Showing posts with label films. Show all posts
Showing posts with label films. Show all posts

Thursday 3 June 2010

SiCKO

I just finished watching the movie and I wept.

I wept for Americans without health insurance. I wept for Americans with insurance but who have had claims rejected. I wept for Americans who understand the need for universal health care but can't convince their fellow Americans of it. I wept for Cubans who despite great challenges understand the value of pulling together as human beings to help one another, particularly when one of us is ill. But mostly I wept for Americans who "don't get it".

If you watch this movie and are unaffected...I'd rather not finish this sentence.

A thought came to mind shortly into the film...

Michael Moore is the Noam Chomsky of the lunch pail crowd.

By the way, the part about sending the cheque to his rival with the website dedicated to bashing Moore--what could be more poignant?

If you haven't seen it, I urge you to.



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Thursday 18 September 2008

What do the following movies have in common?

What do the following movies have in common?

A Christmas Story
- It's 1948, in the fictional northern Indiana town of Hohman (based on real-life Hammond, IN). 9-year-old Ralph "Ralphie" Parker (Peter Billingsley) wants only one thing for Christmas -- an official Red Ryder carbine-action 200-shot range model BB gun with a compass in the stock.

A Map of the World - Alice Goodwin, mother of two, school nurse and wife of an aspiring dairy farmer in Wisconsin, is getting ready to take her two daughters and her best friend, Theresa's two little girls to their farm pond to swim. When she goes upstairs to find her bathing suit, Lizzy, Theresa's 2-year-old, slips away to the pond and drowns.

Ararat - Ararat is a 2002 film directed, written, and co-produced by Atom Egoyan about the Armenian Genocide, an event that is denied by the government of Turkey.

Adventures in Babysitting - When Chris' friend Brenda (Penelope Ann Miller) calls from a Chicago bus station, having made a failed attempt to run away from her family, Chris reluctantly takes Sara, Brad, and Brad's sex-obsessed best friend Daryl Coopersmith (Anthony Rapp) from their safe suburban surroundings into the city to rescue her.

A History of Violence - Tom Stall is a local restaurant owner in the small town of Millbrook, Indiana who lives peacefully with his lawyer wife Edie, his teenage son Jack and younger daughter Sarah. One night the robbers come into Millbrook and stop at Tom's restaurant.

Angel Eyes - The film opens on an accident scene on a wet rainy night in Chicago. Sharon Pogue (Jennifer Lopez) is a police officer at the scene and she is holding the hand of one of the victims and pleading that he hold on, not to give up and help is on the way.

American Psycho - Showing contemporary urban life through the eyes of a serial killer -- forcing the audience to enter his mind and understand his motives -- the film sets forth a vision that is both terrifying and chilling.

Chicago -
Chicago, circa mid 1920s. Naive Roxie Hart (Renée Zellweger) visits a nightclub where star Velma Kelly (Catherine Zeta-Jones) performs (All That Jazz). Hart is having an affair with Fred Casely (Dominic West) in hopes that he will get her a gig as a vaudeville star. Velma is arrested after the show for murdering her adulterous husband and sister Veronica after finding them in bed together.

Detroit Rock City - Detroit Rock City is a 1999 cult film about four teenagers in a Kiss cover band who try to see their idols in Detroit in 1978. It takes its title from the Kiss song of the same name.

Ginger Snaps - When they set out to take revenge on a girl who slighted them, Ginger is attacked by a wild animal: The Beast of Bailey Downs. Later that night, as Ginger's wounds miraculously heal, it is clear she is changing. Ginger wants to believe it is nothing more than the onset of puberty; but her sister Brigitte knows better...

New York Minute - The story follows Jane and Roxy Ryan, twin sisters with opposing personalities. Jane (Ashley Olsen) is an academic obsessed with order and planning, while Roxy (Mary-Kate Olsen) is a school truant who is interested only in rock music and her band, in which she is the drummer.

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While all (except Ginger Snaps) purport to take place in a specific place, they were all filmed (partially, if not entirely) in Toronto. Ginger Snaps was actually shot at a house on my street about 100 yards from my house at the time. Wikipedia actually notes that the filming took place in my town (Brampton, part of the Greater Toronto Area), at one of the actors' home. Ginger Snaps