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2003-03-02 | 10:59 p.m.

corduroy licorice enjoyed taking part in idle chitchat. whenever he paused his car at a traffic light, he liked to make small talk with whoever was in the passenger seat.

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rated "g" for "gross":

i wonder if any movie review has ever used the term "cinema enema"? for example: "that film was so painfully bad, watching it was the equivalent of getting a cinema enema."

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movie review time again:

this weekend i saw a new danish film called open hearts by susanne bier that was shot in the naturalistic style of dogma 95. while i really admired the tortuous, but transforming breaking the waves and the emotionally breathtaking the celebration, that whole handheld camera, bad lighting, grainy image thing is starting to see a bit hackneyed. it didn't get in the way of enjoying the film. it just didn't make the film seem special.

the story is about a woman whose fiance is paralyzed in a car accident. he bitterly shuts her out while recovering in the hospital and, in her pain, she turns to a doctor for comfort in the form of an affair. the extra twist is that the doctor's wife is the one who caused the car accident. while the set-up is contrived, the script itself is real-to-life--so much so it started to feel like a filmmaker's primer on what happens when an affair disrupts a marriage and a family. i was never bored, but also never swept away. it was fine. a small story neatly told. that's all. oh, except for the actress who played the wife, paprika steen. i ask the governor to pardon the pun, but she definitely added spice to the film. her quietly devastated character was the best part. while watching, i realized that i recognized her from another great performance in the celebration.

this weekend i also caught up on a couple of movies i'd always meant to see. exotica by atom egoyan was an interesting petri dish-sized study on emotionally crippled people whose lives intersect in a surreal strip club.

more pleasing to me was wings of the dove, another one of helena bonham carter's period pieces (i refer to time period versus menstrual period, natch). the acting was terrific and the costumes and cinematography were gorgeous. it presented a nicely tangled love triangle with a satisfyingly tragic ending. imagine if jane austen had been a nihilist and you've got the gist.

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take a peek at these - (c) 2000-2003 nictate:

health tip
2005-03-16

health tip
2005-03-16

moving house
2004-11-19

quibbling with quitherfeather
2004-11-17

catcher in the wry
2004-11-16