Intermarkets' Privacy Policy Support
Donate to Ace of Spades HQ! Contact
Ace:aceofspadeshq at gee mail.com Buck: buck.throckmorton at protonmail.com CBD: cbd at cutjibnewsletter.com joe mannix: mannix2024 at proton.me MisHum: petmorons at gee mail.com J.J. Sefton: sefton at cutjibnewsletter.com Recent Entries
Monday Overnight Open Thread - January 20, 2025 [Doof]
Invasion of the Apple Snatchers Cafe At Last Night's Rally, Trump Was Joined on the Stage By His Strongest Totally-Not-Gay Supporters Quick Hits Surprise: Defender of Normzzz and Protector of the Criminal FBI Pardons Terrorist Who Murdered Two FBI Agents Quick Update on "Team DeLulu" Cope Border Patrol Trucks Are En Route to the Southern Border Elections Have Consequences: The TSA Official Who Put Tulsi Gabbard on the Terrorist Watch List Has Been Fired The Inaugural Ceremonies, Continued "A Revolution of Common Sense:" Trump's Inaugural Address "For Americans, January 20, 2025 is Liberation Day." Absent Friends
Bandersnatch 2024
GnuBreed 2024 Captain Hate 2023 moon_over_vermont 2023 westminsterdogshow 2023 Ann Wilson(Empire1) 2022 Dave In Texas 2022 Jesse in D.C. 2022 OregonMuse 2022 redc1c4 2021 Tami 2021 Chavez the Hugo 2020 Ibguy 2020 Rickl 2019 Joffen 2014 AoSHQ Writers Group
A site for members of the Horde to post their stories seeking beta readers, editing help, brainstorming, and story ideas. Also to share links to potential publishing outlets, writing help sites, and videos posting tips to get published.
Contact OrangeEnt for info:
maildrop62 at proton dot me Cutting The Cord And Email Security
Moron Meet-Ups
|
« Chess And Dress Thread [NaCly Dog} |
Main
| Saturday Overnight Open Thread (9/19/20) »
September 19, 2020
Saturday Evening Movie Thread 09-19-2020 [TheJamesMadison]David Lean David Lean's career can easily break down between two major periods. The first is made up of small, relationship based films usually based in Britain and in black and white with a couple of Charles Dickens adaptations thrown in. The second is a series of five epic films set in more exotic locales with big, broad visual scopes. He's mostly known for his second period with films such as The Bridge on the River Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia, and Doctor Zhivago, but his first period has jewels like Brief Encounter (my personal favorite of his films), Great Expectations, and Hobson's Choice. A Brief Encounter ... Straight Up David Lean started as an editor in the British film industry and got his first directing job alongside Noel Coward when Coward wanted to direct his own first feature film, In Which We Serve. Lean largely took over the directing duties as filming progressed and Lean's feature film directing career was born. Lean and Coward worked together through three more features. The last of their professional collaborations was Brief Encounter which Coward produced and co-wrote based on a play of his. Out of every film Lean made with this core motif, Doctor Zhivago is the only one where the permanent state never returns. It happens on a couple of different levels in the film, but in neither case, either with the Russian Revolution or the main character's marriage, does the original state return. The film starts out on the eve of the First World War, and we get a good sense of life in Tsarist Russia. There's poverty and unrest, but there is also a certain amount of wealth for the characters involved. Yuri Zhivago is a young doctor and poet who is climbing both professionally and socially. Lara is the daughter of a poor shop owner and preyed upon by her mother's lover. Unrest from previous conditions, Tsarist overreaction, and the war tip the country into revolution, and the country never comes back from it. The high emotional changes from the revolt become permanent. There's no going back to the comfortable upward mobility Yuri was experiencing. He shuttles from one place to another, always seemingly on the verge of starvation. Even years later, in the movie's coda, when a certain normalcy has returned to Russia, it's an empty existence, bland and tasteless that Bernardo Bertolucci echoed wonderfully in The Last Emperor about China's own transition to communism. There's no returning to the pre-revolution, not in Russia. The other inversion of the motif is when it comes to Yuri's relationships with his wife, Tonya, and his lover, Lara. Yuri's marriage with Tonya mirrors the happy humdrum reality of the marriage in Brief Encounter. It's a happy marriage, but unexciting. The relationship Yuri develops with Lara, though, is exciting, and he ends up leaving Tanya entirely (not completely of his own accord considering the events of the film that pulls Yuri into the partisan conflict for an extended period of time). He finds Lara, and they have some happy time together in the iced over house that Yuri used to call home in the Russian countryside. He has to send Lara away in order to save her life, and he ends up alone in his house. Years later, he sees Lara on the street and dies of a heart attack chasing after her without her ever knowing that he was there. Yuri ends up with nothing in the end. Everything about his old life is gone. His wife, his home, his children, it's all been taken away either with his consent or without it. David Lean, The Man and The Artist Lean didn't talk much about his personal life, but one this is blindingly clear: he couldn't stay married. He wed five times, and there were rumors that he simply couldn't keep his wandering eye in check. He loved women probably in much the same way that Ingmar Bergman loved them. They were his muses, but they were also conquests to a certain degree. Placing that in context with the main thrust of his films, that affairs and high emotional states were inherently unstable and the less exciting ones were more reliable, is an interesting contrast. He may have believed it, it's hard to imagine an artist returning to the same idea repeatedly over decades and not believing it, and yet he refused to live it himself. It's a disconnect between the artist and the art. Is it better to take Lean's artistic output independent of the man, or must we include his personal failings at the same time? A Final Note David Lean is the eighth director whose work I've gone through from beginning to end without skipping anything that's possible to find, and I love the exercise. Going in order, in a concentrated period of time, and allowing the text of their work to speak for itself has allowed a much deeper appreciation for their work than just occasionally picking up a movie here or there would ever do. The focus on repeating themes helps focus my viewings on what the director is trying to say over a career, providing newer wrinkles to interpretation that I wouldn't have picked up on before. But, at the same time, the idea of jumping into someone like John Ford's filmography in the same way is daunting since he has over a hundred directing credits (many of the early ones are lost or short films). It's a practice I want to continue, but I also don't want to do nothing but watch John Ford movies for the next six months or so. I'm always on the lookout for the next director to go through. Movies of Today Opening in Theaters: The Nest Yeah, I ain't heard of it either. Movies I Saw This Fortnight: The Matrix (Rating 3/4) Full Review "It's a solidly good action film with one of the great first acts in popular film over the last few decades, a surprisingly slowly ponderous second act, and then an entertaining third act that feels like it could have been more. I kind of get the love, but I definitely don't share it." [Personal Collection] The Matrix Revolutions (Rating 3/4) Full Review "The beginning is frustrating and the ending as well in different form, but the film is really dominated by the middle where it works really well. Like all of them, this could have been better, but on the whole, I think The Matrix Revolutions ends up being a pretty good action spectacle." [Personal Collection] Great Expectations (Rating 4/4) Full Review "It is an exceptional adaptation and story told with the practiced hand of David Lean, and is one of the best cinematic versions of a Charles Dickens novel put to film." [HBO Max] Oliver Twist (Rating 3/4) Full Review "It's a triumph of production that I just wish the script were able to match. It's not a bad script, but I do wish it had been more ironed out to make the action flow better and provide a better focus on Oliver late." [HBO Max] The Sound Barrier (Rating 3.5/4) Full Review "It's a solid entertainment with an almost tricky focus that ends up working out quite well. Probably one of Lean's most underrated films." [DailyMotion] The Bridge on the River Kwai (Rating 4/4) Full Review "It's just a great movie all around and one of David Lean's best." [Personal Collection] Lawrence of Arabia (Rating 4/4) Full Review "It's a production of the highest order with an intelligently told study of a man at its center. This is more than just a critics' delight, this is grand entertainment." [Personal Collection] Doctor Zhivago (Rating 2/4) Full Review "I was ready for my second viewing in about fifteen years to reverse my initial opinion that Doctor Zhivago was a largely ornate construction with little actual emotion, but I couldn't do it." [HBO Max] Contact Email any suggestions or questions to thejamesmadison.aos at symbol gmail dot com. Follow me on Twitter. I've also archived all the old posts here, by request. I'll add new posts a week after they originally post at the HQ. | Recent Comments
JackStraw:
"If Trump was a real president he would volunteer H ..."
Braenyard - some Absent Friends are more equal than others _ : " 513 And why do I have to listen to Metallica on M ..." Cheri: "581 - just his part. The rest had to be better. ..." Miklos McMiklos, of the Auld and Ancient Clan McMiklos: "Raising a glass to morons present and departed, pl ..." Jane D'oh: "Come on, Trump. An eager nation waits to see what ..." nurse ratched, garbage: "Didn't one of MLK's daughters endorse Trump? ..." Martini Farmer: "The majority of federal employees spend their time ..." Diogenes: "Damn...was it that bad? Posted by: eleven at Janu ..." Pug Mahon, Day 7 of Funemployment: "I pretty much stopped watching the inaugural stuff ..." bluebell: "Sheesh. More blathering. ..." Alberta Oil Peon: "I haven't been there, but there is a place in Flat ..." Axeman: "Liberty Ball is best. Posted by: Boss Moss at Jan ..." Recent Entries
Monday Overnight Open Thread - January 20, 2025 [Doof]
Invasion of the Apple Snatchers Cafe At Last Night's Rally, Trump Was Joined on the Stage By His Strongest Totally-Not-Gay Supporters Quick Hits Surprise: Defender of Normzzz and Protector of the Criminal FBI Pardons Terrorist Who Murdered Two FBI Agents Quick Update on "Team DeLulu" Cope Border Patrol Trucks Are En Route to the Southern Border Elections Have Consequences: The TSA Official Who Put Tulsi Gabbard on the Terrorist Watch List Has Been Fired The Inaugural Ceremonies, Continued "A Revolution of Common Sense:" Trump's Inaugural Address "For Americans, January 20, 2025 is Liberation Day." Search
Polls! Polls! Polls!
Frequently Asked Questions
The (Almost) Complete Paul Anka Integrity Kick
Primary Document: The Audio
Paul Anka Haiku Contest Announcement Integrity SAT's: Entrance Exam for Paul Anka's Band AllahPundit's Paul Anka 45's Collection AnkaPundit: Paul Anka Takes Over the Site for a Weekend (Continues through to Monday's postings) George Bush Slices Don Rumsfeld Like an F*ckin' Hammer Top Top Tens
Democratic Forays into Erotica New Shows On Gore's DNC/MTV Network Nicknames for Potatoes, By People Who Really Hate Potatoes Star Wars Euphemisms for Self-Abuse Signs You're at an Iraqi "Wedding Party" Signs Your Clown Has Gone Bad Signs That You, Geroge Michael, Should Probably Just Give It Up Signs of Hip-Hop Influence on John Kerry NYT Headlines Spinning Bush's Jobs Boom Things People Are More Likely to Say Than "Did You Hear What Al Franken Said Yesterday?" Signs that Paul Krugman Has Lost His Frickin' Mind All-Time Best NBA Players, According to Senator Robert Byrd Other Bad Things About the Jews, According to the Koran Signs That David Letterman Just Doesn't Care Anymore Examples of Bob Kerrey's Insufferable Racial Jackassery Signs Andy Rooney Is Going Senile Other Judgments Dick Clarke Made About Condi Rice Based on Her Appearance Collective Names for Groups of People John Kerry's Other Vietnam Super-Pets Cool Things About the XM8 Assault Rifle Media-Approved Facts About the Democrat Spy Changes to Make Christianity More "Inclusive" Secret John Kerry Senatorial Accomplishments John Edwards Campaign Excuses John Kerry Pick-Up Lines Changes Liberal Senator George Michell Will Make at Disney Torments in Dog-Hell Greatest Hitjobs
The Ace of Spades HQ Sex-for-Money Skankathon A D&D Guide to the Democratic Candidates Margaret Cho: Just Not Funny More Margaret Cho Abuse Margaret Cho: Still Not Funny Iraqi Prisoner Claims He Was Raped... By Woman Wonkette Announces "Morning Zoo" Format John Kerry's "Plan" Causes Surrender of Moqtada al-Sadr's Militia World Muslim Leaders Apologize for Nick Berg's Beheading Michael Moore Goes on Lunchtime Manhattan Death-Spree Milestone: Oliver Willis Posts 400th "Fake News Article" Referencing Britney Spears Liberal Economists Rue a "New Decade of Greed" Artificial Insouciance: Maureen Dowd's Word Processor Revolts Against Her Numbing Imbecility Intelligence Officials Eye Blogs for Tips They Done Found Us Out, Cletus: Intrepid Internet Detective Figures Out Our Master Plan Shock: Josh Marshall Almost Mentions Sarin Discovery in Iraq Leather-Clad Biker Freaks Terrorize Australian Town When Clinton Was President, Torture Was Cool What Wonkette Means When She Explains What Tina Brown Means Wonkette's Stand-Up Act Wankette HQ Gay-Rumors Du Jour Here's What's Bugging Me: Goose and Slider My Own Micah Wright Style Confession of Dishonesty Outraged "Conservatives" React to the FMA An On-Line Impression of Dennis Miller Having Sex with a Kodiak Bear The Story the Rightwing Media Refuses to Report! Our Lunch with David "Glengarry Glen Ross" Mamet The House of Love: Paul Krugman A Michael Moore Mystery (TM) The Dowd-O-Matic! Liberal Consistency and Other Myths Kepler's Laws of Liberal Media Bias John Kerry-- The Splunge! Candidate "Divisive" Politics & "Attacks on Patriotism" (very long) The Donkey ("The Raven" parody) |