The Green Lantern (2011)
35/100
Midnight in Paris (2011)
65/100
I suspect Paris will grow on you (unless you are something like McAdam’s parents in the film)
how did yr wife like it?
She liked it more than I did, Den. (I’ll try to post more comments in your thread a little later.)
Passenger 57, as tight as noir with some great lines and an interesting villian. On par with Action Jackson and some of the 70s Jim Brown and Grier pics.
Grade: B+
The Tree of Life. I want to give it a 10/10, but will keep it as a 9 for right now. That said, it’s the first Malick I’ve truly enjoyed and I am SOOO looking forward to seeing it again. Hopefully it will hit our second run theater in town so I can catch it for $3.99.
XMen :First Class!!
A First Class movie ! Best Of Super Hero Movies !
Equals The Dark Knight In Acceptance To Script And Tops In Some Fields!!
Film introduced Some Excellent Piece Of Young Talents To Industry!!!
Rating :9.0/10
Film Rocks\m/
XMen :First Class!!
A First Class movie ! Best Of Super Hero Movies !
Equals The Dark Knight In Acceptance To Script And Tops In Some Fields!!
Film introduced Some Excellent Piece Of Young Talents To Industry!!!
Rating :9.0/10
Film Rocks\m/
The Fortune Cookie (1966, Billy Wilder): It’s amusing, and Walter Matthau is great (even if he reminds me a bit too much of Richard Nixon at times), but there’s something kind of oppresive about it. It has the cynicism and bitterness of some of Wilder’s other films but without anything for us to latch on to as the main character is only going through with the scheme out of some pathetic attempt to get back with a woman who doesn’t love him. It has its moments and I appreciate Wilder’s cynicism even when it doesn’t completely work. 6.5/10
Harold and Maude (1971, Hal Ashby): It’s rare for something so quirky to seem so sincere. An absolute joy. 8.5/10
Resident evil: Extinction
Rating: 5/10
Resident evil: Extinction
Rating: 5/10
Resident evil: Extinction
Rating: 5/10
The Adjuster, Atom Egoyan 9.0/10
The Adjuster, Atom Egoyan 9.0/10
Long Day’s Journey Into Night 1962
DIR Sidney Lumet
PROD Ely A. Landau
SCR Eugene O’Neill
DP Boris Kaufman
CAST Katharine Hepburn, Ralph Richardson, Jason Robards, Dean Stockwell, Jeanne Barr
MUSIC André Previn
174 Min
Ending scene was kinda funky with the Hepburn close up.
Nonetheless, an incredibly effective film by way of various character arcs.
9.5/10
Clerks (1994, Kevin Smith): Eh. I’m actually surprised how much of it I found amusing (if, admittedly, not exactly laugh out loud funny), but a lot of it is still rather badly made and annoying. I appreciate that the film was made for what’s seen as a very small budget via maxed out credit cards (making it truly independent), but that doesn’t mean it’s that good. 4/10
Rebel Without a Cause (1955, Nicholas Ray): This really hasn’t aged well. Here smoking and the occasional tap on the shoulders from the police qualifies you as a rebel, the gang members often seem like they’ve come right out of West Side Story (only this film isn’t a musical and we’re meant to take them seriously), and the script is full of cheesiness. It says something then that despite all the hokieness the film’s look at troubled youth and the disconnect between youth and parents still rings very true. 6.5/10
The White Ribbon (2009, Michael Haneke): Oppression causes reaction. A simple idea, but Haneke renders it in the structure of the film in a way that is both complex and powerful finding the oppression throughout the village and showing that it is something deeply ingrained into this society. The film looks incredibly beautiful, and though it is a huge change from Haneke’s earlier work (trading in visceral impact for a more overtly subtle, refined approach) it is still excellent in every way. 9/10
“Here smoking and the occasional tap on the shoulders from the police qualifies you as a rebel,”
that would be to exclude suicide, knife fights, life risking auto races and closet homosexuality, not to mention breaking and entering
I’m a bookkeeper’s son,
I don’t want to shoot no one.
“that would be to exclude suicide, knife fights, life risking auto races and closet homosexuality, not to mention breaking and entering”
haha, okay maybe I was exaggerating somewhat :P Still when they introduce the character to us from the beginning they want us to take him as being a rebel just based off of the cigarettes and him being talked to by the police. And he only takes part in the knife fight and the auto race because of peer pressure: that isn’t rebellion, that’s conformism…
makes a bit of sense I guess altho confromism to a small violent group is at least rebellion from a square mainstream.
Remember when Sammy Hagar was a rebel because he didn’t like driving the speed limit?
I didn’t get ‘Oppression causes reaction’ from White Ribbon. I took it as, that kid was taking his parents’ extreme style of discipline and was applying it to the other kids and townspeople.
The Authoritarian Personality
Excessively harsh and punitive parenting was posited to cause children to feel immense anger towards their parents; yet fear of parental disapproval or punishment caused people to not directly confront their parents, but rather to identify with and idolize authority figures.
@ jirin
Yes, they were taking it out on others.
I read that article, and it seems like it’s something that’s been debunked (Which pretty much applies to all psychology from earlier than the 80s or so), and it also seems like an intentionally hostile classification of religious orthodoxy and conservatism.
All those qualities listed could be just as easily applied to Hank Hill from King Of The Hill, and it seems like this ‘Authoritarian personality’ research not only lumps all people like that in with Hitler, it makes their basic personality style into a disease.
(And, the Wikipedia article pretty much says outright it’s been dubunked.)
Yes, it was debunked but we aren’t going to hold Haneke to that fact in the same we we can’t hold Godard to some of his philosophical positions, are we?
It’s a film.
Yes, it did make sense in the film, but I think Haneke was trying to recreate the conditions that allowed Naziism to flourish, rather than expound on a psychological syndrome.
….recreate the conditions that allowed Naziism to flourish, rather than expound on a psychological syndrome.
I think this was what Haneke was alluding to in the film – it is a psychological syndrome, isn’t it?
“I think Haneke was trying to recreate the conditions that allowed Naziism to flourish, rather than expound on a psychological syndrome.”
Do you mean that you think those conditions were purely sociological rather than psychology? I think the film is just suggesting that personal (and interpersonal) psychology can lead to certain tendencies in mass psychology. It’s been demonstrated that behaviors associated with antisocial personality disorder in parents can lead to antisocial behavior in children, and abuse in particular has been linked to APD.
William Reich (writing in 1933):
“From the standpoint of social development, the family cannot be considered the basis of the authoritarian state, only as one of the most important institutions which support it. It is, however, its central reactionary germ cell, the most important place of reproduction of the reactionary and conservative individual. Being itself caused by the authoritarian system, the family becomes the most important institution for its conservation”
“I didn’t get ‘Oppression causes reaction’ from White Ribbon. I took it as, that kid was taking his parents’ extreme style of discipline and was applying it to the other kids and townspeople.”
Isn’t that saying the same thing? The kids are being oppressed, and so they lash out at the townspeople.
As long as oppression exists there will be reactions which cause further oppression. It’s a never ending cycle. The White Ribbon is not just about the rise of Nazism. Haneke has said it is about “the origin of every type of terrorism, be it of political or religious nature”
The Best of Intentions. 5/5
Bille August’s job was to make a Bergman movie, and he did so beautifully. Of course he had Sven Nykvist with him, so he was guaranteed the right look, but credit him for subtle feel of this touching family drama.
This was my third viewing, but my first in many years. My first was the year of its release, when it was my pick for “best film of the year”. I think age has actually improved my appreciation.
(I have never had the opportunity to see the longer version. I would love it if Criterion would give it the “Fanny and Alexander” treatment, but I’m not holding my breath.)
I disagree with that then. People don’t become authoritarian because somebody else was authoritarian to them, people become authoritarian because people have a natural inclination to want power, and to reject nonconformity. The White Ribbon was a case where nurture was to blame, whereas in the general case, nature is to blame. Raise a group of humans in a bubble, one of them will end up in charge, and cast out the ones that don’t go along.
Don
October (1927), Sergei Eisenstein 8.5/10 I read John Reed’s book “Ten Days That Shook The World” a while back and propaganda or not I enjoyed watching it. Thank you Netfix.
Le Jour Se Leve (1939), Marcel Carne 8/10 Jean Gabin has become one of my favorites since I bought Touchez Pas Au Grisbi a couple of years ago and this is another fine performance by Gabin. Arletty was quit good as well.