From Prada to Nada

Movie: From Prada to Nada

Cast:    Camilla Belle              (Nora Dominguez)

            Alexa Vega                (Mary Dominguez)

            Adriana Barraza         (Aurelia Jimenez)

Genre: romantic comedy

Synopsis: This is billed as a re-write of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility.  Camilla and Alexa are daughters of a wealthy Hispanic businessman.  Their mother died some years ago.  They live in a mansion in Los Angeles with servants, gardener’s, a cook, etc.  Camilla is the responsible one.  She is currently in law school.  Although Alexa is in college, her mission in life is to shop shop shop.  Neither of them have really acknowledged their heritage nor do they speak any Spanish.

Then their father dies unexpectedly.  The sisters are hit with two surprises.  The first is that they have a half-brother they never knew about.  The second is that their father was deeply in debt – and they are not destitute.  They end up having to move out of the mansion.  They end up living with their late mother’s aunt is East Los Angeles.  To say this is a culture shock is to put it mildly.  The movie follows the sisters adjust to life in East L.A. and learn that a Mexican heritage is actually pretty cool.  Naturally, both sisters go through romantic crises – but everything works out in the end.

My two cents: I had never heard of this movie before it opened locally.  I found it to be a real gem.  It was great fun to watch these two girls – who had considered themselves to be rich white girls – learn what it means to be poor and Hispanic in East L.A.  (Of course, this Blog is written from the perspective of a white male who really might not know what he is talking about here.)  While their romantic travails might not be overly realistic, they provided the movie with  a happy ending.

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Barney’s Version

Movie: Barney’s Version

Cast:    Paul Giamatti              (Barney Panofsky)

            Rachelle Lefevre        (Clara - the 1st Mrs. Panofsky)

Minnie Driver             (The 2nd Mrs. Panofsky)

            Rosamund Pike          (Miriam)

            Dustin Hoffman          (Izzy Panofsky)

Scott Speedman         (Boogie)

            Mark Addy                (Detective O’Hearne)

Genre: drama, comedy

Synopsis: At 65 years of age, Barney Panofsky is not a particularly likeable fellow.  The film consists of Barney’s flashbacks on his life from his twenties to the present day. Along the way he had two unhappy and brief marriages.  At his second wedding, he sees Miriam and instantly falls in love with her – for the rest of his life.  We follow his pursuit of her, his conquest, and their relationship over the rest of his life.

A side story is the mystery of what happened to his best friend, Boogie.  During Barney’s second marriage, Boogie disappeared when the two were drunk on the dock of Barney’s lake house.  For the rest of Barney’s life, detective O’Hearne is obsessed with proving the Barney murdered Boogie.

My two cents: A really good movie.  A lot of laughs (which I expected) – but also a few tears (which caught me by surprise).  Paul Giamatti played a great part.  Dustin Hoffman was funny as his father.  But I thought the best acting job was turned in by Rosamund Pike.  She was so beautiful and serene as Miriam.  Nothing (well, almost nothing) rattled her during her 20+ year marriage to Barney.  I know a lot of this can be chalked up to good writing, but there was just something about the way that the actress captured the character that I really loved.

Bottom line: most definitely worth seeing.

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Outside the Law

Movie: Outside the Law

Cast:    Jamel Debbouze          (Said)

            Roschdy Zem              (Messaoud)

            Sami Bouajila              (Abdelkader)

Genre: Historical drama, subtitled

Synopsis: The movie opens shortly after World War II.  Algeria is still a French colony.  Said, Messaoud, and Abdelkader are three young Nigerian brothers.  When their family is ordered off of their ancestral land, they move to the city with their mother and father.  There we witness the violent response of the government to Algerian’s seeking to have their country freed from French rule.

The movie jumps to the late 1950’s.  Abdelkader has been a political prisoner in Paris for several years.  When he is released from prison, he joins the FLN – an Algerian group dedicated the making Algeria a free nation.  Messaoud is in the French army fighting in Indo-China.  Said has moved with his mother to Paris where he has embarked on a life of shady and sometimes criminal activity.  The three brothers reunite in Paris.  Abdelkader and becomes a leader of the FLN.  The movie tracks the lives of the three brothers during the last few years of the fight for Algerian independence where clashes in France between the government and the FLN reache shocking levels of bloody violence.

My two cents: A pretty interesting movie.  I knew virtually nothing about the history of Algeria and its colonization by France.  The movie showed me at least some of the reasons for the tension between the Muslim population of France and the government.  It has definitely made me resolve to do some research on the subject to see just how close the movie followed the actual history of the conflict.

Bottom line: worth checking out, especially for those with an interest in modern history.

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The Mechanic

Movie: The Mechanic

Cast:    Jason Statham            (Arthur Bishop)

            Den Foster                 (Steve McKenna)

            Donald Sutherland      (Harry McKenna)

            Tony Goldwyn            (Dean)

Genre: thriller

Synopsis: Arthur Bishop is a world-class contract killer employed by a mysterious organization headed by Harry McKenna and Dean.  Harry is a kind of mentor to Arthur.  When Harry is killed, Arthur takes Harry’s son, Steve, under his wing and decides to make him a sort of apprentice.

Things get dicey when a contract is put out on Arthur.

My two cents: This is Jason Statham at his best.  Lots of action, lots of things get blown up, and lots of people get killed in creative ways.  I loved it.  The actor that played Dean is the one who portrayed Patrick Swazey’s killer in Ghost.  Even after all these years, the second I set eyes on him I wanted someone to shoot him.

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Dhobi Ghat (Mumbai Diaries)

Movie: Dhobi Ghat (Mumbai Diaries)

Cast:    Monica Dogra             (Shai)

            Aamir Khan                (Arun)

            Prateik Babbar           (Munna)

            Kriti Malhotra             (Yasmin)

Genre: drama

Synopsis: Arun is a successful artist in Mumbai.  Shai works in a bank in New York but is on a kind of sabbatical for which she going around Mumbai taking photographs of people at work.  Her family is extremely wealthy.  Munna is a “washerboy” by day and a rat killer by night.  He lives in a shack and is extremely poor.

Shai seems to be romantically interested in Arun.  Arun is experiencing something of a life crisis from dealing with a recent divorce and is having creative difficulties.  Munna is the washerboy for both Shai and Arun.  Shai takes a friendly interest in Munna.  She starts using Munna as a guide to show her the different areas of Mumbai for her photographic endeavor.  He is also falling in love with her.

Meantime, Arun has become obsessed with a set of video tapes left in his apartment by a previous tenant.  They are a series of “letters” the newlywed Yasmin made for her brother.  They started with her arrival in Mumbai and chronicle how her life changes.

The movie follows these four and their interconnecting and changing relationships.

My two cents: I really enjoyed this movie.  I really felt for poor Munna.  He is always conscious of the class difference between him and Shai, although Shai seems to be class-blind.  Most of the dialogue is in English, so you do not get overloaded with subtitles.

Bottom line: if you stumble across this movie on video or on TV, give it a try.  You might be pleasantly surprised.

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Yogi Bear

Movie: Yogi Bear

Cast:    Dan Aykroyd             Yogi Bear (voice)

            Justin Timberlake        Boo Boo (voice)

            Tom Cavanagh           Ranger Smith

            Rachel                        Anna Faris

Genre: animated comedy

Synopsis: The evil mayor wants to allow the trees in Jellystone to be cut down to make way for agricultural interests.  The only way to stop his plan is for Jellystone to become suddenly more popular (and profitable).  Yogi and Boo Boo take a break from "pic-a-nic basket" stealing to try to help Ranger Smith.  He also is aided by the beautiful Rachel who is filming a nature documentary.  They find a surprising way to save the park.

My two cents: I seem to have outgrown my fondness for Yogi.  The movie had a few amusing parts, but I guess I am just too far out of the age range of the targeted age group.  I got really bored really fast.

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Summer Wars

Movie: Summer Wars

Genre: Japanaese Anime

Synopsis: Kenji is an 11^th grade math-genius/geek with a crush on the beautiful Natsuki.  He agrees to help Natsuki when she goes home to the family estate for a visit. What he does not know is that his real job is to pass himself off to Natsuki’s family as her fiancé during her great-grandmother’s 90^th birthday party.

Oz is an internet site that is used by virtually everyone in Japan – and a lot of the rest of the world – to do everything from pay bills to run telephones to managing satellites.  His first night at the estate, a challenge is issued to Kenji via his internet-connected phone.  He wins the challenge by solving a 2,056 byte encryption algorithm.  Somehow, this allows a misguided application to unlock and take over Oz accounts.  Things start going wrong all over the world as more and more Oz accounts are appropriated.  Finally, Natsuki’s family teams with Kenji to battle the entity that is taking over Oz.

My two cents: This is my first Anime movie.  It was actually kind of interesting.  It took a while to get used to the type of animation and the script style.  The hardest part for me was to stop muttering to myself “well, that is totally ridiculous”.  If you go with the flow, it is kind of enjoyable . . . but definitely not everyone’s cup of tea.

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