Movies Seen

(I watched alot of movies when I was home sick with a cold.)

How to Get Ahead in Advertising
A man who is fairly ruthless in the business of advertising just can't come up with something for boil-removing cream. Is it because the boil sprouting on his neck is going to come alive (wasn't this a cartoon...did this or that come first?) or because he's going crazy and is hearing voices? Something happened to comedy in the 90s, I don't know, was it Adam Sandler and Ben Affleck? They do things over the top, and you can't look away, like having to look at roadkill. This one was from '89 and the UK, so while the fashion was a bit distracting, the comedic value came more from the responses of the man and the people around him to the notion of a talking pimple than from the pimple itself.


Autism is a World
A documentary following an autistic woman who was perceived as retarded until a means of communication was devised using a keyboard when she was 13. She's going to college and plans to write and advocate. Heard about this from Rosie and her bloggers. I have a girl in my Dharma School class who has autistic tendencies, and a young woman who comes to the library that I make a point to speak to, so it helped to see the kind of struggle someone like this goes through. I've always made a point to say hi to the woman who comes to the library with her mother. One time I saw them at a restaurant, or a store. Mom couldn't quite place me at first, but by the way the young woman got excited, I knew she remembered me right away. I always assume they take in and understand more than I could possibly know.

Water
Heavy movie by Deepa Mehta, part of a trilogy. Set in India in the time of Gandhi, it follows a girl who is widowed before she even lives with her husband. Her father wakes her in the night and asks if she remembers the wedding. She sleepily rubs her eyes and says no, and then her hair is cut and shaved off. She is taken to a house of widows, women of all ages who respond to her in various mothering ways. Another young widow, a beautiful teenager, meets a young man and elements of the tragic Indian love story follow, but it does not subsume the tragic plight of the widows.

Mindmeld
A conversation between Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner about their days working on Star Trek together. Sweet and real.

The Magnificent Ambersons (A&E)
I vaguely remember seeing the original by Orson Welles, this makes me want to go back to compare. Jennifer Tilly was great as the soused aunt.

Proof
OK I really would not seek out a movie with Gwyneth Paltrow or Anthony Hopkins, but the plotline sounded interesting so I checked it out. I forgave the genius daughter character being filled by Gwyneth due to my dislike of the older sister character. Brilliant mathematician (Hopkins) goes "bughouse," and his daughter (Paltrow) quits school to take care of him. When he dies, she struggles with wondering if she'll be crazy too, while she presents another brilliant proof as her own, and everybody doubts her.