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Your Gateway to Music and More from a Christian Perspective Slow down as you approach the gate, and have your change ready.... |
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Your Gateway to Music and More from a Christian Perspective Slow down as you approach the gate, and have your change ready.... |
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Chocolat
Directed by Lasse Hallström Starring Juliette Binoche, Lena Olin, Johnny Depp, Judi Dench, Alfred Molina, Peter Stormare, Carrie-Anne Moss, Leslie Caron, John Wood, Hugh O'Conor, Victoire Thivisol, Aurelien Parent-Koening, Antonio Gil-Martinez, Helene Cardona, Harrison Pratt A classic tale of the progressive and unconventional heroes and the hypocritical, patriarchal baddies. Or as the New Yorker put it, the goods vs. the squares. Juliette Binoche plays a mysterious chocolate maker who blows into a provincial French town and has the audacity to set up her own confectionery shop . . . at the beginning of Lent! Alfred Molina has the thankless task of playing the religious mayor who's shocked, shocked by these proceedings. The movie's caricatures are so broad--the women are saints, the men are either boorish or stupid (usually both)--and the conflict is so irritatingly overplayed I found it hard not to start screaming at the screen. And when gypsy-boy Johnny Depp enters the picture as the force of sensitive masculinity, well you can take it from here. All of this is too bad, since the acting is top-notch. Binoche doesn't have to do much but appear saintly in a paganish sort of way, but Molina and Depp are fantastic, and Judi Dench gives her usual exemplary performance. And the chocolate creations are so mouth-watering you might have to run out to the concession stand two or three times before the movie's end. For better or worse, you won't miss much. J. Robert Parks 1/20/2001
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