Midnight Oil:Movies and More

“Monsoon Wedding” (2001) gives a glimpse of  a wedding day in modern-day India that has lots to say about the institution of marriage, families and India as it is today. Director Mira Nair lovingly constructs a multi-layered picture of an extended middle class family as it goes through the Hindu ritual. The gathering of the clan and the awkward introduction of two strangers who are soon to be husband and wife present the perfect opportunity for both flamboyant display and clandestine concealment. moviescreenshots.blogspot.comMultiple revelations take place during the course of the film. Some are funny and fun and some stumble upon the great tragedies and imperfections of life as it really is. Nair’s film is enjoyable because it captures “the way things really are” today in a specific state in India. The movie reaches beyond the frivolous and the cliché because it simultaneously reveals “the way things have always been” on a universal level. Who’s to say that the torrential downpour of a monsoon would not be the perfect ending of a grand celebration of a very imperfect life? It’s a different way of looking at things. It might just be a very lucky thing.

Be sure that you don’t miss the SNAM Interview dedicated to examining the intricacies of “Monsoon Wedding”.

Also shown on Saturday Night at the Movies was “Father of the Bride” (1950) , another movie along the wedding theme previously reviewed on Midnight Oil.

 >>More to see: Looking for more out of life?

>>Real Life Story: Shawna went from the fairytale wedding to disappointment in her marriage to real happiness.

 See the official trailer for “Monsoon Wedding” (2001). I decided some words of explanation (in English) were necessary to tell the story even though this video clip does an great job of capturing the visual story of the film through colour, texture, song and dance.

“Clean and Sober” (1988) with Michael Keaton, Kathy Baker and Morgan Freeman makes for a hard-hitting onscreen drama about addiction that has seldom been surpassed. Keaton’s performance as the self-absorbed Daryl Poynter, real estate agent, coke addict and all around jerk, is simply excellent. The façade of the high roller slowly unravels. The action of the film takes place over the course of one calendar month in the life of the addict. Instead of being the guy pulling the strings behind the scenes, Daryl Poynter comes to see that he is not in control. His life is one big, tangled mess. It’s a hard pill to swallow.

Through the unintended help of people like his rehab counselor (Morgan Freeman), his A.A. sponsor (M. Emmet Walsh ) and others, Daryl Poynter gets a major dose of reality therapy just in time. We see him actually undergo a step of evolution and graduate from the level of “pond scum” (the scene where he cons his old mother on the phone) to semi-human status (the scene where he tries to help his fellow addict, Charlie, make the phone call to exit her abusive relationship). It’s not easy. It’s not meant to be an easy film. Keaton’s masterful closing scene at the A.A. meeting is painful to watch – a man so uneasy in his own skin that you think he might just crawl out of it. In the end, the film helps one to understand that the uneasiness of it all is necessary if there is to be a hope in hell of recovery.

Also reviewed on this blog is another feature screened on TVO's Saturday Night at the Movies "Days of Wine and Roses" (1962) with Jack Lemmon and Lee Remick.

>>More to see: Looking for more out of life?

>> Real life story, Brian Welch: finding a way out of addiction.

See the video trailer for "Clean and Sober" (1988).

“The Bicycle Thief” (1948), is a small masterpiece on celluloid that captures the human drama of a family man struggling to maintain his livelihood and his dignity by recovering a stolen bicycle in post-war Rome. This Italian language film by Vittorio de Sica maintained my interest even with the English subtitles. Taking in a film through translation may be akin to listening to a symphony orchestra through a tin can telephone. One is sure to miss something in the translation. However, the acting on the part of the father and son duo (played by Lamberto Maggiorani and Enzo Staiolo respectively) is so convincing both through dialogue and the non-verbal, that one can forgive the ongoing necessity of the subtitles. Following the everyman character about the streets of Rome in his desperate search for his bicycle gives us the full range of an emotional workout and a depth of sociological analysis that the “official bus tour” of the famous Eternal City would never afford.

>>More to see: Looking for more out of life?

See a trailer for "The Bicycle Thief" (1948)

“Shenandoah” (1965) IMDb with James Stewart playing the lead role provides a less than usual perspective on the American Civil War. The film tells the story of a well ensconced Virginian farming family caught up in the latter part of the Civil War. Stewart, as Charlie Anderson, vehiculates a pragmatic pacificism about a mean and dirty war that now encroaches on his land and his family. Anderson himself is not undergirded by a particularly robust morality about the war nor about his position on pacificism. He finds himself fighting a losing battle even though he technically remains “out of the war”.

The Uncivil War episode offered by Saturday Night at the Movies pairs “Ride with the Devil” (1995) IMDb with this movie classic from 1965. SNAM’s interviewed guests bring out the relationship of “Shenandoah” with American sentiments of the day concerning young American men snatched up into the war in Vietnam and the accompanying anger, confusion and sense of helplessness on the part of those at home.

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See the SNAM preview for The Uncivil War here. Dig in to the background for the films through the Interviews on The Uncivil War with experts on the period.

Catch the video trailer for “Shenandoah” (1965) here.

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"Went the Day Well?" (1942) , from a short story by Graham Greene, is a wartime propaganda film with some surprises up its sleeve. The film, set in a sleepy English village, depicts the responses of ordinary folk to the extraordinary situation of having some German paratroopers land in their backyard posing as a British engineering detail. Watch out for dithering sweet little old ladies who serve tea and crumpets while secretly wielding an axe against unsuspecting German servicemen!

>>More to see: Looking for more out of life?

Catch the video trailer of "Went the Day Well?"

visit videodetective.com for more info