Movies Watched -- Land Of Mine (2017)

In German and Danish. 101 minute running time, so a good length, though I could have trimmed a few minutes off to get it within the sacred 100 minute mark if I were the editor. The story of German POWs (teenage boys in this case) who were forced to clear mines from the west coast of Denmark following the war. A Danish sergeant is their commander (more like a scoutmaster), and he’s alternately cruel and kind … in the end he proves to be merciful and just.

The Danish title is Under Sandet (Under the Sand) which is not as clever as the English title.

I liked this movie. It’s not perfect (predictable at times), and it’s not entertainment or a pleasure to watch, but it’s well constructed and well acted, and it gets a green rating, a rare recommendation from the Chairman.

So far among the 2017 movies I’ve seen, I’ve liked Wind River, Graduation, and this one.

Bist du ein Mann?

Movies Watched -- BPM (Beats Per Minute) (2017)

In French. 146 minute running time so at least 46 minutes too long. A terminal illness movie (AIDS, then), not easy to sit through. Combined with multiple homosexual sex scenes, damn near impossible to sit through (bearable at 2-3x ffwd). But the re-creation of the meetings of the Paris branch of ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) in the early 1990s was sort of interesting, though sanitized/dramatized no doubt. Their organizational abilities were impressive, and their activism paid off in the end, though too late for most of the characters in the movie.

Yellow rating if you’re interested in gay culture and AIDS … red rating (avoid) for everyone else.

Not afraid of a little thrush

Movies Watched -- Marjorie Prime (2017)

97 minute running time but it felt much longer because it's a talk talk talk movie. Rich people in the future have holograms of their dead spouses, which somehow helps them cope with Alzheimer's. Starred Tim Robbins, who looks old and fat, Geena Davis, who looks old but still has wonderful curves, and Don Draper, who will never be seen as anyone other than Don Draper.

Baby Boomer sci-fi ... talk talk talk, whiney rich white people problems accompanied by an awful score (same guy who did "Under the Skin," where the music worked) ... featured a nice house down in Amagansett ... only highlight was seeing Hannah Gross (screencap below); she's beautiful and is getting a lot of movie work for that reason (and because she's a member of the Tribe).

This will appeal to a certain type of Boomer and *nobody* else. It wasn't terrible ... issues of memory and family problems are interesting, but this gets a red rating, avoid.

Kate Urbland writes "the film’s ripped-from-the-theater feel never abates."

Post-coital proposal

Movies Watched -- The Florida Project (2017)

115 minute running time so at least 20 minutes too long. A W.D. By movie (written and directed by the same guy, i.e., it's his baby). A story about the underclass in America ... white trash living week to week in a motel in Orlando, Florida. Depressing, I had to watch it at 1.5x ffwd. A million wild kids running around. Tattooed, foul-mouthed single mothers lounging about. Shot in documentary style, but of course it isn't a documentary (reality would be much worse than this).

Willem Dafoe plays the kindly motel manager, cutter of slack, protector of kids. Main tattooed mother goes from hawking cheap perfume to tourists to turning tricks. "I'd cook, but Lunchables are like a dollar." This means it's the end for her as the mother of her child.

Spoilers: eventually the State comes and takes away her daughter (I had to google DCF ... "Department of Children and Families") -- there's no escape to the Magical Kingdom. Are we supposed to feel bad for child or mother? My only thought was, "what took them so long?" What's the point of watching this misery?  Why make yourself feel sad? Red rating, avoid.

Say cheese, biotch.

Movies Watched -- The Other Side of Hope (2017)

In Finnish. 89 minutes so the perfect length, but I still watched it at 1.5-2x ffwd since it was so stylized, ultra retro, a typically quirky "Art House" movie ... Finnish humor is sort of a contradiction in terms ... not much of a story here ... gorgeous Syrian refugee ends up in Finland seeking asylum, after being separated from his sister ... around the same time, a traveling salesman of shirts quits his job (and his wife) and buys a restaurant ... and ends up hiring the refugee (paths crossing).

Someone said it's a "tale of human kindness in the face of official indifference," which is sort of true, but I wasn't thrilled with this "hipster sermon against anti-immigrant prejudice," it gets a red (avoid) rating from me, or a yellow rating if you're into art house movies from Finland.

Playing the blues... 

Movies Watched -- Faces Places (2017)

In French. 90 minutes, the perfect length. A couple of French artists, a young Elvis Costello-ish guy and 88-year-old Agnes Varda, travel around the countryside pasting giant photos of the common people they meet on buildings, bunkers, containers. It's sort of charming, "delightful," but I wondered who was underwriting the whole thing, probably the French taxpayer. 

Oddly there wasn't a black or brown face to be seen anywhere ... maybe the French countryside is still "pure." But it's a sweet little movie, a feel-good film, which would appeal to the capital A.R.T. crowd. The general audience wouldn't be interested in this, or "get it."  Yellow rating. 

Goats should have horns.

Movies Watched -- Graduation (Bacalaureat) (2017)

In Romanian. 127 minute running time so at least a half hour too long, but let me say straight off that I generally love Romanian movies (The Death of Mr. Lazarescu was my favorite movie from 2006), and am willing to give them a pass when they run over the sacred 100 minute mark.

Life is complicated in Romania ... it reminds me so much of China, another non-market-based culture where connections are everything. The hospital scenes especially bring home a lot of my experiences there ... issues of integrity under strain, and the things desperate men do.

Loved it, green rating.

We thought we'd move mountains. We moved nothing.

Movies Watched -- Endless Poetry (2017)

In Spanish. 128 minute running time so at least 30 minutes too long. In fact it's about 128 minutes too long and should have been titled Endless Absurdity, Assurdità Sin Fin. Jodo is a lovable loon, but two hours of autobiographical performance art tests the patience of even the most steadfast devotees of small 'A' art. Full red "avoid" for the folks in Omaha.

Ben Sachs: "...  if you consider Jodorowsky's work excessive and mannered, you'll probably find this to be a slog." | The "if" made me laugh out loud. 

Brian Gibson: "It’s not endless, but it can often seem insufferable." | Not "can often seem" but "always is."

Blood is sacred!

Long Nights, Strange Men

Thirteen years old ... love her imperfect teeth, raw talent beats anything packaged by The Machine:

Grace VanderWaal - The A Team Recorded Live: 1/23/2017 - Paste Studios - New York, NY More Grace VanderWaal in the Paste Cloud: http://www.pastemagazine.com/search?t=Grace VanderWaal&m=Video Visit Paste Magazine: http://www.pastemagazine.com

Movies Watched -- Brawl in Cell Block 99 (2017)

132 minute running time including credits, so at least 30 minutes too long. Vince Vaughn with fake southern accent and shaved head. He has never been able to act, but it doesn't matter here since he just keeps a blank face and delivers his lines in a consistently clipped way. It's a Tarantino wannabe movie. Ultra-violence combined with goofy humor. 

There is a funny opening scene where he beats up his wife's car. His wife is Dexter's foul-mouthed sister, Deb. Vince is running drugs and gets caught and goes to prison. His wife is kidnapped so he has to get himself transferred from a medium security prison to a maximum security prison to kill a guy to get his wife freed (yeah, it's a dumb story). 

Vince is tall and not fat, but he's not in any shape to fight like he does in this movie, it's just silly. The movie became completely ridiculous when Don Johnson appeared (in sunglasses and leather gloves) to reprise his Big Daddy role, though this time as a prison warden instead of a slave owner. Tarantino-lite. 

If you were a certain kind of teenage boy, you'd like this movie. Everyone else should steer clear.

Artfully applied bruises