Busy week of movie and TV watching for me beyond seeing Mama (read my review here) in theaters.
I watched Criterion’s new Blu-ray for Andrei Tarkovsky’s Ivan’s Childhood, which I really liked and am already halfway done with my review and will have finished by Tuesday or Wednesday depending on how long it takes me to finish writing up the 2012 RopeofSilicon Awards. If you’re not familiar with what the RopeofSilicon Awards are, this will be the fifth year I’ve declared my own selection of awards and you can see the previous four years right here. This year I am also going to bring back the vote for the best film of 2012 as I did in 2010 and 2009 and neglected to do last year.
Here were the results from 2010 and 2009:
| 2009 | 2010 |
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It will be fun to do it again this year and I think I’ve waited long enough for everyone to see as many of the films as possible now that Silver Linings Playbook is finally in wide release. I will be posting the first round of polling on January 28 so you will still have a little time to go see anything you may have missed so far, such as Zero Dark Thirty and Silver Linings, so start getting those top tens ready.
As for what else I watched this week, I caught the entire first season of HBO’s “Girls” and I still have the first four episodes of season two to watch before I do a write up, but I have a feeling my overall verdict, even once I watch those those four, will be something along the lines of — It’s good, not great. If these girls would shut up and actually do something instead of just talking about doing something the show would improve. I believe that’s sort of the point of the show, but after ten episodes it’s already getting a little tiresome.
And then, last night I watched VÃctor Erice‘s The Spirit of the Beehive, which is a tough film to wrap your head around and come to a conclusion on, especially when you read Paul Julian Smith’s essay and his belief it captures the essence of Francoism and Fascism. Then James Franco (an ironic last name in this case) calls it a film “about the power that movies can hold over us” when he names it the #1 film in the Criterion Collection.
Upon first viewing, I’m more inclined to agree with Roger Ebert’s take:
What follows is considered a coded message about Franco’s fascist regime, but it’s not for me to connect the dots. I relate to it more strongly as a poetic work about the imagination of children, and how it can lead them into mischief and sometimes rescue them from its consequences.
I, however, believe there is also a layer of spirituality thrown in there.
Two additional things to note about Spirit of the Beehive include the performance of youngster Ana Torrent and the golden cinematography of Luis Cuadrado who was going blind while making the film and would commit suicide seven years and 15 movies after its release.
Other than that, I’m going to spend my Sunday watching the NFL playoffs, which means it’s now your turn. What did you watch this week?
