Author Topic: March Madness - Communal Watchlist Group Marathon 2014  (Read 11745 times)

Jared

  • Elite Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 3492
Re: March Madness - Communal Watchlist Group Marathon 2014
« Reply #30 on: March 07, 2014, 09:59:20 PM »
I didn't know such a version of the film existed

pixote

  • Administrator
  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 34237
  • Up with generosity!
    • yet more inanities!
Re: March Madness - Communal Watchlist Group Marathon 2014
« Reply #31 on: March 07, 2014, 10:18:09 PM »
I'm so sad you watched the version you did, but after my recent experience with Upstream Color, I can't fault you for not wanting to give the other version a try. Life is too short, and a second viewing would be hopelessly shaded by the first regardless.

Maybe in a couple years.

pixote
Great  |  Near Great  |  Very Good  |  Good  |  Fair  |  Mixed  |  Middling  |  Bad

oldkid

  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 19044
  • Hi there! Feed me worlds!
Re: March Madness - Communal Watchlist Group Marathon 2014
« Reply #32 on: March 07, 2014, 11:13:21 PM »
Day of Wrath

Herlofs Marte is accused of witchcraft, which, as we all know, is an automatic death sentence.  But what she knows is that the elder pastor of the town, Absolon, got the last witch off, because he was interested in wedding her daughter.  So Marte thinks she might be able to convince Absolon to get her off as well.  This introduces this story about doubt, sin, romance and hatred.

I'm not sure what I expected of this 1943 Dreyer film.  I certainly didn't expect it to so much resemble the film he made a decade later, Ordet. But I did expect that the performances would match Ordet and perhaps The Passion of Joan.  Unfortunately, apart from Anna Svierkier who played Marte, I didn't find the acting to be very good.

Thematically, what I especially got was about how testimony in the court could go wrong, in every possible way.  When one's faith or desire gets too much in the way, testimony can be sincerely wrong. 

Overall, a strong work, but not exceptional.

7.5
"It's not art unless it has the potential to be a disaster." Bansky

Jared

  • Elite Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 3492
Re: March Madness - Communal Watchlist Group Marathon 2014
« Reply #33 on: March 08, 2014, 01:11:59 PM »
Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow

Thought I would really enjoy this one, given it stars my favorite Italian actress, Sophia Loren, and my favorite Italian actor, Marcello Mastroianni. On top of that, it's directed by Vittorio De Sica who I generally like.

The movie is three different stories, roughly 60, 20 and 40 minutes long. I cant say I thought any of them were all that good. Too long, not very funny when it wants to be, not very interesting at all, and Mastroianni only shows flashes of his greatness. Loren gives 3 pretty good performances, and is just plain beautiful to look at, but that only gets a movie so far.

Rating Project Score: 5

Jared

  • Elite Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 3492
Re: March Madness - Communal Watchlist Group Marathon 2014
« Reply #34 on: March 09, 2014, 01:28:41 PM »
La Chienne (The Bitch)

I was having a slight case of deja vu watching this, and eventually figured out that it is the movie that the Fritz Lang/Edward G Robinson film Scarlet Street was remaking.

It's the story of a man who is in a horrible marriage who eventually takes on a mistress, a prostitute who uses him for an apartment and then more importantly for the paintings he does in his free time. Unbeknownst to our main character, his paintings are actually quite good, and the prostitute and her pimp/boyfriend are selling them for big profits.

Renoir is an odd director for me. I didn't get much out of his two most widely regarded films The Grand Illusion and The Rules of the Game the first time I watched either. Rewatching both of them, purely on the basis of their great reputation, I loved both and both are amongst my personal top 100. I've watched maybe a dozen other of his films (all just once) and maintain the same lukewarm feeling for most of his work upon my first watches for probably 10 of them. This film, along with A Day in the Country, stand out as the two that I have really liked upon first watch, and are the films I'd recommend to some one getting started with this great director.

Rating Project Score: 7

Sandy

  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 12075
  • "The life we build, we never stop creating.”
    • Sandy's Cinematic Musings
Re: March Madness - Communal Watchlist Group Marathon 2014
« Reply #35 on: March 10, 2014, 03:44:11 AM »
Amazing Grace




When I was young, my mother cross stitched the word integrity and framed it, placing it in a prominent location in our living room. I would look at it closely and wonder why she took the time to painstakingly sew the yellow thread in and out, over and over to make one word. The stitching itself isn't difficult to do, but it does take a great deal of patience and persistence, because the end product covers every square inch of the canvas; a carpet of crosses, if you will. As I came to understand what the word meant, I found that I resented it at times. It's a hard word to live up to, because there's not much wiggle room and who wants to bring their A game all the time? It's wearying.

William Wilberforce is tired. Defeat after defeat has worn him down to the point of feeling like a failure to a cause that won't let him forget or put it aside. How much energy must be expended to continue on a path that doesn't go anywhere, doesn't change anything? Fortunately others are ready to take up the fight, even if only a handful at first, for they too cannot ignore what they have come to an understanding about. Their rectitude continues day in and day out, without much respite. But what's weariness, in the face of conviction? Carpeting a mindset of moral uprightness over the land, takes a great deal of time and perseverance.


Side note: Albert Finney's performance is some of the finest work I've seen from him.

Ratings Project - 9

verbALs

  • Godfather
  • *****
  • Posts: 9446
  • Snort Life-DOR
Re: March Madness - Communal Watchlist Group Marathon 2014
« Reply #36 on: March 10, 2014, 05:45:30 AM »
Fascinating question about integrity. First decide what you are going to have integrity about? Let's say you then have children, so that thing you have integrity about is more important than their safety and security? It implies a quality you cannot switch off or make a decision about; that it must come first and you can't question it.

Wilberforce worked within the system didn't he? If the system doesn't allow for the change that satisfies Wilberforce's undoubted integrity, what then? Use the example of a society which isn't prepared to change; when it goes against the integrity of people within it. Russia? Pussy Riot? They go to jail. They come out of jail, they do something else which their integrity compels them to do. They go back to jail. Hypothetically a member of Pussy Riot has a child (very hypo I think in this case but irrelevant to the rhetoric). Goes to jail compelled by integrity. What happens to the child?

Is integrity something you have when you can afford it?

See my first reaction was "I have integrity!" I think I have integrity when I can afford it, is the closest I can get to it, truthfully. The contradiction is that I don't believe it can be switched off and on, by its definition. The conclusion would be that I don't have integrity and that I am fooling myself. I think everyone's definition of the word is completely subjective of course (like every other word, come to think of it).
I used to encourage everyone I knew to make art; I don't do that so much anymore. - Banksy

Sandy

  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 12075
  • "The life we build, we never stop creating.”
    • Sandy's Cinematic Musings
Re: March Madness - Communal Watchlist Group Marathon 2014
« Reply #37 on: March 10, 2014, 10:59:19 AM »
Oh! Thank you for those thoughts verbALs. I'm going to go read about Pussy Riot and be back with a response when things quiet down around here again. But yes, integrity is a word I struggle with greatly. I think that was why that review was so difficult to write. :)

oldkid

  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 19044
  • Hi there! Feed me worlds!
Re: March Madness - Communal Watchlist Group Marathon 2014
« Reply #38 on: March 10, 2014, 11:59:06 AM »
verbALs, I think your comment hits precisely on the head the difficulty of integrity-- because true integrity costs.  To be faithful to a cause, for decades, requires sacrifice, not only of yourself but of those around you.

I have set up a day shelter for the homeless in our church.  Five days a week there are a number of homeless folks just hanging around and some of these folks have high character and some do not.  At one point, I invited the neighbors around the church to come and give input on what we were doing.  That was an opportunity for them to yell at me for an hour and to tell me how I am ruining their neighborhood, and that they want homeless people hidden from their sight.

I had to question my resolve at that point.  Do I have the right to change their lives, without asking ahead of time?  Should I make their lives more difficult when they don't have the same point of view as me?  On the other hand, do they have the right to tell the people in their neighborhood that they can't be where they are welcome?  Can they deny help to those in deepest need simply because it makes their lives a little bit more difficult?

At that point I determined that doing what is right is inconvenient for everyone, even those who don't want to do what is right.  Integrity isn't easy, for those who insist upon it, or those who happen to be standing nearby.  But that doesn't mean it isn't essential.
"It's not art unless it has the potential to be a disaster." Bansky

smirnoff

  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 26251
    • smirnoff's Top 100
Re: March Madness - Communal Watchlist Group Marathon 2014
« Reply #39 on: March 10, 2014, 02:32:29 PM »
Fascinating question about integrity. First decide what you are going to have integrity about? Let's say you then have children, so that thing you have integrity about is more important than their safety and security?

If integrity was of a binary quality than I think the question would be answered before that conflict even occured. If children were going to compromise what a person had integrity about, then the fact they had children anyways means they lacked integrity. Or lack integrity about having integrity.

But I think you can still call your moral principles "strong" without one of those principles being I will die for my moral principles or I will neglect my children for my moral principles. One of your moral principles can be I will be reasonable about applying my moral principles or I will reexamine my moral principles when new facts come to light. You can have integrity about how you apply your integrity so it doesn't become immoral integrity.

I think integrity is something you have when the situation affords it, and yes that includes your situation.

*everything in parenthesis, followed by the word maybe.

 

love