101 minute running time so a good length … this was cute, I enjoyed it, a little contrived of course, a little too sweet, a little too moving, so no green-go … the little girl is beautiful, not sure how much Maori blood she has, but probably more than the white woman who wrote and directed it, lol … a feel-good movie for the whole family to enjoy, but the politics of it are pretty complicated, if you bother to think about it.
And she came on the back of a whale... a woman to lead a new people.
In Scottish (needs subtitles) … 106 minute running time so about 10 minutes too long … more stories of delinquent Scottish youth … a Ken Loach movie, I should have known (he also made Kes (1969), which is one of the greatest movies of all time … I, Daniel Blake also wasn’t bad). This movie wasn’t bad, just predictable and depressing. When the kid seriously considered murder, the audience probably stopped rooting for him. This was a John Farr reco (“a sympathetic portrait of troubled adolescence”), but it only gets a yellow rating from me.
What a waste.
In Bengali. 98 minute running time so the perfect length. I know nothing about the history of Bangladesh (East Pakistan) and how it became independent (so the movie is set before 1971) and the conflict between Hindus and Muslims and about boys being sent off to a madrasa, etc. so I learned a few basic things by watching this movie. I think there was a lot of symbolic stuff within that I didn’t get because I’m too dense. This was a John Farr reco (“lyrical gem”), and I’ll give it a yellow rating at best.
The clay bird laments:"Why did you infuse my heart with longing if you didn't give my wings the strength to fly?"
In French. 90 minute running time so the perfect length, but this was an absurd story and sick and twisted and bad for the soul (Russian roulette thing) … I had to buy a copy of this movie since I couldn’t find it anywhere and now I know why, it’s both dumb and disturbing. Very surprised John Farr recommended this, what a bad call on his part. Supposedly based on a true story, but I doubt it. Red rating.
This is a list of the Best Movies of 2007 according to John Farr. I find his site hard to navigate, so I create summary lists like this one.
English-language movies:
American Gangster
Boy A
Breach
Chop Shop
Control
Into the Wild
Juno
Knocked Up
Longford
Michael Clayton
My Winnipeg
No Country for Old Men
Paranormal Activity
Ratatouille
Superbad
The Kite Runner
The Namesake
The Savages
The Visitor
There Will Be Blood
Foreign-language movies:
4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days (Romanian)
5 Centimeters Per Second (Japanese)
A Secret (French)
Beaufort (Hebrew)
Bliss (Turkish)
Caramel (Arabic)
Cargo 200 (Russian)
Flight of the Red Balloon (French)
I Served the King of England (Czech)
Jellyfish (Hebrew)
Katyn (Polish)
La Vie En Rose (French)
Letters from Iwo Jima (Japanese)
Like Stars on Earth (Hindi)
Love and Honor (Japanese)
Lust, Caution (Mandarin)
Maldeamores (Spanish)
Mirush (Albanian)
Mongol (Mongolian)
My Father, My Lord (Hebrew)
Persepolis (French)
REC (Spanish)
Secret Sunshine (Korean)
Silent Light (Spanish)
The Band’s Visit (Hebrew)
The Counterfeiters (German)
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (French)
The Edge of Heaven (German)
The Orphanage (Spanish)
The Pool (Hindi)
Under the Bombs (Arabic)
Volver (Spanish)
Yella (German)
English-language documentaries:
Atlantic Records: The House That Ahmet Built
Bomb It
Chris & Don: A Love Story
Constantine's Sword
Dreams to Remember: The Legacy of Otis Redding
Encounters at the End of the World
For the Bible Tells Me So
Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson
Martha Graham: Dance on Film
Mr. Warmth: The Don Rickles Project
No End in Sight
Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience
Pete Seeger: The Power of Song
Sicko
Steep
Surfwise
Taxi to the Dark Side
The Devil Came on Horseback
The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters
The Rape of Europa
Trumbo
Uncounted: The New Math of American Elections
War Dance
Young @ Heart
Foreign-language documentary:
Her Name Is Sabine
96 minute running time, so the perfect length. Another Churchill movie, Albert Finney starring. It’s well made, a John Farr reco, see it if you’re interested in history. Yellow rating.
I've lived too long, I'm in the ruck, I've drunk too deeply of the cup, I cannot spend, I cannot f***, I'm down and out! I'm buggered up!
This is a list of the Best Movies of 2006 according to John Farr. I find his site hard to navigate, so I create summary lists like this one.
English-language movies:
Akeelah and the Bee
Away From Her
Blood Diamond
Children of Men
Half Nelson
Inland Empire
Little Children
Little Miss Sunshine
Old Joy
Once
Ten Canoes
The Bubble
The Illusionist
The Last King of Scotland
The Queen
The Wind That Shakes the Barley
This Is England
United 93
Venus
Foreign-language movies:
12:08 East of Bucharest (Romanian)
After the Wedding (Danish)
Apocalypto (Mayan)
Black Book (Dutch)
Blame It on Fidel (French)
Bombón: El Perro (Spanish)
Days of Glory (Arabic)
Four Minutes (German)
Golden Door (Italian)
Lady Chatterley (French)
Mirage (Macedonian)
Offside (Farsi)
Pan's Labyrinth (Spanish)
Paprika (Japanese)
Paris, Je T'Aime (French)
Private Fears in Public Places (French)
Private Property (French)
Reprise (Norwegian)
Still Life (Mandarin)
Summer Palace (Mandarin)
Syndromes and a Century (Thai)
Tell No One (French)
The Host (Korean)
The House of Sand (Portuguese)
The Lives of Others (German)
The Science of Sleep (French)
Vitus (Swiss German)
English-language documentaries:
A Crude Awakening: The Oil Crash
A Lion in the House
Alice Neel
An Inconvenient Truth
Billy Wilder Speaks
Deliver Us From Evil
Eugene O'Neill: A Documentary Film
God Grew Tired of Us
Iraq for Sale
Jesus Camp
Lake of Fire
Manufactured Landscapes
Mr. Conservative: Goldwater on Goldwater
Neil Young: Heart of Gold
Radiant City
Rivers and Tides
Shut Up and Sing
TR: The Story of Teddy Roosevelt
The Bridge
The Monastery: Mr. Vig and the Nun
The Road to Guantanamo
The War Tapes
This Film Is Not Yet Rated
When The Levees Broke
Who Killed the Electric Car?
Wordplay
117 minute running time so at least 20 minutes too long … I can never buy Tom Hanks as a hard guy, he’s too sweet and soft-spoken … this wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t good enough for me to recommend, though John Farr did. Gets a yellow rating (consider). If they cut out 20 minutes, it would be much harder to deny it a green-go rating.
There is only one guarantee. None of us will see heaven.
This is a list of the Best Movies of 2005 according to John Farr. I find his site hard to navigate, so I create summary lists like this one.
English-language movies:
Be With Me
Brick
Brokeback Mountain
Capote
Cinderella Man
Duma
Good Night and Good Luck
Hotel Rwanda
Hustle and Flow
Journey from the Fall
Man Push Cart
Pride and Prejudice
The Constant Gardener
The Descent
The Proposition
The Squid and the Whale
The World's Fastest Indian
Transamerica
Vincent and Theo
Walk the Line
Foreign-language movies:
13 Tzameti (French)
Adam’s Apples (Danish)
C.R.A.Z.Y. (French)
Caché (French)
Cinema, Aspirins and Vultures (Portuguese)
Fateless (Hungarian)
Frozen Land (Finnish)
House of Flying Daggers (Mandarin)
Joyeux Noel (French)
L’Enfant (French)
Mother of Mine (Finnish)
Paradise Now (Arabic)
Regular Lovers (French)
Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles (Mandarin)
Sophie Scholl: The Final Days (German)
The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (Romanian)
The Italian (Russian)
The Method (Spanish)
The Sun (Japanese)
The Violin (Spanish)
Three Times (Mandarin)
Time to Leave (French)
Tsotsi (Afrikaans)
Water (Hindi)
English-language documentaries:
51 Birch Street
An Unreasonable Man
Aristide and the Endless Revolution
Ballets Russes
Bob Dylan: No Direction Home
Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room
Hubert Selby Jr: It'll Be Better Tomorrow
Mad Hot Ballroom
March of the Penguins
Margot
New York Doll
Sir! No Sir!
TCM Archives: Garbo
The Boys of Baraka
The Heart of the Game
Why We Fight
You’re Gonna Miss Me
Foreign-language documentaries:
Crossing The Bridge: The Sound of Istanbul (Turkish)
Into Great Silence (French)
My Country, My Country (Kurdish)
92 minute running time so the perfect length. Clever story, well told. Maybe a little too neat in the end, but you can’t have it all. I’m sure that I saw this movie 20 years ago but forgot about it. It’s a green-go. John Farr recommended it and so do I.
Today I bit. I bit. I bit!
