{"id":9390,"date":"2005-08-29T17:25:09","date_gmt":"2005-08-29T14:25:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2005\/08\/29\/mona-lisa-smile\/"},"modified":"2005-08-29T17:25:09","modified_gmt":"2005-08-29T14:25:09","slug":"mona-lisa-smile","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2005\/08\/29\/mona-lisa-smile\/","title":{"rendered":"Mona Lisa Smile"},"content":{"rendered":"<!-- google_ad_section_start -->\n<p><!-- IMDB tt0304415 --><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-content\/rummovie\/tt0304415.jpg?w=660&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"Mona Lisa Smile (2003)\" \/>I am not a big fan of Julia Roberts.  In fact, I try to avoid her more often than I try to see her.  That was one of the reasons I skipped &#8220;<a href =\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0304415\">Mona Lisa Smile<\/a>&#8221; when it was in the movies.  Recenlty though I saw a trailer again and decided to get the film on DVD.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Directed by:<\/strong> Mike Newell<br \/>\n<strong>Genres:<\/strong> Comedy, Drama, Romance<br \/>\n<strong>Cast:<\/strong> Julia Roberts, Kirsten Dunst, Julia Stiles, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Ginnifer Goodwin, Dominic West, Juliet Stevenson, Marcia Gay Harden, John Slattery, Marian Seldes, Donna Mitchell, Terence Rigby, Jennie Eisenhower, Leslie Lyles, Laura Allen<br \/>\n<strong>IMDB raintg:<\/strong> 6.1<br \/>\n<strong>My rating:<\/strong> 5.0 [rate 5.0]<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>One word: disappointment.  There were a few nice ideas in the film, which didn&#8217;t get enough momentum and the whole thing went down to the romantic drama drain.  Again.  It is sad to see such a waste of so much potential.<\/p>\n<p>I mean, how often do you have any philosophical and sociological issues brought up in mainstream movies with mainstream celebrities?  Not often I tell you.  This one could have had a good swing around of young college women studying in expensive collegues just to become married and &#8220;stay married&#8221;.   The issue was as important in the 1950-ies as it is now.  Or the ancient question of why we are here and what will coming generations say about us &#8211; how deeper can you go?<\/p>\n<p>But it seemed that the makers of this film got scared in the process and didn&#8217;t even want to think about some possible answers to the questions that they were raising.  That&#8217;s why the raising of questions was very fast and silent.<\/p>\n<p>As it is, the film is a two hour pointless waste of time with some cliche Julia Roberts shots (crying, sitting on the bank of the lake, walking in the park, etc).<\/p>\n<!-- google_ad_section_end -->\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<!-- google_ad_section_start -->\n<p>I am not a big fan of Julia Roberts. In fact, I try to avoid her more often than I try to see her. That was one of the reasons I skipped &#8220;Mona Lisa Smile&#8221; when it was in the movies. Recenlty though I saw a trailer again and decided to get the film on &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2005\/08\/29\/mona-lisa-smile\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Mona Lisa Smile<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<!-- google_ad_section_end -->\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1,24],"tags":[1398,500],"keyring_services":[],"class_list":["post-9390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-movies","tag-julia-roberts","tag-romance"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":8652,"url":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2005\/02\/21\/closer\/","url_meta":{"origin":9390,"position":0},"title":"Closer","author":"Leonid Mamchenkov","date":"February 21, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Watched an amazing drama \"Closer\" on DVD. IMDB rating: 7.2 My rating: 9.0 [rate 9.0] Celebrity highlights: four people out of four people in the movie were played by Jude Law, Clive Owen, Julia Roberts, and Natalie Portman. \"Closer\" is an excellent love story. It is about four people who\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;All&quot;","block_context":{"text":"All","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8165,"url":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2004\/11\/06\/steel-magnolias\/","url_meta":{"origin":9390,"position":1},"title":"Steel Magnolias","author":"Leonid Mamchenkov","date":"November 6, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Watched \"Steel Magnolias\" on DVD. I've seen it before, but for some reason my memory kept no record of this film. IMDB suggests a \"Comedy\/Romance\/Drama\" categorization for this movie. I do disagree a lot with this. This as pure drama as it can get. I mean there are, of course,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;All&quot;","block_context":{"text":"All","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11089,"url":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2008\/03\/15\/the-pelican-brief\/","url_meta":{"origin":9390,"position":2},"title":"The Pelican Brief","author":"Leonid Mamchenkov","date":"March 15, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"\"The Pelican Brief\" is one of the older movies (around 1993).\u00c2\u00a0 I guess, conspiracy fans and theorists would love it.\u00c2\u00a0 It is about yet another government conspiracy.\u00c2\u00a0 There seems to be some sort of conspiracy (coincidence? I think not!) in the cast for this film.\u00c2\u00a0 The director, Alan J. Pakula,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;All&quot;","block_context":{"text":"All","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7798,"url":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2004\/08\/13\/confessions-of-a-dangerous-mind\/","url_meta":{"origin":9390,"position":3},"title":"Confessions of a Dangerous Mind","author":"Leonid Mamchenkov","date":"August 13, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"I thought that once in a while I should watch a movie from my wishlist, so I got a copy of \"Confessions of a Dangerous Mind\" and watched it. During the whole film I had this feeling of dejavu and only when the closing titles started rolling, I remembered that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;All&quot;","block_context":{"text":"All","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9496,"url":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2005\/09\/25\/country-of-my-skull\/","url_meta":{"origin":9390,"position":4},"title":"Country of My Skull","author":"Leonid Mamchenkov","date":"September 25, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"\"Country of My Skull\" (aka \"In My Country\") is the newest movie starring Samuel L. Jackson. That's all I knew about his movie when I rented it today. Directed by: John Boorman Genres: Drama Cast: Samuel L. Jackson, Juliette Binoche, Brendan Gleeson, Menzi Ngubane, Sam Ngakane, Aletta Bezuidenhout, Lionel Newton,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;All&quot;","block_context":{"text":"All","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9461,"url":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2005\/09\/16\/drumline\/","url_meta":{"origin":9390,"position":5},"title":"Drumline","author":"Leonid Mamchenkov","date":"September 16, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Martin suggested that I saw this movie, so I did. \"Drumline\". Directed by: Charles Stone III Genres: Comedy, Drama, Romance, Music Cast: Nick Cannon, Zoe Saldana, Orlando Jones, Leonard Roberts, GQ, Jason Weaver, Earl Poitier, Candace Carey, Shay Roundtree, Miguel A. Gaetan, J. Anthony Brown, Afemo Omilami, Angela E. 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