There’s a marked difference between films about the Gulf War and films about the Iraq War that is obvious and fascinating at the same time. The Gulf War was the first war in which the media were directly involved, and there’s a perception that the military presence was almost a performance.
I have to admit I was initially a little skeptical of Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s 2010 film Biutiful just because of all the whispering. The film has tons of it, starting with the opening scene, which turns out to be a transcendent framing device for the story of psychic hustler and single dad Uxbal and his quest to save his two young children, Ana and Mateo, before he dies of cancer.
A few days ago, the lineup for the 2013 Cannes Film Festival was announced. It features two films by Roman Polanski: his latest, a French-language adaptation of the play Venus in Fur starring his wife, Emmanuelle Seigner, in the lead role; and Weekend of a Champion, a previously unseen documentary about a Formula One racer made in 1972.
History is a treasure trove of stories more amazing than any fiction writer could invent. Two of the three films featured in this weekend’s French Film Festival—in its second weekend at PSU’s 5th Avenue Cinema—deal with historical events I’d never heard of and made me think about how films portray history in general.
I like to think I defy most pretentious film-geek cliches, but it would be difficult to pretend that I don’t love French film. Studying the language and developing a real interest in the culture probably resulted in my exposure to a lot of French cinema, but I also feel like you don’t need to speak a word of French to love their movies.
There’s a certain glorification of Mexican drug cartels in film and television that is kind of fascinating. Even the TV show Breaking Bad, which has been hailed as an accurate depiction of the mechanics of cartels, has an undeniable coolness factor that helps make it so popular.
When I was a kid, my dad practically forced me to watch Lonesome Dove. I was convinced that a 10-hour miniseries about two old men on horses would be slow torture, but it actually inspired my lifelong love of the Western. I have a lot of arguments with other film fans about this.
Bagdad Theater & Pub 3702 SE Hawthorne Blvd. A great example of Portland’s cinematic brewpubs, the Bagdad is part of the McMenamins chain and boasts arguably the most colorful history…
Barbara Stanwyck once famously said, “My only problem is finding a way to play my 40th fallen female in a different way from my 39th.” It’s a charming acknowledgement of her propensity for playing con women, femme fatales and ambitious free spirits in the golden age of her 60-year career.
Like most films, Lawrence Kasdan’s 1983 film The Big Chill is a product of its time. And yet there’s a wistful yearning for the past in the story of a group of college friends who reunite after one of them commits suicide.
There’s a point in Isabel Coixet’s 2005 film The Secret Life of Words when a character asserts that everything is essentially an accident. It’s a fascinating statement from a story that features suicide, genocide and the act of voluntarily detaching from the world.