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Reviews
Waking Ned (1998)
Funny. Calm. Funny.
Smart? Maybe. Deep? Don't count on it. Well-directed? The scenery's nice and only Fellini has so many memorable faces in his films. (Well, maybe the Coen brothers too.) Enjoyable? I liked it. Funny? Funny. Definitely funny. Especially when divine intervention sends an old person flying off a cliff. A great movie to see with your more venerable loved ones.
Rôjin Z (1991)
Liked it despite its warts.
Roujien Z starts out being a wonderfully vicious satire of society's treatment of the aged. We see a young nurse taking care of an almost vegetative geriatric, one of the many old and infirm that would be in a nursing home in the USA. He is then selected to be the guinea-pig for a new, completely automated caretaking robot, a sly jab at the dehumanizing sterility of geriatric care. The story maintains its high energy and grinning cynicism until the robot goes insane and decides it is the old man's wife; from here it becomes a rather confusing action movie before pulling itself together in time for a poignant ending. Still worth watching, if you can find it.
Labyrinth (1986)
look past the fantasy and see the metaphor
When you watch this movie, try to look past the staging, the direction, the art and the effects. Look beyond the trappings of a pretty fantasy and what you will find is a deeply symbolic story about growing up, about the way we perceive reality and the way we ascribe to evil things that are really faults within ourselves. Visually, the movie is rich, and children will love the classic adventure story of a young girl and a goblin king; but when I think back on the movie, instead of seeing the goblin-king, I see a beautifully subtle symbol for the childish weaknesses we all outgrow. When you watch this movie, watch carefully. It's much deeper than it seems.