Little White Lies

I'd like to recommend a decent newish movie magazine to film club readers. It's called Little White Lies, and is available from Borders (and possibly some other places). Unlike other magazines, it isn't in thrall to the cult of celebrity (although it does have some interviews), and instead takes the line that movies inspire discussion about a whole host of related issues, and they have articles on these related issues. Understand? If not, have a read of my Daily Growl blog post, which goes into a bit more detail on the mag. It also has unique socring criteria, which take account of more than just the in-cinema experience, and which I wholly approve of.

The latest issue is out now.

Next film club: Raging Bull

As you know, the next film club event is this coming Friday (17 March), and it's the long-awaited Raging Bull showing. The film is a Martin Scorsese classic from 1980, written Paul Schrader (his writing partner on Taxi Driver), and based on the book of the life of professional boxer Jake La Motta, tracing his rise and self-destructive fall. The movie features Robert De Niro as Jake La Motta in an Oscar-winning performance.

The film traces the life of the stubborn middle-weight boxing champion as he struggles to be champion. His life passes through successive stages of punishment, compromise, and self-disintegration, due to numerous inner demons. The tale of Jake La Motta's downfall is a reversal of the sentimental, much-loved boxer/hero story in the likes of Rocky. (Much) More detail on Raging Bull here.

This screening is in advance of the ‘Blinded by the Light’ event at Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club on 29 March where Andrew Jones will give a lecture on the Christian themes in Raging Bull.

The venue is Sveta Graudt’s flat in Bethnal Green. If you want more info on how to get there, email me (address on the Profile page of this blog). For food, please bring a pizza (or something similar - garlic bread maybe too) and something to drink. Snacks, tea etc will be supplied. Come for food from 7pm, and the film will be showing at 8pm.

Syriana

Macey and I joined in the busy experience of going to the cinema in Paris last weekend (the French really love their cinema - I was impressed) to see George Clooney's pound-putting-on, Oscar-winning performance in Syriana. It's an interesting movie. I use that terrible word, because it's a film that's easier to admire than love.

I like what they're trying to do with the story but there were a few problems. It suffers from the usual problem that ensenble films face where you have to try to keep track of multiple characters with (often) multiple story lines. But in addition Syriana's stories tended to be complicated, and I wonder how much of what might have helped me follow it better ended up on the editing room floor. It was a real mental exercise keeping track of everything and trying to follow the unnecessarily complex plot, and it didn't help that a good bit of the movie had conversations in various Middle Eastern and South Asian languages, which being in France, had French subtitles (and French is not my strong point!).

Oh well, one to hire when it comes out on DVD to try to work it out and see if really is the great film people are making it out to be. For the record, Clooney is good in it.

A good night at the Oscars

So what did you think of the Oscars this year? I was pretty happy with them, and you can read more about what I thought on my Daily Growl blog. Mainly I was really happy to see Philip Seymour Hoffman, an actor who I've admired for a long time, finally get mainstream recognition of his greatness. Nice also to see Walk the Line getting a shout too - it went down so well at last month's film club.

A full list of the winners are here. You can watch video clips here. So what did you think then?