Tfedge Movies from Q to Z!

The Queen

"I was very lucky today to see a matinee of “The Queen” staring Helen Mirren. Although I knew the movie was about Queen Elizabeth II, I had no idea it was about the period following Princess Diana’s death. I found the movie was not only engaging but engrossing. It was a story not just of the traditional view of the English Monarchy, but the tension between two views of society: the more traditional English class society versus the more egalitarian democratic society that appears to be England of the future." Read the the rest of my Review Stream Review

Queen Margot

“Queen Margot” is a 1994 movie based on the a lesser known novel by Alexandre Dumas. “Queen Margot” tells the story of Marguerite de Valois (Margot), heir to the throne of her brother, the French King Charles IX. Margot was a daughter of Catherine Medici and inherited all of the ability to plot and intrigue that her mother had. She is married to Henri of Navarre as an attempt to provide peace between the Catholics and the French Huguenots. Henri becomes Henri IV King of France and Margot becomes disenchanted with her role and takes a lover. The movie takes place in a Catholic versus Protestant society but also is in many ways the movie is a contrast between the snooty French and the more rural people of Navarre. Throughout Catherine de Medici, played by Italian actress Virna Lisi, intrigues and poisons with her thirteen secret herbs and spices. Read the the rest of my Review Stream Review

Shirley Valentine (1989)

“Shirley Valentine” is a 1989 color movie in English. It was filmed in locations in England and Mykonos, Greece. It is the story of a Liverpudlian woman’s midlife crisis who decides to do something about her life despite the fact that “no one thought she had the courage. The nerve. Or the lingerie.” Shirley Valentine is a middle-aged housewife from Liverpool who is bored with her life, her husband and her adult children. When home alone she talks to the wall. When her friend Jane wins a two-week trip to Greece for two and invites Shirley to accompany her, Shirley jumps at the chance. In Greece she starts living her life over again, for herself, for the real Shirley and not Shirley the Mom or Shirley the wife. Read the the rest of my Review Stream Review

Silver Streak

"Silver Streak" turned 30 years old this year, but is still fresh and fun to watch. I just watched it again just a few minutes ago and laughed and enjoyed it as if were the first time I’d seen it. I fell in love with the idea of a cross country train ride, but unfortunately haven’t been able to do it. Maybe seeing the movie again will give me the motivation I need to make a trip. What a great way to see America without having to drive. I only wish it would travel only in the daytime so I could watch the country roll by. This is the first movie that Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor made together. They are a surprisingly funny team. I laugh out loud every time I watch Richard Pryor try to disguise as a black man so he can sneak past the police. Wilder repeatedly saying “I’m bad, I’m bad,” as he tries to pysch himself up to walk past the police is very funny. Read the the rest of my Review Stream Review

Sister Helen

I just finished watching the DVD of the Film “Sister Helen.” I had never heard of the 2002 movie but saw it on the shelf at my local library. Since I could check it for free, I figured I had nothing to lose and checked it out. I am very glad I did. “Sister Helen” is an 88 minute film about a nun who ran a all-male residence in the South Bronx. For those of us who were raised as Protestants are unlikely to recognize the hard-bitten, crusty as French bread, foul-mouthed, woman as a nun. Those who went to parochial school may find she is familiar. Sister Helen is a no-nonsense, take no crap Benedictine who opened and operated the John Thomas Travis Center. The movie “Sister Helen” goes behind the scenes at the men’s Read the the rest of my Review Stream Review

TheSting (1973

“The Sting” is one of the most fun movies I’ve ever watched. I was taken in again and again as Paul Newman and his gang of con artists conned me and other members of the audience. The worse thing about it is that I can’t be fooled again when I watch it. I do however take particular joy in watching it with people who haven’t seen the movie. “The Sting” was a 1973 Zanuck and Brown Production, filmed in color in studios and locations in the Los Angeles area and on location in Chicago. The movie ran for 129 and could have run more it was so much fun.

“The Sting” begins when three grifters, Johnny Hooker (Robert Redford), Luther Coleman (Robert Earl Jones, father of James Earl Jones), and the Erie Kid (Jack Kehoe) play a small con on a numbers runner. They take him for eleven thousand dollars. Unfortunately the man who runs the numbers Doyle Lonnegan finds out who took his money. He wants it back and he wants revenge. When he kills Luther Coleman, Hooker decides he wants revenge of his own. With the help of Henry Gondorff (Paul Newman) and a host of conmen, they teach Lonnegan an expensive lesson. Read the the rest of my Review Stream Review

This Old Cub

Ron Santo is my favorite baseball Broadcaster by far and one of my favorite baseball players ever. For those who don’t know him “This Old Cub” tells the story of Ron Santo, first as an all-star third baseman for the Chicago Cubs; then as a longtime broadcaster for WGN radio, and as a professional athlete who has type-I diabetes. Read the the rest of my Review Stream Review

To Kill a Mockingbird

"“To Kill a Mockingbird” is an excellent movie based on the Pulitzer Prizewinning novel by Harper Lee. Screenplay is by Horton Foote. Like all good movies it can be viewed on various levels, but I tend to think of it as a childhood memoir. The movie is told from the perspective of Scout, the daughter of Atticus Finch, played by Gregory Peck. Over the couple of years of Scout’s childhood she and her brother Jem learn what a strong brave man their father is. He lives according to a strict moral code and hopes his children will do so as well. However, rather than being a cruel disciplinarian he leads by example and explains why he wants his children to behave in particular ways." Read the the rest of my Review Stream Review

A Town without PIty

“A Town without Pity” (1961) is a black and white movie filmed in Austria dealing with American occupying forces in Germany. The movie, based on the novel by Manfred Gregor, features one of the most haunting, raucous recurring songs ever, “A Town without Pity” sung by Gene Pitney. The song was nominated for an Oscar for Best Original Song but lost out to lost out to Henry Mancini and Johnny Mercer’s song “Moon River.”

In post World War II occupied Germany four soldiers leave their army post and travel to the nearby town where they have some beer and are looking for some action. When they come upon a young German girl changing from her bikini beside the local swimming hole they gang rape her. The movie is the story of the defense of the four soldiers, who are condemned, by Major Steve Garrett (Kirk Douglas) during a show trial held in civilian facilities near the base. The movie is an indictment of the treatment of the girl by her father and the local people. Although the tagline for the movie was “The Story of What Four Men Did To a Girl… And What the Town Did To Them!” This seems to miss the point of the movie. The lack of pity wasn’t directed toward the four US Army soldiers who raped the local girl, but toward the girl herself. The movie is a thought-provoking movie that challenges the belief that a woman who is raped is asking for it. I wouldn’t have thought anyone still held this view more than forty years after this movie was made, but events in Afghanistan and Iraq tend to indicate the view is more common that I believed. Read the the rest of my Review Stream Review

The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Under the Biltmore Clock (1984)

“Under the Biltmore Clock” is very good television (1986) movie. It was aired as part of the PBS “American Playhouse” series. The movie is based on the F. Scott Fitzgerald short story “Myra Meets His Family.” It is the story about Myra, a popular flapper around New York who has her choice of young men but finally decides to marry Knowleton Whitney (played by Lenny Von Dohlen) before it’s too late. Myra Harper (Sean Young) is twenty-one when she makes this decision. When Myra visits the Whitney home for a weekend she finds a group of eccentrics likely to scare off the most courageous of women. Myra’s response and a truly O’Henry ending cap the production. Read the the rest of my Review Stream Review

Vajra Sky Over Tibet

I saw “Vajra Sky Over Tibet” yesterday afternoon here in Bellingham at the Pickford Theatre, our local independent, artistic theatre. The movie is a documentary that bills itself as a pilgrimage to Tibet. I described it to a friend as a spiritual and political travelogue. This is a very good, important movie. I can’t say that it was enjoyable in the same way that non-documentary files are enjoyable, it was disturbing, sad, and left many of the audience members in a pensive mood. One of the measures I look in gauging the affects the film has had on the audience is how many people stay seated during the credits. In large megaplex cinemas with big budget, first run films, people pop up right away. More interested in getting out of the movie house than in spending a even a moment reading the credits. At “Vajra Sky Over Tibet” no one was standing until well into the credits. Many of us sat all the way through. That’s a good sign I think. Read the the rest of my Review Stream Review

A Visit to a Mosque in America

“A Visit to a Mosque in America” (ASIN B00009M76K) is a short, family oriented tour of the mosque near Cincinnati, Ohio. The DVD follows a tour guide throughout the mosque, the community center, the Academy and the Cultural Center to learn about how Muslims worship. Each of these areas relates to one area in Muslim life: worship, family and social life, education and Islam in America. Read the the rest of my Review Stream Review

Viva Baseball

“Viva Baseball” is a 2005 documentary about Latino baseball players and the affects Latinos have had on baseball. I’m a big baseball fan and like fans everywhere am familiar with the 1947 the year the “color” barrier was broken when Jackie Robinson became a Brooklyn Dodger, but I was oblivious to what Latino players suffered similar prejudice as Blacks have. Often they suffered more because they were unable to speak English and many of these players were black as well. Read the the rest of my Review Stream Review

White Countess (2005)

I really enjoyed the 2005 movie “White Countess.” The movie stars Natasha Richardson as Countess Sofia Belinskya and Russian Countess expatriated to Shanghai after the 1917 Russian Revolution. To support herself and her extended family Sofia works as a dance hall girl and sometimes prostitute. Despite her efforts her family just barely gets by and Natasha has to share a bed and often sits up in her apartment until her bed is free for the day so she can sleep during the day. The movie also features Ralph Fiennes as Todd Jackson, a man who can’t change the world so he shuts himself off from it. Once recognized as a political player in China, Jackson lost his family to death and suffered a serious injury to his legs and became blind. These events and others of Jackson’s failures have left him disappointed so he opts to retreat from the political room into the nightlife world of nightclubs and brothels. One of his dreams is to open the perfect knight club where men can go for intelligent companionship with attractive women. Read the the rest of my Review Stream Review

Widows' Peak

I enjoyed this movie very much, not just because it stars the luscious Natasha Richardson, but because the dynamic between Richardson’s character and the character played by Mia Farrow is a delightful tongue-in-cheek account of Anglo-Irish relations that appeals to both my English and Irish ancestors. Their rivalry quickly deteriorates into true pettiness, sabotage, and personal attacks. Both of them have secrets that are revealed in the intricacies of the plot that take in not only the villagers, but the viewer as well. Natasha Richardson, daughter of Tony Richardson and Vanessa Redgrave, and wife of Liam Neeson, stars as Mrs. Edwina Broome, an English widow who decides to move to an Irish village with a neighborhood commonly called “Widows’ Peak” at the number of widows who live in the neighborhood. She is witty, full of life and beautiful, unlike many of the other widows who are old and pretty well dried up. She is wonderfully sneaky and accidentally takes a prize at a local dance, destroys Katherine O’Hare’s prize roses, and cheats to win a race. I first saw Richardson in the 2002 movie “Waking Up In Reno” and immediately became infatuated with her. Her beauty made that of the more popular Charlize Theron fade into the background. Read the the rest of my Review Stream Review

The World's Fastest Indian

he “World’s Fastest Indian” is a movie based on events in the Life of New Zealander Burt Munro (played by Anthony Hopkins). Burt was retired and living on a pension. He had spent much of his life working on a 1920s Indian motorcycle. One of his dreams was to take his motorcycle to the salt flats to see how fast he could drive the motorcycle. Burt is an innocent man so focused on his motorcycle that he can’t imagine that everyone else doesn’t feel the same way. Because of his intensity he often strikes people he meets negatively. However universally he soon wins them over with his charm. Not only do they find themselves liking him, they often find themselves helping him. Read the the rest of my Review Stream Review