Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)

100%

The ultimate cold war paranoia comedy that brilliantly sends-up the abstract absurdity of nuclear deterrence through topflight lead performances and quality screenwriting. George C Scott gives the best performance, here, as a not-very-bright military man who prefers to use ten words when one would have sufficed.

Where the film really scores is in its clear-sighted focus on the causal relationship between thwarted sexuality and aggressive military action. The phallic symbols of atom bombs, Nazi salutes and machine guns are on full display as men vie with each other (ultimately) to show not who is the most well endowed, but who is the most sexually-insecure.

Interestingly, Peter SELLERS’ Dr Strangelove is the classic racist who has to try to hide his true feelings while desperately seeking to express them. His attempts to stop his willfully-disobedient right arm from saluting his Fuehrer are one of the many reasons SELLERS was such a superb comic actor.

Copyright © 2009 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.

House of Mirth (2000)

80%

Subtle story telling of a woman brought down by her own folly, not helped by an unforgiving society; transacting with others but refusing to interact with them. Although the characters think their world entire, they merely manifest a narrow, upper class White culture in which how one is seen is more important than who one is.

Seeking others' acceptance here leads to schizophrenia. Wanting it both ways means playing the public game by rules they privately disobey; desiccated people seeking to make others just as miserable; secretly hating their lonely, mutual dependence on contacts rather than friends.

The apt direction is as emotionally repressed as the characters; the acting variable. Gillian Anderson is an appropriately mannered revelation; proving she can perform beyond an inexpressive persona to reach her character's core.

Copyright © 2009 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.

Marseillaise

Rating: 80%


(http://theredlist.com)

Also Known As/Subtitle:

Unknown

Year:

1937

Country:

Predominant Genre:

Historical

Director:

Outstanding Performances:

None

Premiss:

A news-reel like movie about early part of the French Revolution, shown from the eyes of individual people, citizens of Marseille, counts in German exile and, of course, the king.

Themes:

Alienation

Communism

Courage

Destiny

Family

Friendship

Humanity

Identity

Loyalty

Nostalgia

Personal change

Political Correctness

Self-belief

Self-expression

Social class

Snobbery

White culture

Similar (in Plot, Theme or Style) to:

Unknown

Review Format:

DVD

How Politicians See Things

Elliptical, tableau vivant style narrative with little in the way of developed characters. The archetypes on show, however, provide a salutary history lesson about the French Revolution and, by extension, all revolutions. They do so without the unnecessary distractions of a love story set against the backdrop of a political upheaval getting in the way of the straightforward retelling of historical facts.

This is more of a politicians' eye view of history, seen as struggles between masses of individuals rather than the individuals themselves. The latter are taken as read with little distracting emphasis.

The acting style is overblown to match the hyperbole of the events shown and the emotions they arouse. While the political ideals discussed are presented soundly in terms of a dialectic regarding historical inevitability.

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Copyright © 2009 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.

Mischief Night (2006)

100%

More cultural exposition than story in this very funny race relations', social class and state of the nation comedy. However, trying to pack too much in to its 93 minute running time, the film tends to skate over issues of personal identity and culture rather than fully explore them.

Nevertheless, the movie's depiction of a country sharply divided along racial lines is extremely accurate and very telling, as the turf wars within and between drug dealer gangs matches the racial and religious tensions between the various Asian communities and Whites. Yet, the cultures are also shown as unavoidably mixed.

The humor helps make the movie's more depressing content (junkie mums, pedophiles, alcoholism, etc) bearable; while enabling us to focus on that very content so we can understand it – and ourselves, as British - better.

Copyright © 2009 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.

Déjeuner sur l’Herbe [Picnic on the Grass] (1959)

RATING:	80%
FORMAT:	DVD

Perhaps Jean Renoir was always going to make this film: The impressionistic cinematography being highly reminiscent of his father’s (Auguste Renoir’s) paintings. And the actors shot in natural surroundings amounts to a hymn to, and love for, the nature he feels the genetic engineering story-line inevitably betrays.

A dialectic of many contrasts: Artificial insemination/sexual love; emotion/reason & repression; western civilization/anarchy; life/death; men/women; science/humanism & religion; etc. All false dichotomies satirized by Renoir in saying that “All is explicable to science” is a fascist attempt to reduce “All” to science.

This is bucolic anti-science-fiction in which the delightful Catherine ROUVEL is the Junoesque exemplar of the director’s vision of untamable humanity who convinces the cold scientist to warm up.

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Copyright © 2009 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.