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Das Signal (2024)
Watch it in German with subtitles
A great short series with excellent acting and characters, especially mother father and daughter. There are enough twists to keep you guessing and hoping to the end. Beautiful scenery and mostly faithful to science. Only here and there is the truth slightly stretched and no one should mind too much. Very enjoyable although a bit sad and well worth a binge watch. When I started watching the dubbing was too obvious, badly done and very irritating. I switched to the original German, with English subtitles, and it became another series completely. Don't watch this series in dubbed English, or perhaps dubbed anything, it will spoil it for you. The original German is excellent.
Living the Change: Inspiring Stories for a Sustainable Future (2018)
Well made doccie with several good ideas
It's astonishing that people are still willing to argue that climate change, or at least our gross misuse of this poor planet, isn't happening. The people in this movie may be hippies but they are a good example to all of us. It's true that you cannot easily have a permaculture farm in the middle of a big city while you're working in an office (although some have done it), but you can make life choices to benefit the earth. I was very pleased to see a GP living in a shack similar to the one that I myself live in. By choice. And to see people sorting their garbage by vegie scraps, plastics and fixable devices, same as I do here. And to see kids being taught to grow and prepare vegetables. I know that young children love doing this. I helped raise my granddaughter like these kids and she will fit right in. She hardly touches a phone. Please watch this movie. PS. It was shot in New Zealand, where these things are easier than in some other places. But they can still be done.
Tár (2022)
A standard to judge other movies by.
How does Tar make me feel? I feel respected. Especially by Cate Blanchett for convincing me of every emotion her character is feeling, and of the rightness of it. And for saying and doing the things I would have done, and have done in my life. I think this is called identification with the main character of a book or play or movie. The main reason we enjoy it.
Obviously it is not all her work. Todd Field wrote and directed the movie. And in making the movie, he went to the greatest amount of trouble. The musicians are real musicians. Sophie Kauer is a real cellist, not an actress. Cate Blanchett plays the piano herself. The orchestra and its performance of Mahler's Fifth Symphony are real and breathtaking. There are no tricks. This is a movie to satisfy the lover of classical music. The music does not come second.
We are allowed a look into the life and personality of a very talented and powerful person. With the pathologies that such a talent could bring. This is recognized and used by those around her. As Lydia herself would say:
"Put the art before the artist".
This is a movie that we should watch and re-watch until we understand it. It is NOT an 'art film'. There are no secret depths to it, or symbolic meanings. It is a movie from which each of us can learn about ourselves. Full Marks to Todd Field. PS. It's now a few months later and I came to revise my review after a further viewing or two. I wished to speculate about the possibility that Todd Field and the financiers of the movie as well as the main actors, may have had deeper motivations than are immediately obvious. To me at least. But the I noticed that I was agreeing that "The data I'm submitting is true" which of course makes wilful speculation wrong. I certainly don't want the sensitivities or laws of whoever wrote that silly sentence to be offended. Movie reviews must be TRUE. They cannot simply be opinion.
O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000)
On my Top Ten
OK. I completely love the Coen Brothers. They can do no wrong. They are the scoundrel analysts of the human soul. The world is not to be taken too seriously and they know it. And they can persuade actors to be as great as they can be. But they don't make funny ha-ha movies. You will cry as much as you laugh. From the deep empathy they show to every creation. And all of this this happens in Oh Brother. George Clooney who already has that glint in his eye that a leading man needs is now granted humility and desperation. Which his jail suit complements perfectly. Are there not at least ten 'characters' in this movie you will never forget? People you will see on the streets from now onwards. But you never knew they existed before these geniuses pointed them out to you. Hail Coen Brothers.