Which is odd, because my impression from Last Dance is there isn't much to Michael Jordan's personality other than extreme competitiveness. He was less interesting than his Bulls teammates, which caused the documentary to run out of steam towards the end.

yes.

I can not think of a single movie I would want to see LESS than any MCU movie... oh wait, I can now.

Women Talking, Sarah Polley, 20222

Polley won the Oscar for Best Screenplay for this, and sure as hell should've been nominated for Best Director.

Women Talking is an astounding movie...simply staged to the point of artlessness, yet it still somehow soars higher than most films with 50 times its small budget.

Women in a Mennonite colony are systematically drugged and raped by the colony's elders/men for years....and now the women (while the men are away) discuss what they should do: stay and forgive, stay and fight, or leave. This is a harder choice than one might think, as leaving - to the women - would be a betrayal of their faith and thus lead to them not being welcomed in the Kingdom of Heaven.

All of the discussion and probably 85% of the movie takes place in a farm while the women, well, talk. And it is never less than riveting. This is like a stage play where the poetry of the language, while not realistic, is beautiful.

The performances - every single one - are masterful. The cast is led by Rooney Mara, Claire Foy, Jessie Buckley, and Ben Whishaw, but Judith Ivey and especially Shelia McCarthy are the real heavy hitters, playing the elder women role, the grandmothers. Frances McDormand also appears as a woman who wants to stay and forgive.

Very, very good movie.

Whishaw plays the colony's teacher, and sits in with the women to take their minutes, as the women can neither read nor write. He agrees to stay behind to better teach the male children and teens to not follow in their fathers' footsteps of violence and slavery.

In one of the many special moments in this film, he paraphrases Coleridge on the role of education:

“To work by love and so generate love. To habituate the mind to intellectual accuracy and truth. To excite imaginative power . . . Little is taught by contest or dispute, everything by sympathy and love.”

As a teacher, this was powerfully affecting to me.

Same here, Dom. Loved the ending of this movie. You're right. The choice is harder than it should be.

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Though that is a beautiful 'motherly' thought, I CAN NOT agree with what is being said ^ there... though it is probably 'subject' dependent.

Coleridge wasn't a mother though he may have had "motherly" thoughts. But I do think he got it right, especially for my community college students who have too much to handle.

I did, though, tell one guy in my class who dropped out last semester that I was dragging him kicking and screaming through the course this semester. So far, all looks good.

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Just watched No Bears by Jafar Panahi. If you're not aware, Panahi has been banned from making films in Iran, but he has found ways around that ban. He was also sentenced to six years in prison but only spent a few months because he was released after a hunger strike. Arrested again in 2022, he was again released because of another hunger strike. Some of you may have seen his This Is Not a Film, basically a film about not making a film.

In No Bears, Panahi is directing a film remotely being made in Turkey from a room just inside of Iran. This appears to be what's going on, but Panahi is also making a film about him making the film remotely. Essentially it's a film within a film within a film. I think. Panahi is directing a film in which he is an actor portraying a director making a film remotely.

Perhaps Iranian censors can't quite figure this out either. Nevertheless, a great film on Criterion right now.

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Beau is afraid... all I an say is, DON'T JUMP!

Suzume - Latest film from the studio behind Your Name. Beautifully animated. The emotional core is somewhat lost in the wacky story about a extra-dimensional demon that causes earthquakes.

The Whale (2022) featured a pretty great late career performance from Brendan Fraser as an extremely overweight English teacher trying to reconnect with his estranged daughter. Actually I thought all the acting was pretty solid and elevated a simple story that tried to evoke a lot of emotion. Aronofsky certainly has a preponderance towards psychologically depressing films, and while I really like The Wrestler (haven't seen Pi or The Fountain), the rest of his films I am pretty lukewarm on and The Whale is right in that mix. It made me feel sad so mission accomplished I guess? 6/10

I found it uplifting and redeeming, even if the journey was bathed in realism of life.

if any of you are so inclined... Miyazaki's Spirited Away Stage Play will be showing in Regal Movie theaters for a very limited run.

there is no way the stage play is coming to America, so this is the closest we will get to seeing it here in the states.



April 23/25/27/May 2

Friend turned me onto a podcast called Fade In: Quentin Tarantino and Pulp Fiction. clicklity.

Only about halfway through the first episode. It's kind of weird in spots, but is going to be the story of how he made Pulp Fiction. At this point, it's still setting the stage with biographical info.

It's a short podcast: 5 episodes (IIRC) made by KCRW, which is LA's NPR station I guess.

watched Bodies Bodies Bodies with Pete Davidson

Weak execution with garbage characters who you really don't care about, so when they die, who cares.

Then watched The Grey Man with Ryan Gosling.

Not terrible, worth a watch to get your action thriller fix.

I guess one of the draws was Ana De Armas in an action role but I was intrigued by Jessica Henwicks role as a boss watching her operation go awry.

The Covenant is f*cking fantastic... Guy Ritchie has been killing it as of late.

Two severed thumbs up!

I seem to be using the 'F' word quite a bit... just like Renfield.

Last night of film class, and I decided to show Grave of the Fireflies. One male student said that's the first time he has ever cried during a movie. And a couple others were in tears as well. The rest were shaken. I don't know how I've managed to make it through that film five or six times.

I told the class that great art leaves little distance, or none, between it and our humanity.

Don't tell me the humanities aren't worth anything.

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Very nice... I am glad generation's can be affected by suffering of others.

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I finally saw PIG last night... quite good, but not Leaving Las Vegas good.

Grave of the Fireflies is one of those rare great movies that I doubt I’ll ever watch more than once. Too painful. I don’t know how you’ve managed six times either!

The last time I saw it, it was on the big screen of a Ghibli festival. I couldn't speak afterwards.

It would be interesting to read its history, especially of its release in the United States.

It tells its story exceedingly well. I've seen it 3 times, which is a small number for a flick that I love this much. Six times! I'm with Poseidon on this.

I show it in my film class every few years. Usually I need to leave the lights off for five minutes after it's over to give everyone a chance to wipe their eyes.

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My gal stumbled across a movie last night called Kajillionaires, I’d never heard of it. Its great! Weird and unexpected, hilarious and heart warming.

I have never actually seen Grave Of the Fireflies.