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thaliangirl
Reviews
Open Window (2006)
Emotionally honest with great performances
This was an odd movie to find playing on Showtime - seems very at odds with most of their programming and I don't remember a theatrical release. It is a quiet and powerful piece about the effect that a brutal rape has on a young couple and their immediate family.
It seemed to be a very realistic portrayal of the aftermath of a rape and the performances by Robin Tunney and Joel Edgerton were exceptional. I read in one of the postings on the IMDb message board that it was based in part on a real experience in the director's life. That doesn't surprise me as this movie really seems to capture an emotional depth and honesty that is very hard to find in most movies nowadays. Very impressive.
What the #$*! Do We (K)now!? (2004)
Not great but certainly interesting
This wasn't a great movie but it certainly provided some interesting food for thought, particularly for those of us who tend to get more wrapped up in artistic details rather than scientific ones. I appreciated the explorations of physics and the questions about what it really means from a scientific point of view to actually "be". This sort of subject matter tends to be very dry and it was a pleasure to watch something lively that also had a sense of humor.
I felt that the presentation of the more "new agey" issues was a little off point and that kind of took the spotlight off of the science, which was a shame. There was definitely a place for a spiritual discussion here, but the way the Ramtha stuff was presented brought the whole thing down a few notches and left me feeling as though there was some hidden agenda and I had been tricked into watching something that wasn't quite legit.
El laberinto del fauno (2006)
Beautiful & haunting
This movie is beautiful, haunting and utterly imaginative. It's a masterpiece of film-making and deserves a place in film history. Del Toro takes what on the surface (or in the hands of another director) could be a simple child's fairy tale, and gives it extraordinary depth. Every character is fully drawn, especially the central character around whom the story swirls. The story is so compelling that even without the fantasy elements, I would have been gripped to my seat. But the fantasy elements take the visuals to a whole other level and plunge the viewer into a world that is like none other you've ever experienced. It is amazing how real the fantastical is - is Ofelia making it up or is it really happening? This was absolutely my favorite film of 2006.