All reviews - Movies (2) - Books (1)

Emotional Rollercoaster

Posted : 2 years, 4 months ago on 6 September 2009 04:10 (A review of 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days)

Otillia and Gabita are two college students living in communist Romania during the late 1980's, Gabita is pregnant and wants an abortion, but abortion is illegal under the oppressive regime of the dictator Ceausescu. Otillia helps Gabita by making the arrangements even though it is very dangerous and carries a heavy penalty for anyone involved. This movie is loaded with tension as Otillia tries to help her friend by dealing with surly front desk clerks so she can get the hotel room where Gabita will have the abortion performed and meeting up with the sleazy man who will perform it. There is a sense of fear throughout the movie because in this strict regime everyone is suspicious of each other and your just waiting for the moment when the girls get caught. It is also very realistic in the way that the director filmed it, it's different than the way most American movies are filmed, there are no plot summaries or explanations from the characters, you never find out about the father of Gabitas' baby or anything like that, your just seeing a very bad day in the life of these two women. The two actresses who play Otillia and Gabita are fantastic and the movie really is an emotional punch in the gut and can be hard to watch at times, but I highly recommend it.

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Flawed But Still Fun

Posted : 3 years, 3 months ago on 26 October 2008 10:15 (A review of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull)

I just watched Kingdom of the Crystal Skull last night and while it reminded me of why I loved the Indy series, I don't think it quite measures up to the older movies in the series. The story starts off many years after we last saw Indy,in 1957, Indy is approached by a young greaser named Mutt Williams who needs Indy's help in retrieving a mythical crystal skull so he can hand it over to the Russians, who are holding captive his mother and friend, professor Oxly, who happens to be an old colleague of Indy's. I won't say much more much on the plot so I won't give anything away, what's good about this movie is that it still has a lot of the familiar plot devices that made the original Indy movies great; a smartass Indy, harrowing chases, nasty villains, and exotic locales, but these same devices can seem overused sometimes, when you've seen all of the other movies you know what's coming. Some of the situations Indy and the gang get them selves out of are pretty damn implausible, even compared to the other movies, for example, Indy surviving a nuclear blast by hiding in a refrigerator. But, despite it's faults, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is still a lot of fun, as a lifelong Indy fan, I may be biased, but I'm glad George Lucus and co. decided to give to give Indy one more adventure.

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A True Story of American Murder

Posted : 3 years, 3 months ago on 25 October 2008 06:45 (A review of The Saga of the Bloody Benders: The Infamous Homicidal Family of Labette County, Kansas (Treasury of Victorian Murder))

This graphic novel is from a series called A Treasury of Victorian Murder, it is about a murderous family called the Benders that lived in Kansas during the 1870's. The Benders family consisted of Ma and Pa Bender and their grown children John Jr. and Kate, they immigrated from Germany and went to Kansas to open a small grocery store that also acts as a rest stop for weary travelers. The Benders seem like an eccentric but harmless family until people start disappearing after stopping by the Benders' place. Turns out the Benders are using the store and Kate's charm as a way to put the travelers at ease so they can rob and murder them. This a fun and quick read if you like books about serial killers or true crime, there are other books in this series about Jack the Ripper, Lizzie Borden, H.H. Holmes and other murders that took place in the 1800's, the Benders are the only one I have read so far but I would like to check out the other ones someday.

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