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Uncut Gems (2019)
Unintelligible screaming for a full hour
Unintelligible abusive screaming for a full hour - and we left. I can't recall being as viscerally upset by a movie in my 70+ viewing years. Add close up, swirling camera work for the added treat of induced vertigo and you've got a real prize! Next time I read "charismatic" about a lead character I will know how to translate it as repugnant and move on
Tusen ganger god natt (2013)
The Temptations of Death
In 1,000 Times Goodnight, Juliet Binoche continues her long list of accomplishments as a serious actor playing a serious role, this time as a war photographer in serious times. The story, about a photographer's compulsion to be a witness to the most dangerous human situations and the reverberations this has in her life, was written and directed by Erik Poppe. A Norwegian photographer of similar biography, he had the imagination to switch the male and female roles. The unsettling images are even more unsettled in us because our expectation that this is what men do, court danger as a measure of manhood, is upended. Rebecca (Binoche) goes out, laden with cameras, to Afghanistan to tell the story of female suicide bombers. Marcus (Nikolaj Coaster-Waldau) stays at home, a marine biologist in Ireland, and at-home parent to two daughters, about 9 and 15.
Full Review at: http://www.allinoneboat.org/2015/04/14/1000-times- goodnight-a-film-about-temptation-of-death/
Restrepo (2010)
A Verissimo Look at Men on the Battlefield
From the opening scene of the youngsters in a transport plane, goofing and laughing about 'going off to war,' to later scenes of some wondering what the hell they are doing, we get an honest picture of young men in a battlefield — sometimes grunt labor, digging in rocky soil, sometimes guy-on-guy semi erotic rough housing, sometimes scary foot patrols at night. Two particularly informing sequences have one soldier talking about the "high" of being shot at:
"You can't get a better high. It's like crack, you know. You can sky-dive, or bungee jump, or do kayak, you know. But once you've been shot at, you really can't come down
You can't top that."
In the other one of the youngsters loses control of himself, scrambling and sobbing when they find the body of one of their best fighters. It's a credit to the film makers, and the Army, that this was included.
Full review at http://www.allinoneboat.org/2015/04/15/restrepo- documenting-soldiers-in-a-war/
The Guns of August (1964)
Not Tuchman's book
I'm surprised Barbara Tuchman didn't sue the developers of the movie for misappropriation of her title. Though it starts out as she did with Edward VII funeral, and shows the beginning of the war,it is far from her detailed explanations, and goes far beyond August, hopping with giant-steps across the major incidents until the end of the war: the sinking of the Lusitania, the arrival of the Americans, the final German push and then defeat. Great old footage and some strategy maps to help the viewer out but more an anti-German propaganda film than a documentary that might have come from her much acclaimed history. Tuchman certainly thought Germany was at the center of the war, but she showed the deep involvement of the others, as well. The producer-director, Nathan Kroll, was a musician and did other movies with musical themes. He must have self-chosen himself to do this, but inappropriately, I think. For a very good WW I documentary see the 2006 "Gallipoli" (Not the Peter Weir movie) narrated by Sam Neill and Jeremy Irons. It's very good, both filmically and historically.
Chico (2001)
Gritty documentary war footage with a man following his fighting muse
Not a film for everyone. For those who dig at the roots of human conflict or who want some short primers in a back-corner part of the world, your time won't be wasted - It is a hard story to follow, and seems improbable even as we watch, but Flores was an actual man, who stared in an earlier Fekete movie, "Bolshe Vita", 1996. As she got to know him she was intrigued by his 'rootless' background and decided to make a movie, with Chico himself. With some fictional elements, this is his story.
It's hard to follow in part because she seems to have stitched together film footage of varying quality. Some of it is rough and blurry. It's also hard because we ordinary film-buffs will not know the national flags being flown: we are not sure who Chico is fighting with, either in Hungary or later in shattering Yugoslavia. (Hint: he's with the Croatians against the Serbs and Chetniks.) - See more at: http://www.allinoneboat.org/#sthash.D27nZrzL.dpuf