The Netflix package my children gave me for Christmas (Thanks Kids!) allows me to cruise through hundreds of movies and documentaries and choose something to watch when there’s nothing good on cable or the networks. Which happens oftener and oftener.

So, last night I chose Room With a View, an English movie adapted from a 1908 novel by E. M. Forster.  Mr. Forster used much irony in his stories about the hypocrisy involved in the class conscious culture of the day.

The movie, made in 1985, stars a young and beautiful Helena Bonham Carter as Lucy Honeychurch and Julian Sands as George Emerson. Daniel Day Lewis gives an excellent performance as the prim and proper Cecil Vyse.  They were ably supported by Maggie Smith and Judi Dench in character roles. The rave review on imdb.com says this film captures the spirit of the book.  All of us who have been disappointed when a favorite book is made into a lousy movie, can understand the satisfaction when the movie actually does indeed capture the spirit of the book.

Room With a View is a love story about a young girl (Lucy) who must decide between two suitors, exuberant, passionate George or steady, predictable Cecil. Should she go with convention or take a chance on love? The limitations and expectations placed on young ladies during the Edwardian Era play a big part in her decision making.

The background music is spectacular — arias by Puccini and selections by Victor Herbert adding to the drama.

I do have to mention one particular scene that surprised me. The vicar comes upon two young men, waist high in water, bathing. They invite him to join them and he promptly drops trou and steps out from behind the bush completely naked. He jumps in the water and he and the young men engage in splashing and horse play, chasing each other in and out of the pool for a few minutes, before the story line moves on.

Today, when I checked the Parents Guide for this movie the concern listed was: “Full frontal nudity in a non-sexual way.”  True.  The rest of the movie everyone stayed fully clothed, skirts down to the floor and collars up to their chins.

I never figured out the point of this scene, which would lift right out of the film without changing the plot a bit.  Unless it was to shock the daylights out of this grandma!

Room With a View is worth your while and I would recommend it. Just keep your finger on the fast forward button.

When a movie is nominated for an award, it’s rarely a film I have seen. Most of my movie viewing is done on basic cable or through Netflix.  Which means, the movies must be at least old enough to be released on dvd.   But this week, only days after it won Golden Globe Award, I saw Midnight in Paris.

This movie stars Owen Wilson and Rachel McAdams, two of my favorites, and features Kathy Bates, another favorite, in a smaller role.  Wilson was nominated Best Actor, and Woody Allen scored two nominations, for directing and for writing the screenplay.  The musical score is beautiful, good enough for an award nomination, except awards are given only for original scores.  This sound track contains a lot of Cole Porter and other songs from the early Twentieth Century.

Midnight in Paris is different from most Woody Allen movies in that, while it is quirky, as his films usually are, it is rated (only) PG-13 — for sexual innuendos and smoking.   No F-bombs or nudity in this cinema.

On a visit to Paris with his fiance’s family, Gil Fender (Owen Wilson) falls in love with the city. He has become an aspiring novelist after achieving success as a Hollywood screenwriter and he senses Paris is the perfect place to write. While walking the streets one midnight, he steps back into the Paris of the Roaring Twenties.  Great writers and painters together, partying, drinking and living their Bohemian lives. Meeting and talking to the literary geniuses of this era changes Gil’s writing and his life.  Who wouldn’t want to flesh out their ideas with Ernest Hemingway, or have Gertrude Stein critique their work? In the end Gil comes to realize that today’s reality can be as exciting and rewarding as the past. It’s up to us to make it that way.

Because Woody Allen is Woody Allen, some of the 1920-era characters are humorously over the top, written rather tongue in cheek. Hemingway talks like he wrote, all about heroism, bravery, war, and deep, true feelings (for women in particular).  The slightly mad personalities of Picasso and Dali are fodder for Allen’s pen.

Woody Allen won the Golden Globe Award for writing the screenplay.  The Golden Globes are given by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.

This is really a delightful movie that I recommend.

I don’t really ‘do’ the para-normal genre, but I thought that on the weekend when we all did a bit of time travelling (and gained an hour) the review of this movie would be appropriate.

Since this film was released in 2009 I have heard many mixed reviews ranging from ‘a beautiful love story’ (a fellow writer), to ‘I can’t believe I wasted a date night on this,’ (a co-worker mom of three).  I just had to put it in my Netflix queue and spend a Sunday night watching it to see for myself.

The title of course tells you a lot. Henry, played by Eric Bana, is a Chicago librarian who has a gene that causes him to travel back or forward in time. He can’t control his exits and entrances, but seems to have a little aura before he takes off.  (He also must have a job that allows him to drop out of sight for unknown periods of time.  We might suggest a large electronics store where the employees do the same sort of disappearing act.)

One day in the library Henry meets Clare, played by Rachel McAdams (from The Notebook).  She knows him already because she met him when she was a child and he an old man. But he doesn’t remember meeting her because he hasn’t done it yet.  Are you keeping up with this?

She knows about his life and loves him anyway. They marry and she tries to adjust to his unusual comings and goings.  His travels are rather dangerous because, having no control, he may land in a public place totally nude.  Clothes don’t travel through time — a false premise we have been led to believe from watching the Back to the Future series.

Okay, it’s not a bad movie if you are good at suspending disbelief.  This screenplay was taken from the 2004 best seller written by Audrey Niffenegger.   She is a visual artist and writer who lives in Chicago. Find out more about her work at audreyniffenegger.com.

On Labor Day Weekend, probably in recognition of the beginning of a new school year, Fox Movie Channel showed one of my favorite movies, Good Morning, Miss Dove, starring Jennifer Jones. This is the story of a prim and proper geography teacher in a small town, who is suddenly hospitalized with a serious condition. While awaiting surgery, she thinks back over her life and how she came to be a teacher. (The only thing she was qualified for when her father’s death left her in debt and without an income.) The positive influence she had on not just her students but on the entire community is shown in flashbacks of this poignant story about a dedicated teacher. Her former students are played by Robert Stack, Chuck Conners, Jerry Paris and others.

The book, written by Frances Gray Patton, was published in 1954.  I read it about that time in an issue of Readers Digest Condensed Books. Ms. Patton was a short story writer whose work appeared in New Yorker, Colliers, Harpers, McCalls –– all the popular magazines that regularly included short stories in their issues.  Good Morning, Miss Dove was an extension of a short story that first appeared in The Ladies Home Journal. Though Ms. Patton was a successful short story writer, Miss Dove was her only successful book.  She died in 2000 at the age of 94.

I rented The Lightkeepers from NetFlix for three reasons, the first two being Richard Dreyfuss and Blythe Danner.  RD has been a favorite actor of mine since Ed and I saw Goodbye Girl on our first date. (I reviewed Mr. Holland’s Opus on November 15.) I haven’t seen Blythe Danner in many movies, much of her work has been on the stage, but she’s Gwen Paltrow’s mother and I just like the idea of Blythe Danner.  The third reason I chose this movie is that it was one of the recommended ‘Movies for Grownups’ for 2010.

The Lightkeepers was shot on Cape Cod  and was one of those independent movies that spent very little time in the theater and went very quickly to DVD.  It’s a sweet story about Seth, (Dreyfuss) a lighthouse keeper, self-avowed woman hater, who suddenly has to deal with two women who come to spend the summer on the Cape.  The older woman (Danner) turns out to be someone from Seth’s past and he’s forced to face the truth that he’s not as much a woman hater as he pretends to be. There’s a sub-plot about the romance between Seth’s assistant (Tom Wisdom) and the younger of the two women (Mamie Gummer).

After I view a movie I usually watch the extra features on the DVD. I find stories of how the movie was made interesting. In Mr. Dreyfuss’ interview, he said this movie illustrated what America used to be and anyone who watched it should be scared to death to realize the path our nation is on.

What?

I thought it was about love. And maybe loyalty to duty – keep the light lit. I wondered if I had watched the wrong movie – if maybe I should watch it again.  Instead I googled Richard Dreyfuss to see if I could understand where he was coming from.  It seems that in recent years he has been outspoken on ‘what he considers potential erosion of individual rights.’ (Wikipedia)

I won’t speak to that issue because — well, look at the title of this blog: My point of view and limited at that. I will say I didn’t get the connection between the political issue of individual rights and this pleasantly enjoyable movie — but I could have missed some symbolism.  Whatever. Richard Dreyfuss is still a great actor and I’m glad he finds rewards in his work.

My most recent rental from Netflix was Bobby, a really excellent movie from 2006 about the last day of Bobby Kennedy’s life. RFK is shown mostly through TV news clips, speeches and photo ops. The story line is about 22 (fictional) strangers at the Ambassador Hotel and how their lives interact. The date is June 6, 1968, the day of the important California primary.  Each of the characters, for different reasons, will be in attendance at the party when (hopefully) Bobby Kennedy will be declared the winner. The climax comes in the kitchen of the hotel when Kennedy is shot and several bystanders injured.

Emilio Estevez, who wrote, directed and co-starred in this picture, assembled a cast of great actors to fill the small but important roles: Martin Sheen, Helen Hunt, Anthony Hopkins, Elijah Wood, Lindsey Lohan, William H. Macy, Harry Belafonte and more.

I watched the movie twice, the second time with my 21 year old son. At the end he said, “They were talking about air pollution from gasoline back in 1968? (actually I think he said ‘way back then.’) They haven’t done much about it have they?”

Between my first viewing of this movie and the second, a congresswoman was shot in Tuscon and several bystanders killed or injured.  And the Little Rock newspaper reported (on page 6, section B) the death of an Arkansas soldier in Afghanistan. No longer front page news.

I think more than socialized medicine, global warming or birds falling out of the sky, I fear hatred. Don’t tell me it’s rhetoric when people are dying.

As The Searchers once said/sang, “When will we ever learn?”