Movies
Agora Movie Review
April 18, 2011 | 
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Image via Wikipedia
Directed by Alexander Amenabar, Agora stars Rachel Weisz as the philosopher, mathematician, and martyr Hypatia of Alexandria, whose history has long been muddled and contested since the limited release of the film. Many Christians including Catholic evangelist Rev. Robert Barron, condemn Amenabar for the film, calling it an “atheist agenda” despite the fact that the director insisted on a multi-faith cast and crew and the distributors insisted on a preemptive screening by the Vatican, which reported no issues with the film.
Synopsis
History buffs already know how the movie ends, so I won’t worry about spoilers. Agora is a about a woman mathematician, philosopher, and scholar in Roman Egypt. We, the audience, see Hypatia teaching men of prominent families, including Orestes, who admires her but cannot attain her because she loves philosophy first. Davus, one of her father’s slaves (whom she pities), also loves Hypatia, but the latter is oblivious and the former is burdened by his lower status. He begins to turn to Christianity for solace.
Wright’s “Pride & Prejudice” – A Movie Review
Cover of Pride & Prejudice
Pride and Prejudice has been filmed again, this time by Joe Wright and with an ampersand in the title. Now it’s Pride & Prejudice (2005) and it stars Keira Knightley(of course) as Elizabeth Bennet and Matthew MacFadyen as Darcy. I learn from critic David Edelstein that “Wright has said in interviews that he approached the novel as a piece of gritty English social realism” (Slate.com), which is fine as long as Jane Austen’s themes do not get lost in the process. They don’t. Scriptwriter Deborah Moggach is steadfast in her focus on the pride and prejudice of the two chief characters, and decisively does the film reveal the slow empowerment of the middle class in late 18th-century England. For once I agree with Edelstein: the movie is very good. That social realism is reflected in the fine costumes and the even finer production design. Dario Marianelli’s music is gorgeous, and the directing more imaginative than arty.
Some praiseworthy scenes: Check out more »
Spurning a “Blue Valentine” – A Movie Review
Image by .bobby via Flickr
Derek Cianfrance’s Blue Valentine (2011) deals with the deeply troubled marriage of Dean and Cindy (Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams).
Have you ever seen the Swedish film, The Passion of Anna, by Ingmar Bergman? It, too, has a lot to do with relationships between men and women. I don’t consider it a success because, for one thing, it’s too talky, but it makes Blue Valentine look utterly lousy by comparison. At least Bergman (in Passion) cared about character development; Cinafrance doesn’t. We learn very little about Dean and even less about Cindy. (Why, really, is their marriage such a failure? The movie more than hints that it’s all Dean’s fault, but that explains nothing.)
At least Bergman fashioned quite a few powerful scenes; too many of Valentine‘s scenes get boring. Ross Douthat of National Review finds the couple’s courtship “very charming.” I don’t. Usually, when people in movies are shown falling in love, it’s sleep-inducing.
There is a certain degree of artistic strength in Cianfrance’s film, but mainly it’s a draggy work of pseudo-art.
Related articles
- BLUE VALENTINE: You Always Hurt The One You Love (mraybould.wordpress.com)
- Review: Blue Valentine (tkmovies.wordpress.com)
- Blue Valentine trampled all over my heart (beccadargatz.wordpress.com)
Petty’s American Girl. Suicide? Or Ridgement high?
American Girl has always been one of my favorite Tom Petty songs. It’s from his first album. I have puzzled about this song on a couple of different fronts… Is it about suicide? And is it in the movie “Fast Times at Ridgmont High”?
Cover via Amazon
Llets talk a little about the Suicide theory first.. It goes something like this:
Hey Dave.. I went to the University of Florida… This chick..She jumped out of a 4 story dorm to her death… Ya know, Tom Petty wrote a song about it.. “American girl” I think she was tripping on acid and thought she could fly…
Well how about all that? Hmmm?
Check the lyrics:
Well, she was an American girl
Raised on promises
She couldn’t help thinkin’
That there was a little more to life somewhere else
After all it was a great big world
With lots of places to run to
And if she had to die tryin’
She had one little promise she was gonna keep Check out more »
“The Stoning of Soraya M.” in all its horror – A Movie Review
Cover of The Stoning of Soraya M. [Blu-ray
2009′s The Stoning of Soraya M., directed by Cyrus Nowrasteh, dramatizes the true story of a woman who was victimized in an “honor killing” in an Iranian village. The charge of adultery against Soraya was false, but her vile husband wanted her dead so that no financial support would have to follow a desired divorce. A verdict was reached and Soraya was put to death by stoning.
Don’t act like the hypocrite,
Who thinks he can conceal his wiles
While loudly quoting the Koran.
These words by a 14th-century Iranian poet are written on the screen before the film begins. Hypocrisy both religious, represented by a phony mullah and the village mayor, and nonreligious, represented by the husband, is attacked in Soraya M. So, of course, is the backward, depersonalizing attitude toward women in the Islamic world. Soraya’s energetic aunt, played by Shoreh Aghdashloo, tries to save her niece from what is being plotted, but is constantly pushed to the side. As the stoning begins she is nearly hysterical: she understands the horror of this brutal treatment. The stoning sequence is one of the most disturbing things I’ve seen in a movie–infuriatingly bloody and ugly.
Nowrasteh’s film is worthy of comparison with the neorealist cinema of De Sica. It is a straightforward, grim, compassionate indictment of theocratic authorities in Iran. Mozhan Marno is first-rate, with her fortitude and anguish, as Soraya.
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