February Movies!

In order from most to least favored in my belated movie wrap-up for the month of Febraury 2009, is a neatly organized list of the pictures I've seen--with one pretty still atop from the sublime The Battle of Algiers (1966). My former film students will recognize most of these titles because I screened them in class. And for any stragglers from the old Film History 101, I can confidently recommend you see the rest of these movies as well. Enjoy!

The Battle of Algiers - (1965) - DVD
Seen: Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Children of Paradise (Les enfants du paradis) - (1945) - DVD
Seen: Sunday, February 1, 2009

Citizen Kane - (1941) - DVD
Seen: Saturday, February 7, 2009

Bicycled Thieves - (1948) - DVD
Seen: Friday, February 13, 2009 & Saturday, February 14, 2009

Do The Right Thing - (1989) - DVD
Seen: Friday, February 27, 2009 and Saturday, February 28, 2009

Blow Up - (1966) - DVD
Seen: Saturday, February 21, 2009

Through A Glass Darkly - (1961) - DVD
Seen: Sunday, February 8, 2009

Sparrow - (2008) - Film
Seen: Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Click here for my review on Scarlett Cinema.

Wanda - (1971) - DVD
Seen: Sunday, February 15, 2009

The Wrestler - (2008) - Film
Seen: Saturday, February 7, 2009

Winchester '73 - (1950) - DVD
Seen: Thursday, February 5, 2009

Bladerunner - (1982) - DVD
Seen: Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story - (2007) - DVD
Seen: Sunday, February 15, 2009

Harvard Beats Yale 29-29 - (2009) - Film
Seen: Monday, February 23, 2009
Click here for my review on Scarlett Cinema.

I Shot Jesse James - (1949) - DVD
Seen: Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Ride the High Country - (1962) - DVD
Seen: Monday, February 16, 2009

And whoa, it's already April! That means my March movie wrap-up is due already too. This one's going to be killer. With the help of my 10 day convalescence I watched 33 movies in March. Put on the coffee, it's is going to be awhile before this is composed...

Boyz n the Hood - 1991 - OnDemand broadcast

Saturday, May 5, 2007

Boyz n the Hood looks like Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing (1989), but transplanted in L.A. Cuba Gooding Jr. stars as the son of divorced parents, a pickle in the middle of a upwardly-mobile mother who worked her way out of the ghetto, and a moralistic but blue collar father who raises him in south central Los Angeles. It's a socially aware flick that laments the loss of young blacks to drugs, guns and gangs—worlds away from the aforementioned Lee whose films are a public display of outrage meant to incite awareness and change. In comparison, Lee is uncomfortable with a romanticized ghetto culture, but here, director John Singleton presents it as a simple fact of life. In no way does Singleton advocate gang violence and other like ailments of this youth demographic, though a sense of nostalgia about it exists nonetheless. Perhaps it was the bright color of the costume and props among the drab yellowing neighborhood that tipped me off to its melodramatic mode, and between a sexually frustrated relationship between Tre (Cuba Gooding Jr.) and his girlfriend, and a final shooting scene with one of the film's most sympathetic characters, the film truly is equal parts social picture and melodrama.