movie reviews – Page 57 – Unhealed Wound

“The Great Gatsby”–Revisiting an American Classic

Written by diana on May 28, 2013. Posted in movie reviews, Unhealed Wound. 4 Comments on “The Great Gatsby”–Revisiting an American Classic

The new version of the F. Scott Fitgerald’s celebrated classic (1925) by Baz Luhrmann (of Moulin Rouge fame) has divided critics. Half of professional movie critics praised the movie, the other half panned it. There will be endless reinterpretations of a novel that has become burdened as a literary icon, the Great American Classic. Mr. Luhrmann’s reverence for the source material is evident. Occasionally he quotes dialogue directly. But he has also made the narrative his own: a wayward, lavish theatrical celebration of the emotional and material extravagance that Gatsby embodied. For...

“Central Park Five”–Today’s Scottsboro Boys?

Written by diana on April 22, 2013. Posted in movie reviews. 2 Comments on “Central Park Five”–Today’s Scottsboro Boys?

In 1989 the “Central Park Jogger” trial had the country’s attention and a media frenzy fed the heightened fear of New Yorkers who saw their beloved Central Park and the city as a whole becoming a dangerous environment simmering with crime and mayhem. “The Central Park Five”, a new documentary from award-winning filmmaker Ken Burns, retells the story of the five black and Latino teenagers from Harlem who were wrongly convicted of brutally raping a white woman in New York City’s Central Park on April 22, 1989. The film chronicles The Central Park Jogger case from the perspective...

“Leonie”–The Lioness and the Sculptor

Written by diana on April 16, 2013. Posted in movie reviews. 3 Comments on “Leonie”–The Lioness and the Sculptor

“Don’t bore me by being ordinary” –These are words Leonie Gilmour (exquisitely acted by Emily Mortimer) admonishes her college friend, Catherine (Christina Hendricks) at Bryn Mawr. After graduation, she departs on an astonishingly unconventional life at the turn of the 20th century. Based on the true story of an American intellectual, “Leonie” introduces the story of Leonie Gilmour, mother of the renowned American sculptor Isamu Noguchi. Filmed in lush period detail in the US and Japan, “Leonie” is a biopic of a woman who straddles two morally...

“The Sessions”, “NoBody’s Perfect”, and “The Intouchables”: Twisted Bodies, Open Minds

Written by diana on March 27, 2013. Posted in movie reviews, Unhealed Wound. 1 Comment on “The Sessions”, “NoBody’s Perfect”, and “The Intouchables”: Twisted Bodies, Open Minds

Recently, we have seen a series of engaging movies portraying handicapped people without pity. These three deal with body image in the nearly unexplored territory of the disabled: “The Sessions”, “NoBody’s Perfect” and “The Intouchables”. All three are surprisingly gentle yet fearless journeys into the human needs of sexuality and respect. “The Sessions”, nominated for multiple Academy Awards, reveals the often unacknowledged and ignored subject of human sexuality for the disabled. Based upon a true story, the severely handicapped Mark...

“Silver Linings Playbook”–Behind Every Cloud

Written by diana on March 11, 2013. Posted in movie reviews, Unhealed Wound. 1 Comment on “Silver Linings Playbook”–Behind Every Cloud

The best comedies go for truths, not laughs. And, although “Silver Linings Playbook” is billed as a comedy, it is more a romance between two young adults with bipolar disorder whose families and friends have to deal with the turmoil that mental illness creates. David O. Russell, the director of this blockbuster multiple Academy Award winner, wrote the screenplay partly as an acknowledgement of his son’s bipolar disorder and as a message about this form of mental illness. Russell has delivered two sympathetic characters to raise our awareness. In this way, “Silver Linings...

“Amour”– A Somber Sonnet to Love

Written by diana on February 18, 2013. Posted in movie reviews, Unhealed Wound. 4 Comments on “Amour”– A Somber Sonnet to Love

This year’s Cannes Film Festival winner is a film like no other on the dissolution and disintegration of life and the toll it throws at love. As a five-time Academy Award nominee, “Amour“, directed by the Austrian Michael Haneke, is a spellbinding masterpiece. The superb Jean-Louis Trintignant of “A Man and a Woman” fame and the delicate Emanuelle Riva who stunned audiences in “Hiroshima, Mon Amour” are the capstone of this film. Playing two retired octogenarian music teachers (Georges and Anne), these two masterful actors portray a deep and time-tested...