What's the last movie you've seen?

[angus]

are we counting stuff that comes on Showtime very late at night?  a couple of nights ago I caught "Edmond."  One of several movies I've seen which features William H. Macy fully nude.  I guess he has a nice ass.  Anyway, it was extremely disturbing.  I guess the murder, paranoia, and violent language didn't bother me, but the prison rape really did.  I'm not sure why.  I've never been in prison, and never been raped, but for whatever reason I find that forced prison sex is always deeply disturbing to me.  Gives me bad dreams even.  I don't let my son watch that sort of stuff. 

Excellent movie, though. 

[angus]

Pinocchio.  Not the one I normally watch from my DVD collection, from 2002, but the real one.  From 1940.  With the voices of Mel Blanc, Don Brodi, and Frankie Darro.  I've probably seen it before, but had become desensitized (or is it "sensitized") over the past couple of decades with political correctness.  I was actually shocked to see all the smoking and exaggerated Italian accents.  I'm 42, mind you, and can remember seeing Saturday morning cartoons with black maids with huge lips and huge butts and exaggerated afroamerican accents, and I can remember not having "car seats" as a child.  I'd never seen a bicycle helmet till I was an adult, and I distinctly remember buying cigarettes as soon as I was old enough to reach the counter.  (I think they started having a minimum age for cigarette purchase sometime after I'd reached the age of 20, so that never affected me.)  But obviously times have changed.  And to see a two-hour Disney children's feature featuring children smoking and calling each other "Jackass" and such was a little jarring.  I always claim to be the least politically correct person I know, yet even I have been sensitized I suppose.  Sad, but true.

The film is a moral story, really.  It's loosely based on a book by Carlo Collodi from the 19th century.  And it chronicles the story of a puppet who wants to be a real boy.  He is aided by his conscience (Jiminy Cricket in the Disney version), a Blue Fairy, and, at times, his Papa, Gepetto, who carves wooden dolls.  There are many versions, and book versions as well.  OUr collection ranges from a four-page board book to a several-hundred page anthem, replete with a vignette of Collodi's life and times.  I love reading them with a feigned Dago accent.  ("oh, Pinochio, my boy.  Whatsa happen to you?")  I think it's a timeless story, and an indictment, ahead of its time, of the latchkey generation and its parentage. 

A great movie it is.  Now that I'm sufficiently desensitized to the gambling, smoking, and cursing that was normal in children's movies from 1940 Walt Disney, I'd like to watch it again.  Unfortunately, it's not playing again till next week.  Also, Dick Morris is about to be on Greta van Susteren on Fox New Channel, and I never miss him.  So I'll have to catch it next time it makes its way to cable.

[angus]

I'm still on my Pedro Almodóvar kick.  I've just checked out the very last one of his that they have.  It's called "La Ley del Deseo."  I haven't seen it yet, but the description sounds intriguing:

Pablo and Tina have complicated sexual lives. Pablo writes and directs plays and films; he's gay and deeply in love with Juan, a young man who won't reply to Pablo's affection or letters. Pablo's sibling Tina is a transsexual, angry at men, raising Ada, and trying to make it as an actress. Pablo takes up with Antonio, a youth who becomes jealous of Pablo's love for Juan. Antonio seeks out Juan, and violence leads to Pablo's grief and a temporary loss of memory. When memory returns, he learns that Antonio has taken up with Tina. In horror, he hurries to Tina's rescue and must face Antonio and his desire.

Something for the whole family.  I can't wait!

[angus]

The Godfather  (1972, Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, Robert Duvall, Sterling Hayden, Diane Keaton, Talia Shire, Abe Vigoda, John Cazale)

great cast, great movie (very little language and only one or two scenes that have to be edited for the kids)

Agreed.  

If you're literate, the book of the same title, by Mario Puzo, is an excellent read.  It also fills in some of the gaps that wouldn't have worked in the film adaptation.

[angus]

Volver was one of his later ones.  I saw that one as well.  At first, I wondered if the sexual exploitation of Penelope Cruz by her father was really necessary for her character development.  It was a bit jarring.  But in the end it really fits well into the narrative.

The characters in all Almodóvar's movies are so very flawed.  Yet he manages to have me relate to them.

[angus]

Osmosis Jones.

horrible.

[angus]

Star Trek (2009)

it was....ok

I thought it was groovy that the new-and-improved Hispanic Spock was totally into the hot Hispanic Uhura.  And the look on the face of Iowa farmboy James Tiberius Kirk upon seeing her give Spock some serious Dominican tongue was precious indeed. 

I also learned that Vulcans are not very open-minded about intermarriage, apparently.  It sort of fits with their ultra-logical, ultra-conservative worldview.  And I guess I sort of knew that from the 60s Star Trek shows, but the issue was explored much more in the 2009 version.

fanpop.com asks:  Do You Think Spock/Uhura Will Last ?

You gotta figure that at some point Kirk's going to make his move on Spock's squeeze.  At least that's how it happened back in the future.

I actually own the video, but it comes off more as an exploration of relationships (McCoy, Spock, Kirk, Scott, and all the rest), than the little morality plays that the original series was about.  In that sense it was something of a Chick Flick.  Star Trek as Chick Flick?  Imagine that.  Maybe they felt that it was necessary for character development, and maybe future movies will be more philosophical.

[angus]

Zachary Quinto is Italian and Irish.

...and Vulcan. 

[angus]

Programming alert:  Godspell is just starting on TMC, my brothers and sisters.

[angus]

Requiem for a Dream.  We saw it at the theater when it came out a decade or so ago, but I found it last weekend on CD at a garage sale for two dollars, so I figured I'd watch it again.

[angus]

I caught the last hour and a half--which was most of it, I think--of some tweeny film in which Elizabeth Banks and that dorky fat guy from Knocked Up decided to make a pornographic movie.  They were broke and living in Pittsburgh in the winter and stumbled upon this idea to make a porn in the coffee shop where he worked.  I got pretty caught up in it, but I think that if I had my life to live over again, I'd have turned the channel early on. 

[angus]

it seemed like a poor man's Forrest Gump.

Haven't heard that analysis of Shawshank yet.  I actually liked the movie.  And the ending.  Then again, I'm rather fond of the Zihuatanejo beaches myself. 

We watched Naked Among Wolves (subtitled in English) last night.  Somewhat fictional, somewhat factual, I gather.  I enjoyed it. 

[angus]

And I concur with Gully on Videodrome.

And, Angus, I liked it - I just didn't find it to be that good.

What?  Videodrome?  I remember watching it a long time ago.  I enjoyed looking at Debbie Harry's breasts.  Not to mention James Woods' ass.  But honestly I thought it was kinda silly.  Breathing cassettes, veins running through tables, and handguns being stuffed into the abdomen.  Silliness.  Maybe it went over my head.

Last night I watched "El Crimen del Padre Amaro."  I liked it very much.  Apparently it was the biggest box-office grossing movie in Mexico ever.  I think the director should have developed Amaro's character more--it's hard to feel that he's falling from grace when you don't think he has many scruples to begin with--and the ending was very predictable.  But it was, overall, dramatic and captivating. 

[angus]

No, no my comment to you was about Shawshank.

Ah, that makes sense. 

Last night we watched Ladri di biciclette subtitled in English.  Unlike Shawshank, which was at its core a story about hope, Ladri is a classic example of Italian neo-realism, and is set in impoverished, post-war Rome.  There was no killing or bloodshed or gratuitous violence, so it was suitable for family viewing.  The protagonist is Antonio, an underemployed skilled worker who depends upon his bicycle for his job, and the story line is about Antonio and his son chasing down the man who stole his bicycle in the early part of the film.  The deeper story is a social message, I think. 

[angus]

getting your bike stolen shouldn't mean starvation in a civilized society.

Fair enough.  Think of the politics of the time.  UK and US supported the rightist northern Italians (Christian Democrats) over the Communists in postwar Italy, even though both US and UK legislatures were then controlled by center-left parties or coalitions.  The film doesn't come out wearing its politics on its sleeves, and the only references to politics that I can recall were in the opening scene when Antonio's wife makes some comment and later when Antonio is looking for help from his actor friend and he passes through a Communist Party meeting on the way to a theatrical rehearsal. 

But, yes, the messages are clear:  that the poor will steal from the poor when driven to despair, that the the police and the church are inept, and that even though the state can apparently regulate a brothel (and regulate the labor market), it is not very good at reducing poverty.

I think there may also be other sociological messages as well.  Antonio clearly re-examines his priorities when he thinks that the drowning boy may be his son.  Also, Antonio and his wife and son form a nuclear family with no relatives and few friends, so we think he probably isn't a Roman by birth.  (Were there lots of immigrants from Southern Italy in Rome in the late 40s?  I imagine that there were.  The government housing projects were a big part of the set and scenery in the movie.)  And Antonio, the outsider, is clearly unable to break the solidarity of the neighborhood men and women in protecting the thief who stole his bicycle.  There's something in that about human nature.

In the end, I agree, there was a glimmer of hope, about humanity I guess, when the other guy decided not to press charges against Antonio.  The humiliation he suffered in front of his child, as sad as it was, was a better lesson for the child to learn than the alternative.  (What lesson would he have learned if the attempt had been successful?)  That was positive, I think. 

I always want to see more denouement in such movies.  Maybe that's a stereotypical American attitude.  Having the boy and his father walk off, in some uncertainty, as the FINE sign fades in, leaves us with hope, but it also leaves us with unanswered questions.  But a great film overall.  And sad.

[angus]

introduced my son to Top Gun last night

Was this his first encounter with homosexuality?

only if you assume it was his first Tom Cruise movie....but it was the cut version of Top Gun, so he was spared most of the sword fighting scenes

LOLOL. 

Man, I can't take that movie seriously any more.  It's all your fault, with that clip from Sleep with Me that you posted.  Even today, as we were having a statistical thermodynamics exam, I was reading an article in National Geographic about Myanmar, and it was talking about three guys selling pirated DVDs on the streets of Rangoon, and in the author's interview with one of the guys, he starts telling about how his dream is to come to the USA and meet Tom Cruise, and that Top Gun is his favorite movie.  And I can't help giggling.  I had to leave the room.

It's all your fault. 

[angus]

I've never seen Sleep with Me either.  Only the clip you showed.

Yes, it was one of those "well, now that you mention it..." sort of epiphanies.

For that matter, I guess I didn't really know Kelly McGillis was gay.  I sure do learn lots from you, wise one.  I guess that makes you the Sage of the Hill.  You can be our Boomhauer. 

[angus]

ok, just googled Boomhauer, which at first went right over my head and still kinda does since I've never watched King of the Hill

Ah.  Just a reference to another thread, really.

The show is basically the same formula as Seinfeld, another show from the 90s aimed at genXers. The protagonist is an old-fashioned, level-headed guy raised in a fairly conservative atmosphere, but he is surrounded mostly by idiots, one of whom is very shallow and conspiratorial (Dale/George). And there are four main characters.  One of them seems a bit weird, who likes to wear animal-print bikini briefs and whose fashion sense is a throwback to the 70s.  That's Boomhauer, and it's hard, at first, to figure out quite what he's talking about, and his famous soliloquies often involve bizarre metaphors (think:  Jelly Beans as personality types.)  He's sort-of the Kramer of King of the hill.  He's terribly misunderstood on many levels.  And initially he comes off as not quite all there, mentally, but then you begin to realize that he's the most astute character of all, and he's the one who gives the best advice to the others.  In fact he's the moral conscience of the group.  

that's you, man.  

[angus]

Paul.  It was good for a few laughs. I'd venture it would be funnier high.

Most movies are. 

I watched Bottle Rocket last night.  The characters reminded me of people I know.  Much of the story played like an episode of Seinfeld or King of the Hill.  Probably 50 of the 100 minutes were just a trio of friends sitting around talking and thinking of what to do, or planning some improbably heist.  I enjoyed the story, and there were some humorous moments, but it lacked denouement. 

[angus]

Eu Não Quero Voltar Sozinho.

Short film, and incredibly good. I'm a sucker for even the tiniest hint of romance where one of the individuals involved suffers from one disability or another.

You should watch Talk to Her by Almodovar then.

Or you might find it under Hablé con ella.  I liked that one very much also.

I watched another Rosellini movie last night.  Dov'è la libertà?  Like Ladri it was basically a critique of the wretchedness of post-war Rome.  Humorous at times, but mostly depressing.

[angus]

Eu Não Quero Voltar Sozinho.

Short film, and incredibly good. I'm a sucker for even the tiniest hint of romance where one of the individuals involved suffers from one disability or another.

You should watch Talk to Her by Almodovar then.

Or you might find it under Hablé con ella.  I liked that one very much also.

I watched another Rosellini movie last night.  Dov'è la libertà?  Like Ladri it was basically a critique of the wretchedness of post-war Rome.  Humorous at times, but mostly depressing.

I noticed that you're a fan of Almodovar. Great director. And I assumed the English title would be more useful.

Yes, In fact I posted in the Oliver Stone thread that while I appreciate Stone's use of weird camera angles and such, Almodovar remains one of my two favorite directors.  (I didn't vote HP/FF.  FWIW, I don't know much about Stone's personal life nor do I care.  But he's a decent director.)

On the issue of titles, I can't speak for others, but the place where I get movies always files them alphabetically by original title.  You'd drive yourself batty looking for Bicycle Thieves under B, for example.  That film would be under L for Ladri di Biciclette.  Anyway, if you can't find Talk to her under T, then I'm just saying try looking for it under H for Hable con ella. 

[angus]

The boy broke his left arm Friday.  The radius, to be exact, which is the larger of the two long bones in the lower arm.  His school called me in my office around 12:30 and said he was on the playground just after lunch and was going across that thing where you climb up a ladder and make it across using your hands.  (modular overhead challenge for building upper-body strength)  Apparently he'd gone across it several times.  One too many, I suppose.  Usually, when he gets tired, he just drops to his feet, and they have this thick foam rubber pad under it, so it's not a problem, but I guess he was in mid-swing or something and landed on his left arm.  Anyway, so I got on my bicycle and dashed home, got the car, drove the three blocks to his school and picked him up and called the nurses station at his pediatrician and she said to give him 10 mL ibuprofen suspension and take him to be X-rayed.  

I thought about taking him to the nearest hospital emergency entrance, but figured we'd be better off at the clinic nearby.  It turned out to be a good decision.  They have X-ray capability there, and clearly his radius was broken.  And both the GP who initially saw him and the orthopedic surgeon were older guys, which is always best, and it wasn't very busy, so there was no wait.  And the nurses were mostly old as well.  He had a good attitude about the whole thing, surprisingly, and wasn't crying.  Even wanted to play with the Megablocks in the waiting room, while we waited for the X-ray technician to input the files into the system, but he was using his right hand and his teeth to put them together and I was worried about all the snotty children who'd played with them before him, so I made him stop.  Anyway, once the orthopedic surgeon started to manipulate his arm he started wailing.  So they said they could do a total anasthetic or a shot of lidocaine in the arm.  We opted for the lidocaine.  After that, he went numb, kept grabbing his left thumb and saying that it "feels like somebody else's thumb" and all that.  But he and the nurse tortured it and got it all straight, so they were able to set it without operating inside, which is good.  And the post procedure X-rays showed that it was very straight.  All in all, it seems to be a good alignment job.

Nowadays, they let you choose your cast color.  He chose red, of course.  Everything is red.  When we see the balloon man he wants a red sword or a red hat, and when he gets a new bicycle he wants red.  Always red.  Ah, well, my last two cars were red.  Maybe it runs in the family.  Anyway, there was only one color cast when I was 6.  It was white.  You could color it, paint it, get your chums to sign it, but when you left the clinic it was white.  

Also, they don't have a regular X-ray on a plastic sheet that you can photocopy anymore.  It's just an image on a screen.  A centralized system so you could look at it on any computer in any facility in the Wheaton-Saint francis system, but when I asked for a photocopy of the X-ray to show my wife, they said that they don't have a convenient way to print it out, so I ended up having to use my mobile phone to photograph them so I could show her.  I ended up calling her around 3:30 after they finished the cast.  I'd avoided worrying her as long as I could, as I knew she had meetings that afternoon and I didn't, and there's wasn't much she could do except worry.  She was edgy and pretty hard to get along with for about 24 hours, as I expected, but seems to be relaxed now.  Luckily this happened on a Friday, so he could stay high on painkillers for the first couple of days, and so we could use the weekend shopping for shirts that had arm-holes large enough to admit the cast but small enough so they wouldn't hang down to his knees.  Not an easy thing to find, by the way.  

We go for a follow-up exam and X-ray at one week.  And, if all is going well, the cast will be on for 4 weeks. No soccer, no swimming, and no bicycle during that time.  What a drag.  And, no piano for at least a week.  I'll have to call his teacher and cancel the next lesson or two.  He may or may not need a smaller, shorter forearm-only cast for a couple of weeks when this one comes off, but I'm told that the short one will be waterproof so we can start taking him back to the big pool.  We're making him drink lots of Calcium- and Vitamin C-fortified orange juice, and eat lots of tofu, meat, calcium pills, mango, brocolli, blueberry muffins, yogurt, and whatever we can find that has lots of Vitamin C and citrate/phosphate salts of calcium ions.  And a fair bit of codeine for the first couple of days to help with the pain and itching.  We're trying to go easy on that though.

Anyway, on the way home from the orthopedists, he says, "why did the dinosaur cross the road?"  And I think for a while and tried to come up with something clever.  He tells lots of corny jokes now so I'm used to it.  Finally, I say, "why did the dinosaur cross the road?"  And he says, "Because the chicken hadn't evolved yet!"  He was quite proud of that one.  "Get it?  Get it, Daddy?  The chicken is a bird, so it is the descendant of some Triassic reptile who gave rise to all ornithischian dinosaurs as well as birds."  Okay, I'm probably paraphrasing a bit.

But the jokes are becoming a bit more sophisticated.  He's also into word play now.  Lots of bad puns.  And, of course jokes about farts and pee are always a hit.  

It all put me in the mood for another Roberto Rosellini movie.  After all, I knew we wouldn't be going out much this weekend, and I should get some inside entertainment for all of us.  I ended up getting Era Notte a Roma.  It features a very attractive 25-year-old Giovanna Ralli in a prominent roll as Esperia, who at first seems to be a young nun, but is later revealed to be a black-market supplier of goods to the Romans.  She finds it easier to move about in the countryside, procuring prosciutto, wine, medicine, and other goods dressed as a nun, and a very pretty one at that.  The film was a weird combination of neo-realism and didactic, with a good measure of melodrama thrown in for good measure.  Fall 1943.  Three escaped prisoners, one US, one UK, and one Russian, make their way into hiding in Esperia's attic, and much of the action takes place there.  The buxsome young hostess can't speak English and the soldiers can't speak Italian.  The Russian is the loneliest of all, as he can speak neither Italian nor English.  There's much focus on how folks communicate with each other when they can't speak one another's language.  It's all pretty believable, but confusing when the scene goes from that attic to the house of a prince where they hide after Esperia is captured and tortured.  Definitely interesting, but somewhat hard to follow at times.  

[angus]

I watched "The Boy in the Striped Pajamas" this morning.

Talk about melancholy.  In case the title isn't clear enough, the boy in the striped pajamas is of the Yiddish-speaking variety, complete with shaved heat and bad teeth, that you might find in a death camp in Silesia circa 1944.  And his striped pajamas are a bit ratty and state-issued. 

The protagonist is Bruno, an inquisitive, sheltered, innocent eight-year-old child from Berlin, whose father is apparently old-money Teutonic aristocrat with military training, but who somehow got mixed up in with a rough crowd, back in the day.  The father has taken a promotion and a spiffy new black uniform, but his job requires him to move out to "the country."  The amazingly well-done central conceit is that it's all told from the point of view of this eight-year-old, and that can't be easy to do.  A bit of the dialogue involves the boy asking his father what he does at work all day.  The father's new job, you see, is Kommandant of an extermination camp, and he has been sworn to secrecy regarding the day-to-day activities of the camp.  At some point, the boy can't help asking his father about the smoke and horrible smells emanating from the "farm" next door.  Man, I've had some tough conversations with my son--"Daddy, how does the seed get inside the egg?  That's the part I don't understand"--But I can't imagine how to skate delicately around that question.

Anyway, it was evocative, powerful, and, in my opinion, very well done.  But--not to spoil it--things don't end well for Bruno and his family.  (In case you stayed under a rock for most of the 20th century and wondered how it all turns out, things don't end so well for the boy in the striped Pajamas either.  But I don't want to give too much away.)   It isn't necessarily something I'd watch with a small child, even though Bruno, as well as the boy in the striped pajamas, are both young boys.

Check it out. 

[angus]

Before the Rain.

It's a joint UK/France/Macedonia venture set during the Albanian/Macedonian ethnic conflicts of the 90s.  A bit hard to follow, but the violence is realistic and well portrayed. 

[angus]

Y Tu Mamá También

Captivating.  I'll look for more films by this director.