posts are slowing down, but I have been watching movies, here's the rundown:
keane: actor damian lewis is a beast. he is on screen for almost every frame of this movie, the camera will not let him go. it's grueling to watch but so satisfying to see a insistent vision. writer/director lodge kerrigan studied cinematography (rather than directing) at NYU film school and shot his first feature clean, shaven as soon as he got out, more subjective, about a similar character, it is similarly awesome.
after life: drab bureaucrats help the recently deceased choose and film happy memories to take with them into heaven. almost like a frederick wiseman movie, what little plot there is only distracts from the pitch-perfect everydayness of the fantasy institution.
the linguists: documentary, great subject, bad moviemaking. linguists david harris and gregory anderson travel to remote corners of the globe to study endangered languages (from sora which has 300,000 speakers to chulym which has 5). but bad shooting, bad editing, etc.
nikamowin (song): experimental short video exploring the cree language. watch the intro here.
sikumi (on the ice): andrew okpeaha maclean's sundance jury prize-winning short was made with support of the sundance institute's native initiaive and in it the characters speak the previously unfilmed iñupiaq language. maclean wrote the script in english, his mother helped him translate it and he says he took some liberties with the english subtitles: "you're very, very crazy!" in iñupiaq he translates as "you crazy motherfucker!"
sympathy for mr. vengeance: manohla dargis disagrees but I think this is a ingenious critique of capitalist's society's effect on individual morality. out of financial desperation the characters do wrong and eye for an eye violence consumes the entire cast, but fails to have any effect on the original problem: the prohibitive cost of health care. part 1 of a trilogy with old boy and lady vengeance.
2 comments:
the Nikamowin video is dizzying. i found it strange that the Cree sounds for "and what about me" are the same as the Mandarin sounds for "and what about you?" but i can't remember what the term for that is called.
this is pretty much the only blog i've ever been interested in checking out everyday. thanks!
I know! "ni-ne ma?" "what about ya'll?" but I wonder if a native mandarin speaker would hear it too (tonally). we'll need to research more.
thanks for reading and commenting.
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