What’s Eating Gilbert Grape was a sleeper of a movie that highlighted some of today’s biggest stars. Johnny Depp plays the dedicated common little hero who sacrifices his life to care for his morbidly obese mother and mentally handicapped brother, played phenominally by a 19 year old Leonardo DiCaprio. John Reilly (Chicago, Boogie Nights, Walk Hard), Mary Steenburgen, and Juliette Lewis are all exceptional. (DiCaprio got best supporting actor for this role.)
Juliette Lewis also played a mentally handicapped young woman in The Other Sister, with Diane Keaton as her mom and Tom Skerrit as her dad.
Both are outstanding films that received little recognition at the time. They are dramatic and heartfelt. If you want a more obscure and mindless fare try Bubble Boy and Pootie Tang.
The Zohan played by Adam Sandler is the new Israeli steroetype. A good hearted super human killer with a soft spot and a big heart. He only wishes to schtupp the bubbelahs until until their pupik tingles.
Yet he only seeks peace and falls for a beautiful Palestinian hairdresser and unites with his terrorist adversary played by John Turturro (of course he is the brother of his love interest) to take down the waspy evil real estate developer. Waspy Whitey just can not break through the sterotype.
Some may cringe at the oversexed Israeli killer/ hairdresser, but hey this is a comedy. If you can not understand that then you should ferstundt the fagellahs and just plotz.
I loved it, but I question how many viewers would appreciate how well Sandler plays the stereotype.
Oy.
HKO
We went to see the new Indiana Jones movie, and for many reasons it just did not cut it. Evil Nazis were replaced by nasty Ruskies. Fantasy myths were replaced by alien visitors. And the amazing action and stunts were replaced the preposterous and unbelievable.
The experience was not helped by the two ladies who brought 2 and 3 year olds that would not shut up. Numerous movie goers complained and the ushers finally got them out with less than 5 minutes left in the film.
From now on I will insist on the cell phone of the manager and will call him from my seat when these selfish idiots insist on detroying the show for everyone in the theatre.
HKO
“Raising Arizona”, “Brother Oh Where Art There”, “Fargo,”, “Lady Killers,” and most recently “No Country for Old Men” are a few of the products of these movie geniuses. They combine fascinating stories, rich characters, a wide range of emotions and camera work that clearly leaves their trademark.
Kubrick mastered the movie camera like Picasso mastered canvas. Joel and Ethan have the same magic to make common scenes into masterpieces you could hang on the wall in a museum. “No Country” is just dark, “Fargo” is dark and violent with lighter overtones, the others are largely comedies.
Great stories, fascinating characters, are set in untypical settings: the rural west, the deep south, and the unmistakable accents of the Midwest in “Fargo”.
The Coen brothers have raised the cinematic arts to a new level.
