101. Aberdeen Review by Arthur Lazere. http://www.culturevulture.net/Movies/Aberdeen.htm

home dance destinations film ... archives Aberdeen (2000) Internet Movie Database Aberdeen VHS Aberdeen DVD the soundtrack cd TripAdvisor - Aberdeen Aberdeen is the third film for Norwegian writer/director Hans Petter Moland and the first since his 1995 Zero Kelvin The latter had three trappers isolated in a cabin in the frozen tundra of Greenland. Aberdeen has a father-daughter team isolated in substance abuse and family dysfunction. Both films offer the major plus of Stellan Skarsgard, the Swedish actor whose portrayal of an oil rigger in Breaking the Waves was the perfect compliment to the profoundly disturbing performance by Emily Watson as his wife In Aberdeen , Skarsgard is cast once again as an oil rigger, Tomas. He's become a falling-down drunk, living in Oslo. Years before, he had a daughter, Kaisa (Lena Headey), with his lover, Helen (Charlotte Rampling). He and Helen split and Helen tried raising Kaisa, but then sent her to live with her father. Now Kaisa is a successful career woman in London and Helen lives in Aberdeeneach of them all too happy to keep their distance from the others. What triggers the action is Helen's ill health; she is dying of cancer and wants to mend fences before she dies. She asks Kaisa to bring Tomas to see her in Aberdeen. Kaisa flies off to Oslo to collect her father and they set off on a troubled and troubling trip to Aberdeen, extended beyond the length of a short flight by the airline's refusal to accommodate a passenger who's drunk even before boarding. The alternative is driving, which extends the trip into the required length to qualify the film as a genuine road movie.

102. The Matrix Review by Arthur Lazere. http://www.culturevulture.net/Movies/Matrix.htm

home dance destinations film ... archives The Matrix (1999) Click the poster to buy at MovieGoods.com From a reader: philosophical insight on The Matrix Internet Movie Database The Matrix VHS The Matrix DVD the soundtrack cd Suggested reading: Screams of Reason - Mad Science in Modern Culture (1998), David J. Skal The Year's Best Science Fiction: Sixteenth Annual Collection (1999), Gardner Dozois (Editor) The A-Z of Science Fiction and Fantasy Films (1998), Howard Maxford The Matrix is a futuristic, film noir, kung fu, dysfunctional utopian science fiction, cyberpunk, nonanimated cartoon laced with religious allusions. It does not have hair stiffened with bodily fluids, batmobiles, or hip hop music. It does have electronic bugs that look like scorpions and enter the body through the navel, lots of rata tat guns, and Keanu Reeves. It should do great box office with the under thirty set. The story, with a nod to The Truman Show, is of an Earth taken over by artificial intelligences originally created by man. Instead of Ed Harris we have Agent Smith, of the AIs. With the exception of a small community of human survivors that has taken refuge somewhere in the core of the planet (known as Zion), the AIs artificially produce humans in factories and then give them totally virtual lives; a digitally programmed matrix substitutes for reality. A handful of humans, led by Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne), have escaped the matrix and function in guerilla-like fashion, seeking the Way to save the race from the usurpers. They rescue Keanu, in hopes that he is the One needed to defeat the AIs. "The Matrix is everywhere," intones Morpheus, "It is all around us. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you to the truth..." Reeves is given the choice to fight with Morpheus' team or return to his virtual existence. Consistent with the muddiness of the religious symbolism, Morpheus, who initially has a Faustian sort of presence, has Reeves make his choice - the blue pill sends him back, the red pill puts him on the team. Huh?

103. Monsieur Hire Review by Arthur Lazere. http://www.culturevulture.net/Movies/MonsieurHire.htm

home dance destinations film ... archives Monsieur Hire (1989) Internet Movie Database the video Johannes Brahms: Piano Quartet, ... Perahia, Amadeus Monsieur Hire is a detective story that utterly transcends the genre. The elements of the detective story are all there: a crime (the murder of a 22 year old girl), a cop (unlikable, meanly intrusive), a suspect (Monsieur Hire - a tailor, a loner disliked by his neighbors), a beautiful girl, evidence, clues, red herrings. Director Patrice Leconte slowly lets the story unfold, building character with each scene, delivering twists and turns of plot that surprise, but are fully motivated and totally believable. Even as the main titles (plain white lettering on a black screen) are rolling, Leconte uses background sound effects to create a sense of place, a mood. Monsieur Hire (Michel Blanc), we discover, is a voyeur, watching a neighbor, Alice (Sandrine Bonnaire), from his window, while he plays Brahms on his phonograph. (It is the Brahms Piano Quartet, Opus 25, and the theme is a haunting melody, powerfully evoking feelings of yearning. CV first heard this music in this film and it has been a favorite ever since.) Alice, before long, discovers that Hire is watching her - and the game of cat and mouse is engaged. CV, as regular readers know, does not like to divulge too much of the story; we do not want to dilute your viewing pleasure. Be assured that you will not only be caught up in an engrossing plot line, but also that Leconte will share with you fascinating insights into the subtleties of love and loving, of loneliness and need. And he does it with a director's eye that is both stylish and artistic. Image after image crosses the screen, stunningly photographed, drawn from the elements of the story, in a literal sense, but always having resonance beyond the literal and into the explication of character. White mice, pigeons, a spilled bag of tomatoes, ice skating, bowling, a blindfold, perfume bottles. Oh, yes - Leconte not only offers the visual and the aural, he also uses the sense of smell. And the sense of touch plays a role, too. Themes emerge about looking and seeing - and not seeing; touching and feeling - and not feeling.

104. Lazer Vaudeville Artistic troupe consisting of Carter Brown, Cindy Marvell and Nicholas Flair. http://www.lazervaudeville.com

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