Requiem For a Dream

Posted on by

Stunning and original (which, as a quote from me is neither stunning nor original). A sad and scary movie about the desperate places people can reach. I didn’t feel like crying at the end of this movie, though the end… and in fact the whole thing… was utterly depressing (which was a good thing). I just felt generally sad, perhaps questioning how far I was (or any of us were) from the state of the characters in the film. Pretty far, I hope. It was a difficult film to watch, but that’s exactly what made it so worth watching.

 

The Red Violin

Posted on by

A unique and well made film. This follows the story of a particular violin, from its fabrication in the late 1600’s to its sale at an auction, present day. I liked the way the movie skipped around from past to present, and replayed one scene from a variety of viewpoints. The movie just had a general “cool feel” to it that’s hard to describe.

 

Red Dawn

Posted on by

I know most people thought it was just silly, but I thought it was done really well. The characters were all well drawn, and their reactions to the “extreme circumstances” were true.  I don’t buy-in to the whole right-wing violent fantasy aspect of this, but if you think about the climate in which it was made (the cold war), it was a good reflection of that time. And it’s got Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey in about as different a movie from Dirty Dancing as you could imagine.

 

The Real Dirt on Farmer John

Posted on by

Really a neat movie to watch. This kind of oddball farmer always had a fascination with film, and as a result filmed much of his own story through the years. It certainly helped that it was an interesting story… I really grew to like Farmer John, but by the end, I had the feeling that the whole operation had lost a bit of the magic because of their success. I mean, I like the fact that they made it work, but most of the interesting parts of the film were the parts where things were all screwed up, and seeing how he had to learn to change to deal with it all. After it was all working, it was just like a routine business. Maybe life is like that in general?

 

Quest for Fire

Posted on by

A bunch of primitive humans go on a quest for fire. I thought this was pretty unique – most movies that take place in this time period (and there aren’t many) don’t do a really good job… of course, it’s hard to know just what things were like on a day-to-day basis back then. It’s difficult to make a movie with no dialogue (except for the grunting). Though, I’ll have to say that humans of this period probably did have language – it’s a fundamental characteristic of humans.

Puppetmaster

Posted on by

Your typical cheeseball “aliens take over human bodies” movie. This time, they’ve picked Iowa as their starting point. There were a lot of “missing” scenes in this movie. It was like they figured some scenes would just be too expensive to film, so they just skipped to the next one. That was a little annoying. I was pretty darn impressed with the “hang on to the helicopter” scene at the end – chilling.

Prospero’s Books

Posted on by

Wow. Only Peter Greenaway could pull off a movie like this. This is an adaptation of Shakespeare’s “the tempest”. John Gielgud speaks every line for every character. The costumes and sets are beyond dreamlike. I think this movie also set an all-time record for sheer number of naked people. Don’t expect to understand it, just let it melt your brain.