Friday, March 10, 2006

Big screen, little screen

music

Hiam Abbass stars in Satin Rouge, a movie by Raja Amari that I've wanted for years and just ordered recently.
Coincidentally, I started watching the movie on Tuesday just after I'd seen Munich, in which she also appears. She's also in Paradise Now, which I haven't seen yet, but will like to watch soon.

In the past week, I also saw
Mrs. Brown, with Judi Dench playing Queen Victoria,
Madame Sata, a story about a Brazlian rebel,
Sexual Life, an American ensemble piece in the tradition of Things you can tell Just by looking at her;
In Good Company, a nice drama/comedy about love and work, it's realistic, touching, and higly recommended,
Private Benjamin, a sweet, sweet movie, which is now one of my very favorite,
Strictly Ballroom, directed by Baz Luhrman; when you're a ballroom dance fan, you gather with friends to watch this classic, the dancing is by no means fantastic.

I would note how expertly Munich is done - cast, located, shot, directed - it is a movie-making Master Class, but perhaps taken for granted because it's done by a master and holds no surprises. I saw it twice, so far. It has a few words in Arabic, which I try to pick out. Syriana had conversations in Arabic as well. Yay! for Arabic in the movies.

Satin Rouge is said to be in Arabic, but apparently Tunisian Arabic is peppered with French.

In the three-and-a-half weeks before the last, I saw only a few movies. (By now, this gross deficiency has been repaired. )
Walk The Line, the only movie on my Paris-Los Angeles half-day flight worth watching,
Ladies in Lavender, a very slow-paced, pretty movie and more Judi Dench goodness,
Brokeback Mountain, which is not about elderly British ladies,
Head in the Clouds, in which Charlize Theron does high glamour,
Festen (English title: The Celebration).

I'd wanted to see Festen for months because I liked Arven/The Inheritance, another Danish movie with Ulrich Thomsen, so much, but I found it sad and dark without good excuse.

1 comment:

Anamaria said...

Freakin' grad students with too much time on their hands! :p I'm in finals week. We should catch up sometime. How about a lunch or something? You could make me a list of movies I need to see, I'm behind on the good stuff.