Tag: movies

Past/future

If Hitler never lived, then does Stalin take over Europe?

 

Film critic Roger Ebert had a blog post Did you choose your religion? But the original title, as one can see in the URL, was “Would you kill Baby Hitler?”

The original entry began: Of course, you would have needed to know on April 20, 1889, that the little boy would grow up to become Adolf Hitler, and would commit all of the crimes we now know he committed. The only way you could know that, apart from precognition, would be to have traveled backward in time from a point when Hitler had committed all his crimes and you knew about them.

This was in context with a discussion of, among other things, the new film Looper, for which a big-time spoiler alert should have been stamped.

But this is a popular theme. There’s some current CBS show called Person of Interest about a computer that foretells crime. There was a previous CBS show(what was that called?) about a guy who would get tomorrow’s newspaper today and had the day to stop some heinous event from happening; a cat was somehow involved. I have actually never seen either show nor read Stephen King’s The Dead Zone. The piece generated very interesting and enlightening points, unlike most comment threads these days.

The problem, if one COULD go back in time, would be the unintended consequences. If Hitler never lived, then does Stalin take over Europe? These are obviously unanswerable questions, but they fascinate me.

Dustbury points to a variation on the theme:

>Steve Sailer…has imagined two different scenarios in which we’d already had a black President:

Walter Mondale picks Tom Bradley for the Veep slot in 1984, manages to beat a rattled-in-the-debates Ronald Reagan, and is killed when Air Force One crashes;
Colin Powell, urged on by Mrs. Powell, defeats Bob Dole, then Bill Clinton, in 1996.

Given either one of these scenarios, Sailer asks:

In either alternative history, does Barack Obama become the second black President? If there had already been a first black president, would anyone have ever even considered Obama to be Presidential Timber? Would you have ever even heard of Obama?

It’s been my contention that a President who is black (or Hispanic, or a woman) may be held to a different standard, higher by at least some so that the viability of a second black as President would be inextricably linked to the success or failure of the first. That said, if there HAD been a previous black President, would Obama have played such a huge role in the 2004 Democratic convention? Possibly not.

What thinkest thou?
***
Making the case for future voter fraud.

MOVIE REVIEW: Robot and Frank

If you plan to see the film Robot and Frank, try to avoid the trailer, which I think gives away far too much.

The Wife and I had a Sunday afternoon date at the Spectrum Theatre to see Robot and Frank, as described in Rotten Tomatoes:
“Set in the near future, Frank, a retired cat burglar, has two grown kids who are concerned he can no longer live alone. They are tempted to place him in a nursing home until Frank’s son chooses a different option: against the old man’s wishes, he buys Frank a walking, talking humanoid robot programmed to improve his physical and mental health.”

Frank (the marvelous Frank Langella) is initially displeased with this turn of events. He’s also unhappy the way that the library is being automated into an “experience,” with the paper products virtually being eliminated, in an effort led by some well-to-do, condescending yuppie twit Jake (Jeremy Strong) to make the library an “experience.” At least Jennifer (Susan Sarandon), the librarian with whom he is smitten, still has a job.

Is Frank really losing it? The program of the robot (voiced by Peter Sarsgaard, based on the motions of dancer Rachael Ma) is to keep Frank’s mind occupied, with gardening and the like. Frank eventually has other ideas, though, involving his previous line of work, as a cat burglar.

Conflicted but loyal son Hunter (James Marsden) and world traveler daughter Madison (Liv Tyler) seem slight against Frank, but that could be in the writing. The robot, though, is quite engaging, in his/its own way, and becomes a worthy companion for Frank. (The machine’s HAL-like voice bothered Roger Ebert far more than it did me.)

I shan’t say more, except that if you plan to see the film, try to avoid the trailer, which I think gives away far too much, although there is one big reveal I did not see coming. It was an interesting treatise on aging and memory, family relationships, technology, and what makes a person a person. Oh, and, a few times it’s LOL funny. (And yes, when I write LOL, I MEAN LOL.)

There were things that bugged me, though. How the apparently aggrieved Jake essentially orders around the sheriff (Jeremy Sisto) is one example. The selection of Mozart’s Requiem, overused in film generally, was not particularly necessary here; yet the Ave Verum Corpus by Mozart was quite movingly applied. Obviously not the film’s fault, but at the end of the feature, in the beginning of the credits, they had real examples of robots working to care for people, yet about a third of the audience is walking out, which I just did not understand.

This is a good movie that might have been great. Still worth seeing, if not in the theater, then on video (or whatever they’re using these days).
***
My wife saw Frank Langella on Broadway in Dracula c. 1977. She loved the show, and was especially fond of the actor, it seems…

MOVIE REVIEW: Ballin’ in the Graveyard

While the term “the graveyard” was meant to define a “do or die” level of play, that section of Washington Park indeed was a cemetery.

 

I took off from work early one day last month, and the Wife and I saw the documentary Ballin’ in the Graveyard at the Spectrum Theatre in Albany. Early on, the participants explained that some of them have played street basketball in various tough neighborhoods in New York City and around the country, yet no game is as intense as the ballin’ in Albany’s Washington Park, less than a dozen blocks from the theater, BTW. These are in-your-face players who do trash-talk to gain an advantage and occasionally will make a bogus call to even up the score.

But the film is only partially about sport. Their success on the court is shown in relationship with meeting the challenges of everyday life. Their court swagger belied the often tranquil demeanor at other times.

While the term “the graveyard” was meant to define a “do or die” level of play, that section of Washington Park indeed was a cemetery, with sections for the city’s black and “stranger” population until 1868, when those bodies were exhumed and reburied. mostly in Albany Rural Cemetery.

The documentary was produced and directed by Paul Kentoffio and Basil Anastassiou, the latter a longtime player, and co-produced by Spectrum owner Keith Pickard.

My wife liked it more as it moved away from basketball and more into their private lives, noting that it was both local and universal. But she also appreciated the notion of the culture and tradition passed down to the next generation. I liked it all.

The movie trailer.

A review by Amy Biancolli

MOVIE REVIEW: The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel was – from the list of terms I try to avoid – delightful, charming, intelligent.

The Wife had seen The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel several weeks ago, with one of her friends. So when I finally got a chance, I went to the Spectrum Theatre in Albany, by which point it was playing only once a day.

Evelyn (Judi Dench) is a recent widow who had always had her husband make the big decisions. Muriel (Maggie Smith) is a bigot who needs a cheap hip replacement. Douglas and Jean (Bill Nighy and Penelope Wilton) have an inadequate funds from his work pension. Continue reading “MOVIE REVIEW: The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel”

MOVIE REVIEW: Bernie

With Bernie, director/co-writer Richard Linklater literally gets back to his Lone Star roots to create a black comedy and a fantastic character study.

 

Bernie is a funny movie. I mean, occasionally, laugh out loud, and there wasn’t a pratfall or a joke to be found. Strange for a basically true story of a mortician (Jack Black), well-loved, generous, pious, in an east Texas town, who starts squiring around a wealthy and unpleasant widow (Shirley McLaine), ignored by her own family, until Bernie is charged with her murder, and prosecuted by the generally unlikable district attorney (Matthew McConaughey).

You know when there is a particularly heinous crime in a town, and the defense attorney asks for a change of venue, lest the accused not be able to get a fair trial? That is NOT what happens here.

In the wrong hands, this could be a farce or a disaster. But director/co-writer Richard Linklater, who worked with Black in School of Rock, literally gets back to his Lone Star roots to create a black comedy and a fantastic character study, not just of the lead participants, but of a whole town, who seem to have collectively accepted the context of the rather disturbing events. To the degree the viewer agrees with the town becomes an interesting reflection of justice and morality.

To say this is Jack Black’s finest performance would be an understatement. Roger Ebert wrote: “I had to forget what I knew about Black. He creates this character out of thin air, it’s like nothing he’s done before, and it proves that an actor can be a miraculous thing in the right role.”

McLaine is wonderful as usual. McConaughey is all but unrecognizable, but very effective. But what makes this work are the various townspeople who fill in Bernie’s biography.

I am loath to say much more. See Bernie. But sit through the closing credits. A lot is revealed there, yet people walking out of the theater simply missed it.
***
Though I saw him in only one film, The Green Mile, I was sad to see that Michael Clarke Duncan died this week at the age of 54 (!) as a result of his July 13 heart attack.

Social media & sharing icons powered by UltimatelySocial