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dwzobell

I think that Easter Procession scene will stay with me a long time. Laughs, irony, promise of rebirth. It's a pretty terrific sequence.

We're all people and animals and vegetation and minerals, aren't we? Hmm.
7 years 8 months ago
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dwzobell

Did Bob Fosse see this before "All That Jazz?" The editing here is maybe even smarter but has a warmth, a humanity behind it Fosse never could have dreamed of.

We see magic in the lives of these images that the subjects themselves seem to be totally unaware of. Like any good documentary, you find yourself filled with love for these unawares, and hopeful that one day, they'll become aware of the magical work, exchanges and world they live in.
7 years 9 months ago
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dwzobell

Can I take this as an opportunity to say that I think eliminating Walt's name from the company logo is tacky and even kind of vulgar? There. Opportunity taken.

What lovely lighting and cinematography. What a great performance from Cate Blanchett. What profound beauty there is in the child who is so good, so pure, so enlivening that birds and butterflies flock to her. A girl who, even in her most dour moments, has sunlight bursting through windows just to shine on her. That's really terrific stuff.

The adaptation puts virtually nothing new on the table in terms of story or insight which is disappointing. I wish Disney hadn't pressured Branagh and friends to utilize the less-than-convincing and more-than-out-of-place CGI mice friends. But the love and affection the film has for its protagonist is moving. And for those of us who have met such light and bird inviting people, spiritually resonant even.
8 years 4 months ago
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dwzobell

It may lack the big budget of the original, but what it may lack in terms of Carol Burnett's greatness and an overblown third act, it more than makes up for in genuine gentleness, kindness, spirit, generosity, charm and humor.
8 years 7 months ago
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dwzobell

In the early 90s, there was a never-ending onslaught of films (most of them for children) that taught to forsake the opinions of others and seek the satisfaction that comes from within. They each hold their own merits (although, they may have held a collective danger) and, in many ways, find their precedent in this film. Is that spoiling too much? The ending is what people remember and with good reason: It's powerful and joyful and worthy of applause. The journey leading up to it is drenched in authenticity, making everyone all the more likable. Direction's solid (editing's a ton of fun), the swimming and showering sequences suggesting an epic and fraternal journey. Recommended.
8 years 8 months ago
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dwzobell

Sometimes a morality tale about trying to please the masses (ironic?) and sometimes a messy film about...everything else. Succeeds best when it's lampooning Disney Parks (even the Davey Crockett Explorer Canoes make an appearance!)
8 years 9 months ago
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dwzobell

A work of wonder, totally deserving of the praise it's gotten. I don't think it deserves "Best of" from the studio but it's still a near-perfect film. It loses a point or two for conflicts that feel obligatory more than necessary but overall, it's a film filled with such paradoxical joy, such incredible insight into childhood...Joins "The Tree of Life" and "Where the Wild Things Are" in the short list of amazing films about childhood from the last decade. I had tears in my eyes, occasionally out of sadness, usually out of joy and wonder, for most of the film.
8 years 9 months ago
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dwzobell

A film that works on so many levels that it shouldn't work at all. At first glance, it's "Women and Wallace" without the suicide. Another level, it's an incredible record of the early 1980s in the Southern United States. But, ultimately, it is Sherman's March, the story of a man who felt neither at home in the North or the South, but had love in his heart for both areas (especially the South), that makes the film. This man, accidentally or intentionally, has found a perfect metaphor for those of us who have love each of the unique regions of the USA but never feel fully accepted in any of them.
8 years 9 months ago
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dwzobell

It's amazing what four years can do to a movie. Without changing a single frame, it can become a completely different film. Where once it might have been a celebration of a kid who's surprisingly talented, with all of the sweetness and age-appropriate narcissism you'd expect of a youngin, it now plays as a cautionary tale. You can't help but see the inappropriate parenting, the adults who could have done more to protect this kid, the leaders who exploit - the writing's on the wall. Left too unchecked, given maybe a hair too much applause/too frequently...I hope this poor kid can find his way back to being a human being again. I do think he's got remarkable talent and there are some joyful moments scattered throughout. But, as Usher ominously suggests, 16-years-old doesn't last forever.

Also, way to exploit preteen girls.
8 years 9 months ago
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dwzobell

I loved Michael Jackson as a child. I felt that the "He's so weird" talk was overly mean-spirited. And I still do feel that people were too willing to drag him through the mud. But I did walk away a little frustrated with him. When something as tributary as this still ends up being so...Norma Desmondy? Sad. His voice isn't up to par - and I know he's saving his voice, but come on. That's terrifying for everybody involved - you never save it till opening. And there's an innocent dillusional air about everything...There's still some genuinely moving stuff within all the camp but there's also a lot of "I don't know how Kenny didn't strangle this man" in there too.
8 years 10 months ago
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dwzobell

Sometimes genius, sometimes far from it.

-The Mary stuff is really transcendent and terrific. She's the heart of the movie in so many ways, which makes sense, given the theological background this particular interpretation is steeped in.

-The Satan stuff rarely, if ever, works. (It almost works for the suicide.)

-The flashbacks are especially effective and I wish they were utilized even more. They provide necessary context for the passion elements without leading to exposition heavy stuff. They also help us relate to the Man of Sorrows - his life wasn't always this. There were joes and smiles and lessons that none of them could understand at the time. Also, the editing is at its best in these sequences.

-The torture stuff is hard to watch. I don't know if it's always necessary but it did elicit a lot of "STOP"s from me being yelled at the television. And the crucifixion brought hearty crying from me.

-The actor who plays John is quite good (even with essentially no lines!)

-I don't know if the wall-to-wall music is effective. It ends up being more distracting than helpful.

Glad I saw it. "Gospel According to St. Matthew" is still better.
9 years ago
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dwzobell

I will not soon forget the image of the family in a white van, praying silently, while outside of the van a storm rages. A perfect image.
9 years ago
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dwzobell

Oh, if only all of the scenes in the movie had carried the coherent artistry as the final scene. That sequence is where it all finally came together and it came together beautifully. There are scattered moments throughout that work - but the stage play's theatricality often leads to awkward adaptation.
9 years ago
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dwzobell

Into the Woods. Thoughts:
-I've never seen such natural and effortless scene to song transitions in a movie.
-Every one in the cast works really really well. Beautifully so.
-The second half works mostly. The lack of her death did not bother me nearly as much as the lack of trauma over everything else that happens. Where was the tragedy in the break up scene?? But all of the tragic innuendo was there in "I Know Things Now" and kudos to Disney for that.
-Rob Marshall cuts to reaction shots at all the wrong times. Consistently. It's crazy distracting.
-The prologue was thrilling. Majorly.
-James Lapine's Cinderella is one of the best written female characters in musical theater. I will never get over her.
-Criticisms aside, I loved it. My face hurt from smiling and I loved watching an average movie audience meet these lifelong friends of mine for the first time.
9 years 3 months ago
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dwzobell

There's a sense of the spiritual in this one - maybe it's the concepts of family and accepting mortality/death. I think that's definitely a large component to it. Larger than that though is the reward of duration - in seeing this people grow, get challenged, etc, we get a very very small sense of what it must feel like to be God. We worry, excited, etc but can't intervene. These lives aren't heading in the direction we anticipated!
9 years 4 months ago
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dwzobell

As transcendent of a film as I've probably ever encountered, this expressionistic, borderline musical, finds roots in Malick, Fosse and in somewhere much deeper and original than even those masters managed to go. There are few movies that I've seen that come closer to capturing the way the human heart and mind find things - memories, good and bad, all bathed in gold, bathed in simultaneous shock and forgiveness. A cleansing wash and a million other trite attempts to explore the beauty of this quiet, hopeful and mournful little film. "In the Bleak Midwinter" has never meant more.
9 years 4 months ago
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dwzobell

The offscreen space becomes much more prominent in this film, with much more action and change happening between films. People we detested in the earlier films become lovable here, people we worried about before become unsettling messes. It's that time between that keeps us watching - our minds instantly start creating the in-between space and that work keeps us riveted.

Neil once again becomes the primary focus for me, if only because his story is so dramatic. Still, each story has become more pronounced and the personalities stronger than ever.

Apted's questions are getting more invasive (as is his literal voice, rarely heard in the earlier films.) As the shots become more and more dramatic, I can't help but question some of the ethics/credibility. Neil getting picked up while hitchhiking is something I can believe. Neil and a film crew getting picked up while hitchhiking gives me pause.

Ethical issues (ones that all docs share) aside, the legitimacy of the overriding dramatic question, one of agency and fatalism, is at its most provocative here. Leads to great discussion.
9 years 4 months ago
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dwzobell

The clothes! The shoes! The hair!...ARE NOT THE POINT! Sure, there is something anthropological about the whole project but it's the universal that sustains - the dressing is only sometimes the point (see: Neil's sweater.)

Returning to the ultimate talking heads films. Scattered thoughts:
-Contrast "current" clips with clips from the first installment. So many options for the future at age seven and so few options for them when the future arrives. There's not a ton of ambition anymore but there is a decent amount of saddened acceptance of how things have gone.

-There's a gender thing here that I can't quite pinpoint. The women are all more defensive, more hurt. Is it society that's causing this? Or the interviewer?

-Neil's story is climbing to the top as the most interesting. He's the closest we have to a protagonist (or at least a central figure.) His story would feel even more tragic if he weren't so insanely likeable.

-We're getting progressively more and more annoyed with the filmmakers and becoming more and more of the way they're being used for an agenda.
9 years 5 months ago
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dwzobell

An ecological variation on Thornton Wilder's "Long Christmas Dinner." A single location carries millions of years of history behind it. It changes itself and we add to the changes. We witness the changes of the Great Lakes from the beginning of time till the "present" (1968), guided by a hapless Jim Henson look-a-like in a canoe. Makes me ashamed of how ignorant I am of what makes up the locations I engage with - the locations affect just as much as the people in them and I ought to be aware of where I'm at.

Also, let's take this opportunity to sing the praises of the National Film Board of Canada. If we in the US had such an organization...if only...

https://www.nfb.ca/film/rise_and_fall_of_the_great_lakes
9 years 5 months ago
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dwzobell

Nobody will remember it as their favorite Buster Keaton flick but it does bring a smile and a bit of shame for all of us who live and die by our checklists and our bullet-point vacations. Things are wonderful and full of opportunity but sometimes things get in the way. Sometimes we forget that the flight to the destination is just as much a part of the vacation as the rest of it. There's also a strip-mining element to vacation highlighted here that's unfortunate, uncomfortable and utterly charming under the hands of this comedic master. He may not notice the vistas around him but, aided by a skilled cinematographer, we notice them. And what vistas! O Canada.

https://www.nfb.ca/film/railrodder
9 years 5 months ago
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dwzobell

It's already starting to get messier. Most of these kids have left the garden by now in one way or another - and each are ashamed to be seen in such a state. Rarely looking at the camera, mumbling, derisive toward direct questioning - probably the most awkward our protagonists will appear in the series.

Economics still play heavily into the series here. We seem to born for our fates. Sigh.
9 years 5 months ago
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dwzobell

The beginning of it all - a study to end all studies. Some will flippantly refer to it as the father of reality TV. If these films are the father, than oh, how the children have strayed. While reality TV seeks to exalt the base and corrupt, here is hope for a nation.

As the film subtly suggests, none of us have as many choices as we think we do. The child who's never heard of university is the one who will be less enabled to attend when old enough.

At this age, one can assume the ideologies presented are all based in the ideas passed onto them from teachers and parents. Fair, they probably have such origins later on in the series as well, but they're more undiluted here.
9 years 5 months ago
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dwzobell

There's something bittersweet about seeing a child excitedly open up the "newest" Harry Potter book after spending two hours with a book that nobody's heard of but one man reveres so deeply. That being said, you can't help but love the child who's reading that book, nor can you fault publishers or authors for the love that child shares with that book. We've all experienced it - a book, a song, painting, play, film that we connect with so deeply that it becomes an extension of who we are. We look at that book on our shelf and we think not only of plot but of how sad we are that the book ever ended and how happy we are that we can revisit those deepest friendships we've made at any time.

The film also taps into the idea of man not being a product of his era but the era being a product of that man. The film encourages us to become co-creators rather than consumers. This ode to storytelling and storytellers hits a deeply personal chord.
9 years 5 months ago
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