Woman enters a life of ill repute. She gives up her son and promises to resume here life with him and give up her past indiscretions when he is 16. She picks up her boy and takes him off to Rome to start their new life. He is a symbol of her salvation – but she is already tarnished and cannot escape. She cannot escape her pimp--who refuses his own escape into a life of marriage and work in the sticks. She also cannot give up her "friends" from the street. This is who she turns to for aid. As for her son, he c cannot assimilate. He is not the bright, neer-de-well child she had hoped he might be. In the end he bares her cross; but she is not saved through his death. The closing shot: Mamma Roma stairing out her window at the Vatican and the only true source of salvation? Pasolini again weaves an undercurrent of religion, politics and philosophy under the surface of his filmic parable. Beautifully scripted and shot.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Kingdom of Heaven (Ridley Scott, 2005)
Tuesday, June 09, 2009
Caracas: Love Unto Death (Gustavo Balza, 2000)
Friday, June 05, 2009
Anthem (Bill Viola, 1983)
Die Fälscher/The Counterfeiters (Stefan Ruzowitzky, 2007)
Monday, May 18, 2009
The Goebbels Experiment (Lutz Hachmeister/Michael Kloft, 2004)
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
40 films | 40 years
1968: George Dunning, Yellow Submarine
1969: Jean-Pierre Melville, L’ Armée des ombres/Army of Shadows
1970: Robert Altman, M*A*S*H
1971: Sam Peckinpah, Straw Dogs
1972: Francis Ford Coppola, The Godfather
1973: William Friedkin, The Exorcist
1974: Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Ali: Fear Eats The Soul
1975: Milos Forman, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest
1976: Sidney Lumet, Network
1977: George Lucas, Star Wars
1978: Alan Parker, Midnight Express
1979: Francis Ford Coppola: Apocalypse Now
1980: Martin Scorsese, Raging Bull
1981: Stephen Spielberg, Raiders of the Lost Ark
1982: Richard Attenborough, Ghandi
1983: David Cronenberg, Videodrome
1984: Jim Jarmusch, Stranger Than Paradise
1985: Terry Gilliam, Brazil
1986: Brothers Quay, Street of Crocodiles
1987: Barbet Schroeder, Barfly
1988: Mira Nair, Salaam Bombay!
1989: Denys Arcand, Jesus of Montreal
1990: Luc Besson, La Femme Nikita
1991: Jonathan Demme, Silence of the Lambs
1992: Neil Jordan, The Crying Game
1993: Jim Sheridan, In The Name of the Father
1994: Quentin Tarantino, Pulp Fiction
1995: Michael Radford, Il Postino (The Postman)
1996: Joel Coen, Fargo
1997: Roberto Benigni, Life is Beautiful
1998: Wes Anderson, Rushmore
1999: Andy & Larry Wachowski, The Matrix
2000: Steven Soderbergh, Traffic
2001: Ron Howard, A Beautiful Mind
2002: Fernando Meirelles, Cidade de Deus/City of God
2003: Mikael Håfström, Ondscan/Evil
2004: Michel Gondry, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
2005: Fernando Meirelles, The Constant Gardener
2006: Alejandro González Iñárritu, Babel
2007: Joel and Ethan Coen, No Country for Old Men
2008: Christopher Nolan, The Dark Knight
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Heaven (Tom Tykwer, 2002)
Leon:The Professional (Luc Besson, 1994)
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Ondskan ["Evil"] (Mikael Håfström, 2003)
Thursday, January 22, 2009
We Jam Econo (Tim Irwin, 2005)
Adaptation (Spike Jonze, 2002)
Thunderball (Terence Young, 1965)
Friday, January 16, 2009
Smart People (Noam Murro, 2008)
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
The Assassination of Richard Nixon (Niels Mueller, 2004)
Friday, December 12, 2008
Celebrating Bird (Gary Giddens, 1987)

Great insight into the life of the legendary sax man from Kansas City. This documentary features a lot of archival footage along with rate interviews w/Parker's first wife, Rebecca Davis Parker, along with bandleader Jay McShann, Dizzy Gillespie, Roy Hanes, Leonard Feather, Roy Porter, Frank Morgan and Bird's New York companion, Chan Parker. Understanding the life lends much to understanding the emotion behind the music. If your a jazz fan, this is a documentary you will want to see.
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Brute Force (Jules Dassin, 1947)
finally achieved through death. If you should watch this film, I'd recommend that you not approach this as a jail-break film. I think it is a film that reflects back on the horrors of war, of "brute force," and it's impact on the psyche of men.
Friday, June 20, 2008
Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (Andrew Adamson, 2008)
I was pleasantly surprised by this latest installment of the Narnia series. I definitely helped having see the first (or having read the book) as you pretty much dive right into the action in this serial edition. Definitely more action and adventure to be found here. The four children seem rightly out of place in Narnia several hundreds of years later. The Gospel message is once again very clear in this movie. I think the premise of this film rides well with 2 Peter 3 which says: "remember the words spoken of old...that in these final days mockers will come with their mockery, people who go the way of their own desires, who will say: Where is the promise of his coming?" Just as King Miraz and his followers have forgotten the Narnians and even the Narnians have given up on the promise that the kings and queens of old would return. The 2 Peter passage continues: "For since our fathers were laid to rest, all things remain as they have been since the original creation. But they are unaware, as they wish to be, that the skies existed from of old, and the earth formed from water and standing in the water, but the word of God." Likewise at Cair Paravel they have forgotten the orginal creatures of Narnia and life as it used to be. Furthermore if we follow this passage we read: "Do no forget this one thing, dear friends, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day." So it was with the Pevensie children and with Aslan. And as it is with God so is it with Aslan for "he is patient with you, because he does no want any to be destroyed, but all to come to repentence."
C.S. Lewis' nicely painted allegory translates well to the screen for this adventurous romp that is friendly for the eyes of children of all ages.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
X: The Unheard Music (WT Morgan, 1986)
Rope (Alfred Hitchcock, 1948)
Saturday, February 02, 2008
X-Men: The Last Stand (Brett Ratner, 2006)
Friday, February 01, 2008
Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (Tim Story, 2007)
Alien (Ridley Scott, 1979)
Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert Tour 3D (Bruce Hendricks, 2008)
Tuesday, January 08, 2008
The Bridge (Joris Ivens , 1927-28, 11 Min, Silent)

Castro Street (Bruce Baillie, 1966)

Ringu (Hideo Nakata, 1998) & Jisatsu saakuru/Suicide Club (Sion Sono, 2002)


Mitt liv som hund (My Life As A Dog)(Lasse Hallström,1985)

GNN Battle Ground: 21 Days On Empires Edge (Stephen Marshall, 2004)

