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The Wheel of Time (2021)
Love the story and the characters
OK this reviewer is a true believer devoted to the story line and characters in the original series of books -- there are 16 complete novels written by Robert Jordan alone! I have ordered the first six books but have yet to read any of them so I am mystified as to why this reviewer thinks the story line presented in this streaming series is all hacked up - to me the plot line is sensible and intelligently written. There are beginning to be several unexpected twists in the story line which deepen the plot lines and add new dimensions without muddying up the main story at all.
Maybe I'll feel differently when I read the novels but I am so in love with Rosamund Pike as Moiraine Damodred that I sincerely doubt I'll ever tire of watching her.
The White King (2016)
Ultimately unsatisfying but provocative
The film needs a prologue or introduction to set the scene and introduce the 1984-like world it is set in. We are lost from beginning to end about the why-for of everything we see happening. This isn't a mystery novel or a who-done-it after all, why can't the explication be clearer?
Who the hell is Young Hank. What is the purpose of the character Pickaxe anyway? Does a viewer really have to read the novel to gain any insights? If so the screenwriter and director have utterly failed. Still the acting is good throughout and the principal and supporting characters are affecting.
Margaret (2011)
An old fashioned adult drama that may be more for teens.
Margaret, we don't learn the meaning of that title until about 3/4 of movie is gone, and even then you could miss it. This film is an ambitious work of real-life drama, the kind that is barely made these days, and of which filmmakers have lost most of the craft. Though it is clearly pitched at adults by its subject, dialog, length, and plotting, it is probably far more accessible to teens who will connect with Lisa Cohen's, Anna Paquin, existential angst, than adults who have forgotten the emotional intensity of adolescence, or are impatient with the half thought out actions she takes.
The movie is deliberately paced, some will eventually find it maddeningly slow, but it makes good use of the pace most of the way in that you can consider what you've been told along the way. On the other hand a different shorter cut might have made a difference in it initial release popularity.
Four characters need mention. Jean Reno, Ramon, seems completely outside of the main plot, but he becomes Lisa Mother's, J. Smith Cameron, main focus outside of her acting work, a circumstance that serves to further isolate Lisa and intensify her obsession. John the English teacher, Matthew Broderick, not only provides us with the movie's title eventually, he has an important class argument concerning Shakespeare during which he can't quite convince a student why his argument is wrong -- this is a moment every teenager experiences which cues them in that the adult world may not have all the answers. The complication here is that the student is being a jerk with a clearly circular argument, but his teacher can't penetrate his intransigence with the right arrow, and falls back on an argument from authority -- bad lesson. Matt Damon, Mr. Aaron the math teacher, becomes Lisa's confidant in the main plot concerning a woman's death in a bus accident. In the movie's only bad misstep he is also drawn into a brief sexual encounter with her -- it just doesn't seem to make any sense from his perspective. The reason for it seems to be that it leads to another scene where she finally begins to take responsibility for her capricious actions by announcing that she's had an abortion, but refuses to implicate her sex partners, sparing him from scandal and possible jail time.
Finally there is Emily, Jeannie Berlin, who is as intense in her emotions as an adult as Lisa is as an adolescent. There are differences between the adult and the child in how they think and express themselves though as we see in several key scenes. Emily verbally slaps Lisa: "Because... this isn't an opera! And we are not all supporting characters to the drama of your amazing life!" And in the last scene at the lawyer's office while she and Emily realize that the dead woman's surviving cousin is far more interested in the monetary settlement, than in implicating the bus driver in his complicity with Lisa in causing him to run the red light and precipitating the deadly accident, that Lisa finally admits to herself, Emily, and us that she is also a guilty party in this death.
It would be hard to find any contemporary movie that treats life this seriously and takes the pains this one has to place it into a realistic setting. If his has flaws it is not from a lack of effort but practice.
Elizabethtown (2005)
There is a lot to like here
This movie is unlike most in that it doesn't try for reality -- it is more like an inner dialogue played out so we can see it.
There are several laugh out loud moments which should not be missed. These stand up even in a second viewing. The juxtaposition of Orlando's Bloom's fiasco-failure of historic proportions/his father's funeral/Chuck and Cindie's wedding/and perhaps finding his life mate, Kristan Dunst, are all woven into a timeless (no)place called Elizabethtown, which is magical. For me the magic worked. There were a few things that didn't click, but mostly it was genuine, funny, and affecting.
Alec Baldwin is perfect as Phil, the shoe tycoon. He has just the right mix of bonhomie, menace, and smart-guy-in-charge to fill the role.
Susan Sarandon seems a bit distracting at first but by the end "its all good," -- wait I don't say that -- "it works" there that is better. Her contribution is uplifting.
As for the "World's Second Largest Farmer's Market" -- it isn't on any map that doesn't map the human heart.