Screening Log

This new site feature is a collective effort to summarize our viewing habits. Occasionally, you will find titles here that are coming to a theater near you, in addition to films viewed on television, and even films viewed in piecemeal. The screening log is archived each month; to view past entries select a month in the menu below.


April 2006 activity

Total Log Entries: 73

Total Comments: 32


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Missing / USA / 1982

Missing, my introduction to the notorious Costa-Gavras, was nothing if not prodigious. Having watched a DVD of Amen. come and go from my possession, the victim of restrictive library circulation and my bad schedule, I waited with impatience for this film to hit the local theatre. The wait, as I now realize, was well worth it.

With solid acting by both Jack Lemmon and Sissy Spacek, Missing is the story every conscientious American wants to hear but at the same time dreads. Indeed, there’s an unspoken deliberation on-screen over our national identity. Men like Phil Putnam, who seems to embody the world’s perception of the United States as furtively deceitful, is balanced against Beth and Charlie Horman, the uncomplicated travelers who want peace and political serenity. Costa-Gavras never takes sides—while the American heavies are brutal and deceptive, Ed Horman is a compassionate everyman who awakens with horror from his patriotic coma to understand why—something that embodies good sociopolitical cinema. Two of the film’s most haunting scenes—a woman being rushed into a dark car by government operatives to the revulsion of almost no one, and dead bodies splayed against a glass ceiling—are perfect examples of art conveying the horrors of oppression. There’s no need for the subtle lecturing exemplified by von Trier’s Manderlay, a film that I also enjoy—the skillful acting and evenhanded story say it all.

by Adam Balz | Source: DVD
28 Apr 2006 9:46 PM | Submit Comment


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