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Cousins (1989)
Enjoyable Actors, OK Late '80s US Version of French Film
Beautiful casting & Canadian mountain/lake countryside raise this film above '80s style, depressing home interiors, & French amorality (<-play on words "amor" & "amoral").
Classic European Isabella Rossellini's Gemini charm mesmerizingly packaged in hybrid of famed Nordic actress mother Ingrid Bergman & great Italian pater genes is glorious inside & out in the most layered role (though I'd watch her in anything, like her next-gen doppelganger Juliette Binoche). Here Rossellini reminds me of similarly radiant Irish actress Ellen Burstyn in parallel film "Same Time Next Year" with equally genuine co-star Alan Alda conveying sincerity like Ted Danson enjoyable here in a non-stereotyped role like "Cheers," more like his later "Becker."
Stunning Celtic beauty Sean Young is always intriguing & with a vulnerability surprising in such breathtaking eye candy. Vintage Lloyd Bridges, more handsome & better acting than earlier film styles, allowed engages us in the less callow inner world of seniors while a lad plays his grandson in still 21st Century relevant counterculture c o m e d i e/satire.
This little-altered US version of French "Cousin, Cousine" is not only reminiscent of "Same Time Next Year" but also "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" and "Four Weddings & a Funeral" though not as much heat or heart as those but still a watchable romp through karma leaving us with the philosophical jog that "No man is promised tomorrow"{Bible Book of Proverbs}, so "Carpe Diem/Seize the Day" & when something isn't working, acknowledge it and take advantage of windows of opportunities to try to fix or change but always living your life to the full every minute at every age.
Mary Bryant (2005)
New South Wales Made - Proud Of Big & Gritty History
Only reason I didn't vote this mini-series I watched on a DVD as a movie at the max rating of 10 is that it doesn't completely follow the true story, which makes fascinating reading online afterward (not before, so you don't spoil the dramatic unfolding) with greater detail of intense interest inspired by this film.
The artistic license taken with the inspiring actions of Cornishwoman Mary Braund Bryant & other seminal settlers of New South Wales given a chance to live out of prisons overflowing from British caste system starvation like were shipped to the American colonies is so engaging and gripping that I recommend it for mature audiences though ladies you may not want your husbands watching sexy actress Romola Garai in this earthy steamy depiction of desperate overcoming.
We can all relate to the human condition of striving to meet & rise above life's challenges & difficulties, and recordings of such history help us explore in our spirits & souls how we would rise to the occasion in such situations as these with God's help not acknowledged here but ever present in the facts of timely favor and circumstances bringing common folk to uncommon experiences & unlikely fame.
Thought provoking not only about "relative ethics" to survive in our cruelly fallen world, but also a bird's eye view of a macrocosm of a microcosm of His-story through different cultures encountering & influencing each other as well as by individual choices between good & evil, lowness & greatness, in our fleeting world, with ramifications for eternity.
As theologian William Shedd said later, in the new USA, in the 1800s, "A ship in a harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for." And as Phoenician/Lebanese Christian chiropractic physician Dr. Michael Shalhoub, cousin of actor Tony Shalhoub, of Southern California says, "Courage is contagious." Each of us faces challenges we can look back on & be glad we tried, even regardless of outcome.