You are currently browsing the category archive for the 'Films' category.
“It’s the bit at the start where he looks like a child abuser,” Craig said. “That’s the first part that made me feel uncomfortable.”
“But he’s only saying that,” I replied. “I don’t think he actually did have a restraining order, he was just saying it to bond with the other guy.”
We were talking about the recent film The Hangover. Craig had stopped watching it after les than twenty minutes because he wasn’t comfortable with one particular character; the outcast of the group who came across as being slightly socially deficient.
Craig had taken the character’s comments about having been in trouble with the cops due to relations with teenagers as a serious part of the film and later when that same character is given a baby to look after, Craig saw this as a step too far. (The fact that the character got the baby to make certain sexual gestures really didn’t help.)
These scenes were only a minor part of the film and while in the isolation I have presented them here they may come across as rather distasteful, they actually flash by.
As far as modern comedies go The Hangover is certainly no closer to the edge than many others that have followed before, and is a long way from the worst of the bunch. Craig, however, had taken a lot of the film at face value and thought it was exploiting certain social groups far too much.
In some ways this is no different to people who watch movies and expect more of them than they are trying to offer. As Tony and I have talked about before on his blog, this attitude leads to disappointed cinema goers and reviews that are far from proportionate.
Whist I find it difficult to understand Craig’s point of view, I find his closed mind a lot harder come to terms with. There are many films I haven’t liked. Some have made me feel sad or depressed, others have been too graphic for my liking, and some are just too schmaltzy for my tastes, but not once have I been so opposed to a film that I won’t keep an open mind and discuss it with others. The stance of, no, it’s just a rubbish film and I’m not talking about it, doesn’t fit well with me.
Film
While I will always recommend that you watch foreign films, read foreign books and listen to news from different countries, there are still people who would rather stick to English only movies.
If you fall into this category (and even if you don’t), here are some films I would suggest you watch to get a different idea on what’s going on beyond the enclave of the Western world.
All of these are high production films, some with very well known actors in them.
- Blood Diamond – The African diamond trade.
- Rendition – The clue is in the title.
- Thank You For Smoking – The tobacco industry.
- Lord of War – The arms trade.
- The Last King of Scotland – How Africa has been corrupted by the old imperial crazies.
- Body of Lies – Western interference in foreign governments and how they get it wrong.
There are plenty more, but these ones sprung to mind.
Why not read or watching something from another culture?
Film
I’ve heard various ideas around this theme previously. The first (which I’ve mentioned before) was get friends to recommend books for you to read. The idea being this will give you the chance to try a book you wouldn’t normally have picked.
A more recent variation is read three books each year from different cultures. Ideally these should be good translations, but there isn’t any reason why you can’t pick something written in English by a foreign national.
If books aren’t your thing, then try films. You’ll get a lot better understanding if you go for a subtitled movie, but that doesn’t have to mean it must be arty. You might be surprised to learn that action films and love stories aren’t just done for the English speaking market.
If neither of those grab you, then there are plenty of podcasts to pick from and if you dig a bit you can find ones in English.
There was one downside when I decided to put a night aside to reading: I’m watching less films.
Film
Up until now I’ve enjoyed a couple of films each week. Some of these have been watched at the weekend when I’m staying in, but at least one has been seen on a week day. Sadly I now I find that I don’t have any free nights in the week, so the films have started to take a hit.
First to suffer have been the foreign language movies. This is mainly because I often watch DVDs at the same time as doing something else (usually on the computer). That way I can listen to the dialogue and only look at the scenes that are important or take my interest. With those in a foriegn language I have to be looking at the screen most of the time and that’s difficult to do when I’m interacting with a couple of other things.
Now even the English speaking films have started to slip. I initially thought I would be fine reading while a film played in the background, but after trying to a couple of times it proved not to be the case, so they’ve gone out the window as well.
I do feel slightly bad that my film watching rate has dropped as I miss them, so the only option might be to stay in more at the weekend. Planned well, with a slightly late night, I could fit three movies in on a Friday, still cook dinner and feel like I haven’t wasted anything. The chances are, of course, slim, but I can hold out hope.
I really like trailers for new films. I like them that much I tend to visit the Apple trailer site every couple of weeks. What I don’t like is the inability to skip trailers at the start of DVDs. Sometimes I’ve seen the film already, sometimes I’ve restarted the DVD. I do understand why distributors stop you skipping them, in the same way that they put in adverts and stop you avoiding those as well. I’ll have to live with it, but it frustrates me.
If you’ve never used a postal DVD rental service before, it’s quite simple. You save a list of films you want to watch on the rental company’s web site and when you return a DVD you’ve watched they send you another one from the list. All postage is free.
I’ve never been one to recommend online DVD rentals to everyone. Certainly if you are the type of person who gets home from work and fancies one particular movie or type of film, then this isn’t going to work for you. If, however, you don’t mind any of the films from a long list then this sort of service is what you want.
I’ve been very happy with this set-up for a while now and saw little reason to swap from Blockbuster. After all most of the services are priced about the same and while there might be the odd film that Blockbuster didn’t have, I wasn’t that bothered. Not only that but much like online food shopping, there is the inertia of already having my favourites list with one supplier and the hassle of setting it up somewhere else.
All was fine until Blockbuster stopped sending me new DVDs. I hadn’t let my list run low (there were over forty five titles on it at the time), nor had I got a collection of obscure films. What I think I’d done, was watch too many movies too quickly.
I will admit that I had started to average three films per week. This must have dropped Blockbusters income from me down to a very low level and so, in the same way that broadband suppliers throttle your bandwidth if you are a heavy user, they just ranked other people higher on the priority list to get DVDs. The result was that I was waiting up to a week for a new film.
After a couple of emails, in which the company didn’t offer any solution (or explanation, I had to go through their small print to find that), I have moved to LoveFilm. I suspect they will have the same policies as Blockbuster, but at least I can get a year out of them and then I’ll just have to switch again.
“When you see this, post in your own journal with your favorite quote from The Princess Bride. Preferably not “As you wish” or the Inigo Montoya speech.”
It’s a shame I’m not allowed to quote the entire film 
so as I’m being forced to pick it has to be the sword fight scene, and as that’s also a bit too long, I’ll narrow it down to:
Inigo Montoya: You are wonderful.
Man in Black: Thank you; I’ve worked hard to become so.
Inigo Montoya: I admit it, you are better than I am.
Man in Black: Then why are you smiling?
Inigo Montoya: Because I know something you don’t know.
Man in Black: And what is that?
Inigo Montoya: I… am not left-handed.
[Moves his sword to his right hand and gains an advantage]
Man in Black: You are amazing.
Inigo Montoya: I ought to be, after 20 years.
Man in Black: Oh, there’s something I ought to tell you.
Inigo Montoya: Tell me.
Man in Black: I’m not left-handed either.
Maybe I should have gone for the iocaine powder bit, or what about the tracking quotes, or the wind comment, or… Oh, bugger. 
