Hi everybody - As I mentioned in my earlier message we had a productive
discussion at yesterday's meeting. Attached you will find an updated list.
We currently have 64 films on our list.
Four films were added to our list at or following yesterday's meeting. We
received a suggestion from some friends of ours (and longtime attendees of
our Winter Film Series) to take a look at the documentary "THE BABUSHKAS OF
CHERNOBYL." This is about people (primarily older women) who have refused to
abandon their homes despite the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl and continue
to live in areas that are considered unsafe. We also found that Bill's
report from the NHFF on "ZERO DAYS" about contemporary cyber warfare was
quite compelling. We added the film despite the fact that it's availability
for streaming through Amazon. The prices offered were in excess of our
admission prices and that made it much more attractive. Ken has suggested
that we might want to show "COMING THROUGH THE RYE." The film is about a
young prep school student going to visit J.D. Salinger to discuss adapting
Salinger's novel Catcher in the Rye to stage and/or screen. This is based on
a true story and the young man portrayed in the film happens to now be the
film director. It looks potentially promising. Salinger's book has struck a
chord in now several generations of readers. Anyway, Ken mentioned having a
link and I am hopeful we might be able to arrange a screening for the group.
The final addition was Abbott's suggestion of "A GUNFIGHT." Like "GUNFIGHT
AT THE OK CORRAL," this film stars Kirk Douglas. He and Johnny Cash both
play aging gunfighters. They eventually decide to solve their money woes by
having a winner-take-all shoot-out with a pay-to-view audience. In addition
to the two leads, the film also features Jane Alexander, Karen Black, Keith
Carradine (reportedly in his first film) and Dana Elcar. Johnny Cash
contributes to the film's soundtrack. The film is 89 minutes long which fits
better in our two-hour 10-12 window. As you may recall, Abbott sent out an
e-mail following our meeting that offered a somewhat more cautionary
perspective on this film. The film was made independently (by an Indian
tribe) and Paramount was hired to arrange distribution. The limited number
of reviews available have been mixed:
http://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9E03E1D61238EF34BC4E51DFBE66838A669E
DE
http://homepages.sover.net/~ozus/agunfight.htm
http://parallax-view.org/2012/01/17/the-films-of-lamont-johnson-two-for-the-
doghouse/
Are you interested in trying to include the film in our series? The film is
currently out on DVD so presumably someone has the rights to theatrical
distribution, but exactly what format might be available for a theatrical
screening is not clear. 35 mm? DCP? Projected DVD?
In my exchange with Ken, I learned that he is still unclear if he will
schedule "HARRY & SNOWMAN" (Alice reports as I write this that it is coming
to the Frontier Theater in Brunswick on November 1st). Even if Ken had
definitively decided not to show "HARRY & SNOWMAN," it would now not make
sense to try to include it in our series. The film will be coming out on
DVD/Blu-Ray on November 22nd having moved up these releases by about two
months. Ken also thought they would be soon be available for streaming, too.
So I have removed this film from our list.
We did have a discussion on my shortlist which I sent out in an e-mail on
Monday and with the deletion of "HARRY & SNOWMAN" are as follows:
Foreign-language films
"IXCANUL" (AKA "VOLCANO")
"AS I OPEN MY EYES"
"THE PEOPLE VS. FRITZ BAUER"
"AFTER THE STORM"
"DON'T CALL ME SON"
Documentary films
"STARVING THE BEAST"
"WE ARE X"
"GHOSTLAND: THE VIEW OF THE JU'HOANSI"
"DISTURBING THE PEACE"
Classic films
"HOWARD'S END"
"GUNFIGHT AT THE OK CORRAL" or another film with Kirk Douglas
The group at the meeting on Tuesday were particularly interested in the
Guatemalan film "IXCANUL" and the Tunisian film "AS I OPEN MY EYES." The
remainder of the list was well-received, but I don't know that any of the
other films elicited either strong support or significant objections from
the group. "HOWARDS END" and "GUNFIGHT AT THE OK CORRAL" do have running
times in excess of two hours and we may have to adjust our start time
particularly if we wanted to have a post-film discussion.
You likely agree that it is time that we started to cut down our list and I
have begun doing that. Except for the films on the foreign-language list
that have been suggested as possibilities by people on the committee, I have
reduced the font size of the others including all of those submissions for
the 2017 Foreign-language Oscars. This same process took place in the
English-language section. In the Classic Film section, I reduced the font
size for those distributed by Rialto because of length and/or price.
"DOWNFALL" suffered the same fate due to its particularly long 156 minute
running time. I reduced the font size because I did not want to make a
wholesale elimination of these movies until everyone had a chance to look at
the list and perhaps make a case for a particular film. Assuming I don't
hear anyone protesting the elimination of any of those films with reduced
font size, I will remove them from the next list.
You will note that I didn't do anything to the list of documentary films
except for "NOTES OF BLINDNESS" which both Alice and I watched and "FIRE AT
SEA" which also is a Foreign-language Oscar submission from Italy. There are
many documentary films that might fit in our series. While my suggestions
offered a balance of serious and more light-hearted or uplifting films,
there are lots of different films we could choose and several that might be
harder hitting. I would hope that everyone would take a look at the
documentary films available and offer a recommendation.
I think that fairly well covers what happened at the meeting and where we
are headed. I'm hoping to get a reply from Ken about a link for "COMING
THROUGH THE RYE" and then make arrangements for people to see it either on
their own or as a group.
Joel
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