[NOTE: Since originally posting this list and complaining about being unable to include a picture of the top DVD, I have figured out how to get a picture again. Either Google has restored the previous process, or I was somehow being frustrated in following the usual practice. Nevertheless, I will leave my complaint as I wrote it.]
In its continuing effort to ConGoogle our lives, Google has
now screwed around with Blogger to remove the ability to simply upload a
picture to a blog; they now apparently want you to upload it to Google Docs or
some such thing and then load it to the blog from there. Not being inclined to
submit to corporate dominance, I refuse to do it their way. So until I come up
with a better idea, in lieu of posting the picture of the DVD cover for the top
listed movie, I am including a link to the IMDb page for all of the movies in the list.
Here is what I have watched since I posted my last list. The
ratings I give are on my own number system which is explained at the link on
the sidebar. Clicking on a movie title will open the IMDb web page for that movie.
The movies on this list streamed via Netflix were:
Serving Life
Johnny Carson: King of Late Night
Political Animals
Pink Ribbons, Inc.
We Were Here
Mommo: The Bogeyman [stream availability expired 11/17/2013]
Serving Life –
2011 (3.6). Produced for the Oprah Winfrey Network, this powerful documentary
follows four inmates at the Angola prison in Louisiana, where the average
sentence being served is ninety years. The men have applied for and been
accepted into an innovative program as interns to serve as hospice aides to
other inmates who are dying. They interact with officials in charge of the
program, learn from inmates with experience as aides in the program who mentor
the interns and then are assigned to patients and begin to work with them as
they are dying. Watching the movie, we only leave the prison two brief times,
once as a prisoner gets medical treatment at a nearby hospital and once as an
inmate is escorted to the funeral of his father. We see some scenes of the men
trying to make amends with their biological families, over the phone and in one
case with a rare prison visit. Wisely omitted are interviews with people who
are not part of the prison inmates or staff, no outside experts or academics to
distract us from the all-encompassing life of a prisoner in Angola. The film
impacts emotionally on three levels, connecting us to the reality of serving a
prison sentence of life with no parole, sharing with us the mental process
these men have undertaken to reconcile themselves with their guilt and the
responsibility for their criminal actions, and allowing us to participate with
them in developing trusting relationships with their fellow inmates with whom
they lovingly wait for death.
American Experience:JFK – 2013 (3.0). Archival footage and interviews with historians and
surviving contemporaries fill in between the narrated story of the life of the
young President in this PBS American Experience documentary produced on the 50th
anniversary of his assassination. Thankfully not dwelling on the parts we know
so well, this biography gave more details on the serious medical problems
Kennedy suffered, the political maneuverings involved in getting him elected
President and the fumbles of his Presidency together with a few bright spots.
Though his charm and charisma cannot help but shine through, this movie does
glorify the man and frankly documents his failings, thankfully only
acknowledging his womanizing without dwelling on it and spending more time
covering his Presidential shortcomings. Nevertheless, one can see the
inexperienced young President was on the right track and starting to grow into
the job and accomplish important preliminary steps before his death. Even fifty
years on, it is impossible for those of us who remember his assassination not
to come to tears at the end of this film.
Boardwalk Empire
(Season Three) – 2012 (3.0). The general story arc continues as corruption
turns into escalating murders and impending gang warfare. Personal
relationships ebb and flow engulfed by the expanding violence. Conniving and
backstabbing increase as stakes become higher and Federal Cabinet members
become involved. This is a series that concentrates on the bad guys to the
point where good types are not even shown, except for a righteous Federal
prosecutor in a minor role who seems mostly motivated by her career
aspirations. With so many deaths in this series it is comforting to know that
all the decedents are people with virtually no redeeming qualities. What keeps
us coming back is the belief that they will all eventually die off and the
desire to be there to see it.
The First Beautiful Thing -2010 (3.0). Though it flashes back and forth in telling its story,
the changes in this Italian movie are seamless and not disturbing. The
characters all have a real humanity that makes them flawed but still worthy of
our caring. We first meet the central family in 1971 when the pretty but ditsy
young mother wins a beauty contest, which disturbs her husband, annoys her son
and delights her daughter. As we come forward in time, we see what happens to
the couple, their children and their extending family circle. This is a movie
that grows on the audience like life progresses, never quite clear where it is
heading but always moving along to the ultimate inevitable.
Johnny Carson: King of Late Night – 2012 (2.9). Watching Johnny at bedtime was always
comforting, but the man himself was never truly comfortable with his off screen
life. This American Masters documentary from PBS uses archival footage of
Johnny and later interviews with his family, friends and colleagues to tell the
bittersweet story of a man so beloved by the public who felt that lasting love
eluded him in his personal life as he encountered problems in his relationships
with his mother, three sons, four wives and numerous colleagues. It is sad to
realize that so much joy can be brought to others by artists and entertainers
whose own lives are filled with hurt. Their pain is our gain, but we can still
feel sad for them even as they bring us joy. That is what they want; if they
cannot find a way to a happy personal life, at least they can obtain happiness
through artistic expression.
42 – 2013
(2.8).Telling only the part of the story involving his signing with the
Brooklyn Dodgers organization and playing first with Montreal and then being
brought up to the majors as the first African American player, this earnest drama
about Jackie Robinson presents its characters as more icon than human. It is
only the power of knowing the story is true that makes the movie passable.
Political Animals
– 2012 (2.8). USA Network produced this miniseries about a divorced former First
Lady now serving as Secretary of State after a failed run for the Democratic
Presidential nomination. Parallels to the Clintons are apparent, but two grown
sons are substituted for Chelsea. Indulging in the soap opera aspects of the
lives of the sons detracts from the political drama. Even though their lives
can be issues in any campaign of their mother, the subplots seem to have been
included to appeal to a younger audience less interested in solid political
stories. A young female journalist becomes central to the story as someone who
rose in her career by knocking the former First Lady and then becomes an ally
of sorts, but the sex life of the reporter is given as much script time as her
journalism.
Pink Ribbons, Inc.
– 2011 (2.8). This Canadian documentary examines the breast cancer awareness
movement with a critical eye, showing footage of many fund raising walks and
similar events, commercial footage and interviews with people from corporations
which join in the fundraising, commentary from researchers and critics of the
fund raising movement, and most touchingly, testimonials of stage four breast
cancer patients facing death. Generally well done, the movie would be better
organized if less time was spent showing the walks we all see so often on TV and
more time spent with researchers and particularly those involved with the
actual management of funds being used for research. The critics do an excellent
job of showing how the foundation movement (most notably Susan G. Komen) has
become a business which raises an incomplete awareness of breast cancer issues
while raises enormous sums of money for research that is never adequately
explained. The film obviously had a valid critical viewpoint but should have
concluded with more definitive prescriptive information for what a viewer
should do if they agree.
We Were Here –
2011 (2.8). Archival footage and interviews with survivors are the ways in
which this documentary reminds us of the impact of AIDS on the gay community of
San Francisco. The free abandon of the Castro residents gives way to a
realization that a strange new disease is affecting gay men and may be sexually
transmitted. As early efforts meekly try to determine more about the disease,
activism finally gets greater time and money invested in finding effective
medical treatment, all of which leads to a transformation in the LGBT
community. The survivors produced this movie as homage to the thousands who did
not live to see the onset of effective treatment and new attitudes.
Mommo: The Bogeyman
– 2009 (2.8).Set in a contemporary Turkish village, this drama almost feels
like an intimate home movie as it follows a nine year old boy and his younger
sister whose mother has died and whose lame father has remarried and abandoned
them to the care of their ailing grandfather. The children, apparently real
life siblings, inhabit their roles with appealing integrity.
