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Film & BooksIssue: Taurus 07

Step into the Paintings of Vincent Van Gogh in Dreams

Produced in 1990 with assistance from George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, Akira Kurasawa’s eight sequences in "Dreams" are a landmark film achievement. One of my all time favorite film moments, the “Crows” segment, indulges an art enthusiast’s fantasy of stepping inside a Vincent Van Gogh painting and experiencing Van Gogh’s spiritual vision of nature, first hand.

In this colorful and profound vignette that defies space and time, a young man moves from being an observer of Van Gogh’s paintings in a museum to being a traveler inside Van Gogh’s actual paintings. Stepping through wheat fields and starry nights, the traveler soon happens upon Van Gogh himself, played one of Kurasawa’s biggest fans, Martin Scorsese. The resulting exchange is breathtaking both visually and thematically and is a movie moment I highly recommend for anyone who loves or studies fine art.

Akira Kurasawa was born in Japan in 1910. Originally trained as a painter, he storyboarded his films as full-scale paintings. Kurasawa gained world wide recognition as a director in 1950 with the film “Rashomon.” Kurosawa's films have had a major influence on film and film makers internationally. dots

by Ann JandaSagittarius

Film & Books Archives (total entries: 29)

Capricorn 08 - The Career Issue

Dispatches from the Edge

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Sagittarius 08 & Honest Self Expression

Rachel Getting Married

Like real life-families who have a member struggling with drug or alcohol addiction, the focus of “Rachel Getting Married” isn’t on Rachel, even though it should be. It is on her narcissistic sister, Kym, who is out of rehab for the weekend to attend Rachel’s wedding.

Scorpio 08 - The Money Issue

Review of “The Good Society: The Humane Agenda” by John Kenneth Galbraith

At a time when our nation’s security is in question and our economy is in shambles “The Good Society: The Humane Agenda” by John Kenneth Galbraith has much to teach the abiding liberal as well as the dutiful conservative.

Libra 08

How We Choose to Be Happy

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.


Leo 08

The Great Man

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.

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.

Gemini 08

The Maytrees

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.

Taurus 08

The Best Films of 2007

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!

Aries 08

Three Cups of Tea

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.

Pisces 08

Persepolis

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.