As I’ve said before, since I actually speak French, I’m more inclined than usual to add French films to our watch list but Bande de Filles, released as Girlhood in English-speaking markets, shouldn’t need this extra consideration. With its subject of female African-French teenagers living in the outskirts of Paris, it promises to cover some of the same territory as the eye-opening La Haine by Matthieu Kassovitz. As its director Céline Sciamma commented, black women almost never appear in French films so it feels great just to break this informal taboo.
This one was a pick by my wife. Though we no longer climb regularly, I guess the subject is still fascinating. This one is a small documentary, so small in fact that it seems to have been basically made by the three climbers themselves, about their attempt to climb up Meru Peak along the so-called Shark’s Fin route, said to be one of the hardest mountaineering routes in the world.
Oliver Stone has a reputation of being a polemicist first and an artist second, which is why I’ve never been particularly enthused about watching his films. Given that he’s still a major figure in American cinema, I thought I’d give him a fair shake and Platoon seems like the best place to start as it was what caused him to rise to prominence and is widely considered one of the best films about the Vietnam War.
This marks the first film by Akira Kurosawa to be covered in this blog. Like most people I’ve watched Seven Samurai and was blown away by it but that was before I started writing about every film that I watch. Since then I’ve gained a new appreciation of this director’s skill thanks to the excellent Every Frame a Painting channel on YouTube and thought it was high time I slowly worked through some of this great director’s most successful works. This one was added to the list because it was apparently the direct inspiration for George Lucas when he made the original Star Wars.
Like everyone else, we like to relax with some films that are pure fluff once in a while. For me however, I find that I’m unable to enjoy most action films apart from the superhero genre. It’s just really difficult to suspend disbelief for them and to take them seriously. Horror films still work on me though, which is why I pay attention to interesting new releases for that genre though it’s true that I probably like them a lot more than my wife does.
Strangers on a Train may not be one of Alfred Hitchcock’s best known films but it still appears to be quite highly regarded. I got it from Broken Forum when they were talking about some of the more unusual premises for a murder. It doesn’t star anyone particularly famous but it does star Hitchcock’s own daughter Pat Hitchcock.
This pick was made fill out my wife’s regular quota of animated films. The title in Italian translates as The Art of Happiness. Not coincidentally this is also the title of the popular book co-authored by the current Dalai Lama. That’s a pretty good hint that Buddhism figures rather heavily in the themes of this compact film.
