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Showing posts from October, 2013

Movie Critic Article: Introducing Jan Troell

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I am back, sniffing into the yellowing pages of my old copy of Changing . I had similar experiences with books that died under (or because of my) over-usage. There are books that one never seizes to go back to some of their pages as if they have the secret code to a certain happiness embedded for one to uncover. " A Writer's Notebook ", " Exile and the Kingdom ", the deeper parts of " Anna Karenina ", to name a few; these books made me act like an innocent child who believed in a certain discovery that would be revealed to him in one of the sentences. An epiphany. A revelation that did not require more than a re-reading ( no prayers, no pledges ) and that was not open to all. Liv Ullmann's small book on bits of her autobiography has this same effect. The only impediment would be that my copy of Ullmann's book looks and feels like so much used by the previous user(s) that I must not expect any magic to have been left over for me to enjoy fro

Movie Critic Article: Cultures of Resistance Revisited

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Iara Lee Cultures Of  Resistance     Documentary 2003 (reposted) Filmmaker: IARA   LEE Producer:  GEORGE  Gund                                                                                                        This is a republishing of an old post of mine. It is dedicated to the budding popular revolution against the corrupt and blood-thirsty Islamic dictatorship in Sudan (and everywhere else). It is to commemorate those young people who went out and said they wanted freedom and democracy but never made it back to their homes! It is also to remind you to say it loud: Set the Captives Free! Does each gesture really make a difference? Can music and dance be weapons of peace? In 2003, on the eve of the Iraq war, director Iara Le e embarked on a journey to better understand a world increasingly embroiled in conflict. After several years, traveling over five continents, Iara encountered growing numbers of people who committed their lives to promot

Movie Critic Review: Midnight Express 1978

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Review by: Ema Elsawi Sutradhar*  Midnight Express is one outstanding movie not only because it tells a true story but also because it contains a lot of humanitarian themes that describe the conflict between laws and their relevance to humanity. Synopsis The son of a US official at age twenty is arrested at a Turkish airport for possession of an illegal substance. The movie follows the events of his arrest as per Turkish laws and his imprisonment as a trip into two estrangements: being a prisoner and being away from home. The movie highlights the other side of law applied through corrupt instruments; delving deeply into the details of the daily life of prisoners and the excessive cruelties they are subjected to. It depicts how these prisoners come together and integrate to share the many details through which high human values manifest themselves despite the dark corridors of prison. Alan Parker 1978 Midnight Express has

Directors Discourse: The Existential as Pop Cultural

"I don't like doing interviews. There is always the problem of being misquoted or, what's even worse, of being quoted exactly." Stanley Kubrick. " A film is — or should be — more like music than fiction. It should be a progression of moods and feelings. The theme, what's behind the emotion, the meaning, all that comes later" Stanley Kubrick. "..a good film normally has to be well written, well acted, well directed, and this may give the impression that good films do resemble one another. But the truth is that they are for the most part quite different, because each one is unique." Stanley Kubrick. ----------------------------- Kubrick, Stanley :   1928--99, US film writer, director, and producer. He directed Lolita (1962), Dr Strangelove   (1963), 2001: A Space Odyssey   (1968), A Clockwork Orange (1971), The Shining (1980), Full Metal Jacket   (1987), and Eyes Wide Shut   (1999) S tanle