Unhealed Wound – Page 99 – Passion for Art, Movies, and Culture

“Butter”– A Soft Pat for the Audience

Written by diana on January 8, 2012. Posted in movie reviews, Unhealed Wound. No Comments on “Butter”– A Soft Pat for the Audience

With the Iowa primary just ending, I was reminded of the movie “Butter” which I saw at the Napa Valley Film Festival in mid-November. “Butter” zooms in on the butter-carving contest made famous at the annual Iowa State fair. Butter sculpting is a very popular and competitive art in places like Iowa (with butter statues of Elvis Presley, Tiger Woods, The Last Supper, Superman, and Harry Potter),    and the movie contains some really amazing butter statues including Newt Gingrich. “Butter” will be released on March 16. “Butter” opens as a quirky...

Happy New Year! –The Year of the Dragon

Written by diana on January 2, 2012. Posted in Lunar New Year, New Year, Unhealed Wound. 9 Comments on Happy New Year! –The Year of the Dragon

Happy New Year, everyone, and may some fire be breathed into your lives with good fortune, excitement, and the acceptance of transition and change! I always like to look up the feng-shui and Chinese New Year after toasting with champagne a few days earlier. I found out that 2012 is the first black water dragon year in 60 years. (The other dragon years were not water dragon years.) The dragon is considered unpredictable and untouchable. Its mystery is never completely known. People cannot see its head and tail at the same time. The dragon is the most powerful, revered symbol in ancient Chinese...

My Top Ten Movies for 2011–Reviewed, Not Necessarily New

Written by diana on December 28, 2011. Posted in movie reviews, Unhealed Wound. 3 Comments on My Top Ten Movies for 2011–Reviewed, Not Necessarily New

Happy New Year–the Year of the Dragon in 2012! Most of all, I want to thank all of you for your comments and email! With 2011 coming to an end, I wanted to take a look back at the movie reviews I wrote this year. I am an unabashed cinephile– 500 films (maximum allowed) in my Netflix queue with another 88 in my Instant Queue. So, when I counted the reviews I have written this year (=26), I wanted to see what would be my top ten favorites. It wasn’t easy! This list is not ranked –only my top ten for 2011, grouped by genre. INDIES: 1) Restrepo (January 24 review)—...

“Becoming Santa”–Home for the Holidays

Written by diana on December 19, 2011. Posted in movie reviews, Unhealed Wound. No Comments on “Becoming Santa”–Home for the Holidays

I saw this delectable morsel of an indie film at the Napa Valley Film Festival last month and had a chance to talk with Jeff Myers, the director, for a few moments afterwards. The backstory is fascinating but the movie stands on its own. “Becoming Santa,” reveals a lot more about the human spirit and generosity towards the tiniest among us than any Christmas tale or Christmas carol out there. ‘Becoming Santa’ is the story of Jack Sanderson, whose father has just passed away, leaving him with no family members to celebrate Christmas. He is a forty-four year old bachelor who...

The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers–The Most Famous Whistleblower of Our Time?

Written by diana on December 15, 2011. Posted in movie reviews, Unhealed Wound. 5 Comments on The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers–The Most Famous Whistleblower of Our Time?

Nominated for a 2010 Academy Award for Best Documentary, this past June marks the fortieth anniversary of the release of the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times, which was forced to stop publishing by a cease-and-desist order mandated by the Nixon administration. “The Most Dangerous Man in America” tells the inside story through the narration of Daniel Ellsberg himself, of this game-changing event that ended the Vietnam war and transformed our nation’s political discourse. This documentary is riveting because of the historic footage of Ellsberg, his colleagues, family and...

“Margin Call”–Soulless Capitalism at Its Finest

Written by diana on December 8, 2011. Posted in movie reviews. 4 Comments on “Margin Call”–Soulless Capitalism at Its Finest

An onslaught of “Occupy Wall Street” movies has been released in the last two years–think “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps”, “Too Big to Fail”, “Up in the Air”, The Company Men”–in the wake of the financial meltdown of 2008. “Margin Call” deserves to be among the classics, which have focused on greed, power, and the vacuum resulting from gutting regulatory compliance. (My favorite among recent classics is “Glengarry Glen Ross”.) The brainchild of director and screenwriter, J.C....