Saturday, February 24, 2007

2006 Live Action Academy Award Nominated Shorts

Pretty good mix this year:

An LDS-esque missionary who is stuck in a sticky situation over his indiscretion with a married woman.

A busy business man whose dad locks himself in a cupboard at the old folks' home.

A father and son who are abandoned by their wife/mom and who invite her mom home with them to cook, clean and take care of them...

A great story of a small, smart girl in an Senegalese village who wants to improve her life and the lives of those around her.

West Bank Story. My least favorite. Warring falafel huts. Snapping. Singing. It won the Oscar. Fuckin' figures.

Monday, February 19, 2007

God Grew Tired of Us

The amazing and inspirational stories of the Lost Boys of the Sudan often reveal hardships and horror that no American child has ever had to face. Their incredible journies don't stop, however, when the young men reach America. Sometimes heartwarming, sometimes sad, and sometimes very funny, this movie is a great introduction to the history of the (ongoing) situation in Sudan. It also highlights some of the issues faced by the Sudanese here in the U.S. (work, school, assimilation, potato chips.)

The movie is great and you should watch it, but allow me to digress for a moment:

More information on this topic can be found in many arenas lately. Which is a wonderful thing -- more people need to find out what happened, is happening and what we can do to make a difference. In my opinion, one of the best places to start is a book by Dave Eggers, about a Sudanese named Valentino Achak Deng, called What is the What. Read the fantastic NYT review here. (Not everyone likes the book -- check out Travis Nichols' review here.)

You can also visit the Valentino Achak Deng Foundation here.

When Jon and I saw Valentino speak earlier this year, one of the most memorable moments for me was when he said that he felt the need to tell his story because he believed the rest of the world would not have let this happen if they had known about it. I wish I believed this, because I do feel like the world knows about horrors that happen all the time, but our governments and media are complacent and we, Americans at least, in general, do not care about that which we don't see as affecting our day to day lives. In fact, we are blind to the hardships of others to a criminal degree. Movies like God Grew Tired of Us and books like What is the What are a step in the right direction, making these stories visible and tangible and un-ignorable.

Sunday, February 18, 2007

Saturday, February 17, 2007

The Lives of Others

Wow. Thrilling and cold and sad and I saw a side of the history of Germany that I had only known about a little bit.

The Stasi were a HUGE group of government employees (secret police and intelligence) who worked as part of a machine of oversight and control. They used very intense tactics of questioning and blaming and blackmail to scare people into submission. You must never speak badly of the Government. You must always be a loyal East German. Art and expression were severely limited to that which did not question this.

There were artists and authors and actors whom they "approved of" but even they were suspect at all times and under surveillance sometimes for any hint of not being loyal or saying or doing anything that might reflect poorly on East Germany. The Stasi themselves even did not trust one another. I may not have the history completely correct, but you can read more about the Stasi here.

This film is about a group of artists and the Stasi guy who watches them. What he learns and comes to understand. It was a great lesson in human nature and conscience and I really loved it.

Given our current government situation, this is a good reminder of what it looks like when people who believe they have unlimited power are in charge. Sometimes I wonder how close we would get to a situation like the Stasi before the braindead apathy of this country would wake up.

Sunday, February 04, 2007

The Italian

Light Hearted Foreign Film, for sure, but some might question the light-hearted part. This movie was watchable due to the little boy actor, Kolya Spiridonov, being just about the best little kid actor I have never seen.

There's no slapstick or madcap antics as appear so often in LHFFs, but there is humor and even some fart jokes. There are also teen prostitutes and some grizzly fights. The story drew me in and it was interesting until the end. That and the kid made this worth admission.

Saturday, February 03, 2007

Venus

This is a good movie. But not for me. Jon and I were the youngest people in the audience by at least 20 years.

It showed promise in the beginning with the old friends exchanging old-person pills and living it up in a senior citizen kind of way. But as soon as the young girl was introduced and we are asked to see Peter as sexual, it goes south, so to speak. The image of Peter O'Toole saying "cunt" is burned in my head and it is not sexy. Peter O'Toole is an old, old man. I don't want to think about Peter O'Toole being sexual.


Not even this young Peter O'Toole.




And certainly not this old Peter.




(UPDATE: I just realized that "peter" is sometimes used as a word for penis, which makes a) his name hilarious and b) my post hilarious.)