Fellow Movie Lovers

Fellow Movie Lovers

FAME

The delicious and gentler remake of the 1980 movie that garnished two Academy awards! Fame a four letter word that entices us to ponder its meaning; subjective to its very core. Fame comes in all packages and in all categories; the media keeps us posted on its parameters or non parameters!

The unmitigated and raw talent in this film oozes off the screen. It screams with vitality and pulls us into the world of performing arts. A refreshing look at gifted young artists; artists whose sex, race or backgrounds are totally irrelevant to their goal…………just being the best at what they do, and the competition is thrilling. Even those whose dreams are dashed, succeed in attaining a modicum of fame. Many have to be satisfied with a Warholian moment!

The movie has its flaws and clichés; but youth in retrospect is a cliché!

These young and beautiful stars, and stars they are, dance, sing, compose and act with a brightness so rarefied that I hope, unlike a supernova, they will last forever.

Three Stars!

A WOMAN IN BERLIN

Max Farberbock has created a masterpiece; based on the true story of a female journalist, struggling to survive in the waning days of WWII in the city of Berlin. The Russians are the victors and the victors take the spoils and take the spoils over and over again! A brutal, complex and at times poignantly human portrayal of “man’s inhumanity to man” (or women in this scenario)!

Nina Hoss plays Anonyma, a brilliant journalist and the perfect mold for the Aryan ideal of female perfection: blond, beautiful and loyal to the cause. There are two minutes in the early stages of the film that capture us instantly. Buoyant and educated people toasting the magnificence of Germany and its mission; in a gleaming Bauhaus living room; a room that is transformed by war but still habitable, and the stage for constant degradation.

This story was written and published anonymously. She wrote to her absent love; to record, escape and find meaning to a life unrecognizable from the glamorous one of the past. It was not well received when it was published in the late 50’s; wounds still festered between Russians and Germans. Also, German women were very sensitive to a role forced upon them by their captors.

Ultimately this is a document of revenge, power, of illusions and lives destroyed. But above all it is the story of one woman’s will to survive, through all the horrors her thirst for life and love remained unquenched!

Five Stars!

ZOMBIELAND

We’ve all had moments when we have questioned our decisions, or sanity. I had one of those moments today. After ten minutes I realized that with knowledge and foresight I chose this movie. After thirty minutes a colonoscopy would have been preferable. But by exercising supreme fortitude and because of the charm of Woody Harrelson I stayed for the conclusion (but was the first one to poll vault from my seat to the safety and saneness of the lobby)! And kept my head low to avoid detection or recognition from my peers. Really there was nothing to fear; I was the oldest member of the audience by twenty years!

In fairness many seem to really enjoy and relish the humor (lost upon humorless me); also the use of the word “like”, robbed of its legitimacy by the twenty first century culture, grates “like” nails on a blackboard on my grammatical sensitivities!

Two Stars!

For Now………………..Peneflix