The 50s Were So Great!

Gosh - a picture from the 1950s! You know, that lovely wholesome time when we were great families with values and honor and manners and stuff. It was a swell time to be alive! This movie starts out just right with this kindly lady reminding us of this great time when we were in Sunday school, so you know it's great!

Oooh - a flashback! Well, it's that one where our Dad is killing a woman and the local police have tracked him down and he briefly uses his children as a bargaining chip, but it's still wholesome, right? I mean, he trusts his kid with the secret of the cash. Sure, he tells the kid that he can't tell his own mother about the money and tells the boy that he has to protect his sister at all costs, but that's what the 50s was all about - responsibility and being a man! In today's world, that kid would have bolted with the cash just to buy mind-rotting video games and would have left his sister in the dust!

But we don't have to worry about Mom because she meets a nice preacher man! Except for that LOVE-HATE tattoo and the little matter of having watched Dad hang in prison and the unhinged way that he sings and his manipulative way of marrying mom just to get the money Dad left behind. But it's the 50s! See, he marries the widow! Nowadays, he wouldn't have bothered marrying her, brainwashing her and forcing her to go out on tour preaching about the evils of the love of money just so that if she does find the money that she'll hate it and give it all to the preacher. This isn't sounding quite right.

Wait a minute...could it possibly be that the 50s weren't so great? I mean, sure there's another murder, a few more attempted murders and the merciless hunting of two small children, but it's the 50s, right?

God, I'm frightened for our past. Why, again, do politicians keep trying to tell me about these "good old days?" Seriously, this movie really scared the crap out of me. Why do old white men keep telling me that I want to live in those good old days? What did I ever do to them?

The Things We Know Now

When you watch incredibly old movies, you get to ooh and ahh at how far we've come as a people. You know, because we know so much more now. Take A Trip to the Moon (Le Voyage dans la lune) because it's so old it's in the public domain. 106 years old!

In our story, we have scientists arguing amongst themselves until someone is punched and they all agree to go to the moon. This is actually how NASA works to this very day, albeit with a lot more emphasis on PowerPoint presentations instead of actual fisticuffs. Probably a bad example of change...

So, looking for glory, six men set out for the moon and slam into it's eye. This is in no way shape or form meant to be a commentary on the way man treats strange and inviting environments with a complete lack of respect. That's what happens in the magic mushroom cave. We've learned a lot more respect for the environment...scratch that.

When we as a people discover people that are different with strange customs we don't quite understand, it's a scary thing. When scientists go to the moon and discover shiny people who approach them in peace, they immediately hit them only to find that they explode in puffs of glitter. Finding that the moon is the only place that a scientist will be able to beat senseless people in a manner that will be reserved for a cinema not yet invented in Hong Kong, ass-kicking ensues. Okay, so that's par for the course.

In the end, the scientists get a parade for their work destroying the moon people and their land. This protected everyone from perceived threats that may have simply been exacerbated by landing there in the first place. Then again, if they'd just sat down with the moon people and done things diplomatically, things could have gone a lot smoother and a much larger parade could have been held. We haven't learned much on this front either, have we?

Well, 106 years later and we'd actually be blowing things up into gargantuan fireballs instead of having things explode in glitter balls. See - we can evolve!

Russian Ark

I'm just going to try the shortened version today.

If nothing else, Russian Ark is worth watching because no one will ever be able to make this film ever again. In this era of over-indulged, YouTubed, Borat-wannabe world, it's an impossible task. Sure, the film is only six years old, but asshole culture moves fast. Alternatively, it's a Russian film and I've been told over the last few weeks that the KGB is alive and well in Russia and being headed by Putin when he's not busy invading Alaska. With that kind of reach, a film like this is probably simple to make with super state-sponsored asshole suppression programs. Then again, if you're busy invading Alaska and running the KGB still, you're probably too busy to oversee a film...

Okay, to the point. This film was done in one continuous shot. 90 minutes. No cuts. One walk though. No do overs. Okay, we watched the making of and they agreed to start over if the first 20 minutes went wrong. They did this twice and realized that they were going to run out of batteries, so they had to go balls to the wall. 2000 extras who had to dress in various period costumes that spanned nearly 300 years. Not a single one of them was allowed to jump up and down in the background and yell, "Hi Mom!" or flash a not-so-clever tattoo. Watch it and have your faith in humanity restored just a little. At least believe that it can happen for 90 entire minutes.

Where I Stand (Oct 1st-ish Edition)

Fall is officially here, we survived a 36-hour power outage (hey, we tried to watch one of the movies that night on limited laptop power!) and finished with 363 movies watched. This is 9 movies over last month. However, I would like to say that Les Vampires was over 7 hours of movie watching! So, it could have been closer to 12 movies...or something like that.

September Favorites:

Angels with Dirty Faces: Really, having to grow up knowing James Cagney though horrible "you dirty rat" impressions, it was refreshing to see him in an actual film. It does make me afraid for what kids today must think of Travis Bickle or Tony Montana or T-1000s based on bad impressions and not seeing the actual movies. Not that this is the dirty rat movie, but you get my general drift.

Some Like it Hot: You ever wonder where Bosom Buddies got the idea that guys like that could pass for women and get hit on? Well, this movie is a big hint. Although they did rely on a lot more implied drinking in this movie than I remember Hildegarde and Buffy being around.

Good Bye Lenin!: Mostly a comedy, but also a fantastic look inside just how insidious capitalism is once it gets a foothold in a country. Try faking a communist regime in your house one day - really, down to the media! It's not easy, and there just may be some hilarious results!

Well, onward and upward. We should definitely be able to pass 400 by the end of the year. 1000 will take a while (and some of the movies are difficult to find), but this has been pretty interesting so far. I may even go nutty and start entering shorter reviews for movies...or not. :D