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My Big Fat Greek Wedding, a review by RossRoy

Original Title: My Big Fat Greek Wedding Year: 2002 Country: United States Director: Joel Zwick Rating: G Length: 95 Min. Video: Anamorphic Widescreen 1.85:1 Audio: English: Dolby Digital 5.1, English: Dolby Digital Surround, Commentary: Dolby Digital Stereo Subtitles: English, French, Greek, Spanish

What they say
Toula is 30. And unmarried. Which means as a nice Greek girl - she's a failure. All her cousins did the right thing - married Greek boys and made Greek babies. So everyone worries: what will become of Toula?

Then one day she sees the ultimate unattainable guy and realizes the only way her life will get better is if she gets away from her big, fat Greek family. Toula escapes from the family restaurant. She exchanges her seating hostess jacket for a college diploma, convinces her aunt to give her a new job, and trades in her coke-bottle glasses for contact lenses, just in time for "him" to walk back into her life.

Ian Miller is tall, handsome, but definitely not Greek. Their courtship is an Olympian culture clash. Can Ian handle Toula, her parents, her aunts, uncles, cousins and several centuries of Greek heritage? Will Toula discover the love she's been missing right in the heart of her big, fat family?

One thing is for sure, for better or worse, richer or poorer, with Ian's proposal, Toula is headed for her big, fat Greek wedding.

My Thoughts
So, what do we have here? Well, at its core, this movie is a fairly standard, run of the mill, love story: Girl meets boy, they fall in love, they marry. Nothing special here. What's interesting, is the clash of cultures. You've got the typical, overprotective, almost paranoid father. The very open-minded, understanding mother. And a big and loud typical greek family. Now, movie may be called "My Big Fat Greek Wedding", but the way I see it, you could exchange Greek for just about anything. The greek angle, is probably just what Nia Vardalos (Writer and leading lady) knew better, but the way the film is constructed, it is a look at how a different culture would react towards the first girl to marry a, in this case non-greek, boy, and all the lack of trust and oddities that ensues. And they are plenty in this movie, which is actually quite funny in its own right. I actually laughed out loud a few times.

You should give this movie a spin, it might surprise you. Even if you don't usually like love stories.



(From RossRoy's Random Viewings on April 15th, 2008)

We Don't Live Here Anymore, a review by Rich

We Don't Live Here Anymore



Jack Linden (Mark Ruffalo) and Hank Evans (Peter Krause) are best friends who both teach at the same university in a small New England town. They both have young children and Jack's wife, Terry (Laura Dern) is close with Hank's wife, Edith (Naomi Watts). But while things appear happy on the surface, there are smouldering pockets of discontent underneath. Financial struggle and domestic boredom has drained the passion from Jack and Terry's marriage, while Hank's numerous infidelities and self-absorption has prompted Edith to find both comfort and sexual fulfilment with Jack. As Jack begins spending more and more time with Edith, it becomes obvious to Terry, whose anger culminates in a sexual encounter with Hank. Now that the deception has come full circle, both couples are left to decide the futures of their shattered unions...

Depressingly honest, frighteningly accurate, an adult drama that is guaranteed to make you feel shit!
It's view on infidelity, and the damage it can cause to all parties, is reflectively portrayed with brutal performances from all 4 leads. The pace works well, and you feel you know the characters intimately by the end of the film.
But the subject matter for me is too near the bone, the film is a bit too Hollywood in parts, and the ending is fairly unreal.
 

**Laura Dern mini-marathon


(From Riches Random Reviews on August 28th, 2009)

My PILOT Marathon, a review by Rich

Fringe

Pilot
When all the passengers and crew on Flight 627 Hamburg-to-Boston die in a hideous manner, FBI agent Olivia Dunham investigates the event. While following up a lead, her partner and lover, John Scott, undergoes life-threatening chemical contamination. A desperate Olivia looks for help and finds Dr. Walter Bishop, who cannot help her because he has been institutionalized. The only way to even question him is with the help of his son Peter.
Olivia continues her investigations and goes to Nina Sharp, a manipulative executive. Olivia, Peter and Dr. Bishop begin to discover what really happened on Flight 627 and start to uncover a larger truth.



A television drama centered around a female FBI agent who is forced to work with an institutionalized scientist in order to rationalize a brewing storm of unexplained phenomena.

The first part of this pilot is incredibly interesting and promised a great deal. A bit of x-files with more focus on the investigation, the characters were optimistically well thought out, and the pace gripping. I felt it lost its way in the middle as the storyline floundered, with a bit too much focus on introduction of the leads and providing backdrop to the series, but it picked up well with a good and surprising finish.
A definate series to revisit before year-end, this is good viewing for all.
 


(From My PILOT Marathon on September 27th, 2009)