Change Your Image
hazeljeanwoodward
Reviews
Fanie Fourie's Lobola (2013)
This is a love story between a white man and a black woman in the new South Africa
I have not read Nape'a Motana, author of Fanie Fourie's Lobola's book yet, but thoroughly enjoyed this movie which is based on it. Nape'a wrote in both English and Sepedi, I believe, while the film is in Zulu, English and Afrikaans (fully subtitled). It begins with a silly dare between brothers, and is an honest and positive story reflecting accurate and nuanced complex relationships between black and white in South Africa. Having said that, it is definitely a romantic comedy, in that it makes you both laugh and cry. The situations are true-to-life, many of the attitudes - especially of the older people - are very recognizable and you end up rooting for the hero and heroine in a big way.
Because I Said So (2007)
Oh dear had just watched Judi Dench
I know comparisons are odious, but good grief! How to be bewitched by an unattractive ageing woman: watch Judi Dench in 'Notes on a Scandal'. She was BRILLIANT. How to be mortified by the antics of a slightly more attractive ageing woman: watch Diane Keaton in 'Because I said so'. Diane Keaton doesn't seem to know how her face looks any more: she forgets that as one ages, one's expressions look manically different from how they feel from behind one's face. She throws herself about with a kooky exuberance that may have worked once or twice in her favour as a joke, but the joke wore thin terribly quickly. And oh dear, what a poor script she had to work with! I liked the Mandy Moore character and her sisters, (just to look at I suppose - also the fact that their mother exasperated them but they wouldn't hurt her feelings for worlds) but the architect was badly miscast. He looked twinkly and friendly, and was supposed to be remote and charmless.
La tigre e la neve (2005)
"Neither be cynical about love..."
The protagonist in this film is excellent: not only is he a poet who looks at life unflinchingly, loves it, describes it beautifully and suffers in it, he is also a a doer who manipulates the situations: trying his hardest to make things go his way, and last, but not least, a lover, who reminds one so of that old quote from Desiderata: "Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity & disenchantment, it is perennial as the grass.."
I was amazed at the beauty in the film, the small touches of magic and the huge brush strokes of Iraqi landscape which contrasted with the civilized Italian urban scenes. A truly well-executed movie, tender and intelligent, well worth the reading of the subtitles.
Casino Royale (2006)
A new "ole blue eyes"
An authentic licensee-to-kill: I like this James Bond. I think Craig delivered a credible, creditable performance. The director went back to basics, cutting out the over-the-top spoofing that characterized the Roger Moore movies and instead building up a thoroughly believable, if not always entirely likable, protagonist. The feisty Vesper, whose spirited replies and quick ripostes made for a three-dimensional female role, has a complicated and layered personality which contrasts well with his thoroughly male one and is not submerged by him by any means.
Courage in the face of danger, loyalty to queen and country and disregard of pain and suffering might seem old-fashioned, but I approve of the return to those sterling values.