Reviews

This is an excellent documentary about female athletes. It covers the trials aspiring tennis stars face, examining their backgrounds, hopes and dreams. The movie follows one tennis player in particular, showcasing her years of hard work, successes, challenges and failures. She provides a candid look at the physical, mental and emotional endurance required to be a tennis pro. The movie also intersperses footage and anecdotes of the big stars, such as Anna Kournikova, Martina Hingis, Serena and Venus Williams. The strength of the movie is that it does not capitalize on exposing the backgrounds and lives of female athletes in any demeaning way. Instead it thoughtfully examines the issues of being a female athlete, bringing in the question of how the sex appeal of the top stars are played on.

I was expecting something thought-provoking and insightful and instead spent an hour and a half watching a boring and pointless film. Don't bother. I can't name one redeeming thing about this film, which is unusual for me since I can usually find at least one positive thing to say even for movies that don't interest me.

I was surprised to read the other IMDb comments lauding Laura Dern's performance. I disliked her character and disliked her depiction of that person even more. I couldn't empathize with her high strung overwrought character and didn't care. From the first scene on, I was completely turned off by the character (and the angst-ridden acting job) and that made it hard to care about the unfolding story.

The Land Has Eyes is a unique film, depicting the people and culture of a small island that is otherwise invisible to most of the world. The movie beautifully captures the nuances and rhythms of life on a Pacific island, showing the depth of village culture today. It weaves in the realities of modern-day life (children getting western education, etc) with an age-old conflict that could have happened in a village five hundred years ago.

The writer and director, who is from Rotuma weaves in powerful themes to a simple story, such as that of female power and enduring justice, using elements from mythology. Most of the actors and actresses in the film are amateurs and they do a wonderful job of acting this first movie.

I'd highly recommend this film for a glimpse into Rotuma's people and culture.

Bollywood Queen does a clever job of taking the genre of the typical mass-produced Indian film and weaving in a contemporary theme. The satire on the "Bollywood" movie is what makes this movie. If you haven't seen a Bollywood movie, expect to be a little baffled at the random song sequences and somewhat ludicrously simple themes (boy-meets-girl, forbidden love) . If you are familiar with Bollywood movies, you'll appreciate the caricatures that are played out.

The thing that makes this movie especially clever is that beyond the caricatures, there's humor and irony. For instance, the song sequences are obvious satires, but instead of the schlocky lyrics of a real Bollywood flicks, these satirical songs have hilarious lyrics.