Author Topic: The Top 100 Club (Mar 2013 - Aug 2015)  (Read 440376 times)

smirnoff

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Re: The Top 100 Club
« Reply #4070 on: September 01, 2015, 02:18:23 PM »
Sarah Plain and Tall

The remarkable Sarah Wheaton. Plower of fields, driver of carriages, disconcerter of fuddy-duddies! This is a person who knows what they're about. Characters eat her dust as they sit nursing 19th century notions of gender roles and other tired ideas.

She does not, however, move through the story as a wrecking ball, tearing down those who would hinder her. She simply goes around them, and carries on. Ole! Eventually they see they were being silly.

I like this story. It's a really compelling scenario and the characters are good and you root for them all. The only thing opposing them are the general difficulties of life itself. Emotions, high winds and babies that arrive a month sooner than they were supposed to. I'd like to keep watching and see where the series goes (didn't realize there were more movies). I imagine you've done that already Sandy?

Jeff Schroeck

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Re: The Top 100 Club
« Reply #4071 on: September 01, 2015, 02:40:40 PM »
Wings Of Desire (Wim Wenders, 1987)

The image I most associate with “Wings Of Desire” is an early shot of Bruno Ganz’s Damiel standing solemnly on top of a building, possibly a cathedral, looking down at the world, but the image that represents, to me, the heart of the film is the first shot of Damiel wearing that gaudy pawn shop jacket. He walks around wearing it with the innocence of a child who doesn’t quite yet understand the cruelty of society, the people who will walk past him and scoff at such a ridiculous looking thing. To him it’s just the wonder of colors, which he’s known about since before history but can only now experience, much like the chill that prompts the purchase of a jacket in the first place.

I think it’s fitting that the angels congregate in a library. There is a split in the film, not between the spirit and the intellect, but between those two and the animal body. The angels appear to only hear human’s existential thoughts and worries, not thoughts of pure existence (“I’m hungry”, “I’m tired”, “I’m aroused”), and when they intervene, they comfort them by positively charging their thoughts instead of their person. We see Cassiel, Damiel’s partner, follow a man obsessed with documenting the destructions of World War II and who lives outside of the actual now. He winds up in a field where buildings used to be and sits in an easy chair, perhaps on the very spot his own chair used to sit in his own house.

The angels exist out of time, which is hard to show on screen. Wenders does a great workaround by having the angels recount activities spanning centuries as though they were their daily logs. He could have easily done rapid scenes of various time periods, but he lets the narrative stay current at all times. The film is about how the angels affect humanity, and not about the angels themselves. When Damiel becomes a part of that humanity, he is overjoyed about finally sensing time.

Sound plays an interesting role in all of this. It could become maddening to try to follow what each person is thinking, and you get the sense that it’s a nonstop barrage of sound to these angels. Their patience is admirable. So is Wender’s technique. He glides through the internal monologues like an NPR man-on-the-street commentary montage, then matches that glide with stunning aerials throughout Berlin. It’s beautiful cinema.

5/5

5 out of 5!

I love how you have us walking with the angels in your review. I had no way of putting me experience with this movie into my own words and here you make the unexplainable, explainable. :) I envy that!

While I was thinking about the movie, I kept hearing the song "Nice Work If You Can Get It" in my head and the quotes from the movie, so I compiled it with some images. That's as far as I could go with an attempt at a review. I'd love to watch it again, with your words in mind. Thanks for watching the movie and for your review!



Wings of Desire



Nice work if you can get it



It's great to live only by the spirit, to testify day by day for eternity only to the spiritual side of people... But sometimes I get fed up with my spiritual existence. Instead of forever hovering above I'd like to feel a weight grow in me to end the infinity and to tie me to earth.


Just imagine someone

An angel's passing by


Sighin' sigh after sigh

Time heals all, but what if time itself is the disease? Sometimes its' like you have to bend to go on living. All the people I've met who'll live on in my head... I waited an eternity for someone to say a loving word to me... Someone who'd say "I love you so much today." That would be so wonderful. I look and the world emerges before my eyes and fills my heart. As a child, I wanted to live on an island. A woman alone, gloriously alone... Empty. Incompatible. Emptiness, fear, fear, fear, like a little animal lost in the woods. Who are you? I don't know anymore... Don't cry! No way! Crying is out of the question. These things happen. It's just how it is. Things don't always turn out the way you'd like. So empty... Don't think about anything. Just be. This evening frightens me. It's silly... How should I live? Maybe that's not the question. How should I think? I know so little. Maybe because I'm too curious. Often my thoughts are all wrong because it's like I'm talking to someone else at the same time... Longing... longing for a wave of love to swell up in me. That's what makes me clumsy; the lack of pleasure. A desire for love... The desire to love!


And you can get it if you try

I've been on the outside long enough, absent long enough. I've stood outside the world long enough.


Who could ask for anything more?

Thanks! Glad you liked the review. Thanks for helping to nudge it to the top of my batch of picks for your month. (I'm bummed I couldn't get to more this month-August is a slow movie month for me.) I had actually started to watch it a few years ago but had to stop for some reason (time or fatigue) and brought it back to the library before I could finish it. I then put it on my list of movies I'd get to eventually, thinking that by seeing the first five or ten minutes, I had gotten the gist of it. It obviously turned out to be much more than what I was thinking it was.

I love the mashup of song and image!

Sandy

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Re: The Top 100 Club
« Reply #4072 on: September 01, 2015, 06:43:39 PM »
Sarah Plain and Tall

The remarkable Sarah Wheaton. Plower of fields, driver of carriages, disconcerter of fuddy-duddies! This is a person who knows what they're about. Characters eat her dust as they sit nursing 19th century notions of gender roles and other tired ideas.

She does not, however, move through the story as a wrecking ball, tearing down those who would hinder her. She simply goes around them, and carries on. Ole! Eventually they see they were being silly.

I like this story. It's a really compelling scenario and the characters are good and you root for them all. The only thing opposing them are the general difficulties of life itself. Emotions, high winds and babies that arrive a month sooner than they were supposed to. I'd like to keep watching and see where the series goes (didn't realize there were more movies). I imagine you've done that already Sandy?


I was hoping you'd get a chance to see this. It's as comfortable as Road to Avonlea and as easy to digest as Victorian Farm.

"disconcerter of fuddy-duddies!" :D Why, yes she is! And, it does look like Vancouver's Burrows got his moves from her, including checking to see if the other guy is okay. :) I find great inspiration from her courage and self-possession.

I have seen the others. The first one is the best, the second one is good and deals with the harshness of the land and the third I can hardly remember. :) It's serviceable, I suppose, but nothing to write home about. I think you'd find value in #2 Skylark.

Thanks for giving this one a try, smirnoff!

Sandy

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Re: The Top 100 Club
« Reply #4073 on: September 01, 2015, 06:45:58 PM »
Thanks! Glad you liked the review. Thanks for helping to nudge it to the top of my batch of picks for your month. (I'm bummed I couldn't get to more this month-August is a slow movie month for me.) I had actually started to watch it a few years ago but had to stop for some reason (time or fatigue) and brought it back to the library before I could finish it. I then put it on my list of movies I'd get to eventually, thinking that by seeing the first five or ten minutes, I had gotten the gist of it. It obviously turned out to be much more than what I was thinking it was.

I love the mashup of song and image!

:)  I'm glad.

No worries about getting to more movies in August. You picked a doozy!


Sandy

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Re: The Top 100 Club
« Reply #4074 on: September 01, 2015, 11:08:21 PM »
I hadn't forgotten this, PeacefulAnarchy. You gave me a lot to think about here, so I waited to come back to it at the end of my replies. :)


That was a good read. I wish I had that kind of love for something. It also helped me see a bit of what I was missing. I could see the general thrust of the Data and Picard arcs, but they are probably much more meaningful in the context you provide.

Thank you for sticking with me! My answer turned out to be very long winded. I guess I didn't realize I had so much love for it until asked why I did love it. :)

Quote
Re: Shadowlands

smirnoff's quote is good, I couldn't really explain what I meant by unexciting, but I think that's accurate.

I'm glad. You both seemed to be coming from the same place, in your reviews.

Quote
I find myself using this movie as a touchstone, to keep me from forgetting the deal.

Why love, if losing hurts so much? I have no answers anymore: only the life I have lived. Twice in that life I've been given the choice: as a boy and as a man. The boy chose safety, the man chooses suffering. The pain now is part of the happiness then. That's the deal.

I was that boy, does that mean I have to be that man? Do I want to be? I've chosen safety for so long I'm not sure I can change that. Am I being a coward, or do I sincerely not believe that's the choice we have to make? It's a great quote but I'm always resistant to wisdoms that view suffering as a necessity rather than an unfair and unfortunate reality.

It's a great quote, regardless of how I feel about its conclusion, because it comes off as sincere and personal. That's why I liked the film, because it wasn't telling me how to feel, it was telling, and showing, me how Lewis felt. I can take it or leave it, or in this case continue wrestling with it probably for the rest of my life, for Lewis it was truth and that gives me perspective.

I've pondered a lot on your words here. I too have fought that quote and I too was "that boy." As for whether I want to be "that man," I give a heart filled yes. I had chosen safety out of fear, but now I choose connection. I had a counselor ask me if I was prepared for the ramifications of that choice. I think I am. I choose love. I choose pain. Children may rebel, companions may leave through death or circumstances, but not connecting to the best of my ability isn't an option for me anymore. I've lived the alternative and it's a half life at best. I wish for a full life, with all that it entails.

(Sorry if that comes across as really obnoxious. It's just that it's been a long road and I'm in the middle of all this change.)

Quote
It's a hard path to follow, especially since success is far from being as uniform as what he gets. But, yes, it's what I try to do every day and I appreciate that the film shows his flaws and humanity.

Thanks for another good month. I always find something enlightening in your picks.

You are a teacher! :) Did I know that? You have my respect and admiration, for that is not an easy path.

I'm glad you've enjoyed the movies this month. It's your reviews that enlighten me!

oldkid

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Re: The Top 100 Club
« Reply #4075 on: October 07, 2015, 12:36:37 PM »
Martin, I wasn't around when your leadership of the club ended, but I must take this opportunity to say how grateful I am that you started and led this club for as long as you did.  It was a notion that was perfect for this community-- it gets us all in each other's business, so to speak, allowing us to converse and enjoy each other's cinematic universe.  Not just any part of our universe, but our favorites, the cinema that gives us the most joy to speak about. 

And your leadership was perfect.  Setting up rules, and giving us mercy at times, but mostly keeping us involved.  I'm sure Bondo will do a great job, but only because you led the way and showed us how the club works.

This is a big part of the forum, and I think it is the primary foundation in which a revival of this forum rests.  Thank you for growing our community and keeping it going until you were able to pass it onto capable hands.  This is possibly your masterwork of administration on the forum, only second to your library of reviews.  You are amazing.
"It's not art unless it has the potential to be a disaster." Bansky

MartinTeller

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Re: The Top 100 Club
« Reply #4076 on: October 07, 2015, 03:36:32 PM »
Thank you so much, oldkid!  I am extremely flattered.  Those are very kind words.  And if I may, you are also amazing.

I do regret that I just don't have as much time for Top 100 Club (and the forum as a whole) as I used to.  Right now I'm posting from the office and just hoping no one else looks at my screen and wonders why I'm not working.  But this is still my favorite internet home and I'll probably always be lurking around, even though I'm not participating much.