Love and Cinema
My Memorable Movies
Mary from Beijing, directed by Sylvia Chang is a project from Hong Kong. Mary, a woman from China (Gong Li) stays in a miserable relationship while she waits for her work permit in Hong Kong.
Barfi, directed by Anurag Basu, is a Bollywood film starring Priyanka Chopra and Ranbir Kapoor. It is about love between a man who uses sign language because he is deaf and a woman with limited mental capacity. It had sub-titles when we saw it in theatres.
The Devil Wears Prada, directed by David Frankel is based on Lauren Weisberger’s book, with the same title. I love all the beautiful clothes and shoes, and actor Stanley Tucci, who never disappoints.
Lee Daniels’ The Butler directed by Lee Daniels is a painful film about the rift between father and son. It demonstrates how kids sometimes do not understand their parents’ strategy for social and political justice.
http://nonqaba-cinemamytake.blogspot.ca/2015/02/valentines-day-say-love-in-zulu.html
Annie 2014 Movie
Annie, the 2014 movie about an orphan girl rescued by a wealthy businessman, is an adaptation of Annie, the 1982 movie starring Carol Burnett as Miss Hannigan and Albert Finney as Oliver Warbucks.
It is produced by Jada Pinkett Smith, Will Smith, Jay-Z (Shawn Carter), Caleeb Pinkett and James Lassiter.
Annie is directed by Will Gluck and has Quvenzhane Wallis as Annie and Jamie Foxx as her rescuer from Miss Hannigan (Cameron Diaz), the woman who runs her orphanage like prison.
I will see this new movie for the following reasons:
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My name is Nonqaba and most Canadians and Americans cannot say it. Guess what? I cannot pronounce Quvenzhane, the little girl that plays Annie.
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I want to see that Hannigan character again. Carol Burnett played it so well in the 1982 Annie, the devil blushed. Can you imagine getting drunk on bath water?
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I want to check out the cars because I am very much into anything with a stick shift, clutch and a Power Grade torque to make mountain driving exhilarating. Besides, speed cops seldom hide on top of hills to nab me. I can never forget the line in the 1982 movie where Punjab said: She took the Dusenberg. Do they still make that car?
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I do not let anything with Jamie Foxx pass me by. He was absolutely suave and cunning in Dream Girls, I want to see his kind self in the 2014 Annie.
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Annie is a musical. Most movies used to be musicals. I don’t know why Hollywood stopped them. Production costs maybe. Bollywood kept musicals and I suppose they said why fix it if it is not broken.
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Geoffrey Holder played Punjab in the 1982 film. I think producers decided against such a name for the 2014 film. There was very little understanding about India then, its people, religions and pride. I think Adewale Akinnuoye Agbaje, the British actor of Nigerian parentage will play the Geoffrey Holder character which has been changed to Nash.
Secrets and Lies Synopsis
Secrets and Lies, a British movie directed by Mike Leigh is worth your time because it defies what relationship experts on Oprah and online preach regularly which is: confront the truth, forgive and forget and move on with your life.
Hortense Cumberbatch (Marianne Jean-Baptiste) is a successful optometrist in England. Her adoptive parents gave her everything they gave their own children.
After her parents’ death, Hortense overhears her brothers and sisters fighting over the family home, which usually happens when parents do not prepare a will. That is when she decides to search for her birth parents.
Hortense is a black British woman. The mother (Brenda Blethyn) she finds with the help of a social worker is a working class white woman. Hortense cannot believe it but when she interrogates the social worker, she reassures her that adoption papers cannot lie.
Blethyn’s character, Cynthia Rose Purley initially rejects the notion that she could be Hortense’s mother, but a light bulb finally shines in her brain. She does remember that she was impregnated by a black man and she gave away the child.
Cynthia and Hortense’s life are as different as night and day, but they try and make the relationship work. Cynthia Rose Purley has a working class accent. Roxanne Purley (Claire Rushbrook), her other daughter is a street cleaner and mercilessly abuses her mother.
The climax of the film is a family dinner where Cynthia tells Roxanne that Hortense is her half-sister. Roxanne freaks out and storms out of the house.
Hortense asks about her father. Cynthia just cries and refuses to tell her.
Movie Lesson: Despite what psychologists, relationship experts or Iyanla say, there are secrets we lug around and we will never share even with an ant.
A Warm December Synopsis
Sidney Poitier is famous for his extraordinary acting but he is also a director. He directed the 1972 A Warm December, where he also played the role of Dr. Matt Younger.
The film is about sickle cell anemia and how Dr. Younger falls in love with Catherine Oswandu, an African diplomat’s niece in London, not knowing that she has the disease. Esther Anderson, an actress born in Kingston, Jamaica plays Catherine.
The film tries to fool the viewer into believing that all those men following Catherine in London, England are part of some international espionage.
It turns out that Catherine can fall at any time anywhere, so her uncle hires men to follow her every move. Dr. Younger convinces Catherine to go on holiday with him and his daughter.
They have a great time until Catherine falls sick at night and Dr. Younger rushes her to the local hospital. That is where the film explains in detail what sickle cell anemia is and its propensity to attack African Americans.
Movie Lesson: Boy meets girl sometimes comes too late in life. Catherine knew she was going to die soon, so she didn’t want to marry Dr. Younger and go back to the United States with him.
