I rewatched the movie Them! which I probably haven’t seen since I was a kid. For a 50s B-sci-fi flick, Them! rocks! Some cliches of Hollywood and lessons in fear-mongering, sexism, and racism were de rigueur. In this first set, the aged scientist schools the Washington idiots on how it’s going down. More pix after the jump.
Sometimes it feels like a Brakhage movie. In this one, Stan glued moth wings onto film.
Of course, eventually it will all (not) look like Washington D.C.’s subway with all the renovation going on.
I saw Avatar with maybe nine other people in the theater which is not a big deal. Lots of movies screen all the time in big theaters for a few of us. I enjoyed it but have some misgivings which I’m sure have been talked about in one review or another. I was disturbed by the premise that the we were there in the first place to steal and ended up fighting ourselves because a renegade had a conscience. What if a soldier in the Iraq War had fallen in love with an Iraqi woman, and decided he’s sick of bombing and fighting for oil, and turned on his officers? An occupying army sets up all kinds of conflict and storytelling but the idea of an occupying army is wrong. As Howard Zinn noted, all war is against children.
Another thing that bothered me is the coming onslaught of 3D crap to our movie theaters. Most of these movies will be more Manichean fantasies with good and evil prototypes who duke it out. 99.9% of the time, the good side wins. If they don’t, definitely catch the sequel. Life isn’t so simple and these movies are so far from reality, they may as well sell you the hibernation pod that goes with the movie at the theater. Obviously, the killer app for 3D technology is porn which will be in your home theater very soon. The movie studios should keep trying to change the world, not enable us to continually escape from it.
Ghost Boast: I took the photos during the boring parts of Avatar. 15 second exposures.
Hulu has two free documentaries which are necessary viewing whether you’re conservative, liberal, radical, communist, or an independent weirdo.
You have to put up with ads but that’s free TV. Feel free to discuss anything in these documentaries here or on hulu.
That last photo I posted was surreally bad. I recently saw the movie 50 Dead Men Walking. It’s about Ireland in the late 80s and has a really likable Irish bloke getting recruited by both the IRA and British Intelligence at the same time. The documentary-style cinematography was similar to that used in The Hurt Locker and the main message of both movies is that war is really fucked up. Given that they’re both stories about people who are on one side of a conflict, the other side will get short shrift. People who criticize these movies for being unbalanced miss the point. The first casualty in war is the truth (which is fixed around the policy).
I either have the swine flu or a very severe sinus infection. I tried some cold pills that expired in 2006. Was that the last time I felt this bad? They didn’t work. I went out and bought some fresh generic ones and those aren’t working either. At leastThe Hurt Locker came in from Netflix. Oh goody, two hours of defusing bombs. Seriously, I’m really looking forward to this. I’ve sort of had Kathryn Bigelow in the corner of my eye since she directed a little 1987 vampire movie called Near Dark.
Sometimes I’m really dumb but I didn’t get this joke at first. It’s the punchline following Stephen’s declaration that they’ve hit a “one-hat town.” When I first saw it, I thought, “… but it’s a kitten! Poor kitty!” and then I thought “This is going to be an irreverent film,” and then I got the joke. From The Brothers Bloom which I thoroughly enjoyed. (4 stars)
I also saw this film and then I noticed there was no wikipedia entry for it so I wrote one — My contribution since I can’t afford to donate a lot. If you use wikipedia, please donate!
When I watch a string of really good movies in a row, sometimes I have to catch my breath. In no order, here are a few I rewatched and a couple new ones.
Gandhi
Ben Kingsley really is astonishing in this. “He showed the world a way out of its madness and we don’t see it. And neither does he.” After discussing this movie with a friend I assumed to be firmly in the capitalist camp, she pointed me to a book called “How Europe Underdeveloped Africa,” by Walter Rodney which is posted in its entirety on a certain leftist site. Her point was that England trumped Gandhi and Nehru and purposely divided India setting Muslim against Hindu. Europe played the same game in Africa following colonialization.
Sex, Lies, and Videotape
This film is really just navigating the minefield of honesty in relationships. James Spader gives everyone iced tea. Launching the career of Steven Soderbergh, he later went on to write and direct another of my low budget independent favorites, The Limey.
Wings of Desire
Angels are among us. I was shocked to learn that Solveig Dommartin pictured here died in 2007 at the age of 45 from a heart attack. She did all her own trapeze stunts in the film and we learn in the commentary that she was offered a few circus contracts following the release of this movie. Peter Falk sort of plays himself here and I also rewatched some episodes of Columbo on Netflix which is hit-and-miss. We find Steven Spielberg directed one of the first ones and it’s not that great. However, Columbo the character, is always colossal. It’s sad we never meet his wife.
Kontroll
This is a wonderful low-budget first feature shot completely in the Hungarian subway system in Budapest with a plot not unlike Fight Club. Amusingly, the film is introduced by the Hungarian transportation director, paraphrasing, “If you really think there are people like this employed by Hungarian Public Transport, get a life.” I especially liked the girl in the pink bear costume.
Romulus, My Father
This is based on a memoir by Australia’s eminent scholar and writer, Raimond Gaita. Eric Bana, who plays the lead, also played the lead in another great Aussie biopic called Chopper.
When I was a kid, I used to climb on the roof of our house. The view was spectacular and I probably loosened some of the spanish tile. I would also wonder when life was going to get better. Of course, it eventually did.
I watched a slow Spanish movie from 1973 called Spirit of the Beehive. With notes of Antonioni and shot toward the end of Franco’s reign, it’s a meditative allegorical film eliciting all sorts of feelings about growing up in a repressive, spiritually dead environment. The lead, Ana Torrent, is still acting in movies today. The director, Victor Erice, has only made three feature-length movies in his career. I reckon he stares out the window a lot these days.
I tweeted this or something but Coraline must be seen if you like movies (and the website is pretty good too). Scouts honor.
The Mary Poppins soundtrack is one of my earliest musical memories. Back in the 80s, I laid out my vision for a sampled 60s world of dance music but my partners wouldn’t buy it so it’s gratifying to see that the musical on Broadway etc. has made it happen. My parents and relatives took me to a lot of movies as a kid. Were it that Julie Andrews got as much recognition as MJ, I would be a less cynical person.
I recently had a dinner with a cousin who is working in China. He said any businessman worth his gold watch should be asking himself and every business associate he meets with, “What’s your China angle?” That night I watched Up the Yangtze, a most remarkable documentary about how the Three Gorges Dam project is affecting the lives of people who live along the Yangtze River.
Everyone in this film, from the tourists to the tour guides to the exiled shack family, has swallowed some sort of Kool-Aid. (I use Kool-Aid not in the Jonestown sense but in the sense that it isn’t complete nutrition. [Kool-Aid must hate either usage.]) There’s a quote from Confucius in the opening titles: “By three ways may we learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; second, by imitation, which is easiest; third, by experience, which is the bitterest.” The movie shows the main characters doing all three, however, when they’re doing the first staring off into space, they often look as though they’ve been hit by a truck.
The main protagonist is a young farmer girl forced to work on a tour boat because her grades weren’t good enough for a scholarship and her family can’t afford to send her on. They need her income yesterday. None of her scenes appear in the deleted scenes section of the DVD. The Times praised the movie for refusing to editorialize, and so it’s telling watching the deleted scenes which feature the most middle-class, ambitious characters –the senior tour guide and bellboy. They are praising China and assuring themselves of success in a way which is charming, convincing, and naive all at the same time.
