Timeline **
I'm a Michael Creighton fan, and I picked up the novel "Timeline" last year when the film was soon to be released. Like all of his stories there is a science fiction component, in this one archaeologists time travel to rescue a team member who is stuck in the year 1357 at their current excavation site in France. They aren't able to take anything from the modern world with them, and you quickly get a sense of how dangerous day to day living was in the medieval times.
It is an interesting premise, perhaps too much to shove into 2hours in a meaningful way. We watched this on cable in spite of a one star rating, and thought it was a bit better than one star, even with some of the script problems. It's a movie to watch if you are a Michael Creighton fan, or a sci-fi buff with a rainy Saturday afternoon. Otherwise, pick something else, there are thousands of films that you may enjoy more.
Sugarbaby*** German 1985
Camryn Manheim held up the Emmy Award she won for her role as Ellenor Frutt on The Practice and said..."This is for all the fat girls!" This film liberates "fat girls" in a similar way. Marianne Sägebrecht is "Marianne" the mortician's assistant whose life is as dead as her customers. She rides to work on the subway, listens to the negative comments about her by ladies in the local shops, and takes an occasional swim at the local pool when she needs to just get away and think. All that changes the day she spots Huber, the young handsome subway driver. What chance would a fat middle aged mortician's assistant have of seducing a young handsome Sugar baby? Marianne proves that hope springs eternal. I enjoyed this film when it was played on Showtime in the mid 1980's and I recently tracked down a copy to see it again. It is a German film by Percy Adlon with English subtitles. The original version is called "Zuckerbaby."
Are we there yet? ** Fair family fare
It's not a movie I can recommend to anyone over age 14, but for parents looking for a couple of hours of DVD entertainment this seems a safe bet. Ice Cube is a "Playa" who is reaching the age that most of his peers have moved into family mode. He meets a "Fine" woman and would like to get closer but is nearly knocked over when he spies her 2 children run up to meet her on the street. Like most kids from divorced parents they have the fantasy that "mom and dad will get back together..." and actively interfere with any man who shows any interest in their mother. Enter Ice Cube with his new Lincoln Navigator, his "blingage" and his ambivalent attitude toward children. The kids are not 'sugar and spice and everything nice,' but survivors who stick together. It was sort of a "Home alone" meets "Cannonball Run." By the halfway point I found myself saying..."Aren't they there yet?"
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind ***
How happy is the blameless Vestal’s lot!
The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
Eternal sun-shine of the spotless mind!
Each pray’r accepted, and each wish resigned.
The title comes from the poem "Eloisa to Abelard" by Alexander Pope. It is so nice to know our screenwriters are literate in our pop culture that rarely 'quotes' anymore. Charlie Kaufman penned this one as well as "Being John Malkovich" so he is very much into getting into our heads. So, if you could wipe the memories of a love affair gone sour, would you? Time has a way of helping us with painful memories, so that eventually only the good memories remain. Relationships, the fabric of humanity, is what we are all about, finding them, enjoying them, hating them, leaving them. Every couple in divorce court filled with disappointment and anger once sat looking into each others eyes, feeling madly in love.
The film is a little choppy at times, but you can navigate the course. The point is that every couple has strenghs, weaknesses and it can be easy to forget the good bits in a bad moment. So what would be the consequences if your partner had the memories of you erased after your relationship hit a bump in the road? It's a thoughtful story, and will add a bit to your intellectual repertoire if you have ventured away from your romantic poets.
The poem: Eloisa to Abelard by Alexander Pope
The 4th Man *** 1982
This is the last Dutch language film Paul Verhoeven made before going on to make mainstream Hollywood films "Basic Instinct," "Robocop," and "Total Recall," among others. He sets the stage by opening this story with a black widow spider catching prey in her web before we meet Gerard Reve, an annoying self-centered writer with a morbid imagination. Gerard has been invited to be the guest speaker at a Literary Club meeting in sea-side town an hour or so from Amsterdam. Verhoeven lets us have glimpses of how Gerard's imagination twists reality. Asked if writers are a bit close to insanity he admits when he reads the newspaper "and it says 'boom' I read 'doom,' when it says 'flood' I read 'blood,' when it says 'red' I see 'dead.'" When he tells a story enough times he begins to believe it; "I lie the truth."
He accepts an offer to be the overnight guest of the Club treasurer, a beautiful wealthy salon owner. As he gets to know her and learns her husband has died, he begins to imagine she is 'a black widow.' Is this his more of his reality twist or is she a murderess?
This is a psychological drama and in recounting which of these old films have stuck in my memory, I figured out is my favorite gendre. Looking at his body of work it is seems to be Paul Verhoeven's too, and he is a master in making us question our own understanding of reality. It's a nice change of pace from the usual Hollywood fare.
Girl with a Pearl Earring **
Who is the girl looking back at us from Vermeer's masterpiece, referred to by some as "the Dutch Mona Lisa?" Tracy Chevalier, who penned the novel by the same name, suggests it is Griet, a cripple's daughter sent to work as a servant in the Vermeer household. This film is a fictional account, based on elements that are known about Vermeer's life and his patron Van Ruijven. In Peter Webber's portrait of Delft, Holland in 1665 we see Vermeer supported by his mother-in-law, his patrons entertained by his wife, and this maid servant paid to be the model, this commission deemed "obscene". Webber's photography is as lavish as a Flemmish master while capturing the Dutch austerity. I wish the script gave us more, perhaps Chevalier's novel did, but the film did inspire me to read more about Vermeer and 17th century Holland. Speculation continues about the model, with best guesses going to Vermeer's eldest daughter or the daughter of his famous patron. One thing that hasn't changed in 400years, behind every successful man is a woman (or two or three).
In depth study of this painting life in 17th century AmsterdamMovie information and interesting details about the making of the film
Etre et avoir **** 2002 France "To Be and To Have"
I live in Maine where the state motto here is "Maine...the way life should be." That's the thought that went through my mind as I watched this film. It stars George Lopez, a french school teacher and his one room school house in rural France. He has about a dozen pupils from age 5-11, and we get to know them through their interactions with Lopez as well as visits with them at home. His classroom has never seen ADHD, Learning Disabilities or Emotional handicaps. We only see children acting like children, and he prepares them for the next stage of their education; "middle school." That's when these farm kids will leave his cloistered classroom and enter the 'real world.'
I admire Mr.Lopez. He has known his whole life that he wanted to be a teacher and he has passion about his chosen career. If only our children could have this experience. Maybe they wouldn't be computer literate, but they would have something more, 6yrs with a strong, sensitive, moral male role model. In his school kids learn to communicate and to problem solve. We watch the highest art of teaching children to read, write, think, and process.
You won't believe that watching a year in the life of a one room school in France can be such a "feel-good" time. It will make you wish they had an episode each year so we could share the joy Lopez must feel to see his children grow. Like I said, "It's the way life should be."
