Laina with February Movies
Related Categories: Movies
Last year saw several really wonderful Science Fiction movies about space, Aliens and Passengers. Both were imaginative, beautiful, and essentially optimistic. Although there has been a hiatus in this country?s adventurous space travel, we are still getting ready for what will undoubtedly be a flight to Mars in the future. Like the European venture into the discovery of the New World in the 16th century, our next great exploration will be space.
Laina with April Movies
Laina At the Movies
This important movie focuses on the dilemma of fighting a kind of war never faced before. In the past, countries (recognized nation-states) fought wars with each other, culminating in World War II, in which two opposing groups (Allies: Britain, America, and Russia vs Axis: Germany, Italy, and Japan), fought to an unconditional surrender of the Axis. This war was so catastrophic that more...
Joel and Ethan Coen never fail to produce, write, and direct original and very entertaining movies. My first exposure to their work was the film Fargo, which is always a delight to re-watch. You betcha! Where else can you find a pregnant police chief whose much adored husband designs postage stamp art, or a murderer who is just an ordinary, stupid man who is over his head in debt (and failure). Who else would have made Moonrise Kingdom, a summer camp film in which t more...
Publication Date : December 31, 2015
Related Categories: Movies, Op Ed
It is amazing that a bio-pic about a screen writer persecuted by the communist witch-hunting UnAmerican Activities Committee in the 1940s to 1950s could be both informative and entertaining. This film was both, and funny in a wry way to boot.
Dalton Trumbo, played wonderfully by Bryan Cranston, was one of the best of Hollywood?s screenwriters was blacklisted along with ten others in 1947 when they refused to name names more...
Laina with July Movies
If there was ever a monarch who detested chaos, it was King Louis XIV! He controlled everything, fearing anarchy so much that even nature had to be under his control. Louis, ruled France with an iron hand between 1638 and 1715.
In this story, Sabine, a talented landscape designer wins a competition to help design and build a water-garden ballroom at Versailles, under the guidance of the royal court's famous garden master, Le Notre. What makes more...
Laina with August Movies
Another foodie movie has cheered us all, in sheer contrast with the catastrophe films that mark every summer. Perhaps life is not coming to an end after all.
Oprah Winfrey and Steven Speilberg cooked this one up for us, and it was delicious. The story takes place in a French town near the Swiss border, breathtakingly beautiful. A restaurant rated wi more...
Movie Reviews for February 2012: The Separation
Related Categories: Iran, Movies
This Iranian film received an Oscar this year, and quite rightly. I have been watching Persian cinema for years now, and wonder at how these excellent film makers get around the religious government censors. In this particular movie, the only indication of deference to the censors was that all the female characters wore head scarves (upper class) or chadors (lower class) indoors. I have heard that the moment that women step indoors, they pull off the hated more...
Laina with October Movies
This film is based on a book about the Oakland A's general manager, Billy Beane, who put together a baseball club on a budget by employing computer-generated analysis to draft his players. You might think that this is a film about baseball, but it is much more than that; it is even more about "gaming," doing the unexpected with numbers that nobody had used before that. (Perhaps more...
Laina with September Movies
Publication Date : October 03, 2011
This lovely documentary was absolutely engrossing, and left me thinking about its message long after leaving the theater. I am not a pet owner (never had a dog, cat, or horse), but I have always marveled at the variety and special character of these domesticated animals. I love watching how cats walk, and how dogs try to put up with the behavior of their owners (including the brutes among them). As for horses, I was in love with them as was every other 10-year-old girl.
Laina with May 2011 Movies
Water for Elephants.
In this entertaining movie, we are taken back to 1931 when a young man, Jacob Jankowski (Robert Pattinson), about to graduate from Cornell with his veterinary degree, has a major reversal. His parents die in a car crash and he winds up without money and no way to finish his studies.
He hops a freight train and is taken in by a group of hoboes who are roustabouts for a circus. He begins shoveling muck out of the animal cages—but event more...
Laina with April 2011 movies
Of Gods and Men.
This was a difficult movie to watch because it was a contemplation—a contemplation of French monks living in an Algerian mountain village who must contemplate their inevitable murder. This film was based on the true story of a small group of monks who remained in Algeria, despite warnings to leave, because they believed that this was their duty to the poor villagers who depended on them, and their duty to God.
We meet this band of brothers—many more...