By The Arts Staff
Movies
"Flight of the Red Balloon"
It's artsy. It's obscure. And it's really French. But trust me -- this lyrical ode to childhood innocence is the best film of 2008. Juliette Binoche gives a luminous performance as a lovesick puppeteer struggling to raise her son with the help of a Taiwanese nanny (Song Fang). The characters' anxieties contrast beautifully with the film's stylistic tranquility, captured in expressive long takes and a color scheme of ethereal sunset tones. Loosely inspired by Albert Lamorisse's timeless classic "The Red Balloon" (1956), "Flight" is both a loving homage to its predecessor and an enchanting masterpiece in its own right.
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By David Jiang
More than 50 years after its Broadway premiere, "West Side Story" is back with an old face pushing the show into the 21st century. The old face (pun not intended) is Arthur Laurents, 91, who wrote the book for the original Broadway production in 1957 and returns as the director of the revival. This time around, though, the show will sound distinctively different: Much of the dialogue and some of the lyrics are in Spanish.
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By Evan Lambert, The Dartmouth Staff
Judy Garland's "Over the Rainbow" earned its place in musical canon as a result of the songstress' overflowing charm. The same can't be said, however, for Nicole Kidman's uninspired rendition of the classic song in the recent film "Australia" (2008), as she attempts to convey charm by adopting the persona of an upperclass, stuck-up British woman. In fact, the entire movie falls far short of charming, thanks to an incoherence that plagues the film throughout.
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