by Dean | Jul 26, 2018 | General
A short silent film about a big-city poor girl, who becomes well-to-do, in Russia, A Child of the Big City (1914) was made several years before the Bolshevik revolution and the vile slaughter of the royal family.
It presents pre-Soviet Russia, with urban activity and individual longings, and the impoverished chief character, Mary (Elena P. Smirnova), marries into wealth but proves to be a terrible human being. She brings to the marriage, you see, some deplorable demotic ways, and her naive husband (Viktor Krawzow) is made miserable. Sometimes it is only the thought of Mary’s earlier romantic affection that keeps him from shooting himself.
It is a sad (and apolitical) film crafted by the gifted Russian director, Yevgeni Bauer, whose execution is certifiably interesting and innovative despite some too-long scene takes. Those takes are in themselves interesting, though.
by Dean | Jul 24, 2018 | General
2011’s Melancholia is the silliest pessimistic film I’ve ever seen.
That a stray planet is heading for a collision with the earth is acceptable—it’s merely the movie’s creator, Lars von Trier, lying like truth—but almost everything else in Melancholia is laughably crass. Much of it is tedious too. The film’s dialogue, which usually seems improvised, is terrible, and pretentiousness prevails as well.
Lead actor Kirsten Dunst agreed to get naked for this wreck, even if, happily, her acting is more effective than it has been in the past. She’s plainly made the grade.
That multiple critics praised von Trier’s movie tells you something about the current state of film criticism.
Melancholia (2011 film) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
by Dean | Jul 21, 2018 | General
The new Mexican movie, Lo mas sencille es complicarlo todo (2018) features English subtitles but not an English title. Netflix, which picked it up, translates it as “The Simplest Thing Is To Complicate Everything”—not the simplest title. No wonder the Spanish title was retained.
In its essence this comic item respects the honorable idea that teenagers and sexual intercourse don’t mix. Then again, there is no intercourse in Sencille, not even between adults: it’s largely a family film. A conniving adolescent, Renata, is played by a stunning girl, Danna Paola; and she can act. We sympathize with Renata because of her youth but that’s the only reason. Not only does she subvert the love relationship between a beautiful blonde and the man Renata is crazy about, but she also insults people in her private speech. She gets exactly what she deserves.
Goofy in its whimsicality, the film can be disappointingly hokey. And it failed to make me laugh much. Director Rene Bueno is not much of a scriptwriter. Still, this would-be crowd pleaser works as a middlebrow, pop-arty entertainment. It’s sprightly; it’s like The Bachelor on speed, except it’s sweet. You could do worse with a Netflix film.
(In Spanish with English subtitles)
by Dean | Jul 18, 2018 | General
A July 12 article for The Federalist website is titled, “How Expanding Medicaid To Able-Bodied Adults Is Stripping Care For Disabled People.” Penned by Charlie Katebi, it informs us that “When a state expands Medicaid, the federal government covers 95 percent of the cost of treating every able-bodied patient. However, the federal government only covers 30 to 50 percent of the cost of treating Medicaid’s sicker patient populations.”
In large measure the federal government is a disgrace, and Medicaid ought to be abolished. This is true even if Katebi’s information is false, and I have no reason to hold that it is. Medicare, as I’ve written, insolvent by 2026? When will Medicaid be insolvent? “Not for a very long time,” a supporter might say. Oh? Well, I guess that’s true if only 30 to 50 percent of the care costs for the very sick are being covered. But perhaps it isn’t true.
Surely the provision of a Universal Basic Income (a phrase I dislike) would be better than this, as long as Medicaid was phased out slowly. And it would still be necessary to have government inspections of nursing homes and hospice centers. Anyone who says regarding today’s welfare programs, “It ain’t broke so don’t fix it,” doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He doesn’t mind insolvency being laid on waste and inefficiency.
by Dean | Jul 11, 2018 | General
Nathalie Chazeaux (Isabelle Huppert) is a philosophy professor married to another philosophy professor (Andre Marcon), and this is yet another film about a husband who blandly leaves his wife for another woman. Nathalie takes it . . . philosophically, which does not mean she never weeps. She does, but she also moves on and encounters life’s common problems, challenges, and comforts. This is what happens in the Mia Hansen-Love picture, Things to Come (L’avenir, 2016), a French opus even more imaginative and subtle than Hansen-Love’s Goodbye, First Love.
It is useful to mention Peter Rainer’s comment that “Huppert never loses sight of the fact that Nathalie’s wounded heart often overrules her steel-trap mind.” It is also true, however, that Nathalie is not much of a creature of desire, or so it seems, which may be moving her away from the “will” that the philosopher Schopenhauer (referenced in the film) said is the cause of our suffering. How much suffering does the woman go through? On the other hand, critic Ella Taylor has a point when she writes that “[Nathalie’s] moving on, but to what?”
Let me indicate one more thing: Hansen-Love does a meaningful job of capturing Natalie’s state of mind when she is alone and having to endure a relative’s sudden death. It’s a strong scene. The solitude makes all the difference.
(In French with English subtitles)
