Recommend a movie

10 posts

President Camacho
"The Guard"

4.5 / 5 thumbs up

A cop in rural Western Ireland (Bendan Gleeson) discovers disturbing drug-related crime in his sleepy district, and when a visiting negro FBI agent (Don Cheadle) learns in the cross-agency briefing that their investigations might be connected, the two cops team up to take down the bad guys. Sound like a tiresome, typical Hollywitz interracial cop comedy?

Except it’s not.

This isn’t a Hollywood film where they rehashed the same Jewish schlock in a different shetl. “The Guard” is a genuine Irish film with a distinctly Irish script, an Irish stamp of black humor, and the irresistible forays into philosophy. It’s intelligent, funny, and unconventional in a lot of ways.

Yet it never takes itself too seriously. Unlike ham-fisted Jew “comedies” which exploit humor as a veil behind which to distort and agitate, “The Guard” seeks only to clarify and amuse. It’s a pessimistic commentary on life which entertains the whole way and never misses an opportunity to take potshots at Hollywood conventions and their corrosive effect on the real world.

Cheadle's character is educated and well-spoken (unlike the Chris Tuckers and Martin Lawrences who fill the Hollywood "black cop" role), but Gleeson is nevertheless immunized to the Agitated Negro routine. He needles Cheadle throughout the entire film, rarely apologizes for any quip, and takes a wry pleasure in keeping one step ahead of his visiting counterpart.

Their chemistry on screen is good and both actors deliver good performances, but interestingly the grand racial resolution which forms the stock ending for every Hollywood White cop/Black cop comedy, which goes something like this--

" I guess we're not so different after all, you and me-- I'm an analytical, indecisive White pussy and you’re a reckless man of action who 'freestyles' through police-work-- but we both complement each other great. Plus you taught me how to shuck and jive! We dogz!" *fist bump*

-- is notably absent from "The Guard". In a reversal of the stereotypical racial encounter, Gleeson grasps Cheadle's essence directly upon meeting him (and thus immediately resorts to trolling him as the only way to tolerate his company), but Cheadle is never quite able to get a grip on Gleeson and it frustrates him to no end. The film fittingly ends with the Black Man staring out into the distance on a wharf, trying in vain to comprehend the depth of the White Man's world-humor and passion for life.

It’s hard to imagine a Salotrean not enjoying this movie on some level.

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/embed/nRsMLuCP8a0
Trajan
The Guard was enjoyable, but the main character struck me as implausible. He's a weathered salt-of-the-earth proletariat yet he's literate enough to critique Tolstoy; he's rough around the edges, loves whores and strong drink, yet he has a heart of gold and the perseverance of a saint. He's witty, brave, intelligent...essentially everything except handsome. It's impossible to identify with a protagonist when his personality is so glaringly artificial. It strikes me that Gleeson's character was probably director McDonagh's attempt at an idealized self-insertion, hence the lack of real flaws.

The rest of the cast doesn't fare any better; for the most part they're one-note gimmicks, like characters from an Irish Mr. Show sketch. There's also the mix of arch humor and nihilistic violence that went stale after Pulp Fiction over a decade ago, though to be fair much of the humor is at least smile-worthy (the showdown with Wilmot's character is a highlight). Decent black comedy for fans of Tarantino, Guy Ritchie, or the Coen Brothers. :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup: out of 5 thumbs up.
SweetLeftFoot

Route Irish.

ken Loach on contractors in Iraq. Very good.

GuyfromAustria

"Never say Goodbye". An Indian Movie with Sharukh Khan, Rani Mukherjee, Abhichek Bachana, Preia Zeinta.

Sharukh Khan and Rani are in romance eventhough they are both married. The only Bollywood movie with an fvck scene.

popfop
[​IMG]
Love Affair, or the Case of the Missing Switchboard Operator directed by Dusan Makavejev.

This is a cute, artsy little film from socialist Yugoslavia. Eva Ras plays Izabela, a seductive Jewess* employed as a switchboard operator. She meets Ahmed, a Muslim rat catcher, and the two become romantically involved. Izabela is quite sexually permissive and this both surprises and pleases the shy Ahmed. When Ahmed leaves for a month on business, Izabela finds herself fighting her erotic urges, stating that two weeks is "too long for a Hungarian girl." She then reluctantly cheats on Ahmed with an obnoxious and persistent postman from her workplace. When Ahmed returns he finds Izabela quite distant and she accounces that she is pregnant. Ahmed then goes on a drunken bender with Izabela frantically following him to make sure he doesn't come to any harm. She catches up to him at a well where he threatens suicide. While trying to prevent him from jumping in, Izabela falls in and drowns. Ahmed is later arrested for her murder.

Like WR: Mysteries of the Organism , there are several bits of political ephermera spliced into the narrative, including scenes of an Orthodox church being looted by a Communist mob. The wiki states, "The film is more a judgement of society on communist regime [sic] in that time, and how sexuality, freedom of living and art was banned and restricted by people in power." Personally, I didn't see any of this. If anything it makes Tito's Yugoslavia seem quaint if slightly austere. There is no condemnation of free sexuality from any of the characters either. The pursuit of carnal pleasures by the young seems as untrammelled and normal as it would have been in the West at the same time. Likewise, Izabela's death is purely accidental and tragic, reminiscent of the stoic existentialism of a Godard film. It is neither a comment on violence against women or the dangers of sluttitude.

* I don't know if Izabela is explicitly Jewish but Eva Ras is a Hungarian Jew and Izabela is described as Hungarian.
Cornelio

The Passenger (1975)
Michelangelo Antonioni
:thumbsup:

Forgotten Jack Nicholson movie from the seventies. He's a journalist working in Africa who exchanges his identity with a dead arms dealer. He then escapes from his wife through Spain with the late Maria Schneider. Bored me to tears -- nothing ever happens, and the barren landscapes of Africa and southern Spain contribute to the feeling of meaninglessness of the whole movie. Ignore.

Niccolo and Donkey
Have you seen Antonioni's "L'avventura"? What an awesome film. The entire central story of the first half is completely discarded.
Cornelio
This is my first Antonioni film. I have no quarrels with his bare directing techniques, it's just that the plot is non-existent. I'll download L'avventura, thank you. Have you seen 'Blow-up'?
Niccolo and Donkey
I have Blow Up downloaded and on an external hard drive, but have not seen it. IIRC, the Yardbirds are in the film.

L'Avventura is important for its aesthetic and for the fact that Antonioni completely discards the prevailing contemporary interest with the poor by strictly focusing on the super wealthy. It's a must see and one of my favourite Italian movies.
Broseph

Seven :thumbsdown:

*spoiler*

The "brilliant" killer creates a pattern of killing people who commit the deadly sins and towards the end he rants about how it's just and how it'll be a huge riddle/mystery that everyone will forever talk about. This pattern breaks down in an obvious twist when he kills the one cop's wife, who wasn't responsible for wrath. Then the husband of the then-dead wife kills the killer.

It's really shit.