Arts + Life

Balanced and focused.

By John DeSando, WCBE's "It's Movie Time"

Welcome to the best freak show so far in 2005.

By John DeSando, WCBE's "It's Movie Time"

Credit the director and writer for balancing the guilt and horror among Christians, Jews, and Arabs.

By John DeSando, WCBE's "It's Movie Time"

Exhausting and entertaining.

By John DeSando, WCBE's "It's Movie Time"

Seinfeld without the humor.

By John DeSando, WCBE's "It's Movie Time

Predictable but enjoyable.

By John DeSando, WCBE's "It's Movie Time"

Eminently worth seeing.

By John DeSando, WCBE's "It's Movie Time"

Eccentric and satisfying.

By John DeSando, WCBE's "It's Movie Time"

The best Woody in years.

By John DeSando, WCBE's "It's Movie Time"

Manhattan still drives Woody Allen crazy: Urbanites are prey to ambition and lust, pride and diffidence and even sound like Woody with their halting sentences, paranoid affectations, and occasionally witty lines tossed off like the dregs of their grande lattes. Melinda and Melinda is a petting zoo of needy moderns who most of all want to find love, which eludes them right up to the last cliffhanging moment.

Everything a comic book/film buff could want.

By John DeSando, WCBE's "It's Movie Time"

"By Jove! I've never seen anything so unreal in my life. And

earth struck me as something great and invincible, like evil or

truth, waiting patiently for the passing away of this fantastic

invasion." Joseph Conrad's Marlow in Heart of Darkness

A tribute to a director who makes children interesting and wise and movies for everyone.

By John DeSando, WCBE's "It's Movie Time"

"Radix malorum cupiditas est."

("The root of evil is greed.") The Pardoner's Tale

The director aims at the heart of sin, Catholic guilt, and changing mores.

By John DeSando, WCBE's "It's Movie Time"

Thrilling and serious about the future of mankind.

By John DeSando, WCBE's "It's Movie Time"

Hollywood musicals are better.

By John DeSando, WCBE's "It's Movie Time"

A wax museum knock off.

By John DeSando, WCBE's "It's Movie Time"

"It comes o'er my memory,

As doth the raven o'er the infected house,

Boding to all . . . ." Shakespeare's Othello

Easy laughs and easier moralizing.

By John DeSando, WCBE's "It's Movie Time"

"Sweet is revenge--especially to women." Lord Byron

A horror film with somewhere to go.

By John DeSando, WCBE's "It's Movie Time"

Jonah Goldberg, editor at large of National Review OnLine, recently wrote that "we couldn't appreciate that evil is real and it exists. In a society where everyone is a victim and it's not right to 'judge' others, there's not much room left for real monsters, while society itself becomes monstrous." And so Hannibal Lecter is a "charming rogue" rather than a monster.

A light look at a dark world

By John DeSando, WCBE's "It's Movie Time"

Yes, there is fellatio depicted inside the documentary Inside Deep Throat. About 3 seconds. So go see the original groundbreaking porno flick of 1972, Deep Throat, if you want to be deeply titillated and experience a poorly made movie that grossed over $600 million and sparked a sexual revolution that resulted for exhibitors and actors in stiff penalties that carry through today in neocons' wet dreams.

It's the New Zealand I remember and the Maori spirit I felt.

By John DeSando, WCBE's "It's Movie Time"

Abortion propels the plot, but family is the heart of the tale.

By John DeSando, WCBE's "It's Movie Time"

When I anticipated seeing "Cider House Rules," I expected an extended treatise on abortion only to see a film about the need of a child for a home with a sidebar about abortion. Mike Leigh's ("Secrets and Lies") "Vera Drake" puts me in the same situation: It is a film about an abortionist who is a caregiver for young women "in trouble," her neighborhood, and her family. Abortion propels the plot, but family is the heart of the tale.