Welcome to the 293rd Edition of my series. Yesterday, I went to the
graduation open house for my niece who is now all grown up. Tonight,
I'm going to the Westfield Playhouse to try out for the show DON'T HUG
ME hoping to make my return to community theater. Now, to get to this
week's selections.
Blessed is the Match: The Life and Death of
Hannah Senesh (2008): This is the 33rd link on The Chain and it
continues with Joan Allen who voices the title character's mother. This
is a documentary which focuses on the person of the title who was a
Hungarian Poet and an activist trying to rescue Jews in WWII and in the
process becoming captured and tortured by the Nazis. The documentary
takes a pretty in-depth look at her life and cause into her trial for
treason. Next week's link for The Chain continues with one more
selection from Joan Allen.
Is It Fall Yet? (2000): This was an
MTV tv movie which was a movie based on the MTV tv series DARIA. This
is a spinoff of BEAVIS & BUTTHEAD but forgot how much I actually
kind of liked this show and I was quite entertained by this movie.
Daria is a very cynical high school girl and reluctantly becomes a
volunteer at a summer camp called the It's Okay To Cry Corral where she
does not like that the camp is always inside and should do more outside
activities. In the process, she meets a boy at the camp who is just as
melancholy as her and tries to help him. This show also has some very
amusing characters and personify well each stereotype of a high school
student. Her parents and sister are also very entertaining. This movie
gave me quite a bit of laughs.
Fanboys (2008): This is a film
for all the sci-fi geeks. This movie takes place before STAR WARS:
EPISODE I came out in theaters where a group of STAR WARS fans come
together to go to the Skywalker Ranch in order to steal a copy before it
hits theaters. In their journey to get there, they run into a lot of
problems including an encounter with a group of Trekkers. This movie is
not for everyone and it is really pretty stupid but can be appreciated
by all the fans out there who would love to do something like this.
There are many celebrity cameos like William Shatner, Carrie Fisher,
Billy Dee Williams, Christopher McDonald, Seth Rogan, Danny Trejo, Kevin
Smith, and many others. There is also a lot of great pop culture
references but even a message on loyalty.
You and Your Work
(1948): This is my short film for the week which I found on my Roku
player on the Pub-D-Hub app. This is one of those great educational
shorts which are just entertaining now but still carries a little
message. This is the story about a high school student close to
graduation who takes a job at a shoe store and becomes bored feeling
unimportant. He then speaks to I believe his principal who lets him
know that each job has importance, even a shoe sales job which begins to
change this person's perspective of his job.
The Devil's
Daughter (1939): This is another movie from the Pub-D-Hub app when
looking from something of this era and took interest in this movie.
This is a weird story which takes place in Harlem and has an all-black
cast. Nina Mae McKinney stars as Isabelle who is coming to take over a
plantation but has a very vindictive sister named Isabelle who does what
she can from stopping her with voodoo type methods. Not something to
watch if you're looking for great plot but mostly for historical reasons
and the all-black cast.
The Children's Hour (1961): I found
this on TCM On-Demand and was one that caught my attention right away.
William Wyler directed this adaptation from a play written by Lillian
Hellman and at the time was a pretty daring film to make. Audrey
Hepburn and Shirley MacLaine are the heads of a girls boarding school
and have been best friends since college. Karen Balkin plays a very
troubled girl who then starts a rumor with her grandmother that they are
having a lesbian affair which then get spread very far which ruins
their business. This play was written in 1934 so I am sure this had to
be pretty hard to get off the ground. Wyler directed a version of the
play in 1936 but with the censorship issues had to significantly change
the storyline to make it where the women were rumored to be having a
love triangle as homosexuality no matter how implied was very taboo in
that era. So in this era, it was not as stringent so Wyler decided to
use the storyline that was originally in the play which was still quite
taboo in this era. The message this really sends out is how rumors can
permanently ruin lives, especially lies. The leads were great in this
movie and the film was very compelling even now.
A Face in the
Crowd (1957): I have always been pretty easy to entertain but it takes a
lot to just blow me away and this movie accomplished just that. Elia
Kazan directed this film which stars Andy Griffith in his movie debut
long before his Andy Taylor/Ben Matlock type roles and I will never look
at him the same again. This movie takes place along with the rise of
television and is quite ahead of its time. Griffith stars as an
Arkansas hobo named Lonesome Rhodes who is discovered by the media for
some of his comments and becomes this overnight media sensation but then
becomes corrupted by his fame. Patricia Neal co-stars as the person
who discovers him but realizes it may not have been the right thing.
Walter Matthau co-stars in one of his more serious roles as someone who
takes to him at first but then realizes he needs to bring him down. Lee
Remick also makes her debut. This movie was quite ahead of its time
and in many ways reminded me of what would later would become NETWORK.
This movie is great from the beginning up until a great conclusion.
This movie needs to put more on the radar so hopefully I can accomplish
that a little bit.
Goemon (2009): This is my Japanese film for
the week. This is in some ways Japan's answer to Robin Hood where the
title character who leaves his fighting clan after the leader is killed.
He then sets off into a new journey where he uses his thief skills to
help the poor while looking for the murderer of his chief setting him
off on a violent journey. I was able to get behind this character right
away and I really liked the special effects in the action scenes. This
is a great ninja film and has some great music. This movie is
available on Instant Netflix.
The Red Balloon (1956): This is my
French film for the week and another short film for this audition.
This is the story of a young boy in Paris and the title balloon that
just seems to follow him around which appears to have feelings. It
shows this boy and the bond he forms with this red balloon trying to
elude a gang of boys who want the balloon destroyed. This was a very
well done film and another really good conclusion where very little
dialogue is spoken throughout the film. This is also available through
Instant Netflix.
Wallace & Gromit in Three Amazing
Adventures (2001): This is actually three of their 30 minute films and
are Nick Park's claymation characters which I decided to rule as a movie
for this blog. Wallace is an absent-minded inventor and Gromit is his
loyal dog who is silent and conveys everything through facial
expression. In these adventures they must deal with a crazy robotic
dog, a psychotic penguin, and many other things. There is also a great
scene on a toy train and many other funny moments. These are British
cartoons. These are available on Instant Netflix as well as their
feature film. This is some great claymation and many humorous moments.
Well,
that is it for this week. Tell me what you like and what you do not
like in the comment section. Stay tuned for next week which so far
includes more Joan Allen, Christoph Waltz, Mickey Rourke, and many
others
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