Movies

After seeing this movie on DVD, I found that I admired Sayles as a director, actress Mastrantonio as a talented singer, and David Straithern as an actor. Earlier I was only familiar with the above-average work of Mastrantonio but here she is remarkable. It is indeed sad that such interesting and well-made movies never fetch an Oscar, if not major Oscars. It is indeed "Ox-bow incident" revisited.Every aspect of the film is well crafted and rivetting for any intelligent viewer. The DVD commentary is a great one for movie enthusiasts.

"Limbo" continues John Sayles travels around the continent to find distinctive regionalisms and he portrays small town Alaska with a real authentic feel. The audio and video were out of synch for the first 15 minutes so I missed some of a key scene where the singer breaks up with her boyfriend through a song, which was too bad as the cover songs are terrific, from Tom Waits to Richard Thompson's "Dimming of the Day." The acting was excellent, particularly, Vanessa Martinez as a very believable teenager. David Strathairn was both restrained and passionate. I just wasn't completely convinced that Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio's character had gone through changes to be at peace with herself. Kris Kristofferson again does a bad guy scarily convincingly.But the surprise "limbo" conclusion ruined the film for me and virtually everyone else in the audience also groaned.(originally written 7/12/1999)

I first saw David Strathairn in Sneakers, and he's an impressive actor, and he was excellent in Limbo. I remember seeing a review blurb saying the ending was one of the most shocking ever, and I thought, I have to see Limbo.If you're into fast and furious cars, expendables, etc, then please move aside please. Please get out of your cinema seat. Limbo requires lots of thought and is nuanced.The ending is haunting, and to this day I still think about it, wondering what happened to the three characters. Did they survive? Are they know living together as a family unit?