Film & BooksIssue: cancer 08
Son of Rambow
A quirky look at boyhood and film-making in the 1980s, “Son of Rambow” is a welcome diversion from the current deluge of blockbuster remakes and super hero epics in theaters this summer. Written and directed by Garth Jennings and produced by Nick Goldsmith, I like the way this film spins a standard, winning movie formula at a slightly awkward angle.
In this film, two lonely and wayward boys are eventually bound together by blood because of a mutual love of film-making and the discovery of the movie “Rambo.” Lee Carter, lives with his neglectful older brother, Lawrence (Ed Westwick), next to a nursing home. Their parents are perpetually away it seems, and Lee is definitely feeling the pain. However, he has found a way to distract himself from his unhappy life by 1) getting into trouble, and 2) making his own film epic in hopes of winning a contest. Will is a sheltered and fatherless loner whose family belongs to some type of Quaker-esque church that doesn’t allow TV or much outside influence. When the two boys collide at school, it is the character Rambo that ignites Will’s already powerful imagination and begins his film-making adventure with Lee, his first real friend.
The boys then embark on a classic journey of commitment and betrayal alongside French foreign exchange students, pop rocks, spiky hair, and painful family situations. The film also gleefully maps out the joys and the pitfalls of the creative process as all the characters in the film are changed forever by the boys’ new obsession. The ending is also extremely satisfying...even though it is not very likely.
If you are looking for something other than standard summer glitzy action, I highly suggest that you give this entertaining, lower-budget film a chance. 
Film & Books Archives (total entries: 28)
Sagittarius 08 & Honest Self Expression
Scorpio 08 - The Money Issue
Honestly, I have never been one for self-help books, but what I liked most about "How We Choose to Be Happy" is that it celebrates the wisdom of a variety of literary greats balanced by the stories of ordinary people.
This book won the 2008 PEN/Faulkner Award for fiction for good reason. I started the “The Great Man” on Saturday morning and had to finish it by lunch the next day. When it started to rain I traded my lawn chair for the couch and kept on reading. This novel is fabulously funny, mischievous, and easy to read.
Although “The Maytrees” by Annie Dillard is marketed as a novel, it reads from beginning to end as a poem. Like body surfing, the poetry will move emotions in directions that the mind may not understand. When this wave brought me to shore, I needed air and I wasn’t quite certain where I had been or where I had landed, but I was, in the truest sense of the word, in awe of the experience I just had.
April and May are notoriously bad months to go to the movies. The Academy Award hopefuls of 2008 won't be released until the fall, and the summer blockbusters won't be out for a few months. So what is a film reviewer to do when all the movies in the theaters are lame? This reviewer is going to suggest that you catch up on the best movies of 2007!
After an unsuccessful attempt to climb K2, Greg Mortenson stumbled into the village of Korphe in Pakistan’s Karakoram Himalaya region. The generosity and hospitality of the Korphe villagers inspired Mortenson to establish the Central Asia Institute (CAI). Since the establishment of CAI ten years ago, the organization has built 55 schools serving Pakistan and Afghanistan’s poorest children, especially girls.
Based on Marjane Satrapi's books, the film “Persepolis” tells the poignant story of a young girl coming of age in Iran in the midst of revolution and war.
This book grabs the reality of life with two hands and shakes it upside down. Those who appear to be physically beautiful and those whose eloquence is often over-beautified, are the most repulsive characters. “On Beauty” is about being real, about dealing with life, and about the need to reexamine what “living” really means.
