A young girl defies the values of her Maori culture when she feels called to become a Chief. Told convincingly without getting overly sentimental. It made me ponder (as The Gods Must Be Crazy did) what the ramifications are for a culture that is thrust suddenly into a global environment that other cultures have had…

This is a six-episode series by A&E based on the C.S. Forester novels featuring british naval hero Horatio Hornblower. We’ve been watching these here and there over the past weeks. I haven’t read Forester’s books, but these movies border on naval Harlequin romances. Obstacles and enemies are carefully constructed for Horatio to demolish with utter…

I don’t know whether this movie was supposed to be a campy satire, a serious drama, or a Shakespearean tragedy. Maybe all of the above. The mix can be a bit quixotic, but there’s no doubt that it’s good.

As rich with symbolism, loss, and irony as I’ve come to expect from John Irving adaptations. Once again I haven’t read the book, and I can sense that I’ve glimpsed only a piece of a broader tapestry woven into A Widow for One Year. As always there is some humor to help you along here,…

A strange movie for both Ann and I to choose to watch again. Maybe it’s the appeal of the unique combination of punk girl, hit man, and My Fair Lady-style transformation. Ann remarked that this is the first muscular female gun-toting heroine character she remembers. It was probably the prototype for many more to come.…

This is one of those books that inspires you to write a book. A couple of simple ideas, artfully combined, shed light on countless facets of life. Uncovering the history of a parrot, and patrolling the loop of highway around Ft. Worth. Of course there’s more, much more. Like all great books, much more than…

I found this to be a pretty cheesy melodrama. I wonder how much I was influenced by the dated 80’s soundtrack. The movie uses a format that may have inspired today’s CSI TV shows, rebuilding the crime as the investigators learn more. Maybe today’s higher gore tolerance and flashy special effects reduce some of the…

For me this book was like entering the state of waking up, when dreams and reality can mix, making the transition uncertain for a moment. This story looks at one side of something like that, then another, and then the strange place where the two mix. Man and woman, Indian and Catholic, love and pragmatism…

I don’t know if I’ll ever be a fan of this kind of animated movie. The animation is great, but there always seems to be at least one shrill-voiced character that grates on my nerves, and I usually don’t find the plots compelling. It’s the same to some degree with other animation films like Princess…

Well, it’s not as fresh the second time around, but these movies make fun of things in a way that works for me. Vulgarity implied instead of shown, stereotypes teased and then broken, and out-of-place cultural references all kept me laughing again this time. A Tom Waits tune in the soundtrack doesn’t hurt either.