Big Lebowski is one of my favorites but I really really liked A Serious Man too, maybe my favorite from last year.
I just saw Thirst which was interesting, the same Korean director who did Old Boy, his movies are some of the more interesting I've seen lately, I really liked the last scene in Thirst.
Catchfire, see A Serious Man.
When none of the recent new releases looked appealing I went to the rent 5 movies for 10 dollars for 7 days racks. I think I'm going to visit those ones more often because I picked up some that I've never heard of before.
One was a documentary, "My Kid Could Paint That" about the then 4 year Marla Olmstead who a few years back took the abstract art world by storm, labeled a prodigy and then was and still is I guess questioned about being a hoax. It was really interesting because the filming was started before the 'hoax' question was brought up by the 60 Minutes piece on her and followed what happened afterwards. The film was quite multi-layered and became about much more then what the filmmaker originally intended which was a piece exploring the question of "What is art?".
The other one was "September Dawn" a semi-fictional story about the Mountain Meadows Massacre which occurred in Utah in 1857 where approximately 120 people in a wagon train travelling to California were slaughtered(with some help by local Paiutes, though how much they were actually involved is part of the controversy) by Mormans in the area. The film itself is not the greatest in it's execution bit hoaky in some parts and the love story a bit cheesy but the story it's based on is sure a good one. I had never heard of this event before and when learning more about what happened I can understand why it's a bit of US and especially Morman history that isn't talked about much or part of the commonly known historical cannon of the settlement of the US in general. Anyways the movie sparked enough interest to send me on a several hour long google fest which was quite eye opening.
We had a thread about Marla Olmstead back in the day. I kind of hated the premise of the film, or at least one of the questions moblizing its appeal: "don't we all really know that art is so stupid a child could do it?" But I'm defensive. I ended up liking the film quite a bit, in the end.
Catchfire, see A Serious Man.
Ok.
Well, the public library has copies of The Big Lebowski, so it won't be long before I can see what all the fuss is about.
Dude!
This aggression will not stand, man!
Slow down kids; I haven't signed out the picture yet.
Does "Lebowski" have a line like, "He's cute too"?
Martha Vickers is typecast.
OK, I saw the picture.
The "The Dude" stuff was annoying. The Busby Berkeley tribute was nice, though.
This part was entirely predictable - maybe that was the joke?
"Hey, careful, man, there's a beverage here!"
Where is the thread where I said The Hurt Locker is a propagandizing waste of time? And where is my comment about how the world would be different had Paul Newman played a Palestinian in Exodus?
I demand to know!
I just read about a new movie that shows promise.
Will Miral be this generation’s Exodus?
The film, based on Rula Jebreal's semi-autobiographical novel of the same name, takes us from the Nakba, and children orphaned during the Deir Yassin massacre, through the first Intifada to the signing of the Oslo Accords. I know there will be criticisms, and I have a few that I'll share later, but right now I am struck by the emotional impact of the film. You follow the lead character through checkpoints, refugee camps, home demolitions, interrogations, humiliations and protests. After that it is impossible to not understand, and feel, the Palestinian call for justice.
Elia Suleiman, who made Divine Intervention, has apparently created another masterpiece:
Elia Suleiman’s sublime "The Time That Remains"
The Time That Remains is a deeply funny, deeply heartfelt and deeply outraged film that is nothing short of a masterpiece. Suleiman has built upon and surpassed Divine Intervention’s surrealist, poetic and light-on-dialogue style that is sure to be a staple of Palestinian cinema and contemporary film more widely.
Reader sounds like a movie I prolly don't want to see very badly.
I saw Shutter Island(2010) starring Decaprio and Kingsley. Max Von Sidow plays a bit part as a Nazi war criminal, or at least, this is what Decaprio's character believes him to be. I think those who lean right politically would conclude the main character is not normal by the end of the film. Strange movie. Thought provoking.
The Hurt Locker, the Academy Awards and the Rehabilitation of the Iraq War
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/mar2010/hurt-m11.shtml
"This year's Academy Awards ceremony was a spectacle of banality and cowardice. The three films the Academy rewarded most highly, The Hurt Locker, Precious and Inglorious Basterds, collectively embody something retrograde and foul in the film industry, and all fly under false flags.."
Notice how the Academy couldn't give the Best Picture to Avatar, because of what it says about how we really are, but were able to give it to a patriotic POC that got its viewers to applaud the Iraq War in other ways?
Just watched Margin Call (2011).
1. Stupid movie, reasonably good acting. Basically stocks trading but no actual real product. High drama aboout stupid finances. And making hundreds of thousands of dollars doing it - guys at the top making millions. They're all blood sucking parasites taking advantage of a stupid capitalistic system. They should all be out digging ditches or doing something actually useful. Actually, all the characters looked bored and probably are wondering "what I am I doing in this piece of crap?".
2. The Demi Moore character - probably the stupidest character in the movie. Kevin Spacey and others just marginally better. Good movie to stay the hell away from.
3. Jeremy Irons at least gets to strut his stuff and look important, but in the end he's as stupid as the rest of this cast. He probably did this movie for the money, I can't see any other reason. Certainly not for artistic reasons.
4. That's two hours of my life I'll never get back.
5. I guess "Margin Call" has one redeeming factor - it exposes to us that the economy is being manipulated by banksters and it's a huge fraud. Look at the bailouts south of the border and indeed around the world. Financial parasites, all with a huge sense of entitlement.
6. The film is based on an idea - that the economy is based on growth that can not be sustained. Or something like that. One guy at this huge company discovers a fatal flaw that could send economies around the world into a tailspin. It's all made-up of course, sounds silly to me. But it does expose banksters and traders and securities agents as fraudulent to their core.
7. I've never understood why Obama (and others) went along with huge bailouts on Wall Street - why not just allow those financial parasites to fail and then have to get out and get real jobs?
Thanks Boom Boom. I probably won't see it.
7. I've never understood why Obama (and others) went along with huge bailouts on Wall Street - why not just allow those financial parasites to fail and then have to get out and get real jobs?
I think that it is because the Obamacrats are owned by Wall Street bankers. Wall Street bankers are the Liberal Democrats' real constituents not ordinary Americans. It's called oligarchy and even dictatorship by the one percent. There is a real disconnect between Americans and their bought and paid-for politicians.
Chop Shop (2007)
Story about a 12 year-old orphan Alejandro(Ale) and his sister Isamar(Izzy) growing up on the streets of Queens, New York.
Note: Not a Hollywood blockbuster by any means.
Critical receptionThe film appeared on some critics' top ten lists of the best films of 2008. Andrew O'Hehir of Salon named it the 3rd best film of 2008,[4] and Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times named it as not only one of the 20 best films of 2008,[4] but also the 6th best film of the decade.[5] and put it also in his list of great movies.
I thought it was an interesting but sad film. Not as sad or as violent as Cidade de Deus (City of God), but worthwhile watching jts.
Hungry, Hungry Hippos vs. Battleship
Is the battle for Earth-or America or Earth or...?-one between technology and a unnaturally natural demographic time-bomb exploding out of Africa which American military might will be absolutely unable to resist, let alone contain? Either way, we are certain that the aliens from another planet and the Africans from another continent (or is that country? or planet?) are fundamentally alien. And what a time honoured trope: the "West" represented by technology while Africa is represented by an animal-a giant, incomprehensible animal, but an animal all the same.
In Darkness (2012)
From acclaimed director Agnieszka Holland, In Darkness is based on a true story. Leopold Socha, a sewer worker and petty thief in Lvov, a Nazi occupied city in Poland, one day encounters a group of Jews trying to escape the liquidation of the ghetto. He hides them for money in the labyrinth of the town's sewers beneath the bustling activity of the city above.
Based on a true story. Tough to watch. Out on DVD and available as a torrent download.
Just watched City Of Angels, which I thought was well done. I had always imagined angels in white, not black.
I saw that one, Boom Boom. Thought it was good, too.
Just watched an old silent movie from 2011: The Artist
It's rilly good imo. Bejo and Dujardin are wonderful. Big popcorn.
