© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc. This feed is subject to our terms of use: http://www.epinions.com/help/rss_terms http://www.epinions.com/user-Stephen_Murray Recent reviews written by member Stephen_Murray en-us 121 37 http://www.epinions.com/ http://img.epinions.com/images/epi_images/logos/epinions_121.gif http://www.epinions.com/content_490581692036?linkin_id=8003929 rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author Stephen_Murray - I have to stipulate that I have never seen a movie filmed in the Himalayas (or Mongolia)—documentary or fiction film, made by natives or foreigners—that has not fascinated me. I have no wish to go there or follow the religion or other... http://www.epinions.com/content/submit.html/comment_~490581692036 Wed, 4 Nov 2009 16:02:35 GMT http://www.epinions.com/content_490581692036?linkin_id=8003929 http://www.epinions.com/content_490464317060?linkin_id=8003929 rating: 2/5 by: Epinions Author Stephen_Murray - "Nigahiga". is the most subscribed-to You Tube site with more than one and a half million subscribers (including me) and more than 56 million hits. I think that the two-minute versions of popular movies as enacted by two Asian American youth who grew up... http://www.epinions.com/content/submit.html/comment_~490464317060 Tue, 3 Nov 2009 15:40:47 GMT http://www.epinions.com/content_490464317060?linkin_id=8003929 http://www.epinions.com/content_490245885572?linkin_id=8003929 rating: 3/5 by: Epinions Author Stephen_Murray - Francophile Japanese writer-director Kobayashi Masahiro (Bashing) filmed "Aruku, hito" (2001) in Mashike, a small city on the west coast of the northernmost of the major Japanese island, Hokkaido. One of the characters says that there is snow on the... http://www.epinions.com/content/submit.html/comment_~490245885572 Sun, 1 Nov 2009 18:20:18 GMT http://www.epinions.com/content_490245885572?linkin_id=8003929 http://www.epinions.com/content_490226093700?linkin_id=8003929 rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author Stephen_Murray - Being unable to decide whether to begin with the opera or the performance, I've opted to begin with my relationship to bel canto opera. I considered bel canto (literally "beautiful singing" but also a kind of Italian lyric opera from the second quarter... http://www.epinions.com/content/submit.html/comment_~490226093700 Sun, 1 Nov 2009 15:44:23 GMT http://www.epinions.com/content_490226093700?linkin_id=8003929 http://www.epinions.com/content_490133229188?linkin_id=8003929 rating: 2/5 by: Epinions Author Stephen_Murray - What was "experimental film"? I use the past tense, because there may be "underground" films today, but I have not seen "experimental film" used as a genre for anything made in recent decades.I am especially puzzled by "experimental", because my... http://www.epinions.com/content/submit.html/comment_~490133229188 Sat, 31 Oct 2009 18:03:21 GMT http://www.epinions.com/content_490133229188?linkin_id=8003929 http://www.epinions.com/content_489931116164?linkin_id=8003929 rating: 2/5 by: Epinions Author Stephen_Murray - My main French find in recent French find writeoffs was French actor Romain Duris (born in Paris in 1974). Duris made his mark in romantic comedies as a Parisian abroad: in Barcelona in "... http://www.epinions.com/content/submit.html/comment_~489931116164 Thu, 29 Oct 2009 19:22:47 GMT http://www.epinions.com/content_489931116164?linkin_id=8003929 http://www.epinions.com/content_489909161604?linkin_id=8003929 rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author Stephen_Murray - Pierre Clastres (1934-1979) was a student of Claude Lévi-Strauss (1908-), who, like his master decades earlier, went to South America, gathered data about an imperiled people's imperiled way of life, and wrote a book about his experiences... http://www.epinions.com/content/submit.html/comment_~489909161604 Thu, 29 Oct 2009 15:40:00 GMT http://www.epinions.com/content_489909161604?linkin_id=8003929 http://www.epinions.com/content_489813151364?linkin_id=8003929 rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author Stephen_Murray - I'm not at all sure why I listen to so little chamber music. I listen more to solo violin, solo cello, or solo piano than I do to chamber music and much more to concerti for any of those three instruments and orchestra. I own the complete Bartók... http://www.epinions.com/content/submit.html/comment_~489813151364 Wed, 28 Oct 2009 19:43:26 GMT http://www.epinions.com/content_489813151364?linkin_id=8003929 http://www.epinions.com/content_489742634628?linkin_id=8003929 rating: 3/5 by: Epinions Author Stephen_Murray - I was expecting "Medicine for Melancholy" (M4M), the very low-budget first feature written and directed by Barry Jenkins, to be a 21st-century San Francisco "She's Gotta Have It" (Spike Lee's 1986 black-and-white first feature). In that it features a... http://www.epinions.com/content/submit.html/comment_~489742634628 Wed, 28 Oct 2009 05:15:02 GMT http://www.epinions.com/content_489742634628?linkin_id=8003929 http://www.epinions.com/content_489507556996?linkin_id=8003929 rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author Stephen_Murray - Shot as many of Ingmar Bergman's films were on the Baltic Sea island of Faro "Skammen" (Shame) is very unusual among Bergman's films in being a war movie. The war is a modern civil war in which the death toll of civilians is very high.The... http://www.epinions.com/content/submit.html/comment_~489507556996 Mon, 26 Oct 2009 03:32:38 GMT http://www.epinions.com/content_489507556996?linkin_id=8003929 http://www.epinions.com/content_489399225988?linkin_id=8003929 rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author Stephen_Murray - As the opening credits of "Autumn Sonata" (1978) rolled, I was surprised that there were a number greater than two of cast. From 30 years ago, what I remembered was Liv Ullmann's character excoriating her mother, played by Ingrid Bergman with alternating... http://www.epinions.com/content/submit.html/comment_~489399225988 Sun, 25 Oct 2009 02:13:49 GMT http://www.epinions.com/content_489399225988?linkin_id=8003929 http://www.epinions.com/content_489271889540?linkin_id=8003929 rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author Stephen_Murray - Jodie Foster is going to be 46 next month. If she's middle-aged what does that make someone who remembers her as a child in "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore" and "Taxi Driver"? Sigh!Although she does not look her age, I thought she looked... http://www.epinions.com/content/submit.html/comment_~489271889540 Fri, 23 Oct 2009 19:49:09 GMT http://www.epinions.com/content_489271889540?linkin_id=8003929 http://www.epinions.com/content_489086488196?linkin_id=8003929 rating: 3/5 by: Epinions Author Stephen_Murray - I believe that the "golden age" of television drama was the middle of the present decade with "The Sopranos," "The Wire," "Six Feet Under" and various made-for-cable movies. The phrase usually refers to the 1950s.Seven half-hour dramas from the... http://www.epinions.com/content/submit.html/comment_~489086488196 Thu, 22 Oct 2009 04:51:38 GMT http://www.epinions.com/content_489086488196?linkin_id=8003929 http://www.epinions.com/content_489031896708?linkin_id=8003929 rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author Stephen_Murray - If "Goodbye Solo" (2008) were a Hollywood movie or a feel-good movie from abroad, the Senegalese immigrant Solo (Souleymane Sy Savane) who drives a cab at night in Winston-Salem, North Carolina and realizes that his septuagenarian tight-lipped white... http://www.epinions.com/content/submit.html/comment_~489031896708 Wed, 21 Oct 2009 16:41:33 GMT http://www.epinions.com/content_489031896708?linkin_id=8003929 http://www.epinions.com/content_488929922692?linkin_id=8003929 rating: 2/5 by: Epinions Author Stephen_Murray - I've now seen half of the twenty feature-length films directed by Imamura Shohei (1926-2006) between 1958 and 2001 and six of the eight (neither the first nor the last is available here on DVD) shot by master cinematographer Himeda Shinsaku... http://www.epinions.com/content/submit.html/comment_~488929922692 Tue, 20 Oct 2009 18:48:09 GMT http://www.epinions.com/content_488929922692?linkin_id=8003929 http://www.epinions.com/content_488929070724?linkin_id=8003929 rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author Stephen_Murray - Shohei Imamura’s 1966 black-and-white movie titled "Jinruigaku nyumon" — which means-"Introduction to the study of humankind" (anthropology) in Japanese —  was luridly titled  "The Pornographers" in English. The central... http://www.epinions.com/content/submit.html/comment_~488929070724 Tue, 20 Oct 2009 18:33:48 GMT http://www.epinions.com/content_488929070724?linkin_id=8003929 http://www.epinions.com/content_488809991812?linkin_id=8003929 rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author Stephen_Murray - My expectations for the film adaptation of Michael Chabon's first novel, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, were very low. I adored the novel when it came out (of the University of California-Irvine MFA program) in 1988, but the novel is primarily voice... http://www.epinions.com/content/submit.html/comment_~488809991812 Mon, 19 Oct 2009 17:12:50 GMT http://www.epinions.com/content_488809991812?linkin_id=8003929 http://www.epinions.com/content_488718044804?linkin_id=8003929 rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author Stephen_Murray - Although I have been in six countries in the last five weeks, although most of my friends and two-thirds of those residing in the building in which I live were born outside the US, I wasn't aware of having any particular interest in immigration, though I... http://www.epinions.com/content/submit.html/comment_~488718044804 Sun, 18 Oct 2009 21:53:54 GMT http://www.epinions.com/content_488718044804?linkin_id=8003929 http://www.epinions.com/content_488538410628?linkin_id=8003929 rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author Stephen_Murray - "Adoration" (2008) combines three of Armenian-Canadian director Atom Egoyan's recurrent interests: grief-stricken family dynamics (The Sweet Hereafter), cross-cultural relations (Ararat, Calendar), and advances... http://www.epinions.com/content/submit.html/comment_~488538410628 Sat, 17 Oct 2009 02:17:01 GMT http://www.epinions.com/content_488538410628?linkin_id=8003929 http://www.epinions.com/content_488161840772?linkin_id=8003929 rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author Stephen_Murray - I find it far easier to admire than to like the narrative daring and the visual compositions in films made by Imamura Shohei (1926-2006), though I liked "Unagi" (The Eel, 1997) after its early grisly bloodletting,... http://www.epinions.com/content/submit.html/comment_~488161840772 Tue, 13 Oct 2009 15:48:55 GMT http://www.epinions.com/content_488161840772?linkin_id=8003929 http://www.epinions.com/content_488040599172?linkin_id=8003929 rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author Stephen_Murray - It was obvious from his stylish 2005 high-school neo-noir "Brick," that writer-director Rian Johnson had seen a lot of movies. This is also obvious from his stylish 2008 second feature film, "Brothers... http://www.epinions.com/content/submit.html/comment_~488040599172 Mon, 12 Oct 2009 14:29:30 GMT http://www.epinions.com/content_488040599172?linkin_id=8003929 http://www.epinions.com/content_487715999364?linkin_id=8003929 rating: 3/5 by: Epinions Author Stephen_Murray - One of Hollywood's responses to the Great Depression was a plethora of musicals either in the tuxedo-class (the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers vehicles) or about backstage aspirations (Busby Berkeley extravaganzas and Lloyd Bacon's "42nd Street"). The... http://www.epinions.com/content/submit.html/comment_~487715999364 Fri, 9 Oct 2009 12:45:23 GMT http://www.epinions.com/content_487715999364?linkin_id=8003929 http://www.epinions.com/content_487500123780?linkin_id=8003929 rating: 3/5 by: Epinions Author Stephen_Murray - Having long been a fervent admirer of  "The Shop on Main Street" (Obchod na korze) directed by Ján Kadár with a heartbreaking performance as an addled old Jewish shopkeeper by Ida Kaminska (the Slovakian movie received the best... http://www.epinions.com/content/submit.html/comment_~487500123780 Wed, 7 Oct 2009 14:11:29 GMT http://www.epinions.com/content_487500123780?linkin_id=8003929 http://www.epinions.com/content_487374032516?linkin_id=8003929 rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author Stephen_Murray - In less than 300 pages Timothy Egan (author of the National Book Award-winning The Worst Hard Times) tells the story of a catastrophe (the titular massive (3 million acre) forest fire of August 1910), the creation of the Forest Service by... http://www.epinions.com/content/submit.html/comment_~487374032516 Tue, 6 Oct 2009 12:31:18 GMT http://www.epinions.com/content_487374032516?linkin_id=8003929 http://www.epinions.com/content_487373573764?linkin_id=8003929 rating: 3/5 by: Epinions Author Stephen_Murray - Paul Auster is a very prolific, very uneven writer. I was fascinated by two of the novels in his New York Trilogy... but a trilogy means there are three pieces. I loathed... http://www.epinions.com/content/submit.html/comment_~487373573764 Tue, 6 Oct 2009 12:12:41 GMT http://www.epinions.com/content_487373573764?linkin_id=8003929