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| marantzo |
 Posted: Sun Jan 18, 2015 9:59 am |
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Joined: 30 Oct 2014
Posts: 278
Location: Winnipeg: It's a dry cold.
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Yesterday I watched Sahara on TCM. The WWII battle in the desert with Bogart as the leader of the soldiers in the desert. I thought I had seen the movie, but I hadn't seen it. I really liked it. It was rough and tough. A very well made war movie, with very good acting and battle scenes etc.
I thought I'd seen almost all Bogart movies, but I hadn't seen this one.
The Nazis were not very nice. 
Has everyone on here seen it? |
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Big bang, shmig bang; still doesn't explain how anything starts. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Sun Jan 18, 2015 12:58 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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| Never seen Sahara. It's definitely a little-seen Bogart. Will try to catch. |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Sun Jan 18, 2015 2:49 pm |
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Joined: 30 Oct 2014
Posts: 278
Location: Winnipeg: It's a dry cold.
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It seems like Sahara didn't get a big audience. I would have liked to see it on the big screen.
Billy, I am looking forward to what you think about the movie. I couldn't stop watching it. |
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Big bang, shmig bang; still doesn't explain how anything starts. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Sun Jan 18, 2015 8:59 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12921
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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The Official Story. Background: From 1976 through 1983, Argentina was ruled by one of the most brutal juntas in the Western Hemisphere. In 1982, to shore up support for the unpopular junta, Argentina invaded the Falklands, which didn't work out too well, and led to the fall of the junta at the end of 1983. During the junta, somewhere between 9000 and 30000 political prisoners were murdered. Something like 500 of the women were pregnant and, after they gave birth, were murdered and the children given or sold to people with political connections.
Alicia (Norma Aleandro) is married to Roberto, who is a government agent (Héctor Alterio) who has grown rich on the job. They have a five-year old adopted daughter (a delightful Analía Castro). When Alicia's old friend Ana (Chunchuna Villafañe) returns from a seven-year exile, Alicia naturally wants to know what happened to Ana, and after some prodding, Ana reveals that she was kidnapped, tortured and raped in hopes of getting information about a previous lover. Ana also mentions the adoption racket and the bottom falls out of Alicia's world. (Alicia seems naive, but the full scale of the baby racket was not revealed until 1983, which is when the movie takes place.) She begins to question exactly where their daughter came from and whether she has been the beneficiary of a crime in which her husband was complicit. So she starts digging, hoping and fearing that she may find her daughter's birth family. In the process, Alicia's marriage falls apart as does her husband's career.
In the meantime, the government is losing its grip and there are progressively demonstrations demanding to know what became of the political prisoners and the missing babies.
This is an interesting example of a film where seemingly little happens in the first 20 minutes, then the film explodes. There are scenes of great power, and I was moved to tears toward the end. Amazingly, work was already being done underground on the film before the junta fell, which seems really brave to me. The junta fell in December 1983, just after the events in the film, and the film was completed in the open.
Of the 500 or so illegally adopted children, about a hundred were eventually found and something like were returned to their families, usually grandparents. (Some of the others were presumably adults by the time their families were found.) The junta years seem to have imposed the same kind of trauma on Argentinians that apartheid did to South Africans, the Pinochet dictatorship did to Chileans, and the Ceausescu dictatorship did to Romanians, and there have been quite a few movies about it, including the fine 2003 film Cautiva (Captive), in which a stolen daughter finds out the truth the hard way.
The Official Story won a well-deserved Oscar for foreign language film, was also nominated for original screenplay (losing to Witness) and Norma Aleandro won best actress at the Cannes Film Festival. |
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I had a love and my love was true but I lost my love to the yabba dabba doo, --The Flintstone Lament |
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| yambu |
| Posted: Wed Jan 21, 2015 2:25 pm |
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Joined: 23 May 2004
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Location: SF Bay Area
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Fill the Void is a matchmaking story within the Lubavitcher community of Tel Aviv. This is a beautiful insight into their way of the world.
Except for sleeping, no one is ever alone. People greet each other with sayings from the Talmud, full of wisdom and pith. My favorite: "God blesses the man who tells the truth once in his life."
When the men are not singing and dancing, they consult with the Rebbe for advice. One woman wants to know which oven to buy, so together she and the Rebbe leave the daily conference and set off to go look at ovens. |
Last edited by yambu on Wed Jan 21, 2015 5:43 pm; edited 2 times in total
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| Syd |
| Posted: Wed Jan 21, 2015 3:24 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12921
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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| I was hopelessly distracted by whatever it was they were wearing on their heads. |
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I had a love and my love was true but I lost my love to the yabba dabba doo, --The Flintstone Lament |
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| yambu |
| Posted: Wed Jan 21, 2015 5:27 pm |
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Joined: 23 May 2004
Posts: 6441
Location: SF Bay Area
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Syd wrote: I was hopelessly distracted by whatever it was they were wearing on their heads.
Some Lubavitcher women, like those in Crown Point, Brooklyn, and possibly other Hasidim, also shave their heads in memoriam. Back in Belarus, when the Cossacks came, the Jews figured bald women were not what they wanted. |
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That was great for you. How was it for me? |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Wed Jan 21, 2015 6:07 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12921
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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| No, i mean the men who had some kind of cylindrical hat. |
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I had a love and my love was true but I lost my love to the yabba dabba doo, --The Flintstone Lament |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Wed Jan 21, 2015 7:09 pm |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9010
Location: Shanghai
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yambu wrote: Syd wrote: I was hopelessly distracted by whatever it was they were wearing on their heads. You mean the women. Kinda like half a turban. It designated that the woman was married.
I just ran across the semi-turbans in My Father, My Lord, an Israeli film. The headwear was a bit odd and mildly distracting in the film.
Unfortunately the storyline was too simple.
The performances were good, but there just wasn't much there.
A rabbi's family goes to the Dead Sea for vacation. Separate beaches for the sexes. Dad is wrapped up in prayer and doesn't notice his son wander off and drown. Ends up shrugging -- that he was too busy with God to be attentive. Oh well. Grief is part of life too. A lot of Talmud quoting early in the film; and blessings for nearly every occurrence (though it's generally accepted that the sea blessing is for a major body of water and not a small inland sea such as the Dead Sea ...)
My final ME viewing was A Palestinian film, Divine Intervention. Very deadpan. People kind of passive-aggressively annoying each other. Lots of deadpan. Except for one exuberant checkpoint guard who is just aggressive and takes pleasure in jerking everyone around farcically. As the guard orders random people into other cars, we keep getting cuts to our hero with the ultra-deadpan expression. I guess their is some droll humor in getting reaction shots of a completely expressionless person. But I just didn't get the point of this film. One or two scenes seemed like they would have worked well in a music video, but made little sense in this film. I guess the main story is a limited affair between a couple on either side of a checkpoint. And the neighbors and family of the deadpan man (who is also the writer/director/actor). |
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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| yambu |
| Posted: Wed Jan 21, 2015 11:06 pm |
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Joined: 23 May 2004
Posts: 6441
Location: SF Bay Area
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| Syd |
| Posted: Thu Jan 22, 2015 8:17 am |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12921
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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| That's them. The fourth in the first row, and several below. |
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I had a love and my love was true but I lost my love to the yabba dabba doo, --The Flintstone Lament |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Thu Jan 22, 2015 1:38 pm |
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Joined: 30 Oct 2014
Posts: 278
Location: Winnipeg: It's a dry cold.
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I never saw so many hats on one page.
Some ultra orthodox are very nice and some others are a pain in the ass. |
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Big bang, shmig bang; still doesn't explain how anything starts. |
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| carrobin |
| Posted: Thu Jan 22, 2015 1:40 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 7795
Location: NYC
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| Religious headgear (and in the case of Muslim women, all-over gear) has always seemed a little weird to me. I'm not an atheist, but I find it hard to believe in a god who would be concerned about people's hats. |
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| carrobin |
| Posted: Thu Jan 22, 2015 11:28 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 7795
Location: NYC
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| FYI, I've just noticed that TCM is showing "The Oklahoma Kid" tomorrow at 6 a.m. It's a little cowboy flick that is memorable only for the fact that James Cagney is the title hero and Humphrey Bogart is the villain, and there's a nice scene when Cagney sings "I Don't Want to Play in Your Yard" in the saloon. But that's memorable enough for me. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Sat Jan 24, 2015 12:17 am |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12921
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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I'm watching a silent Ozu, "Walk Cheerfully," and recasting it into Hollywood (it's about the only Ozu I've seen where you can do that--although I guess you could make them into period pieces like Fiddler on the Roof).
Let's see. The sidekick is Edward G. Robinson although you could use Peter Lorre and make Robinson the lead. I think I might make Frederic March the lead, and the female lead Joan Bennett. The femme fatale would normally be Louise Brooks, but I need a late 1930s equivalent, and I'm a bit stumped. Any ideas? |
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I had a love and my love was true but I lost my love to the yabba dabba doo, --The Flintstone Lament |
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