Twitter Thoughts—April 2016 Week 1

Featuring the films:

The Look of Silence (2015) ****

Pride (2014) **½

Foxcatcher (2014) ****

Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde (1931) ****

Shake! Otis at Monterey (1986) ****

Wow! This was a very interesting week of movies for me. Only five this time as I continue to fall further behind on the DLM Challenge, but what a great collection of films they were.

First was this year’s Oscar nominated documentary “The Look of Silence”, a companion piece to Joshua Oppenheimer’s other Oscar nominated doc “The Act of Killing”, about the men behind the Indonesian death squads responsible for the genocide of their own people. The new doc looks at a family of one of their victims. A man who lost a brother is given the opportunity to confront his brother’s killers. There is no Hollywood revenge plot here, but what does unfold is a fascinating look at human nature and the way people react to genuine evil.

Twitter Thoughts—March 2016 Final Week

Featuring the films and show:

Before Midnight (2013) ***½

The Quest (1996) *

Monterey Pop (1968) ****

You, Me and the Apocalypse, season 1 (10 45-min. eps. 2016) ****

Cradle Will Rock (1999) ***½

David Gilmour: Wider Horizons (2015) ***  

OK. I really am trying to catch up. I was also at a loss at how to label this week since most of the week took place during March, but most of film watching during it took place over the first weekend of April. You’ll just have to make do.

It was a mostly good week, if it weren’t for the second JCVD movie in a row watched for the podcast How Did This Get Made?. A couple weeks ago I discussed “Bloodsport” and for his directorial debut, “The Quest”, you can pretty much just transfer those thoughts over because the two movies are exactly the same. I mean there are some minor difference, like the fact that “The Quest” takes place in the 1920s and that it’s rated PG-13, but other than those insignificant details, pretty much the same movie.

Twitter Thoughts—March 2016 Week 4

Featured films:

Samurai II: Duel at Ichijoji Temple (1955) ***½

The Adventures of Tintin (2011) ***½

Batkid Begins (2015) ***

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016) ***½

Superstore, season 1 (11 24-min. eps., 2016) ***

A Funny Thing Happened On the Way To the Forum (1966) **½

For my thoughts on “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice”, please refer to my full-length review. Before it was released, I joked that when I watched “Batkid Begins”, I had seen the only good Batman movie I would that week. This assessment was based on the negative buzz surrounding BvS. Despite critical derision, I actually enjoyed that movie. It didn’t have the heart of “Batkid Begins”, the documentary following a Make-a-Wish kid’s day as his favorite superhero.

That fourth week of March was also the week that started out with the tragedy in Brussels. I had a difficult time finding a Jean-Claude Van Damme movie that I felt was actually honoring Belgium, so I went for Steven Spielberg’s underrated animated “The Adventures of Tintin”, based on the comic books of Belgium cartoonist Georges Remi, who wrote under the name Hergé and based his title character in Brussels. The comic books were something I treasured as a child and Spielberg’s vision is a near perfect adaptation of Hergé’s work.