Author Topic: Top 100 Club: PeacefulAnarchy  (Read 14007 times)

PeacefulAnarchy

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Re: Top 100 Club: PeacefulAnarchy
« Reply #50 on: April 08, 2019, 06:41:52 PM »
Oooo, I'm looking forward to your review of A Short Film About Love.
I am too, but I can't think about that when I'm pondering Sandy watching Fight Club.

I should rewatch MASH because I don't recall it at all.

1SO

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Re: Top 100 Club: PeacefulAnarchy
« Reply #51 on: April 09, 2019, 12:35:51 AM »
Timbuktu
It's laughable that for most of my life I believe there were right and wrong answers to movie opinions. That all it took was an intelligent person with the right balance of passion and examples, and a general opinion could be agreed upon. I've been looking over my yearly lists and see that I don't even agree with myself. 26 years ago, I made the argument that Paul Verhoeven should've been nominated for Best Director for Basic Instinct because he brought all the entertainment to a terrible script. That's how wrong I was.

What does this have to do with Timbuktu?

Early on, I wondered if this was going to be a struggle. The film reminded me that you're a fan of movies with a "unique set of cultural influences," while I like seeing how culture can open our eyes or transform a tested genre. The extreme laws stopped just short of a comical version of the same in Woody Allen's Bananas. Here, the laws are real, we see the people react with wanting to be left alone. Some argue back and others tell the enforcers to go away. We see the severe punishments in action, though even during one of those scenes, it's turned into an act of musical defiance. The cultural influence - and I can't say if this is true of all Mauritanian films - is that none of this is stylized or over-dramatized. An American film would show the contrast of the happy town right before the Jihadists and the sudden oppression upon their arrival. The people (and filmmaking) here act like it's been this way for years. A very interesting approach.

A can understand why someone would love this. The fresh angle and cultural insight do something interesting with these real dramatic events. I get it, but I think that's as close as I'll get to general opinion.

Sandy

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Re: Top 100 Club: PeacefulAnarchy
« Reply #52 on: April 10, 2019, 06:12:56 PM »
1 Oooo, I'm looking forward to your review of A Short Film About Love.
2 I am too, but I can't think about that when I'm pondering Sandy watching Fight Club.

3 I should rewatch MASH because I don't recall it at all.

:D

(nothing to say, but those three things made me smile.)

Sam the Cinema Snob

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Re: Top 100 Club: PeacefulAnarchy
« Reply #53 on: April 10, 2019, 06:57:29 PM »
I never did chime in with what I planned on watching. I think this might finally be the kick in the pants to watch Greed. Beyond that I'll have to check availability. Guess Who's Coming to Dinner and Nashville are possibilities.

Sandy

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Re: Top 100 Club: PeacefulAnarchy
« Reply #54 on: April 19, 2019, 12:28:14 AM »
A Short Film About Love



Elie Wiesel wrote, "Friendship marks a life more deeply than love. Love risks degeneration into obsession, friendship is never anything but sharing." I've pondered on this statement often and find it to be comforting, in a world of friendship zoning. I can say to myself, "Well at least it won't degenerate." See how comforting that is? :) But, I also find the statement to be lacking. Yes, a true friendship can be very deep and abiding, but is it deeper than love? Doesn't obsessive love bore down deep into the bones? Sometimes love isn't rational, or even healthy, but to not call it as deep as friendship, is erroneous.

It's the passionate, all encompassing focus which leaves intense and indelible marks. There's the distinct delineation of  B.C. and A. D. -- Before Crush and Anno Desperationis, or The Year of Our Despair. And there's also the slow simmer of surrender. Tomek goes from simple voyeurism, to infatuation, to attachment. He stops using Magda as a method of lust and chooses to understand her instead; as he surrenders to the situation of his growing love for her. So much of his actions are severely wrong, but there is a beauty in his brokenness. I could say the same thing for the plight of all who love deeply and imperfectly.

Sam the Cinema Snob

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Re: Top 100 Club: PeacefulAnarchy
« Reply #55 on: April 19, 2019, 08:48:44 AM »
Love this review!

Sandy

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Re: Top 100 Club: PeacefulAnarchy
« Reply #56 on: April 20, 2019, 01:04:13 AM »

1SO

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Re: Top 100 Club: PeacefulAnarchy
« Reply #57 on: April 21, 2019, 12:32:59 AM »
The Salt of the Earth
As for Wenders, I much prefer his fictional works over his documentaries, which are (as far as I can recall) all works of a fan for a fellow artist. He hides himself to put the subject front and center, in this case photographer Sebastião Salgado. While this kind of art is all subject to the viewer, Wenders does a great job conveying Salgado's talent, backed up by hundreds of pictures. I wish more time was spent on the wife, who seems a key piece of guidance and support for Salgado, and the turn towards nature photography doesn't get pressed for a satisfying explanation, though the results are just as good. (It even contradicts the title of the film.) Overall, I liked it, but I don't see what makes it an exceptional documentary.

Bondo

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Re: Top 100 Club: PeacefulAnarchy
« Reply #58 on: April 22, 2019, 08:50:55 PM »
Z (1969)

Well, this feels alarmingly timely. My "joke" tweet while watching the film, says that the film is a total exoneration for the government. No collusion! No obstruction!

The film is essentially two halves: the build-up to an attack on a member of the opposition party, and the aftermath investigation by Robert Mueller Christos Sartzetakis that very much finds collusion and obstruction. Based on factual events from Greece in the early 1960s, Z acts as an excellent look into the operations of right-wing quasi-authoritarianism...in that space where it vaguely maintains democratic legitimacy but in reality has left it behind. After all, the context of the attack is that the target is an opposition politician they fear will win at the polls.

This really ties into something I've been contemplating. There is seemingly a belief in martyrdom effects in politics...and certainly those around the target of the attack see revolution as a silver lining to the incident. If you look back at the 60s in our own country, it was a decade marked by political strife and violence. If you can detect a momentary bump in liberal outcomes in the aftermath of JFK's death, once MLK and RFK were taken, it is hard not to see the subsequent decades as an overwhelming win for the right-wing. Something that grated on me watching the film, knowing where it was headed, was their insistence on non-violence. I've become bleak on the efficacy of unilateral non-violence when the other side is actively inciting violence against the best and brightest in your movement.

But even though the film resonates with some very depressing things in modern politics, it is not a depressing film. Costa-Gavras instead opts for a dry and dark comedic tone though most of the proceedings. As a conspiracy it is petty, it is dumb, it is inept...it is a perfect analogy for the Trump Administration. A sure-fire inclusion on my discoveries list for the year and the Bondo Collection.

smirnoff

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Re: Top 100 Club: PeacefulAnarchy
« Reply #59 on: April 22, 2019, 10:20:54 PM »
Since I don't have good enough internet to stream anything at the moment I hope it's okay that I rewatched something from your list. One of the DVD's that got left behind at the cabin I'm staying at was Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl. I haven't seen it since the time of it's release. I never did go on to watch any of the other films in the series. On ICheckMovies it's got more checks than Jurassic Park which I think is a travesty, but I digress.

The moonlight sword fight is quite a highlight even now. The effect is seamless.

The story and characters, they really don't do much for me. Depp is sort of interesting to watch because he's weird, but that wears off after a while. I enjoyed Kiera Knightly more when she ditched the gowns and ran around in a red Marine's jacket. Bloom is playing a character I probably wouldn't enjoy regardless of who played him. Geoffrey Rush is as good as the script allows.

I could see enjoying future films in the series more since the stories are probably better than this one. Damsel in distress blah blah blah.

It's not a bad swashbuckler... I'm surprised to find it in your top list though, particularly in such a high position. Ahead of pretty heavy hitters too in the blockbuster genre.