Change Your Image
ryanskog
Reviews
A Majority of One (1961)
I Couldn't Believe It
This movie was showing on television while I was reading a book. All of a sudden I heard the voice of the great Alec Guinness. I looked up, and it was indeed him on the screen. Since I was only half paying attention, it took a few more moments before I realized that Alec Guinness was playing a Japanese man, complete with makeup to make his eyes look slanted. Not only did I not believe for a second that this man was Japanese, this was one of the most offensive images I have ever seen. To me, this is just as bad as putting an actor in blackface to portray an African American. Guinness may be a master actor, but whoever cast him for this film was woefully misguided. Of course, next to the ridiculous Jewish stereotypes and bad performances from the other stars, this might not have seemed like a bad idea at the time. In 2001, it comes across as shockingly racist.
The Virgin Suicides (1999)
A unique and poetic film
I just saw this film in a test screening and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It's really a film unlike any I'd seen before because it is about memories. Not even individual memories, but a sort of collective recollection of the lives of five girls as seen through the eyes of the neighborhood boys. The movie is deliberately vague and stylistic, and it left me with the impression that I was not watching events as they occurred, but as they were remembered. This is not a film about causes or resolutions, but about the feelings and impressions we take with us as we grow. Although I was of the minority opinion in the theater, I thought this was a very good film.