Movies Seen

And Starring Pancho Villa as Himself
True story. Pancho Villa had himself filmed to sell his revolution to the public. They picked the actor well for Pancho Villa. Antonio Banderas could portray the visceral magnetism of the man, and yet make him the slightly repulsive warmonger he was as well.


Family Fundamentals
Can't say much, I only half paid attention while I did other stuff. The Christian Fundamentalists rejected their homosexual children and mentees. We knew that. It's horrible. It was brave of these people to tell their stories. The fundies think homosexuality is an addiction. That's how they reconcile their love with their hateful actions.



Monster's Ball
One of those movies I can admire for its artistry, but not really like it.


The Toilers and the Wayfarers
This movie is gay gay gay. By that I mean it is an indie film in black and white whose audience is intended to be gay men. It's a coming of age movie, but in some cases the scenes play more like a fantasy of a coming of age than the real thing. Young men cracking open a beer while they pack for moving. Young man getting spanked by Daddy. Arresting officer sends flirty vibes even as he tells the naughty kid that he's going to hate it in juvie. Blond German with muscles framed in soft light. It was a winner at the Milan Gay and Lesbian Film Festival.

Weeds Season 1
Eh, I'll watch more as I can get them from the library...but I'm not hooked on it like I am HBO shows, like Big Love. Suburban mom deals pot to get by. I couldn't get into the suburban angst thing, not like with Desparate Housewives.

Now and Then
Eh. I think I saw it a long time ago and wasn't much impressed. This time either...I thought I'd see it again cuz Rosie fans seem to like it. Maybe I'm just not in the mood for the suburban mom thing lately, or the girlfriends unite thing.

Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants
OK this girlfriends unite thing I liked, a girls coming of age movie. I'm one of those people that doesn't have friends that go back to childhood. An occasional holiday card, no wish to see them on visits home. It's kind of foreign to me. I like this series of books, and they did well with the movie.

Half Nelson <--that link is to the official site...beware the automatic music.
This was one of those I wanted to see from IFC's Spirit Awards show. In the spirit of indie films, this one resists the usual Hollywood urge to paint the crack-head teacher as evil, the local drug dealer as evil, and the girl who has these people in her life for role models as doomed. The ending is neither feel-good or tragic. Through the slats of the grinding pain of their inner-city lives, you can see the beauty and fragile balance a genuine friendship can bring to their lives.

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
I was happy to watch this with Steve. He's been working soooo much and we've had little time together for such mundane things as movies. He liked the talking beavers. Me too. I also liked the talking fox. We lamented the beavers not getting any knightships or such at the end. If anything, it is a beautiful movie to watch: Narnia has incredible vistas. For some reason I found the wardrobe scenes compelling, that transition from fur coats to evergreen branches really set the scene for the movement from English country home to the wilds of Narnia.

It was interesting also because both of us read the books when we were kids, but don't really remember much of anything now. That distant familiarity made it satisfying for me, somehow making the movie more intimate. Otherwise I'm not sure the actors would have made me feel that way. When I was a kid the whole idea of Aslan as a Christ figure went right over my head...but I'd heard about that as an adult and worried that would turn me off. It didn't, particularly because Aslan said "deeper magic" and that kept me happily in the fantasy genre. After seeing this, I just may go back and read the books. Two more Chronicles movies are coming soon, I suppose they want to keep the same four children so must produce quickly before they grow up.