Category: Film

That's how Dan Klein described this piece to me.  The end of the piece runs as follows:

One has to wonder if anyone who has read [Henry] George
could lend a hand to the production of the screed of mistruths and
error that is The End of Poverty. I prefer to be subtler, but this movie does not allow it.

I guess I did not signal magnanimity with that one.  I believe the movie is coming out soon.

Addendum: David Henderson adds comment.

Via Andrew Sullivan, calculate the answer here.  I find, however, that this service does not capture the value of Netflix to me.  What I like about Netflix is that I can put a movie directly into my queue and then forget about it.  It's more a way of organizing information than a means of economizing on movie rental expenses.  But why not just set up a tagging system?  With Netflix, I feel some financial pressure –or should I say the desire to avoid feeling like a non-maximizing idiot? — to work through my queue at a positive rate.  It keeps me watching, or at least trying, more movies than otherwise would be the case.

Sometimes I get fooled and from Portugal I cannot be sure this one is real.  But here goes:

Worried about not making a good impression on the date you’ve just
brought over to your place for a nightcap? Spice up the bathroom with
these matching bloody bathmats and shower curtains!

Blood Bath Mat

Blood Bath Shower Curtain

(via Street Anatomy)

I thank TheBrowser for the pointer.

This one is from Anthony Lane, from his old review of Sin City:

We have, it is clear, reached the lively dead end of a process that was
initiated by a fretful Martin Scorsese and inflamed, with less
embarrassed glee, by Tarantino: the process of knowing everything about
violence and nothing about suffering.

Here is his current and very negative review of Watchmen (beware of spoilers!).

Ignore them.  I've seen an amazing run of movies lately, including I am Cuba, Waltz with Bashir, The Class (worth twenty papers on the economics of education or more), Coraline (in 3-D is a must), and Silent Light, the latter being about Mennonites in Mexico.  Not to mention Gran Torino.  Elsewhere, Jason Kottke appreciates 1999 for film.

Many people are complaining about the depiction of poverty in the recent movie Slumdog Millionaire.  My question is simple: which movies do a good job of depicting poverty, either its nature or its causes?

I believe the correct answers will involve movies that set out to do something other than depict poverty, but I am eager to hear your views.

Jonathan Falk asks me:

Asa, a loyal MR reader, asks:

My problem with movies is simple.  I can read faster than some people, but I can't watch a movie faster than anyone.  So the relative price of movie-watching for me is high (the marginal utility of books does not for me decline rapidly) and often I need the big screen to hold my interest.  Nonetheless I read Essential Cinema and the new David Thomson book — both superb — and decided I wanted to see a chunk of movies.  I've already blogged Satantango and Ruiz's Time Regained was a surprisingly good cinematic treatment of Proust (no jokes please).  I'm looking forward to I Am Cuba, Cat People (the original), Peeping Tom, Bottle Rocket, Night Moves, The Letter, Pasolini's Salo, and about fifteen others.  Probably then I'll quit again.

By the way, the movies I liked this year were Man on Wire, Let the Right One In, the first thirty minutes of Wall-E, Encounters at the End of the World, In Bruges, Burn After Reading, and Transporter 3.  I haven't yet seen either Silent Light (Carlos Reygadas) or Gran Torino but I expect to like both.  I even enjoyed Vicki Cristina Barcelona, against all expectations.

Tonight, from this very good article, I read a very good sentence: "In other words, older women are discriminating, which is why so few films are made for them."

It's seven hours long and probably the greatest Hungarian movie.  I'm about to start the third of three Netflix disks.  One reviewer described it as "desacralized Tarkovsky."  Another summarized the "plot": "Moving at a pace that would suit a glacier, Mr. Tarr [the director] contemplates a
group of grim-faced, wretched characters whose agricultural collective
has fallen into decay, and who engage in desperate forms of chicanery
as a way of denying their failure."  If you love Tarkovsky, Sakurov, and Hou Hsiao Hsien, this is the next step and it does stand in that league.  The Rotten Tomatoes reviews are very good too, noting there is a selection bias in who watches in the first place.  Here is a review from a guy who started off totally unconvinced but was pulled in.  Hardly anyone knows this movie, I can't imagine why.

Also known as Stairway to Heaven, directed by Michael Powell.  It’s one of the best movies, period, and it is finally on DVD, appearing today.  I’ve been waiting for years and I just ordered mine; I’ll also be teaching it in Law and Literature this spring.  It’s a law trial, a primer on Anglo-American relations, a love story, and a meditation on hope and death.  Here is a review.

One day backstage in the ’30s, Larry, Shemp, and Moe were playing cards. 
Shemp accused Larry of cheating. After a heated argument, Shemp reached over and stuck his fingers in Larry’s eyes. Moe, watching, thought it was hilarious…and that’s how the famous poke-in-the-eyes routine was born.

Here is much more, via Craig Newmark.  If you have any evolutionary biology "just so" stories as to why women don’t like The Three Stooges, I’d like to hear them.

Sin City as if directed by Ed Wood.

Via Jezebel,
I learn that a Japanese porn company is making "charity porn." They’ve
sent some porn actresses to Kenya, and filmed them having sex with
impoverished local Africans for their Naked Continent series.
The production company, Natural High, has proudly proclaimed that the
director made an $11,000 donation to a local charity, and will donate
another $10 for the purchase of every DVD of that particular film.

At some level it doesn’t sound right but I guess I can’t find it in myself to oppose this venture.  Here is more.  I thank Amanda for the pointer.

Elsewhere in the blogosphere, Brad DeLong has a very good post on banking reform (a more logical idea than a huge fiscal stimulus, though I’m not sure it would work) and Megan McArdle has a very good post on the automakers.