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The Bitter Tea of General Yen (1932)
They found a love they dared not touch!
Filmmaker(s): Frank Capra

An American missionary is gradually seduced by a courtly warlord holding her in Shanghai.

Frank I can get value out of pretty much any film, but some are harder work than others because they place impediments. Capra and Spielberg are the leading placers of the leading impediments: representing the world in a way that is ideal, attractive, but presented in...


Published January 17, 2024
| Categorised as IMDB Comments, Twos |
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Tango (1998)
Tango: do not ever leave me
Filmmaker(s): Carlos Saura

A dangerous love affair inspires a director to create the most spectacular and boldly seductive dance film ever made.

Making Film Dance I love this stuff. This film has weaknesses, but the ambition is so grand one can forgive, at least in deciding to watch. The general problem is mixing film and dance. Rarely, oh so rarely is it done well. The stock choices are two:...


Published December 5, 2023
| Categorised as IMDB Comments, Threes |
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Moana (2016)
The ocean is calling.
Filmmaker(s): Ron Clements, John Musker

In Ancient Polynesia, when a terrible curse incurred by Maui reaches an impetuous Chieftain's daughter's island, she answers the Ocean's call to seek out the demigod to set things right.

Disney within Disney I was expecting a standard, manufactured Disney Princess item. What I encountered was a powerful embodiment of myth in a young woman, with the notable exceptions of the coconut pirate and glittery crab sequences. These were conceived and directed by others. I suppose...


Published November 19, 2023
| Categorised as Fours, IMDB Comments |
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Private Gold 93: The Sexual Adventures of Little Red (2007 Video)
Filmmaker(s): Moire Candy

This is pure Hollywood! A sizzling and cum-filled urban remake of the classic fairy tale. Silvia Saint leads the cast of eight other girls into a red hot anal sex marathon. With a lesbian foursome, two trios (b/b/g), two duos and a foursome that will have you saying "Oh Red what a big mouth you've got to swallow down my big, swollen cock!"

Ladies Fair Orient, Rosy Blooms Appear A couple years ago, I criticised this team. Today I applaud them. I am studying "folding," various techniques for putting the viewer into the narrative. We have good science that indicates mirror neurons work intensely with porn and food movies. That...


Published October 3, 2023
| Categorised as IMDB Comments, Twos |
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Sherlock! (2010)
A new sleuth for the 21st century.
Filmmaker(s): Mark Gatiss, Steven Moffat

A modern update finds the famous sleuth and his doctor partner solving crime in 21st century London.

Logical Circularity This comment applies to the three, presumably the only three episodes of the BBC Sherlock! (The trend seems to be to modernise famed detectives and so denote with an exclamation point.) (After this comment was written, there would be more) I come to this as...


Published September 11, 2023
| Categorised as IMDB Comments, Twos |
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The Birth of a Nation (1915)
The Fiery Cross of the Ku Klux Klan!
Filmmaker(s): D.W. Griffith

Two families, abolitionist Northerners the Stonemans and Southern landowners the Camerons, intertwine. When Confederate colonel Ben Cameron is captured in battle, nurse Elsie Stoneman petitions for his pardon. In Reconstruction-era South Carolina, Cameron founds the Ku Klux Klan, battling Elsie's congressman father and his African-American protégé, Silas Lynch.

Bad Influence This film marked a disastrous turn in American society. No, I’m not talking about the overtly racist content. Any nitwit can see that and adjust, though I suspect that my grandchildren will decry with equal vehemence the content of the films I now casually...


Published September 11, 2023
| Categorised as IMDB Comments, Twos |
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Birth (2004)
Careful what you wish for.
Filmmaker(s): Jonathan Glazer

It took Anna 10 years to recover from the death of her husband, Sean, but now she's on the verge of marrying her boyfriend, Joseph, and finally moving on. However, on the night of her engagement party, a young boy named Sean turns up, saying he is her dead husband reincarnated. At first she ignores the child, but his knowledge of her former husband's life is uncanny, leading her to believe that he might be telling the truth.

Operatic There’s a scene in this that will be a feature of film school classes for a long time to come. Nicole is an uneven actress, only sometimes rising to the world class of Kate and Cate and the young Julianne. The smallest part of this...


Published September 11, 2023
| Categorised as IMDB Comments, Threes |
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The Bird People in China (1998)
The children of the sky.
Filmmaker(s): Takashi Miike

Wada, a salary man, is enlisted to venture off to China to investigate a potential Jade mine. After his arrival, Wada encounters a violent, yet sentimental, yakuza, who takes the liberty of joining his adventure through China. Led on their long and disastrous journey to the mine by Shen, the three men come across something even more magical and enticing.

Purity, Song, Jade Miike has a pretty solid pattern. He makes films for a distinctly Japanese audience, teasing out some issue or two that seems culturally rooted. This is his context. He shifts it into a magical, cinematic world and imagines scenes as episodes within this...


Published September 11, 2023
| Categorised as IMDB Comments, Threes |
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Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014)
How did we end up here?

A fading actor best known for his portrayal of a popular superhero attempts to mount a comeback by appearing in a Broadway play. As opening night approaches, his attempts to become more altruistic, rebuild his career, and reconnect with friends and family prove more difficult than expected.

Parasitic Nests I have a particular interest in five different cinematic styles, worlds actually. One of them I have named the Hispanic style. It is characterised by: elements of magical reality, either in supernatural physics or synchronous connections. a belief that the world is rich, fecund. Occasionally female...


Published September 5, 2023
| Categorised as IMDB Comments, Twos |
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Bingo (1991)
More hip than humanly possible.
Filmmaker(s): Matthew Robbins

Bingo, the runaway circus dog, is off the leash and saving Chuckie's life! Bingo and the boy become the best of friends in this canine comedy featuring doggy disguises and skateboarding, pinball and prison. Chuckie and his parents are moving house, a thousand miles away, but Bingo won't be allowed to join them.

The American Spirit One of the strongest influences in how a society imagines itself is film, and of films the strongest are where the characters are most abstract. Abstraction can be through cartoons or cartoonizing, stereotyping or extreme dramatizing. But the most elegant to my mind...


Published August 28, 2023
| Categorised as IMDB Comments, Ones |
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