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It is
irresistibly French
Tell No One
An Illusion Review by Joan
Ellis
It’s about time. “Tell No One” is a French thriller that is intricately
plotted, well acted, and full of old fashioned suspense. Because the
pacing is steady and fast, we can be allowed to overlook a slew of
improbabilities that could be troubling if we were bored. We aren’t; so
don’t look for the holes, just enjoy the plot twists that are thrown at
the audience like handfuls of confetti. Trying to track these while
sorting the characters will keep you busy. Be warned that the process is
both exhausting and rewarding. This movie bristles.
It is
irresistibly French. If you watched this as a silent movie, you would
still appreciate the cultural differences. Scenes of the adult couple’s
childhood friendship, for instance, are delicate without being
sentimental; their love for each other as adults is conveyed beautifully
in lakeside scenes without sexual sledgehammer that is required by
American love stories. Add to that the fun of watching Parisian police
work and the interplay among the characters. Strong cast, speedy
direction, good story; good evening.
We meet the
childhood friends, Alex (Francois Cluzet) and Margot (Marie-Josee Croze)
as married adults enjoying a night of skinny dipping and sleeping under
the stars. It is the dock they knew as children. During the night, the
couple has a minor disagreement and Margot dives into the lake and swims
to the dock where they left their clothes. When he hears her scream, Alex
follows only to be knocked out as he is exiting the lake. We already know
him as a gentle and perceptive pediatrician. When, eight years later, two
bodies are found buried near the lake, we can believe he is a suspect but
not that he is guilty.
Alex’s
beautiful lawyer Elizabeth (Nathalie Baye) tips him that the police are
coming to arrest him; Alex, who has received an email from his dead wife
suggesting a meeting, jumps out his hospital office window and begins a
run through Paris that would have exhausted an Olympian. This good man,
who has loved his wife for all the years they have been separated, will
stay out of jail until he finds her – if indeed she is alive. The chase
and the evidence gathering take place simultaneously, straining our focus
but never undermining our hope.
The movie is
full of good looking people, some of them distractingly alike, all of them
giving first rate performances. No false notes here. As Margot’s father,
Andre Dussollier is enigmatic and strong. What does this man know? From
the moment we meet him, Francois Cluzet’s Alex wears an expression of a
man preoccupied with burdens, as indeed he is. Why are we so caught up in
this movie? Probably because Cluzet and Marie-Josee-Croze manage to create
such a credible portrait of married love that we actually care about them;
and because we do, the complexities of the investigation that envelops
them becomes riveting.
December 10th, 2007
The perspective
now developing on the last eight years has created a fury in parts of the
electorate that surpasses even the anger generated by Richard Nixon and
his multiple felonies or Lyndon Johnson and the Vietnam War.
We are trapped in the fifth year of a war started by a president and
vice-president who lied to the American people about why it was necessary
while linking it in an unconscionable way to 9/11 – an extension and
justification of sorts of their newly minted War on Terror. George Bush
and Dick Cheney wanted to invade Iraq. Now, five years later we are still
blowing up bridges and buildings in that country and then rebuilding them
with American companies hired at taxpayers’ expense. Why are we still in
Iraq? Because civil war will break out if we leave? This war will end in a
bloodbath of our creation whenever we leave. To bring democracy to Iraq?
It is a concept so alien to the Middle East that is an embarrassment every
time George Bush even mentions it.
Our country, untouched by the hideous cost of this war in lives and
resources, goes merrily on living in a toxic culture that has spawned a
profusion of luxury goods – houses at $15,000,000, handbags at $29,000 – a
market catering to obscenely paid corporate executives, entertainers,
hedge fund managers, and international visitors. Don’t dare answer that
those salaries are simply what the market will bear and that whatever the
market will bear is fair. Eighteen year old kids are...
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"Jesus.......fiddling with his cell phone."
Religulous
An Illusion
Review by Joan Ellis
Bill Maher: “I just ask questions.” And ask he does throughout “Religulous.”
As you may suspect, this is a documentary with an agenda. Maher has chosen
his subjects for their commitment to dogma. Doubt is his product; it’s
what he promotes in “Religulous,” and the result is often hilarious.
Raised
Catholic in a Catholic/Jewish family, the young Bill Maher was delighted
when told the family would no longer go to church. He hated having to wake
up on Sunday mornings, hated getting dressed up, and was bored unto misery
sitting through the service. His mother’s displeasure with the stand of
the church on birth control became his reprieve.
Maher
challenges clerics to explain why the Old and New Testaments don’t match
and wonders what Jesus did between being the baby we all know and the
adult wanderer. Talking to the Reverend Jeremiah Cummings, who has no
degree of any kind but lives the life of a prince, Maher wonders about the
contrast between the legendary simplicity of Jesus’ life and Cummings’ own
grand style. Dressed in a $2000 suit, adorned with gold jewelry, and shod
in lizard shoes, Cummings replies that “Jesus dressed very well, in fine
linen. Money comes, money happens.”
Standing in
front of the Vatican, Maher muses that the elaborate dress and homes of
popes and priests are at odds with their Savior. “Would Jesus have lived
here?” To another cleric he suggests that the idea of God sitting up there
listening to millions of people murmuring to him is as impossible as Santa
Claus dropping presents down every chimney in the world.
Maher draws
marvelous contradictions from his subjects not so much to prove them wrong
as to get the rest of us to question the foundations Christians have been
taught as truth. He screens quotes from Jefferson, Adams, and Franklin
that disavow religion and postulates that 16% of our population has no
religious affiliation. “It’s the great untapped minority,” he says, “and
it’s time they came out.” He reminds us that if we belonged to other
organizations that promoted bigotry, homophobia, and misogyny, we would
resign from them.
Maher does
all this with the silences of a man who can’t believe what he has just
heard. And he does it with good humor, leaving his often confused subjects
with a parting handshake, a smile, and a skeptical shake of his head. At a
religious tourist site, he interviews a man playing the part of Jesus (and
fiddling with his cell phone) and asks, “When you go out for dinner, do
people recognize you?”
Will Bill
Maher’s movie spark discussions of the faith and traditions that most of
the citizenry regard as private territory? Probably. Let’s hope we can
lace our own conversations with the same irony and humor that run through
his movie. In “Religulous” Part II, Maher may possibly stumble on the vast
difference between the literal interpretation of myth and myth as a
symbolic guidepost.
HUNTING
VIDEOS
When
you stand clueless in the video store, try these.
They won’t insult your intelligence.
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To
Feed a Kooky Sense of Humor
Off
the Map
Black
Cat, White Cat
Big
Fish
The
Dish
Light
and Good
About
a Boy
Along
Came Polly
As
Good As it Gets
Being
Julia
Calendar
Girls
Enchanted
April
In
Good Company
Miss
Congeniality
My
Wife is an Actress
Real
Events
13
Days
Shattered
Glass
The
Whole Family
Billy
Elliot
De-Lovely
Gosford
Park
Hidalgo
Holes
Pirates
of the Carribbean
Rookie
Seabiscuit
Sweet
Home Alabama
The
Emperor’s Club
Tuck
Everlasting
Adventure
Master
and Commander
The
Bourne Conspiracy
The
Edge
The
Italian Job
Touching
the Void
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Action
Collateral
Day
After Tomorrow
Drama
About
Schmidt
Afterglow
Closer
Croupier
Don
Juan in Hell
Field
of Dreams
Frida
Garden
of the Finzi-Continis
Gloomy
Sunday
House
of Sand and Fog
Last
Orders
Legend
of Bagger Vance
Map
of the World
Million
Dollar Baby
Nowhere
in Africa
Possession
Rabbit
Proof Fence
Songcatcher
Storytelling
Swimming
pool
The
Deep End
The
Natural
The
Quiet American
The
Talented Mr. Ripley
Unfaithful
When
Brendan Met Trudy
Widow
of St. Pierre
Invasion
of the Barbarians
Documentary
Bowling
for Columbine
Fog
of War
My
Architect
Supersize
Me
The
Control Room
For
History Nuts
Blind
Spot
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