Lazarus Lupin
http://strangespanner.blogspot.com/
art and review

pan’s labyrinth.. i love the director.. he also directed “the Devil’s backbone” that movie was good.. just scary, dark, evil, sad and good story…lets just say i’ve never watched a sad and scary movie combination before.. i’m glad i watched it with my sister and not alone in my room.

However, I have been struggling with the placement of The Reader for some time. I have the same conundrum with the film as I did with the book back in 2003. The plot about Hanna’s struggle with illiteracy and how her young lover Michael deals with that is the best part of the story for me. It’s the stuff of an Old Hollywood melodrama that is unapologetic in its earnestness. This aspect of the film is why The Reader gets a modest pass onto the list. It is the Holocaust aspect feels like a real stretch for me here.

For a more successful look at how the shame of illiteracy can drive someone to violence, I highly recommend Claude Chabrol’s near-masterpiece La Cérémonie (1995) that stars Isabelle Huppert and Sandrine Bonnaire. The novel A Judgement in Stone by Ruth Rendell, which the film is based on, begins with this sentence: “Eunice Parchman killed the Coverdale family because she could not read or write.”

As good as Kate Winslet was in The Reader, I still wish she had won for her raw performance as April Wheeler in Revolutionary Road. That look she gives her husband just before the curtains close on her disastrous dress rehearsal was all that was needed to convey what Yates took three (very enjoyable) pages to do.

how come you didn’t mention Vicky Christina Barcelona? i don’t preferably liked that movie’s story, but it had some great shots of Spain.. relatable to The Fall

and you forgot The Reader !! but you put definitely, maybe?!?! comeon! ha jk.. anyway the Reader is such a good movie, it was so sad and powerful–tragic that she would of lived if she admitted that she was illiterate– (i was in Germany when i saw that movie) …it was kind of disturbing that she was his mother’s age .. but other than that .. it was a good story

Anyway, yeah we should do that petition. I haven’t yet watched more Leigh, but if the music for his other movies is as good as it was for Naked, I buy that stuff up without a second thought.

Under new releases on the linked Andrew Dickson page, all it has are the films themselves…

In regards to the releasing of Andrew Dickson’s score, I’m as much in the dark as the aimless characters in “Naked”. The only official website promoting Dickson’s work has a few samples from his previous films, however, the supplied “Naked” track can also be heard over the main menu of the Criterion DVD release (http://www.bdimusic.com/Composer.aspx?ComposerID=1004).

Film blogger Simon Wilkinson has noted that Dickson “is seemingly impossible to track down.” (http://www.thebluemask.com/blog/2008/11/ten-inspirational-moments-in-film-soundtracks/).

If I find more news on this, I will be sure to update the page with further developments. I strongly encourage anyone to forward more about Andrew Dickson. Perhaps we need to petition for a Complete Film Score Compilation of Andrew Dickson.

As a fervent admirer of Mike Leigh’s work, I understand that he is an acquired taste, though he tends to grow on people.

I loved the movie too and everything you mentioned about Coraline I agree 100%!

I can’t say more than I love this review because I love this movie. I can see that you have grasped the true beauty and glory for this film as I have. I’m glad that someone thinks the way I do about “Coraline”.

When making the alternate Oscar nominations, I kept the Best Picture nominees within the American releases, which reflects the Academy’s frustrating insistence of keeping foreign films out of that ballot – rarely do they vote at least one in (re: “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”, 2000). I don’t have a bias towards the American films, I just figured I could nominate more films by putting “Let The Right One In” (a shoo-in if Sweden had put it in) in the Best Foreign Film category and see that powerful indie “Wendy and Lucy” – the antithesis of films like “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” – run for Best Picture.

Pondering your comment, I concede that it would be more gratifying to see that masterful vampire film, which is about a great deal more than just vampires, run for the Best Picture of 2008. After all, I did nominate Tomas Alfredson for Best Director.

For the holidays, I’d like to get The Mike Leigh Film Collection, an eleven-disc box set available only in the UK. It also includes High Hopes (1988) and Bleak Moments (1971), unavailable on Region 1 DVDs. To boot, most of the films include commentaries by Leigh – only the commentary for Naked (1993) released through Criterion is available here in North America.

In Moore’s new book “Michael Moore’s Election Guide 2008?, he writes at length about having Election Day over the weekend. Though the hard reality is most Americans who struggle to make ends meet work seven days a week. Turning Election Day into a national holiday should have been done decades ago.

On Larry King, Bill Maher made a case that if voting was mandatory and came to every single American at home, then there would be a landslide victory for Obama. I’d just as soon believe that most Americans are liberal despite the media being hijacked by the right. If there really was a liberal media, the Bush administration wouldn’t have gotten away with its crimes so easily.

With all the talk about voter apathy I think we forget that millions of Americans can’t vote because they work one or two jobs that give them no time on Tuesdays. If we really want better voter turnout we need to make Election Day a national holiday: http://www.thepoint.com/campaigns/make-election-day-a-national-holiday

Note: Mr. Kline is also producing an upcoming film titled “Challenger” about professional drag racer Mickey Thompson and his wife’s murder case in 1988 and their killers.

Chuck is one crazy Mofo, these movies will definitely stand out

M.

One thing though… I didn’t quite “get” the ending. Maybe I need to think about it some more… but I just didn’t get it.

M.

Peace,
M.

M.

Just thought you would be interested to know that the BT commercial actually uses all new footage of re-built gremlins, nothing is used from the original.

I know this because I worked on it. Check out Youtube for the making of.

They still rock !

G