This movie made me realize that we’re living isolated from each other despite our affluence. Community is extremely important.

This was one of the best movies of the year. Really gripping and well-acted.

A simple Buddhist tale. It gets a bit too literal toward the end, but it’s still a moving statement.

A very simple but powerful slife of life of a French underclass couple.

A truly excellent book about accessing your unconscious in your writing.

It’s tough to do a good symbolic movie. The characters have a tendency to become stick figures for the points they are intended to illustrate. The symbolism here relates to the beginning of the U.S.’s involvement in the Vietnam war. This movie handle it pretty well.

Brendan Frasier’s acting doesn’t sit well with me. His delivery doesn’t strike me as natural or believable. It’s too obvious he’s acting. Quite the opposite with old pro Michael Caine.

The story is incredibly simple, but you really get a feeling for the title character, her family, and her life. That’s the power of this film. Giving you a slice of their life.

The story weaves in and out of several times: the distant past of one character, the future with one character, and the present with both of them. It’s hard to know where it’s going since it’s a theme-driven movie, but I found it enjoyable.

I normally like Sedaris’s work, but this time is humor was in the toilet. Literally. He must have made a dozen references to shit during the evening. This is a cheap way of getting laughs. Come on, David, you can be higher-brow than this.

The movie creates small moments of meaning and emotion, and they grow on you. The characters are all very different, believable, and even endearing. There’s not a very strong story — you just kind of hang out with the characters. But I liked it nonetheless.