Jorge Gutierrez’ The Book of Life is a visually stunning animated feature that balances action-adventure and romance themes to tell an epic tale of Mexico. I don’t think I’ve seen so much vibrant color in an animated film outside of Rio. The visual basis for the film is Mexican folk art, specially the dioramas, tree of life statuary and paper mache dolls associated with the Day of the Dead celebration. These rich and brilliant colors take us through a tale of love that becomes so grand that everyone living and dead has a stake in the question of who Maria (Zoe Saldana) marries.
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Love is Strange (US: 2014) – An update of a classic slightly misses
Love is Strange is an update of Make Way for Tomorrow, Leo McCarey’s Depression-era film about a elderly couple forced to live apart due to a late-in-life financial setback. After Ben (Alfred Molina) is fired from his job as a music instructor at a Catholic school, he and is new husband, Ben (John Lithgow) find that they are unable to continue to pay their mortgage and do not have enough equity in their home to find a new place. Moving out of New York City is out of the question, but staying in New York means splitting up. George moves in with a younger gay couple in Manhattan and Ben moves in with his nephew’s family in Brooklyn.
Peale's BL Perspectives 