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Post by Mitch on Dec 23, 2004 11:20:38 GMT
Seen any good films lately - post reviews here. Also any suggestions for films people may want to see - we're kicking off with our East Lancs Lets Film showings in the New Year.
On the menu potentially are things like:
'Capturing the Friedmans' Dirty, Pretty Things High Noon Double Indemnity - classic film noir Vacas - Julio Medem The Searchers Mean Streets - Scorsese Touching the Void Sex & Lucia - Medem again
Political oriented films welcome - but we're interested in good film here as a general rule - although c r a p films are always rather interesting as well.
Suggestions welcome. Probably gonna show them from Mitch's digs initially.
There are plans to show - get ready - Eisenstein's 'Battleship Potemkin' I think end of Jan at the Red Triangle - that's not arranged by us though but will post details shortly.
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Post by Steve on Dec 26, 2004 10:24:03 GMT
A few ideas for film to show
The Big Lebowski – The Cohen Brothers, really funny Casablanca – Bogie! Night of the Hunter – Robert Mitchum (Anti-war) All Quiet on the Western Front - The original one Paths Of Glory – Kirk Douglas WW1 Catch 22 – not as good as the book (what could be) but interesting (political) Reds – Warren Beatty. Somewhat odd but interesting Matewan – Got everything. Good film in its own right about a mining strike that occurred in West Virginia in the 1920's. More than that it also looks at race and women’s roles within the context of a bitter industrial dispute.
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Post by octoberlost on Dec 26, 2004 12:22:35 GMT
For your interest.... American Dream, dir Barbara Kopple Meat Packers strike in Austin, Minnesota in the mid 80's us.imdb.com/title/tt0099028/A Place Called Chiapas dir Nettie Wild About the Zapatistas and their struggle us.imdb.com/title/tt0145394/Harlan County USA dir Barbara Kopple documents the coal miners' strike against the Brookside Mine of the Eastover Mining Company in Harlan County, Kentucky in June, 1973 us.imdb.com/title/tt0074605/INCIDENT AT OGLALA dir Michael Apted The frame-up of Leonard Peltier, American Indian Movement activist. us.imdb.com/title/tt0104504/combinedRomero dir John Duigan About the El Salvadorian Priest who sided with the guerrillias, Ive heard many rave reviews about this us.imdb.com/title/tt0098219/This is what democracy looks like dir J. Friedberg and R. Rowley About the Seattle anti-globalisation protests us.imdb.com/title/tt0265871/Libertarias dir V. Aranda About the role of a group of women in the SPanish Civil War. (In Spanish) us.imdb.com/title/tt0113649/?fr=c2l0ZT1kZnxteD0yMHxzZz0xfGxtPTIwMHx0dD1vbnxwbj0wfHE9bGliZXJ0YXJhc3xodG1sPTF8bm09b24_;fc=1;ft=13;fm=1Haine, La dir M. Kassovitz About the experience of three immigrants in France, deals with racism, poverty, etc. (I lent this some months ago to a friend, I will hunt it down) us.imdb.com/title/tt0113247/?fr=c2l0ZT1kZnxteD0yMHxzZz0xfGxtPTIwMHx0dD1vbnxwbj0wfHE9bGEgaGFpbmV8aHRtbD0xfG5tPW9u;fc=1;ft=21;fm=1Also The Great Dictator - Charlie Chaplins depiction of Hitler Roger and Me - Early Michael Moore Viva Zapata! - All star cast, for tale of Mexican revolutionary
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Post by Mitch on Feb 13, 2005 14:48:17 GMT
melior.univ-montp3.fr/ra_forum/en/cinema/sv.htmlOn the hunt for the 1971 Giuliano Montaldo film, 'Sacco and Vanzetti', with music by Ennio Morricone. Several requests for public showing, but struggling to get hold of it. Anyone out there got it, or can point me in the right direction.
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Post by michele cryer on Feb 13, 2005 20:52:45 GMT
Hi...I've put a request out in Pleasuredome.com to see if any of the film buffs on there have a copy that's available for download...
In the meantime, here's the lyrics of the Joan Baez song about the case:
THE BALLAD OF SACCO AND VANZETTI, PART ONE (Lyrics by Joan Baez, Music by Ennio Morricone)
"Give to me your tired and your poor Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free The wretched refuse of your teeming shore Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me."
Blessed are the persecuted And blessed are the pure in heart Blessed are the merciful And blessed are the ones who mourn
The step is hard that tears away the roots And says goodbye to friends and family The fathers and the mothers weep The children cannot comprehend But when there is a promised land The brave will go and others follow The beauty of the human spirit Is the will to try our dreams And so the masses teemed across the ocean To a land of peace and hope But no one heard a voice or saw a light As they were tumbled onto shore And none was welcomed by the echo of the phrase "I lift my lamp beside the golden door."
Blessed are the persecuted And blessed are the pure in heart Blessed are the merciful And blessed are the ones who mourn
© 1971, 1978 Edizioni Musicali RCA, S.p.A. (ASCAP)
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Post by michele cryer on Feb 13, 2005 21:11:56 GMT
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Post by bryan on Mar 18, 2005 2:35:33 GMT
Review of 11th Corner House Spanish Manchester Film Festival: Comedy and Catastrophe.
Just a couple of weeks after the Spanish film ‘The Sea Inside’ won an Oscar for Best Foreign Film, the biggest Spanish Film Festival in the country is in full flow in Manchester. The last few years though it’s actually been a Spanish and Latin American festival. Last weekend I took in five films - three Spanish and one Chilean and one Argentinean and the rest of the week I’ve seen three more Spanish films.
Jobs and unemployment feature in several Spanish films these days. There is still plenty of unemployment around in many of the Spanish provinces and a lot of available jobs are of low quality. Interestingly even in the Spanish CNT film of 1937 'Aurora de Esperanza' (Dawn of Hope), shown at the Newcastle Projectile Anarchist Festival unemployment is the theme.
‘Cosas que hacen que la vida’ (Things That Make Life Worth Living) stars Eduard Fernandez with Ana Belen. Fernandez is Catalan and gave a cracking performance in ‘The Smoking Room’ in 2003. Then he was fighting his U.S. bosses in Barcelona to get a room for the workers to smoke in, but here he is in the dole queue. Ana Belen is the pen-pusher in the Job Centre he falls for when he goes to sign-on. The rest is about how to get into her pants as she puts it in one scene.
Spaniards often seem to have a less inhibited attitude to sex than Hollywood. Perhaps I should say less furtive. Even under Franco and the Catholic Church this was obvious at the cinema, when randy wiseacres use to shout out smutty remarks at the screen to the general delight of the rest of us.
‘Crimen Ferpecto’ is another such smutty comedy film. The English feminists may even enjoy this one, because the ugly woman played by Monica Cervera gets her leg over with the department store Adonis, when she witnessed him kill a rival manager accidentally in a fight. She then rapes him through blackmail seemingly endlessly and even forces him to marry her. Their is an hilariously dark scene where they have to chop-up the body of the boss and burn it, and ‘ugly’ (feo) obliges with an axe, because she has worked in a butchers previously. Only in the end is he able to escape her grasp and embrace by burning the department store down.
‘Bombon - el perro’ is a gentle comedy by Argentinean director: Carlos Sorin. The director has said it is ‘not about a dog’ and ‘not about a dog and a man’, but about ‘unemployment’. Juan - a middle-aged mechanic - is made redundant after 20 years and goes round trying to sell hand-made knives. When he helps a woman stranded with her car she gives him a dog and his life changes. The dog is an Argentinean-dogo (Argentinean hound) and he gets into the world of dog shows and wins his dignity back through the dog. The only snag is when it comes to using the dog as a stud. Bombon simply doesn’t seem to want to perform and service the pedigree bitches on offer. Then one day he escapes and takes off, and shafts a mongrel bitch. Sex is never far away in Latin films.
While on the subject of servicing. either human or animal, let me say that it is usually a rather terse affair. When matching or mating one is never sure it will be accomplished successfully. Doris, an English nanny-goat who died the year before last, had her moments leading anarchists in unemployed marches and occupations of Job Centres. She was even detained by the railway police at Victoria Station while in transit to an unemployed demo in Bolton in 1997. Doris, however, had her moments when being service by a gigantic Anglo-Nubian Billy in West Yorkshire, when she nearly collapsed under the weight of it. And Caliban a white Billy did his best the service his half-sister Betty on Manchester Road, Rochdale, when it was least desired by the owner.
‘Inconscientes’ (Unconscious) is a costume drama which may annoy the English feminists, because the ‘hero’, a psychiatrist, reputably has ‘una poliza grande’ - a big rod - though unfortunately we never see it. Transvestite practices do feature in this film and this may give it some credence of politically correct respectability. ‘Dos tipos duros’ is more humour with sex and in this case gangsters.
‘Machuca’ is a Chilean film which contrasts two 11-year-old boys from different backgrounds. One middle-class and one shanty town dweller at the same school. It handles attitudes to the coup against Allende rather well. In some ways it is the best film so far in the Festival.
‘Madrid 11M: Todos ibamos en este tren’ is talking heads and I saw more people walk out in this film than any other so far. Noviembre is talking heads but street theatre as well.
Spanish attitudes to sex and life tend to reassure me. After showing at the Manchester Corner House these films will go on tour and show at Hebden Bridge - Picture House and Bradford - Pictureville amoung many other places.
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Post by michele cryer on Mar 18, 2005 9:11:50 GMT
Thanks for that refreshing, and somewhat amusing review Bryan...Spanish movies seem a lot more interesting than I believed they would be now...I must try to get into this 'foreign film' watching business!! At the mo. I'm trying to get to grips with watching Japanese movies, as recommended by my friend Graeme...but no reviews of those yet!
So, Doris...she was your goat was she? (not in the films I take it?)...poor lass, she seems like a real activist going on all those marches and nearly being arrested...wonder if she knew what she was supporting..lol. Have you any pictures? It would be great to see what Doris the Anarchist Goat really looked like...and did she give birth to any anarchist kids in the end? ;D
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Post by BRYAN on Mar 19, 2005 8:45:45 GMT
FILM REVIEW BY BRIAN BAMFORD ~ Editor of Northern Voices.
LAST WEEKEND OF 11th SPANISH & LATIN AMERICAN FILM FESTIVAL: EL LOBO ~ 'FANTASTICO!'
If you don't see another film this year you should see 'El Lobo' (The Wolf) by Spanish director Miguel Courteis. The Manchester Social Forum called off its last meeting last Thursday and all went to see 'Noviembre'. The film about the rise & fall of a radical street theatre in Madrid. I had high hopes about 'Madrid 11M' about the Madrid train bombings last year with comments from some of the victims. But talking heads however worthy cannot match a film like 'El Lobo'.
EVERY ANARCHIST & RADICAL LEFT LIBERTARIAN SHOULD SEE THIS FILM!
It shows the infiltration of the ETA - the Basque Nationalist Movement - by a Basque Mikel Lejarza on behalf of the Francoist secret police between 1973 and 1975. It's a highly charged thriller with good looking Eduardo Noriega in the staring role. And I couldn't help but notice some IRA sympathisers in the audience last night.
He gets to the top of the organisation at the time of Franco's death and brings off the biggest round of arrests in one go of ETA and perhaps any underground organisation ever. 150 arrests.
What's interesting for me is that it shows how tough it is to opperate underground resistance against a dictatorship without ourselves becoming corrupted in the process. Even by 1975 ETA is morally and politically corrupt. By corruption here I don't mean fingers in the till, but I mean that the organisation has begun to lose touch with its own moral principles. The leadership, or rather one of the genuine leaders NELSON, tips off the police in Barcelona about a raid on a bank, so as to get rid of Number 1 and rise in the hierarchy. At that time EL LOBO is in Madrid.
This reminds me of the problems me and Stuart Christie had working underground with the FIJL (Young Spanish Libertarians) in Spain in the 1960s. When I saw Christie again in Newcastle this February he told me he still didn't know who had betrayed him in August 1964. It could of been any of a number of people Spanish exiles in Paris at the time who were later found to have infiltrated our organisation. He even told me he wasn't sure if his contact in Madrid was on the level.
We were lucky and spent nearly 3 years in Spain in the 1960s gathering information for the libertarian Spanish movement and managed to get out, without getting pulled by the authorities. But our job was propaganda not explosives and assasination.
But it is very difficult in that situation not to get drawn into intrigue and immoral conduct. It is often a lonely and sometimes boring business, despite its romantic image.
EL LOBO demonstrates these dangers for a resistance movement. But it shows how the secret police themselves try to use the terrorists to further their own careers at the time of the death of Franco, and make themselves useful to the emerging democracy. They are now the experts in anti-terrorism and far from wanting to do away with the terrorists they want to keep the ETA terrorists on a slow boil. In that way they still have carreers before them.
As one secret copper said of the ETA terrorists in the film: 'They do their job and we do ours!'
With the terrorist organisation in place the secret policeman still has a well paid job. Dictarship or democracy he still has a job. And the film argues that the terrorists help control the demands of the left and give justification to the right and the 'FORCES OF ORDER'.
THIS FILM OUGHT TO GO TO MAINSTREAM DISTRIBUTION IN THE UK; IF THERE IS ANY JUSTICE IN THE FILM INDUSTRY.
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Post by JOE HILL FANCIER on Mar 21, 2005 8:46:19 GMT
tHERE WAS AT ONETIME A FILM ABOUT THE SYNDICALIST JOE HILL! HAS ANYONE SEEN A COPY?
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Post by michele cryer on Mar 21, 2005 18:36:40 GMT
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Post by michele cryer on Mar 21, 2005 18:38:58 GMT
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Post by bryan on Apr 25, 2005 1:13:04 GMT
GET YOUR ROCKS OFF GALS ON JEAN VIGO! A Retrospective of Vigo's Films begins a World Tour.
I first learned of the delights of Jean Vigo in August 1961, when ANARCHY 6, edited by Colin ward, published its Cinema issue with the lead article by John Ellerby entiled 'The Anarchism of Jean Vigo'. At that time there had just been a revival of Vigo's films at the National Film Theatre in London.
Then John Ellerby wrote: "Reading the biography by Sales Gomes we are struck by the fidelty of Jean Vigo to the anarchist milieu his father frequented before he was stiffled in the cess-pool of French politics...The earlier critics of Vigo saw in him a certain prurience or disgust at the physical wrld of sex and bodily functions. Later they discovered instead an extreme tenderness and lyricism, which they regarded as a development from his anarchism."
In an article last weekend Joan Dupont describes Vigo: "He was a poet who lived like a militant, a fabled director who made a mere four films. Jean Vigo hardly had time to be a surrealist. 'Zero de Conduite', his infamous first feature, was not allowed to be shown for years, and he never saw 'L'Atalante', his ultimate work. He died at 29, on Oct. 5, 1934, and his films seemed to vanish with him."
At the Paris preview of 'Zero de Conduite' ('Nought for effort'), the French elite audience whistled and jeered, and the anarchist intellectual Andre Gide walked out, and the critics sneered. Again they booed after the Liberation, when the film was shown along with Andre Malraux's 'L'espoir'. Fortunately this film which records his school experiences, which Dupont describes as " a baffling and subversive film, a poetic and nightmarish vision of the boarding school world, made with savage humor', was gaing a cult following abroad.
James Agee saw 'Zero' in New York in 1947, and named it his favourite film of the year. He wrote: "Vigo gets deeper inside his characters than most people have tried on film." Agee added; "He is not worried about transitions between objective, subjective, fantastic, and subconscious reality, and mixes as many styles and camera tricks as he sees fit."
Now Vigo is a world class cult figure of film. In celebration of 100 years since his birth next Wednesday April 26th, the French Cinematheque has hosted a retrospective, the start of a year long international journey. On his birthday, the Jean Vigo Prize for promising filmmakers, created in 1951, will be awarded at the Pompidou Centre in Paris. On April 29th, the Museum of Modern Art in New York will hold an all-day screening of his films.
Vigo's daughter Luce, aged 73, the author of 'Jean Vigo, une vie engagee dans le cinema', will accompany his films on their world tour. Luce, who has emerged from the shadow of her father's reputation, said: "I did not know my father, he died when I was three and my mother died five years later of the same sickness (TB). I hardly saw her since I was sick myself. But I have images of them that must be from memory, because I never dream about my parents."
Joan Dupont writes: "Vigo idolized his own father. Raised among stray cats by parents who were militant anarchists, as a child he was trundeled about to workers' meetings and marches. The father was a flamboyant and quixotic character, an aristocrat who changed his name from Eugene Bonaventure de Vigo to Miguel Almereyda - there's 'de la merde' (shit) in that name he liked to say. He concocted bombs, launched a radiucalk newspaper and fell in and out of fortune."
On August 6th, 1917, the father - Almereyda - was arrested at his home in Saint-Cloud in front his son. He died in gaol stangled by his shoelaces: the official report said 'suicide', but Vigo described it as 'suicided'. Vigo was aged 12 then.
In the late 1920s, he settled with his wife in Nice, his father-in-law - a Polish manufacturer - lent them some money and bought a cine camera for Jean. With it he made the short silent film 'A Propos de Nice', which was first shown in Paris in May 1930. He used the method of the concealed camera to contrast the life of the rich visitors to the casino with that of the poor citizens of the old city. The well nourished limbs of the holiday-makers looking down their noses, with the stunted and crippled bodies of the slum children; the Italian immigrants; the street kids at play; the women scrubbing the laundry; a gutter cat basking in the sun; and then the Carnival comes to town, heralding pestilance and doom.
In Paris speaking on the theme Vers un Cinema Social Vigo declared of this film: "In this film, by interpreting the significant facts of the life of a town, we are spectators of the trial of this particular world. Indeed, by displaying the atmosphere of Nice and the kind of lives lived down there - and, alas, elsewhere - the film....(illustrates) the last gasps of a society whose neglect of its responsibilities makes you sick, and drives you towards revolutionary solutions."
After the scandal of 'Zero', Vigo who really wanted to do great themes, settled on 'L'Atalante', which Dupont descibes as "a banal story that, his producers felt, no censor could object to, a fable of fragile young lovers."
In 'L'Atalante' Juliette, a country girl (Dita Parlo) marries Jean (Jean Daste), a barge captain. Jean, a jealous man keeps his bride to himself, stuck on board the messy cat infested ship. Then he takes har into town for a treat and they lose each other. Pere Jules - the ship's mate - an old salt, brings the bride back to the barge, but before this Jean remembers something Juliette has told him about seeing your lover's face under the water, and he dives into the river to encounter Juliette in her long bridal dress floating out to reach him.
In another scene between Pere Jules and Juliette, we see insribed among the nudes tattoed on his body the initials of the catch phrase 'Mort-aux-Vaches': the old war-cry of the downtrodden, taken up by the anarchists in the 1890s. On his death bed at 29 Vigo said: "I put too much of my heart into 'L'Atalante', let's not talk about it."
In 2001, Gaumount came up with the closest possible version of the director's cut, restoring the music by Jaubert. A DVD of the complete works includes Jacques Rozier's 1964 portrait of the artist and his gang: which included Russian cameraman Boris Kaufmanand Maurice Jaubert, a childhood friend of Renoir's, who composed the music for his two features.
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Post by michele cryer on Apr 25, 2005 9:35:28 GMT
Thanks again for a brilliant review, Brian...
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Post by Mitch on Apr 25, 2005 10:52:16 GMT
Sure would be good to get hold of some copies of these films for showings in Burnley and Nelson.
I'm a big fan of Julio Medem - Basque film maker. His interpretation of not just the Spanish Civil war, but further back through several wars from the perspective of two Spanish families on the ground in 'Vacas' is superb. Comes at it from how it affects the people on the ground.
I learnt a lot about relationships, and passion, oh passion in his film "Sex and Lucia". One of my favourites that one. Film showings another one for next Burnley Anarchist meeting hey.
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Post by michele cryer on Apr 25, 2005 13:17:23 GMT
Definitely Mitch...and I've got hold of some of those 'conspiracy theory' films now...UFO's...Knight's Templar, Illuminati/Freemasons...and the strange happenings in Bohemian Grove...wonder which 'idol' old Bushboy is worshipping this week...LOL ;D
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Post by Mitch on Apr 25, 2005 15:30:40 GMT
That sounds ace. We could 'ave a 'conspiracy theory' night. Obligatory getting wasted alongside of course.
I reckon that flying saucer over Nelson left Kitty Ussher in Burnley by mistake. The aliens are everywhere, Friday Alien Liberal councillor David Foster came knocking at me door for a bit of canvessing.
I ran and hid up in me attic room, and poured hot oil on him from the attic window. It b u g g e r e d up his wiring, and he started going into overdrive in me front garden. Last saw him wandering aimlessly towards Walverden Reservoir - that'll cool him off. ;D
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Post by michele cryer on Apr 25, 2005 22:27:06 GMT
LOL...
Yes, definitely need to get wasted whilst experiencing those particular movies!! ;D
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Post by bryan on Apr 28, 2005 23:38:06 GMT
Linda ~ the Program Manager at the Manchester Corner House ~ is at the MALAGA FILM FESTIVAL till next Tuesday, so it won't be possible to contact her about 'La Pelota Vasca' or abot films to commemorate the 70th Anniversary of the Spanish Civil War.
I understand there is a Dutch directed film just out about a family of Catalans in the Spainish Civil War - but I haven't seen any reviews yet. The Chilean film MACHUCA, which isa coming of age film about two lads and a girl from different social class backgrounds, and was an audience favourite at the VIVA Film Festival reviewed above is showing for two weeks at the Corner House, Manchester, between Fri 6th and Thursday 19th May.
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Post by michele cryer on Apr 29, 2005 13:14:02 GMT
Sounds interesting Brian...how about us trying to arrange for a few people to get together and go see these movies?
Mitch are you interested at all?
Brian, can you give us more details of the times they are showing the films, specific dates etc. and cost of tickets, so that we can arrange it...
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Post by bryan on May 1, 2005 20:20:15 GMT
DATES/TIMES & TICKETS: MACHUGA:
This film starts showing on Friday 5th, May 2005 ~ the times are as follows uo to Thursday 12th, May 2005: 2.00: 6.10: 8.30pm.
From Friday 13th, May 2005 till Sat 14th, May 2005 inclusive the times are: 2.00: 6.00: 8.20pm.
On Sunday 15th, May the times are: 1.35: 3.55: 8.25pm.
Mon 16th, May: 6.00: 8.20pm.
Tue 17th, May: 2.00: 8.00pm.
Wed 18th & Thu 19th May: 2.00: 6.00pm.
Tickets are priced at £4.00 full (£2.90 concessions) before 5pm. And after 5.00pm: £5.10 full and 3.70 concessions.
(Concessions apply to students, unemployed, disabled and OAP).
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Post by Mitch on May 1, 2005 22:26:26 GMT
Sounds interesting Brian...how about us trying to arrange for a few people to get together and go see these movies? Mitch are you interested at all? Absolutely, Sat/Sun 15th/16th May could be definite possibles - catch up May day tomoz to arrange yeah.
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Post by michele cryer on May 2, 2005 4:12:21 GMT
Okey dokey Mitch...hope you had a good weekend away, btw!
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Post by Mitch on May 9, 2005 22:48:52 GMT
Caught a couple of great movies this weekend - sci fi's originating from computer games. Forget Lara Croft - these are hard hitting critiques and prophetic ideas of where corrupt corporations are heading - humans expendable basically. Resident Evil and Resident Evil Apocalypse Sound crap by the name, but interesting critiques of corporation called 'Umbrella'. www.sonypictures.com/movies/residentevilapocalypse/site/base.htmlThere's loads going on in these films, and I'm interested that hard hitting critiques like these come out of mainstream American cinema. Recommend um, anyone seen um?
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Post by michele cryer on May 10, 2005 12:21:13 GMT
I've seen the first one...really enjoyed it, but haven't had a chance to see the 2nd one yet...
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Post by Corner House on Jun 18, 2005 8:24:07 GMT
The screening of 'Mondays in the Sun' (15) & 'Bombon el Perro' began yesterday at THE CORNER HOUSE, Manchester. 'Bombon...' contnues till 30th, June & 'Mondays...' till 23rd, June.
" 'Bombon' was review on page 1. of this thread: 'COMEDY & CASTASTRO‘Bombon - el perro’ is a gentle comedy by Argentinean director: Carlos Sorin. The director has said it is ‘not about a dog’ and ‘not about a dog and a man’, but about ‘unemployment’. Juan - a middle-aged mechanic - is made redundant after 20 years and goes round trying to sell hand-made knives. When he helps a woman stranded with her car she gives him a dog and his life changes. The dog is an Argentinean-dogo (Argentinean hound) and he gets into the world of dog shows and wins his dignity back through the dog. The only snag is when it comes to using the dog as a stud. Bombon simply doesn’t seem to want to perform and service the pedigree pregnant doges on offer. Then one day he escapes and takes off, and shafts a mongrel pregnant dog. Sex is never far away in Latin films."
I haven't seen 'Monday in the Sun' yet. But both are about unemployment. A couple of years ago the then Director of the CERVANTES INSTITUTE said films about unemployment was then of paticular interest in Spain, whereas in England these issues had already been dealt with in the UK by television films such as 'Boys from the Blackstuff' etc.
I'm going to try and see 'Mondays...', and if I can smuggle my grand-daughter into a '15', I'll go to see 'Bombon...' again. It is really sweet.
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Post by fred on Jun 19, 2005 15:45:05 GMT
A film made in the eighties of the last century by husband and wife team Geena Davies and John Cassavetes.(Director).
The film is about a ,'blowsy,' retired call girl who specialised in the Mafia members for customers.One day she is confronted by a friendly neighbour, a young latino woman, whose family is about to be eradicated because the husband, a book keeper , is doing his best to inform on his employers. Unfornately, he has been found out and the sentence by the Mob, is death, not only for him but his entire family.Three generations in all .Gloria agrees to take the boy and keep him safe.In her room just around the corner from the families flat, they hear the savage sentence being carried out by shotguns. The film is the story of a lonely and couragous woman doing her best under terrible circumstances. Mobsters search for the young boy and Gloria refuses to give him up and turns her own revolver on the mobsters killing or injuring four of them and recking a motorcar as well. Further mayhem is caused when further searches are made and appeals are isssued for the woman to give the boy up. All along the woman refuses and after many fruitless appeals to the 'organisation' and further deaths to the mobster's hireling the couple escape. It is a powerful film well directed by Cassavetes and beautifully played by Geena Rowlands his actress wife. It is a forunner of Thelma and Louise but more rugged and suspensful. Unfornately when it is replayed on the smallscreen it is usually by channel Five. The editor for the TV gives the impression of being a part time chef for McDonalds and would probably find work as a cutter in a shoe factory. The film is great and shows that woman are every bit as able and ruthless as men . Be careful a modern version of this film has been made and is not a patch on the original. The re-written story is ludicrous and there is very little of the aggression and passion of the original. I think both the director and his leading lady got well earned Oscars for their work on this feature.
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Post by michele cryer on Jun 19, 2005 18:40:20 GMT
Thanks for that review Fred, I think I might try to trace a copy of the original film. It sounds good.
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Post by Mitch on Oct 13, 2005 8:22:19 GMT
A film made in the eighties of the last century by husband and wife team Geena Davies and John Cassavetes.(Director). The film is about a ,'blowsy,' retired call girl who specialised in the Mafia members for customers.One day she is confronted by a friendly neighbour, a young latino woman, whose family is about to be eradicated because the husband, a book keeper , is doing his best to inform on his employers. Unfornately, he has been found out and the sentence by the Mob, is death, not only for him but his entire family.Three generations in all .Gloria agrees to take the boy and keep him safe.In her room just around the corner from the families flat, they hear the savage sentence being carried out by shotguns. The film is the story of a lonely and couragous woman doing her best under terrible circumstances. Mobsters search for the young boy and Gloria refuses to give him up and turns her own revolver on the mobsters killing or injuring four of them and recking a motorcar as well. Further mayhem is caused when further searches are made and appeals are isssued for the woman to give the boy up. All along the woman refuses and after many fruitless appeals to the 'organisation' and further deaths to the mobster's hireling the couple escape. It is a powerful film well directed by Cassavetes and beautifully played by Geena Rowlands his actress wife. It is a forunner of Thelma and Louise but more rugged and suspensful. Unfornately when it is replayed on the smallscreen it is usually by channel Five. The editor for the TV gives the impression of being a part time chef for McDonalds and would probably find work as a cutter in a shoe factory. The film is great and shows that woman are every bit as able and ruthless as men . Be careful a modern version of this film has been made and is not a patch on the original. The re-written story is ludicrous and there is very little of the aggression and passion of the original. I think both the director and his leading lady got well earned Oscars for their work on this feature. Belated reply, Fred can I borrow this off you. I've another of Cassavettes films, in conjunction with wife Rowlands called 'A Woman Under the Influence', a moving film about a woman called Mabel. Last weekend I had a look at a film called 'Lost Weekend' (1945) by the great Billy Wilder. It was banned in it's time, as preview audiences used to Hollywood drivel did not react well to this hard-hitting depiction of self-destructive alcoholism - this film kicks arse with Ray Milliband (a fine performance) and Jane Wyman. It's a horrific and gritty realist look at alcoholism - no sentimentalism here. Billy Wilder, one of the greatest directors of the 20th century in my book. I've a few westerns you might wanna borrow as well - have you seen a Sam Fuller western called 'Forty Guns' with Barbara Stanwyck - superb it is. Not a patch on Hawk's Rio Bravo though. tara Mitch x PS. there's no doubting Cassavettes genius as a film maker
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Post by bryan on Jun 6, 2006 16:05:05 GMT
The important film about Basque terrorism and the Spanish police in 1970s Spain - EL LOBO - is on at the CORNERHOUSE Manchester FROM 16th to 29th June. See my review of it just over a year ago on this thread.
tHE NEW kEN LOACH film - The Wind that Shakes the Barley - is also on at the same place starting 23rd, June. Last Sunday Ken was interviewed in El Pais, the Spanish paper. His new film has been well received in Spain and the film for which he is respected in Spain, the Spanish Civil War film, 'Land & Freedom is often refered to there. In the El Pais interview Ken Loach says he is optimistic about recent trends in world cinema, and he points to the recent George Clooney films among other things. He says: 'Cinema is returning to important and relevant issues'. 'And' he claims 'audiences are more aware, with an appetite for works that reflect life and reality.'
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