{"id":126,"date":"2014-03-17T15:00:04","date_gmt":"2014-03-17T15:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tenkmovies.com\/?p=126"},"modified":"2026-03-09T02:36:04","modified_gmt":"2026-03-09T02:36:04","slug":"126","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/tenkmovies.com\/?p=126","title":{"rendered":"A vampyr played tennis in the Big East for 12 Years"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n\"untitled\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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Requiem for the Big East<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>(2014)<\/p>\n

A part of ESPN’s excellent 30 for 30 <\/em>series, this\u00a0is the story of\u00a0the Big East Conference<\/a>\u00a0from its founding in 1979 until its\u00a0demise in 2013.\u00a0 While the Big East exists as a conference today, it’s a completely different entity<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This was fascinating, but rushed.\u00a0 It’s too difficult to\u00a0condense thirty years of history into less than two hours.<\/p>\n

The thesis of the film is the Big East was a wonderful thing, but greed and the money generated by football ruined it.<\/p>\n

It reminds me of Mr. Mackey on South Park<\/em>, “Money is bad… M’kay, football is bad…. M’kay.”<\/p>\n

I sympathize with their argument, but the real problem (unaddressed here) is the commodification of education.\u00a0 The question\u00a0which should have been asked: at what point does the pursuit of “revenue” undermine the purpose of higher education, but ESPN wouldn’t be interested in a film which could potentially\u00a0undermine its business model.<\/p>\n

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\"MatchPointPoster\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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Match Point<\/a><\/em>\u00a0(2005)<\/p>\n

Social climber Chris Wilton (Jonathan Rhy Meyers) has an affair with his brother-in-law’s ex-girlfriend, Nola Rice\u00a0(Scarlett Johansson).\u00a0 She gets pregnant and wants to raise the baby with him, while he wants to stay married to his more socially acceptable wife.\u00a0 When she threatens to expose\u00a0the affair, Wilton\u00a0murders\u00a0Nola and\u00a0stages it to look like a botched robbery.<\/p>\n

He disposes of the evidence, but\u00a0her ring\u00a0is found by a vagrant who is\u00a0subsequently killed in a drug related shooting which gives added credibility to his cover story.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Despite his meticulous planning, the only reason\u00a0Chris’s master\u00a0plan works\u00a0is luck.<\/p>\n

Everyone asks why do bad things happen to good people,\u00a0but\u00a0 in this film Allen\u00a0asks\u00a0why good things happen to bad people. Both answers are equally insufficient.<\/p>\n

This minor film by Woody Allen film is a companion piece to his earlier masterpiece\u00a0Crimes and Misdemeanors<\/em> (1989).\u00a0 The earlier film explored the psychological ramifications of “getting away with murder,”\u00a0 this movie argues no one gets away with anything, instead it’s like John Lennon said “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

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\"Vampyr1932\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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Vampyr<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>(1932)<\/p>\n

When Allan Gray\u00a0meets Gisele and her dying sister Leone, who was attacked by\u00a0a vampyr, Gray must fend off the monster and his associate who poses as a local doctor.<\/p>\n

Despite possessing a soundtrack, the story is told through intertitles, which makes for a weird hybrid, talking, silent picture.<\/p>\n

Carl Th. Dreyer is at his best exploring the ramifications of faith in films like The Passion of Joan of Arc <\/em>(1928), Day of Wrath<\/em>(1943), Ordet<\/em> (1955), and Gertrud<\/em> (1964).\u00a0\u00a0I expected a \u00a0philosophical picture, but what I got was a ponderous vampire movie.\u00a0There are some\u00a0visually interesting scenes,\u00a0but overall it’s pretty forgettable.\u00a0 If you want a creepy early vampire movie, check out Nosferatu <\/em>(1922).<\/p>\n

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\"Twelve<\/p>\n

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12 Years a Slave<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>(2013)<\/p>\n

In 1843, Solomon Northrup<\/a>, a free African-American musician, is kidnapped and sold into slavery. He spends 12 years of his life in\u00a0captivity until he is finally freed and reunited with his family.\u00a0 This film is based on his memoirs describing his ordeal<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A\u00a0few parts of the film didn’t work for me like\u00a0Brad Pitt\u00a0as Canadian Samuel Bass appearing in the final fifteen minutes and\u00a0providing Solomon with a means\u00a0to escape his fate.\u00a0 This would have been better with a lesser known actor; Pitt as the unsung hero seems like ego stroking (especially since he also produced).\u00a0 The\u00a0historical counterpart may have been a Canuck, but it seems too convenient for a non-American to accurately see the horrors of American slavery.<\/p>\n

It makes me giggle to think Taran\u00a0Killim is in a Best Picture winning film.\u00a0 I’d like to think his character is a descendant of Jebediah Atkinson, the 18th century critic he plays on Weekend Update.<\/p>\n

I’d like to see this\u00a0 as the first half of a double feature with Django\u00a0Unchained <\/em>(2012).\u00a0 I think it would transform Django<\/em> into a more somber work.<\/p>\n

It’s an important film about the ugliness of slavery, but it’s better understood as a movie about what a man can survive and endure. I’ll remember the dignity and strength of Solomon Northup more than the brutality of his captors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Requiem for the Big East\u00a0(2014) A part of ESPN’s excellent 30 for 30 series, this\u00a0is the story of\u00a0the Big East Conference\u00a0from its founding in 1979 until its\u00a0demise in 2013.\u00a0 While the Big East exists as a conference today, it’s a completely different entity. This was fascinating, but rushed.\u00a0 It’s too difficult to\u00a0condense thirty years… Continue reading A vampyr played tennis in the Big East for 12 Years<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[11,13,93,110,112,131,231,266,342,498,513,706,730,757,774,900],"class_list":["post-126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-progress","tag-12-years-a-slave","tag-30-for-30","tag-basketball","tag-best-picture","tag-best-supporting-actress","tag-brad-pitt","tag-documentary","tag-espn","tag-historical-films","tag-lupita-nyongo","tag-match-point","tag-scarlett-johansson","tag-slavery","tag-steve-mcqueen","tag-taran-killam","tag-woody-allen","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/tenkmovies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/tenkmovies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/tenkmovies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tenkmovies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tenkmovies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=126"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/tenkmovies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14604,"href":"http:\/\/tenkmovies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126\/revisions\/14604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/tenkmovies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tenkmovies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tenkmovies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}