As my blog readers know, it takes a lot to impress me when it comes to cinema. Just when I thought it was impossible for films to shed more light on the Holocaust, “The Counterfeiters” has impressed me like no other film in years!

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To visit Vassar College in New York state is to appreciate what philanthropy can do when it comes to education. The college was set up originally by a brewer called Matthew Vassar for the liberal arts education of young ladies.

I had read about Vassar in literature and heard references to it in American films, so it was truly a pleasure to walk around its beautiful buildings dating back to the Nineteenth Century. I was in architecture heaven and would have loved to live on campus.

This is what money can do when it is used for causes more worthy than buying a football team. But money can also be used as a bribe and as a tool for propaganda.

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Two days ago the chart that records the number of visits to my web site skyrocketed.

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I hate all this fuss about Heath Ledger’s death. No sooner was he found dead, all the experts crawled out of from under their rocks and theorised about what happened to him. It’s all a bit sick and so pointless.

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Today, I’m waving a white flag in surrender. Condemned and despondent about it all, I’m giving up the movies. And this time I mean it.

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Am I condemned to never again see a film that’s worth seeing? Following the disappointment of “Twice Upon a Time”,” I was longing to see a film that would redeem the movie industry. The reviews were encouraging about this French ensemble comedy/drama/whatever, and having been involved with films in the past, I still have a soft spot for the medium.

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What is this obsession with fat lips? For years, celebrities have been having their lips blown up by inserting all sorts of things into them. There have been bits of string pulled through, injections and fillers. Women even apply irritants to their lips so that the lips swell in protest. Some of the results have been quite horrifying.

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It’s been ages since I enjoyed a movie and I guess I’ll have to wait a little longer if “Twice Upon a Time” is the best that comedy can offer at the moment. Here we have two countries, England and France, who are famous for their contribution to the world of cinema and they managed to create a boring flop.

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I did a double take when I read an article which suggested that Nicole Kidman may star as Marilyn Monroe in the remake of “How to Marry a Millionaire.”

Who in the world would look at Nicole and think of Marilyn? Marilyn was voluptuous, an icon of the Fifties at a time when women were admired for being soft and curvy. Think of Jayne Mansfield, Diana Dors, Marilyn Maxwell and Brigitte Bardot who would all be described by Sam in “Silent Witness” as being “well-nourished.”

Nicole Kidman had to wear a ridiculous proboscis in her unconvincing portrayal of Virgina Woolf in “The Hours.” As Monroe she would have to get some breasts, hips and bottom and she would have to stand in one of those holes to look shorter. Kidman is tall and thin as a reed. She is a very “modern beauty”, less of a sex symbol than a clothes horse, with that lean and hungry look of Cassius which Shakespeare was not very partial to. Marilyn oozed sexuality. Let’s face it, if someone wants to give Nicole a good time, they would have to take her to an all you can eat buffet.

Unless the film makes use of special effects and don’t we need more of those in today’s movies, Nicole is not a perfect choice for the role of our most famous blonde bombshell. If the producers want to cast a more ample actress then perhaps the ever elastic Renee Zelweiger could be chosen, but then, what would they do about that screwed up face of hers?

As for the title for the remake, shouldn’t it be “How to Marry a Billionaire?” A millionaire is hardly worth the effort, nowadays.

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In the Eighties and Nineties, there was hardly a French film that did not feature Gerard Depardieu. Fine actor that he is, it got to the stage that when a new French film came out I would ask, “Apart from Depardieu, who else is in it?”

The Aussie actress, Cate Blanchett, seems to be doing a Depardieu at the moment. Currently, there are three films with her in them. I fear she’s going to outstay her welcome if she doesn’t pace herself and resist taking on more roles until we have recovered from a Cate overload.

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