MY WAY

PART OF THE USA IMMIGRANT STORY

   Paul Anka wrote "My Way" for Sinatra.  A violin can make this sound beautiful. Don't miss this . . . Rieu doesn't often play his violin through whole pieces, this time he did!!   A renowned Dutch violinist, conductor, composer, and his orchestra, did a tribute to Frank Sinatra with:

My Way 

on his Stradivarius violin at Radio City Music Hall - New York .

http://www.youtube.com/embed/e-y581HdWfY?rel=0

Movie Review: I'LL SEE YOU IN MY DREAMS (2014) FF-

Preface: Sandy I saw this movie by default. The movie we planned to see at the theater  wasn't available the evening we chose.

I found it very difficult to rate this movie.  It is a nightmare about very depressed people. No plot.  No beginning, middle or end. Just sad.  And yet it is advertised as a COMEDY. Psychologists who read this review may want to use this movie as a vehicle for a group session about depression. 

The point of the movie, that includes Blythe Danner in the lead . . . (who's claim to fame is acting as a well know celebrity in a TV advertisement), may have been written to show how horrible getting old could be.

As a widowed very lonely and sad 70ish year old women, she  apparently has no interests other than meeting with some widowed cronies in a retirement club every so often.  Her dog dies. Her new "boyfriend" (who she adores after 2 dates) dies, and the movie ends with her adopting an old dog. Her human (intimate) relationships are almost nonexistent . . . except for a young man who she meets along the way. By the way, he was depressed also, but at least they had some sort of relationship.

But the most interesting and amazing aspect of this movie is the very favorable reviews it received on RottenTomatoes.  http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/ill_see_you_in_my_dreams/. 

A typical Review from RottenTomatoes:

"I'll See You in My Dreams is delicate and nuanced, with writing that rejects, or at least reshapes, the cliches of movies about people facing the glare of their sunset years".

The ad for the film, that follows, is absolutely amazing.  Turn it upside down and that's my review.

"In this vibrant, funny, and heartfelt film, a widow and former songstress discovers that life can begin anew at any age. With the support of three loyal girlfriends, Carol (Blythe Danner) decides to embrace the world, embarking on an unlikely friendship with her pool maintenance man, pursuing a new love interest , and reconnecting with her daughter."

Movie Review: HECTOR AND THE SEARCH FOR HAPPINESS (2014) AA+

Great movie if you the least bit depressed and need a little boost.  For the happy well balanced person, like my spouse, Sandy, the rating is A.

Leaving behind a career as a psychiatrist, a bored and discontented Hector begins a journey across the planet in search of genuine happiness. He has a financially secure practice, a beautiful and loving fiancee who keeps his home life in perfect balance and a group of smart and engaging friends. Along the way, he experiences a succession of unusual adventures that not only alters his perspective, but provides him with a a set of rules for happiness..

From Another Review: 

This movie is really a journey on a number of levels. As Hector travels the globe in search of that elusive quality of happiness, he also is going on a personal journey of discovery on a deeper level.Yet, underneath it all, Hector is troubled . . . wondering why he feels empty inside and believes he has not fully experienced life to its fullest.

That fact is thrown in his face by one of his patients, who bluntly tells him he’s really just a shell of a man, only superficially dealing with his patients and not delivering the proper counseling he could give if he was a man of more substance.

Hector decides to take off on a fairly unplanned journey to discover, he hopes, the essence of what makes one truly happy and fulfilled.

There are many,  many clever aspects to this story, based on a French novel by Francois Lelord. Hilarious scenes show our psychiatrist's gift for physical comedy as he encounters Stellan Skarsgard, playing an uptight, rich and pleasure-seeking banker on his first flight.

Along the way, we are visually treated to cartoons and scribblings from the journal Hector keeps . . . and put up on the screen . . . that document his musings on the search for true happiness. ( See site for list below). Among my favorites are his observations that “Avoiding unhappiness is not the road to happiness,” and “Happiness is not a destination, but a state of being.”

Our reluctant hero makes his way from Shanghai to Tibet (and a spiritual encounter with a group of monks) to Africa, where he connects with an old school chum — and learns that doctor to the indigent is, in fact, gay.

The  tale veers back and forth from some over-the-top funny moments to ones that are poignant, sad and sometimes downright frightening . . . as when Hector is kidnapped and imprisoned by a gang of thugs in South Africa.

Ultimately, Hector ends up in Los Angeles, where he nervously meets with the woman who was his first true love, who he never gave up thinking about. That relationship was the main impediment to him going forward.

This film is a winner. It will not only entertain you, but also make you think about what it takes to bring happiness into your own life.

You will find the rules Hector finds for happiness at :http://jchyip.blogspot.com/2011/01/hectors-list-of-happiness.html. READ THEM!!

As an aside, A cousin of mine, who teaches at Harvard, and who's classes are filled to the brim, researches this subject. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Gilbert_(psychologist)

THE WOLF OF WALL STREET (2013) AA

Sorry for the delay in this review.  This was one of the special movies of the year.  If you didn't take it seriously (that is, being one of the people hurt by the type of stock scam artists depicted in the movie), it was a great comedy.  Woody Allen couldn't do better.  

The acting by DiCaprio was the best ever.  The screenwriting was superb. 

I'm afraid that the people who didn't like the movie were either offended by the depravity or were those who buy into fly-by-night stock schemes and have great difficulty in analyzing the real value of a business or a product.  For those, I recommend watching SHARK TANK on ABC, following Krugman in the NY Times and reading Consumer Reports on a regular basis.

Sandy's son (my step son), had a different take on the movie. Among his other tasks at THE FINANCIAL TIMES he writes a regular opinion column.  It is shown below.  He views this type of scam as a new replacement for the gangster type mobs of years ago . . . where if you didn't pay what you owed, someone shot you in the kneecap.

Make way for more wolves of Wall Street

By Gary Silverman in New York

The people who once would have been gangsters can now be found in the darker corners of finance

Isuspect that many readers of the Financial Times will find something objectionable in Martin Scorsese’s latest film, The Wolf of Wall Street. Running at three hours, it explores the pleasures of snorting cocaine, swallowing sedatives, lying, stealing, cursing, cheating on your wife, hiding money in Switzerland, taking part in orgies and dwarf tossing.

But for anyone interested in business – and the way it is practised in New York – the movie is food for thought. Mr Scorsese is a leading chronicler of the American underworld, and he has documented a disturbing chapter in its evolution. The auteur himself has noticed that the kinds of people who used to do terrible things in his old mob films have found profitable homes in the darker corners of finance.

  
  
  

More

ON THIS STORY

• FT Alphaville The boiler rooms amongst us
• UK watchdog warns on graphenescams
• ‘Boiler room’ scam shut down
• Cyber security landscape changes
• Why film costume designers love Wall Street’s anti-heroes

GARY SILVERMAN

• Treat the jobless like animals
• A bus station Christmas
• Angry White Men, by MichaelKimmel
• De Blasio plays it safe

The Wolf of Wall Street is based on the memoirs of a New Yorker called Jordan Belfort. Before he was sent to a federal prison for 22 months in the last decade, he made millions of dollars in the 1980s and 1990s running a brokerage called Stratton Oakmont on Long Island (where I grew up). It specialised in a racket known as “pump and dump” – using high-pressure sales tactics to con people into buying dodgy stocks in smaller companies as a way to generate commissions.

By his own admission, Belfort is a bad person. After his release, he boasted to CNBC in 2007 that he had “played the game of crime very carefully for many, many years, and covered my tracks with zest and zeal”. As portrayed in the film by Leonardo DiCaprio, he is an archetypical Scorsese “wise guy”, familiar to anyone who has seen the director’s later Mafia movies, such as Goodfellas and Casino. He chases after the easy money, and flaunts it when he gets it. He cracks jokes with the boys – in this case, mostly former small-time pot dealers – and he cannot resist the blondes.

The big difference between Belfort and earlier Scorsese hoodlums is in their choice of weaponry. Belfort has no need to pick up a gun to make money. He never has to wield an ice pick or use his fists to take care of a business problem (although he punches his wife in the stomach when the marital going gets tough). Belfort only has to pick up a phone to become another Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci or Ray Liotta.

It makes for a very different initiation. In the old Mafia movies, a gangster made his bones – that is to say, qualified for membership – by killing someone. In this film,Belfort lets his fingers do the walking. At his first brokerage, the neophyte nogoodnik’s initial orders involve making 500 calls a day.

Yet Belfort soon learns he can get away with murder, as it were, with the right rap. At Stratton Oakmont, he inspires his troops by speaking of their telephones in martial terms. He describes the devices as M16s wielded by killers “who will not take no for an answer” when they are pushing a public offering. He tells them that, to get rich, they have to become “telephone f***ing terrorists”.

Guns in the movie are almost a symbol of low status. They are wielded by people who do not make the really big money. The first time a firearm is fired it is being used for target practice by Belfort’s pursuer, a strait-laced FBI agent who notes later, almost sheepishly: “You get a free handgun when you join the bureau.”

The agent ultimately brings down Belfort, but Mr Scorsese depicts the winner of the battle as a somewhat sad sack. Towards the end of the film, the agent is seen reading about the case in the Long Island newspaper Newsday as he rides the subway alone, surrounded by beaten-down commuters.

Belfort, on the other hand, emerges from prison with a career as a motivational speaker, teaching the poor saps in lesser burgs (the name of which was changed in the film to Auckland, New Zealand) how to sell stuff. The viewer is left with the sense that his story is not over.

Nor, I would argue, have we seen the last of the Belforts in our financial midst. Now that the wise guys can make serious money by picking up phones (or plugging in laptops, for that matter) rather than wielding guns, crime has become easier. What the economists call the barriers to entry have come down.

The gangsters in Mr Scorsese’s older oeuvre did dirty work; they saw the blood of their victims and heard their cries of pain. Belfort and his ilk found cleaner hustles. They were tough guys at a distance, and we will see more of them in the years to come. There are plenty of other people on Long Island who want to party.

AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY (2013) D -

A total waste of 2 hours plus the cost of the tickets.  All the people I spoke to about this move told me that the acting was very good . . . and couldn't say much more about it except it was about a dysfunctional family.  In seeing the movie my hope that it was about some psychological problems in the family that would prove interesting to me.

As it turned out it was a miscellaneous hodgepodge of people in a family that had absolutely no insight into their serious psychological problems and were making no attempt to solve them by conventional means . . . such as consulting shrinks.  It also took place in the desolate plains of Oklahoma, which made absolutely no sense because the patriarchof the family was a an award winning poet who you would expect to be in an urban area, which would provide him with intellectual stimulation.

My best guess is that the play and the movie were produced as a showcase for a bunch of actors.  In fact, the final credits went out of the way to show pictures of the main characters . . . which support my theory.

JUNO (2007) A & F

Juno received two ratings because many people will see it as a lovely fairy tale (the A rating) and others will see it as a blatant
propaganda piece for the Right-To-Life Movement (the F rating). This is the most important movie of the year. It should be shown, and maturely discussed, at all high school sex education classes.

JUNO: THE FAIRY TALE A
(This version of the movie is primarily for people who are young at
heart and still believe in the tooth fairy.)

In this movie a young, sweet, lovable, adorable and bright 16 year old girl becomes pregnant while satisfying her boyfriends need for a sexual experience. The culture in her society is ambivalent toward sex between teen age boys and girls that leads to unplanned pregnancies . . . so they are not to blame for being irresponsible.  (In this culture the words blame and responsibility were outlawed some years ago).

She tells her girlfriends, mom and dad about her condition and then
after a very short visit to an unfriendly, ugly and horrible Women's
Center that specializes in terminating unwanted pregnancies, she
decides to carry the pregnancy to term.

Without thinking too much about the consequences of carrying the baby
to term, she find a married thirtysomething couple (from a Pennysaver
ad), who live in an upscale suburban home (similar to Dix Hills in
Long Island) . . . and who are more than willing to adopt her child.

With no forethought, the girl and her fantastic Dad agree that she
will have nothing to do with the child after it is born. Finding and
selecting this lovely couple and making these decisions was easy as
pie . . . and only took a few hours of her and her wonderful and
understanding Dad's precious time. Another option, such as keeping the
child with her mother and fathers help, never enters any ones mind.

The movie also deals with her relationship with the soon-to-be
teen-aged father . . . a wonderful and loving young lad who plays the
guitar. During the gestation period he is more than willing comfort
JUNO in his bed room with the door closed. His understanding mom has no
problem with that arrangement. The 16 year old girl ultimately realizes she has
found true love with this understanding and maturing fellow, and
showers him with a gift of hundreds of Pez candies. He may only be 15
years old.

Ultimately she gives birth and turns over the baby to the
thirtysometing woman. (Unfortunately the couple divorces before the
baby was born). The movie ends with the promise that the young father
and Juno, this sweet, lovable, adorable and bright girl, will live
happily ever after.

I was so happy for everyone after I left the theater. I felt so good
after seeing all these wonderful and sweet and understanding people on
the screen.

VERSION 2
JUNO: CONDONING IRRESPONSIBILITY    F
(This movie is primarily for people who remember from High School that
"Animal Farm " was not about pigs and horses).

Sandy is my wife and movie companion. Because I am an outspoken type
of person I always ask her how she feels about the movie before I
express my views. For this movie the first words out of her mouth
were, "This movie strongly supports the Pro Life and Anti-Abortionist's movement".

I agree with Sandy 100%. The movie does a magnificent job of conning
people who want to believe that the situation depicted in the movie is
about a loving family in Kansas . . . in the same small town where Dorothy was sucked
into the funnel of a tornado.

The story starts with underage empty-headed kids doing sexual favors
for each other . . . which produces a human embryo . . . and ends with
the baby's adoption by a single young women (who may not be mentally stable). The narrative treats this event as just another casual day in the life of the
families involved. As if bringing a baby into this world is something
that is just another daily happening. The treatment of the pregnancy
and subsequent adoption is unbelievably irresponsible and childlike.

What follows are just some of the glaring faults of this propaganda piece.

• From the outset, the totally irresponsible act by the two teenagers
is NEVER DISCUSSED by the parents with the boy and the girl. (They had
unprotected sex even though the sex act was thought out ahead of
time). The parents just casually accept their actions. No remorse. No
learning. No nothing. A no-fault pregnancy. Will they do it again .
. . and this time to sell the baby? Who knows. No regrets by anyone!! 
TOTAL CHILD AND PARENTAL IRRESPONSIBILITY . . . that's the subtext of this movie.
But just maybe having a baby was OK for the parents as long as JUNO
gave it away. This way the parents don't have to take anyresponsibility for the child.

• Selecting potential parents from an ad in the Pennysaver without
even the minimal check of the background of the people is MADNESS.
Especially when the future parent appear "wired". The girls father
goes along with this. The babys father is never even involved in these
decisions. (Is that legal?). Then giving the baby to a single mother
on a whim. Real Creepy.

* The one sided presentation of the receptionist in Women's Clinic as
unfeeling is as biased as you can get.

• But the worst part . . . and this is what the pro-lifers never
mention when they push their agenda, (listen to Dr. Laura on the radio), is the
TOTAL NEGLECT of the emotional effect on the girl (and possibly the
boy and their families ) of carrying a baby to term and then giving it
away for adoption. Does anyone know of any case where this can be done with no
residual feeling by the natural parents and grandparents for the
child?

There is no discounting the emotional effects of an abortion. But
these subjects are what the movie should have been about but are NEVER
DISCUSSED in an mature and intelligent manner. Rather they are
glossed over in the pro lifer's rush to show that live birth and
adoption is the way to go.

At the end, the movie shows the teenagers playing the guitar and
living happily ever after. GIVE ME A BREAK!!! A reprehensible F is
the correct rating for JUNO.

THE QUEEN (2006) B+

Attempts to depict the British royal family following the death of Princess Diana.

Something must be missing. Royalty brainpower really can't be that thick. The movie shows The Queen, and especially Prince Philip with almost no psychological insight at all. Absolutely no warmth. Creepy people. The people are emotionally frozen in their royal roles. Charles is a little better. "Royalty" was never previously shown this way . . . in my view.

Maybe this is the royal mentality that helped create the first world war

Tony Blair and his gang of merry men are shown with having less class than Lisa's family in My Fair Lady.

You may want to see it because it is soo different than the usual movie.

TV Series: THE AMERICANS: Season 1 (2012) AAA

This first series (season) of "The Americans" follows Philip and Elizabeth Jennings, two KGB spies who pose as an American married couple living in 1980s Washington, D.C. One of the best spy stories I have ever seen.  Great character development, fast moving and interesting and complex plots.

From Wikipedia:

The Americans was created by Joe Weisberg, a former CIA officer. Despite its spy setting, Weisberg sought out to tell the story about a marriage."The Americans is at its core a marriage story. International relations is just an allegory for the human relations. Sometimes, when you’re struggling in your marriage or with your kid, it feels like life or death. For Philip and Elizabeth, it often is." Executive producer Joel Fields described the series as working different levels of reality: the fictional world of the marriage between Philip and Elizabeth, and the real world involving the characters' experiences during the Cold War.

"The most interesting thing I observed during my time at the CIA was the family life of agents who served abroad with kids and spouses. The reality is that mostly they’re just people going about their lives. The job is one element, and trying to depict the issues they face just seemed like something that, if we could bring it to television in a realistic way, would be new."

—Joe Weisberg, creator and showrunner of The Americans

Working at the CIA, which Weisberg later described as a mistake, has helped him develop several storylines in the series, basing some plot lines on real-life stories, and integrating several things he learned in his training, such as dead drops and communication protocols. Weisberg was fascinated by stories he had heard from agents who served abroad as spies, while raising their families. He was interested in bringing that concept to television, with the idea of a family of spies, rather than just one person. Weisberg also said how the CIA inadvertently gave him the idea for creating a series around spies, explaining, "While I was taking the polygraph exam to get in, they asked the question, 'Are you joining the CIA in order to gain experience about the intelligence community so that you can write about it later -- which had never occurred to me. I was totally joining the CIA because I wanted to be a spy. But the second they asked that question…then I thought, 'Now I'm going to fail the test.'

Weisberg was partially influenced by the events of the Illegals Program to write a pilot script for the series. His research material included notes on the KGB's Cold War left by Vasili Mitrokhin and conversations with some of his former colleagues at the CIA. He stated that, unlike the circumstances involving the 2010 Russian spy ring, he had opted to set the story in the early 1980s because "a modern day [setting] didn't seem like a good idea", adding, "People were both shocked and simultaneously shrugged at the [2010] scandal because it didn't seem like we were really enemies with Russia anymore. An obvious way to remedy that for television was to stick it back in the Cold War. At first, the '70s appealed to me just because I loved the hair and the music. But can you think of a better time than the '80s with Ronald Reagan yelling about the evil empire?"

Foreign Movie Review: THE SCENT OF GREEN PAPAYA (1993) A to D

Available from Netflix

This film was rated 100% by the  Critics.   See http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the-scent-of-green-papaya/

Personally,  I could not get through the movie and had to quit at about the half way point.  Sandy liked it.  My opinion is best expressed by one review from rottentomatoes.

"This film is exactly why I don't like independent films. The director focuses more on the so-called "aesthetic" details of the film and they consume all aspects of it. He stuffed SO MUCH SYMBOLISM about how pure Mui (the young girl lead) was he practically beat us over the head with it. The characters are flat and ugly and speak maybe 1/8 of the time. I hated the music - it was SO repetitive and I was really glad when the dad ran away so I wouldn't have to listen to him strum on his stupid qin again. I'm being nice by giving it two stars because I liked the one scene where Mui cracks open the papaya and touches the seeds. Otherwise, blegh.

And here is another (positive) review by the critic Emanuel Levy:
"Toronto Film Festival 1993–I would like to single out “The Scent of the Green Papayas,” which I missed in Cannes Film fest (in May) and rushed to see in Toronto.

Almost wordless, and marked by great pictorial visuals, “The Scent of the Green Papayas” is one of the most beautiful films I have seen in years.  Directed by Hung Tran Anh, this Vietnamese-French co-production is set in Vietnam in the 1950s, when the country was under the French occupation. The film’s heroine is Mui, a 12-year old servant, who frames the sensitive tale with her delicate presence–and consistent point of view.

One of the picture’s great achievements, other than its gorgeous painterly tableaux, is that politics remains in the background and its impact is felt in a most subtle way.

 A major contribution to the cinematic literature of coming of age and growing pains, “The Scent of the Green Papayas” also provides a wry commentary on life’s unexpected twists and turns."

Another positive review:
"Little things mean a lot in the world of 10-year-old Mui, a girl who's trained to be a house servant in 1950s Vietnam. This film follows Mui as she grows up in pre-war Saigon, and finds quiet love with a family friend. Dialogue seems almost tertiary in this film that celebrates the senses, as the young girl discovers the world around her and marvels at every new sight, sound and scent she experiences while going about her workday life."
   

MISSION IMPOSSIBLE (2011) FFF-

In my movie review site, http://moviereviewsforover55ers.blogspot.com/,

I clearly say, "Before renting a DVD or going to your local movie theater, PLEASE READ THESE REVIEWS. The intent is to provide movie reviews for the mature adult. Don't waste your time and money on heavily advertised, unfunny, childish, hyped and poorly edited films with big "Stars".

This movie was specifically designed for children who enjoy the brutality, maiming and killing contained in the worst video games. 

I can understand the Action-Adventure film world (James Bond), but this goes way, way beyond that level. The so-called plot revives cold war nuclear bomb issues between the old Soviet Union and the US, and most of the dialog is just pseudo-scientific incomprehensible gibberish.

But the worst, worst part is that the movie got good ratings from the critics. See, http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/mission_impossible_ghost_protocol/.
WHAT DOES THAT SAY ABOUT WHO WE ARE?

FOR MY FATHER (2008) C

Foreign, Israeli, subtitles

Here we go again. The second Intifada is upon us in Israel. The Innocent young Palestinian man who has a bomb strapped to him, arrives in Israel. He has a loving family in the West Bank. The bombing is delayed because he needs a new on-off switch. 

He falls for a Jewish girl who is alienated from her Orthodox father . . . but her mother loves her and gives her money. She is attacked by religious young Jewish men who don't like the way she dresses. She is protected by the bomber. AS IF THIS OLD, OLD OFT REPEATED STORY IS GOING TO CHANGE ANYTHING IS ISRAEL IS TOTALLY BEYOND ME. 

The Arab spring is upon us and today 1 in 5 people on the earth are Muslims, in twenty years it will be 1 in 3. You know the rest of the story. Either he blows himself up or the couple live happily ever after.

From NETFLIX: Strapped into a vest of explosives, young Palestinian Terek (Shredi Jabarin) enters Tel Aviv on a suicide mission to restore his father's honor. But a faulty fuse leaves him stranded among Israelis, and he begins to question his ingrained beliefs about his enemy. While he waits the weekend for a repair, he meets beautiful Keren (Hili Yalon). Still wearing his remote-controlled bomb, Terek must decide his fate before a decision is made for him.

Movie Review: Department Q: A CONSPIRACY OF FAITH (2016) AAA

Nexflix streaming:Subtitles

This is the third of the Department Q series  . . . and probably the most painful and "dark" to watch.  Its about the brutality and kidnapping by a serial killer.  But if your are into detective stories, this one is a classic (My triple A rating), will keep you at the edge of your seat.  A movie that must not be missed.

Storyline
An old note is found in a bottle in Jutland which has traveled very long across the ocean a long time ago. The note is hard to decipher, but when the Danish investigator from Section Q receives it, the odd personalities within the section find a new angle on it and try to unveil yet another old and diabolic case even though the lead is cold.

Other Reviews:
A Conspiracy of Faith is a thriller but one with quite a differing approach. It dispenses with the comedy of the earlier film and instead goes for a pretty downbeat approach. Hardly surprising really when you consider that the story is about two cops investigating the case of two abducted children. This kind of material is always one that is going to be somewhat dark, another recent north European film The Treatment (2014) dealt with this subject in a very head on manner and consequently was very disturbing indeed in places. A Conspiracy of Faith only goes so far with its dark material and by the end of the film slightly dissipates its impact further by having its narrative go into more standard thriller territory. But despite that, this is still another compelling bit of Nordic noir.

This is the best of the three Department Q films in my opinion, it is not darker as such, off course the fact that its about kids getting taken is just not very nice to think about, but the cases they are working on are dark and we are beginning to know the characters and their different persona's and they really capture many great aspects of the characters and their interaction with other people.

Serial killers are always strange and dark, but this one is very well portrayed by Pål Sverre Hagen, he really seems like this nice guy, good looking (a Norwegian Ryan Gosling), well spoken, calm and trustworthy. But deep down he is just a bad bad man, with a terrible past and a twisted mind.

It might seem that there is a decline in the movies, but this is still rock solid. I can only imagine that the book is even more than that. It has characters from the previous movies (and books of course) and has a case that is pretty strong. You don't have the urgent feeling and the playfulness it had in the previous movies. As dark as they got, you always had something light in them.

As the previous Department Q films, this haunting crime-film is all about the darkest and most twisted evil people, and they're terrible actions towards innocent people. In this film it also deals with children, so it's very gripping. As a Norwegian I'm delighted to see Norwegians actors in this film, they really brings life to the film, acting in a convincing way. It even has a Norwegian director. But this it danish crime at it's very very best.

CENTRAL PARK FIVE (2013) AA

When I was eleven or twelve years old, I bought a ticket for a movie playing at the GEM MOVIE THEATER, on 181st Street and St. Nickolas Avenue, in Washington Heights in Manhattan.  I remember, I was by myself that day.  The movie that I saw, I Am A Fugitive From A Chain Gang, changed my life forever.  It dealt in a dated but powerful way with injustice that sometimes happens in our justice system. This took place in the South in the 1920's

THE CENTRAL PARK FIVE, a new film from award-winning filmmaker Ken Burns, tells a similar story.  But this one happened in the late 80's and early 1990's in New York City. It's the story of the five black and Latino teenagers from Harlem who were wrongly convicted of raping a white woman in New York City’s Central Park in 1989. The film chronicles The Central Park Jogger case, for the first time from the perspective of these five teenagers whose lives were upended by this miscarriage of justice.

The moral of both these stories is that we live in a very imperfect world and you better be prepared to deal with all sorts of injustices that will come your way in life.