Recent Films
Apr. 26th, 2016 03:30 pmDear White People
A satirical film about several black students at an Ivy League university. The radio show host known for activism and her sarcastic "Dear white people" show. The pushed-to-succeed son of the Dean. The nerdy gay journalist who would rather be left out of things. Generally interesting and enjoyable, but even more pointed now than when it was made :(
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dear_White_People
Black Narcissus (1947)
Adapted from a Rumer Godden novel, apparently famous for some technological innovations: even now the colours and visuals of the abandoned stone palace, the steep valley, and the long views out from the Himalayas are striking.
Shortly before Indian independence, a group of nuns are invited by the local Indian ruler/general and colonial administrator to set up a convent including school and hospital in a remote Himalayas valley, and gradually fail because the locals don't really want them, they're completely isolated, the leader is sympathetic, driven and well-meaning, but doesn't have much experience solving problems when they all start to go off the rails from isolation, and generally colonialism is giant clusterfuck.
I'm not sure what to say about it, but it raised lots of interesting questions in me: how much did these characters actually want to be there, and how much was a convent their only life choice? How much of the descent into disaster was due to something environmental or supernatural, how much due to inexperience, and how much to being where they weren't really wanted? If sexual attraction had been less stigmatised, would they have avoided ending in a stew of jealousy, and murder? How much of Sister Ruth's problems are due to an unspecified mental illness, how much to being generally unlikeable, how much to being excluded and given no responsibility, how much to the situation?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Narcissus
A-Team Movie
This was a generally enjoyable action movie, I was very pleasantly surprised. I've not seen the series to compare it to, but it did a good job setting up the team as doing spectacular but incisive and necessary violence, and their conflict with more sinister bits of the government.
Many of the action scenes were intercut between what's happening, and planning sessions or post-mortem sessions, which I felt worked very well, it felt much more interactive that just watching an action scene straight through from beginning to end.
The action scenes managed what I think is valuable but hard to evaluate, that it felt like competent characters dealing with complicated messy situations well, rather than people just wading through redundant outclassed opponents.
And I finally actually remember who all the four characters are and which is which.
A satirical film about several black students at an Ivy League university. The radio show host known for activism and her sarcastic "Dear white people" show. The pushed-to-succeed son of the Dean. The nerdy gay journalist who would rather be left out of things. Generally interesting and enjoyable, but even more pointed now than when it was made :(
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dear_White_People
Black Narcissus (1947)
Adapted from a Rumer Godden novel, apparently famous for some technological innovations: even now the colours and visuals of the abandoned stone palace, the steep valley, and the long views out from the Himalayas are striking.
Shortly before Indian independence, a group of nuns are invited by the local Indian ruler/general and colonial administrator to set up a convent including school and hospital in a remote Himalayas valley, and gradually fail because the locals don't really want them, they're completely isolated, the leader is sympathetic, driven and well-meaning, but doesn't have much experience solving problems when they all start to go off the rails from isolation, and generally colonialism is giant clusterfuck.
I'm not sure what to say about it, but it raised lots of interesting questions in me: how much did these characters actually want to be there, and how much was a convent their only life choice? How much of the descent into disaster was due to something environmental or supernatural, how much due to inexperience, and how much to being where they weren't really wanted? If sexual attraction had been less stigmatised, would they have avoided ending in a stew of jealousy, and murder? How much of Sister Ruth's problems are due to an unspecified mental illness, how much to being generally unlikeable, how much to being excluded and given no responsibility, how much to the situation?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Narcissus
A-Team Movie
This was a generally enjoyable action movie, I was very pleasantly surprised. I've not seen the series to compare it to, but it did a good job setting up the team as doing spectacular but incisive and necessary violence, and their conflict with more sinister bits of the government.
Many of the action scenes were intercut between what's happening, and planning sessions or post-mortem sessions, which I felt worked very well, it felt much more interactive that just watching an action scene straight through from beginning to end.
The action scenes managed what I think is valuable but hard to evaluate, that it felt like competent characters dealing with complicated messy situations well, rather than people just wading through redundant outclassed opponents.
And I finally actually remember who all the four characters are and which is which.