Requiem for the Big East (2014)
A part of ESPN’s excellent 30 for 30 series, this is the story of the Big East Conference from its founding in 1979 until its demise in 2013. While the Big East exists as a conference today, it’s a completely different entity.
This was fascinating, but rushed. It’s too difficult to condense thirty years of history into less than two hours.
The thesis of the film is the Big East was a wonderful thing, but greed and the money generated by football ruined it.
It reminds me of Mr. Mackey on South Park, “Money is bad… M’kay, football is bad…. M’kay.”
I sympathize with their argument, but the real problem (unaddressed here) is the commodification of education. The question which 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 undermine its business model.
Match Point (2005)
Social climber Chris Wilton (Jonathan Rhy Meyers) has an affair with his brother-in-law’s ex-girlfriend, Nola Rice (Scarlett Johansson). She gets pregnant and wants to raise the baby with him, while he wants to stay married to his more socially acceptable wife. When she threatens to expose the affair, Wilton murders Nola and stages it to look like a botched robbery.
He disposes of the evidence, but her ring is found by a vagrant who is subsequently killed in a drug related shooting which gives added credibility to his cover story. Despite his meticulous planning, the only reason Chris’s master plan works is luck.
Everyone asks why do bad things happen to good people, but in this film Allen asks why good things happen to bad people. Both answers are equally insufficient.
This minor film by Woody Allen film is a companion piece to his earlier masterpiece Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989). The earlier film explored the psychological ramifications of “getting away with murder,” 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.”
Vampyr (1932)
When Allan Gray meets Gisele and her dying sister Leone, who was attacked by a vampyr, Gray must fend off the monster and his associate who poses as a local doctor.
Despite possessing a soundtrack, the story is told through intertitles, which makes for a weird hybrid, talking, silent picture.
Carl Th. Dreyer is at his best exploring the ramifications of faith in films like The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928), Day of Wrath(1943), Ordet (1955), and Gertrud (1964). I expected a philosophical picture, but what I got was a ponderous vampire movie. There are some visually interesting scenes, but overall it’s pretty forgettable. If you want a creepy early vampire movie, check out Nosferatu (1922).
12 Years a Slave (2013)
In 1843, Solomon Northrup, a free African-American musician, is kidnapped and sold into slavery. He spends 12 years of his life in captivity until he is finally freed and reunited with his family. This film is based on his memoirs describing his ordeal.
A few parts of the film didn’t work for me like Brad Pitt as Canadian Samuel Bass appearing in the final fifteen minutes and providing Solomon with a means to escape his fate. This would have been better with a lesser known actor; Pitt as the unsung hero seems like ego stroking (especially since he also produced). The historical counterpart may have been a Canuck, but it seems too convenient for a non-American to accurately see the horrors of American slavery.
It makes me giggle to think Taran Killim is in a Best Picture winning film. I’d like to think his character is a descendant of Jebediah Atkinson, the 18th century critic he plays on Weekend Update.
I’d like to see this as the first half of a double feature with Django Unchained (2012). I think it would transform Django into a more somber work.
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.