All in Drama
Ashutosh Gowariker's “LAGAAN: ONE UPON A TIME IN INDIA”
This 3-hour-plus historical-drama-cum-sports-extravaganza has something for everybody:
* Little guy against big guy
* Noble farmers vs. evil foreign conquerors
* The Big Game at the end where everything is decided
* Girl From The Country competes with Girl From The City for the same dashing hero
* Pleas for religious and social tolerance
* An intermission (!)
Shona Auerbach's DEAR FRANKIE
The story sounds like it could be a treacly tear jerker, but it’s not.
Wim Wenders' WINGS OF DESIRE
This is a personal movie. By that I mean that how you react to it is very much dependent on your personality and your outlook on life, plus your willingness to let a story unfold that has less linear direction and story than more declarative, plot-driven films.
This is the best "road picture" I've seen in years. What starts out as quirky and off-center ends up as thoughtful, almost elegiac.
David Cronenberg’s A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE
This movie convinced me that David Cronenberg (Spider) is one of the best directors working today.
David Cronenberg’s SPIDER
David Cronenberg’s SPIDER is a brilliant, grim, and deliberate observation of a schizophrenic’s attempt to return to society after having been institutionalized since childhood. Society in this case is represented by a halfway-house lorded over by a relentless Lynn Redgrave.
It’s a pleasure to see a movie where stereotypes play a less important role than real relationships.
Memoirs of a Geisha
How could I resist a film starring Ziyi Zhang, Michelle Yeoh, and Gong Li? Especially when they frequently appear on screen in the same scenes together? When it’s a film about slavery.
Zhang Yimou's THE ROAD HOME
A businessman returns to his country home in rural China to bury his recently deceased schoolteacher father. He finds his distraught mother insisting on a long funeral procession with friends and former students bearing the coffin. The road to be taken has special meaning dating back to the parents' courtship. It is the courtship in flashback that dominates the film.
Yasujiro Ozu's FLOATING WEEDS
This 1959 film follows a down on its luck troupe of actors as they visit a small Japanese seaside village in the late 1950’s to perform popular plays on a small community stage.