I just got picked up by NewsAskew.com for my review of Chasing Amy as the 23rd most Romantic Movie. OMG!!! This is frickin' sweet! Check it out:



http://www.newsaskew.com/

The influence of Woody Allen as a writer and director of film resonates far and wide throughout the movie-making world. Nowhere is this fact more evident than in the Israeli film Haim ze Haim (Life is Life), which I was incredibly fortunate to catch at this year?s Chicago International Film Festival. Written and directed by one Michal Bat-Adam, Life is Life soars beautifully amidst so many other films this year, but sadly does so under the scope of moviegoers? radars. It received only nominal attention at the festival and I am forced to wonder if a DVD will even be attainable on this side of the Atlantic.

The film stars Moshe Ivgy as Macky, the Woody of the film, just with slightly fewer neuroses and a bit more sex appeal. Macky is a floundering writer with a troublesome affection for the fairer sex. He teaches literature, lingers in beautiful and atmospheric settings and attracts women apparently only by breathing. I think it is fair to say even he doesn?t get why they flock to him.

One of his lovely acquaintances is Ayala, a beautiful and enthralling creature whom Macky puts on a pedestal as his inspiration and who, in his mind, is the only one he loves. The catch, unsurprisingly, is that both Macky and Ayala are married to other people. Ayala even has a young daughter in the picture that struggles to realize that love does not always have to be some disastrous and painful emotion as she witnesses what her mother goes through during the course of the film. Life is Life has Macky sauntering through sunny, lazy days of sexual rendezvous, musings on love, exercises in imagination and attempts to create, and ultimately trying to figure out where life and love diverged and all went wrong. Eventually, Ayala breaks off her connection with Macky in an attempt to save her marriage and they both battle with themselves and each other to rekindle their relationship or conversely keep away from one another.

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