tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-44794766289246187602023-11-16T01:02:27.483-06:00Sounds of CinemaThe blog to southern Minnesota's local source for film music, reviews, and new release information.Nathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15795055565663807265noreply@blogger.comBlogger622125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4479476628924618760.post-39979132366623771582020-05-14T22:39:00.000-05:002020-05-14T22:40:27.191-05:00New Sounds of Cinema WebsiteSounds of Cinema has a brand new website. The address remains the same -- <a href="http://www.soundsofcinema.com/">www.soundsofcinema.com</a> -- and it<span class="cff-text" data-color=""> includes the play lists, features, and reviews from the old site but with a new look that should function across different devices. Most improved is the review archive which gives each review its own page and there is a search function in the banner. </span><br />
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<span class="cff-text" data-color="">The new site also includes a new blog. Old entries have been imported but future blog posts will be made on the new site. </span><span class="cff-text" data-color="">Entries on this blog page will cease at this point. </span> Nathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15795055565663807265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4479476628924618760.post-48808207993177418252020-01-30T23:33:00.001-06:002020-01-30T23:36:40.249-06:00Movies of the Decade: 2010 - 2019Last weekend's episode of Sounds of Cinema featured a countdown of twenty-five movies that defined the past decade from 2010 - 2019. The titles were selected and assembled as a sort of cultural collage
based on how they
reflect the trends in cinema over the past ten years and how their
stories and subjects capture the culture in which we live.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.soundsofcinema.com/features/filmsofthedecade2010/" target="_blank">Go here</a> to read the full list and rationales for each title. Here are some highlights: <br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">First Reformed (2018)</span><br />
The 2000s concluded with a series of shocks to American life including the failed and unending wars in the Middle East and the collapse of the economy in the Great Recession as well as the ongoing threat of climate change. For the first few years of the 2010s there was a sense of hope but by the middle of the decade American life had turned sullen. Driven by angry opinion-makers, an apparently feckless government, divisive social movements, and an economy that served only its top one-percent, as well as the creeping realization that a seemingly unstoppable ecological catastrophe was imminent, the American public grew agitated and hopeless. No film of the 2010s captured that quite like Paul Schrader’s <i>First Reformed</i>. The movie cuts to the core of the disillusionment that characterized so much of American life in the 2010s, specifically the failure of traditional moral authorities who were compromised and even allied with those corrupting our politics and poisoning our environment. This film reflected the sense of helplessness to do anything about that and the rage and despair resulting from it. As the pastor puts it at one point in the movie, the conflict between hope and despair is at the essence of existence and that spiritual struggle was a defining aspect of life in the 2010s. And just like the film’s troubled pastor, Americans are not okay. Our screen-filled existence has put all the world’s problems on display and no one is coming to save us. <i>First Reformed</i> reflects those anxieties back at us with brutal honesty. <br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The Avengers (2012) </span><br />
Superheroes dominated cinema and the culture throughout the 2010s and it was 2012’s <i>The Avengers </i>that solidified the place of the Marvel Cinematic Universe as the franchise of the decade. It wasn’t just a superhero spectacle. By bringing all of these characters together so successfully, the first Avengers team up movie reconfigured what Hollywood franchises could be. At the time, <i>The Avengers </i>was regarded as a work of unprecedented ambition in the way it interpolated characters of different storylines into a single film. Looking at the 2012 movie now, post-<i>Endgame</i>, the Avengers’ first team-up movie is almost quaint. But the success of <i>The Avengers</i> is all the more remarkable in light how many other attempts to launch a similar cinematic universe failed. <i>The Avengers</i> is also representative of the decade’s obsession with apocalypse. Spectacle movies of this decade repeatedly threatened Earth’s existence, be it by natural disaster or alien invasion, and both<i> Fahrenheit 11/</i>9 and <i>2016: Obama’s America</i> predicted the end of the republic if the wrong candidate got elected. These films visualized our anxieties about social and environmental collapse while also reassuring us that someone—a superhero—would show up at the last minute and restore order and save us. That implicit message, that an elite savior was on the way, is at the heart of the superhero genre. That idea is also reflected in the hopes that were invested in figures like Barack Obama and Donald Trump and the passions that drove their supporters. <span style="font-size: small;"> </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">God's Not Dead (2014) </span><br />
In the early years of the decade, theaters transitioned from showing movies on physical celluloid to digital projection. This change was made on behalf of the major Hollywood studios in part because they believed 3-D was the future of movie going. Things didn’t quite work out that way but digital exhibition cut distribution costs and theatrical showings were suddenly affordable to independent filmmakers. Concurrent to digital distribution was the rise of “demand” services in which moviegoers could petition their local theater to show particular movies. Faith-based production houses seized the opportunity afforded by these disruptions to the theatrical industry and religious pictures poured into theaters throughout the decade. Among the most successful of these films was 2014’s <i>God’s Not Dead</i>. Unfortunately, <i>God’s Not Dead</i> was also indicative of a lot of the faith based genre as it engaged in anti-intellectualism, religious tribalism, and straw man arguments. Nevertheless, these movies were very successful and Hollywood studios eventually produced their own religious films with Sony even opening its own faith-based label.<br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: small;">
</span><span style="font-size: large;">Sharknado (2013) </span><br />
One of the unexpected cinematic phenomena of the 2010s was the <i>Sharknado </i>series. Originally shown on the SyFy Channel, <i>Sharknado </i>quickly accrued an enthusiastic fan following and each subsequent installment became an event with celebrities trying to get themselves cast in the sequels, among them Donald Trump who vied for the role of President of the United States in <i>Sharknado 3</i> (the role went to Mark Cuban instead). <i>Sharknado </i>also rejuvenated the sharksploitation genre. Throughout the decade an entire library of absurd low budget shark movies flooded home video and late night cable and after <i>Sharknado </i>sharks made their way back to movie theaters with films like <i>The S</i><span style="font-size: small;"><i>hallows</i> and <i>The Meg</i>.<span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">11/8/16 (2017)</span><br />
One of the defining moments of the decade was the 2016 presidential election. The contest pitted Hillary Clinton, a centrist who was a symbol of the political and economic institution, against Donald Trump, an insurgent candidate whose upset victory was a shock to many (including his supporters). The documentary filmmakers of <i>11/8/16</i> followed a range of citizens of different regions, races, socioeconomic backgrounds, and political allegiances as they cast their ballots and reacted to the returns. Some of the film’s subjects comment directly to the camera but for the most part <i>11/8/16 </i>maintains an observational style. This film is an extraordinary document not only of that day but also of America at a moment when political and cultural divides and long simmering tensions that had been dismissed and ignored finally boiled over into something tangible and undeniable.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The Wolf of Wall Street (2013) </span><br />
Much of the early 2010s was spent recovering from the Great Recession that had decimated the economy at the end of the last decade. Filmmakers eventually got around to telling tales about America’s economic woes and throughout the 2010s a whole field of movies that might be called “recession cinema” addressed what happened. For the most part, Hollywood kept its focus on the top of the economic food chain; the recession’s impact on Main Street was of little interest to Hollywood who instead saw the economy from the point of view of Wall Street. One of the clearest examples of this was Martin Scorsese’s <i>The Wolf of Wall Street</i>. Although this wasn’t about the 2008 crash it was nevertheless a part of the recession cinema genre. Jordan Belfort, played gleefully by Leonardo DiCaprio, was a horrible person but the filmmakers couldn’t help but glamourize his excessive lifestyle. That tension between revulsion at this man’s crimes and the attraction to his wealth gets to the core of American identity and why we’ve struggled to identify and deal with what caused the recession in the first place. <br />
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<br />Nathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15795055565663807265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4479476628924618760.post-70885240001732469852020-01-22T21:44:00.000-06:002020-01-22T21:45:38.476-06:00Movies of the Decade on January 26thThe Sounds of Cinema episode airing January 26, 2020 will look back at the movies of 2010 through 2019. Rather than count down the best films of the decade, this show will enumerate twenty-five movies that were the decade. The films have been assembled based on how they reflect the trends in cinema over the past ten years and how the films capture the culture in which we live.<br />
<br />
Sounds of Cinema featured a similar episode ten years ago looking at <a href="http://www.soundsofcinema.com/features/filmsofthedecade/">movies of 2000 - 2009</a>. That list included such diverse titles as <i>The Dark Knight</i>, <i>Fahrenheit 9/11</i>, <i>Gladiator</i>, and Paris Hilton's sex tape. Expect similar eclecticism from the new list.<br />
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Sounds of Cinema airs Sunday morning at 9am on <a href="http://www.kqal.org/" target="_blank">89.5 KQAL FM</a> in Winona, Minnesota and at 11am on <a href="http://www.kmsu.org/" target="_blank">89.7 KMSU FM</a>. Tune in over the air, online at each station's website, or through your mobile device. Nathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15795055565663807265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4479476628924618760.post-57197063578707329572020-01-19T10:00:00.000-06:002020-01-19T10:00:08.536-06:00Best and Worst Films of 2019Today's episode of Sounds of Cinema revealed my picks of the ten
best and worst films of 2019. You can find more, including rationales
for each title and lists of honorable mentions and trends of 2019, <a href="http://www.soundsofcinema.com/features/endofyear/2019/">here</a>.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;">Best Films of 2019 </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">1. Midsommar </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">2. Little Women</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">3. Ad Astra </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">4. Waves</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">5. The Farewell </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">6. Parasite</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">7. Hotel Mumbai </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">8. Uncut Jems</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">9. Avengers Endgame</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">10. The Irishman </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Worst Films of 2019 </span><br />
<ol>
<li><span style="font-size: small;">The Goldfinch</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: small;">Rambo: Last Blood</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: small;">The Haunting of Sharon Tate</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: small;">6 Underground</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: small;">The Dirt </span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: small;">Dark Phoenix</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: small;">Serenity </span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: small;">Replicas</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: small;">The Dead Don't Die </span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: small;">What Men Want </span></li>
</ol>
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
Nathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15795055565663807265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4479476628924618760.post-21139796797663601682020-01-15T20:31:00.004-06:002020-01-15T20:31:45.930-06:00Sounds of Cinema 2019 Wrap Up Coming January 19thThe Sounds of Cinema episode airing Sunday, January 19, 2020 will review the films of the past year and pronounce my picks of the ten best and worst titles of 2019. The program will also feature a look at honorable mentions and great performances. <br />
<br />
Until then, you can <a href="http://www.soundsofcinema.com/features/endofyear/" target="_blank">read the Sounds of Cinema year-end wrap-ups from previous years</a> and check out the best and worst films of 2019 lists from other critics:<br />
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The AV Club: <a href="https://film.avclub.com/the-25-best-films-of-2019-1840420094" target="_blank">The 25 Best Films of 2019</a> <br />
<br />
The AV Club: <a href="https://film.avclub.com/the-20-worst-films-of-2019-1840320154" target="_blank">The 20 Worst Films of 2019</a><br />
<br />
Esquire: <a href="https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/movies/g24561951/best-movies-of-2019/" target="_blank">50 Best Movies of 2019</a><br />
<br />
The Hollywood Reporter: <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/lists/hollywood-reporter-critics-pick-best-films-2019-1261962" target="_blank">The Hollywood Reporter Critics Pick the 10 Best Films of 2019</a> <br />
<br />
The Hollywood Reporter: <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/lists/hollywood-reporter-critics-pick-10-worst-films-2019-1263385" target="_blank">The Hollywood Reporter Critics Pick the 10 Worst Films of 2019</a><br />
<br />
The Guardian: <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/dec/29/mark-kermode-best-films-of-2019" target="_blank">Mark Kermode's Best Films of 2019</a><br />
<br />
NPR: <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/12/19/788660770/nprs-favorite-movies-of-2019" target="_blank">NPR's Favorite Movies of 2019</a><br />
<br />
Rolling Stone: <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/movies/movie-lists/10-best-movies-of-2019-918400/" target="_blank">10 Best Movies of 2019</a><br />
<br />
Rolling Stone: <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/movies/movie-lists/10-worst-movies-of-2019-918405/" target="_blank">10 Worst Movies of 2019</a><br />
<br />
Rotten Tomatoes: <a href="https://editorial.rottentomatoes.com/guide/best-movies-of-2019/" target="_blank">The Best Movies of 2019</a><br />
<br />
Slate: <a href="https://slate.com/culture/2019/12/best-movies-2019-and-top-10-decade.html" target="_blank">The Best Movies of 2019</a> <br />
<br />
Time: <a href="https://time.com/5737103/best-movies-2019/" target="_blank">The 10 Best Movies of 2019</a><br />
<br />
Variety: <a href="https://variety.com/feature/best-films-2019-joker-irishman-toy-story-4-1203423630/" target="_blank">Best Films of 2019 </a> <br />
<br />
Variety: <a href="https://variety.com/2019/film/opinion/worst-films-2019-yesterday-dumbo-glass-rocketman-1203427084/" target="_blank">Worst Films of 2019 </a><br />
<br />Nathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15795055565663807265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4479476628924618760.post-62258651426440189402019-12-31T14:00:00.002-06:002019-12-31T14:00:09.586-06:00Sounds of Cinema's Best Movies of 2010 - 2019Each January, Sounds of Cinema features<a href="http://www.soundsofcinema.com/features/endofyear/" target="_blank"> a recap of the previous year</a>, including countdowns of the best and worst films released in the past twelve months. 2019 concludes this decade so here is a look back at the films selected as the best movie of each year this decade.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>2010: </b>Black Swan</span><br />
<b>Directed by: </b>Darren Aronofsky<br />
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<b>Premise: </b>A dancer (Natalie Portman) descends into paranoia and madness as she buries herself in the lead role of the ballet <i>Swan Lake</i>.<br />
<br />
<b>Why It Made the List:</b> Many of the films this year dealt with the plastic nature of reality, whether it took the form of an imaginary dream state, revelations regarding our biological or sexual identity, or experiencing social relationships on a digital platform. <i>Black Swan </i>represents the pinnacle of this theme in 2010’s crop of films. This is a story working in many dimensions at once, with each of these dimensions intertwined with each other. Firstly, <i>Black Swan</i> is an exploration of the relationship between art and the artist, as the storyline of<i> Swan Lake</i> becomes the storyline of the dancers and their director. While this parallel is fairly obvious, the filmmakers use it to realize a sometimes problematic relationship between our life and the art we create or consume. In <i>Black Swan</i> the distinction between art and life erodes away and from that a new reality emerges. Secondly, <i>Black Swan</i> is a study of ambition and the pursuit of perfection. This is where Natalie Portman’s performance impresses the most, as she embodies a person who has forgone all other needs in the pursuit of perfection. The story of <i>Black Swan</i> puts Portman’s character through an emotional and physical gauntlet; watching the emaciated Portman literally rehearse her body to death and observing how the deterioration of her body occurs in tandem with the collapse of her mind is a frightening and tragic display. Lastly, <i>Black Swan</i> is a tale of lust, jealousy and sexual awakening. The commitment that Portman’s character makes to her art is all consuming, restricting her own emotional development, which has the ironic effect of limiting her ability as an artist because she is unfamiliar with her own feelings and desires. As Portman’s ballerina immerses herself in the role, she is transformed by her art physically but also emotionally, spiritually, and intellectually and by the time the curtain falls on her final performance,<i> Black Swan</i> takes her and the audience to places of great beauty and great horror.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>2011: </b>Margin Call</span> <br />
<b>Directed by: </b>J.C. Chandor<br />
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<b>Premise: </b>Set at the beginning of the 2008 financial crisis, risk analysts and executives at a major investment bank realize that the firm is headed for a collapse and try to find a solution.<br />
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<b>Why It Made the List:</b> One of the recent trends in movies over the past few years has been the subgenre of recession cinema. Some of these pictures deal with the experiences of those losing jobs or homes, such as <i>Up in the Air</i>, while others dramatize the actions of major players in the political and financial world. <i>Margin Call </i>fits into the latter category and even though it is entirely fictionalized, this picture succeeds in ways that similar films like <i>Too Big To Fail</i> or <i>Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps</i> fell short. Although <i>Margin Call</i> is not as in depth as those films in terms of the financial details, <i>Margin Call</i> does its job as a dramatization far more effectively. (The kinds of economic and political details that some critics may wrongfully demand from a film like this are much better addressed in the documentary form, and have been in <i>Inside Job</i> and <i>Client 9</i>.) A dramatization of something as academic and mathematical as the 2008 financial collapse must be about the human issues and <i>Margin Call</i> does exactly that. The film presents a group of characters at various levels of the bank’s hierarchy, from risk analysts up to the bank president, and within the twenty-four hours in which the story takes place these people are confronted with serious ethical challenges in which issues like greed, ambition, integrity, and loyalty come into play. This comes out especially well through the characters played by Kevin Spacey and Jeremy Irons. Spacey's character realizes the ethical implications of all this while Irons' CEO, in what is an extraordinary performance, embodies corporate survivalism and will sink his customers and even the whole economy in order to save the firm. <i>Margin Call</i> is ultimately about the relationship between individuals and financial institutions, and the arbitrary way those individuals might be rewarded or destroyed based on little more than circumstance. The film's layered and sophisticated portrait of corporate culture and its intelligent and complex ethical subtext makes <i>Margin Call</i> one of the most impressive films about capitalism in the post-TARP era and the best film of 2011.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>2012: </b>Samsara</span><br />
<b>Directed by: </b>Ron Fricke<br />
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<b>Premise: </b>A non-narrative documentary that cross-cuts people and locations across the globe, drawing broad parallels and suggesting that human civilization is trapped in a vicious cycle.<br />
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<b>Why It Made the List:</b> Of the cinema of 2012, one of the predominant trends was the epic. Blockbusters like <i>The Hobbit</i>,<i> The Avengers</i>, <i>The Dark Knight Rises</i>, and <i>Breaking Dawn Part 2</i> had grand scope and large casts but they often fell short of their ambitions because the movies were trying to tell narrow stories on a broad palate. That is the conundrum of epic filmmaking; the bigger the scope, the duller the details. This highlights the achievement of <i>Samsara</i>. It is a film that is truly epic in its breadth and ambition but it works because the filmmakers untether themselves from the constraints of mainstream narrative moviemaking. The title of <i>Samsara </i>refers to a term in Buddhism meaning “circle” or “wheel” in which people are stuck in an endless cycle of ignorance. The filmmakers of <i>Samsara </i>have set about trying to illustrate that on a worldwide scale and in large measure they succeed. Filmed all over the globe and juxtaposing imagery of geography, architecture and industry to a slow, meditative score, <i>Samsara </i>has a panoramic view of space and time. The collage of images draws broad and provocative connections between places and peoples and the juxtapositions of the images and what they suggest—both individually and collectively—make this a challenging picture. But the challenging qualities of <i>Samsara </i>are precisely what distinguish it. Contemporary audiences have been conditioned to expect cinema to conform to a narrow narrative style with hyperkinetic camera movement and rapid edits. The filmmakers of <i>Samsara </i>challenge their audience by holding shots for lengthy periods of screen time, forcing viewers to study the images and consider their meaning. This picture demands attention in a way that mainstream cinema does not and what <i>Samsara </i>suggests about humanity is as challenging and engaging as its non-narrative form. <i>Samsara </i>is the kind of film that warrants multiple viewings but that ultimately speaks to why this film is so powerful. A truly epic piece of cinema ought to be so broad that it requires multiple passes by the viewer. In a culture that traffics in fragments and sound bites of artificial outrage and commoditized desire and in which so much of what is created is rapidly consumed and discarded, the patience and pensiveness of <i>Samsara </i>is a radical act. This film may not be suited for mediocre mainstream interests but it is a stunning piece of work whose ambition, intelligence, and skill are unparalleled in any other film of 2012.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>2013: </b>12 Years a Slave</span><br />
<b>Directed by:</b> Steve McQueen<br />
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<b>Premise: </b>Based on the true story of Solomon Northup (Chiwetel Ejiofor). Set before the Civil War, a free African American is abducted in New York and sold into slavery.<br />
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<b>Why It Made the List: </b>Despite the central place that slavery has in American history and in the history of Western civilization itself, the topic has not been dealt with very frequently in mainstream or independent films. <i>12 Years a Slave</i> portrays that history on screen and does it in a way that acknowledges its horror and inhumanity while also capturing the human element of the people involved on both sides of the lash. When dealing with topics like slavery there is a tendency to oversimplify or ignore the interplay of institutional and personal responsibility but <i>12 Years a Slave </i>deals with the subject in a sophisticated way. This isn’t just a movie about a bygone era; it is about how participating in a system of exploitation corrupts everyone and everything attached to it and that comes through in the central performances. Chiwetel Ejiofor plays Solomon Northup and Ejiofor does not give himself over to the kind of theatrics usually found in a historical picture. Instead, the filmmakers allow the conflict of hope and despair to play quietly across Ejiofor's face. In a supporting role, but making nearly as strong of an impression, is actress Lupita Nyong'o as female slave Patsey. Nyong'o plays a character who is pushed to the very limit and her struggle to maintain her humanity makes Nyong'o's scenes some of the most heartbreaking of the picture. <i>12 Years a Slave</i> also features Michael Fassbender and Sarah Paulson as a married couple who run a plantation. As malevolent as the characters can be, their evil is palatable; the couple has a human frailty that is distinctly different from most movie villains. This complex portrayal of human suffering perpetuated by individuals and sustained by social and economic systems is a challenge to the way we think about our past but illuminates how we think about the inhumanities of the present. The best pieces of historical filmmaking bring viewers closer to history and <i>12 Years a Slave</i> allows that connection while finding human dignity in a very dark place.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>2014: </b>Boyhood</span><br />
<b>Directed by:</b> Richard Linklater<br />
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<b>Premise: </b>The story of a boy (Ellar Coltrane), following his life from age five to eighteen.<br />
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<b>Why It Made the List: </b> A lot has been written about <i>Boyhood </i>since it opened in the summer of 2014 and much of that has focused on the way in which the movie was made. In short, the cast and crew convened about once a year for eleven years and segments of the movie were filmed a piece at a time. While that is a creative way of going about a film production, this unusual schedule is not what makes <i>Boyhood </i>a notable film. Motion pictures have to be judged by what is on the screen, not the behind the scenes wrangling, and it’s the content of the movie that really makes <i>Boyhood</i> extraordinary. Filmmaker Richard Linklater has managed to distill the formative years of a young man’s life into 165 minutes and constructed a fascinating portrait of adolescence and family life. While <i>Boyhood </i>has a story, the narrative is presented as a loosely associated collection of scenes. Normally that would be a detriment to the picture but because of its cinema verite style, the filmmakers are able to get away from the trappings of plot and in the process reveal something subversive about storytelling. Most narratives, whether on the screen or on the page, are tidy and unified and everything has a purpose and all events lead toward a conclusion. That cohesion is both aesthetically and psychologically satisfying but it isn’t true. Life is much more haphazard than that and <i>Boyhood </i>visualizes that chaotic quality of life. This is most apparent in the final scene in which the boy has become a man and he looks out into a future that is full of both uncertainty and possibility. This is why <i>Boyhood </i>is an extraordinary film. It captures something ephemeral but essential about life and the picture has a mysterious profundity about it. It’s that covertly stated truth that makes <i>Boyhood </i>the best film of 2014.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>2015:</b> Room</span><br />
<b>Directed by: </b>Lenny Abrahamson<br />
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<b>Premise:</b> A woman and her son have been held captive for years in a backyard shed. When the boy turns five they plot an escape.<br />
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<b>Why It Made the List:</b> Really great movies have the ability to shift our perspective of ourselves and the world. <i>Room </i>is a satisfying story of imprisonment and escape and even if that’s all it was, the movie would give viewers their money’s worth. But <i>Room </i>goes well beyond that and it reaches the audience on both conscious and subconscious levels. This story taps into the primal territory of parent-child relationships. There is no understating the impact of the performances by Brie Larson and Jacob Tremblay as mother and son. These actors have a natural rapport and despite the strangeness of their situation there is something instantly and profoundly recognizable about them. That’s especially true of the noble lies that the mother tells her son to cope with their predicament. When the truth is finally revealed, the hurt of the mother and the shock in the boy is palatable. That’s the other remarkable aspect of <i>Room</i>: the way it shakes up our sense of reality. We, like the boy of this movie, go through life accepting what we experience as the truth of reality. This boy’s discovery of a bigger world is so profound because it acts out the process of disillusionment that we all go through as a matter of life. But <i>Room </i>complicates this further still with the mother’s struggle with freedom in the film’s second half. Without making any overtures to pretention, <i>Room </i>mixes an immediate drama of survival with philosophical complexity and it is one of those rare movies that we come out of seeing the world differently. That makes <i>Room </i>the best movie of 2015.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>2016: </b>Eye in the Sky</span><br />
<b>Directed by: </b>Gavin Hood<br />
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<b>Premise:</b> British and American military forces and political officials coordinate a drone strike in Kenya. When a little girl occupies the kill zone, the soldiers and politicians debate whether or not to go through with the mission.<br />
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<b>Why It Made the List:</b> Despite Hollywood’s reputation as a den of liberalism, motion pictures and militarism have frequently gone hand-in-hand. From <i>Objective, Burma!</i> to <i>Top Gun</i> to <i>Black Hawk Down</i>, Hollywood has been the greatest champion of American military might. <i>Eye in the Sky</i> is quite different. For one thing, this movie presents warfare as an act of cooperation and negotiation as American service people in Nevada remote pilot a drone in Kenya while taking orders from British military officers in the UK. This is a different kind of warfare and it requires different rules of engagement. In so many films, violence is a foregone conclusion but <i>Eye in the Sky</i> weighs the legal consequences and the moral and strategic implications of the drone strike. And that leads to another unusual aspect of this film. Whereas many Hollywood war pictures regard civilian input and bureaucracy as an obstruction, <i>Eye in the Sky</i> gives the opinions of politicians and civilian officials equal consideration with those wearing a uniform. The film is a web of contrary opinions and<i> Eye in the Sky</i> raises difficult questions that do not have simplistic answers. But <i>Eye in the Sky</i> doesn’t hide behind the complexity either. Choices must be made and responsibility must be assumed. The filmmakers of <i>Eye in the Sky </i>embrace the complexity of the situation and find the drama in the moral stakes of both action and inaction. <i>Eye in the Sky</i> is a riveting motion picture that redefines the war film and it is an essential entry in the genre of post-9/11 cinema.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>2017: </b>The Florida Project</span><br />
<b>Directed by: </b>Sean Baker<br />
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<b>Premise: </b>A single mother and her six year old daughter live in a pay-by-the-week motel located in Orlando, Florida. The daughter spends her days roaming the local grounds and getting into mischief while her mother attempts to make ends meet.<br />
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<b>Why It Made the List: </b>Hollywood is a dream factory. The stories told on the screen allow us to experience fantasies of heroism, heartache, and virtue. Even the independent scene generally adheres to that principle. There’s certainly a place for escapist entertainment but a lot of American cinema is propaganda for the good life and reinforces the myths of prosperity and American exceptionalism. Sean Baker’s <i>The Florida Project</i> takes place on the cusp between fantasy and reality. The movie follows the impoverished residents of a cheap Florida motel where Walt Disney World—the icon of American fantasy—looms in the background. The tourist mecca of Orlando becomes the ironic backdrop for <i>The Florida Project</i>’s unsparing portrait of life on the margins. The residents of the motel tread just above homelessness and struggle to survive. But what could be a slog through economic deprivation takes on a light and even whimsical tone because it unfolds from the point of view of its child characters. They are mostly oblivious to their circumstances and that creates a fascinating tension between the audience’s horror at what they are seeing and what is normal in these people’s lives. <i>The Florida Project</i> has some extraordinary performances, in particular Brooklynn Prince as six year-old Moonee and Bria Vinaite as her mother Halley. Just as Hollywood movies spin fantasies of glamour and heroism they are also populated with characters who are upstanding and well groomed. The residents of <i>The Florida Project</i> are candidates for daytime tabloid talk shows, people who are usually ignored or discounted as trash, and yet the filmmakers find the humanity in these people even while they make bad choices. And while doing all of this, the filmmakers are neither pretentious nor self-congratulatory. The images—many of them capturing ugliness in a beautiful way—speak for themselves. <i>The Florida Project</i> is quietly profound, honest, and subversive. It’s a movie that tells the truth about American life that so much of our mainstream media diet obfuscates. That, and the excellence with which it is made, qualifies <i>The Florida Project</i> as the best film of 2017.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>2018: </b>If Beale Street Could Talk</span><br />
<b>Directed by: </b>Barry Jenkins<br />
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<b>Premise: </b>Based on the novel by James Baldwin. Set in 1970s Harlem, a young African American woman (KiKi Layne) becomes pregnant and the father of her child (Stephan James) is imprisoned. She tries to prove his innocence.<br />
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<b>Why It Made the List:</b> There were a lot of activist films released in 2018. Pictures such as <i>The Hate U Give</i> and <i>Blindspotting </i>and <i>The First Purge</i> channeled the culture’s anxieties and visualized them on the silver screen. <i>If Beale Street Could Talk</i> was less confrontational than those films but it was no less political and in fact it was far more effective than any of its contemporaries. This film put its story and filmmaking craft first and <i>If Beale Street Could Talk</i> uses the strengths of cinema to make its point. As Roger Ebert was fond of saying, cinema has the capacity to inspire empathy. It places the audience in another person’s point of view in a way that is immediate and immersive.<i> If Beale Street Could Talk</i> does exactly that. It makes the viewer a witness to the lives of Tish and Fonny, a young African American couple played by KiKi Layne and Stephan James, and it affirms their humanity through their love story and the struggles they must overcome to remain together. This film is about a couple hanging onto each other when the world seems bent upon tearing them apart and that’s where the politics of this film are found. <i>If Beale Street Could Talk</i> is about the African American experience and specifically the presumption of guilt that mainstream white culture casts on young black men. The political impact of <i>If Beale Street Could Talk</i> is in the contrast between that expectation and the humanity of the characters. Everything in this film is concentrated around the idea of empathy. The cinematography is natural and yet stylized, using shadows and colors to give scenes a specific emotional temperature and the people and places possess a visual texture that invites us to truly feel the images. The music score by Nicholas Britell works in concert with those images, underscoring the subtext but without beating us over the head with it. The narrative also works this way, taking us backward and forward on the timeline and juxtaposing better and worse times in the couple’s lives, colliding the expectations and hopes of their past with the realities and compromises of their future. All those elements cohere in a movie that is quietly subversive, deeply impactful, and stubbornly humane. It’s a delicate balance of skillful storytelling, political insight, and cinematic craftsmanship that makes <i>If Beale Street Could Talk</i> the best film of 2018.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">2019: To Be Determined </span><br />
There have been many great movies released in 2019 such as <i>Ad Astra</i>, <i>The Farewell</i>, <i>Midsommer</i>, and <i>Waves </i>among others. This Sounds of Cinema picks for the best and worst titles of 2019 will be announced on the episode scheduled for <b>January 19, 2020</b>.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Worst Films</span><br />
Here are the worst films from each year this decade:<br />
<ul>
<li>2010: <i>The Last Airbender</i></li>
<li>2011: <i>Jack and Jill </i></li>
<li>2012: <i>Project X</i></li>
<li>2013: <i>A Good Day to Die Hard</i> </li>
<li>2014: <i>America: Imagine the World Without Her</i></li>
<li>2015: <i>Aloha</i> <i> </i></li>
<li>2016: <i>Bad Santa 2</i></li>
<li>2017: <i>A Cure for Wellness </i></li>
<li>2018: <i>Acrimony</i> </li>
<li>2019: To Be Determined</li>
</ul>
You can find full end of the year summaries including lists and rationales for the best and worst movies of each year <a href="http://www.soundsofcinema.com/features/endofyear/" target="_blank">here</a>. <br />
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Nathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15795055565663807265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4479476628924618760.post-54224283473999047352019-12-22T10:00:00.000-06:002019-12-22T10:00:07.020-06:00A Look at Christmas Horror FilmsToday’s episode of Sounds of Cinema featured a look at Christmas horror films. The season is usually associated with sugary feel-good pictures but there are quite a few films about holiday terror. Here are the films discussed on the show as well as a few other titles.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Krampus (2015)</span><br />
For whatever reason, there has been a resurgence of interest in the mythological creature known as Krampus. Popular in the folklore of Eastern Europe, Krampus is the shadow of St. Nicholas and according to the legend he is a demon who punishes naughty children. The 2015 feature <i>Krampus</i> was mix of horror and comedy and one of the best Christmas horror titles in a long time. A lot of direct to DVD imitators followed.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Anna and the Apocalypse (2018)</span><br />
<i>Anna and the Apocalypse</i> was a Christmas-themed zombie film released in 2018. The picture is a musical in which the undead besiege a high school winter talent show. It’s not particularly successful either as a horror film or as a song and dance show but the song “It’s That Time of Year,” performed by Marli Siu, is great. <br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Gremlins (1984)</span><br />
Before Chris Columbus directed <i>Home Alone</i>, he broke out in Hollywood as the author of the screenplay to 1984’s <i>Gremlins</i>. Produced by Steven Spielberg and directed by Joe Dante, <i>Gremlins</i> is an excellent mix of scares and laughs set against the Christmas holiday. The movie was officially rated PG but the intensity and violence of <i>Gremlins</i> led the MPAA to develop the PG-13 rating. <br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)</span><br />
<i>The Nightmare Before Christmas</i> is now one of Disney’s major selling titles, especially around the holidays, and it has been more successfully merchandised than almost any other animated film from the studio. The irony is that <i>The Nightmare Before Christmas</i> was not originally released as a Disney film. Instead, the Tim Burton produced picture was released through Touchstone Pictures because it was deemed too scary to be associated with the Disney brand. It was only after <i>The Nightmare Before Christmas</i> became such a success that it was rebranded as a Disney title. <br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984 – 1991)</span><br />
1984’s <i>Silent Night, Deadly Night</i> is the most infamous Christmas slasher movie. The marketing campaign made it look as though Santa himself was on an ax murdering rampage and this led parental groups to picket theaters. Distributor Tri-Star cancelled the film’s entire run in west coast theaters. The controversy ensured the legacy of a movie that is not very good and would probably have been forgotten. A series of sequels followed although the latter movies had nothing to do with the psycho Santa premise of the original. <i>Silent Night, Deadly Night 2</i> has become as popular as its predecessor because of <a href="https://youtu.be/78sWq2JCauU" target="_blank">the “garbage day” meme</a>. <br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Tales from the Crypt: “All Through the House” (1972/1989)</span><br />
The EC horror comic <i>Tales from the Crypt</i> was the basis for a 1972 anthology movie as well as an HBO television series. Both the feature film and the television show featured versions of the story “All Through the House” about a murderer in a Santa Claus outfit. T<i>he Tales from the Crypt</i> television series was hosted by a ghoulish figure known as the Crypt Keeper and the show and the character became so popular that a <i>Tales from the Crypt</i> Christmas album was released with the Crypt Keeper performing macabre covers of Christmas standards. <br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Don’t Open Till Christmas (1984)</span><br />
One of the seedier entries in the Christmas horror genre as well as one of the most unusual, <i>Don’t Open Till Christmas</i> is about a killer who murdering people dressed as Santa Claus. It’s a grim and nasty serial killer story set on the streets of London and the movie puts a different spin on the killer Santa formula. <br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Black Christmas (1974/2006/2019)</span><br />
Directed by Bob Clark (who would later helm <i>A Christmas Story</i>), the original <i>Black Christmas</i> is one of the early entries in the slasher genre and it is skillfully made and possesses a creepy atmosphere. A gory remake was released in 2006. The remake wasn’t very good but it was bonkers and highly stylized. A third version of <i>Black Christmas</i> was released in 2019 and it wasn’t as scary as either of its predecessors but it did reinvent the material for the Me Too era. <br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Rare Exports (2010)</span><br />
In a rural village in Finland, the locals are spooked by an excavation in nearby mountain range. On Christmas Eve a boy and his father investigate the disappearance of local children and in the process discover the truth about Santa Claus. <i>Rare Exports</i> is a strange Christmas horror film with above average performances and a sense of humor.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Better Watch Out (2016)</span><br />
<i>Better Watch Out</i> begins as a typical stalker scenario in which a babysitter fends off a home invasion during the Christmas season. But the film has a terrific twist that sends the story in different directions. <i>Better Watch Out</i> has interesting characters and nuanced performances especially by Olivia DeJonge and Levi Miller. <br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">A Christmas Carol (2009)</span><br />
There have been a lot of versions of Charles Dickens’ <i>A Christmas Carol</i> starring actors as diverse as Albert Finney and Mickey Mouse and Bill Murray. The 2009 version starred Jim Carrey and was directed by Robert Zemeckis during his motion capture phase. The gothic style and the uncanny valley effect of the animation turn this <i>Christmas Carol</i> into a horror show that is more frightening than some of the films on this list. <br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Christmas Evil [a.k.a. You Better Watch Out] (1980)</span><br />
The best of the killer Claus movies is 1980’s <i>Christmas Evil</i>. This film is distinguished from similar pictures in its intelligence and characterization as well as the way the movie weaves together tragedy and black humor. The protagonist of <i>Christmas Evil</i> is a middle aged man who is consumed by nostalgia. His obsession with Christmas is rooted in an ideal of American life and a preoccupation with innocence that eventually turns violent. <i>Christmas Evil</i> isn’t really a slasher film; it has more in common with <i>Taxi Driver</i> than it does with <i>Silent Night, Deadly Night</i>. This is an excellent picture, one that has been restored in recent years and is finally starting to get the recognition it deserves.<br />
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/t2zPRNgzBrM" width="560"></iframe><br />Nathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15795055565663807265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4479476628924618760.post-25138282699093973412019-12-15T10:00:00.000-06:002019-12-15T10:00:09.085-06:00In Defense of "Worst of the Year" ListsAs the end of the year approaches, film critics publish their yearly reflections on the motion pictures released in the past twelve months. This most frequently takes the form of lists enumerating each critic’s picks of the best and worst films of the year. These lists are inevitably provocative but when <i>Variety</i> critics Peter Debruge and Owen Gleiberman released their lists of <a href="https://variety.com/2019/film/opinion/worst-films-2019-yesterday-dumbo-glass-rocketman-1203427084/" target="_blank">the worst films of 2019</a> the authors were raked over the coals on social media. But the backlash against the <i>Variety</i> critics’ worst of 2019 list didn’t just take exception to their choices. A number of respondents questioned the purpose of worst-of lists at all.<br />
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The pushback against <i>Variety</i>’s worst films of 2019 list was somewhat predicable. These sorts of compilations, whether celebrating the best or condemning the worst, are intended to provoke a reaction. And when revenue is fueled by clicks which in turn are driven by outrage, authors are incentivized to make outrageous or contrarian statements. But the <i>Variety</i> backlash also happens at a time when democratic values are misapplied and used to marginalize expertise. We are in a cultural moment when meaningless slogans like “live your truth” and “let people enjoy things” have become epitaphs and legitimate criticism is dismissed as the work of “haters” and “elitists.” <br />
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Worst of the year lists are a legitimate critical activity and I’ll explain why shortly. But I have to start by acknowledging that best and worst lists are subjective and at least somewhat self-serving on the author’s part. This is inherent to all criticism. But subjectivity does not render an opinion invalid. The value of an opinion rests in the integrity, independence, and expertise of the person making it as well as in the substance of the argument. Not all opinions are good or equally valuable and a film critic who knows the mechanics and history of cinema has a better opinion than someone who doesn’t. <br />
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But that does not mean we should blindly accept the decrees of critics whether they are made by individuals or by consensus. To do so misses the point. Criticism, whether it is of movies or music or food or fashion, is never about giving the final word. It’s about starting a conversation or participating in one that is in progress. A review or a year-end list incites that conversation. Ideally, the critic makes the viewer think about a film in a new way and viewers then carry that epiphany into their encounters with other movies. <br />
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Year-end lists provide a summary of the past twelve months and in that respect they also provide a sense of closure. Human beings are disposed to understand the world narratively; we create meaning through stories. Like the New Year holiday, best and worst lists allow critics and audiences a chance to reflect on what they saw and experienced over the past twelve months and draw conclusions about what it all meant. That necessarily means accounting for the best and the worst the year had to offer. And since art—and in this case cinema—is so intertwined with the times, analyzing the best and worst films can reveal the better and worse parts of ourselves and our culture.<br />
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For my part, I’ve long felt that worst-of lists are reserved for films that are toxic or insultingly stupid. That is, movies that weren’t just mediocre or uninteresting. A worst of the year list ought to point out the movies that were sloppy or pretentious or dishonest or were sexist, racist, and homophobic or reveal contempt for the audience. <br />
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That’s what is so strange about Peter Debruge and Owen Gleiberman’s lists. Their picks and rationales for the worst films of 2019 rarely fit that criteria while so many other films do. Debruge named Disney’s remake of <i>Dumbo</i> as the worst release of the year when he could have picked <i>The Lion King</i> which did everything Debruge criticized <i>Dumbo</i> for and did it more egregiously. Gleiberman named <i>Men in Black: International</i> the worst film of a year that offered sequels like <i>Dark Phoenix</i> and <i>Rambo: Last Blood</i>. Gleiberman also added “the last thirty minutes of <i>Once Upon a Time . . . in Hollywood</i>” to his worst-of list for “rewriting the history of Charles Manson’s crimes” while ignoring films like <i>The Manson Family Massacre</i> and <i>The Haunting of Sharon Tate</i>. And neither of these critics mentioned <i>The Goldfinch</i>, <i>The Dirt</i>, or <i>What Men Want</i>. Debruge and Gleiberman’s worst of 2019 picks reveal that they either didn’t watch many movies this year or they have questionable judgement. <br />
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And this is one of the important and underappreciated functions of year-end lists. Filmgoers don’t just consume movies. They are also consumers of reviews and all the discourse around cinema. And, just as we do with news outlets, consumers have to judge whether or not an opinion is credible. Finding a film critic who we always agree with is impossible and even if it could be done what would be the point? The goal for consumers must be to find critics whose commentary they find invigorating and insightful whether they agree with it or not. <br />
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Year-end lists are valuable short-cuts for consumers to judge critics. These compilations say something about the movies but, like a music playlist, they also reveal a lot about the person who put them together. These lists reveal what the critic thought was most worthy of praise and most deserving of scorn and that speaks to the critic’s integrity, knowledge, and judgement. Best and worst of the year lists are the fastest way for consumers to assess this. <br />
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Debruge and Gleiberman’s worst-of-2019 list got them into trouble because it showed bad judgement and limited knowledge—at least of movies released this year. That’s not cause to throw out these kinds of articles. The backlash against <i>Variety</i>’s worst-of-2019 list shows that the article functioned exactly as it was supposed to.<br />
Nathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15795055565663807265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4479476628924618760.post-2189595773225749202019-12-01T11:58:00.000-06:002019-12-01T11:58:03.521-06:00Movies of 1989Today’s episode of Sounds of Cinema featured a look back at the movies of 1989 with special guests Andy and Ben Wardinski. Here is a recap of some of the titles discussed on the show.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Batman</span><br />
The biggest box office hit of 1989, Tim Burton’s Batman was the film that began the contemporary comic book film. With the exception of the first two Christopher Reeve Superman films, most comic book pictures made to this point were campy, low budget affairs that appealed to a niche audience. <i>Batman</i> is also distinct in the way it is at once an 80s film and yet feels timeless in part because of the 1940s-esqe production design.<br />
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/dgC9Q0uhX70" width="560"></iframe><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Field of Dreams</span><br />
<i>Field of Dreams</i> was the second title in Kevin Costner’s triptych of baseball movies (the other two being <i>Bull Durham</i> and <i>For the Love of the Game</i>). Of those three, <i>Field of Dreams</i> has had the most enduring impact. The actual field continues to draw tourists and the phrase “If you build it, they will come” continues to be a pop culture reference. But <i>Field of Dreams</i> isn’t so much about baseball as it is about healing the generational divisions between Baby Boomers and their parents.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Major League </span><br />
Another baseball movie of 1989, <i>Major League</i> is a crass comedy starring Charlie Sheen, Tom Berenger, Rene Russo, and Wesley Snipes. The movie is especially memorable to Milwaukee Brewers fans of the 1980s because portions of the film were shot at the now demolished County Stadium.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child</span><br />
Horror of the 1980s was dominated by slasher movies and the biggest of these were <i>A Nightmare on Elm Street</i>, <i>Halloween</i>, and <i>Friday the 13th</i>. Although they have kept going in other forms, these franchises hit the end of the line in 1989. <i>A Nightmare on Elm Street 5</i>, <i>Halloween 5</i>, and <i>Friday the 13th: Part VIII</i> all failed at the box office. <i>The Dream Child</i> is easily the best of these three. It’s an uneven film that inserts too many silly moments but it has unique production design, an interesting premise, and a strong cast.<br />
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/LFm_jiI8RiA" width="560"></iframe><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade</span><br />
The third Indy movie is generally considered the best sequel in the series (although Andy and Ben made a strong case for <i>Temple of Doom</i> which is admittedly a better action picture). The strongest element of <i>Last Crusade</i> is its characters led by Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones and Sean Connery as his father. Alison Doody is also notably in the role of villainous archeologist Elsa Schneider, the most complex love interest in the series. The good humor and nuanced characterizations give <i>Last Crusade</i> the most emotional gravitas of the series.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">UHF</span><br />
Weird Al Yankovic made a movie in 1989 about an aimless dreamer who turns around a failing independent television station with a variety of wacky programs. The movie was a box office disappointment in 1989 but it has accrued a dedicated cult audience. Despite the fact that the movie is nestled in the pop culture of 1989 (the meaning of the title is probably lost on viewers born after 1995) <i>UHF</i> still plays because of its zany and good hearted sense of humor.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Star Trek V: The Final Frontier </span><br />
<i>Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home</i> was the most financially successful entry in the series’ original run of films. It was followed by 1989’s <i>The Final Frontier</i>, a project that began with an ambitious premise but was handicapped by budget woes and script re-writes. It is (arguably) not the worst <i>Star Trek</i> film but <i>The Final Frontier</i> has dramatic highs and lows and a whiplash of different tones.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The Abyss</span><br />
James Cameron’s first aquatic adventure (if we ignore <i>Piranha II: The Spawning</i>) has its fans and the movie has some groundbreaking special effects but the story is a mess. <i>The Abyss</i> suffers from an excess of plot. It begins with a submarine crashing in the deep sea and then the rescue team becomes stranded themselves. And then the narrative forks off into a bunch of tangents with nuclear weapons, nervous breakdowns, and aliens; Thomas Pope named <i>The Abyss</i> one of the worst scripts in film history in his book <i>Good Scripts, Bad Scripts</i>. There are a couple of versions of <i>The Abyss</i>. The 145 minute theatrical cut is faster paced but it doesn’t make any sense. The 171 minute director’s cut makes sense but it meanders.<br />
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/rpzPFAi-rTU" width="560"></iframe><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Back to the Future Part II</span><br />
One of the bolder sequels in the sci-fi genre, <i>Back the Future Part II</i> travels into the future and then back into the events of the first movie. The film is impressive in the way it layers the new film on top of the original and it makes bold choices.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Dead Poet’s Society</span><br />
Robin Williams’ acting career can be bifurcated between his comic and dramatic performances although he is best known for comedy, Williams’ dramatic outings were much more consistent and he gives one of his best performances in <i>Dead Poets Society</i>. A favorite of high school English teachers everywhere, <i>Dead Poets Society</i> is interesting to look at thirty years later as humanities departments find themselves undergoing some of the same pressures dramatized in this film.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Driving Miss Daisy </span><br />
<i>Driving Miss Daisy</i> won the Academy Award for Best Picture of 1989. The movie concerns an elderly Jewish woman who befriends her African American chauffer. This film is especially interesting to consider in 2019 since the year’s Best Picture winner was a <i>Green Book</i>, film whose scenario plays as a race flipped retread of <i>Driving Miss Daisy</i>. What’s more, <i>Driving Miss Daisy</i> was favored by the Academy over Spike Lee’s <i>Do the Right Thing</i> and in 2019 <i>Green Book</i> competed alongside movies like <i>Sorry to Bother You</i>, <i>Blindspotting</i>, <i>BlacKkKlansman</i>, and <i>The Hate U Give</i>. The implicit lesson is that Hollywood, or at least the Academy, hasn’t moved forward in regard to racial representation in the last thirty years.<br />
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/TQ3wXC5jqKE" width="560"></iframe><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Ghostbusters II</span><br />
<i>Ghostbusters II</i> is an unfairly maligned sequel. The 1989 follow up is not as tight as its predecessor and it has some hokey moments. Between the release of <i>Ghostbusters</i> and <i>Ghostbusters II</i>, the franchise was adapted into a cartoon, pivoting the audience toward children complete with tie-in merchandise. For the second film, the edge of the first film was removed so that it would appeal to the family audience. Nevertheless, <i>Ghostbusters II</i> plays as an entertaining film in its own right.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation </span><br />
The third and probably the most popular title of the <i>Vacation</i> series, <i>Christmas Vacation</i> was written by John Hughes and it captured what Hughes did best – satirizing the absurdity of suburban life. <i>Christmas Vacation</i> is endlessly quotable. Everyone is at their best here, namely Chevy Chase as the patriarch of the Griswold family and Randy Quaid as Cousin Eddie, but unlike the other <i>Vacation</i> films the rest of the cast are also given things to do.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Parenthood </span><br />
One of the early directorial efforts by Ron Howard, <i>Parenthood</i> is not neatly pegged into a single genre. The movie mixes comedy and drama in a story of suburban life. The movie has a terrific cast including Steve Martin, Mary Steenburgen, Dianne Wiest, Jason Robards, Martha Plimpton, and Rick Moranis as well as very young Keanu Reeves, and Joaquin Phoenix (credited here as Leaf Phoenix). <i>Parenthood </i>was adapted into a television series in 1990 and again in 2010.<br />
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/2H25Fx7weFQ" width="560"></iframe><br />Nathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15795055565663807265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4479476628924618760.post-69876722829726029432019-11-29T15:43:00.001-06:002019-11-29T15:43:15.175-06:00Movies of 1989 on Sounds of CinemaThe Sounds of Cinema episode airing December 1, 2019 will feature special guests Andy and Ben Wardinski and they'll talk movies of 1989 with Nathan including <i>Batman</i>, <i>Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade</i>, <i>Field of Dreams</i>, and <i>UHF</i>.<br />
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Sounds of Cinema airs Sunday morning at 9am on <a href="http://www.kqal.org/" target="_blank">89.5 KQAL FM</a> in Winona, MN and at 11am on <a href="http://www.kmsu.org/" target="_blank">89.5 KMSU FM</a> in Mankato, MN. Tune in over the air, at each station's website, and on your mobile device. Nathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15795055565663807265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4479476628924618760.post-25707284967832794102019-10-27T10:00:00.000-05:002019-10-27T10:00:12.775-05:00Family-Friendly FrightsWatching scary movies is a central part of many people’s Halloween festivities but it can be hard for families or those who wouldn’t ordinarily watch scary movies to find something appropriate so today’s episode of Sounds of Cinema looked at family friendly frights. <br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Monster House (2006)</span><br />
Dir. Gil Kenan <br />
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Produced by Steven Spielberg and Robert Zemeckis, <i>Monster House</i> is a haunted house story presented through motion capture animation. Three teenagers discover that the decrepit home in their neighborhood contains a supernatural secret. <i>Monster House</i> was consistent with movies like <i>The Monster Squad</i> and <i>The Goonies</i> but it was also surprisingly smart and emotionally affecting. <br />
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/XEkeZhWbW7U" width="560"></iframe><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Corpse Bride (2005)</span><br />
Dir. Tim Burton and Mike Johnson<br />
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Tim Burton has been involved with several animated features that make for good Halloween viewing. <i>The Nightmare Before Christmas</i> was directed by Henry Selick with Burton producing and writing the story. Burton also adapted his short film “Frankenweenie” into a feature length movie and co-directed <i>Corpse Bride</i> with Mike Johnson. <i>Corpse Bride</i> was a comedy of errors about a living groom who gets involved with an undead bride and it had a fun soundtrack by regular Burton collaborator Danny Elfman.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Hocus Pocus (1993)</span><br />
Dir. Kenny Ortega <br />
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<i>Hocus Pocus</i> was a family friendly Halloween adventure about three seventeenth century witches who are transported to contemporary Salem, Massachusetts where they pursue a group of children. The original story by Mick Garris and David Kirschner was quite dark but the material was lightened when it was acquired by Disney. When the movie was released in 1993, <i>Hocus Pocus </i>was a box office disappointment but the film has since become a very popular title especially among viewers who grew up in the 1990s and 2000s. <br />
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/F4e6YQFrt1s" width="560"></iframe><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The Harry Potter Series (2001 - 2011)</span><br />
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The Harry Potter series is a story of a boy coming of age in a fantastical world of witches and magic. J.K. Rowling’s stories caught the imagination of readers the world over and were adapted into a very successful film series that mostly preserved the book’s sense of wonder. While not horror stories, the Harry Potter films are appropriately frightening with supernatural creatures and magical villains. But what really endures about Harry Potter is the way the character and his friends recognize that there is evil in the world and choose to confront it. <br />
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/nT_PxewbUpk" width="560"></iframe><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Return to Oz (1985)</span><br />
Dir. Walter Murch <br />
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The idea of making a sequel to 1939’s <i>The Wizard of Oz</i> seems quite natural now with the success of <i>Wicked</i> and <i>Oz the Great and Powerful</i> but in 1985 that wasn’t the case and Walter Murch’s <i>Return to Oz</i> had an uphill battle to find an audience. Adapted from L. Frank Baum’s stories, <i>Return to Oz</i> was much darker than the 1939 film. Its story was bleaker, its production design less cheery, and some of the puppet characters were creepy. <i>Return to Oz</i> failed in its initial release but it has gathered a cult audience since then. <br />
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/SpaV2_vT4Ps" width="560"></iframe><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The Universal Monsters </span><br />
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Holidays are a good time to introduce young people to classic movies and Halloween is a good opportunity to revisit the classic Universal Monster films. These pictures were thought to be terrifying at the time of their initial release but now they are quite accessible, often about as scary as Disney films, and with their short running times they fit within the attention spans of young viewers. Of the Universal Monsters, the Frankenstein pictures are generally regarded as superior and children seem to find the Monster, as played by Boris Karloff in the first three movies, very empathetic. <br />
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/VR2uBTMBKVg" width="560"></iframe><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Poltergeist (1982)</span><br />
Dir. Tobe Hooper <br />
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<i>Poltergeist</i> is officially rated PG by the Motion Picture Association of America and the film is indeed within the boundaries of that rating. It doesn’t contain any bloody violence nor does it include sexuality or course language beyond what would be expected in a PG film. But <i>Poltergeist</i>’s rating belies the film’s intensity. Directed by Tobe Hooper and produced by Steven Spielberg, <i>Poltergeist</i> is quite frightening with some fantastic set pieces and a nightmarish climax. As a PG rated film made before the advent of PG-13, <i>Poltergeist</i> is an interesting artifact of what was considered family-oriented material a few decades ago. <br />
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/9eZgEKjYJqA" width="560"></iframe><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The Sixth Sense (1999)</span><br />
Dir. M. Night Shyamalan <br />
<i>The Sixth Sense</i> was the breakout film for M. Night Shyamalan. The movie is well within the framework of its PG-13 rating but what is surprising about this film is the way it deals with the supernatural. A lot of stories about ghosts assume that the spirits are malevolent, reflecting our own fears of death. <i>The Sixth Sense</i> plays on our expectations and actually ends on an optimistic note, making it spooky but also hopeful. (1:30)<br />
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/3-ZP95NF_Wk" width="560"></iframe><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The Addams Family (1991 and 2019)</span><br />
Dir. Barry Sonnenfeld / Greg Tiernan and Conrad Vernon<br />
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The Addams Family has been around since 1938 when the characters first appeared in Charles Addams’ cartoons. Since then the Addams Family has starred in television sitcoms and feature films. The 1991 live action movie has terrific energy and a great cast. A sequel, <i>Addams Family Values</i>, followed in 1993. The family returned to the screen in a 2019 animated film. Both big screen versions of The Addams Family have their own virtues and they are witty and intelligent and ought to appeal to both children and their parents. <br />
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/F7Ug863S8dQ" width="560"></iframe><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The Monster Squad (1987) </span><br />
Dir. Fred Dekker<br />
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<i>The Monster Squad</i> is an unusual piece of 1980s fantasy entertainment. Dracula leads a werewolf, a mummy, a fish-man, and Frankenstein’s monster into a suburban town in pursuit of a magical amulet and it’s up to a group of monster movie obsessed kids to stop them.This film that was almost certainly an inspiration Stranger Things but the retro appeal of the movie is somewhat ironic given that <i>The Monster Squad</i> was itself nostalgic for the classic Universal monster movies of the 1930s and 40s.<br />
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/7EU6hle3k1g" width="560"></iframe><br />Nathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15795055565663807265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4479476628924618760.post-89393488166586247112019-10-23T17:54:00.002-05:002019-10-23T17:54:51.529-05:00KMSU Fall Pledge Drive89.7 KMSU FM "The Maverick" is currently holding its fall pledge
drive. If you listen to Sounds of Cinema from this station or simply believe in
independent media, please consider making a financial contribution. You
can make a pledge by calling 507-389-5678 or 1-800-456-7810. You can
also make a pledge online at the station's <a href="http://www.kmsu.org/" target="_blank">website</a>.<br />
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This pledge drive has a $25,000 fundraising goal. The
money primarily goes to KMSU's overhead expenses. Most of the local
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KMSU offers a variety of extraordinary and unique programming that is
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Whatever goes over the air is the result of the dedication, effort, and
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If you listen to KMSU and enjoy its content, please help to ensure that
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That’s where you come in. As consumers and citizens, we express what we
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And just like the goods of your favorite store, your support will
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It's also important to remember that pledge drives are about more than money.
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Also, keep in mind that KMSU is a part of the Association of Minnesota
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On Sunday, October 27th, those listening to Sounds of Cinema from KMSU
will hear a special pledge drive episode. Those listening from <a href="http://www.kqal.org/" target="_blank">89.5 KQAL FM</a> in Winona will hear the regularly scheduled program.
Nathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15795055565663807265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4479476628924618760.post-89076056510341370982019-10-20T10:10:00.004-05:002019-10-20T10:10:55.046-05:00'Alien' and Manson Family Retrospective on Sounds of CinemaToday's episode of Sounds of Cinema was a special retrospective show. The first half of the show took a look back at the original <i>Alien </i>and discussed the themes and legacy of the movie. The second half examined films about the Manson Family and the way their crimes have been represented in documentaries and dramatizations.<br />
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The commentary from today's show is now available on the Sounds of Cinema website, including content that did not make it into the show.<br />
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Find the Alien commentary <a href="http://www.soundsofcinema.com/features/commentary/alien_retrospective.html" target="_blank">here </a>and the Manson Family commentary <a href="http://www.soundsofcinema.com/features/commentary/manson_retrospective.html" target="_blank">here</a>. <br />
<br />Nathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15795055565663807265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4479476628924618760.post-77153424244266075082019-10-13T20:56:00.000-05:002019-10-13T20:56:17.871-05:00Dark Comic Book MoviesThe comic book genre has become a major success for Hollywood, especially Marvel, but some of these comics have inspired dark tales of madness and violence and supernatural evil. Today's episode of Sounds of Cinema continued this month's Halloween theme with a look at movies adapted from dark comic books. <br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Tales from the Crypt</span><br />
<i>Tales from the Crypt</i> was a comic book series published by EC Comics between 1950 and 1955. The comic was very popular and featured lurid stories of murder and supernatural terror presented by a ghoulish host known as the Crypt-Keeper. Despite its popularity, <i>Tales from the Crypt</i> was canceled following public outcry over concerns about juvenile delinquency which culminated in a US Senate subcommittee hearing in 1954 in which EC Comics publisher William Gaines was grilled by lawmakers for allegedly corrupting children. But <i>Tales from the Crypt</i> made an impression on some of its young readers, namely Stephen King and George A. Romero who paid tribute to the comics in their 1982 collaboration <i>Creepshow</i>. <i>Tales from the Crypt</i> was adapted into a 1972 feature film and later into an HBO television series that ran for seven seasons. The show inspired a pair of feature films: <i>Demon Knight</i> and <i>Bordello of Blood</i>. <br />
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/cXfV3jX5XiA" width="560"></iframe><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Ghost Rider</span><br />
Ghost Rider refers to several Marvel comic book characters who become fire breathing skull headed motorcyclists and who use their infernal powers to fight the forces of evil. A pair of Ghost Rider films were released by Columbia Pictures and starred Nicolas Cage. The film rights to Ghost Rider have since lapsed and reverted back to Marvel. More recently the character appeared in the television show <i>Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.</i>.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Sin City </span><br />
<i>Sin City</i> was a series of neo-noir comics created by Frank Miller and published by Dark Horse Comics. Miller was one of several comic storytellers pushing the format into darker and more violent places in the late 1980s and early 90s. <i>Sin City</i> was an urban crime story full of seedy characters and the tone of the comic recalled the gangster movies of the 1940s. The comic was adapted into two motion pictures directed by Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez which used the drawings as a guide and employed a formalistic style that simulated the qualities of the comic book page. <br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Constantine </span><br />
John Constanine was a character featured in several DC comic series, namely Hellblazer. The character is a warlock and occult detective who is cynical and yet tries to do the right thing. He proved to be a popular character and <i>Hellblazer</i> was the most successful title in DC’s Vertigo imprint. Constantine was played by Keanu Reeves in a 2005 film. It was a modest success at the time but <i>Constantine</i> has grown in popularity since then with fans responding to the movie’s humor. Director Francis Lawrence and star Keanu Reeves have discussed the possibility of a sequel over the years although nothing has ever materialized. The character has recently appeared on television first as the star of a short lived NBC series and later as a supporting character in CW’s Arrowverse shows where Constantine is played by Matt Ryan.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Joker </span><br />
<i>Joker</i> is an origin story of Batman's nemesis. Although the story took place in Gotham and the Wayne family figures into the story, <i>Joker</i> mostly eschewed anything related to comic books. Instead, this film flipped the script on the Batman franchise. Where most Batman films takes place at the top (Wayne Manor, city hall) looking down, <i>Joker</i> takes place in the gutter looking up. The movie reinvisioned The Joker as a troubled performance artist whose mental breakdown is hastened by society's indiference and a consequence of austerity. <br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The Crow</span><br />
Originally created by James O’Barr, <i>The Crow</i> doesn’t actually refer to a character but a concept. O’Barr envisioned stories of the murdered dead returning from the grave to seek revenge while under the guidance of a bird. The comics included multiple characters settling scores. <i>The Crow</i> was first adapted into a feature film in 1994 and it remains one of the best comic book films. Sadly, the production of that film was marked by a series of disasters, culminating with actor Brandon Lee killed in an on-set accident. But <i>The Crow</i> was a success and was very popular in the goth and alternative scene of the time. The movie was followed by four sequels—each with a different protagonist—as well as a television series. <br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Hellboy</span><br />
Hellboy is a superhero created by Mike Mignola in the 1990s. The character is a demon raised from infancy by human beings and enlisted to defend humanity from the forces of darkness. Hellboy was adapted to cinema twice. The character first appeared on screen in a 2004 movie and its sequel directed by Guillermo del Toro and starring Ron Pearlman. Hellboy was adapted again in a film released earlier this year and directed by Neil Marshall and starring David Harbor. <br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Blade</span><br />
Blade was a Marvel character originally appearing in <i>The Tomb of Dracula </i>comic in 1973. The character was a half-vampire-half-human who had the powers of the undead but without their vulnerability to sunlight and Blade hunts vampires with a variety of edged weapons. Wesley Snipes starred in a trilogy of Blade films released in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The first two were quite well received and <i>Blade II</i> is one of the better comic book sequels. The character later went to television and it was recently announced that Blade will be played by Mahershala Ali in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The Punisher </span><br />
The Punisher is a Marvel character who first appeared in an issue of <i>The Amazing Spider-Man</i> in 1974. The Punisher is a prototypical vigilante and a much darker character than is usually found in Marvel comics. <i>The Punisher</i> first appeared on film in a 1989 movie starring Dolph Lundgren that was also the first R-rated comic book movie. The character was rebooted in a 2004 picture starring Thomas Jane and again in 2008 with Ray Stevenson taking over the role. More recently, the rights to The Punisher reverted back to Marvel and the character appeared in Netflix’s <i>Daredevil</i> series before starring in his own show played by Jon Bernthal. <br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Spawn</span><br />
<i>Spawn</i> began as a comic book created by Todd McFarlane in the 1990s. McFarlane had a background working on Marvel’s Spider-Man comics but with <i>Spawn</i> McFarlane deliberately created a character and a story that was intended for a mature audience. Throughout the 1990s <i>Spawn</i> became one of the hottest titles in the comic book industry and McFarlane shrewdly managed the property, authorizing spinoffs and collectibles. Between 1997 and 1999 McFarlane produced an animated television series for HBO as well as a live action feature film released in 1997. The live action movie wasn't so well recieved and it hasn't aged especially well but the HBO show remains an impressive piece of work. <br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">30 Days of Night </span><br />
<i>30 Days of Nigh</i>t was a comic book miniseries written by Steve Niles and illustrated by Ben Templesmith. Set in Alaska, <i>30 Days of Night </i>was a horror story about vampires besieging a rural town located so far north that the sun disappears for a whole month during the winter. The comic was a success and inspired several sequels. A film adaptation directed David Slade and starring Josh Hartnett, Melissa George, and Danny Huston was released in 2007. A direct-to-video sequel followed and two prequel series were produced for the short-lived streaming service FEARnet. <br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">From Hell</span><br />
<i>From Hell</i> was a graphic novel by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell that speculated on the identity and motives of Jack the Ripper. The story elaborates upon a conspiracy theory that the murders were intended to conceal the existence of an illegitimate royal baby. A film adaptation directed by the Hughes Brothers and starring Johnny Depp and Heather Graham was released in 2001. The film version of <i>From Hell</i> was a success but Alan Moore expressed his dissatisfaction with it as he has with other adaptions of his work such as <i>Watchmen</i> and <i>The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen</i>.<br />
<br />Nathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15795055565663807265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4479476628924618760.post-77449490599172354402019-10-06T10:00:00.000-05:002019-10-06T10:00:10.039-05:00Horror Movies of the 2010s Today’s show kicks off a month-long Halloween theme on Sounds of Cinema. 2019 concludes this decade and one of the extraordinary phenomena in movies these past ten years has been an exceptional crop of horror titles. Horror is presently enjoying a moment in quality and quantity that the genre hasn’t seen since the 1970s and 80s. This program will highlight some of the trends in the genre and some of the outstanding titles of the 2010s. <br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The End of Body Horror and Found Footage</span><br />
The horror films of the early 2010s continued and resolved the themes that had dominated the genre in the previous decade. Horror works in cycles and starting in the mid-2000s the genre had been devoted to extreme body horror and torture movies following the success of <i>Saw</i> and <i>Hostel</i>. This came to an end in 2010 but filmmakers seemingly saved the strangest and most excessive titles for last, chief among them <i>A Serbian Film</i>, which easily ranks among the most disturbing movies ever made. Also released that year were <i>Saw 3-D</i>, <i>The Human Centipede</i> and the remake of <i>I Spit on Your Grave.</i> These films, but especially <i>A Serbian Film</i>, took the torture subgenre to its ultimate conclusion. <br />
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The other horror trend that traced back to the previous decade and concluded in the 2010s was found footage. Like body horror, the found footage format is still with us but there was a glut of these films following the blockbuster success of <i>Paranormal Activity</i>. A lot of these movies were awful but a few stood out and used the found footage gimmick effectively such as <i>Paranormal Activity 3</i>, <i>The Sacrament</i>, <i>Creep</i>, <i>The Bay</i>, and <i>Unfriended</i>.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Remakes and New Horror Franchises </span><br />
Remakes are a staple of Hollywood’s release slate. For better or worse, the horror genre led the way and in the 2000s virtually every major property of the 1970s and 80s was remade. This continued into the 2010s but the remakes of this decade were exceptional or at least innovative. The remakes of <i>Maniac</i>, <i>Child’s Play</i>, <i>Evil Dead</i>, <i>Fright Night</i>, and <i>Suspiria</i> paid homage to the original films while offering new visions and fresh takes. <br />
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While some of the old standbys were remade, horror filmmakers of the 2010s also created new franchises. The biggest of these was <i>The Conjuring</i>. Two titular installments have been released so far but <i>The Conjuring</i> created its own cinematic universe through spinoff films like <i>The Curse of La Llorona</i> and the <i>Annabelle</i> series. While the spinoffs weren’t very good they did make money and pointed a new way forward for sequelization. <i>The Conjuring</i> was overseen by James Wan who also supervised the <i>Insidious</i> films, another popular supernatural franchise of the 2010s which featured some of the same actors as <i>The Conjuring</i>. <i>The Purge</i> was also successfully franchised. Starting from a modest debut film, <i>The Purge</i> had success with progressively better sequels and a keen feel for the political zeitgeist. <i>The Purge</i> has now moved to television.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The Influence of John Carpenter </span><br />
One of the major influences on horror filmmakers of the 2010s was the work of John Carpenter. The filmmaker had been prolific throughout the 1970s and 80s with such varied titles as <i>The Fog</i>, <i>Big Trouble in Little China</i>, and <i>Starman</i>. Carpenter’s last directorial feature was 2010’s <i>The Ward</i> after which he turned to music and released a few albums. However, Carpenter’s filmography influenced many filmmakers of the 2010s. <i>The Purge</i> series echoed <i>Escape From New York</i> and <i>Assault on Precinct 13</i>, <i>The Hateful Eight</i> and <i>It Chapter Two</i> contained obvious homages to <i>The Thing</i>, and <i>It Follows</i> channeled the original <i>Halloween</i>. Carpenter served as a producer on the 2018 <i>Halloween</i> sequel and he co-wrote the music with Cody Carpenter and Daniel Davies.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Fan Documentaries </span><br />
One of the curious outgrowths adjacent to the horror genre throughout the 2010s has been the advent of independent, fan driven documentaries about popular film franchises. These were distinctly different from the studio-produced featurettes usually found on DVDs. The documentaries were feature length examinations that catalogued the behind-the-scenes stories and the legacies of these films. Because they were made outside the studio and usually long after the productions had wrapped, these filmmakers were free to be honest and address the flaws or disappointments of these moves as well as dig into the details that fans obsess over. The two best examples of these documentaries were <i>Never Sleep Again</i> and <i>Crystal Lake Memories</i> which recorded the making of the <i>Nightmare on Elm Street</i> and <i>Friday the 13th</i> series, respectively. These documentaries were extraordinary not only in their depth but also in their production values, humor, and creative visuals. Also notable were <i>78/52: Hitchcock’s Shower Scene</i> and the <i>Return of the Living Dead</i> documentary <i>More Brains</i> as well as <i>Room 237</i> about the various interpretations of Stanley Kubrick’s <i>The Shining</i> and the <i>Jaws</i> documentary <i>The Shark is Still Working</i>.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The Quantity and the Quality of 2010s Horror </span><br />
The horror of the 2010s really took off in about 2013. That year gave us <i>Byzantium</i>, <i>Escape from Tomorrow</i>, <i>The Purge</i>, <i>Stoker</i>, <i>The Last Exorcism</i>, and the remake of <i>The Evil Dead</i>. Throughout the rest of the decade came an incredible run of horror movies including <i>Annihilation</i>, <i>The Autopsy of Jane Doe</i>, <i>The Babadook</i>, <i>Cam</i>, <i>Don’t Breathe</i>, <i>A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night</i>, <i>The Green Inferno</i>, <i>Hereditary</i>, <i>It</i>, <i>It Follows</i>, <i>Krampus</i>, <i>Life After Beth</i>, <i>Midsommar</i>, <i>Mother!</i>, <i>The Neon Demon</i>, <i>Only Lovers Left Alive</i>, <i>A Quiet Place</i>, <i>Raw</i>, <i>The Sacrament</i>, <i>Under the Shadow</i>, <i>Us</i>, and<i> The Witch</i> among many others. These movies were varied with some reworking classic horror tropes like vampires and slashers but many others presenting original concepts. And it is in that way that the horror boom of the 2010s was distinct from the horror periods of the 1930s and 40s or the 1970s and 80s. The movies of the 1930s and 40s repurposed folklore and Victorian literature like <i>Frankenstein</i> and <i>Dracula</i> while the movies of the 1970s and 80s like <i>A Nightmare on Elm Street</i> and <i>Halloween</i> centered upon slasher villains. The horror films of the 2010s were primarily about ambitious ideas presented in original scenarios.<br />
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This decade’s horror films were also characterized by cleverness and irreverence and a willingness to reinvent or lampoon horror tropes. Consider the zombie films <i>The Girl with All the Gifts</i> and <i>Cooties</i> or the psycho killer tales <i>Creep</i> and <i>The Voices</i>. There were also outright silly movies like <i>What We Do in the Shadows</i> and <i>Tucker and Dale vs. Evil </i>and politically loaded fare like <i>Get Out</i> and <i>The Purge</i>. We also got a lot of anthology films like <i>The ABCs of Death</i> and <i>V/H/S</i> and <i>XX</i> which allowed for experimentation and the horror of the 2010s was an especially fertile genre in which filmmakers were able to be both narratively and technically innovative. The sum has been an extraordinarily rich period in horror filmmaking the likes of which we haven’t seen in decades.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The New Masters of Horror </span><br />
Previous high points in the horror genre were driven by filmmakers who the press (and publicists) dubbed “masters of horror” such as John Carpenter, Tobe Hooper, Wes Craven, Dario Argento, Clive Barker, and George A. Romero. These names have been the standard bearers for the genre for about two generations of horror audiences. In the 2010s many of these filmmakers died or faded away and new horror filmmakers made their mark to become the new “masters of horror.” Among the most successful of these new horror masters was also one of the most unexpected: Jordan Peele. He was best known for comedy but with <i>Get Out</i> and <i>Us</i> Peele refashioned himself into one of the horror genre’s most interesting voices. Peele’s rise was assisted by Blumhouse, a production studio specializing in horror films, and its CEO Jason Blum has become one of the most important figures not only in horror but in American cinema at the moment. James Wan had established himself in the 2000s with <i>Saw</i> but his career really took off in the 2010s as he oversaw both the <i>Conjuring</i> and <i>Insidious</i> franchises. Elijah Wood is best known to audiences as an actor but Wood turned to producing through his production company SpectreVision whose credits included <i>Mandy</i>, <i>A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night</i>, and <i>Open Windows</i>. Other filmmakers to emerge throughout this decade include Ti West, director of <i>The House of the Devil</i> and <i>The Sacrament</i>, John Krasinski of <i>A Quiet Place</i>, the Soska Sisters who co-directed <i>American Mary</i>, and Ari Aster had one of the most impressive directorial debuts of recent years with <i>Hereditary</i> which he followed with <i>Midsommar</i>. Whether these filmmakers are here to stay is yet to be seen but together they have reinvigorated the horror film and made the 2010s one of the most exciting periods in the history of the genre.<br />
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<br />Nathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15795055565663807265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4479476628924618760.post-24422309080539718042019-10-03T22:17:00.001-05:002019-10-26T13:14:45.625-05:00Sounds of Cinema October Programming 2019It’s October and that means it is time for a month of Halloween-related
programming on Sounds of Cinema. Each episode this month will take a
look at a particular theme or set of films and feature music to match.
Here is a preview of what’s to come:<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">October 6: Horror of the 2010s</span><br />
2019 concludes this decade and one of the extraordinary phenomena in movies these past ten years has been an exceptional crop of horror titles. Horror is presently enjoying a moment in quality and quantity that the genre hasn’t seen since the 1970s. This program will highlight some of the horror films of the 2010s.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">October 13: Dark Comic Book Films</span><br />
With the release of <i>Joker</i>, now is a good time to revisit some of the darker comic book-to-movie adaptations including <i>The Crow </i>and <i>Hellboy </i>and <i>Tales from the Crypt</i>.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">October 20: <i>Alien </i>and Manson Family Retrospective </span><br />
This year is the fortieth anniversary of the release of <i>Alien </i>and the fiftieth anniversary of the Manson Family murders. Half of this episode will look back at the sci-fi horror classic and the other half will examine the way the Manson Family and their crimes were reflected in cinema. <br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">October 27: Family Friendly Frights</span><br />
Movie-going is an integral part of the Halloween season but for parents
it can be difficult finding pictures that they can watch with their
children. This episode will include a look at some family-friendly
titles for Halloween. <b>Note:</b> 89.7 KMSU FM will air the pledge drive episode on October 27th. <br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">October 31: Halloween Special</span><br />
The annual Sounds of Cinema Halloween Special will provide the
soundtrack for your All Hallows Eve with an hour-long mix of
Halloween-related film music. The show will air the evening
of Thursday, October 31 at 11pm.<br />
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Sounds of Cinema’s regular broadcast can be heard every Sunday morning on the following stations:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>9am on 89.5 KQAL FM in Winona, MN and online at <a href="http://kqal.org/" target="_blank">kqal.org</a></li>
<li>11am on 89.7 KMSU FM in Mankato, MN and online at <a href="http://www.kmsu.org/" target="_blank"> kmsu.org</a></li>
</ul>
Nathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15795055565663807265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4479476628924618760.post-42321232719160536452019-09-22T15:55:00.003-05:002019-09-22T15:55:28.635-05:00Movies of 1979Today's episode of Sounds of Cinema examined the films of 1979 with special guests Andy and Ben Wardinski. Here is a look at some of the films discussed on the show as well as a few additional titles.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">1941 </span><br />
Steven Spielberg's attempt to make a John Landis-style comedy was famously a disaster but <i>1941</i> was a turning point in Spielberg's career. For one, it connected Spielberg with Bob Gale and Robert Zemeckis who would later write and direct the Spielberg produced <i>Back to the Future</i>. For another, <i>1941 </i>was the third Spielberg film (following <i>Jaws </i>and <i>Close Encounters of the Third Kind</i>) to suffer major cost overruns. After the failure of this film, Spielberg became much more disciplined and followed <i>1941</i> with <i>Raiders of the Lost Ark</i> which was completed on time and on budget. <br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Alien</span><br />
A classic and highly influential movie, <i>Alien </i>was a haunted house movie in space. The film combines the classic monster tropes of sci-fi films like <i>It! The Terror from Beyond Space</i> with the intensity of <i>The Texas Chainsaw Massacre</i> and the special effects of <i>2001: A Space Odyssey</i>. The film's influence is perhaps best observed in the xenomorph. The alien, from the artwork of H.R. Giger, inspired countless imitations.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Apocalypse Now</span><br />
Francis Ford Coppola's Vietnam War picture was an adaptation of Joseph Conrad's <i>Heart of Darkness</i> and tells the story of a soldier sent to assassinate an American colonel who has gone insane deep within the southeast Asian jungle. This was one of the first major Hollywood films about Vietnam and it remains one of the best. Three versions of the movie exist: the 1979 theatrical cut, the 2001 <i>Redux </i>version, and the 2019 <i>Final Cut</i>. <br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Being There</span><br />
Peter Sellers gave one of his greatest performances in what would be his penultimate movie. <i>Being There</i> is about a simple minded gardener who inadvertently becomes an Washington DC insider and the movie has a wry, off center sense of humor. <br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The Concord . . . Airport '79 </span><br />
The last in the <i>Airport </i>thrillers that would later be parodied in 1980's <i>Airplane!</i>, <i>The Concord</i> is a goofy piece of spectacle that's worth viewing when you're in the mood for something campy. <br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The Jerk </span><br />
A classic Steve Martin comedy and one of several collaborations between Martin and filmmaker Carl Reiner. The movie is extremely quotable and consistently hilarious with Martin throwing himself into the role. <br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Kramer vs. Kramer </span><br />
<i>Kramer vs. Kramer</i> is a divorce drama starring Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep. Not only did it win the Academy Award for Best Picture but <i>Kramer vs. Kramer</i> was also the highest grossing picture of 1979. That's impossible to imagine happening today. <br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Monty Python's Life of Brian</span><br />
The second feature film from British comedy troupe Monty Python was set in ancient Judea during the time of Christ. A common Jewish citizen is mistaken for the messiah. <i>Life of Brian</i> is the best Monty Python film and it has something to say about religion and faith while having a laugh. Although it received some push back at the time, <i>Life of Brian</i> has been embraced by religious and non-religious viewers alike which is a testament to the film's intelligence, humor, and goodheartedness. <br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Moonraker</span><br />
James Bond in space. This film has become something of a punchline in 007 canon but it is a fun 70s action adventure. <br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The Muppet Movie</span><br />
The first Muppet feature film assembles the original talents including Jim Henson and Frank Oz and it has a wacky and chaotic sense of humor that distinguished the 1970s Muppets from the contemporary films.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Norma Rae </span><br />
Sally Field starred in this true story of a textile worker who faced considerable odds in the effort to unionize her workplace. Field won an Academy Award for her performance. <br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Nosferatu </span><br />
Werner Herzog's remake of the classic silent film was a fascinatingly cerebral take on the vampire story. It's an existential vampire film that is unique in the genre. <br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Rocky II</span><br />
One of the prime examples of the-same-but-different approach to Hollywood sequel making, <i>Rocky II</i> repeats a lot of the original movie. The plotting is somewhat strained and a few of the call backs to the first movie are forced but <i>Rocky II</i> benefits from a larger budget and the rematch between Rocky Balboa and Apollo Creed is terrific boxing action.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Star Trek: The Motion Picture</span><br />
The first installment of the <i>Star Trek</i> film series earns its subtitle. As Andy commented on the show, <i>Star Trek: The Motion Picture</i> has the scope and grandeur that none of the other <i>Star Trek </i>films ever quite captured. The movie also has one of Jerry Goldsmith's best scores. There are two versions of <i>Star Trek: The Motion Picture</i>: the original theatrical cut and the "Director's Edition." Unfortunately, only the theatrical cut is currently available in high definition. <br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The Warriors</span><br />
<i>The Warriors</i> started as a serious and straightforward novel by Sol Yurick and it was turned into a fun, goofy, and high energy urban action movie by filmmaker Walter Hill. The director gave <i>The Warriors</i> a makeover in 2005, adding comic book touches like those in <i>Sin City</i>, and this is now the only version available. <br />
<br />Nathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15795055565663807265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4479476628924618760.post-88850299839186234592019-09-21T10:42:00.002-05:002019-09-21T10:42:18.780-05:00Movies of 1979 on Sounds of CinemaOn Sunday, September 22, 2019, regular host Nathan Wardinski will be joined by his brothers, Andy and Ben, in a discussion of movies from 1979. This special retrospective episode will take a look at movies like <i>Alien</i>, <i>Rocky II</i>, <i>Moonraker</i>, <i>Star Trek: The Motion Picture</i>, and more.<br />
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Sounds of Cinema airs Sunday morning at 9am on <a href="http://www.kqal.org/" target="_blank">89.5 KQAL FM</a> in Winona, Minnesota and at 11am on <a href="http://www.kmsu.org/" target="_blank">89.7 KMSU FM</a> in Mankato, Minnesota. The show can be heard over the air, online at each station's website, and on your mobile device using the TuneIn app. Nathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15795055565663807265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4479476628924618760.post-76028343407976059602019-09-01T16:33:00.000-05:002019-09-01T16:33:44.928-05:00Summer 2019 in ReviewLabor Day concludes the summer season so before we transition into fall and winter, here’s a look back at the movies released from May through August. The summer is traditionally the time of year for populist entertainment and while Hollywood provided that it was an unusual season in a number of ways.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Disney’s Dominance </span><br />
Disney’s tentpole releases dominated the summer box office to the exclusion of almost anything else. The top five grossing movies of the summer were all Disney-owned releases: <i>Avengers: Endgame</i>,<i> The Lion King</i>, <i>Toy Story 4</i>, <i>Spider-Man: Far from Home</i>, and <i>Aladdin</i>. The studio has done well for itself, <a href="https://variety.com/2019/film/news/disney-global-box-office-record-1203282443/" target="_blank">setting a new box office record</a> with over $7.6 billion earned so far this year and with more to come with the anticipated releases of <i>Maleficent: Mistress of Evil</i> and <i>Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker</i>. But these films were plagued with a feeling déjà vu and most of Disney’s summer blockbusters were just average in their quality. The Spider-Man sequel was good but nothing we haven’t seen before while <i>The Lion King</i> and <i>Aladdin</i> were exactly what we’d seen before. Even <i>Toy Story 4</i>, which was quite good, had trouble justifying its existence. As David Erhlich <a href="https://www.indiewire.com/2019/07/the-lion-king-review-2019-1202157153/" target="_blank">said of <i>The Lion King</i></a>, Disney’s output in summer 2019 was “a well-rendered but creatively bankrupt self-portrait of a movie studio eating its own tail.”<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The Shrinking Theatrical Market</span><br />
Disney’s success appeared to come at the expense of <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/30/media/summer-2019-box-office/index.html" target="_blank">nearly everyone else</a>. The entertainment press regularly turned out pearl clutching analysis pieces that juxtaposed Disney’s market share largess against the failure of other studio franchise releases like <i>Dark Phoenix</i>, <i>MiB: International</i>, and <i>Godzilla: King of the Monsters</i>. It’s worth noting that most of these movies just weren’t very good. The dominance of a single studio can and should worry anyone who cares about cinema and the long term health of the industry. But we also have to acknowledge that Disney’s success was at least assisted by the fact that their competition was pathetic.<br />
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More concerning was the box office underperformance of smaller movies. Many good midlevel budgeted movies ($40 - $70 million production budgets) just didn’t attract an audience. <i>Booksmart</i> suffered from a bad marketing scheme and a lousy release date. <i>Long Shot</i> was a good and smart movie with a bland title and its political themes might have been of little interest to an audience that is inundated with politics in every other medium. The remake of <i>Child’s Play</i> was released around the same time as <i>Annabelle Comes Home</i> and it might have been one killer doll too many. We can speculate why <i>Late Night</i> and <i>Dora and the Lost City of Gold</i> and <i>Midsommar</i> and <i>The Angry Birds Movie 2</i> failed but whatever the cause, this trend points to an audience that is only interested in attending the theater for the biggest releases of familiar titles and brands. The theatrical marketplace cannot survive on tentpoles alone.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Musical Films</span><br />
2019 has seen the release of a lot of musical movies and several titles debuted this summer. A few of these were documentaries including the Aretha Franklin concert film <i>Amazing Grace</i>. Also released this summer were <i>Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love</i>, about the relationship between Leonard Cohen and Marianne Ihlen, and <i>Pavarotti</i>, Ron Howard’s documentary about the legendary opera singer. Summer 2019 also featured several musical dramas. <i>Rocketman</i> was an impressive biopic of Elton John. <i>Yesterday</i> was high concept piece that paid tribute to the music of The Beatles while <i>Born to Run</i> dramatized the true story of a Pakistani immigrant living in the UK who was inspired by the music of Bruce Springsteen.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">An Impressive August</span><br />
In a typical summer, Hollywood studios release their flagship titles in May through July, with the Memorial Day and Independence Day holidays being the peak periods. August has traditionally been designated as a dumping ground for low quality titles that studios don’t have faith in and the Labor Day holiday is typically a low turnout weekend. Summer 2019 played out a little differently. Several high profile May through July releases were underwhelming while August saw the release of <i>Good Boys</i>, <i>Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark</i>, <i>Blinded by the Light</i>, <i>Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw</i>, <i>The Peanut Butter Falcon</i>, and <i>Ready or Not</i> and even <i>Angel Has Fallen</i> was better than expected. Not all of these films drew crowds but this was a better quality August crop than we usually get at the end of the summer.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Highlights of the Summer </span><br />
Here are a few of the better movies released this summer:<br />
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<b>The Art of Self Defense:</b> An offbeat and terrifically crafted black comedy that both tapped into this particular moment but also transcended it with a story that is worthy of comparison to <i>Fight Club</i> and <i>American Psycho</i>.<br />
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<b>Blinded By the Light:</b> A surprisingly layered and complex jukebox musical that was a lot of fun. <i>Blinded By the Light</i> was a tribute to the music of Bruce Springsteen with a genuine appreciation for what The Boss had to say but it transcended mere fandom.<br />
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<b>Booksmart:</b> Every generation gets at least one last-crazy-night-in-high-school movie and <i>Booksmart</i> reimagined that story for the 2019 audience and populated it with likable and interesting characters.<br />
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<b>Child’s Play:</b> The remake of the 1980s slasher classic was much better than expected. It revisited the material and provided a fresh take while remaining germane to the original idea.<br />
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<b>Crawl:</b> This killer alligator movie was one of 2019’s most satisfying popcorn entertainments and one of Alexandre Aja’s most accessible films.<br />
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<b>The Farewell:</b> A nearly perfect movie. The filmmaking, the performances, and the storytelling coalesce in an extraordinarily satisfying story.<br />
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<b>Good Boys:</b> One of the best comedies of recent years and certainly the best comedy of summer 2019.<br />
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<b>John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum:</b> The John Wick series keeps topping itself and the third installment was an extraordinary action picture.<br />
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<b>Long Shot:</b> This movie got missed in its theatrical release but <i>Long Shot</i> was rare bird: a politically adept romantic comedy.<br />
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<b>Midsommar:</b> Continuing the present wave of impressive horror pictures, <i>Midsommar</i> might be too cerebral for the <i>Conjuring</i> crowd but it was a smart and expertly made film. A director’s cut was given a limited release at the end of the summer.<br />
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<b>Once Upon a Time . . . in Hollywood:</b> Quentin Tarantino’s ninth movie was his most self-indulgent (and that is really saying something) but it was a fun nostalgia trip to a bygone era.<br />
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<b>The Peanut Butter Falcon:</b> The feel-good movie of the summer, <i>The Peanut Butter Falcon</i> was a really likable film with notable performances by Zack Gottsagen and Shia LaBeouf.<br />
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<b>Ready or Not:</b> A shrewd mix of horror and comedy, <i>Ready or Not</i> was smart and well produced and had a wicked sense of humor.<br />
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<b>Rocketman:</b> This dramatization of the life and music of Elton John had extraordinary set pieces and a terrific cast including Taron Egerton in the lead role.Nathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15795055565663807265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4479476628924618760.post-74714091559768676952019-08-11T16:50:00.001-05:002019-08-11T21:05:29.244-05:00Movies of 1999Today's episode of Sounds of Cinema took a look back at the movies of 1999. That was a transformative year in American cinema with old directors
fading away and new talents making their mark and many films were
experimental, original, and exciting. Rather than examining a handful of titles, this show looked at some of the trends in cinema from that year. You can find the full commentary from the show <a href="http://www.soundsofcinema.com/features/commentary/1999.html">here</a>. <br />
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Here is run down of some of the exceptional films from 1999. Keep in mind, all of these films were released <i>in a single year</i>.<br />
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<b>American Pie - </b>A group of teenage boys plot to lose their virginity on prom night. The picture was extraordinarily crude for its day but the picture was also very funny. <i>American Pie</i> echoed 1980s sex comedies like <i>The Last American Virgin</i> but it was better hearted than those films.<br />
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<b>Angela's Ashes</b> - Alan Parker directed a well-received adaptation of Frank McCourt’s memoir. It retained McCourt's humor and soulfulness and had a vivid feel for its time and place. <br />
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<b>Any Given Sunday</b> - Oliver Stone released the 1999 football drama <i>Any Given Sunday</i> and the movie concluded a prolific decade for the filmmaker. <br />
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<b>Being John Malkovich</b> - Directed by Spike Jonze and written by Charlie Kaufman, <i>Being John Malkovich</i> had a wacky conceit: a puppeteer discovers a portal that puts travelers into the mind of actor John Malkovich.<br />
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<b>The Blair Witch Project </b>did not invent the found footage genre but the film did it very well and popularized the format and inspired a whole niche of imitators. <br />
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<b>Bowfinger</b> - This show business satire starring Steve Martin and Eddie Murphy was a very funny take on Hollywood with an independent filmmaker getting his movie made by any means necessary.<br />
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<b>But I’m a Cheerleader</b> was a satire in which a high school studen is sent to gay conversion therapy. <br />
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<b>Boys Don’t Cry</b> - Based on a real life incident, Hilary Swank plays a transgender man who navigates life in rural Nebraska. Director Kimberly Peirce should have had a bigger career following this film's success. <br />
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<b>Cruel Intentions</b> - Based on Choderlos de Laclos’ <i>Dangerous Liaisons</i>, the film was a frankly sexual story of seduction and manipulation at a private prep school. Its satirical qualities are obvious now but they weren’t necessarily so evident to viewers of 1999.<br />
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<b>Dick</b> lampooned the Watergate scandal with the story of two dimwitted young women (Kirsten Dunst and Michelle Williams) who are hired to be Richard Nixon’s dog walkers and they eventually expose the thirty-seventh President’s misdeeds and lead to his resignation. <br />
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<b>Dogma</b> - The Catholic League organized a campaign against <i>Dogma</i> but this film was no mere act of provocation. Kevin Smith’s work is so well loved because he mixes humor with sincerity and <i>Dogma</i> was genuinely interested in matters of faith and theology. <br />
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<b>Drop Dead Gorgeous</b> was a pseudo-documentary about a Midwest beauty pageant gone awry. <i>Drop Dead Gorgeous</i> was not well received at the time but it has developed a cult following.<br />
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<b>EdTV</b> - Reality television was just getting started in 1999 and <i>EdTV</i> was ahead of the curve with its story of an everyman who is followed twenty-four hours a day by a camera crew.<br />
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<b>eXistenZ</b> - David Cronenberg has long been fascinated by the intersection of technology and the human body and the director’s 1999 film was about characters stuck in a virtual reality program. <i>eXistenZ</i> was well reviewed but it was released less than a month after <i>The Matrix</i> and got lost. <br />
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<b>Election -</b> Adapted from Tom Perrotta’s novel, <i>Election</i> was whip smart and wickedly funny but it also had the unusual feature of shifting points of view which allowed it a level of nuance that satires rarely achieve.<br />
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<b>Fight Club</b> - A seminal film of a generation, <i>Fight Club </i>was exciting and subversive and brutal and funny. The movie has gained popularity since 1999 for both the right and the wrong reasons, with some of its biggest fans completely misunderstanding the film's message.<br />
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<b>Galaxy Quest</b> - This sci-fi satire starred Tim Allen, Sigourney Weaver, and Alan Rickman and has developed a cult following worthy of the films and television shows that inspired it. <br />
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<b>The Green Mile </b>- Frank Darabont followed up <i>The Shawshank Redemption</i> with this underappreciated Stephen King adaptation. <br />
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<b>The Hurricane </b>- Norman Jewison helmed <i>The Hurricane</i> which was the final high note in a directorial career that included <i>In the Heat of the Night</i>, <i>Fiddler on the Roof</i>, and <i>Moonstruck</i>. <br />
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<b>The Insider</b> -Michael Mann made one his best films in 1999 with this true story of a whistle blower who exposes big tobacco. <br />
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<b>Magnolia</b> - Paul Thomas Anderson's follow up to <i>Boogie Nights</i> was an ensemble piece that wove together the stories of various characters living in Los Angeles. This film makes especially effective use of Tom Cruise's talents. <br />
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<b>Man on the Moon </b>- Milos Forman helmed the Andy Kaufman biopic <i>Man on the Moon</i> starring Jim Carrey. The movie was a financial disappointment but time has been kind to <i>Man on the Moon</i>. It’s an intelligent and playful movie and Carrey’s performance is a career high.<br />
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<b>The Matrix </b>- One of the sleeper hits of 1999, <i>The Matrix</i>’s fast-paced filmmaking, counter cultural ideas, and hip style pointed to the future, at least in the short term. <br />
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<b>Office Space</b> - Originally a box office failure in 1999, <i>Office Space</i> became a popular title due to its repeated showings on Comedy Central in the 2000s. It is also a highl quotable comedy from Mike Judge and it foreshadowed his HBO series <i>Silicon Valley</i>. <br />
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<b>Ravenous</b> balanced horror with black comedy in a story of cannibalism on the American frontier.<br />
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<b>The Sixth Sense</b> - M. Night Shyamalan was dubbed "The Next Spielberg" by <i>Newsweek </i>magazine following the release of this film. Things didn't quite work out that way but <i>The Sixth Sense</i> remains an impressive piece of work. <br />
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<b>South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut </b>was as smart was it was lewd. American culture of the 1990s was preoccupied with the impact of media on children and <i>South Park</i> contorted that moral panic into a violent and vulgar and hysterical farce. <br />
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<b>Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace</b> - The biggest box office hit of 1999 came across creaky and anachronistic but two decades on the first <i>Star Wars</i> prequel has<a href="http://www.soundsofcinema.com/features/commentary/star_wars_essays.html#secondstarwarsrevolution"> an undeniable legacy</a> evidenced by the remake of<i> The Lion King</i> and the Marvel Cinematic Universe. <br />
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<b>Three Kings</b> - David O. Russell's war film took place during the first Gulf War as a group of American soliders find a stash of gold. <br />
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<b>Titus</b> - This adaptation of <i>Titus Andronicus</i> was one of the most bizarre Shakespeare adaptations ever. The movie is severely stylized with outrageous costumes, unusual cinematography and production design, a soundtrack that includes different genres of music, and a wild performance by Anthony Hopkins. <br />
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<b>Varsity Blues </b>- This R-rated story of high school football players coping with the pressures of their Texas community punched a hole in the mythology of high school football glory. It makes an interesting double feature with <i>The Virgin Suicides</i>.<br />
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<b>The Virgin Suicides</b> - Sofia Coppola’s directorial debut was an adaptation of Jeffrey Eugenides novel was a quietly distressing story of sexual repression.<br />
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<br />Nathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15795055565663807265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4479476628924618760.post-73601757126731175972019-08-05T14:00:00.000-05:002019-08-05T14:00:09.700-05:001999 Retrospective on Sounds of CinemaThe episode airing Sunday, August 11, 2019 will break from Sounds of Cinema's usual format for a special retrospective of movies from the year 1999. That was a transformative year in American cinema with old directors fading away and new talents making their mark and many films were experimental, original, and exciting. Rather than examining a handful of movies, this episode will look at some of the trends of 1999 and feature a cross section of film music from that year.<br />
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Sounds of Cinema airs Sundays at 9am on <a href="http://www.kqal.org/" target="_blank">89.5 KQAL FM</a> in Winona, Minnesota and at 11am on <a href="http://www.kmsu.org/" target="_blank">89.7 KMSU FM</a> in Mankato, Minnesota. The show can be heard over the air, online at each station's website, and live streaming with the Tune In app. Nathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15795055565663807265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4479476628924618760.post-31842309448458603472019-07-07T10:00:00.000-05:002019-07-09T20:29:23.982-05:00Controversial Films 2019Independence Day brings with it Sounds of Cinema's annual controversial films special. The episode celebrates freedom of speech with a look at movies that have been censored, banned, or were otherwise controversial. Note that this is not intended to be a complete list of controversial titles, just a selection of relevant pictures that are of interest. For more information on controversial films, see the links at the bottom. You can also check out <a href="https://soundsofcinemablog.blogspot.com/2018/07/controversial-films-2018.html">the blog post for last year's episode</a>.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The Man With the Golden Arm (1955)</span><br />
Dir. Otto Preminger <br />
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<i>The Man with the Golden Arm</i> was adapted from Nelson Algren’s 1949 novel which was the first winner of the National Book Award. The film version tells the story of a drug addicted backroom card game dealer who is released from prison and relapses into drug abuse. At the time <i>The Man with the Golden Arm</i> was produced, all Hollywood studio films were required to adhere to Motion Picture Association of America’s repressive Production Code which explicitly forbade depictions of drug abuse. Films that did not achieve a seal of approval from the Production Code Administration did not play in theaters and filmmakers sought the administration’s approval through all stages of production. Producer Bob Roberts first attempted to adapt <i>The Man with the Golden Arm</i> in the early 1950s but the filmmaker was unable to come up with a script that satisfied the censors. <a href="https://catalog.afi.com/Catalog/moviedetails/51583" target="_blank">According to the AFI</a>, Production Code Administration director Joseph Breen said that the story was “unacceptable under the provisions of the Production Code” and Roberts was warned that a film version of <i>The Man with the Golden Arm</i> would be condemned by the Legion of Decency, the U.S. Treasury Department, and the Bureau of Narcotics as well as “state and municipal censor boards.” Roberts’ version never went forward. <br />
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Filmmaker Otto Preminger got the rights to <i>The Man with the Golden Arm</i> and began working on adapting it for United Artists with Frank Sinatra cast in the lead role. Preminger had recently achieved success with <i>The Moon is Blue</i> and <i>Carmen Jones</i>. Those films had their own fights with the PCA and Preminger knew how to use controversy to his advantage. Preminger wanted to use<i> The Man with the Golden Arm</i> to address drug addiction, which had never before been the subject of a major Hollywood picture. His film somewhat softened the material from Algren’s novel so the story was not quite as hopeless but it was still far more blunt than any other film at the time. The narcotic in Preminger’s movie is never named. In the book it’s morphine but in the film the drug appears to be heroin. <br />
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Leadership at the PCA office had since changed and it was now lead by Geoffrey Shurlock. The new PCA director was bound to enforce the code as written but, according to Jerold Simmons, Shurlock felt the Code’s absolute ban of the depiction of narcotics was outdated and unrealistic and he was interested in helping Otto Preminger get <i>The Man with the Golden Arm</i> produced as a way of amending the Code. The film went into production without a PCA approved script but with the expectation that Shurlock would help reform the Code when <i>The Man with the Golden Arm</i> came up for consideration. However, Harry Anslinger, the commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, publically expressed his opposition to<i> The Man with the Golden Arm</i> and especially the Hollywood ending that made the story more hopeful. When the film came before the PCA, the board of directors of the MPAA slammed United Artists for the studio’s perceived undermining of the Code and denied <i>The Man with the Golden Arm</i> a seal of approval. <br />
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United Artists stood by Otto Preminger’s film and released it without the PCA seal for which the MPAA fined United Artists $25,000. The studio resigned from the MPAA although United Artists would rejoin the organization a few years later. The Legion of Decency awarded <i>The Man with the Golden Arm</i> a “B” rating which meant that the film was “morally objectionable in part for all” but this was the first time that the Legion did not give a “condemned” rating to a film not passed by the PCA. That break between the PCA and the Legion was a significant blow to the stature of the Code and theaters that might have otherwise passed on a non-PCA approved title booked the movie. This further diluted the authority of the Code. Local censors in Maryland, Georgia, and Wisconsin threatened to censor the film but the uncut version of <i>The Man with the Golden Arm</i> played everywhere except Spain where it was banned. The film did impressive business at the box office probably due in no small part to the publicity over the controversy. <br />
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As a post-script, after the critical and box office success of <i>The Man with the Golden Arm</i> the PCA amended the Code to allow for depictions of drug use. The movie was resubmitted for approval in 1961 so that it could play for television broadcast. The movie passed without any cuts. <br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The Brown Bunny (2003)</span><br />
Dir. Vincent Gallo<br />
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<i>The Brown Bunny</i> is an arthouse film written and directed by Vincent Gallo. The story is a road trip narrative about a motorcyclist, played by Gallo, who travels across the country and reminisces about his relationship with a former girlfriend, played by Chloe Sevigny. The movie was infamous for a scene in which Sevigny’s character performs an unstimulated sex act. When the movie was released, a promotional billboard depicting the sex scene was <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/04/arts/art-smut-commerce-billboard-gets-attention.html" target="_blank">posted on Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood</a>. Some locals complained about the advert but Gallo defended the imagery, saying that it was no more provocative than the Calvin Klein and Gucci ads that frequented billboards in the same area. The billboard <a href="https://www.indiewire.com/2004/08/brown-bunny-billboard-banned-176859/" target="_blank">was removed</a> after just a few days despite the ad space being purchased for a month. <br />
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An early cut of <i>The Brown Bunny</i>, running 119 minutes, premiered at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival. The movie had <a href="https://www.rogerebert.com/festivals-and-awards/gallo-goes-on-the-offensive-after-bunny-flop" target="_blank">a disastrous reception</a>. The Cannes audience, which is known for being vocal during screenings, booed and jeered the film or simply walked out. Critics assembled by Screen International gave <i>The Brown Bunny</i> the lowest rating in the history of their annual voting. One of <i>The Brown Bunny</i>’s <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/stevekandell/roger-ebert-and-vincent-gallos-war-of-words" target="_blank">most vocal critics was Roger Ebert</a> who proclaimed it to be “the worst film in the history of the festival.” Gallo responded by calling Ebert a "fat pig with the physique of a slave trader” to which Ebert said, "Someday I will be thin, but Vincent Gallo will always be the director of <i>The Brown Bunny</i>." However, between the Cannes screening and the film’s official release, Gallo re-edited the film and removed twenty-six minutes of footage (although the sex scene remained.). Ebert <a href="https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-brown-bunny-2004" target="_blank">reviewed the ninety-three minute cut</a> and awarded it three stars saying that Gallo had “transformed” <i>The Brown Bunny</i> and that the “film's form and purpose now emerge from the miasma of the original cut.” Fifteen years after the Cannes screening, Gallo made it known that <a href="https://www.indiewire.com/2018/03/vincent-gallo-blames-roger-ebert-brown-bunny-outrage-cannes-1201942559/" target="_blank">he still hadn’t let go</a> of Ebert’s original criticism of <i>The Brown Bunny</i>, insisting that Ebert had sabotaged the movie’s reputation. <br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">American History X (1999)</span><br />
Dir. Tony Kaye <br />
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<i>American History X</i> was the story of a reformed white supremacist starring Edward Norton in one of his early roles and directed by Tony Kaye who at that time was an up and coming filmmaker. Norton and Kaye had different views of what <i>American History X</i> ought to be and Norton’s performance was not to Kaye’s liking. The relationship between Norton, Kaye and New Line Cinema <a href="https://uproxx.com/movies/how-the-director-of-american-history-x-sabotaged-himself-out-of-hollywood/" target="_blank">broke down during post production</a>. Norton and the studio executives gave Kaye notes on how to alter the film. Kaye would have none of it and New Line took <i>American History X</i> away from the director and banned him from the editing process. Kaye responded by filing a lawsuit against New Line Cinema and when that didn’t work he attempted to take his name off the picture but was unable to do so because of Directors Guild rules. Kaye then began <a href="https://ew.com/article/1998/10/23/director-tony-kaye-disowns-his-own-film/" target="_blank">trash talking <i>American History X</i></a> to anyone who would listen including journalists and advertisers and film festivals. In the end, the studio released its version of <i>American History X</i> and the movie was a hit with critics and audiences. Edward Norton earned an Oscar nomination for his performance. Kaye’s campaign against Norton and New Line Cinema all but destroyed his career and in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2002/oct/25/artsfeatures.advertising" target="_blank">2002 Kaye wrote a lengthy mea culpa</a> in which he expressed regret for his behavior. <br />
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<i>American History X</i> has had a strange afterlife that puts Tony Kaye’s fight for the movie in a new light. The story is unequivocally anti-racist. However, some white supremacists read the film as actually <a href="https://www.cjnews.com/culture/entertainment/the-alt-right-relationship-with-american-history-x" target="_blank">endorsing their beliefs</a>. Film critic <a href="https://youtu.be/62cPPSyoQkE?t=1772" target="_blank">Lindsay Ellis made this point</a>, noting how the imagery of <i>American History X</i>, and especially of Edward Norton’s character, contravenes the message of the narrative. The dramatic black and white images (which strangely echo the fascist aesthetic of Leni Riefenstahl’s <i>Olympia</i>) make Norton’s character look powerful and even heroic. Among those making that point is Kaye himself, <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/hollywood-flashback-before-charlottesville-clash-american-history-x-turned-racial-hate-drama-1031327" target="_blank">who told The Hollywood Reporter</a>, “the way the movie was edited . . . lionized a neo-Nazi. It's saying: 'You can do this heinous stuff, show a movie star's smile and it's all OK.'” Kaye says he is still petitioning to create a director’s cut of <i>American History X</i>. <br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Dogma (1999)</span><br />
Dir. Kevin Smith <br />
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Filmmaker Kevin Smith’s body of work is distinguished by its combination of glib and foul mouthed humor combined with sincerity. Movies like <i>Clerks</i> and <i>Chasing Amy</i> and <i>Zack and Miri Make a Porno</i> are full of colorful characters who are generally quite likable but whose stories deal with authentic human experiences like love, middle aged discontent, and parenthood. Smith’s 1999 movie <i>Dogma</i> applied the filmmaker’s style to faith and in particular Catholicism. Smith came from a Catholic background and he channeled his experiences and feelings about religion into the film.<br />
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<i>Dogma</i> was the story of two angels (Ben Affleck and Matt Damon) who had been deposed from heaven centuries ago but discover a loophole in Catholic theology that will allow them to return. If they accomplish this, the angels will subvert God’s will and inadvertently undo all existence. A counselor at an abortion clinic (Linda Fiorentino) is recruited to stop them and along the way she encounters supernatural characters who make this disillusioned Catholic reconsider her own complex feelings about faith. <br />
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Religious-themed movies are actually quite popular with a certain movie going crowd but only if the film fits within certain parameters. <i>Dogma</i> did not fit in that box. It was earnest about matters of faith but <i>Dogma</i> was also irreverent toward religious authority and had plenty of silly, vulgar, and scatological humor. A copy of the script was acquired by the Catholic League, a lay organization (not affiliated with the Catholic Church) that purports to defend the Catholics from bigotry. The Catholic League launched <a href="https://www.catholicleague.org/dogmas-censors-exposed/" target="_blank">a campaign against <i>Dogma</i></a>, publishing a booklet about the movie that was circulated to dioceses across America. The protest against <i>Dogma</i> gained traction and Kevin Smith was inundated with 300,000 pieces of hate mail and death threats and he was escorted by body guards to the film’s screening at the Cannes Film Festival. Smith expressed exasperation with the controversy as no one protesting the film had actually seen it. <br />
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<i>Dogma</i> was produced by Miramax, which at that time was owned by Disney. The Catholic League took particular aim at Disney whose executives were uncomfortable being associated with the film and its tenor. The decision was made to sell <i>Dogma</i>’s distribution rights to Lionsgate, which at the time was an up-and-coming studio. According to Kevin Smith, the Catholic League lost interest in <i>Dogma</i> once Disney was unassociated with the film. <i>Dogma</i> was still released and protesters did show up at theaters. One demonstration was held in Eatontown, New Jersey at Kevin Smith’s local cinema. Smith decided to crash the protest and picketed the movie alongside local Catholic demonstrators. 1500 protesters were anticipated but the total headcount was estimated at about fifteen. <br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Ms. 45(1981)</span><br />
Dir. Abel Ferrera <br />
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In the 1970s and 80s a whole subgenre of rape-revenge movies emerged including titles such as <i>House on the Edge of the Park</i>, <i>Death Wish</i>, and <i>I Spit on Your Grave</i>. The reasons for the influx of these films at that particular time are complicated and a matter of debate. Cinema of the 1970s had been liberated from the restrictions of the Production Code and filmmakers reveled in the new freedoms, exploring the limits of sexuality and violence on screen. This occurred against a background of liberalized attitudes toward sexuality, second wave feminism that had raised awareness of violence against women, and rising crime rates in America’s major cities. However, the rape-revenge genre was generally ill-received. Many of these films were regard to be in bad taste while others were accused of exploiting imagery of women being brutalized. And in some cases, such as the <i>Death Wish</i> sequels, those criticisms were valid. <br />
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<i>Ms. 45</i> is the story of a mute young woman who is sexually assaulted twice in the same day. She gets herself a handgun and begins shooting would-be attackers. But as her vigilante activities continue, this woman’s grip on sanity continues to slip and she becomes less and less discerning as to whether the men in her sights intended any harm. Directed by New York filmmaker Abel Ferrera with significant contributions by lead actress Zoë Tamerlis, <i>Ms. 45</i> was more complex than the average rape-revenge flick. The movie was made with style and intelligence and <i>Ms. 45</i> combined brutal intensity with a nuanced understanding of violence and trauma. The sexual assaults of the movie are part of a larger web of harassment and misogyny that lead this woman to vigilantism and eventually madness. <br />
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Like many rape-revenge films from the late 1970s and early 80s, <i>Ms. 45</i> ran into trouble with the censors. The film was banned in Finland, Norway, Sweden, and New Zealand and it fell afoul of the video nasties panic in the United Kingdom. Various distributors in different territories recut the film to appease local censors and it wasn’t until 2013 that a definitive cut of <i>Ms. 45</i> was widely available. In recent years <a href="https://www.rogerebert.com/balder-and-dash/on-ms-45-and-revenge-movie-feminism" target="_blank"><i>Ms. 45</i> has enjoyed a critical reappraisal</a>. It’s now regarded as <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/danielbaldwin/2016/04/24/ms-45-remains-a-powerful-feminist-revenge-thriller/#529a5d503285" target="_blank">a feminist piece</a>, one that is worth rediscovering in the #metoo era. <br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Crash (1996)</span><br />
Dir. David Cronenberg<br />
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David Cronenberg’s 1996 film <i>Crash</i> (not to be confused with Paul Haggis’ 2004 film of the same name) was adapted from J.G. Ballard’s book. The story follows several people in a fictional subculture where automobile collisions are a source of sexual arousal. The intent of the movie was to dramatize the link between desire and risk as well as technology’s place in human sexuality. <i>Crash</i> is unusual and uncomfortable to view, particularly for the way in which it combines violence with sexuality. However, the violence was confined to auto collisions. As the <a href="https://bbfc.co.uk/case-studies/crash" target="_blank">British Board of Film Classification observed</a>, the “sexual content of the film was unremarkable in classification terms and the violence was no stronger than could be found in many other features (comprising car crashes rather than one-on-one personal violence).” <br />
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When <i>Crash</i> premiered at the Cannes Film Festival it divided audiences. <a href="https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/crash-1997" target="_blank">Roger Ebert</a> gave the film a three-and-a-half star review and <a href="https://www.rogerebert.com/rogers-journal/ebert-and-scorsese-best-films-of-the-1990s" target="_blank">Martin Scorsese</a> named <i>Crash</i> one of the ten best movies of the 1990s whereas Nigel Reynolds called it “morally vacuous, nasty, violent and little more than an excuse to string together one scene after another of sexual intercourse.” British newspapers the <i>Daily Mail </i>and the <i>Evening Standard</i> launched a campaign against <i>Crash</i> when it opened in UK theaters, demanding that the film be banned. BBFC examiners determined that the movie did not violate the UK’s obscenity laws and <i>Crash</i> was released uncut to UK theaters with an18 certificate. According to the BBFC, this outraged the <i>Daily Mail</i> and <i>Evening Standard</i> who resorted to “publishing the photographs and personal details of the BBFC's examiners and ridiculing them as unrepresentative 'liberals' who had refused to ban an offensive and dangerous film.”<br />
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<i>Crash</i> nearly didn’t make it into US theaters at all. The movie was distributed by Fine Line Features which was owned by Ted Turner. <a href="https://www.wired.com/1997/10/crash-video-lands-in-us/" target="_blank">According to <i>Wired</i></a>, Turner “was so personally disturbed by <i>Crash</i> that he tried to have it blocked” from playing in US theaters and “Turner only backed down ‘when a reporter called him on it’ during a public appearance.” In response, <a href="http://www.cnn.com/SHOWBIZ/9611/22/crash.dispute/" target="_blank"><i>Crash</i> actress Holly Hunter</a> said “I think it's a very chilling arena for Ted Turner to be entering when he's speculating about what could be morally reprehensible for the American public." <i>Crash</i> did ultimately play in US theaters but most American moviegoers were unable to it. The theatrical version was rated NC-17 by the Motion Picture Association of America and most major theater chains will not book NC-17 movies. In its widest release, <i>Crash</i> played in just 339 theaters nationwide and it was a box office failure. Blockbuster Video, which had nearly a monopoly on the home video market in the late 1990s, refused to stock NC-17 films and David Cronenberg was <a href="https://www.wired.com/1997/10/crash-video-lands-in-us/" target="_blank">contractually obligated to create an R-rated cut</a> for the rental chain. This version was about ten minutes shorter than the NC-17 cut. <br />
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Years later, Paul Haggis wrote and directed an unrelated movie with the title <i>Crash</i>. That film was a major mainstream success and won the Academy Award for Best Picture. David Cronenberg was upset with the title of Haggis’ film and <a href="http://www.contactmusic.com/david-cronenberg/news/cronenberg-haggis-stole-my-name_1048390" target="_blank">said so publicly</a>, claiming that Haggis was disrespectful not only to the filmmaker but also to novelist J.G. Ballard and his book.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Song of the South (1946)</span><br />
Dir. Harve Foster and Wilfred Jackson<br />
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<i>Song of the South</i> was Disney’s adaptation of Joel Chandler Harris’ “Uncle Remus” stories. Taking place in Georgia during the Reconstruction era, Uncle Remus (James Baskett) tells folk tales to young Johnny (Bobby Driscoll) to impart important life lessons to the boy. <br />
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<i>Song of the South</i> was considered offensive for its white-washing of the Jim Crow era and for its racial stereotypes. At the time of its release in 1946, the NAACP spoke out against <i>Song of the South</i> and <a href="http://picturethis.museumca.org/pictures/song-south-protest" target="_blank">protests were staged outside theaters</a> showing the film. Disney did itself no favors when it held the premiere of <i>Song of South</i> in Atlanta which was segregated at the time and the film’s African American stars could not attend. With each rerelease, <i>Song of the South</i> became increasingly anachronistic and after a brief theatrical run in 1986 Disney announced that it had retired the picture and had no plans to rerelease it in theaters or on home video. <br />
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However, <i>Song of the South</i> is a technically and historically significant piece of filmmaking. It mixes live action with hand-drawn animation almost two decades before <i>Mary Poppins</i> and the film won a pair of Oscars including Best Original Song for “Zip-A-Dee-Do-Dah,” which is now the theme song to the Splash Mountain ride at Disneyland. Furthermore, <i>Song of the South</i> is a cultural artifact. Its racist caricatures were unfortunate but not unusual in Disney films or in American entertainment as a whole and erasing that record creates cultural amnesia without actually addressing the sources and repercussions of those images. As <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/disney-s-racist-cartoons-won-t-just-stay-hidden-vault-ncna998216" target="_blank">Aramide A. Tinubu</a> points out, “by refusing to address its own racist legacy (which extended well beyond the 1940s), Disney is only adding to the problem.” <br />
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Disney’s decision to withhold <i>Song of the South</i> remains in force and the company has doubled down on its efforts to clean up its history. The House of Mouse made clear that <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/song-south-dumbos-jim-crow-scene-will-not-be-disney-1203624" target="_blank"><i>Song of the South</i> will not appear</a> on the Disney+ streaming service but also announced that the minstrel crows would be cut from the streaming version of 1941’s <i>Dumbo </i>and <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/03/movies/toy-story-2-casting-couch-scene-scli-intl/index.html" target="_blank">the casting couch joke from <i>Toy Story 2</i></a> was removed from the most recent disc release.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Halloween II (1981)</span><br />
Dir. Rick Rosenthal <br />
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In the early 1980s the horror genre was overtaken by the slasher film – stories of teenagers who are picked off by masked killers armed with edged weapons. These films were tremendously popular with audiences and were immensely profitable for Hollywood studios but slasher films also drew condemnation from media watchdog groups and film critics. Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert used their syndicated television program to launch a campaign against <i>Friday the 13th</i> and parental groups successfully lobbied Tri-Star Pictures to pull <i>Silent Night, Deadly Night</i> from theaters. These detractors were given renewed ammunition by murders committed in 1982 by Richard Delmer Boyer in Fullerton, California. In the trial, Boyer claimed that he suffered from hallucinations brought on by viewing 1981’s <i>Halloween II</i>, which he had watched while under the influence of various substances. <a href="https://www.upi.com/Archives/1984/05/24/Movie-Halloween-II-blamed-for-stabbings/9024454219200/" target="_blank">The film was an exhibit at the trial</a>. <i>Halloween II</i> was screened for the jury and a psychiatrist compared scenes in the movie with Boyer's recollection of the killings. Boyer was found guilty and sentenced to death while the incident became known as the “<i>Halloween II</i> Murders.”<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Battleship Potemkin (1925)</span><br />
Dir. Sergei Eisenstein<br />
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Sergei Eisenstein was one of the most important filmmakers in the history of Russian cinema. His work was revolutionary in its politics but also in its style and Eisenstein was a master of using camera angles and editing in a way that stirred the viewer’s emotions and communicated ideas without spelling them out on the screen. Eisenstein made a name for himself with 1925’s <i>Battleship Potemkin</i>. The movie dramatized the 1905 mutiny aboard a Russian warship which was one of the early events leading to the Russian Revolution that overthrew the Tsars and instated Communism. <br />
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This film didn’t simply come about out of Eisenstein’s sense of patriotism or personal politics. <i>Battleship Potemkin</i> was commissioned by the Soviet Union’s Central Committee to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the revolution and it was originally intended to be a sprawling project that covered the breadth of the revolution as it was experienced by various characters across Russia. When that proved impossible to achieve in the time allotted, Eisenstein focused on the events aboard the Potemkin and crafted a story that sits alongside <i>Triumph of the Will</i> and <i>Why We Fight</i> among the most effective pieces of political propaganda. But unlike Leni Riefenshal and Frank Capra’s documentaries, <i>Battleship Potemkin</i> was a drama and the movie succeeded in using the elements of cinematic storytelling to provoke viewers’ emotions and lead audiences toward the desired ideological conclusion. <br />
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The history <i>Battleship Potemkin</i> has been distinguished by <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2005/feb/17/festivals.berlinfilmfestival2005" target="_blank">censors trying to dampen the movie’s impact or ban it outright</a>. The Russian film industry of the 1920s was ill equipped to distribute the film internationally and so <i>Battleship Potemkin</i> was sold to the German film company Prometheus. The sale included the rights to edit the film which was necessary to get <i>Battleship Potemkin</i> exhibited at all. According to Bruce Bennett, German military and law enforcement authorities were afraid <i>Battleship Potemkin</i> might encourage the spread of communism and wanted the movie banned. It did eventually screen in Germany but with significant edits. The censored Prometheus cut became the basis for the versions distributed throughout the world which were then further edited by other censors. French police burned copies of <i>Battleship Potemkin</i> and the movie was banned at various times in Finland, Italy, Sweden, and Portugal. <a href="https://bbfc.co.uk/case-studies/battleship-potemkin" target="_blank">The United Kingdom banned <i>Battleship Potemkin</i></a> until after the death of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin and according to Tom Mathews the movie was banned in Pennsylvania for allegedly “[giving] American sailors a blueprint as to how to conduct a mutiny.” <br />
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After World War II, <i>Battleship Potemkin</i> was re-edited by Russian filmmakers working from the Prometheus cut. The intention was to create the definitive version but the resulting cut included significant omissions and changes to the intertitles and frame rate. This version was the least faithful edit of <i>Battleship Potemkin</i> but it was also the most widely circulated edition. Throughout the 1980s and 90s, film scholars searched the world’s film collections for missing material and in 2005, eighty years after its Russian premiere, <i>Battleship Potemkin</i> was finally screened as originally intended by Eisenstein. <br />
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The original score for <i>Battleship Potemkin</i> was composed by Edmund Meisel. However, this score was largely abandoned in subsequent edits and replaced with selections from the work of composer Dmitri Shostakovich. Meisel’s score was re-recorded for the 2005 restoration. However, Eisenstein <a href="http://publicdomainmovie.net/movie/battleship-potemkin-1925" target="_blank">allegedly</a> wanted the score for <i>Battleship Potemkin</i> to be rewritten every twenty years to keep the film relevant to contemporary audiences and musicians have composed their own musical accompaniments. This includes a 2004 score by Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe of the Pet Shop Boys, a 2007 soundtrack by Del Rey & The Sun Kings with the Dresden Symphonic Orchestra, and a 2011 score by Michael Nyman. <br />
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The most famous scene in <i>Battleship Potemkin</i> is the “Odessa Steps” sequence in which Tsarist troops massacre a crowd of citizens celebrating the Potemkin mutiny. The Odessa Steps scene has been imitated and parodied in movies as diverse as <i>The Godfather</i>, <i>Bananas</i>, <i>Brazil</i>, and <i>The Naked Gun 33⅓</i>.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Sources</span><br />
<ul>
<li>Bennett, Bruce. “A Revolution on Screen.” Liner notes to the Kino International Blu-ray release of <i>Battleship Potemkin</i>. </li>
<li>Barker, Martin, Jane Arthurs and Ramaswami Herindranath. “The <i>Crash</i> Controversy: Reviewing the Press.” <i>The Cult Film Reader</i>. Ed. Ernest Mathijs & Xavier Mendik. New York: Open University Press, 2008. Pages 456 – 74. </li>
<li><i>Evening With Kevin Smith, An</i>. DVD. Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, 2002. </li>
<li>Mathews, Tom. <i>Censored: The Story of Film Censorship in Britain</i>. Chatto & Windus: 2002. </li>
<li><a href="http://www.filmsite.org/controversialfilms.html" target="_blank">Most Controversial Films of All Time</a> by Tim Dirks at AMC Filmsite </li>
<li><a href="http://movie-censorship.com/" target="_blank">Movie-Censorship.com </a> </li>
<li>Simmons, Jerold. “Challenging the Production Code: <i>The Man with the Golden Arm</i>.” <i>Journal of Popular Film and Television.</i> 2005: Volume 33, Issue 1. Pages 39 – 48. </li>
</ul>
Nathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15795055565663807265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4479476628924618760.post-44905279520225184572019-07-03T17:25:00.000-05:002019-07-03T17:25:48.463-05:00Controversial Films on Sounds of CinemaSounds of Cinema's annual look at controversial films will air on Sunday, July 7th.<br />
<br />
Sounds of Cinema has made a tradition of using Independence Day weekend
to celebrate freedom of speech by looking at movies that have been censored,
banned, or were otherwise controversial. The 2019 edition of this
program will feature new material so even if you've tuned in for
past broadcasts don't miss this episode. <br />
<br />
Sounds of Cinema can be heard Sunday morning at <b>9am on </b><a href="http://www.kqal.org/" target="_blank"><b>89. 5 KQAL FM</b> </a>in Winona, MN and at <b>11:00am on <a href="http://www.kmsu.org/" target="_blank">89.7 KMSU FM</a></b>
in Mankato, MN. If you are outside the broadcast area you can still
hear the show via live streaming from each station's website or on your mobile device using the <a href="https://tunein.com/" target="_blank">TuneIn app</a>.
Nathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15795055565663807265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4479476628924618760.post-18157770141390706752019-06-29T16:07:00.000-05:002019-06-29T16:07:53.283-05:00Farewell, James GullicksonI want to recognize James Gullickson, the General Manager of <a href="http://www.kmsu.org/" target="_blank">89.7 KMSU FM</a> "The Maverick" which broadcasts from the campus of Minnesota State University in Mankato. Gully is retiring from his post after many years of service. <br />
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Sounds of Cinema began in the KMSU studios back in 2004 (under the title "Maverick at the Movies"). At the time I was a graduate student and I was working with the station’s news crew. I had been thinking about a radio show featuring film music and I pitched the idea to Gully. I wasn’t very experienced in radio production but Gully agreed to give me the chance to do something I was interested in. Among the qualities I’ve admired about Gully has been his commitment to letting students and volunteers explore their interests and providing enough support so that we produce quality programs but also allowing us the space to follow our interests. He did not micromanage my program but he was generous with feedback while also being kind about it. I shudder a bit when I reflect back on some of my early programs but Gully allowed me to learn from my mistakes while offering suggestions that improved my work. This show has continued in no small part because of Gully’s support and he has been a mentor, an advocate, a supervisor, and a friend. <br />
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Gully guided KMSU through some challenging times. He took over management duties in a period when the station’s future was uncertain and he guided KMSU through personnel shakeups, technical obstacles, and financial challenges. The station you hear now, which is an important fixture of Minnesota State, the Mankato community, and southern Minnesota more generally, is a testament to Gully’s vision and leadership. <br />
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So, thank you, Gully. You’ve been one of the great influences on my life and you’ve left behind an impressive legacy. Congratulations on your retirement. You’ve earned it. <br />
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If you live in the Mankato area and want to pay your respects, there is a retirement party for Gully at Pub 500 on Sunday, June 30th. Details can be found <a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/347023489258676/" target="_blank">here</a>. Nathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15795055565663807265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4479476628924618760.post-38689344588927241782019-05-23T22:32:00.000-05:002019-05-23T22:32:17.702-05:00'Apocalypse Now' on Sounds of CinemaFor Memorial Day weekend, Sounds of Cinema will feature a condensed version of the two disc soundtrack to <i>Apocalypse Now</i>. The soundtrack includes the music, dialogue, narration, and sound effects and plays like a radio drama.<br />
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Based on Joseph Conrad’s novella <i>Heart of Darkness</i>, <i>Apocalypse Now</i> tells the story of Captain Willard, an American soldier in Vietnam who is given a secret mission to assassinate an American colonel who has gone insane deep within the Southeast Asian jungle. On Willard’s journey he confronts his own doubts about the war, his allegiance to his country, and even his own sanity.<br />
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<i>Apocalypse Now</i> is an unconventional war film. There are none of the typical war film clichés; no taking the hill, no waving flags, no Rambo-style heroics, no buddies in combat. Instead, <i>Apocalypse Now</i> is a journey from the order and relative civility of the military command through a progressively chaotic and uncouth battlefield, stripping away the social and technological signs of human advancement and returning the characters to a primal state of nature. By doing this, <i>Apocalypse Now</i> examines the roots of violence and the nature of warfare, making the film an exploration of the Thanatos drive.<br />
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<i>Apocalypse Now</i> was directed by Francis Ford Coppola and contains a unique and ground breaking sound mix by Walter Murch. The screenplay was written by John Milius and Frances Ford Coppola and the narration is credited to Michael Herr.
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Here is a video of <i>Apocalypse Now</i> director Francis Ford Coppola talking about the film on its fortieth anniversary.<br />
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<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/YR0N9n0y1Ek" width="560"></iframe><br />
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Sounds of Cinema can be heard Sunday morning at 9am on <a href="http://www.kqal.org/" target="_blank">89.5 KQAL-FM in Winona, MN</a> and 11am on <a href="http://www.kmsu.org/" target="_blank">89.7 KMSU FM in Mankato, MN</a>.
Tune in over the air, online at each station's website, or through the <a href="https://tunein.com/" target="_blank">Tune-In app</a> on your mobile device. Nathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15795055565663807265noreply@blogger.com0