2014-01-31

An Actor’s Revenge



An Actor’s Revenge aka Revenge of a Kabuki Actor (Kon Ichikawa, 1963)

Three men, Sansai Dobe (Ganjirō Nakamura), Kawaguchiya (Saburō Date) and Hiromiya (Eijirō Yanagi) are responsible for the deaths of seven-year-old Yukitarō’s mother and father. Yukitarō is adopted and brought up by Kikunojō Nakamura (Chūsha Ichikawa), the actor-manager of an Osaka kabuki troupe. The adult Yukitarō (Kazuo Hasegawa) becomes an onnagata, a male actor who plays female roles. He takes the stage name Yukinojō. Like many of the great onnagata, particularly of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, he wears women’s clothes and uses the language and mannerisms of a woman offstage as well as on. Many years later, the troupe pays a visit to Edo, where the three men responsible for his parents’ deaths now live.

2014-01-30

Life Itself



Life Itself (Steve James, 2014)

Based on Roger Ebert’s memoirs, Life Itself, this documentary was directed by Steve James, who directed Ebert’s favorite film of the 1990’s Hoop Dreams, is a naked portrayal of the film critic, the man, and the life of the most popular film critic of all time.

Presented for the first time at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival, Life Itself was also available in streaming for those who helped raise the necessary funds to finish the production of this feature. Filming began in 2012 and continued until the death of Ebert to be completed a short time after to get interviews with his friends, his wife Chaz Ebert, and fellow film critics.

2014-01-29

Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives



Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2010)

The film centers on the last days in the life of its title character; Uncle Boonmee (Thanapat Saisaymar). Together with his loved ones – including the spirit of his dead wife (Natthakarn Aphaiwong) and his lost son (Jeerasak Kulhong) who has returned in a non-human form – Boonmee explores his past lives as he contemplates the reasons for his illness.

2014-01-27

Through the Olive Trees



Through the Olive Trees (Abbas Kiarostami, 1994)

It is the final part of Abbas Kiarostami's Koker trilogy, and the plot revolves around the production of the second episode, Life, and Nothing More..., which itself was a revisitation of the first film, Where Is the Friend's Home?.

2014-01-22

Point Blank



Point Blank (John Boorman, 1967)
This cult classic staring Lee Marvin as Walker a man seeking for revenge against the organization that owes him money and that has a scheme that Walker will try to erase.

2014-01-21

Gravity



Gravity (Alfonso Cuaron, 2013)

The film is set during a fictitious Shuttle Explorer's STS-157 mission. Dr. Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) is a medical engineer on her first space shuttle mission aboard the Space Shuttle Explorer. She is accompanied by veteran astronaut Matt Kowalski (George Clooney), who is commanding his final expedition. During a spacewalk to service the Hubble Space Telescope, Mission Control in Houston warns the team about a Russian missile strike on a defunct satellite, which has caused a chain reaction forming a cloud of space debris. Mission Control orders that the mission be aborted. Shortly after, communications with Mission Control are lost, though the astronauts continue to transmit, hoping that the ground crew can still hear them.

2014-01-20

The Lost Weekend



The Lost Weekend (Billy Wilder, 1945)
The film recounts the life of an alcoholic New York writer, Don Birnam (Ray Milland), over the last half of a six-year period, and in particular on a weekend alcoholic binge.

2014-01-17

Hoop Dreams



Hoop Dreams (Steve James, 1994)

Following the High School path of two young African-American Basketball prospects from the surroundings of Chicago we discover more than just their dedication to their sport.

2014-01-15

Let It Ride



Let It Ride (Jacques Russo, 2006)

The story of the life of professional snowboarder Craig Kelly. His rise, his self recluse life from the spotlights and his tragic death in January 20th 2003.

2014-01-14

Mike’s Movie Goals For the Year 2014



Last year when I made my resolutions for 2013 I pretty much made a list of films that were films I wanted to watch in priority and some blindspot directors. Just look at my original post here.
During the year, I modified those goals and I got circling around the list because I thought it was already too planned for me. I still like to follow my moods when I choose a movie to watch. This is why as you’ll see I’ve kept a certain freedom in my goals for 2014 and instead of listing a definite list of films I wanted to watch, I  will challenge myself to mix things up with a wider range of goals.

2014-01-13

Frances Ha

Frances Ha (Noah Baumbach, 2012)

A story that follows a New York woman (Greta Gerwig) (who doesn't really have an apartment), apprentices for a dance company (though she's not really a dancer), and throws herself headlong into her dreams, even as their possible reality dwindles.

2014-01-11

Results: Mike's Movie Goals For the Year 2013



*Note: This is pretty much the post I did back more or less one year ago. Titles visited are marked.*

 For those who have been here a while you sure all know that I’ve been obsessively rambling about a particular list of films I’m targeting to complete. Since this list evolves from year to year, around January of each year the fine folks at They Shoot Pictures Don’t They? update the 1000 Greatest Films of All Time list. Every time I more or less gain some positions with the adding of more recent films that I had the luck to have seen before their intrusion. Being at 551 (now at 602 in January 2014), on the day I wrote those lines down, I still have 449 films to catch before calling it a day. It is quite a huge assignment since my number of watches per year is clearly on a downfall since a couple of years. However, I’ve decided to spot my priorities for this quest (just like Kevyn Knox used to call his) and spot films that are grabbing my attention and that might open my viewing tastes.
First, I made a list of films I’ll likely try to tackle down while trying to get rid of my list of Pantheon Directors at the same time. The Pantheon Directors list stands as the foundation of every film enthusiast and or film critics’ theories and views on the cinema. It is quite arbitrary since American author theorist Andrew Sarris first made it in 1968. Anyhow, I still think it holds the road pretty well.

2014-01-10

The Bling Ring



The Bling Ring (Sofia Coppola, 2013)

Based on true events that occurred in California, many homes of stars were perpetrated by a group of young adults that were stealing personal effects, clothes, shoes, jewelries, watches, etc.

2014-01-09

Before Midnight



Before Midnight (Richard Linklater, 2013)

Nine years after the conclusion of Before Sunset, Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Céline (Julie Delpy) are a couple and parents to twin girls conceived when they got together for the second time. Jesse is also struggling to maintain his relationship with his teenage son, Hank, who lives in Chicago with Jesse's ex-wife and who, after spending the summer with Jesse and Céline on the Greek Peloponnese peninsula, is being dropped off at the airport to fly home. Jesse has continued to find success as a novelist, while Céline is at a career crossroads, considering a job with the French government.

2014-01-08

Don Jon



Don Jon (Joseph Gordon-Levitt, 2013)

Jon Martello (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is a modern day Don Juan, with a short list of things he cares about: "my body, my pad, my ride, my family, my church, my boys, my girls, my porn". Although he has an active sex life with women he meets at nightclubs, he looks at pornography on the Internet habitually, preferring it to sex.

2014-01-07

American Hustle



American Hustle (David O. Russell, 2013)

With his more recent successes, David O. Russell has had a hype over everyone of his last films like The Fighter, Silver Linings Playbook, and lately American Hustle. While not being great films, they are quite enjoyable and present a solid cast.

2014-01-06

Shoah



Shoah (Claude Lanzmann, 1985)

This 1985 French documentary about the Holocaust has a tremendous lenght of more than nine hours long. Spanned on many years, its director Claude Lanzmann interviewed refugees, people of Poland, ex-Nazis, Jews, and many notable actors of the worst extermination of humans of the 20th Century. 

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