Author Topic: May 2011 MDC Happy Mother's Day: Write ups  (Read 13182 times)

Jared

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Re: May 2011 MDC Happy Mother's Day: Write ups
« Reply #10 on: May 08, 2011, 01:03:40 PM »
Secrets & Lies or Raising Arizona

Sandy

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Re: May 2011 MDC Happy Mother's Day: Write ups
« Reply #11 on: May 12, 2011, 09:26:19 PM »
Terms of Endearment

I’m enlisting help from the 1915 song “Mother.”

M is for the messy lives their living. There’s not a lack of love in the room; just a lack of maturity.
O means “Officer Krupke” makes strange mood music.
T is for the tragedy of an inattentive father coming to the realization that he’s not the best man for the job.
H is for the humor peppered throughout the story, never letting the characters take themselves too seriously.
E is for expectations that are placed and expectations that are avoided.
R is for my rage against the blindness. Revelatory statements come too late. Flap: “You’re so easy to please. Why couldn’t I do more of it?" And Aurora: “WHEN do we FIGHT? I always think of us as fighting!” Emma: 'That's because you're never satisfied with me."

hmm--doesn't rhyme. If it weren’t for the strong performances, I wouldn’t care so much. But I did and it was a cryfest.
« Last Edit: March 22, 2020, 04:10:34 PM by Sandy »

ses

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Re: May 2011 MDC Happy Mother's Day: Write ups
« Reply #12 on: May 13, 2011, 08:59:10 AM »
I agree, the performances are the strength of the film.  I love Terms of Endearment for all its sad, sappy, glory.  It's one of those movies that if it's on the television I stop and watch it, and inevitably cry at the end.
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Sandy

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Re: May 2011 MDC Happy Mother's Day: Write ups
« Reply #13 on: May 13, 2011, 10:03:14 AM »
sad, sappy, glory.

That sums it up very well.

StudentOFilm

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Re: May 2011 MDC Happy Mother's Day: Write ups
« Reply #14 on: May 14, 2011, 12:43:17 AM »
I agree, the performances are the strength of the film.  I love Terms of Endearment for all its sad, sappy, glory.  It's one of those movies that if it's on the television I stop and watch it, and inevitably cry at the end.

Pretty much hit the nail on the head. I like Brooks and all, but this movie seems a tad overrated (not even looking at the Oscars, just in general), but thanks to MacLaine/Winger/Nicholson and co.... you really do feel for these characters come the end.
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Jared

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Re: May 2011 MDC Happy Mother's Day: Write ups
« Reply #15 on: May 16, 2011, 12:50:50 AM »
Fear of Fear (1975/Fassbinder)



Fear of Fear
is my third Fassbinder movie after Berlin Alexanderplatz and Fear Eats the Soul and its a pretty good one. Im very open to suggestions for which of his films I should check out next

The story is about a mother of two named Margo (Margit Carstensen). Essientially we see her go through post pardem depression ON STEROIDS (sorry, I was hanging out with some one who said that a lot this weekend).

Although its a drama and not a thriller, I was reminded quite a bit of Polanski's Repulsion. One really gets a sense of how isolated the main character feels, despite the people around her. We see Margot turn to several problematic things in the effort to deal with her problems. 

Anyways, I liked it. Terrific dictation.

Bill Thompson

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Re: May 2011 MDC Happy Mother's Day: Write ups
« Reply #16 on: May 17, 2011, 10:13:05 AM »
Interiors (1978)

Woody Allen absolutely adores Ingmar Bergman, this truth can be seen in almost every film he has ever directed. Interiors is the first film where Mr. Allen migrates from adoration to a complete effort to be Mr. Bergman. It’s an interesting idea and I don’t take issue with Mr. Allen’s attempt, but I do take umbrage with his execution. Interiors is very much a movie that never gets going and it never gets going because Mr. Allen is constantly searching for just the right mixture of a Bergman like quality and can never find it. There are moments that do come close, but they are always held back by a simple certitude, the characters in Interiors are false and lack an emotional core.

Interiors is intellectually stimulating film making, your brain will get a good work out sifting through the ideas Mr. Allen wants to put forth. The films of Ingmar Bergman are known for doing much the same, but there is a key difference and that difference is what stops Interiors from being an engaging film. Fanny Och Alexander, not the best from Bergman but my favorite, is permeated with dread. It is also stuffed with moments of silliness, laughter, and surreality. The work of Mr. Bergman almost always has these attributes to go along with his deep philosophizing, Mr. Bergman’s films are whole, they can touch one emotionally and they engage the viewer. The same can be said of most of Mr. Allen’s oeuvre, but he crafts Interiors as dreadfully serious, thus it is a film that feels anything but human. There’s a level of detachment between the characters on screen and me as a viewer that was off putting. Mr. Allen made a career out of understanding how to balance the dramatic with the comedic. Interiors is meant to be an homage to the works of a man who also understood the emotional core that was needed at the heart of even the most dire of films. I can’t, for the life of me, figure out why Mr. Allen forsake the rest of his career and the majority of the work of the man he adores to bring us a film that is so emotionally distant and muted that it feels fake.

The best elements of Interiors, the cinematography of Gordon Willis and the set design of Mario Mazzola and Daniel Robert, are squandered by the direction and writing of Mr. Allen. His actors are suffocating beneath the material Mr. Allen has given them, case in point the cliche ridden performance of Richard Jordan as Frederick the hard drinking failed writer. Diane Keaton’s performance is full of speeches that are hard to believe from the moment she opens her mouth. She’s supposed to be middle class, but she talks and acts as if she is decidedly bourgeois. The entire cast behaves in this way, they present problems in a way that it is impossibly to relate to because the way they go about handling their problems isn’t the least bit believable or, again, engaging. The direction of Mr. Allen is stifling, he often wastes the gorgeous cinematography of Mr. Willis by only allowing half the frame to be seen. His writing is where the film suffers the most, a tale from a writer as capable of understanding humanity as Mr. Allen should not be so alien and foreign.

I’m a lover of both Woody Allen and Ingmar Bergman, they may not be perfect but I always look forward to seeing their films. Instead of being a worthy homage from one director I love to another I love, Interiors is a dreary misfire. Mr. Allen has launched an arrow named Interiors that is meant to hit Mr. Bergman square in his heart, but instead it hits him in a very tiny portion of his brain and leaves out everything else that makes the films of Mr. Bergman so great. Mr. Allen is capable of so much more, and he knows that the work of Mr. Bergman amounts to much more than what he has given the audience in Interiors, otherwise the rest of his career wouldn’t be so full of life and the complete opposite of Interiors.

Puke Lerry

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Re: May 2011 MDC Happy Mother's Day: Write ups
« Reply #17 on: May 18, 2011, 07:02:57 PM »
Brand Upon the Brain! (Maddin, 2006)

I feel kind of ashamed that this is the first Guy Maddin film I've seen since he comes from my hometown, but oh well, at least I started quite well. I seemed to have some impression of him stylistically going in, with the silent-film thing and whatnot, but this actually had quite more.

Again, going in with that set of expectations, Isabella Rosselini's narration initially seemed ill-advised but the delightfully chaotic proceedings made me warm up to it completely. Besides the obvious aforementioned silent-film technique, Maddin also embraces science-fiction, fantasy, pulp and horror. Like Tarantino, he obviously has a deep admiration for both art-cinema and kitsch, and seamlessly blends them. The ubiquitous nature of the film serves how he's representing memories of his childhood, as obviously the more art you consume over the course of your life alters both your viewpoints in that it creates heavy nostalgia and not true remembrance.

Despite Maddin's heterosexuality (Kim Morgan, hello) it also seems to work as an example of queer cinema. The lesbian angle in the narrative drives forward themes of sexual discovery and its inherent place in artistic representation. It would feel far more ordinary with the young Maddin falling in love with a woman.

Totoro

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Re: May 2011 MDC Happy Mother's Day: Write ups
« Reply #18 on: May 18, 2011, 09:25:38 PM »
Oooooooooooooooooh. Well then.  :-[

I do like INTERIORS though! I understand why some will dislike it, but I think Allen employs a good mixture of influences from Chekov to, yes, Bergman. And the performance given by Mary Beth Hurt is one of my favorites. She easily steals the film from the eye-rolling Keaton perf and the ridiculous Page one. Hurt's portrayal is the stuff of greats - she makes the most of her role and makes the film worth watching, IMO. But yeah, the cinematography + art direction is fantastic and the failed writer character is awful.

I wish I could recommend something else. SIGH.

Totoro

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Re: May 2011 MDC Happy Mother's Day: Write ups
« Reply #19 on: May 22, 2011, 08:52:55 PM »
Btw, I'm most likely going to be late on this one. Finals and my friend and I had a falling out. No worries, I'll just rent out the disc from Requiem for a Dream. Still may be late though. Or really close.