Change Your Image
linda_ball
Reviews
Jayne Mansfield's Car (2012)
Fifty Years, Three Wars, Two Continents....
...through a handful of characters over a period of a few days.
Nails our uneasy relationship with life and death and war and heroics and cowardice and what history has to bludgeon us with. I particularly liked the ending because it punctuated the tale with a moment that really summed up Viet Nam and 1969 for me. (That's only a bit of a spoiler....)
Characters are brilliantly drawn and the movie is dark to the point that a power outage is created to emphasize it. But there's a ray of light there where people see beyond their noses and into others' hearts and across oceans.
Severance (2005)
Disaffected dot com guy tries to live out his dream on severance pay
Shot in B&W and containing a homage to Bogart, it is kind of like "Slacker" with a bit of plot and updated to 2005. Contains some funny moments and sends up corporations and some of their denizens pretty effectively. My rating was kicked up by the amusement value of tracking some of the locations used around Austin. Hence my "Slacker" reference. Some of the "Slacker" locations are no more or much changed. This gives Austin lovers a new venue game. Interestingly enough, it showed at the Austin Film Festival but not at that fest's most funky Austin venue (The Hideout). That's interesting because The Hideout is the star location of the film. Here are a couple of other places that you will see besides the usual office buildings and the Capitol: Austin Club exterior, SoCo exterior (Lucy in Disguise), the strip center where Room Service is located (is that Room Service where he finds the dinner jacket?).
All That Glitters (1977)
Was this shown on a Major Network?
I seem to remember it being on one of the (few) independent channels of the era. The other comment here talks about 'network.' That's all I really wanted to ask, but it wants me to write ten lines. Since I wrote the summary here I often get e-mail about this show and my only knowledge comes from having watched it when it aired. I did get to ask Norman Lear about it when he spoke here once. At the time I tried to post a comment quoting his response, but I think that the powers-to-be probably didn't want to have me asserting what Norman said.
If you write to me about this show, bear in mind that I just got to watch it when it aired and I am just relying on those memories.
Real Women Have Curves (2002)
Movie without violence still pleases and engages
They managed to touch on all sorts of cultural issues and condoms and menopause while using racial stereotyping to full advantage. I don't mean that in a bad way. They showed the hard-working, conflicted families with strong ties to their culture that are behind the music, the colorful murals, the language, the jobs as landscape workers and seamtresses. And there was never a gun pointed. There was no egregious nudity. You just felt like you were a fly on St. Antonio's nose, observing an ordinary family. I worry that a movie can't seem to move along without the plot stimulus of violence. This one proves that the real life most of us see is rich enough with story.