Δευτέρα 31 Αυγούστου 2009

Brazil

Είδος: Ταινία
Γλώσσα: English
Υπότιτλοι: -
Χρονολογία: 1985 , USA
Σκηνοθεσία: Terry Gilliam
Διάρκεια: 133'


http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088846/

Perhaps the greatest of all films, 18 October 2002
Author: mariogreymist from New York NY, USA

I have read a lot of understandably negative reviews of the movie 'Brazil.' Brazil(in its proper form) is a long film at well over two hours, it has many cutaways to dream sequences that are only loosely related to the rest of the film, and the narrative story is not always the driving force of the film which many people find confusing. With all these things going against it, Brazil is clearly not a film for everyone.

All that being said, Brazil is my very favorite movie. Those things previously described as reasons that some people will dislike the movie are the very reasons I love it. The story is both simple and complex depending on how you look at it, and this kind of paradox is what makes for great art. There, I did it! I used the 'A' word, and not lightly. Brazil is an art film, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

Sam Lowry(Jonathan Pryce) is our hero, an unambitious bureaucrat within the ranks of the Ministry of Information. The only place he is willing to be more than a drone is in his dreams where he is some sort of angelic knight fighting to save his dream girl. While running an errand for work, Sam comes face to face with a woman who is the very image of the dream girl, and his life is forever changed when he surrenders his tranquil unambitious life in the attempt to pursue the woman.

This movie is less about the story than it is about the atmosphere in my opinion. Terry Gilliam is a visual genius, and this movie marks his peak(so far) in producing a visually stunning film, with due apologies to Adventures of Baron Munchausen and 12 Monkeys which are beautiful in their own rights. The oppression of the bureaucratic life is felt by anyone who watches this film, and the freedom experienced in the dreams is a fantastic counterpoint. This film does a wonderful job of evoking emotional responses for me, and I suspect for most of the fans of the film as well.

The film can be viewed at many different levels of complexity, from fairly simple to fully allegorical. The simple view would be that the movie is about the dreams we create to escape our dull lives, and the potentially disastrous results of pursuing them in waking life. Symbolically the film can be interpreted as a vicious attack on the status quo as an impersonal, consumer/beauty oriented beast that is upheld by a draconian adherence to regulations and invasive public policy. There are many other ways to see it, most of which are probably unintended, but certainly completely valid.

The best part about Brazil is that it is absolutely hilarious. Jonathan Pryce shows remarkable aptitude for physical comedy. The dialogue is as funny as any movie you'll ever see, though the humor is very dry, and often so subtle that you might not get a joke until a minute after it has passed. There are the occasional tidbits of out loud guffaws one would expect from a script that was partly written by Tom Stoppard, but there is not a constant barrage of this material.

Brazil is a very cerebral film, so if you are thinking, "What does cerebral mean?" you can probably skip it. Anyone who expects to have a story clearly spelled out for them, and done so in a concise manner with little background interference will hate Brazil. Brazil is a film for those who want texture, emotional involvement and some sort of deeper meaning.

Brazil is my favorite movie, but it is clearly not for everyone!


Τετάρτη 26 Αυγούστου 2009

Hunger

Είδος: Ταινία (Drama/History)
Γλώσσα: English
Υπότιτλοι: Ελληνικά
Χρονολογία: 2008 , UK/Ireland
Σκηνοθεσία: Steve McQueen
Διάρκεια: 92'


http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0986233/

Σε μια φυλακή της Βόρειας Ιρλανδίας που μοιάζει με κόλαση, ο αγωνιστής του IRA Μ
πόμπι Σαντς θα επιδοθεί το 1981 σε μια απεργία πείνας μέχρις εσχάτων. Και ο 39χρονος καλλιτέχνης Στιβ ΜακΚουίν θα αποδώσει τις έξι τελευταίες εβδομάδες της ζωής του με ανατριχιαστικό ρεαλισμό, πετυχαίνοντας μια ανελέητη επίθεση στις αισθήσεις του θεατή. Συζητημένη όσο ελάχιστες ταινίες στο πρόσφατο φεστιβάλ των Καννών (όπου και βραβεύτηκε με τη Χρυσή Κάμερα για σκηνοθετικό ντεμπούτο) και με την ώθηση που κερδίζει από την ερμηνεία ζωής του καρατερίστα Michael Fassbender, η εμπειρία της παρακολούθησης του «Hunger» δε θα σβηστεί από τη μνήμη σας για πολύ καιρό.


Τρίτη 18 Αυγούστου 2009

Big Sugar

Είδος: Ντοκυμαντέρ
Γλώσσα: English
Υπότιτλοι: -
Χρονολογία: 2005 , Canada
Σκηνοθεσία: Brian McKenna
Διάρκεια: 89'


http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0820840/


There are few documents out there as important as this one., 11 November 2006
Author: Thorkell A Ottarsson from Norway

A documentary should not only be well made, it should also tell you something you didn't know. Big Sugar delivers on both accounts. I was totally unaware of the crimes of the sugar industry, especially present. The documentary shows how slavery and sugar production have gone hand in hand from the times of old. This part I knew. What surprised me was that slaves are still being used on the sugar fields in the Caribbean island, sugar fields owned by Americans.

The workers (shipped in from poor countries) are forced to buy their food from expensive stores, owned by the plantation owners, and their salary is so low that they can only afford to eat once a day. They are not allowed to grow vegetables and they have to work 12 hours a day, with out drinking or eating.

The documentary also shows how much power the sugar barons have in the USA. They are one of the biggest donators to the Democratic and the Republic parties, money well spent because it buys them power to prevent legislation against them and keeps sugar subsidized in the USA (the only country in the world that does that).

Big Sugar is in two parts. The first part focuses on past and present slavery. The second part draws parallels between the tobacco companies and the sugar industry (and a very convincing one too).

There are few documentaries out there as important as this one. A must see!!!






Τετάρτη 12 Αυγούστου 2009

1984 (by George Orwell)

Είδος: Ταινία
Γλώσσα: English
Υπότιτλοι: -
Χρονολογία: 1954, GB
Σκηνοθεσία: BBC
Διάρκεια: 108'

Nineteen Eighty-Four is a classic dystopian novel by English author George Orwell. Published in 1949, it is set in the eponymous year and focuses on a repressive, totalitarian regime. The story follows the life of one seemingly insignificant man, Winston Smith, a civil servant assigned the task of falsifying records and political literature, thus effectively perpetuating propaganda, who grows disillusioned with his meagre existence and so begins a rebellion against the system. The novel has become famous for its portrayal of surveillance and society's increasing encroachment on the rights of the individual. Since its publication the terms Big Brother and Orwellian have entered the popular vernacular. Orwell, who had "encapsulated the thesis at the heart of his novel" in 1944, wrote most of Nineteen Eighty-Four on the island of Jura, Scotland, during 19471948 while critically ill with tuberculosis. He sent the final typescript to his friends Secker and Warburg on 4 December 1948 and the book was published on 8 June 1949. Nineteen Eighty-Four has been translated into more than 50 languages. The novel's title, its terms, its language (Newspeak), and its author's surname are bywords for personal privacy lost to national state security. The adjective "Orwellian" denotes many things. It can refer to totalitarian action or organization, as well as governmental attempts to control or misuse information for the purposes of controlling, pacifying or even subjugating the population. "Orwellian" can also refer generally to twisted language which says the opposite of what it truly means, or specifically governmental propagandizing by the misnaming of things; hence the "Ministry of Peace" in the novel actually deals with war and the "Ministry of Love" actually tortures people. Since the novel's publication "Orwellian" has in fact become somewhat of a catch-all for any kind of governmental overreach or dishonesty and therefore has multiple meanings and applications. The phrase Big Brother is Watching You specifically connotes pervasive, invasive surveillance. Although the novel has been banned or challenged in some countries, it is, along with Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, We by Yevgeny Zamyatin, Kallocain by Karin Boye and Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, among the most famous literary representations of dystopia. In 2005, Time magazine listed it among the hundred best English-language novels published since 1923. The book has often been misinterpreted as an attack on socialism, and Orwell himself had occasion to refute such claims, both privately and in public. In a letter to Francis A. Henson of the United Automobile Workers, dated 16 June 1949 (seven months before he died), excerpts from which were reproduced in Life (25 July 1949) and the New York Times Book Review (31 July 1949), Orwell stated the following: "My recent novel [1984] is NOT intended as an attack on Socialism or on the British Labour Party (of which I am a supporter) but as a show-up of the perversions ... which have already been partly realized in Communism and Fascism. ...The scene of the book is laid in Britain in order to emphasize that the English-speaking races are not innately better than anyone else and that totalitarianism, if not fought against, could triumph anywhere." In his 1946 essay, "Why I Write", Orwell described himself as a Democratic Socialist. Nineteen Eighty-Four is set in Oceania, one of three intercontinental totalitarian super-states. The story occurs in London, the "chief city of Airstrip One", itself a province of Oceania that "had once been called England or Britain". Posters of the ruling Party's leader, "Big Brother", bearing the caption BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU, dominate the city landscapes, while two-way television (the telescreen) dominates the private and public spaces of the populace. Oceania's people are in three classes — the Inner Party, the Outer Party, and the Proles. The Party government controls the people via the Ministry of Truth (Minitrue), the workplace of protagonist Winston Smith, an Outer Party member. As in the Nazi and Stalinist regimes, propaganda is pervasive; Smith's job is rewriting historical documents to match the contemporaneous party line, the orthodoxy of which changes daily. It therefore includes destroying evidence, amending newspaper articles, deleting the existence of people identified as "unpersons".

Σάββατο 8 Αυγούστου 2009

We Become Silent - The Last Days Of Health Freedom

Award-winning Well TV contributor Kevin P. Miller explores the ongoing attempts made by multinational pharmaceutical and giant food companies, the World Trade Organization, and the World Health Organization in limiting public access to vitamins, herbs, and other alternative therapies that may not financially benefit anyone but the afflicted. Narrated by acclaimed U.K. actress Dame Judy Dench, We Become Silent follows in the tradition of Miller's previous documentary Let Truth Be the Bias. Released in 1994, Let Truth Be the Bias highlighted the U.S. government's role in silencing the information about the effectiveness of alternative medicines by exposing their role in an armed raid at the office of a holistic MD. As a result of that film, public support was gained for the Dietary Supplement Health Education Act (DSHEA), an act which defended the rights of U.S. consumers to pursue alternative health care. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/333324/We-Become-Silent-The-Last-Days-of-Health-Freedom/overview




Δευτέρα 3 Αυγούστου 2009

Evilness of Power (Η Βαρβαρότητα της Εξουσίας)

To Evilness of Power (Η Βαρβαρότητα της Εξουσίας) είναι μια συρραφή βίντεο σε μορφή ταινίας που παρουσιάζει τις ελευθεριακές ιδέες και αρχές πάνω στα σημερινά προβλήματα της κοινωνίας, αναδεικνύοντας τα ριζικά αίτια αυτών, και τον αντίκτυπο που έχουν, σε ατομικό και κοινωνικό επίπεδο.

Η ταινία απαντά σε ερωτήματα όπως: Γιατί η ιεραρχία είναι η πηγή κάθε κάκου, πόσο στα αλήθεια η δημοκρατία εκφράζει την δημόσια εντολή, πόσο ευάλωτη είναι η φύση του ανθρώπου στους θεσμούς και κατά πόσο επηρεαζόμαστε από αυτούς, γιατί το κέρδος έχει μεγαλύτερη αξία από την ίδια την ζωή, πως οι άνθρωποι κάτω από ομαδικές συνοχές μέσα σε ένα θεσμικό ρολό κάνουν πράγματα που δεν θα έκαναν κάτω από φυσιολογικές συνθήκες, πως λειτουργούν τα κράτη και γιατί τα μεγάλα κράτη δεν χρειάζονται εξουσιοδότηση, πως οι πολιτικοί προετοιμάζουν το πληθυσμό για πόλεμο, τι είναι κράτος και σε τι χρησιμεύει, πως η ιεραρχία περιορίζει την δημόσια εντολή για να προωθήσει τα συμφέροντα των προνομιούχων, γιατί οι άνθρωποι διαπλάθονται μέσα στον καταναλωτισμό και τι ικανοποιεί αυτός.

Επίσης πως τα αθλητικά είναι ένα παράδειγμα πολιτικής κατήχησης στο σύστημα, η σύνδεση της πολιτικής και του Hollywood, η εικόνα των Αράβων στις ταινίες και πως δικαιολογείται ο πόλεμος μέσα από αυτές, ποια είναι η τακτική της προπαγάνδας στο πολίτικο σύστημα μέσα από την φαινομενική σύγκρουση αριστεράς και δεξιάς, σε τι χρησιμεύει πραγματικά ο εθνικισμός και ποιους επωφελεί, ποιος ο ρόλος των ΜΜΕ στην δημιουργία συναίνεσης και στην λήψη αποφάσεων, πως τα ΜΜΕ επιβάλουν περιορισμό στο πολιτικό και ιδεολογικό σύστημα, τι είναι το μοντέλο προπαγάνδας, ο ρόλος των διανοούμενων στο να επηρεάζουν την κοινωνία, πως τα ΜΜΕ επιβάλουν τον καταναλωτισμό, ποια η ψυχοπάθεια στο άτομο και στις εταιρίες και τι κοινό έχουν, πως μπορεί η τεχνολογία να βοηθήσει το σύνολο της κοινωνίας αντί του κέρδους των προνομιούχων, γιατί η αίσθηση της ταυτότητας δεν βασίζεται στην ιδιοκτησία μας αλλά στο τι πραγματικά είμαστε, ποιος είναι ρόλος της ύπαρξης ιδιοκτησίας, πως η εργασία μπορεί να γίνε από ένα απλό μέσο επιβίωσης η μεγαλύτερη ανάγκη στη ζωή, και τέλος πως μπορεί πραγματικά να επιτύχει ο ελευθεριακός σοσιαλισμός.

Περιέχει ομιλίες των: Noam Chomsky, Murray Bookchin, Erich Fromm, Howard Zinn, Michael Albert, Jonh Zerzan, Michael Parenti, του ψυχολόγου Philip Zimbardo, του φιλοσόφου Mark Kingwell, του συγγραφέα Jack Shaheen, της συγγραφέως Arundhati Roy, του ψυχολόγου Robert Hare και άλλων.

Η ταινια είναι διμιουργια του αναρχο-συνδικαλιστη mr1001nights
http://www.youtube.com/user/mr1001nights


Part 1



Part 2



Part 3



Part 4



Part 5



Part 6



Part 7



Part 8



Part 9



Part 10



Part 11

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