Movie Recommendations

Video Store: Losing Isaiah. With Halle Berry, Samuel L Jackson and Cuba Gooding Jr plus some whities I don't know and a few cute kids, this drama asks a lot of tough questions about race and society and parenthood. I happen to agree with the whites, but when you see that people of one group all reason to one conclusion (that kids are best brought up in the soundest, safest environment) and that people of another group all reason to another conclusion (that kids are best brought up where they're part of the culture), it's a clue that the logic has a lot more to do with background than with intelligence. See the movie. Rated "R" for drugs and language; no objectionable content.

In Theatres: Big Fish. I don't think I've ever cried in a movie theatre before. This is one of the most extraordinary films that I've ever seen. It bears comparison to "Oh Brother Where Art Thou" in both style and period. It's a father-son film with a lot to say about perceptions of life and family. Somewhere between all the laughs, I had tears running down my face, and the outlandish images and sequences (trees grabbing a man, etc) are somehow congruous. It's definitely worth seeing. A warning is that there is nudity, though it's not obnoxious or in poor taste, and didn't ruin the film.