Four Films
June 8th, 2008Not One Less
I think about this movie every time I see chalk. It was shown to a bunch of foreign language teachers visiting the American Film Institute Silver Theatre for a professional development session. Heat-warming story veils criticism of government. A thirteen-year-old girl agrees to substitute teach for a month at an impossibly poor rural elementary school. Dirt floors, rickety rude furniture, and one box of chalk. Use only one piece a day and you should have enough, the teacher tells Minzhi Wei before his departure. And if you put the chair at the foot of the bed it will be big enough to sleep you and a few of your students. She actually starts to develop as a teacher- we see the use of roll call as a classroom management technique. And her tenacity in chasing down the student who is taken away to work in the big city is incredible and even plausible. A happy ending, but not easily attained. In Chinese, but with subtitles.
La Antena
Maybe the closest story I can compare this to is the fable of the girl whose father at first fails to appreciate her statement that she loves him more than she loves salt. Salt was to that story what words are to this one. We went to see this movie during the DC Filmfest. It is about the power of words as well as a critique of the media- not to mention a tribute to silent film. The big media baron has taken the voices of the city’s inhabitants and now he is after their words. The director did all kinds of fun things with words, which appeared in the air since people could not talk. The bad guy crushes words in his fist or smacks them away in anger. Shouted words are bigger. Powerful scenes include the one where words are streaming away from the people and feeding into a machine that pulverizes them and turns them into the ubiquitous t.v. food. Unusual film. In Spanish, with subtitles.
To Catch a Thief
If I tell you this is a Carey Grant & Grace Kelly film by Alfred Hitchcock, you don’t need me to tell you it was good. What stood out to me were the smart-alecky lines the two leads kept throwing at each other. I also enjoyed the humor. Oh, and the Hitchcock cameo was delightfully easy to spot! I was sorry that I didn’t understand French, since there was little enough that subtitles were not deemed necessary. It’s like reading a Brontë novel- you know what’s going on, but it’s so frustrating to be shut out of even a tiny part. I’d like to watch this one again sometime.
Prince Caspian
Movies should not be expected to follow the book exactly, but this one strays so far from the book in plot and character that the end result is a repeat of the first movie. Peter is an arrogant knuckle-head and Narnia is peopled by genius military tacticians. Plug in epic battle scene. If Prince Caspian’s future wife ever happens to see the movie, well, he will have some explaining to do about Susan. I actually liked the idea of showing Susan as increasingly interested in clothes and boys, but the movie lets you down there too by portraying that as a good thing. In its favor, I think what is done is well-done. Great scenery, convincing talking animals, convincing Lucy- even a convincing Aslan. The trees weren’t bad either. Though I would have gotten the one tree to destroy the catapult by throwing its own stones back at it. Miraz was just about perfect and the opening was quite good. Worth seeing, as long as you forget the book.
We just watched the Cary Grant movie this week, too. I was actually expecting it to be more Hitchcockishly intense than it turned out to be. I’m not sure he developed the characters enough for the build-up to/shock of discovering the real burglar, etc. and, though I know it’s Cary Grant, I still felt a bit let down by his unemotional response at the end. Well, and while I’m at it, that cameo was not very subtle, was it?
What a funny coincidence!
I would say the last 5 or 6 Hitchcock films I’ve seen haven’t been all that intense- there’s just the occasional odd camera angle to remind you that it’s him.
I like the end because it was such a big deal for him to respond at all. He spent the entire movie being interested but not really planning to do anything about it…up until the very last minute.
And I really liked the last line!
Movies??? When did that become all right? But if it is we are going to have a 47″ flat screen to view them on when you come or Jason has the biggest rear projection you can get and he gets Netflix.
What am I doing here anyway? I am more on level with Eliz and Joshua having been long ago passed up by Daniel and Anna.
This week’s fare (Dial M for Murder) was much more to my expectations: enough tension to make me forget to look for that cameo.
We saw that one a few months ago in 3D in a theater in Baltimore. H. in the class photo the husband has on his wall. We couldn’t possibly miss the cameo because the entire audience, perhaps to let everyone else know they had seen it, all started laughing at that point.
Interesting how he creates that much tension even though you know all along exactly how the crime happened…no time is spent on the trial…he doesn’t do tension in normal ways!
Oh, and Auntie, what do you mean about movies being all right? We have been allowed to watch movies since we were in 7th grade!
Interesting to note I was out of high school before I could see a movie. The first one was Ben Huhr at a drive in on a double date with Judy.
The first movie I saw in a theater was after I was married and it was DIAL M FOR MURDER! Can you believe that?
These days I felt Fung Fu Panda was to violent!
That’s great, Aunty.
Dial M is high quality movie…
While we’re (still) on this topic, I’ll mention that the strangling scene was graphic/intense enough to make me think I shouldn’t be watching it. I think we ought to feel uncomfortable at the concept of viewing violence for entertainment. Uh, wait though, let’s see — just as I was wrapping up my self-talk, she stabbed him with the scissors and I stopped worrying about it…
Your grandfather would say even the “good” movies are feeding the evils of Hollywood so should be avoided. However his last years of life he got into the soaps so I guess there isn’t much difference.
Aunty, I think watching movies can be a way of engaging our culture…my friend Kiki could talk about that better than I. But if you completely cut yourself off, how can you start any kind of conversation?
I think if I were in my seventies/eighties and not so free/mobile…I could see my ideas about soaps changing. Because someday I will probably be old, demented, have revolting long chin-hairs and moles, and be unable to hobble farther than the bathroom, I think I’ll let the soaps pass.
Tara:
1) Once (at least) I remember us acting out David & Goliath.
2) Murder at the dinner table…
I never could reconcile the soaps-watching with the grandfather I (thought I) knew.
Re: engagement — this argument does not impress me. I think one could find better arguments for movies than “we just want to make more evangelizing opportunities for ourselves”.
And - the Bible also has questionable language in it.
Our church has a summer series “Quest at the Movies” showing clips of current movies and adding Biblical truth. It is an outreach that brings people in. I am not comfortable with some of the choices but for that matter I don’t like the type of music either but folks are getting saved and growing so who am I?
We go some I just like the kids type movies or light they all lived happily ever after or nothing. There is enough real life yuck and violence that I don’t need it at the movies.
Shannon, neither of my parents ended up as you describe. But you may and the soaps are no worse then the movies. We are to be in the world not of the world. Porn also makes for a good conversation starter. The Bible also has lots of sex and violence in it. Good for bedtime stories?
I was going to write a scathing review of PC here, just six months after this conversation was already nicely wrapped up, but I arrived and your summary has pacified me.
Mostly.
I didn’t want to watch it after I heard an interview with the director and only did because I wanted to sit next to the person that wanted to watch it…
Its most endearing characteristic will be, I hope, that it is forgettable.
I will add that the power of these movies, IMO, lies in their connection to the books. In this movie (more than the first) the director, etc. managed to strip away most of the profundity of the book in his apparent quest for a pouty teenage movie, wherein a bunch of unthinking kids blunder their way Harry Potter-ishly through a dilemma and win out by luck or stubbornness, only to be lauded for their efforts at the end.
I didn’t think *any* of the added plot twists were an improvement (barring the necessary shortening of a scene); most detracted from the story line.
He (the director) was trying so hard to promote the woman power thing with Susan that I think he ended up demeaning her. And can a person — male or female — *really* kill another by throwing an arrow at him?
Some meaningful dialogue in the book was so decimated by the script writers in this movie that it reminded me of the latest Star Wars movies.
Which makes me think that Hayden Christiansen (with a few of his dark angry looks thrown in for good measure) would have done a better job with the Caspian role.
Remind me that I really, really don’t want to watch the demise of the Dawn Treader.
You probably won’t–they canceled it!
It looks to me as if Disney said they would not co-fund it, so Walden can either can it or shop around for another sponsor.
(*breathes sigh of relief over movie cancellation*)
I was wondering (just not badly enough to look it up) what role Disney had played. We were guessing just a distributor one. For some reason, it bothered me to see the Disney name plastered all over PC. Maybe because Disney nearly always seems to mean “take something beautiful and cheapen it for profit”. But I see it was a portent…
Now you’ll let me know if I’m being too negative, yes?