Bee Season

0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:

The California Formula, 2008-12-15
Hey! Another dysfunctional california family...what a surprise! They just wrapped in a thin veil of religion. This was not a good or inventive movie. It's another dis-jointed, multi-line movie with unlikeable characters. I can go with likeable characters and a sad ending, or likeable charaters and a happy ending. But to sit through 2 hours of annoying people with a happy ending...who cares? I'm not sure if the girl's character was a case of bad casting or bad direction. br / br /The story with the mother was also frustrating, since we couldn't tell what was happening. Was she having memory flashbacks or psychic visions? Did she know the people who owned the houses or were they random? Was Saul cheating on her or was this related to her parents death? Sure we figured it out, but the actual story turned out to not be as interesting as what we were speculating. br / br /The oldie Grand Canyon was a better movie of the same type. At least there weren't any toads falling from the sky at the end.

0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:

Bee Season review, 2008-11-29
Richard Gere plays the father of an 11 year old girl who makes it to the national level spelling bee. Originally I had expected that this is what the movie would be about, but that seemed to be a minor part of the story. This movie got very strange in not a good way. There were flashes of story that never did come together and make sense. The end left you wondering still what those flashes were, you kept expecting them to develop the story of them, but never did. When the movie ended, you didn't know for sure if the story was over or not. The 11 year old purposely loses the national spelling bee at the last moment, even tho it was a word she knew. My whole family watched this movie together and it was one we all booed at the end and felt to be a complete waste of time.

0 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

Depressing, 2007-12-17
This is a depressing and confusing movie. Nothing like what I thought it would be from the DVD cover! It was painful to watch such morose children. The dad was villified although it seemed to me that he was guilty of nothing more than being annoying. What kept me watching was wondering what the mom was up to, but that turned out to be so weird it was beyond my understanding. And what was the deal with Eliza on the floor in the hotel room? A spiritual experience? Not a movie to recommend at all.

0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:

What is God?, 2007-11-04
Sometimes, it's good to read the book that the movie is based on or that we watch the movie as it is. The title of "Bee Season" can be rather misleading because I thought it's about spelling bee competition which a documentainment was made the year before. Anyhow, it's about a family that looks perfect from the outset but as we dig deeper, we start noticing the cracks. I'm not even sure if "dysfunctional" is the right word for it. Suffice to say that everyone in the family is like a half filled jug and that something is missing in their lives. For them, to be whole again, or in a metaphorical term is to be near God, they explore their own options. The patriarch of the family (played by Richard Gere) would use intellectual pursuit; the son would be to explore alternative religion, Hare Krishna; the daughter is to partake in the bee spelling competition, whilst the matriarch (played by Juliette Binoche) is to partake in a vice. Ultimately, I believe the movie questions of the definition of God. What is it to us? Would we forsake everything just to be near God or that God is a term used to describe inner peace that we find by learning to let go? A rather thought-provoking movie...

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

The Ineffable in an Hour Forty-Five, 2007-10-14
I knew nothing about this movie when I sat down to watch it. I like Richard Gere, I like Juliette Binoche, and I was once a spelling bee contestant, so when this came on cable I TiVoed it, then let it sit for about three months. But once I started watching, in short order I found myself completely fascinated. What the filmmakers are after here is just about impossible to film--a fully-realized spiritual experience. It starts by relating the mechanics of spelling to the kabbalists' search for meaning in the letters and words of the Hebrew language. Sound, as shaped and distilled into language, is our first and primary means of expression, and as our culture moves further into its visual obsession, language has been devalued--but anyone who has watched a political debate, or tried to get through to a teenager, understands the power of a right word, and the disastrous effects of a wrong word. br / br /Language, then, is most certainly one avenue toward a true spiritual experience, and it's the avenue that the young girl in this movie finds herself on. Her mother is on a spiritual journey as well, but the dangers of that path are slowly revealed as her search fragments both herself and her family. The son is also a seeker, first through music and then through different religions. At the center of all this is a father, played by Richard Gere, a professor who, tragically, understands what the search is about but can never experience it himself--he can only help others find their own way. Which is why he ends up so self-involved and destructive--everyone in his family surpasses him spiritually in one way or another, and the further they go on their own journey, the less he is able to follow and the more desperately he tries to hold onto them. br / br /Binoche is heart-breaking in a performance that is 100% subtextual, and Flora Cross as the daughter is eerily good at capturing something you'd think she was too young to possibly understand. This is a movie with layers and layers of meaning, and it gives you just barely enough clues to piece together on your own, if you're willing to put forth the effort. But the results are more than worth it. I came to this movie with no expectations and left it astounded, and moved. One of those experiences I had to just let sit and work on me for awhile; I couldn't just flip to the next channel and catch whatever else was on, this one had to be absorbed, slowly. Wonderful.