High School Musical (2006), the popular Disney Channel production, isn’t perfect, but its songs range from good to outstanding and mostly the latter, and they are performed with admirable prowess.  Yes, Ashley Tisdale (Sharpay) overacts, but is a captivating singer and dancer.  It will probably be a long time before another movie musical offers a fine-voiced actress singing a ballad as nice as the one Vanessa Hudgens delivers—viz., “When There Was Me and You.”  Indeed, except for the fun dance song, “We’re All In This Together,” the ballads are the hook-iest tunes.  (Granted, the lyrics are pedestrian, but they’re better than HSM‘s book, which is really obtuse.)

“We’re All In This Together” was reprised in High School Musical 3—-a hokey, unimaginative decision.  The original show is the one that song belongs to, and that, incidentally, is the only HSM I want to see.

High School Musical (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Obviously Lucian Pintilie had no love for or faith in perilous Romania when it was Communist.  In The Oak (1991), it is often a sick joke and Pintilie’s film a dark but compassionate comedy.  The two protagonists are smart and temperamentally strong, but a society where somebody is always needing to be rescued from something—and frequently no rescue comes—gives them a terrible run for their money.  No wonder Romanian dictator Nicolai Ceausescu was executed.

Sobering and sassy, The Oak is political satire and then some.  It is a fast-moving, post-Red expression of despondency over past nightmares and absurdities, sharply directed by Pintilie.  In the leading roles, Maia Morgenstern and Razvan Vasilescu perform superbly, but it is Morgenstern who gets to display an enviable range.  Look for her under the heading, “Force and Femininity.”

(On VHS, yes, but DVD and Blu-Ray?)

Obviously Lucian Pintilie had no love for or faith in perilous Romania when it was Communist.  In The Oak (1991), it is often a sick joke and Pintilie’s film a dark but compassionate comedy.  The two protagonists are smart and temperamentally strong, but a society where somebody is always needing to be rescued from something—and frequently no rescue comes—gives them a terrible run for their money.  No wonder Romanian dictator Nicolai Ceausescu was executed.

Sobering and sassy, The Oak is political satire and then some.  It is a fast-moving, post-Red expression of despondency over past nightmares and absurdities, sharply directed by Pintilie.  In the leading roles, Maia Morgenstern and Razvan Vasilescu perform superbly, but it is Morgenstern who gets to display an enviable range.  Look for her under the heading, “Force and Femininity.”

(On VHS, yes, but DVD and Blu-Ray?)

Come Undone (film) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I don’t understand why Domenico (Pierfrancesco Favino) prefers his mistress Anna (Alba Rohrwacher) to his wife in the 2010 Italian film about an illicit love, Come Undone.  Neither do I think the movie’s moral neutrality is a good idea.  Directed by Silvio Soldini, Come Undone is, however, robust and sufficiently imaginative.  Its dandy realism breaks down a bit near the end, but I’ll leave it to the reader to decide whether the film is acceptable.  It’s available on DVD.

(In Italian with English subtitles)

Come Undone (film) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I don’t understand why Domenico (Pierfrancesco Favino) prefers his mistress Anna (Alba Rohrwacher) to his wife in the 2010 Italian film about an illicit love, Come Undone.  Neither do I think the movie’s moral neutrality is a good idea.  Directed by Silvio Soldini, Come Undone is, however, robust and sufficiently imaginative.  Its dandy realism breaks down a bit near the end, but I’ll leave it to the reader to decide whether the film is acceptable.  It’s available on DVD.

(In Italian with English subtitles)