English girl who finds herself in the middle of a cholera epidemic. Very well done. I can’t recommend this for kids, though. Rating: A-

Away from Her is based on a short story by Alice Munro. Julie Christie is absolutely fantastic in this as a woman suffering from Alzheimer’s. I’ll definitely be reading this as I was confused some about the ending. I can’t say I agreed with some of the choices made here, but I still thought this film very thought-provoking. Rating: B+

If you’ve seen any of these please comment as I’d love to hear your thoughts on them. If you see them based on my recommendation, come back as well!

Ahhhh, a nice, cool movie theater is just the place to be on a 90+ degree day.

It’s always somewhat difficult to see a movie when you’ve read the book. On the one hand, it’s nice to know all the details of the story that a movie can’t put in, but on the other hand [...]]]>

Ahhhh, a nice, cool movie theater is just the place to be on a 90+ degree day.

It’s always somewhat difficult to see a movie when you’ve read the book. On the one hand, it’s nice to know all the details of the story that a movie can’t put in, but on the other hand it’s disappointing when changes are made to the basic story. In this case, relatively few changes were made, and it was easy to see why they made the changes they did due to time constraints.

Things I loved: Charlie Cox as Tristan and Claire Danes as Yvaine. Very well suited for the roles. I also loved Michelle Pfeiffer for about 3/4 of the movie. She is so beautiful and does a great job, but, and I can’t really put my finger on it, sometimes she irritates me. Don’t know why. The ghost brothers were hilarious and great.

Things I didn’t like: Victoria’s character at the end of the movie vs. the book; Tristan has a step mother and sister (absent in the movie) in the book who dearly love him; and the length of time–many months in the book vs. one week in the movie–that Tristan was gone from Wall.

All in all, the movie was great and was much funnier than the book. I’m glad the movie was something my teenaged boys could see (though there was still some objectionable content). I would like for them to wait a few years before reading the book.

Rating: A

1999, 248 pp.

Rating: 4/5

I was excited to read this after absolutely loving Coraline earlier this year. I also wanted to read it before the movie comes out in August. I did like the book quite a bit, but I didn’t love it, and I wanted to love it. I’m [...]]]> Stardust
by Neil Gaiman

1999, 248 pp.

Rating: 4/5

I was excited to read this after absolutely loving Coraline earlier this year. I also wanted to read it before the movie comes out in August. I did like the book quite a bit, but I didn’t love it, and I wanted to love it. I’m not sure what happened–maybe I just expected too much.

Tristan lives in a village where there is a hole in the wall. It’s guarded by the villagers because it leads into a fairy land. No one is allowed through. Once every 9 years, however, there is a festival where the fairy people and villagers do mingle.

Tristan is in love with the prettiest girl in the village, and wants to prove his love for her by getting her a star that they both see fall in the night sky. However, it has fallen in fairy land. His adventures in trying to obtain the star are magical, to say the least. We meet some very interesting characters from fairy land as well. Does he get the star and/or the girl? Read the book or see the movie to find out. Caution: Parents should read the book first as it’s not for children. I wouldn’t recommend it for under 16. These sections were few and far between, though.

Claire Danes plays one of the leads in the movie, and I knew this going into the book. She was TOTALLY right for this part. I could just imagine her saying her lines from the book.

I’ll probably see the movie in the first night or two. Can’t wait!

1. kookiejar – July 20, 2007[Edit]

I’ll see it in the first couple of days of its release as well. I must read it first though.
2. Stephanie – July 21, 2007[Edit]

I’m sorry you didn’t love it! I really did. I thought it was just a magical, beautiful little story!

I’ll definitely see the movie!!
3. Debi – July 21, 2007[Edit]

I, too, loved Coraline. The only Gaiman I’ve read to this point. I can’t count how many times I’ve picked up Stardust at the bookstore, only to set it back down. I have bought M is for Magic and American Gods, neither of which I’ve had a chance to read yet. I know sooner or later I won’t be able to resist Stardust any longer.
4. Nabeel – July 22, 2007[Edit]

hmm, I hope it’s good. Lately, Robert Deniro has been doing movies that have failed.

Actors: Yves Montand, Gérard DepardieuDirector: Claude BerriLanguage: FrenchRated: PG for bothLength: 233 minutes combined

Words cannot describe how much I love these films, which really must be seen together. The review below from Amazon sums up the storyline. The emotional impact these films had [...]]]> Jean de Florette/Manon of the Spring
Adapted from Marcel Pagnol’s novel Manon des Sources

Actors: Yves Montand, Gérard Depardieu
Director: Claude Berri
Language: French
Rated: PG for both
Length: 233 minutes combined

Words cannot describe how much I love these films, which really must be seen together. The review below from Amazon sums up the storyline. The emotional impact these films had on me was huge. They haunted me so much I couldn’t sleep the night I watched them. I thought about them for weeks afterwards and still have even throughout the years. The cinematography is gorgeous (it’s France!), the acting is superb, and you will never forget the characters you will meet or the fate that befalls them. Available through third party sellers on Amazon.com or through Netflix.

#94 of the Arts and Faith Top 100 Spiritually Significant Films

Rating: A+

Editorial Review ~ Amazon.com ~ A truly impressive French film destined to become a modern masterpiece, Jean de Florette is an evocative adaptation of the highly regarded French novel. Two 1920s farmers engage in a bitter rivalry as one tries to tend to a plot of land and the other deviously undermines his efforts in order to conceal a valuable spring. The peasant farmer (Gérard Depardieu) who comes to the countryside to tend the land he has inherited is a naive and trusting soul seeking only to provide for his wife and daughter, while his neighbor (Yves Montand) is intent on doing whatever he can to discourage and demoralize the farmer so that he can take the land for himself. This simple tale unfolds in a wrenching fashion to a tragic conclusion, bringing forth questions about human nature and the prevalence and price of greed. Along with its follow-up, Manon of the Spring, this film will leave an indelible impression on anyone who sees it. –Robert Lane –[This text refers to the VHS Tape edition.] Officially licensed South Korean release features original FRENCH audio with Optional Subtitles in English, French, Spanish and Korean.
foreign-films