ABCs at the Movies: The Doubles Round!

[Fran]

From IMDb:  The Elder boys return to Clearwater, Texas, for their mother's funeral. John, the eldest, is a well-known gunfighter, and trouble follows him wherever he goes. The boys try to get back their ranch from the town's gunsmith who won it from their father in a card game....

[southendmd]

Plot:  Set in a western town, the stooges are working as waiters in a saloon with the three girls they hope to marry. The proprietor of the saloon is a crook who, with his partner, has buried $40,000 of stolen money. The boys go prospecting in hopes of raising enough money to pay off the debts of their fiancée father, who owes money to their boss. They dig up the stolen money, which the crooks recognize as their loot and abscond with. A wild chase ensues, ending with the bad guy's car crashing into the Sheriff's office.

[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kABSYDmARlQ[/youtube]

[memento]

Plot: The Good is Blondie, a wandering gunman with a strong personal sense of honor. The Bad is Angel Eyes, a sadistic hitman who always hits his mark. The Ugly is Tuco, a Mexican bandit who's always only looking out for himself. Against the backdrop of the Civil War, they search for a fortune in gold buried in a graveyard. Each knows only a portion of the gold's exact location, so for the moment they're dependent on each other. However, none are particularly inclined to share...

[memento]

Political Movies

[Fran]

From Amazon:  A heady time of change and chains, the 1960s are defined by a common effort to fight against injustice. Chicago filmmaker Mike Gray was there using his camera to document the politics of the streets. AMERICAN REVOLUTION 2 is a rare cinematic treasure that captures the social upheaval that followed the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. From the riots that followed, two disparate groups -- the Black Panthers and the Young Patriots (a group of poor Southern whites living in Chicago) -- emerge to unite against prejudice and injustice in their city. Gray's gritty no-frills style is spontaneous and purposeful, suggesting a you-are-there quality that captures the excitement of the era. Shot verite style with no script, hand-held camera, direct sound, and natural lighting, the look is rough raw and real, much like the city it depicted.

[southendmd]

IMDb:  This documentary tells about a significant portion of Italian-Canadians were interned as "enemy aliens" during world war II. They were victims of a recurring pattern of Canadian xenophobia and bigotry that lead to the severe political persecution and imprisonment of minorities in times of war despite the lack of evidence that they posed any security threat to the nation.

[memento]

IMDB: A documentary about a rural Oregon timber town and a rift between conservatives and liberals that threatens to put an end to a 40-year-old scholarship plan that pays the college tuition for every local high school graduate the town produces.

[oilgun]

From IMDb:   Death Of A President is an excellent film and is in no way anti-American or Anti-George Bush. It has great cinematography, an interesting and very plausible story line, and exceptional performances. Whether you're left, right, center, or none of the above, this is a a very good film for the thinking movie-goer.

The controversy, of course, stems from the use of the current U.S. President as the victim of an assassination. The assassination scene itself flies by and can't be more than 2-3 seconds long, so fast, in fact, you can be forgiven if you miss it altogether. It's what precedes and follows that scene that is the meat of the movie. Film footage of Bush and other real political figures is spliced seamlessly into this film, and includes footage of Vice-President Cheney and Mayor Daley of Chicago. None of these real persons are in any way abused or mis-characterized in the film. And the portrayal of fictional FBI agents, Chicago Police officers, and White House and Secret Service officials is, if anything, mostly very complimentary to them. This film does not do a hatchet job on anyone

What the use of real characters in a fictitious scenario allows the film-makers to do is to let the movie-goer realize that real actions have real consequences. And by putting real persons into a totally fictitious plot the film-makers can develop an accurate scenario - something that still can't be done with the Kennedy assassination of more that 40 years ago. We can't present an accurate portrayal of that real event even now because of the doubts cast on the whole event by the actions of our own government. The USG botched the assassination investigation so badly with its lies of omission and commission, that we will probably never know that whole truth about what happened that day in 1963. With the fictional scenario of Death of a President, though, we know exactly how things play out.

Whether you are a President, an assassin, an FBI agent, or just a movie-goer, realizing that actions have consequences - often unforeseen consequences, of course - is something we all need to be reminded of from time to time.

==Comment==
Unfortunately, I have to agree with the above comment    My friend and I were rather disappointed with the film because we were expecting something that would feed our antipathy towards Bush.

[southendmd]

IMDb comment:  'Die Entlassung' ('The Dismissal') was the Third Reich's sequel to 'BIsmarck', a blatant piece of Nazi agitprop which was nonetheless a box-office success during Germany's wartime economy. Although 'Die Entlassung' is just as much a piece of propaganda as 'Bismarck', from a cinematic viewpoint it's also vastly superior to its predecessor. Wolfgang Liebeneiner, who directed both films, does a moderately better job in the sequel. More significantly, this film has a much better cast than its predecessor. The key roles of Otto von Bismarck and Kaiser Wilhelm the First are played here (unlike in the first film) respectively by the great Emil Jannings and the underrated Theodor Loos. There are also good performances by Werner Krauss and Bernhard Goetzke.

Emil Jannings plays von Bismarck with a bald head and a walrush moustache, which could easily have given him a laughable appearance ... especially as his moustache is slightly askew in several scenes. But Jannings's dignity and his strong presence in this role easily overcome any problems with his appearance.

Although WIlhelm the First was a major character in 'Bismarck', in the sequel Theodor Loos appears only briefly in this role. 'Die Entlassung' opens with the deaths of the Kaiser and Friedrich Wilhelm the Third, leading to the accession of Kaiser Wilhelm the Second (who plunged Europe into the Great War). Wilhelm the Second famously had a withered arm, but the obscure actor who plays Kaiser Billy in this movie makes no attempt to duplicate this handicap. The filmmakers' decision to depict Kaiser Wilhelm with two normal arms is rather like depicting Long John Silver without a pegleg.

SPOILERS COMING. Oddly for a propaganda film, 'Die Entlassung' ends with the downfall of its central figure. Members of the Kaiser's court have cooked up a scheme similar to the Dreyfus Affair, charging Bismarck with concealing important documents from the Kaiser. Bismarck is forced to resign in disgrace. I don't know enough about the true history of Otto von Bismarck to say if this is accurate or not, but I suspect that it never happened. Emil Jannings tended to play masochistic roles: proud respected figures who experience degrading downfalls. The casting of Jannings in the lead role may have been a factor in deciding the bizarre ending of this movie.

The production values and the period detail in this film are excellent, and the brilliant cameraman Fritz Arno Wagner provides some enthralling camera set-ups. I very grudgingly give credit to the anonymous person in the Third Reich's film industry who decided to let this movie tell a good story rather than exclusively serving Nazi agitprop. I'll rate 'Die Entlassung' 6 points out of 10. If it hadn't been made by Nazis, I might have rated it one point higher.

[memento]

Plot: A dramatized documentary investigating accusations that "Forbidden Love" author Norma Khouri made up her biographical tale of a Muslim friend who was killed for dating a Christian.