Thursday, 30 January 2014

Owl Service
(1969)

RATING:	80%
FORMAT:	DVD

(Image: http://www.cinedelica.com)

This mixes the supernatural with the burgeoning sexuality of the three teenagers involved. It lards teaspoonfuls of surreal humor and a keen and subtle analysis of British social snobbery into its spooky narrative.

Moody, low angle camera setups and the use of wide angle helps create the necessary tone of the exasperations, discomforts and rages of the physical and emotional changes of puberty. This all expresses itself within the context of the darker aspects of Welsh folklore.

Moreover, there are the difficulties of finding oneself again, after having achieved childhood self confidence. In addition, the fear of parental wrath that comes with the desire to break away from such authority (along with the concomitant implied ingratitude) to discover a newer, more mature self. It becomes clear that it is not so much the ghosts of murdered lovers past haunting this valley but the living and their unsettled and unsettling emotions.

Linked by the strange device of a second (step-)mother – on her honeymoon – whom we never see, this story becomes a look at the relationships between, within and across the generations regarding sexual love. This is the author’s way of showing how the present links to a past that seems dead but is, in fact, very much alive – perhaps in a collective unconscious. So much so, that we seem trapped by the past that it becomes a deadweight progressively holding us down unless we see it for what it is, accept our destiny and move on.

The acting styles collide somewhat and Gillian HILLS, in particular, is perfect as the pouty, hysterical and often sulky schoolgirl dressed in color-coded red for a passionate nature clothing.

The only real problem with this series is that it is at least one episode too long. However, the fact that it was shot on location manages to invoke the very sprit of place that is inherent in the storyline; infecting the audience every bit as much as the characters.

Copyright © 2014 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute it in any format; provided that mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.com/) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved.

Wednesday, 29 January 2014

Bushi no Ichibun

(2007)

RATING:	80%
FORMAT:	DVD

(http://asiabeam.com)

[Love & Honour]

A simple premise that allows us to explore love, devotion and personal pride in a complex and engaging manner. Behind the formally composed shots, typical of Japanese cinema, there lies a profoundly moving story of the emotional life as well as the life of the mind.

In a rigidly-hierarchical, caste-based culture, there are limited social opportunities for advancement, as such, especially for a samurai who has accidentally lost his sight. His stubborn pride leads his wife to break her chastity with a local bigwig to help her husband find alternative employment. Her devotion to her husband is such that she cuckolds him; leading us to consider if it is possible to be unfaithful for a good reason. The conclusion here is Yes; as is the answer to the corollary question: Does this infidelity prove her love. This paradox lies at the heart of this emotionally-distant yet affecting drama - as love is both rekindled and reaffirmed through it.

Despite the repeated claim that Be resolved you will both die. In that lies victory. Life lies in resolve for death, the resolve of this film is to display the strength of love and its attendant honor - and of how these are both tested in the real world. Here the ideas are more important than the characters in an honest tearjerker with an honestly-happy conclusion. A clever cross between Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Zatoichi that is a little too long for its own good.

(http://nnm.me)

Wednesday, 22 January 2014

Good Woman
(2004)

RATING:	80%
FORMAT:	Cinema

(http://movie-eaters.ucoz.com)

Witty look at sexual relations among the monied classes whose only real flaw is a certain inability to match its superficial style with its substance.

The gossipy females in abundance here are simply jealous that their lives are somewhat less interesting than the lives of those they so fervently gossip about. This leads to the central conflict between those who take people as they find them and those who see others only through hearsay; thus refusing to use their own independent judgment.

Helen HUNT is quite brilliant as the kept woman and makes of Tom WILKINSON an ideal companion. She dominates proceedings as the independent woman who readily fascinates men and is thus able to make the best of herself in a world with few choices for clever women.

Ultimately, this movie is about forgiveness of sins: ‘Every saint has a past; every sinner a future.’ It is also a quiet and unassuming disquisition on living without regret - by taking personal responsibility for one’s actions – and the personal integrity that can come from realizing that no one is perfect, nor is required to be.

Oscar Wilde’s limited sexual wit is not as profound as a Carry On film, but his wordplay is certainly cleverer formalistically: It is just as funny and just as woman centered.

Saturday, 18 January 2014

Alexander
[Director’s Cut]
(2005)

RATING:	40%
FORMAT:	DVD

(Image: http://outnow.ch/)

A rather elliptically-convoluted tale of a great military leader that fails to illuminate because it spends too much time making parallels with the present military adventurism of the United States to tell us much about the ancient world as well.

Colin FARRELL is quite wrong for the part despite his great efforts to make this role work for him. He is simply not a king actor as, say, Orson Welles was and cannot give his part the necessary gravitas required for the role of a man with a self-appointed mission to unite the world.

(Image: http://outnow.ch/)

The film plays out with undoubted conviction and sincerity on the director, Oliver STONE’s part, but never really finds much to say about its eponymous hero. This movie is little more than a set of impressive tableaux vivants rather than a look at a legendary figure - expressed through action and combat.

The only part that makes any dramatic sense is that of Alexander’s mother, Olympias, intensely played by Angelina JOLIE. She is the real power behind the throne for whom ensuring her son does well is a matter of personal survival. If he were replaced as King of Macedonia, she too would lose her life. This film allows her inherent tigress qualities to emerge to excellent dramatic effect: What a pity the rest of the film did not raise its game to at least meet her in the dramaturgical middle.

Thursday, 16 January 2014

Gregory’s Girl

(1980)

RATING:	100%
FORMAT:	DVD

(Image: http://news.stv.tv)

A brilliantly impressionistic, wonderfully funny and emotionally-realistic film concerning the often angst-ridden and instantly-changeable libidos of White Western teenagers. (Also hinted-at are sexual relationships between pupils and staff.)

Like Peanuts, the younger kids here are wise beyond their years – to great comic effect. They take life as it comes - in their stride - and possess an innate sense that the world is more logically ordered than grown ups pretend.

Director Bill FORSYTH’s true, distinctive genius lies in his acceptance of the superiority of women over men. The failure to understand this explains most of the male sexual insecurities on display here. His alter ego here (Gregory) proves that women are to be admired, but never worshipped, as his emotional arc transports him from awed spectator to intimate devotee. Women’s matter of factness can be very alarming to men (who pretend to denigrate romance) – especially if the men are not used to it. And even more especially for those men tainted by a too-solid diet of macho Hollywood he-men trying to overpower women with their alleged virility.

The humor of this delightful movie springs ultimately from the fact that most men have been awkward with women at sometime in their lives. The subject matter thus approaches universality as well as detailing how playfully-cruel girls can be to boys when the girls intuit this awkwardness.

Virtually plotless and limited in its characterization, this movie allows its audience to impose their own characters on the very common situations and experiences shown. An understated masterpiece.

Tuesday, 14 January 2014

Look of Love

(2013)

RATING:	40%
FORMAT:	DVD

(http://300mblinks.com)

White Sex Obsession

The usual White sex-obsession and emotionally-repressed hypocrisy, but no understanding as to why White culture is so sexually-degenerate. (This movie even spits on striptease as a form; without understanding its purpose.)

Such a superficial culture inevitably produces superficial personal relationships that inevitably produce superficial political films like this, where sincere human emotions are noticeably absent. There is no analysis of the kind of culture that produces pornography, nor of a culture that needs such masturbation aids for the sexually-inexperienced and the sexually-unimaginative. Whites should do sex more than they talk about it and then they would have no need to have sex by proxy via porn. Whites are so scared of emotion, that they willingly focus on sex, instead.

Steve COOGAN is not the consummate actor/comedian as someone like Peter Sellers was, and so cannot carry the dramatic weight needed by his part. His performance is, thus, amusing and self-amused, but lacks any real depth-of-understanding that could make his central character understandable. Only Imogen POOTS offers the audience anyone to empathize with, as his drug-addicted daughter Debbie.

Hard to see why this film was made, unless it was to titillate the same male audience attracted to Paul Raymond’s pornographic empire. For the rest of us, there is little to admire or to understand.

Copyright © 2014 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute it in any format; provided that mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.com) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved.

Monday, 13 January 2014

Du Rififi Chez les Hommes

(1955)

RATING:	100%
FORMAT:	DVD

(http://twi-ny.com)

[Rififi]

The best and the mother of all heist movies: If you miss this, then you are a fool.

Wednesday, 8 January 2014

She Wore a Yellow Ribbon
(1949)

Rating: 60%

(http://fr.wikipedia.org)

Also known as:: Unknown
Year:: 1949
Country/ies:: USA
Predominant Genre:: Western
Author(s)/Director(s):: John Ford
Best Performance(s):: Joanne DRU; John WAYNE
Premiss:: Spying on the enemies of Socialism brings out paranoia and the bitter realisation that such politically-correct vindictiveness creates a lack of personal fulfilment.
Theme(s):: Political Correctness; White supremacy
Similar (in Plot, Theme or Style) to:: Searchers
Review Format:: Cinema

A US Cavalry movie that cannot really come to terms with the existence of Indians. They are alternately picturesque additions to the landscape, violent savages, threats to be controlled or children to be patronized.

The inherent White supremacy of such a position is not dramatically explored for fear of revealing its nature as White supremacy: It is accepted as natural and such normalizing undermines the drama. The issue of a “war to drive the White man forever from the red man’s hunting ground” is never productively explored except to suggest that the good Indian stays on his reservation and knows his place. At least that is better than saying this is only true of a dead Indian, but not much.

The Technicolor is very rich indeed here and is used intelligently by the director (John Ford) to expressively evoke emotions - particularly those associated here with young love (yellow) and nostalgia (red brown). The landscape becomes a character in its own right - at once as threatening and as beautiful as the hostile Indians themselves. The hoity toity females look very fetching in rich blue army uniforms and Joanne DRU is particularly striking in this regard as the woman who worships more her affect on the men than any man in particular. John WAYNE offers a fine performance as an older man who generates a great deal of empathy – especially when conversing with his dead wife at her graveside. His face, in fact, almost becomes a part of the landscape itself.

Ford’s particular gift - as a romantic filmmaker - is his ability to shoot breathtaking panoramas in painterly compositions with epic scenes of action; while never forgetting the vividness of the characters presented against such landscapes. After all, if they were not vivid, why on earth would they have ever ventured from their comfortable eastern lives to an inhospitable desert? Yet, this film is fatally flawed by a lack of narrative focus, any true grit and character relationships; suggesting this film is not really about anything in particular at all.

Copyright © 2014 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute it in any format; provided that mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.co.uk) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved.

Tuesday, 7 January 2014

Teaching Truly

(2013)

RATING:	100%
FORMAT:	Book

(www.amazon.com)

A Curriculum to Indigenize Mainstream Education

The White race is the cancer of human history. [Susan Sontag, Partisan Review, Winter 1967, page 57]

Excellent and generally readable look at the failings of the White educational system in the West and the abuse of Nature that it inevitably creates in White attitudes and behaviors.

This book is also a clear exploration of the difference between White culture and all of the others - especially those which maintain a Nature-centric view as opposed to Whites’ destructive anthropocentric one; supported by religious beliefs that are preached but never practiced. It deals very effectively with the paranoid/schizophrenia inherent in Whites replacing God with themselves and their refusal to see the great harm they do in the name of scientism and culturelessness.

Its position is almost certain to be ignored by Whites determined that their ethnocentric world view becomes the dominant one. Meaning that the destruction occasioned by White violence to Nature is set to continue into the foreseeable future until White numbers decline to such an extent that they cease to be a threat to life on Earth.

Excellently-argued explanation as to why White educational styles produce an Individualilstic, Materialistic and anti-Nature people - especially relevent to those who are either not White or who wish to give up being so.

Sunday, 5 January 2014

Lola Montès
[Fall of Lola Montes;
Sins of Lola Montes]
(1955)

RATING:	40%
FORMAT:	DVD

(http://fablog.ehrensteinland.com)

Martine CAROL is rather wooden here – her beauty notwithstanding - and not much of a patch on an actress like Danielle DARRIEUX, the latter of whom would have been far better in the part. This fact fatally undermines the story of a woman who possesses too much passion for just the one man; preferring, instead, to sow her wild oats wherever she may find them.

And yet, CAROL’s relative talentlessness is a fundamental part of the story of a woman who is only famous for being famous. And it is as a critique of the essential emptiness of the world of celebrity for its own sake that this film scores at all.

However, this movie is not a very meaningful analysis of the sexual hypocrisy of a culture that claims sexual pleasure and the resultant quest for personal fulfillment and happiness should, in some unknown way, be viewed as scandalous.

This film is also a classic example of a movie that would have benefited from being shot in something less pompous than Cinemascope – a format that does not allow proper close-ups. The bold experiment of altering the frame size, at certain intervals, to make this cumbersome format appear more intimate is a good one, but still cannot overcome the high production-values getting in the way of the emotional drama, rather than supporting it.

An impressively empty and broken-backed spectacle that even the really good actors employed here (Anton WALBROOK, Oskar WERNER &, especially, Peter USTINOV in excellent form) can never make whole.

Copyright © 2014 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute it in any format; provided that mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.com) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved.

Saturday, 4 January 2014

Kes

(1969)

RATING:	100%
FORMAT:	Cinema

(www.fact.co.uk)

Because the British film industry - what there is of it - produces little of outstanding or lasting value, an old British film this good deserves to be savored, enjoyed and treasured - in that order.

Kenneth LOACH presents the poor as people - not as stereotypes. Blacks are also presented positively which, for a White filmmaker, is unusual. This, indeed, is his main contribution to cinema: Visual naturalism coupled with psychological realism.

Most filmed drama is psychologically-unrealistic, because it is stereotypical rather than archetypal. Attempts are most often made to culturally-pigeonhole fictional characters so as to give vent to the absurd political positions of the writers; while little is done to elucidate human nature, as such. In Loach’s work, the tail never wags the dog: Characters conform to archetypes and none to the neurotic needs of others.

A realistic tearjerker about a childhood passion for a kestrel that makes you just as passionate regardless of whether you have an interest in the birds. The boy’s interest is an excellent means of eloquently-expressing the need of escape from the drabness of his background. Unsurprisingly, he shuns a United Kingdom education system deliberately designed to only provide him with the skills for low-paid, low-skill employment along with the corollary social class and welfare system designed to keep him poor.

It is very easy to identify with someone who needs to keep his passions secret from those who resentfully lack any meaningful commitments in their otherwise empty lives. Here, the latter are shown obsessing about little more than booze, fags & birds.

This classic outsider story results from the inherent injustice of the regular practice of collective punishment for the poor - all unequivocally-derided as shiftless, lazy & ineducable. Teachers and employers come across as burned-out representatives of a failing economic system. They see education and employment not as a benefit for pupils (& even employees) but as a means of social control without which there would be blood on the streets. The school’s headmaster, in particular, fully recognizes that caning children does not work, yet administers the cane with relish none the less; proving his complete lack of imagination in failing to institute a method of discipline that does work, since he clearly cares nothing for genuine education.

The essence of this tale is the transition from school to work; from boy to man. To the young, the miserable and frustrated and insatiable nature of most adults makes growing up seem just not worth it - apart from making it well nigh impossible. Yet this film pinpoints the exact moment when a child puts childish things behind him and becomes a hard-edged adult in a callous and indifferent world.

The boy, Billy Casper, is played by David BRADLEY in as perfectly-natural a way as could be imagined despite his not being a trained actor. In Loach’s films, the characters stand for particular political positions, yet, they manage to convey realistic human warmth because the positions they take up are so all-important to everyone. Loach’s cinéma vérité style suits this gritty tale set in northern England well - and with deft visual-touches, unobtrusive camera work and naturalistic acting produces a genuine and understated masterpiece.

Thursday, 2 January 2014

Milk

Rating: 60%

(Image: http://www.radioarad.net)

Also Known As:: Unknown
Year:: 2008
Country/ies:: USA
Predominant Genre:: Non-fiction
Author(s)/Director(s):: Gus VAN SANT
Best Performance(s):: Josh BROLIN; Sean PENN
Premiss:: Harvey Milk becomes California’s first openly-gay elected official.
Theme(s):: Self-expression; Compassion; Totalitarianism; Political Correctness; White supremacy
Similar (in Plot, Theme or Style) to:: The Times of Harvey Milk
Review Format:: DVD

A technically good movie but the characterization is rather flat.

That homosexuals must “come out” to be politically effective since not doing so simply gives more power to homophobes who themselves have little fear of openly-expressing their Christian-based self-hatred. They must do this both as people and as political actors in a given culture.

There is no need to feel shame about your sexual choices and thus no excuse for gays not to have equal civil rights. Otherwise, the inevitable reaction will be the kind of civil war that will be inevitably blamed on the very gays being oppressed - as an allegedly inevitable consequence of their gayness. As so often with social change, violence is in attendance while it always seems fated that social improvers are to be martyred for their passionate love of self and others.

Apart from the usual cleverness one comes to expect of both Josh BROLIN and Sean PENN’s performances, this film fails to be anything more than agitprop incapable of gaining us a true insight into the people portrayed. It becomes something of a leaden retelling of historical events whose chronology is altered to make it, in any way, bearable to watch.

Copyright © 2014 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute it in any format; provided that mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.com) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved.

Wednesday, 1 January 2014

Panic
(2000)

RATING:	80%
FORMAT:	DVD

(Image: http://worldflix.blogspot.co.uk/)

A clever little film with a thoughtful and thought provoking screenplay that can be taken both literally as well as metaphorically. It sneaks up on you to get right under your skin without you being completely aware that it is doing so. Its subtle and understated style, performances and direction lull one into a false sense of security. That is, until you begin to realize – about half way through – that this is a serious profound meditation on the Family, as such, and of how hard it can be to get out from under the shadow of ones father. In this case, the father is a “castrating” and a violent one who also wants to control his grandson as his only form of immortality.

The basic story revolves around the son’s anger for, and fear of, his father. The son has the utmost difficulty escaping from the self-imposed trap of like father; like son because he actually wants to revere his father but cannot do so because of the latter’s fundamental amorality. In this sense, this is also a film about history repeating itself unless one takes the necessary – though painful - action to ensure that it no longer does. The movie sees this as akin to ideas about infinity, eternity and God the Father.

All the performances here are excellent and the only real problem with this movie is a sense that the writer/director Henry BROMELL lacks a certain self-confidence with his own material. Although a family assassination business is the stuff of black comedy, clearly humor is not what interests him here but the emotional effect of a domineering father on a gentle man who just wants to live his own life. Short, bittersweet and to the point.

Führerprinzip:

One leader, one people, signifies one master and millions of slaves… There is no organ of conciliation or mediation interposed between the leader and the people, nothing in fact but the apparatus - in other words, the party - which is the emanation of the leader and the tool of his will to oppress. In this way the first and sole principle of this degraded form of mysticism is born, the Führerprinzip, which restores idolatry and a debased deity to the world of nihilism.

(1913-60), French-Algerian writer & philosopher. The Rebel: An Essay on Man in Revolt: New York: Vintage Books, (1984; page 182.)

Pages:

Thursday, 30 January 2014

Wednesday, 29 January 2014

[Love & Honour]

Wednesday, 22 January 2014

Saturday, 18 January 2014

Thursday, 16 January 2014

Tuesday, 14 January 2014

White Sex Obsession

Monday, 13 January 2014

[Rififi]

Wednesday, 8 January 2014

Tuesday, 7 January 2014

A Curriculum to Indigenize Mainstream Education

Sunday, 5 January 2014

Saturday, 4 January 2014

Thursday, 2 January 2014

Wednesday, 1 January 2014

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