This week, Chief and Boomer rekindle their doomed romance with intriguing results. In other news, Starbuck connects with a piano player in Joe’s Bar who helps her with her finding-her-dead-body issues.
If you haven’t seen the show, or the most recent episode, and you care about that sort of thing, don’t click to the next page. There be spoilers, and lots of them; you’ve been warned.
I’m not really going to review “The Passion of Joan of Arc” (1928); it’s an ok film I guess, but I thought it was pretty boring, mostly because of the Maria Falconetti’s (Joan) monotone performance. If you’re an obsessive Joan of Arc fan, then by all means seek it out, although I suspect there are better avenues for that (mainly, just reading the trial transcripts) than sitting through this movie.
But, I do need to give a shout-out to the Criterion Collection’s DVD of “The Passion of Joan of Arc,” because they did a great service by the film.
See, it’s a silent film, and I do mean totally SILENT. I’ve seen a fair amount of silent films over the years, and while there is no dialogue, the score serves to keep things moving and focus the audience’s attention. But “The Passion of Joan of Arc” comes to us with no score; apparently, the director, Carl Theodor Dreyer, never settled on a score and with the film being lost for years, it probably wouldn’t have mattered if he had.
In their infinite wisdom, the Criterion crew added an optional score to the DVD called “Voices of Light.” Now, being the sometime film purist as I am, I initially chose to watch the silent version so I could fully experience the director’s vision. I held out for a good 90 seconds before I switched over.
“Voices of Light” was inspired by the film, and for the most part matches the action. It’s a choir singing and the vocals are occasionally distracting from the action on screen, but, if you have to watch the film, it’s worth it. “The Passion of Joan of Arc” is only 82 minutes long, and I don’t think I could have watched the whole thing without some sound.
Thanks a bunch Criterion crew! Keep ‘em coming!
“The Passion of Joan of Arc” (1928)
Directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer
Written by Carl Theodor Dreyer and Joseph Delteil
Maria Falconetti’s (Joan)
Damn, I suck.
OK, so my predictions weren’t that off, but once again, I let me love of dark horses cloud my more cynical (and accurate) impulses.
Out of my seven “official” predictions, I called Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor and Best Adapted Screenplay, one less right than last year.
For Best Supporting Actress, I picked Viola Davis to win, and if I remember correctly, she was the frontrunner when Oscar season began. I’m not sure what elevated Penelope Cruz ahead of her, but no hard feelings. I know I’ll be renting “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” the earliest chance I get.
For Best Original Screenplay, I went with the wild card of “Frozen River.” I’m not really sure why, but I do love the upsets.
It was that spirit that led me to pick Gus Van Sant over Danny Boyle, the obvious choice in a “Slumdog” year. Oh well, I did the same last year, and odds are high I’ll repeat this next year.
See you then.
One final note: boo to voters for not picking “Waltz with Bashir” for Best Foreign Language Film. It’s a unique moviegoing experience, and while I haven’t seen “Departures,” I feel a bit robbed.
This week, Ellen and Boomer return to the ailing Galactica and both hilarity and solemnity follow them. In other reunions, Gaius returns to his flock to discover that in his absence, they have found a new shepherd with a more pragmatic and ruthless style.
If you haven’t seen the show, or the most recent episode, and you care about that sort of thing, don’t click to the next page. There be spoilers, and lots of them; you’ve been warned.
“Standard Operating Procedure,” Errol Morris’s 2008 documentary, is not in fact a story about Abu Ghraib. That was a surprise to me because that’s what I was expecting; what the documentary is about is the story of the Abu Ghraib photos.
Yes, I’m splitting hairs here, but it’s an important distinction to make; Morris isn’t condemning the war, or prisons or anything else (he’s being a good journalist and letting his subjects do that for him); he’s documenting their stories. Who took the photos? What happened before and after the shutter closed? How did this situation come to pass in the first place?
This week brings us the triumphant return of our lost Cylon, Ellen Tigh, some Hybrid-style ramblings from a critically wounded Anders, many revelations about the Cylon plan and the great ship Galactica falling apart.
If you haven’t seen the show, or the most recent episode, and you care about that sort of thing, don’t click to the next page. There be spoilers, and lots of them; you’ve been warned.
This week, action-packed “Battlestar Galactica” continues as Gaeta and Zarek take their mutiny to the next level in “Blood on the Scales.”
If you haven’t seen the show, or the most recent episode, and you care about that sort of thing, don’t click to the next page. There be spoilers, and lots of them; you’ve been warned.
Oy.
That simple declarative kept coming back to me throughout “Carrington,” a 1995 biopic written and directed by Christopher Hampton. Another line that kept skipping around upstairs was a line from 6ths song, “You know you’re the star of my life story,” but we’ll get to that later.