2020 Shelter in Place Alphabet Movie Draft - BONUS ROUNDS

Mr. S£im Citrus

Doryphore of KingsFans.com
Staff member
With that selection, there's only one other participant who even has the ability to potentially steal my next pick, according to the draft rules. So, I guess I'll break for a late lunch, and then start working on my write-up.
 
VF21 took my Y pick early with Young Frankenstein. Given the new rules, I will return to y with:

Y = Ordinary People (1980) - R



This is another powerful tear jerker that makes me feel alive, exilerated, exhausted, tremendously sad, overwhelmed, connected, and optimistic throughout the running time. It is a soulful depection of ordinary people struggling with an unusual circumstance, the untimely death of the favorite, eldest son during a boating accident. What follows is the aftermath of this, with some flashbacks to happier times, and the character progression is dazzling!

IMDB said:
This film, without a doubt, is the best dramatic film I have ever seen. It is truly an extraordinary film of humanity. To start out, the film begins in complete silence and gently flows into Pachalbel's "Canon in D". It has become my favorite movie and I can say with 100% certainty that it deserved every Oscar it received. I cannot truly articulate with words what this movie did to me when I first saw it. I had an epiphany-like experience. I was born in 1980 and didn't see this film until shortly after I turned 19. The events portrayed by Timothy Hutton, Mary Tyler Moore, Donald Sutherland, Judd Hirsch, Elizabeth McGovern, Dinah Manoff, and Fredric Lehne are just as powerful and relevant in society today as they were 20 years ago.

Timothy Hutton's performance of Conrad Jarrett, an 18 yr-old suffering from depression after the tragic death of his older brother is extraordinary. Being the age Hutton was when he made the film, when I first saw it twenty years later, I related to the emotions on every note. Teenagers are rarely portrayed in film as realistically as in real life. In my opinion, Conrad Jarrett in "Ordinary People" is the best portrayal on film of a teenage boy going through the good times and the bad, but mostly the bad. Timothy Hutton is a truly amazing actor. Mary Tyler Moore also deserved all of the praise and nomination for a role that is literally the opposite of anything she had ever played before. The way she portrayed the cold, cruel, yet emotionally-hidden Beth Jarrett is outstanding.

Donald Sutherland and Judd Hirsch also gave performances that made them truly believable as Calvin Jarrett and Dr. Berger. Sutherland should have received an Oscar nomination. Elizabeth McGovern and Dinah Manoff's small character roles as Jeannine Pratt and Karen are just as vivid as in the novel. Jeannine provides the excellent uplift in the story; while Karen provides the semblance of reality that things are not as they seem.

Every line and every scene in this film is as detrimental to the overall underlying theme as it is in the novel by Judith Guest. The words "I love you" and "love" have an immense importance in this film. Kudos to Robert Redford, who shows that he is not only an excellent actor, but also a truly excellent director. The color scheme, music scheme, setting in Lake Forest, Illinois and that "perfect" home all provide the exact backdrop to the circumstances going on between these characters and within Conrad himself. This film relies solely on the realistic interaction between "ordinary" people living through "extraordinary" circumstances.

This film had an amazing impact on me and I'm sure it will do the same for anyone else who sees it. If you do not leave this film having gained that underlying insight that this film gives, then you did not truly understand the purpose of the film. You don't have to suffer from depression or go through the loss of a loved one to understand the message delivered by this film. It's definitely more than just a "tissue" movie. Truly one of the best films ever made.
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Quotes:
Beth: Calvin? Why are you crying? Can I, uh … can I get you something?
Cal: I don't...
Beth: What did you say? Calvin, what did you say? Tell me!
Cal: You are beautiful. And you are unpredictable. But you're so cautious. You're determined, Beth; but you know something? You're not strong. And I don't know if you're really giving. Tell me something. Do you love me? You really love me?
Beth: I feel the way I've always felt about you.
Cal: [pause] We would have been alright, if there hadn't been any mess. But you can't handle mess. You need everything neat and easy. I don't know, maybe you can't love anybody. It was so much Buck. When Buck died, it was as if you buried all your love with him, and I don't understand that, I just don't know, I don't... maybe it wasn't even Buck; maybe it was just you. Maybe, finally, it was the best of you that you buried. But, whatever it was... I don't know who you are. And I don't know what we've been playing at. So I was crying. Because I don't know if I love you anymore. And I don't know what I'm going to do without that.

Dr. Berger: Now. You can live with that. Can't you?
Conrad: I'm so scared! I'm scared.
Dr. Berger: Feelings are scary. And sometimes they're painful. And if you can't feel pain, then you're not going to feel anything else, either. You know what I'm saying?
Conrad: I think so.
Dr. Berger: You're here, and you're alive. And don't tell me you don't feel that.
Conrad: It doesn't feel good.
Dr. Berger: It is good. Believe me.
Conrad: How do you know?
Dr. Berger: Because I'm your friend.

Dr. Berger: A little advice about feelings kiddo; don't expect it always to tickle.

Conrad: Anyway.
Jeannine: Hm, what?
Conrad: Oh just anyway. It's a conversation starter.
Jeannine: Hm, catchy.
Conrad: I knew you'd like it, I've been working on it all day.

Cal: What I'm … gonna say … will sound strange.
Beth: What happened? Come inside.
Cal: Could we talk about Buck's funeral?
Beth: Whaaaat?
Cal: It'll seem trivial. But, it's on my mind and I'd like to talk about it. When I was getting dressed for Buck's funeral …
Beth: Calvin, what's the matter with you?
Cal: Just let me get it off my chest,OK?
Beth: What could getting dressed for Buck's funeral … have to do with anything, right now?
Cal: I was wearing a blue shirt. You said, "wear a white shirt and the other shoes." It was nothing at the time, but, it seemed to stay with me. And I, for some reason, had been thinking about it and it suddenly occurred to me, what difference did it make what I wore to Buck's funeral?
Beth: Uh, huh.
Cal: Just hear me out, Beth, it won't hurt you to listen!
Beth: I won't listen to that. No one in their right mind would listen to that!
Cal: I just want to talk about something I always remembered.
Beth: Why do you want to remind me?
Cal: Because I've always wondered, in some needling way, what it mattered what I wore. I was crazy that day. We were going to our son's funeral and you were worried about what I wore on my feet. I'm sure it sounds like nothing to you, but it stuck with me and I just wanted … to tell you about it.

Calvin: No don't do that to yourself! Somethings things happen in this world people don't always have the answers for them you know! I don't know what I'm yelling at you for.
Conrad: No that's good! Haul my ass sometimes! You know, the way you used to for him!
Calvin: Oh he needed it! You were always so hard on yourself, I never had the heart.
Conrad: Oh Dad, don't.
Calvin: No it's the truth!

Jeannine: Can you ever break the ball?
Conrad: You can't break the ball. Can't break the floor. Can't break anything in a bowling alley. And that's what I like about bowling alleys. Can't even break the record.

Beth: It's really important to try and hurt me isn't it?
Conrad: Don't you have that backwards?
Beth: Oh, and how do I hurt you? By embarrassing you in front of a friend? "Poor Beth, she has no idea what her son is up to, he lies and she believes every word of it."
Conrad: I didn't lie!
Beth: You did! You lied every time you came into this house at 6.30! If its starting all over again, the lying, the covering up, the disappearing for hours, I won't stand for it, I can't stand for it, I really can't!
Conrad: Well don't then! Go to Europe!
Calvin: Connie!
Conrad: No! The only reason she cares, the only reason she gives a **** about it is because someone else knew about it first!
Calvin: Just stop it Connie!
Conrad: No! You tell her to stop it! You never tell her a goddamn thing! And I know why she never came to the hospital because she was too busy going to goddamn Spain and goddamn Portugal! Why should she care if I'm hung up by the balls out there!
Beth: Maybe this is how they sit around and talk at the hospital, but we're not at the hospital.
Conrad: You never came to the hospital! How do you know about the hospital!
Calvin: Connie! Your mother did come to the hospital, you know she did, she had the flu and couldn't come inside but she came to the hospital!
Conrad: She never would have had any flu if Buck was in the hospital, she would have come if Buck was in the hospital!
Beth: Buck never would have been in the hospital!

Calvin: I should have gotten a handle on it somehow.
Conrad: You know I used to think you had a handle for everything. I really admire you for that sometimes.
Calvin: Well, don't admire people too much. They'll disappoint you sometimes.
Conrad: I'm not disappointed. I love you.
Calvin: I love you too.

Jeannine: Conrad, I'm not a very good bowler, what I mean is, I'm a funny bowler.
Conrad: Oh, well we don't have to go bowling if you'd rather not. How funny are ya?
Jeannine: On a scale of one to ten... about a ten.
Conrad: Oh... yeah, that's pretty funny.

Calvin: He just wants to know that you don't hate him.
Beth: Hate him! How could I hate him? Mothers don't hate their sons! Is that what he told you? You see how you believe everything he tells you? And you can't do the same for me, you can't! GOD I DON'T KNOW WHAT ANYONE WANTS FROM ME ANYMORE!
Ward: Beth, we don't want anything from you; Audrey, Cal, Connie and Me, we just want you to be happy.
Beth: Happy! Ward, you tell me the definition of happy. But first you better make sure your kids are good and safe, that they haven't fallen of a horse, been hit by a car, or drown in that swimming pool you're so proud of!
Audrey: Oh Beth!
Beth: Then, you come and tell me how to be happy!

Karen: Conrad. Let's have a great Christmas. Let's have … a great year. Let's have the best year of our whole lives. We can, you know … this could be the best one ever..

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081283/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
 
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Enthusiasms!

U is for The Untouchables

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This pick is mostly for my husband, who quotes from it at an alarming rate.

Internet blurb: Slick on the surface but loaded with artful touches, Brian DePalma's classical gangster thriller is a sharp look at period Chicago crime, featuring excellent performances from a top-notch cast.
 

bajaden

Hall of Famer
U = Used Cars. This movie was directed by Robert Zemeckis and the only movie he ever directed that got an R rating. It stared Kurt Russell and Jack Ward. Ward played the role of two twin brothers who both own used car lots across the street from each other.

Rudy Russo (Kurt Russell) is a young and cunning car salesman in Phoenix with aspirations of running for the state Senate. He works at the struggling New Deal used car lot owned by the elderly Luke Fuchs (Jack Warden), who agrees to help invest $10,000 in Rudy's campaign if he promises to keep the business alive. Meanwhile, across the street, Luke's brother and arch-competitor Roy L. Fuchs (also played by Warden) is desperate to keep his used car lot from being demolished and replaced by a proposed freeway exit. Wanting to collect life insurance money and New Deal from Luke, Roy hires his mechanic, demolition derby driver Mickey, to recklessly drive Luke's 1957 Chevrolet Two-Ten coupe around the block with Luke in the passenger's seat. After the Chevy crashes back into the lot, Luke dies of a heart attack, but leaves Rudy with evidence that Roy staged the "accident". In an attempt to prevent Roy from gaining any inheritance, Rudy has his superstitious co-worker Jeff and mechanic Jim help him bury Luke in the lot's backyard in an Edsel that was once New Deal's sign ornament. When Roy comes looking for Luke the next day, they explain that Luke took the Edsel on a vacation to Miami.

And then the real craziness begins:

 
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Capt. Factorial

trifolium contra tempestatem subrigere certum est
Staff member
Looks like another time-out for KainLear.

To fill my "relaxed Z" column in the alphabetical movie draft, I select:



The Wizard of O(Z) (1939)

Directed by Victor Fleming (with uncredited directorial contribution from George Cukor)

Starring Judy Garland, Ray Bolger, Bert Lahr, Jack Haley

I don't think I have to give this film a long write-up, at least as far as the film itself goes. You've seen it. EVERYBODY has seen it. And while it's a good film, a very good film, and a rewatchable film at that, I had another film lined up for my "Z" slot and so was going to let this one go to the highest bidder...until I remembered one thing:

I drafted Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" in this summer's album draft.

Those of you who are reading this and saying..."so?" have never heard of the phenomenon of "Dark Side of the Rainbow".

Nobody seems to know how it started (almost certainly it was some college kids with too much time on their hands and too much mind-altering substance of one sort or another in their bloodstreams) but somebody once upon a time began playing "Dark Side of the Moon" on their stereo right as The Wizard of Oz was beginning on the TV. Let me tell you, it's a trip. There are some fascinating musical correspondences - and this is on top of the facts that 1) the brain is one heck of a coincidence detector, so you're bound to see some sync-up, no matter what music you might play over what film, and 2) The Wizard of Oz - with the sound off - is a much more bizarre and psychedelic film than you realize when presented with its own soundtrack, and thus pairs perfectly with the feel of Pink Floyd.

Even so, some of the coincidences are uncanny, particularly with the timing of musical cues and musical changes on the album and various elements of the film. The following clip illustrates one of my favorites - the way that the wordless vocals of "The Great Gig in the Sky" basically perfectly match the duration of the tornado scene, and how the opening cashbox ch-ching of "Money" occurs just as Dorothy is opening the door from the sepiatone world of Kansas to the technicolor world of Oz. Note also how Glinda is totally the saxophone solo.


Of course, "Dark Side of the Moon" is quite a bit shorter than the film, and the first time I tried "Dark Side of the Rainbow" I had to guess what to do next. One thought was to repeat the album, but another thought was to go with Pink Floyd's next album "Wish You Were Here". Good call, because if anything, it gets even better. (Bonus note, I drafted "Wish You Were Here" in the previous album draft and so it totally seems fair to me that it's in my repertoire here as well!) But of course, "Wish You Were Here" fades out as the Wicked Witch of the West is melting, so you've gotta pop in one more song - I prefer "Dogs", the near-lead to Pink Floyd's next album "Animals" (the intro song is really just the first half of the closer song ripped off and stuck at the beginning, I figure it doesn't count). Anyway, if you've got two hours to kill, there's not many better ways to do it than making up an iTunes playlist, popping in The Wizard of Oz, and sitting back and chilling out.

Pink Floyd, by the way, has repeatedly insisted they had nothing to do with it, so unless Roger Waters' last will and testament has a big "Ha, ha, guys, we totally conned you!" it's going to have to go down as nothing but one heck of a coincidence.

And, of course, I get to actually watch the film as intended whenever I want, too! :)

Balanced on the biggest wave, race toward an early grave
 
U = UHF (1989)



More comedy here. Not high brow, just a good time :)

IMDB said:
It's very telling that I had to look 15 pages deep into the user comments to find one negative review of this movie. And the negative reviews were from insufferable snots. This movie made me laugh as a teenager, but it also makes me laugh as a fully grown adult. Does that mean the humor is dumb or sophomoric? Not necessarily.

The laughs here are genuine, and they come from lack of pretentiousness and an honest feeling that one need not take oneself too seriously at any given moment. Al lets us know that it's OK to make fun of yourself as well as the rest of society. Much of what he does is self-deprecating, and UHF is no exception. He doesn't stand around making fun of others and establishing an air of superiority over the rest of society. As George Newman, he becomes the every man, infusing much of his own personality along with his on-stage comedic persona. And he's not afraid to kick himself around and then proceed to pull himself up via his own bootstraps. Nobody else has to be hurt.

Plot has never been a big necessity in these spoof/parody movies. "REDACTED," "Airplane," "REDACTED," "REDACTED," and many others have had the most skeletal of plots. Cop must find and bring to justice bad guy who shot his friend. Burned out ex-pilot must save aircraft when crew dies. Rock and roll star must overthrow Nazi plot. Mobster must overcome those who wish to take him down. And in "UHF" we have Loser Man must save TV station from evil network exec. The plot is not important; it's just a vehicle to get us from laugh to laugh and set up the next joke.

UHF's comedy, though basic, rings true, and if you'll drop all of your pretentious airs, you'll get it. (We all know you're not nearly as sophisticated as you think you are anyway.) Who among us can keep from laughing while Raul teaches poodles to fly? Who can stifle a chuckle when Stanley is doing... well... doing just about everything he does in this film? Al admits in his commentaries and interviews that "UHF" is no "REDACTED." But that's the beauty of it. There's nothing complex here. It's all about the laugh, and there's where this movie really scores.
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https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098546/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
 
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I’m happy to see Watchmen getting some late love. It’s the very definition of polarizing pop art, has been disavowed by Alan Moore and his fans (shocking), and has Zack Snyder all over it. But more than a decade later, still firmly in my personal top 10.

Might as well stick with that theme of an Alan Moore property completely disavowed by him helmed by infamously edgy directors I otherwise really can’t bring myself to care about.

That and it seems too obvious to skip in an alphabet-themed draft.

V is for ...



V for Vendetta (2005)

First time I saw this, I thought it was OK. And to be perfectly honest, I’m still in that camp. Fun enough. Visually provocative universe and central character. Solid action and world-building. Natalie Portman. Earns from me a positively adequate stamp of approval, but otherwise nothing extraordinarily earth-shattering or compelling that isn’t stripped straight from the pages of Orwell, Huxley, Bradbury, Burgess, and Zamyatin.

And yet this became a cultural touchstone of the internet rebel and rabble-rouser, with the once esoteric Guy Fawkes mask turned into a pervasive symbol of “sticking it to the man.” Quite ironic considering the mask gained prominence exclusively in celebration of the man its named for failing entirely to accomplish anything resembling “sticking it to the man.” But whatever, symbols take on the meaning of whomever claimed it last, and there’s just something equal parts mischievous and menacing about a pallid mask with squinty eyes and a Van Dyke Mistletoe mustache.

Its inexplicable influence on popular and internet culture aside, I can always find enjoyment in a dystopian setting that takes care in creating a believable universe; conspiracy governments and false flag justifications for fascist takeovers are instantly intriguing popcorn munchers when done well. And while I could watch Portman whittle rocking chairs for 2 hours, I was particularly impressed with Hugo Weaving’s performance as the eponymous V, seeming innately and otherworldly powerful, brilliant, and earnest, while also socially-awkward and flawed, all while wearing a mask THE WHOLE TIME. I actually didn’t even know it was him until I looked it up today. He personifies this character with panache and presence all without being able to emote through facial expressions at all.

Might be why Internet culture and keyboard warriors latched on to him so enthusiastically.

Whatever the cause, remember, remember
The Fifth of November
 
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With my twenty-second pick in the Shelter in Place Alphabet Movie Draft, I will make use of the letter F to select:

The Fugitive (1993):



Director: Andrew Davis
Dir. of Photography: Michael Chapman
Writer(s): Jeb Stuart, David Twohy, Roy Huggins
Score: James Newton Howard
Cast: Harrison Ford, Tommy Lee Jones, Sela Ward, Julianne Moore, Joe Pantoliano
Genre: Drama, action, thriller
Runtime: 2 hours, 10 minutes

IMDb Entry: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106977/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0

Life goes ever on. My wife's best friend has cancer. She's my age. 33 years old. She begins chemotherapy tomorrow. 2020 can go f*** itself.

Anyway, it doesn't appear that I'm going to have the time in the near future to fully rededicate myself to this draft. So, in the absence of the extensive write-ups I was doing for my first dozen selections, I will instead be featuring the writing of others. In the next few days, I'm going to try and wander back to my most recent picks and update them with commentary from respected film and culture writers.

The Fugitive is perhaps my favorite "middle-brow" movie, in that it is neither reaching for the loftiest artistic heights nor the lowest common denominator. However, it is impeccably-crafted, incredibly well-acted, and eminently rewatchable, the kind of reasonably-budgeted, positively-received "film for adults" that Hollywood rarely invests in anymore, but were a staple of the movie-going experience throughout the 80's and 90's.

Here is Matt Zoller Seitz, one of my favorite film critics, reflecting on The Fugitive back in 2017:

Matt Zoller Seitz said:
There was grumbling back in 1994 when “The Fugitive” got an Oscar nomination for Best Picture. It was a fiercely competitive year—the film's rivals included [REDACTED], [REDACTED], [REDACTED] and the ultimate winner, [REDACTED]—and it was widely assumed that “The Fugitive” had been been granted the token “popular” Best Picture slot as a sop to regular folks who preferred escapism to heavy historical drama. It was a thriller based on a beloved but not particularly deep TV series, it starred action-adventure king Harrison Ford, and it wasn’t making statements about anything.

I watched "The Fugitive' again last night for the first time in years and it didn’t seem like the weak link at all. It's as finely crafted an example of its specific subgenre—“wronged man tries to clear his name”—as you’re going to find. It’s as much sheer fun as “Casablanca,” [REDACTED], [REDACTED], [REDACTED] and [REDACTED], all of which won Best Picture over more superficially “serious” competition by embodying excellence without seeming to flaunt it. It glides across the screen like a falcon waiting for the right moment to dive.

The opening ten minutes are so dazzling that they put the full running time of other thrillers to shame. Director Andrew Davis ([REDACTED]) and his team of six editors (!) drop us right into the middle of the story, cutting between ominous overhead shots looking down on the steel labyrinth of downtown Chicago and blurry flash cuts of Helen Kimble (Sela Ward), wife of Dr. Richard Kimble (Ford), being murdered by a one-armed intruder (Andreas Katsulas) who unfortunately for me had been christened by the screenwriters with the last name Sykes. (I saw the movie ten times in a theater the summer it came out—my girlfriend and I were obsessed with it—and each time I’d find myself slinking further down in my seat as Indiana Jones vowed to find and punish that evil monster Sykes.)

To be precise, this section is actually an exceptionally long pre-credits sequence, ending with Richard being pronounced guilty of killing his wife, then loaded onto the bus that’s supposed to take him to prison. (Notice how the film gives us a flash-cut of a cell door clanging shut right after the judge reads the verdict—a flourish that Sergei Eisenstein, the founder of montage editing, would’ve been proud to hang his name on.) There’s enough information in this prologue to fill up a whole other movie, but “The Fugitive” skips through it, shifting back and forth in time as needed, building you up to that astonishing moment when Richard looks through the side window of the wrecked bus and sees the light of an oncoming freight train. The hero dives free of the bus right before the train slams into it, then runs away from a derailed length of boxcars in high-speed baby-steps because his legs are still in manacles. If there were any doubt that “The Fugitive” is an example of what my grandfather called “A one damn thing after another movie,” the sight of Harrison Ford trudging as fast as he can seals it. It's primordial. You could strip the sound and color out and add intertitles and its visual grammar would be indistinguishable from that of a silent movie produced in the 1920s, the kind where villains tied maidens to railroad tracks.

The train crash itself is one of the great action sequences of the nineties, but for my money there are four others that are nearly as good: Kimble eluding Sam Gerard (Tommy Lee Jones) in the sewer tunnels a la Jean Valjean in Les Miserables (the inspiration for Roy Huggins’ original TV series); the raid on the house the results in the death of Richard's fellow escaped prisoner (Eddie Bo Smith, Jr.); Richard's escape from the Marshals on St. Patrick's Day; and Richard's fight on the train with Sykes, a great reminder in this age of wildly overscaled action that all you need to get the audience's pulses pounding is a good guy and a bad guy whose motives are clear.

It’s worth noting that this film was shot and edited a few months after Oliver Stone’s innovative paranoid thriller [REDACTED] won an Academy Award for best editing. You can detect the Stone film’s visual signatures in Davis’ flash-cuts, as well as in the brisk yet legible way “The Fugitive” fills in the past and present at the same time. In that opening section, we’re continuously finding out exactly what’s meant by the ominous questions of the Chicago detectives, but in a way that spares “The Fugitive” of the indignity of having to stop the action while somebody delivers a recap.

Davis and the film’s screenwriters, Jeb Stuart and David Twohy (look them both up; they’re two of the best action film scripters alive) find myriad other ways to deliver exposition without it seeming like that’s what they’re doing. One is their extensive use of Gerard and company. It's not hard to imagine an alternate universe cut of "The Fugitive" where the Inspector Javert equivalent is given a few scenes here and there while the bulk of the film keeps us in the shoes of its Valjean, Richard Kimble; but the screen time granted to the Marshals makes the film vastly more entertaining (Jones and the gang, Joe Pantoliano especially, are a hoot). It also gives Davis and his writers a built-in way to add new facts to the story and clarify points of confusion, simply by having the marshals banter.

Another method of stealth exposition involves what Roger Ebert called “the gradually expanding flashback,” where you see disconnected bits of a past-tense moment, then a bit more of that moment later in the film, until finally you get a nice, fat chunk of it and learn the real reason they showed it to you in the first place. “The Fugitive” cheats a bit here, in that the mystery that cost Helen Kimble her life turns out to be something we never could have pieced together on our own. The salient details of the artery-unclogging drug Provasic, the switched samples, and the doctors’ ties to Devlin-McGregor Pharmaceuticals don’t start to emerge until the final third of the film, and of course they're an excuse to put Richard in jeopardy and keep him running.

But you wouldn't know that from Ford's performance, which is devoid of irony and self-regard and ruthlessly focused on the good doctor's quest to clear his name, get justice for his wife's death, and punish those responsible. There's a core of moral outrage to his acting here that's rare in Hollywood movies, and it gives the last act of the film a righteous jolt. The scene where Richard barges into a hotel ballroom during a medical convention and confronts his old colleague, Dr. Nichols (Jeroen Krabbe), about the conspiracy is a textbook culmination of what Hitchcock called a “McGuffin” plot, but Ford spits “Provasic” out in a way that goes beyond garden-variety vengeful fury. It’s as if he’s so profoundly repulsed by having to say the name of the experimental drug that cost Helen her life that he doesn’t want to dignify it by saying the whole word. (The comedian John Mulaney does a priceless impression of this moment in his special “The Comeback Kid.”)

This is one of Ford’s very best performances. It was undervalued at the time, perhaps because it just seemed like the sort of role that was perfect for Harrison Ford (and it surely is that). But when you look at how much emotional as well as plot information Ford communicates through body language and facial expressions, usually without interacting with any other character onscreen (most of the time Richard is trying not to be noticed), you appreciate the degree of difficulty involved. This is the movie that finally won Jones an Oscar (as best supporting actor), and he earned it by being the coolest, funniest character actor onscreen in a year that also featured John Malkovich’s bizarre and terrifying backup work in “In the Line of Fire." But as charming as Jones is when he’s shooting the breeze with the other U.S. Marshals (Thomas Mills Wood, the ponytailed guy who loses hearing in one ear thanks to Gerard’s gunshot, might be my favorite), and as deadpan-tough as he is during moments like the confrontation between Gerard and Kimble in the tunnel (“I didn’t kill my wife.” “I don’t care!”), it’s Ford who gives the film its haunted soul.

Davis gives "The Fugitive" its nervous heartbeat and hurtling momentum. This is not just the best Chicago action movie of the many that this Chicago native has directed ([REDACTED] starring Jones and Gene Hackman, is a close second); it’s the culmination of everything Davis had learned about filmmaking up to that point in his career. The multilayered, at times prismatic way that it delivers information feels like an evolutionary leap forward for thrillers, although nobody identified it as such back in ’93. It’s constantly looking forward and backward even as it takes in the big picture, along with seemingly marginal details that turn out to matter a great deal.

How many times have I seen this movie? Aside from the ten back in 1993, there have probably been another ten at-home viewings scattered through the decades. But I still keep noticing new things each time—bits that probably seemed like throwaways, or that barely registered, on first or fifth or tenth viewing, but that in retrospect make what might have otherwise been a contrived or absurd moment seem believable. Think about Richard pocketing the old man’s applesauce in the hospital room, and Gerard and his crew getting lost in the sewer tunnels after Richard Peter-Pans off the dam, and Dr. Nichols’ Freudian slip when Richard advances on him at the end (describing the partnership between the drug company and the hospital, Nichols uses the adjective “dishonest” but then immediately corrects himself to “honest”). The people who made this movie cared enough to load every frame with so much information that it would take fifty viewings to notice it all, but not a single bit of it jumps up in your face and says, "Notice me, aren't I clever?"

The final exchange between Gerard and Richard in the police car ranks with the best tough-funny exchanges at the end of Billy Wilder's and Howard Hawks's films: “I thought you didn’t care,” Richard says to the lawman, almost smiling. “I don’t,” Gerard replies, “Don’t tell anybody, all right?”
https://www.rogerebert.com/mzs/60-minutes-on-the-fugitive
 
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bajaden

Hall of Famer
Life goes ever on. My wife's best friend has cancer. She's my age. 33 years old. She begins chemotherapy tomorrow. 2020 can go f*** itself.

2020 has been an extremely bad year for me as well, but one man's pain doesn't reduce another's. I'll add her to my prayers.
 

Warhawk

The cake is a lie.
Staff member
Mildred Hayes: My daughter Angela was murdered 7 months ago, it seems to me the police department is too busy torturing black folk to solve actual crimes.

“O” is for:

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017)

Three_Billboards_Outside_Ebbing,_Missouri_poster.png

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5027774/

I can't believe I forgot about this movie when putting together my initial 20 movie list. I’m surprised it is still on the board at this point.

My wife and I went to see this on a date night and we were blown away, especially by the performance of Frances McDormand. I've always liked her as an actress, but she kills it in this movie. She absolutely owns it. A tour-de force performance. The others in this movie are fantastic as well (Woody Harrelson, Sam Rockwell, Abbie Cornish, Lucas Hedges, John Hawkes and Peter Dinklage). Martin McDonagh did a wonderful job writing, directing, and producing this film.

IMDb says:
A mother personally challenges the local authorities to solve her daughter's murder when they fail to catch the culprit.
That is a VERY understated one sentence description of this movie. ;)

From wikipedia:

The film received widespread acclaim, particularly for McDormand and Rockwell's performances and McDonagh's screenplay. McDormand and Rockwell each won an Academy Award, Golden Globe Award, BAFTA Award, and SAG Award for Best Lead Actress and Best Supporting Actor, respectively. McDonagh won a Golden Globe Award and a BAFTA Award for his original screenplay, and the film won the Golden Globe Award and BAFTA Award for Best Picture.
The musical score was written by Carter Burwell, who had also supplied the score for McDonagh's films In Bruges and Seven Psychopaths. As well as Burwell's score, the film features songs by ABBA, Joan Baez, The Felice Brothers, the Four Tops, Monsters of Folk, and Townes Van Zandt.
Owen Gleiberman of Variety praised the film's performances, stating "It's Mildred's glowering refusal to back down that defines her, and McDormand brilliantly spotlights the conflicted humanity beneath the stony façade," and called Rockwell's performance a "revelation." Steve Pond, writing for TheWrap, praised McDonagh's writing, calling it "Very funny, very violent and surprisingly moving."
Mildred Hayes: What's the law on what ya can and can't say on a billboard? I assume it's ya can't say nothing defamatory, and ya can't say, 'F***' 'P***' or 'C***'. That right?
Red Welby: Or... Anus.
Mildred Hayes: Well I think I'll be alright then. Here's 5,000 for the first month.

Willoughby: [from trailer] I don't think those billboards is very fair.
Mildred Hayes: The time it took you to get out here whining like a b****, Willoughby, some other poor girl's probably out there being butchered.

Willoughby: [from trailer] You didn't happen to drill a *little* hole in the dentist today, did you?
Mildred Hayes: [mouth numb] Of course not.

Willoughby: You think I care about dentists?... I don't care about dentists... Nobody cares about dentists.

Mildred Hayes: You can ask me all the questions you want if you take me down and arrest me.
Abercrombie: I'm not gonna arrest you, Mrs. Hayes. I got nothing to arrest you for.
Mildred Hayes: Not yet you ain't...

Willoughby: I got cancer. I'm dying.
Mildred Hayes: I know it.
Willoughby: Huh?
Mildred Hayes: I know it. Most everybody in town knows it.
Willoughby: [confused] And you still put up those billboards?
Mildred Hayes: Well, they wouldn't be as effective after you croak, right?


Mildred Hayes: Hey, Dixon?
Dixon: Yeah?
Mildred Hayes: I need to tell you something... It was me that burned down the police station.
Dixon: Well, who the hell else would it have been?
 

VF21

Super Moderator Emeritus
SME
Mildred Hayes: My daughter Angela was murdered 7 months ago, it seems to me the police department is too busy torturing black folk to solve actual crimes.

“O” is for:

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017)

View attachment 10037

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5027774/

I can't believe I forgot about this movie when putting together my initial 20 movie list. I’m surprised it is still on the board at this point.

My wife and I went to see this on a date night and we were blown away, especially by the performance of Frances McDormand. I've always liked her as an actress, but she kills it in this movie. She absolutely owns it. A tour-de force performance. The others in this movie are fantastic as well (Woody Harrelson, Sam Rockwell, Abbie Cornish, Lucas Hedges, John Hawkes and Peter Dinklage). Martin McDonagh did a wonderful job writing, directing, and producing this film.

IMDb says:

That is a VERY understated one sentence description of this movie. ;)

From wikipedia:







Mildred Hayes: What's the law on what ya can and can't say on a billboard? I assume it's ya can't say nothing defamatory, and ya can't say, 'F***' 'P***' or 'C***'. That right?
Red Welby: Or... Anus.
Mildred Hayes: Well I think I'll be alright then. Here's 5,000 for the first month.

Willoughby: [from trailer] I don't think those billboards is very fair.
Mildred Hayes: The time it took you to get out here whining like a b****, Willoughby, some other poor girl's probably out there being butchered.

Willoughby: [from trailer] You didn't happen to drill a *little* hole in the dentist today, did you?
Mildred Hayes: [mouth numb] Of course not.

Willoughby: You think I care about dentists?... I don't care about dentists... Nobody cares about dentists.

Mildred Hayes: You can ask me all the questions you want if you take me down and arrest me.
Abercrombie: I'm not gonna arrest you, Mrs. Hayes. I got nothing to arrest you for.
Mildred Hayes: Not yet you ain't...

Willoughby: I got cancer. I'm dying.
Mildred Hayes: I know it.
Willoughby: Huh?
Mildred Hayes: I know it. Most everybody in town knows it.
Willoughby: [confused] And you still put up those billboards?
Mildred Hayes: Well, they wouldn't be as effective after you croak, right?


Mildred Hayes: Hey, Dixon?
Dixon: Yeah?
Mildred Hayes: I need to tell you something... It was me that burned down the police station.
Dixon: Well, who the hell else would it have been?
Wow. A gem of a selection that I too am surprised lasted this long.
 

Mr. S£im Citrus

Doryphore of KingsFans.com
Staff member
"N" is for:












CaptaiN Marvel (2019)

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4154664/

Directors: Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck
Writers: Anna Boden, Ryan Fleck and Geneva Robertson-Dworet
Score: Pinar Toprak
Cast: Brie Larson, Samuel L. Jackson, Jude Law, Lashana Lynch, Ben Mendelsohn
Genre(s): Sci-Fi, Adventure
Run time: 2 hours 3 minutes


IMDb summary: Carol Danvers becomes one of the universe's most powerful heroes when Earth is caught in the middle of a galactic war between two alien races.

I have long been fascinated with the character of Carol Danvers, so I was very much looking forward to this movie, and I was pleased with the results. The first Marvel Studios movie to feature a female lead, Captain Marvel is a story of self-discovery, as Carol deals with a crisis of identity after landing on earth, following a botched military mission. An unofficial "prequel," the movie is set in the mid-nineties, making it chronologically the second movie in the MCU. I think I remember reading an interview with the Russo Brothers, pointing out that this movie was filmed after Avengers: Endgame, and that they didn't know how Carol would be portrayed in it, or how well the movie would be received, as a way of explaining why she had such a minor role in Endgame.


Nerd Alert, and if you thought I was long-winded with the last one... whew, buddy! Strap in, cause this is a tough read:

The story of how Marvel got the license to the name "Captain Marvel" amuses me. The first Captain Marvel, more commonly known as "Shazam," and occasionally referred to affectionately as "The Big Red Cheese," was created in 1939 by C.C. Beck and Bill Parker, for Fawcett Comics. In 1951, they were sued by National (later DC) Comics, for copyright infringement of their Superman character. Fawcett ultimately settled out of court, and decided to get out of the superhero business, opting to stick to horror, romance, humor and western comics, instead. DC subsequently acquired the rights to Captain Marvel from Fawcett in 1972 but, before then, DC's rival company Atlas Comics (now known as Marvel Comics) created their own Captain Marvel character, and took advantage of a lapse in the trademark to claim it for themselves in 1967. Marvel has kept its Captain Marvel title in rotation pretty much since then, in order to maintain its hold on the trademark.

Carol Danvers is actually the seventh Marvel character to hold the title of Captain Marvel. The first was Mar-Vell, created by Stan Lee and Gene Colan in 1967. After the Kree's first recorded (this will become relevant later) encounter with Earth (depicted in Fantastic Four #64), Kree military officer Mar-Vell was sent to Earth, as a spy. Mar-Vell (who is male in the comics) assumed the identity of a recently deceased Earth scientist named Walter Lawson as a cover identity. This is given a shout out in the movie, by giving Annette Bening's character the cover identity of Wendy Lawson. In a deviation from the movie, Mar-Vell didn't so much realize that he was on the wrong side of the war, as he became sympathetic to Earth, and chose to remain as its defender. Branded a traitor by the Kree, Mar-Vell becomes a significant figure in Marvel Comics as one of Earth's many superpowered champions, until the character's death in 1982 (depicted in Marvel Graphic Novel #1: The Death of Captain Marvel). Mar-Vell's death carries weight in the Marvel Universe, as he is one of the few Marvel characters who has never been brought back from the dead. Even in the handful of storylines where they've teased his resurrection, it's never turned out to be him, in the end.

The second Marvel character to hold the title was Monica Rambeau, created in 1982 by Roger Stern and John Romita, Jr., the adult version of the child (portrayed by Akira Akbar) who appeared in the movie. Although editorial input had her looking significantly different by her debut, John Romita, Jr. has stated in interviews that the original character design was inspired by iconic 70s actress Pam Grier. In the comics, Monica was a lieutenant in the New Orleans harbor patrol, who gained superpowers when exposed to the energy of an extra-dimensional weapon. Monica joined the Avengers, including a brief but generally well-regarded stint where she served as the leader. She temporarily lost her powers during a battle against Leviathan, the Sub-Mariner's then-wife, who had been transformed into a monster. Subsequently, she ceded the title of Captain Marvel to Genis-Vell and, after her powers returned, took up the name Photon. She currently uses the codename Spectrum.

The third Marvel Character to hold the title, Genis-Vell, was created in 1993 by Ron Marz and Ron Lim. Genis is the genetically engineered son of the original Captain Marvel. After his death, Mar-Vell's lover Elysius (a member of the Eternals) decided that she wanted to have a son, and using the advanced technology possessed by the Eternals, impregnated herself with Mar-Vell's DNA. After giving birth, Elysius artificially aged Genis, and implanted false memories into his brain, to make him believe that he'd had a normal childhood. She also falsely led him to believe that he was the son of the Eternal Eros, aka Starfox, who is Thanos' brother in the comics. Originally calling himself Legacy, Genis served as Captain Marvel for a time, before the Cosmic Awareness power that he inherited from his father caused him to go insane. Eventually being cured of his insanity, Genis no longer felt worthy of the name Captain Marvel, and re-christened himself Photon, essentially stealing a codename from Monica Rambeau for the second time.

The fourth Marvel character to hold the title was Phyla-Vell, created in 2003 by Peter David and Paul Azaceta. During the time in which Genis-Vell was insane, he destroyed the main Marvel Universe, and created a new, virtually identical one in its place, one in which he had a younger sister, Phyla. After helping cure her brother's insanity, she acquires the cosmic weapons known as the Quantum Bands, during the comic crossover storyline "Annihilation" (pertinent events collected in Volume 3 of Annihilation ISBN 0-7851-2513-2), and becomes the second Marvel superhero known as Quasar. Her tenure as Captain Marvel is very brief, and generally nondescript.

The fifth Marvel character to hold the title was Khn'nr, who was, in fact, a Skrull impostor, created by Paul Jenkins and Tom Raney in 2007. Khn'nr was sent by the Skrull Empire to Earth as a sleeper agent, in an attempt to convince the deceased Mar-Vell's Earth allies that he had come back to life. However, the mental conditioning that the Skrulls used to secure his deep cover identity was botched, and Khn'nr's personality was erased, causing him to believe that he really was Mar-Vell. Khn'nr was killed defending Earth during the comic crossover storyline "Secret Invasion" (pertinent events collected in Captain Marvel: Secret Invasion ISBN 0-7851-3303-8).

Noh-Varr is the sixth Marvel character to hold the title, created by Grant Morrison and J.G. Jones in 2000. Originally appearing as an Ensign in the Kree military of an alternate reality, the ship that Noh-Varr is stationed on is destroyed by Doctor Midas, who was attempting to give himself superpowers by absorption of cosmic rays, and Noh-Varr found himself in the main Marvel Universe. After defeating Doctor Midas, Noh-Varr is himself captured on Earth, by agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., and incarcerated. Freed from his prison during the "Secret Invasion" storyline, Noh-Varr encounters the dying Khn'nr, and is inspired by him to take up the Captain Marvel mantle, fighting alongside Earth, against the Skrull invasion (pertinent events collected in Secret Invasion ISBN 0-7851-3297-X). Noh-Varr, as Captain Marvel, joins the "Dark Avengers," the team that was assigned to the believed-reformed Norman Osborn, after the original Avengers were disbanded, following the "Secret Invasion" storyline. Noh-Varr himself quits Osborn's Dark Avengers after learning that everybody on the team except him was a criminal pretending to be a hero, and abandons the Captain Marvel title, eventually changing his name to Protector (pertinent events collected in Volume 1: Dark Avengers Assemble ISBN 0-7851-3851-X). Noh-Varr is currently a member of the current comics iteration of the Guardians of the Galaxy, along with Phyla-Vell.

Carol Danvers is the seventh and current Marvel character to hold the title Captain Marvel, despite being the second of these characters to be created. She debuted in 1968, and was created by Roy Thomas and Gene Colan, the latter being co-creator of Marvel's original Captain Marvel. Carol first appears as an United States Air Force officer, and the chief of security of a restricted military base, where Mar-Vell is operating undercover as Walter Lawson. Carol was caught in the explosion of a Kree device, that caused her to develop superpowers, as well as a split personality. In the comics version of her origin, the Kree device has nothing to do with the Tesseract/Space Stone. In later comics, it is revealed that the reason Carol acquired powers from the Kree device is because she is half-Kree, herself. Her mother Mary (whose real name is revealed to be Mari-Ell) is sent to Earth decades before Mar-Vell, as a spy, but fell in love with a widowed father, Joe Danvers, Sr. Mari-Ell marries Joe, becomes step-mother to his two sons, Joe Jr. and Stevie, and gives birth to Carol.

Carol is not seen in Marvel Comics for several years after the explosion, until starring in her own title, as the costumed superhero Ms. Marvel, created by Gerry Conway and John Buscema in 1977. By this point, she has separated from the Air Force, and is working as the editor of Women Magazine, a spin-off of the Daily Bugle. Because of the nature of her split personality, Carol has no knowledge or memory of any of her activities as a superhero; she simply had gaps in her memory that she could not explain, whenever she was acting as Ms. Marvel. Carol was serving as a member of the Avengers when some... things happened to her, that I'd rather not get into, in 1980... let's just say that she was involved in a very unfortunate storyline. The unfortunate storyline was somewhat mitigated when legendary X-Men writer Chris Claremont took over the character, and wrote the story in Avengers Annual #10, where Rogue, then a villain, attacks Carol and steals her powers and memories, granting Rogue most of the abilities that she is depicted as possessing for most of her comic book history, as well as in the beloved 90s X-Men animated series. Carol then becomes an associate of the X-Men, gaining an all-new power set during a comic storyline involving recurring X-Men adversaries the Brood. Renaming herself Binary, Carol spends most of the remainder of the 1980s having adventures in space. During the Avengers storyline "Operation Galactic Storm," Carol loses her Binary powers while saving Earth, but regains her original Ms. Marvel powers. Renaming herself Warbird, she rejoins the Avengers, but develops alcoholism while trying to cope with the depression brought about by losing her powers and memories for the second time, and finds herself suspended from the team for conduct unbecoming. She was reinstated to help the Avengers during the "Kang Dynasty" storyline, but quits along with most of the then-serving Avengers during the 2004 "Avengers Disassembled" storyline.

Carol becomes Captain Marvel for the first time during the comic crossover storyline "House of M," in which Scarlet Witch uses her powers to alter the fabric of reality in the main Marvel Universe, creating an alternate reality. In the alternate reality, Carol, as Captain Marvel, is considered Earth's greatest hero, and adored by the public. Carol is one of the few heroes to retain her memories after the original reality is restored, and returns to the Ms. Marvel identity, but resolves to seek to reach her full potential. She quits the Avengers again, following the "Secret Invasion" storyline, and abandons the Ms. Marvel title after she refuses to serve under Norman Osborn; the title is then given to supervillain Karla Sofen, aka Moonstone, who had also previously pretended to be the superhero Meteorite, as a member of the Thunderbolts. Carol finally permanently assumes the mantle of Captain Marvel in 2012, in a self-titled series written and drawn by Kelly Sue DeConnick and Dexter Soy, respectively.

The power set possessed by Carol in the movies most closely resembles her powers as Binary, albeit from a different power source.


As an aside, I felt it was noteworthy to point out that Captain Marvel is one of only three movies in the Infinity Saga (alongside the previously drafted Captain America: The Winter Soldier and [REDACTED]) lacking any romantic entanglements (Unless, of course, you ship Carol and Maria, which, I won't be mad at that, at all). As a pure origin story, Captain Marvel is my second-favorite superhero movie of all time and, as a comic book movie in general, it's in my Top 5 (and it ain't 5).

One of my favorite scenes from the movie, which I like to refer to as, "If 'DEBATE ME' was a person."

 
Dropping in for a quick thank you to all of those sending well-wishes my way. I sincerely appreciate it. This year is proving to be a challenge for most of us. But I do wish that 2020 would pump the brakes... even just a little bit.
 
V = A History of Violence (2005) - R



David Cronenberg made an early living upping the psychological stakes with visceral horror flicks. In A History of Violence he uses the whisper of a family man working in a diner with a wife and son at home and the thunder of a life and death event. Tom Stall is forced to protect his coworkers from a vicious, violent threat as two mobsters attempt to assault and rob the diner. As Tom successfuly stops the violence with violence of his own he recieves accolades following his heroism. Unfortunately, this brings more undue attention from a past that is catching up with him...

Link #1
Link #2
Link #3

Quotes:
Tom Stall: In this family, we do not solve our problems by hitting people!
Jack: No, in this family, we shoot them![Tom slaps Jack, who walks away, visibly upset]

[Mr. Fogarty tells Edie that her husband's real name is Joey Cusack]
Edie: My husband does not know you. He wouldn't know you, somebody like you.
Carl: Oh, he knows Carl Fogarty, all right. He knows me intimately. See?
[Mr. Fogarty points to his blind left eye]
Carl: This isn't a completely dead eye. It still works a bit. The problem is, the only thing I can see with it is Joey Cusack. And it can see right through him. Right through your husband, Edie. I see what's inside him, what makes him tick. He's still the same guy.
Edie: No.
Carl: He's still crazy ****in' Joey. And you know it, don't you?
Edie: I know that my husband is Tom Stall. That's what I know.

Edie: What is it? Huh?
Tom: I remember the moment I knew you were in love with me. I saw it in your eyes. I can still see it.
Edie: Of course you can. I still love you.
Tom: I'm the luckiest son-of-a-***** alive.
Edie: You are the best man I've ever known. There is no luck involved.

[Tom gets a phone call in the middle of the night]
Tom: Hello?
Richie: [voice] Hey, Bro-heem. You're still pretty good with the killing. That's exciting.
Tom: Richie?
Richie: [chuckles; voice] Yeah, it's Richie. What do you say, Joey? Are you going to come see me? Or do I have to come see you?

Jack: So, what am I supposed to call you now?
Tom: You're supposed to call me Dad. That's what I am... your Dad.
Jack: Are you really? So, you're some kind of closeted mobster... Dad? I mean, if I go rob Mr. Millikan's drug store, will you ground me if I don't give you a piece of the action? What, Dad? You tell me.
Tom Stall: Please, son. Don't...
Jack Stall: Tell me. If I talk to Sam about you, will you have me whacked?

Edie: So... you didn't grow up in Portland. And you never talk about your adopted parents because you don't have any! And our name... Jesus Christ, my name. Jack's name. Sarah's name? Stall? Tom Stall? Did you just make that up? Where did that name come from?
Tom: I mean... It was available.
Edie: Yeah. I guess I was available, too.

[Richie tells Joey about the first day Joey came home as a baby]
Richie: You always were a problem for me, Joey. When mom brought you home from the hospital, I tried to strangle you in your crib. I guess all kids try to do that. She caught me, whacked the daylights out of me.
Tom: I've heard that story.
Richie: Well, what do you think? Better late than never?
Tom: Richie... I'm here to make peace. Tell me what I got to do to make things right.
Richie: You could do something, I guess.
Richie: [Richie pauses as Ruben reaches into his sleeve behind Joey] You could die, Joey.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0399146/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0
 
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Capt. Factorial

trifolium contra tempestatem subrigere certum est
Staff member
V = A History of Violence (2005) - R
Well, huh. I actually set that to DVR about six months ago, but something must have gone wrong because I never watched it and it certainly hasn't been on the recorded list in the last several months - not sure it ever showed up at all. And then I plum forgot all about it. I'll make sure to search for it again...
 

bajaden

Hall of Famer
V = Valley of the Saints: This is a foreign language film with subtitles. It's also a beautiful film set in Dar Lake Srinagar in the Kashmir. It takes us into a world seldom seen. It's a love story between two friends, and a mysterious new woman, set against the border conflict between India and Pakistan.

War and poverty force Gulzar, a young tourist boatman (shikarawala) at Dal Lake,[1] to run away from Kashmir with his best friend. But a military crackdown derails their escape, and they become trapped in Gulzar's lake village. Waiting for conditions to change, they discover a mysterious woman, Asifa, a scientist braving the curfew to research pollution levels in the lake. As Gulzar falls for her, rivalry and jealousy threaten his boyhood friendship and their plans of escape. Gulzar must choose between a new life and a new love. The first film set in the endangered lake communities of Kashmir, Valley of Saints blends fiction and documentary to bring audiences inside this unique world.