Films I like

I quite enjoyed The Man from Earth (_http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_from_Earth)

The Man from Earth is a 2007 science fiction film written by Jerome Bixby and directed by Richard Schenkman. The film stars David Lee Smith as John Oldman, the protagonist of the story. The screenplay for this movie was conceived by Jerome Bixby in the early 1960s and was completed on his death bed in April 1998, making it his final piece of work.[2] The movie gained recognition in part for being widely distributed through Internet peer-to-peer networks and its producer publicly thanked users of these networks for this. The film was later adapted by Schenkman into a stage play of the same name.
The plot focuses on John Oldman, a departing university professor who claims to be a Cro-Magnon (or Magdalenian caveman) who has somehow survived for over 14,000 years. The only setting is in and around Oldman's house during his farewell party, with the plot advancing through intellectual arguments between Oldman and his fellow faculty members.
 
"STRANGE DAYS" Dir. Kathryn Bigelow. (USA) 1995.


Set in Los Angeles two days before the end of 1999, Strange Days introduces us to Lenny Nero (Ralph Fiennes), an ex-cop turned sleazy hustler who hawks the newest underground thrill on the black market: a "squid," a headpiece that allows one to transmit digital recordings of other people's thoughts, feelings, and memories into their brain; as Lenny describes it, "this is real life, pure and uncut, straight from the cerebral cortex." Lenny deals "clips" (the software) as well as "squids" (the hardware) for this new and illegal entertainment system, and while sex and violence are the most popular themes, Lenny refuses to deal in "blackjack" -- slang for snuff clips. Lenny is nursing a broken heart after his girlfriend, punk singer Faith Justin (Juliette Lewis), left him, and he spends a lot of time with clips he recorded when they were together. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yaXPx6xWEQ
 
"KITCHEN STORIES" Dir. Bent Hamer (Norwegian) 2003.

In post war Sweden it was discovered that every year, an average housewife walks the equivalent number of miles as the distance between Stockholm and Congo, while preparing her family meals. So the Home Research Institute sent out eighteen observers to a rural district of Norway to map out the kitchen routines of single men. The researchers were on twenty-four-hour call, and sat in special strategically placed chairs in each kitchen. Furthermore, under no circumstances were the researchers to be spoken to, or included in the kitchen activities. –IMDb

Folke Nilsson (Tomas Norström) is assigned to study the habits of Isak Bjørvik (Joachim Calmeyer). By the rules of the research institute, Folke has to sit on an umpire's chair in Isak's kitchen and observe him from there, but never talk to him. Isak stops using his kitchen and observes Folke through a hole in the ceiling instead. However, the two lonely men slowly overcome the initial post-war Norwegian-Swede distrust and become friends. (wikipedia)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZHHJetsUdU
 
I just saw one of the best movies ever, is called Equilibrium (2002) with Christian Bale. Is about a new society after the third world war, where they create a group of people that its work is to eradicate the supposed, intrinsic parasite of humanity that is emotions, so they more or less try to create psychopaths without emotions. The thing is that the protagonist in the movie struggles with his past, and new experiences to understand who he is, and why he's doing it, he's a particular character that can sense emotion in others through empathy, while at the same time he is one of those that works eradicating humans that still commit acts of feeling.

Is very bloody because is an action movie but, never thought it was going to be that good, and that touches an important topic.
 
Today December 11 is the 105 birthday of Manoel de Oliveira, the only survivor of the silent film era, curiously related to one of the top issues that laura has tried. The longevity according to a manuscript of Gurdjieff.

From wikipedia.
Manoel de Oliveira was born in Porto, Portugal, on December 11, 1908,[3] to Francisco José de Oliveira and Cândida Ferreira Pinto. His family were wealthy industrialists and agricultural landowners.[4] His father owned a dry-goods factory, produced the first electric light bulbs in Portugal and built an electric energy plant before he died in 1932.[5] Oliveira was educated at the Colegio Universal in Porto before attending a Jesuit boarding school in Galicia, Spain.[5] As a teenager his goal was to become an actor. At 17, he joined his brothers as an executive in his father's factories, where he remained for the majority of his adult life when not making films. In a 1981 Sight and Sound article, John Gillett describes Oliveira as having "spent most of his life in business...making films only when circumstances allowed."[6]

A tribut to Manoel de Oliveira.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuBBLzz59bA
 
Manoel de Oliveira's films

The Convent:
http://www.reelz.com/trailer-clips/26514/the-convent-trailer/

Anxiety:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tYtdSNLXao

Gebo and the Shadow:
http://mubi.com/films/gebo-and-the-shadow

Voyage to the Beginning of the world:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpG4ihOcRjw
 
The Romanovs: An Imperial Family. Director: Gleb Panfilov. The dynasty Romanov. the dynasty of the Roma nova (new Roma) ruled by the tsars (c'sars) the new Caesars.

From Amazon:
Documenting the last days of the Romanov Dynasty the film shows Tsar Nicholas and his family in the last year of thier lives from the abdication of the Tsar to the brutal murder of the Imperial family at the hands of the Bolshivicks at the House of Special Purposes. The film shows the Imperail family as loving and tight. They are completely isloated and have only themselves to be around. While the film may be somewhat over sentimental towards the Imperial family and tries to reconsile Russia with its Communist past this film is by far the most accurate potrayal yet. A film that cannot be missed for all history lovers and those interested in the Romanovs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7YdsKZPc3Y
 
Outbreak (usa) 1995 Directed by Wolfgang Petersen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mj9SUJdpJS4

From wikipedia:
The film focuses on an outbreak of a fictional Ebola-like virus called Motaba in Zaire and later in a small town in the United States. Its primary settings are government disease control centers USAMRIID and the CDC, and the fictional town of Cedar Creek, California. Outbreak's plot speculates how far military and civilian agencies might go to contain the spread of a deadly contagion.

The film was released on March 10, 1995 and proved a box office success, spending three weeks at the top of the domestic box office. The film was nominated for various awards but failed to garner any major award nominations. It also raised various "what-if" scenarios: media outlets began to question what the government would really do in a similar situation and if the CDC has plans in case an outbreak ever does occur.[citation needed] A real-life outbreak of the Ebola virus occurred in Zaire only a few months after the film was released.[1]
 
Evening news:
Evola outbreak in U.S., two cases, but they did not make more comments. Just a news flash on "Radio Formula" from Mexico CitY.

Films and reality go hand in hand in U.S.A.
 
JERUSALEM (1997) Sweden. Dir. Bille August.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Lmfk2GKaV0

Film Review: Jerusalem - I expected more from the promised land. By Teresa Esser.

Jerusalem is a gorgeous and fascinating film that proves the adage: Life is what happens to you as you're making other plans. Set in turn-of-the-century Sweden and Palestine, Jeruasalem traces the lives of Ingmar (Ulf Friberg) and Gertrud (Maria Bonnevie) as they sort out complicated questions of love, faith, and filial duty.

Friberg is stellar in his role as Ingmar Ingmarsson, the first-born son of a clan that has ruled a small Swedish parish for ages. Cheated out of his rightful inheritance by a jealous brother-in-law, Ingmar leaves his fiancee, Gertrud, and goes off to work at the family's distant sawmill. While he labors at the task of turning trees into boards, the local townspeople grow desperate for a new church leader. Into this spiritual vacuum walks the American evangelist Hellgum, a messianic fire-and-brimstone preacher who can cure psychosomatic paraplegia by the laying on of his hands. Once Hellgum has recruited Ingmar's sister Karin, he takes over her farm and sets up operations in the Ingmarsson living room.

As Ingmar labors diligently in the woods, Hellgum convinces a number of the villagers to join his cult. "There are 30 of us living in a house in Chicago," Hellgum explains. "We share everything. Soon we shall build a new Jerusalem."

The other villagers don't take kindly to Hellgum's habit of discouraging his followers from associating with those outside the cult, especially when one woman grows ill and needs to see a doctor. After this medical request is refused and the woman succumbs to her illness, preacher Hellgum is forced to leave the village.

The central conflict of the movie emerges when Hellgum invites his followers to leave Sweden and to build their New Jerusalem in Palestine.

"Perhaps God deems me unworthy," says one parishioner. "He thinks I love our fields and pastures too much."

"Nonsense," says his wife. "Listen harder! He calls you, too."

The strength of the movie lies in exchanges like these, which help to make the outrageous plot twists more believable. In the end, some two dozen parishioners follow Hellgum to the promised land.

Here the whole interview:

http://tech.mit.edu/V117/N16/jerusalem.16a.html
 
Romance & Cigarettes (2005) u.s.a. Dir. John Tarturro.
Esta película, que inicialmente sería lanzada en agosto de 2005, fue pospuesta, por una parte para presentarla en el Festival Internacional de Cine de Venecia y por otra parte especulando posibles nominaciones a los Premios Óscar. Termino siendo lanzada en Europa entre marzo y abril de 2006.

Nick (James Gandolfini) es un trabajador de la industria metalúrgica que repara puentes. Está casado con Kitty (Susan Sarandon), una modista madre de tres hijas. Nick es una buena persona que siempre busca lo mejor para su familia, pero está viviendo un romance con Tula (Kate Winslet). Tiene que elegir entre su mujer o su amante.

Trailer & scenes.


www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vyg_bZSYMtQ

www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAaxeyGkCIU

www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcvNxz_BWc4

www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4gNNrffL6E

www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4S56m75HdM

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mu8f1hL_Sjk
 
Samsara is an interesting and visually stunning doco for something different to watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qp967YAAdNk

Filmed over nearly five years in twenty-five countries on five continents, and shot on seventy-millimetre film, Samsara transports us to the varied worlds of sacred grounds, disaster zones, industrial complexes, and natural wonders.

Director:
Ron Fricke
 
ARARAT (2002 ) France/Canada. Written and Directed by Atom Egoyan.

Wiki:
It is based loosely on the defense of Van in 1915 during the Armenian Genocide, an event that is disputed to this day by the Government of Turkey. In addition to exploring the human impact of that specific historical event, the film also examines the nature of truth and its representation through art.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UCV3blHvBI
 
Relatos Salvajes or in English is "Wild tales" is a very disturbing movie. It is a movie that psychologists or students of psychology should study in their classes because it talks about psychopathic cases, everyone in this movie is "sick". So every character has a psychological problem but we just see their actions, that are violent and very dangerous for them, that act without conscience or without knowing themselves enough, and for others, the victims of their egoistical, narcissistic attitudes. In every tale the principal character is unaware of the consequences of his attitude. So this movie talks about very primary instincts: fear, anger, hate, vengeance, pride...

This movie gives a portrait of our society in a microscopical manner. Each tale is a sort of light of some "isolated incident" view with a magnifying glass. There is no judgement or moral preach from the director. He just lets the incident unveil in front of us, and we the spectator can make our personal judgement.

In fact it is a very depressing movie but it is a mirror of what humanity is now for we that are aware of reality as it is. We can study each tale and analyse why each one is a wild beast. (but beasts are less wild than these characters, let me tell you.)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3011894/
 
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