Sinanation

This is where I become a fan of Claire Danes. The movie portrays the life of Temple Grandin, an autistic woman who breaks all the barriers to become one of the most well-known scientists in humane livestock handling. Danes does an exceptional job in playing Grandin and Juliette Binoche puts it all out as the mother, completing the ingenious acting apparent in this movie.

Watch it to learn about the extraordinary life of a unique woman. Watch it to learn that autism should not be viewed as a weakness, but an extremely fast and sensitive way of thinking that can be bended to unlock the genius hidden inside. Watch it to see the movie where Claire Danes finally breaks out of her shell to become a truly gifted actress.

I took my seat behind the white screen with great excitement and expectations. What else can you do when you are getting ready to watch a movie with Anthony Hopkins and Benicio del Toro? With a great cast and an intriguing mythical story, Wolfman was everything I wanted it to be  (or so I thought).

I remember a few jumps when the creature made its first few appearances around the village and chopped a few victims. Yet as the movie progressed, the story became so obvious that I no longer had any excitement. Great expectations also ended in disappointment, seeing that Hopkins had no more than a few minutes of dialogue to portray his ingenious acting.

If you can’t resist to see Wolfman (like me), I recommend that you wait for the DVD or On Demand. Then you can at least focus on other stuff while finishing up the movie (especially if disappointment knocks on your door halfway through it).

Honestly I went to A View From the Bridge to see Scarlett Johansson in the flesh. Thanks to an incredible cast and a most demanding script, it turned to be beyond my expectations.

With not much sleep from the previous night, I took my seat in the second row with a little discomfort and doubt. After a cup of dark Turkish coffee, I was determined not the blink en eye. The play was supposed to be a drama about Italian immigrants who move to Brooklyn in the 1950s with the prospect of a better life. Within the little time left for the 1st act, I grabbed onto my BlackBerry to read a little more about the story. A View from the Bridge is a family tragedy based on forbidden unrequited love.

Eddie Carbone, a longshoreman in the mid-1950s, lives near the Brooklyn waterfront with his wife, Beatrice, and her orphaned niece, 17-year-old Catherine. Eddie dotes on Catherine, and his obsession becomes more pronounced after Beatrice’s nephews, Marco and Rodolpho, arrive from Italy and move in with the Carbones. The threat of expulsion from the country for being illegal immigrants weighs on the two newcomers, and a jealous Eddie becomes fixated on his belief that Rodolpho is wooing Catherine only because marrying her would result in a green card. Meanwhile, the sheltered Catherine falls in love with charming Rodolpho. Eddie’s passionate jealousy propels the play toward a series of tragic confrontations.

It is not conventional to go a show with low expectations and leave it mesmerized. It was the case with A View from the Bridge. Liev Schreiber puts it all out as Eddie Carbone. Together with Scarlett Johansson they portray the confusion and the heavy guilt between a 17-year old girl who sees the husband of her aunt as a father and the husband who is perplexed with his feelings beyond parenting towards the girl who was brought up in his hands. The impeccable performance of Johansson and Schreiber can not be perfected without the help of Jessica Hecht who plays Beatrice.

As the wife who is perfectly aware of her husband’s forbidden love, as the aunt who is trying to look after her naive niece and as a woman who fights the urge of being jealous, she is torn apart. From her toning to her mimics, Hecth can not portray a better Beatrice. The way her chest drains air every time she opens up to Catherine or Eddie is not something that can go unnoticed. There is another character that deserves credit in the story. There are instances when Corey Stoll, as Marco, a father and a brother whose sole purpose is to take care of his family, mesmerizes the audience with his reaction to injustice.

The scene where he asks Eddic “Can you lift this chair?” with the protective urge of an older brother and the desperation of a bashful illegal immigrant makes the audience admire his strength, but feel sorry for his fatality. With his left arm firmly tight, Marco lifts the chair Eddie couldn’t, certifying his superiority and warning for respect.

A View from the Bridge will be on Broadway until April 2010.

Seeing Broadway shows become the most favorite activity whenever my aunt is in town. Musicals are the only preference. No exceptions can be made for dramas, even if they include famous Hollywood actors or actresses in the cast. A Little Night Music would have been no exception if it wasn’t a musical. On top of all, the appearance of Catherine Zeta-Jones was the best excuse not to miss it.

Set at the turn of the last century, A Little Night Music interweaves a tangled web of former and current lovers among the upper crust elite of Sweden. Esteemed lawyer Fredrik Egerman has recently married a young virgin, Anne, whom his son, Henrik, has also fallen madly in love. Fredrik’s dedication to his blushing bride is tested when he reunites with a former flame, the famed (and fading) actress Desiree Armfeldt. Things grow more complicated when her jealous (and married) lover Count Carl-Magnus Malcolm gets wind of the reunion. The coupling and uncoupling comes to a head when Desirée convinces her mother to host Fredrik and his family for a weekend on her lavish country estate—and the Count, with wife in tow, crashes the party.

Despite an extremely predictable storyline, I enjoyed watching A Little Night Music because of the incredible performance by Angela Lansbury (as Madame Armfeldt) and Catherine Zeta-Jones (as Desiree Armfeldt).

It was actually a big surprise to see Angela Lansbury, whom I have always enjoyed watching on the T.V. series “Murder, She Wrote”, pop out on the stage during the first act. I wasn’t familiar with her name, but recognized the face right away. The way she portrays Madame Armfeldt, an aristocratic Swede in the midst of extinction, is impeccable. Lansbury’s British accent should be treated as a national treasure. Catherine Zeta-Jones, as the wild, frisky daughter of Madame Armfeldt, also portrays a great performance. It seems she has found the perfect character for herself on stage with her fiery moves and passionate looks.

Like all the other musicals, A Little Night Music has a little too many songs and dances. The first act, which takes a little less than 1.5 hours, can be easily shortened to an hour. For example, the song about the journey to the countryside is unnecessarily long. There is also the fact that some scenes are too heavy to be decorated with singing and dancing. Such a scene is a death the audience witnesses towards the end of the musical.

A Little Night Music at the Walter Kerr Theatre (48th between 7th and 8th Ave.)

Amazing effects bundled with unbelievable imagination. I admit that it is a must see. Yet somehow towards the middle of the movie I kept asking myself  “Isn’t this almost Pocahontas shot in the future in space?” If only Jake Sully lived in the ancient times. He would certainly dig the exotic daughter of the Indian chief.

I have been questioned numerous times for having Meet Joe Black as my favorite movie. For those who have missed it, the story is based on Death disguised as Joe Black paying a visit to one of the wealthiest and powerful businessman in New York before it takes him away.  Death chooses William Parrish as his guide for his success, excellence, authority and strong principles in life. As it learns about the ways of human life, the audience delves into the exquisite life of a man who has achieved everything.

Many critics came out with the slogan that “death takes a long time to take care of business”. Although true, I look at the argument from another point of view and that seems to be the origin of my favoritism.  Unlike many, I do not take Death/Joe Black as the main character in this movie. I see him as the means to opening up the world of William Parrish. So instead of Joe Black, I watch the movie to meet William Parrish, a man of power and dignity portrayed exquisitely by Anthony Hopkins. From his penthouse in Manhattan to his vacation mansion in Poughkeepsie. From the pieces of artwork naturally displayed on the walls of his residences to the way he handles every conflict such as the speech on love and relationships to his daughter, Susan:

Not an ounce of excitement, not a whisper of a thrill, this relationship has all the passion of a pair of titmice…I want you to get swept away.  I want you to levitate.  I want you to sing with rapture and dance like a dervish…Be deliriously happy…Run the risk, if you get hurt, you’ll come back.  Because, the truth is there is no sense living your life without this. To make the journey and not fall deeply in love — well, you haven’t lived a life at all. You have to try. Because if you haven’t tried, you haven’t lived.

Parrish’s choices in every aspect of life reveals the traits of a man I would want to become in the future (most probably blended with my father’s principles). And maybe then I can make the genuine speech he makes at his 65th birthday party to a crowd that silently listens to whatever he has to say. As he puts it so intelligently:

What a glorious night, every face I see is a memory.  It may not be a perfectly perfect memory. Sometimes we had our ups and downs but we’re all together, and you’re mine for a night. And I’m going to break precedent, and tell you my one-candle wish that you would have a life as lucky as mine, where you can wake up one morning and say “I don’t want anything more.” Sixty-five years – don’t they go by in a blink?

Frequent readers would know by now how childhish I can get when it comes to movies. So, it wouldn’t be suprising when I say that my favorite Halloween movie is still Hocus Pocus. Shot in 1993 with Bette Middler and Sarah Jessica Parker, the movie revolves around a boy and his younger sister who move into the small, boring town of Salem from Los Angeles. The boy’s attempts to warm up to the new surroundings are disturbed by the Halloween festivities and his introduction to the Sanderson sisters, the famous ancient witches of Salem. The history of Salem, its importance in Halloween and the terrifying (and sometimes hillarious) events that follow will be enough for the new kid to warm up to the childish requests of his sister and embrace what he hated in the first place. Despite the fact that Bette Middler performs so well as the eldest Sanderson sister, I believe the movie does a fantastic job in portraying the spirit of Halloween from trick or treating to spirits and great costumes. It is especially great for children who have never celebrated or heard of Halloween before.

Buy the DVD of Hocus Pocus on Amazon

I wouldn’t say I am a huge Turkish movie fan, but there are some movies I just love to watch. “Asik Oldum” with the famous Turkish actor Sener Sen is one of those. The movie is based on a successful, happily married advertising manager falling madly in love with one of the models hired for his shampoo commercial. His desperate attempts to meet the woman of his dreams are continually disrupted by another colleague from office and the love triangle turns into a hilarious hide & seek game. Shot in 1985 and adapted from the famous, presumably equally funny American movie “The Woman in Red”, Asik Oldum lacks many of the advancements we are used to seeing in movies today, but the brilliance of the plot and the talent of Sener Sen makes all of those disappear. Totally recommended for the Turks who are in need of laughing.

Broke the fear of going to overcrowded NYC theatres and Saw District 9 this week. It was certainly different than any other sci-fi movie I have seen. The movie starts as a documentary, showing the interviews of a bunch of people about their reactions to something the audience has not yet been introduced to. It then transforms into a movie with a lot of action and “what next”. The question is clear “what if there are aliens and what if they turn out to be what we have never expected?”

Until now we have always imagined creatures beyond this world to be superior to humankind. Better vision, bigger brains, stronger 6th senses, healthier bodies, better standards… We have been expecting them as the teachers to a world of wonders beyond our imagination. District 9 breaks the precedent.

From the start it is the aliens that are vulnerable. They are forced to do an emergency land on Earth because their ship is damaged and they are desperatly in need for help. The awe and respect the people of Johannesbourg have towards these prune-like creatures who arrive in a massive ship from space is lost once they find out the bad, unhealthy conditions (at least for humans) they live in. Their ugly appearance  and appetite to eat anything (even out of the garbage) surpasses the value of their intelligence to humans. The clash of two kinds and the desperate attempts of the minorities for survival is revealed. From that point everything is doomed to get worse until one transforms into the other kind and sees the world from a completely different point of view.

Similar to cartoons I have always enjoyed good horror and thriller movies. With dimmed lights and total focus they isolate you from anything else but their mysterious plots. I have to admit that the sound effects really get to me. So 80% of the time I will have my ears plugged against the maxed out volume.  With a special request from Miss Deniz Aksoy who has unwillingly endured and accompanied me through long horror movie nights, I make my list of the best thriller/horror movies out there.

1. The Strangers (2008)
2. The Ring (2002)
3. Sixth Sense (1999)
4. Gothika (2003)
5. Paranormal Activity (2009)
6. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
7. The Descent (2005)
8. Quarantine (2008)
9. What Lies Beneath (2000)
10. The Fourth Kind (2009)
11. El Orfanato (The Orphanage) (2007)
12. The Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005)
13. The Blair Witch Project (1999)

And I expect these movies to be in the list soon:

• Shutter Island (2009)
• The Poughkeepsie Tapes (2007)

Buy The Strangers DVD on Amazon