Welcome to the 219th Edition of my long-running series. Today we have
the Conference Championships including the Colts trying to get to the
Super Bowl. I'm sure we'll have some good football here. This one was a
pretty easy one to put together as far as my rules go. Read on and
enjoy.
Saint Clara (1996): Ari Folman directed this Middle
Eastern film which takes place mostly in Golda Meir Junior High. Lucy
Dubinchik plays the title character who is a 13 year old girl new to
the school who can predict the future and manages to help the whole
class pass a test with flying colors which then gets the teacher and
principal to question all the students. The movie really centers around
her trying to fit in and showing an interest in the rebellious kid of
the school showing an interesting love story there. I really did not
know what to expect but I ended up liking this film that was made in
Israel and I am glad to promote it here. I got it from Netflix for if
you want to take a look at this film.
Selena (1997): The
Facebook friend I chose for this week is Cathy. This movie is based on
the Tejano-American singer Selena Quintanilla who rose to fame in
Mexico and was about to become mainstream in America but it
unfortunately happened when she was murdered at the age of 23. This
movie focuses first on her father Abraham, played by MIAMI VICE alum
Edward James Olmos, who was part of a Mexican group called Los Dinos
who just did not fit in with their style and never became big. He then
discovered some singing talent in his daughter Selena and decides to
have the whole family be in a band. He is very over-bearing and keeps
on them to practice even though it is not really in their interest but
really him trying to live his dream. They do however become popular.
Jennifer Lopez plays the title character and was very good in the role.
It focuses on her difficult relationship with her father and her secret
marriage to the guitarist of the band Chris Perez. Lopez actually
lip-synced to the real vocals of Selena but did a good job of that and
in the role where she lived with her real-life family to get into the
role. It is unfortunate that this movie had to be made this way right
before the known murder of Selena who rose to mainstream fame after her
murder when it could have been through talent.
The Mack (1973):
I haven't really given you a Blaxploitation film in a while so I jumped
at the chance for this one. Max Julien stars as Goldie who is out of
prison after five years and becomes the king of the pimps. His job does
not come easy as he has corrupt cops and other pimps who want him to
return to his old drug dealing work in the small time. Richard Pryor
co-stars as Goldie's buddy. There is a lot of violence and education on
being a pimp. It is pretty entertaining with plenty of expected black
stereotypes but the situations were pretty realistic at times when you
in that kind of world. It has lived on through pop culture and is
ranked pretty high on the Blaxploitation films so if you can look past
the stereotyping you might enjoy the film.
Operator 13 (1934):
This is a Civil War film that was before the peak of Gary Cooper's
career and near the end of Marion Davies' career. Davies plays Gail
Loveless who is a singer and actress and is recruited by the Union Army
thus becoming the title character. Gary Cooper plays Confederate
Captain Jack Gailliard. Davies has a lot of fun posing as the black
maid and puts on quite an accent where she first meets Jack. Things
happen when Gailliard discovers who she is but they must team up and
they find themselves falling in love. It is a pretty good movie with
some pretty good battle sequences. I had to order this off ebay to
obtain it as I learned Marion Davies is hard to come by.
Footloose
(1984): Herbert Ross directed this 80s classic which stars Kevin Bacon
as Ren. Ren is from the big city who with his family moves to a very
small town where he learns things are very strict. John Lithgow
co-stars as Reverend Shaw Moore who really kind of runs the town and is
the one who sets these strict standards like no dancing allowed. Ren,
along with his classmates do what they can to lift the ordinance and
convince the reverend that they just want to have fun. I admit, this is
by no means my favorite movie and it is carried a lot by the soundtrack
which includes the title song, HOLDING OUT FOR A HERO, ALMOST PARADISE,
and my favorite and most unknown Kenny Loggins' I'M FREE. I did enjoy
this more than I did the first time. It is a rather interesting
premise, a small town where fun was pretty much banned. I really
thought Lithgow was very good as the close-minded preacher who must
learn to overcome his grief. Bacon was also good in his role that in
some ways almost ruined him when he started getting typecast and has
now come a long way. Chris Penn co-stars as Ren's best friend in his
much younger days where he played a lot of dim, but likable teens and
when he matured would become one of the best and most underrated
character actors who left this world way too soon. Other co-stars
include Dianne Wiest, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Lori Singer. With the
big soundtrack, it is now a musical stage production that the Muncie
Civic Theater once did.
Forever Strong (2008): I found this
movie based on a true story on the Trinity Broadcasting Network. There
are a lot of movies with football but very little with rugby. This
movie stars Sean Faris as Rick Penning, a star rugby player but is very
troubled with a very wild team. He then gets arrested for a DUI and
sentenced to juvenile detention. Sean Astin co-stars as someone who
works in the detention center and realizes he likes rugby. He then
calls on Rick's rival team to come talk to him and gives him a second
chance on the rival team. Neal McDonough stars as Rick's father and
coach of the team who has more focus on the team than his family. Gary
Cole co-stars as the coach of Rick's new team who is far more
compassionate than his father and allows Rick to like the team on his
terms. This may not be for everyone but I did enjoy watching it and
really liked that this team did not give up on this player no matter
what. Gary Cole was very likable in my opinion as the real life Larry
Gelwix whose focus was to coach champion players rather than a team
which helped a lot towards winning. Neal McDonough kind of annoys me
with that strange personality but I tolerated him here and even his
character really had to look deep down on what was right. What can I
say? I'm a sucker for this kind of thing. Also, even though it was on
the TBN network, it focuses on people getting a second chance but it
really does not focus on religion if that is what you are concerned
about.
Scene of the Crime (1949): I found this on TCM when they
were doing the Van Johnson marathon and the description really
interesting me since last week I used him in a lavish musical. This one
was a film noir where he stars as police officer Mike Conovan whose
partner is murdered. This murdered officer is suspected of corruption
making Conovan obsessed to find the killer and clear his name. This
obsession really gets in the way of his marriage. Arlene Dahl stars as
his wife who is very uneasy about the job. Gloria DeHaven stars as a
night club singer who Mike suspects knows something and goes pretty
deep undercover to find out. It is a much different part for Johnson.
It is a pretty good, unknown film-noir which was worth the 90 minutes.
Wild
Strawberries (1957): This is my foreign language film for the week
which is a Swedish film directed by Ingmar Bergman. This is probably my
favorite of the Bergman films. Victor Sjostrom stars as Dr. Isak Borg,
a professor who is about to receive an honorary award, for 50 years of
practice in the medical field. He goes with his niece to receive it and
picks up some younger people on the way who he bonds with. He also sees
a lot of flashbacks to his life and must confront the mistakes of his
past to look for redemption. The movie moves very well. Sjostrom was a
successful director as well and was a big influence on Bergman. Bergman
always made a point to watch Sjostrom's THE PHANTOM CARRIAGE every
year. This is Sjostrom's final screen appearance.
All's Fair at
the Fair (1938): This is my animated short film for the week brought by
Dave Fleischer. This shows an elderly couple going around to the
World's Fair which had some pretty humorous situations. This is from my
Cartoon Shorts dvd that was very cheap at Wal-Mart. The fair was a big
deal in those days, unlike today's society so some may not appreciate
this if you don't know about the importance of the fair, even when I
was a kid it was the cool thing to do. This is a pretty entertaining 7
minutes or so.
DVD REVIEW: BRAZIL (1985)
-THEATRICAL TRAILER
Brazil:
This is the trailer to the film which has a good narrative comparing
the protagonist's fantasy world and real world which don't have much
difference.
-FEATURE FILM
Brazil (1985): Terry Gilliam
directed this bleak futuristic film which centers on Sam Lowry, played
very well by Jonathan Pryce, who is a bureaucrat trying to correct a
wrongful arrest and then himself becoming an enemy of the state. He
then meets Jill, played by Kim Griest, who is the woman in his dreams
and he meets her but she soon starts to find trouble as well. Robert de
Niro is good in his bit part of an underground superhero. Other people
include Ian Holm, Katherine Helmond, Jim Broadbent, Bob Hoskins,
Michael Palin, and many others. There are a lot of nice dream sequences
with Sam Lowry as a winged hero and even having an interesting samarai
scene paying homage to Kurasowa and even the reality sequences look
amazing with the set design. Gilliam worked very hard on this one and
changed lots of things but this final product should entertain many. I
also liked the end sequences that kept changing. This is one that just
has to be seen and I really can't go into much detail about.
-FEATURE FILM W/COMMENTARY
Brazil
(1985): This commentary is provided by director Terry Gilliam. He gives
a lot of insight towards the production, the set pieces, actors and
many things. He mentions this was the fifth and final version of the
film having done a lot of editing. I liked when he spoke of Robert De
Niro being nervous about playing such a small part with high
expectations and then feeling de Niro succeeded in his performance.
There was also a funny story where Gilliam's daughter had a small part
and she really did not want to continue but she had a line. To get her
to say it Terry had to clear the crew off and with his wife persuade
her to say the line. He also discusses his casting of Kim Griest and
saying that he had lots of actresses to choose from but wanted an
unknown where he got Griest. I like what he said about him not liking
to do preview screeners. He even talks about his dislike for Siskel and
Ebert's thumbs up/thumbs down method. It was pretty insightful and
pretty amusing where he carried the commentary doing it by himself.
-"LOVE CONQUERS ALL" VERSION
Brazil
(1985): This is a 94 minute version of BRAZIL which is the version that
Terry Gilliam refused to make. This includes an alternate opening, many
cuts, and a happy ending that Terry did not want. The movie was made to
be more of a romantic film. Much of the cuts were made so that everyone
can focus on Sam and Jill. This version can be viewed with or without
commentary. The commentary is made by Gilliam expert David Morgan who
compares this version to "Gilliam's version". People who absolutely
love BRAZIL will not like this one as it does not give Terry Gilliam's
vision. It was interesting to view, probably better to hear the
commentary from Morgan. He pointed out how the movie makes De Niro's
character look like a terrorist while Gilliam's version shows a lot of
gray in his characters. I'll stick to the feature BRAZIL rather than
this one. This one was made for tv.
-SPECIAL FEATURES
Production
Stills: These were posters and photos from the film. There was a cool
Japanese poster for it and a few still photos. Good images but they
were also good enough for the film.
Script Development: These
were written works talking about the many rewrites and developments of
the script. To be honest, I looked through them but I was not
interested enough to actually carefully read everything. There is a
video part with Tom Stoppard's writing of a lot of the dialogue and
Gilliam talking about how Stoppard really helped with some of his ideas
like the Buttle/Tuttle mix-up.
Storyboards: These took a look at
all the original ideas for fantasy sequences talking about what they
had in mind and posting the pictures. They had some interesting ideas
but I felt the final dream sequences in the movie worked great.
Production design: These were also written just talking about what it took and some of their original production ideas.
Costume
design: Costumer James Acheson describes his ideas for costuming. He
talks about how Katherine Helmond wore the shoe hat very well and
helped his career in costuming. He got lots of ideas from British
officers. Good, brief interview here.
Special Effects: This was
more reading towards special effects and how they were done. Lots of
reading and I thought Gilliam's explanation in the commentary was good
enough.
The Score: This is a brief interview with Michael Kamen about his music score. Also, Gilliam praises Kamen in this video.
What
is Brazil: This is a 30 minute documentary where the actors and writers
all try to give their idea to what is BRAZIL since it did not take
place in Brazil nor is there really any references. Some of it includes
Top Stoppard and Terry Gilliam's different styles and how they had some
conflict in the beginning.
The Battle of Brazil: A Video
History: I learned on this one that Sid Sheinberg, a producer is the
one who made the "love conquers all" edition because of his dislike of
Gilliam's version. This documentary takes a look at the feud between
Gilliam and Sheinberg and Gilliam's refusal to give into the producer's
demands to shorten the film. Much of it is because it is not really a
commercial film so it only has a select audience so producers are
obviously mostly concerned about money. It was a very good documentary
and my favorite of the special features
-OVERALL
I like
this movie but to be honest it does not rank high on my list of
favorites. I'm just a casual fan but admire Gilliam for keeping his
ground and not giving into the demands. This is a Criterion Collection
DVD which has a lot on it. For me the movie, the commentary from
Gilliam and the couple documentaries was all I really needed. I am not
much of a reader and sometimes I like to read up on things but I just
was not interested enough to read all kinds of writing on a DVD.
Sometimes I feel the film should speak for itself and I feel this one
does just that thus not making me feel I need a lot of special features
besides the documentaries on there. The "Love Conquers All" version is
an interesting one
to watch after the film has been watched but not near as good as the
real version.
Well, that is it for this week. Tell me what you
like and dislike and stay tuned for next week which includes Ali
Macgraw, Douglas Fairbanks, Tom Selleck, Christopher Walken, and many
others.
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