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Monday, January 7, 2013

Day 5


“I Do” is a timely condemnation of DOMA.  After his brother’s untimely death a young gay man looks after his sister-in-law and niece for some eight years.  He then learns his visa is expiring and will not be renewed.  It is suggested he marry his long time gal pal.  She agrees, they move in together and shortly thereafter he falls for a charming architect.  His gal pal gets cold feet, his architect lover returns to Spain to care for his ailing father and despair enfolds our hero.  It may seem that I am making light of it but this is a well-imagined vehicle for exposing how truly cruel DOMA is.


White Tiger is a ghost story, or is it an allegory?  As the Russian army heads for Berlin a mysterious white tank appears and disappears as it decimates the Russian tank corp.  Their only hope to stop this phantom is placed in the hands of a mystic tank mechanic who claims the tanks talk to him and the tank god has instructed him to destroy the White Tiger.   Yeah, I thought so, too.  It is beautifully filmed, well acted and would have been a fine film without the weirdness.


The latest incarnation of Great Expectations is as good a version as I’ve seen.  Everyone is great to look at, the costumes, locations and sets are lavishly seedy.  Helena Bonham Carter is suitably weird as Miss Havisham, Ralph Fiennes as Magwitch and Robbie Coltrane as Jagger are also fresh off the Harry Potter express as is the director, Mike Newell.   After 200 years Dickens can still tug the heartstrings.




Beyond the Walls started of promising to be and interesting exploration of fringe relationships with one of the most erotically charged “first kiss” reading I have seen.  But it soon degenerates into an over-wrought soap opera of bad decisions.


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