Sunday 25 December 2016

Palm Beach Story

(http://elisesramblings.blogspot.co.uk)

Also Known As:: Unknown
Year:: 1942
Country:
Predominant Genre:: Romance
Director:
Best Performances:
Premiss:: Inventor needs cash to develop his big idea, so his loving wife decides to raise it for him by divorcing him and marrying a millionaire.
Themes:: Personal change | Self-expression
Similar (in Plot, Theme or Style) to:: Unknown
Review Format:: DVD

Absurdly-plotted comedy about the human absurdity of the relationship between money and sex.

Claudette COLBERT does well in a role that does not really fit her. She is ill-at-ease with slick, fast paced dialogue; preferring to use her cheekily-expressive face to get across the movie’s more censorable elements.

Rudy VALLÉE is brilliant as a mild-mannered millionaire who talks an awful lot of sense about life and business; taking his inherited wealth as it comes – as he does people. Mary ASTOR essays her usual sluttish characterization (based partly on herself) with unmistakable relish and well-meaning gusto. She is silly and superficial, but you cannot help laughing because she is so funny with it. And, as usual with director Preston Sturges, he foregrounds the women as a way of showing how weak and overblown the men are.

Sunday 18 December 2016

Magdalene Sisters

Rating: 80%

(www.revistacinefagia.com)

Also Known As:: Unknown
Year:: 2002
Countries:
Predominant Genre:: Drama
Director:
Best Performances:: None
Premiss:: Three young women struggle to maintain their spirits while they endure dehumanizing abuse as inmates of an asylum.
Themes:: Original Sin | Political Correctness | White culture | White guilt | White supremacy
Similar (in Plot, Theme or Style) to:: Behind Convent Walls
Review Format:: DVD

Erotophobia

About Christian hypocrisy concerning sexual matters and Christian’s gynophobic belief that women are the fount of all Original Sin.

Here, God is not love, but obedience; with the resulting desire for arbitrary power over others in that absence of freewill.

Insightful look into an institutionalized culture that is dying because it hates the individual. This institution here is the wider culture in macrocosm, so that true escape is only possible mentally. The choice offered is to hate yourself or hate others; while pretending that whichever you select is a form of God’s love.

Like all do-gooders, the nuns in this convent are not out to reform their charges. They wish to provide themselves with holier than thou jobs for life by exploiting healthy sexuality for the religiose aggrandizement of the sisters who, themselves, lack a carnal outlet.

Sunday 11 December 2016

Battre mon Coeur s’est Arrêté

Rating: 80%

(http://timmitotoro.wordpress.com)

Also Known As:: Beat that my Heart Skipped
Year:: 2005
Country:
Predominant Genre:: Crime
Director:
Best Performance:
Premiss:: A man finds his heart and soul torn between loyalty to his family and a need to be redeemed from his violent lifestyle.
Themes:: Personal change | Self-expression
Similar (in Plot, Theme or Style) to:
Review Format:: DVD

Leopards, Spots & Change

Unusual, interesting – if somewhat unlikely – tale of a brutal and unscrupulous property-dealing thug who yearns to change his current lifestyle to become a concert pianist.

The only way to make this sincere – and convincing – is via an intense central performance from the lead actor. And that is just what we get: Romain DURIS is an excellent performer who comes across as a hybrid of a young Robert De Niro and a youthful Daniel Day-Lewis.

(http://timmitotoro.wordpress.com)

However, to fully persuade us that a leopard can successfully change his spots, it is essential to explain why he is the way he is and why he would want to change. This movie assumes we already know the answers and thus only plays well to its middle-class gallery.

There is no profound elucidation of human nature here; suggesting the screenwriter can only create characters like his limited self.

Sunday 4 December 2016

Wild Bunch

Rating: 100%

(www.newwavefilm.com)

They Came Too Late & Stayed Too Long

Westerns rarely come as good, or aspire to the heights of genuine Elizabethan tragedy, as this closet gay tale of loyalty among men who have nothing else to offer one another.

This is a Darwinian tale of men out of time whose thwarted masculinity refuses to change and, thus, they must die; the machine gun here symbolizing the advance of a soulless culture, without adventure - as does the fact that the police here are shown to be just as prone to criminality as the outlaws.

Director Sam Peckinpah is a genius who tells stories visually with minimum dialogue.

As in Shakespearean tragedy, death is the only consummation devoutly to be wished for these men-without-women. ‘Let’s go!’ is repeated throughout, yet these characters have nowhere to go. These men can only find redemption through death, without which their lives would be completely meaningless.

Far from Heaven

40%

(www.rottentomatoes.com)

Facile product of institutionally-racist minds.

Sunday 27 November 2016

椿三十郎

RATING:	60%
FORMAT:	DVD

(www.bfi.org.uk)

[Tsubaki Sanjûrô;
Sanjuro]

Comic sequel to Kurosawa’s previous Yojimbo. The clownish thirty year old ronin (Toshiro Mifune) returns to teach neophyte swordsmen how to use their heads as well as their weapons – with lethal expertise.

Well bred court ladies insisting on genteel manners – no matter the danger – is funny, as is the captured enemy warrior finding his loyalty shifting towards his captors, despite himself.

This movie attacks social conformity since most of the characters wish to do as they please yet insist on a strong man to lead them. This leads them to simplistically judge by appearances and fall into rather obvious military traps out of sheer political naivety.

Ultimately, everything about this film is simple and straightforward – as if the director wanted to get this sequel over with as quickly as possible. A fun film that lacks depth.

Sunday 20 November 2016

Lucy
(2014)

Rating: 40%

(http://theyoungfolks.com)

Also Known As:: Unknown; needed to precede following dl
Review Format:: DVD
Country:
Predominant Genre:: Action
Director:
Outstanding Performances:: None
Premiss:: A woman, accidentally caught in a dark deal, turns the tables on her captors and transforms into a merciless warrior.
Themes:: Advertising | Alienation | Coming-of-age | Corporate Power | Courage | Curative | Destiny | Emotional repression | Empathy | Equality | Erotophobia | Evolution | God | Gynophobia | Humanity | Identity | Individualism | Justice | Loneliness | Loyalty | Materialism | Narcissism | Personal | Personal change | Political | Propaganda | Republicanism | Role modeling | Sadomasochism | Schizophrenia | Sexual Repression | Solipsism | Stereotyping | White culture
Similar to:: Unknown

Caucasian Self-Love

Summary: Gibberish for those who think they have evolved beyond monkey-talk.

Caucasian fantasy about Whites being more evolved than everyone else; enabling them to commit murder at random while claiming to be more brainy than those they kill as an excuse for the killing.

An emotionally-retarded movie from an emotionally-retarded culture that uses far less than the 10% of its cerebral capacity claimed to be the White average here. Films allegedly about super-intelligent people - this stupid - are patently absurd and self-defeatingly revealing.

As the movie progresses, the central character becomes less and less human and more and more robotic; apparently justifying her lack of empathy for everyone else she meets. Whites clearly believe the mind and the emotions are in essential conflict, when this is only true for the emotionally repressed.

About as advanced as claiming that the ability to pat your head and rub your stomach, simultaneously, is a sign of mental superiority. A film written by Beavis & Butt-head for the Beavises & the Butt-heads of the world.

Sunday 13 November 2016

Entre les Murs

Rating: 80%

(www.rottentomatoes.com)

Also known as:: Class
Year:: 2008
Country:
Predominant Genre:: Drama
Director:
Best Performances:
Plot:: Teacher navigates a year with his racially-mixed students from a tough neighborhood.
Themes:: Personal change | Self-expression | Compassion | Totalitarianism | White supremacy | Ethical Politics
Similar To (in Plot, Theme or Style):: To Sir with Love
Review Format:: DVD

[Class]

Interesting dissection of Western issues of ethnicity, class, sex/gender and culture seen against the background of an inner-city school.

Here, compulsory education exists to control the poor that the White bourgeoisie fear – as a form of collective punishment for being different. This spills over into the condescending manner in which Person of Color and women of all cultures are treated.

Yet the children are not stupid and can see that their education provides them with little of value. They also know that the pedagogic institution within which they work possesses little real meaning to the way in which they live their lives. This is why education for most people is useless since it largely imparts bourgeois values they do not and cannot share, rather than actually being a means of self-improvement.

Thus, no matter how good the teachers are, the system is fatally flawed and the teachers are ultimately shown as having feet of clay precisely because of this. Not treating adolescents as potential adults provides them with little incentive to behave as such; necessitating the introduction of draconian disciplinary codes. These latter would not be needed if the education were neither compulsory nor teacher centred nor lacking in a proper balance between keeping order and education.

The conflict between the typical teenage desire for self-definition and the teachers’ ultimate desire for control is also well shown. The performers are precocious, spontaneous and natural; being the main reason to watch. They are all clearly defined characters in their own right and never give the impression that they are acting in a movie which, to the extent that they are appearing in a semi documentary, they are not.

Although exceptionally good at stating the problem in clear terms, this movie proposes no solutions.

Sunday 6 November 2016

Mary & Max

RATING: 80%
FORMAT: DVD

(http://moviescreenshots.blogspot.co.uk)

Aardman Animations finally has some competition from Down Under for stop-motion animation in the form of Adam ELLIOT.

The quirky humor is there; reflecting either a disturbed childhood or a culture-less culture. The humor is reminiscent of Dame Edna Everage, and it is - therefore - appropriate that Barry HUMPHRIES should be this film's narrator.

Brilliantly funny fun about loneliness, friendship, alcoholism, obesity, self-loathing, anxiety, ignored children and the sometime ease we have in opening up to complete strangers about our innermost desires, rather than the friends we say, or think, we have. As a depiction of mental illness, this is hard to beat, despite the tendency toward the very wishful-thinking solutions being critiqued.

Sunday 30 October 2016

Turistas

(2006)

RATING:	40%
FORMAT:	DVD

(https://eml.wikipedia.org)

[Paradise Lost]

CUIDADO!

Despite spending time revealing Brazilian culture at its best, this still plays the White supremacist trope that foreign countries are dangerous for Whites simply because of the dark skins of the natives. Believing that foreign people and their resources are to be both exploited and mocked, we now see the naked fear behind such a White polity.

It is easy to understand why the natives here detest White tourists because of the quintessential White supremacism of the latter. But these issues are never fully explored dramatically in favor of gore, cheap thrills & a sense that the mestizo of Brazil is finally getting its revenge on the palefaces for the generic exploitation of the Third World for the sole benefit of the First.

(http://thewolfmancometh.com)

There is no real sense of terror, suspense or even credibility here. As usual, the mixed bag of Westernized Whites represent political innocence abroad as if they can do little wrong - even in their self-admitted purposelessness. This creates a curious lack of empathy between the audience and the central characters; almost making us side with the evil goings-on perpetrated against them.

(http://thewolfmancometh.com)

Hitchcock knew that the greatest horror comes from the familiar seen differently, rather than simply relying on the rather obvious fear-of-the-unknown, as here. He also knew that you have to establish the characters, psychologically, as well as their relationship to each other (& themselves) before an audience could ever care about them.

Sunday 23 October 2016

FRANKIE BOYLE: Live

Rating: 60%

(www.channel4.com)

Also Known As:: Unknown
Year:: 2008
Country:
Predominant Genre:: Comedy
Director:
Outstanding Performances:: None.
Premiss:: Various
Themes:: Alienation | Destiny | Emotional repression | Loneliness | Political Correctness | Republicanism | Social class | White culture | White guilt | White supremacy
Similar (in Plot, Theme or Style) to:: Eddie Murphy | Richard Pryor
Review Format:: DVD

Soi-disant Black comic who provides a good night out, but has little of any real political weight to say.

BOYLE never goes deeply into any subject, but relies on a superficial turn-of-wit that resembles marketing slogans in which the form and the content are identical.

BOYLE’s anti-capitalist UK republicanism is frequently implied but never fruitfully explored in his quest for the next big laugh. Interestingly, he has regular, surreal moments conjuring up brilliant word-pictures to accurately describe something he is railing against – with incredible pith and celerity.

This is a man who has still not come to terms with his personal demons (eg, fear of the disabled & and his Negrophobia) to allow him to become an outstanding comic. He is nothing like the actual Black comics whose symbolism he appropriates (eg, Richard Pryor or Eddie Murphy).

Sunday 16 October 2016

Sssshhh
(2003)

RATING:	40%
FORMAT:	DVD

(www.movietalkies.com)

Bland Leading the Bland

Interesting attempt to inject genuine human emotion and warmth into the serial killer sub-genre which ultimately fails because the movie is just too long.

The leading lady lacks a star personality and the convoluted plotting suggests a lack of thematic conviction on the part of the film-makers.

The plus side is that the film is atmospheric and suspenseful with its clichés, despite a melodramatic tendency to over-emphasize and underline emotions.

Although stylish and well filmed, it really does not make much sense in its increasingly-desperate attempt to keep you guessing.

Sunday 9 October 2016

Groundhog Day

Rating: 60%

(http://theschleicherspin.com)

Also known as:: Unknown
Year:: 1993
Country of Origin:: USA
Predominant Genre:: Comedy
Best Performances:: None
Plot:: A weather man is reluctantly sent to cover a story about a weather forecasting “rat”.
Themes:: Destiny | Personal change | Self-expression | Political Correctness
Similar To (in Plot, Theme or Style):: Unknown
Review Format:: DVD

Interesting wish-fulfillment movie with a clever premise - personal maturity - but a weak execution.

As the central character experiences a recurring dream of travelling back in time, from which he cannot wake, the audience has the same kind of feeling because this drama does not go beyond the merely fantastic to present psychologically-believable characters. Individual set-pieces are funny but, as a whole, this adds up to not much at all.

Here, a man chooses not to change his egocentrism and so gets worse as the years go by – all compressed into a single 24-hour period. Initially, he suffers no consequences – no matter how appalling his behavior toward others – and so has no incentive to change. He is finally brought face-to-face with how empty and repetitive his life has become since fate repeats a single day in his life, over and over, so that his errors become clearer to him by being shown in sharp relief.

During this reverse time-travel period, he cannot move forward emotionally so begins to experience suicidal ennui. This transforms into joy when he realizes that he can stop repeating his mistakes and learn from them each time he makes them in order to improve.

The central issue here is whether one chooses ones own destiny or whether it chooses you. The corollary of this is that only by changing oneself can one ever hope to change this destiny. The only emotional highpoint is that he must repeat life-saving deeds (‘errands’) each day to learn about taking the very personal responsibility that will turn his life around. This suggests the karmic principle that what you give out you get back, a hundredfold – so long as those others are receptive, themselves.

Andie McDOWELL is as bland as she usually is; while Bill MURRAY has (& is) fun, but we do not really believe in MURRAY because this is more a role for someone like Steve MARTIN. There is also none of the sexual chemistry between the two so essential to a working romantic-comedy. MURRAY is quite a unique performer, albeit limited: He needs the strong direction of a Wes Anderson to bring out what makes him MURRAY - and that is just what is so sadly lacking here.

This film adds up to nothing more than a self-reflexive exercise in cinematic self-indulgence. Each repeated day is little more than another cinema take of the same scene which does not build into the profound meditation on the value of intimate experience with others it thinks it does.

Films about their own production processes rarely rise above a form of theatrical treading water – and this is no exception.

The bored and the boring will find deep resonances in their own repetitious existence with this one but, despite its premise, it does not merit repeat viewings.

Sunday 2 October 2016

Spetters
(1980)

80%

(https://mubi.com)

Densely plotted and compelling tragi-comedy of love and life on and off the motorcycle race track. Life is seen as a motorway with many intersections that one can take or not – as the case may be; each representing the choices one must make in life.

What wraps up the whole drama in a nice package is a stunning performance from the equally stunning Renée SOUTENDIJK. She tells us more about the boys here than the boys themselves as they try to measure up to her expectations of a man in order to get her into bed. The only real problem with this movie is that there are too many characters to follow for a two hour film to support our emotions fully.

Above-average romp through teenaged sexuality and establishing an identity that gets right to the point of the basic issues.

SOUTENDIJK makes the most of a sluttish role that she manages to humanize very effectively.

Sunday 25 September 2016

2010:
The Year We Make Contact
(1984)

RATING:	60%
FORMAT:	Cinema

(www.allmovie.com)

Cold War in Space

More of an homage to Stanley Kubrick’s earlier film 2001: A Space Odyssey than a film in its own right.

Lacking much of the allegorical meat of the first film this tries hard to be literary rather than cinematic - as per Arthur Clarke’s novels - and ends up falling between two stools. Clarke’s drippy Hippie outlook on life appears naive and childlike and ruins an otherwise enjoyable movie with excellent special-effects.

This is the kind of film making that is all too perfunctory and lacks a soul although it tries its best, but was never likely to equal the original in either breadth or depth.

(www.allmovie.com)

This film also oddly tries to provide a gloss for the first film and a kind of explanation and an exegesis. The attempt to reduce something quite mysterious to a facile explanation contradicts the potential for wonder and awe that cinema possesses and depletes the story of human potential we are allegedly witnessing.

Sunday 18 September 2016

Color Purple
(1985)

RATING:	80%
FORMAT:	Cinema

(www.dailyfilmdose.com)

Well-acted, edited & directed story of a woman's search for selfhood despite the limitations of her culture and education.

The emotionally crippled Black males here reveal the Feminist nature of the source novel's enterprise, as well as the negative affects of White supremacism. This bigotry is brilliantly encapsulated in one female character's craven dependence on allegedly helping so-called coloreds (& her fear of sexually predatory Black males!) leading to her inevitable anger when Blacks are not grateful enough for her condescension.

(www.movieactors.com)

However, elliptical storytelling hampers character empathy; suggesting this would have been better as a longer tv mini series. Nevertheless, director Steven Spielberg - a Jew – understands the concept of a cultural diaspora that is at the movie's core better than most Whites and that the prisons many of the characters inhabit are both literal as well as metaphorical.

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:

Sunday 25 December 2016

Sunday 18 December 2016

Erotophobia

Sunday 11 December 2016

Leopards, Spots & Change

Sunday 4 December 2016

Sunday 27 November 2016

[Tsubaki Sanjûrô; Sanjuro]

Sunday 20 November 2016

Caucasian Self-Love

Notes:

Sunday 13 November 2016

[Class]

Sunday 6 November 2016

Sunday 30 October 2016

[Paradise Lost]

Sunday 23 October 2016

Sunday 16 October 2016

Bland Leading the Bland

Sunday 9 October 2016

Sunday 2 October 2016

Sunday 25 September 2016

Cold War in Space

Sunday 18 September 2016

Contact Form:

Science:

Sleep of Reason:

Humans & Aliens:

Führerprinzip:

About Us:

Disclaimers:

NB:

NB:

[Tsubaki Sanjûrô;
Sanjuro]