On Wednesday I borrowed from the library the Blu-ray DVD Pinocchio. I don’t remember the movie since I only saw it once and that was thirty years ago and I was hoping the children would enjoy it.

It turned out that was a big mistake.  The movie is much darker than I expected, both visually and content wise.  None of the children were enjoying it.  Dylan, though he is the oldest, actually became the most frightened, I think because he understood the best.

As many of you might know, I have been studying and reading about modern slavery and was struck by how much of this animated film is about slavery!

First Pinocchio is duped by Honest John into joining a circus and becomes a slave of Stromboli.  Pinocchio escapes with the help of the Blue Fairy.

Then a few hours later he is duped again by Honest John.  He and many other little boys are led to Pleasure Island where they are transformed into donkeys.  The whole scene reminded me of young boys being sold into sexual slavery, transformed into prostitutes.

I honestly cannot recommend this movie for any young children, it’s not fun, it’s dark, and it’s scary.  But if you want some good imagery for modern slavery, this movie is great.

Tags: Dylan,slavery
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I read about this Indian movie, Water, on my friend/pastor’s church website, a blog WELL done.

The movie is about the life of an Indian girl who becomes a widow at the age of eight years old but she does not know she is even married.  Conservative Hindus were furious about this movie.  I am looking forward to seeing it.

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Last night the wife and I saw The Devil Wears Prada. I was expecting something more of a silly comedy with the boss being a caricature. But instead I was pleasantly surprised that the boss, played by the amazing Meryl Streep, was actually a bit more complex and interesting. I also enjoyed Anne Hathaway’s character though I felt some of her “sexy” scenes were unnecessary. Stanley Tucci was great as Nigel, very funny and likable.

In the end the story was not so much about the evil boss but rather the innocent college graduate who slowly loses her soul as she becomes part of the fashion corporation. It reminds me a bit of my story consulting for a top fashion brand in Manhattan and reporting directly to the president.

The wife and I enjoyed the movie and would recommend it.

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Last night I finished watched the Korean warrior film called Musa. It’s about a group of Korean warriors that try to rescue a Chinese princess from her Mongol captors.

I enjoyed this film thoroughly. I found it a little hard to follow the plot, maybe because I don’t understand Korean and had to read subtitles. Also it was a bit too violent for my taste (think Braveheart). But there were several things I liked about it.

First I had never seen a Korean martial art hero like the one featured in this movie, typically they are Chinese. That is probably because I have not seen many Korean movies but it was enjoyable nevertheless.

Second this movie was done with a Chinese production house that did movies like Crouching TIger Hidden Dragon and not surprisingly the cinematography and fight choreography was fantastic.

Third Ziyi Zhang was in it and she’s really cool.

Fourth it was really interesting seeing the interactions between the Chinese and Korean cultures.

Fifth was the display of courage and seeing love transcend culture. A beautiful scene was when a Korean soldier was struck down while defending an elderly Chinese woman. She was holding him while he was dying and saying “My son” and the Korean warrior smiled before he died.

Sixth the movie did not glorify war. I am wondering if in general Korean movies don’t glorify war because war was typically horribly damaging to Korea.

Finally the Korean archer was really cool.

Overall I would recommend this movie though I am not sure that some of the things that struck me about this movie will be interesting to others.

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Last night I watched Fresh on BET and found it pretty captivating. Still I found the whole film a little unbelievable. But many users on IMDB were saying it deserved an Oscar for best movie.

(Spoiler warning) It was hard for me to believe that a 12 year old boy could outsmart two street hardened local drug dealers. The movie had your typical violence that one expects in an inner city drug crime movie. But what was shocking to me was the scene where the boy hung and killed his dog, not because I like dogs more than people, just because I’ve never seen anything like it.

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