by Bob Martin | Mar 3, 2014 | Actors, Education, Movies
Photo by Anne Marie Fox – © 2013 – Focus Features
Over the years, actors who’ve transformed their bodies, in a commitment to a role, have been awarded for the changes in physical appearance. In the Dallas Buyers Club, both Matthew McConaughey and Jared Leto look to have also sacrificed their personal well being and I wonder could the story have been told without the physical trauma? Leto and McConaughey are both brilliant, and this story was or could have been much bigger.
The story takes place in the late 1980’s.One of my favorite parts of the movie was when the Woodroof character has to use a microfiche reader to find out which drugs were effective in treating HIV around the world. This was all pre Google and WebMD and most everyone prayed that they had a knowledgeable doctor who had time to care and worry about their health, and that getting a second opinion might be seen as a sign of betrayal. Woodroof’s time (he was not the only person) was our awakening to our own responsibility for our health. Doctors know what they know and they know that they don’t know everything.
Ron Woodroof was a big deal and he was a part of a revolution whose impact can be seen today in the sometimes unreasonable debate on healthcare and it’s cost. More than 80% of all prescribed medicines are manufactured outside of the USA (China, India, etc.) and these same drugs can be purchased in other countries at a fraction of the cost we pay in the States.
I wish that the movie had the resources to tell more about the number of people who benefited from his uncompromising commitment to living. The Dallas Buyers Club is a good movie and I am glad that it finally got made. Congratulations to McConaughey and Leto.
by Bob Martin | Dec 19, 2013 | Culture, Directors, Film, Movies
Lupita Nyong’o
The film “12 Years a Slave” is a remarkable film and different from previous films that I’ve seen about slavery. The injustices of slavery are evident and yet unknown to its practitioners. It’s a world they live in, because someone said it was OK.
There is no righteousness in “12 Years a Slave”. Steve McQueen is not relentless in his depiction of the cruelty of slavery in America. He is not gratuitous with the use of words, sex or violence. It is an even portrait of the times. We get the picture quickly, cruelty is what human beings have learned and now practice. We do what we can get away with or mimic what has been done to us. It is how we’ve learned, sadly. Unlike Sgt Witt in the “The Thin Red Line” we don’t question ourselves before we act. Why are we doing this?
“This great evil. Where does it come from? How’d it steal into the world? What seed, what root did it grow from? Who’s doin’ this? Who’s killin’ us? Robbing us of life and light. Mockin’ us with the sight of what we might’ve known. Does our ruin benefit the earth? Does it help the grass to grow, the sun to shine? Is this darkness in you, too? Have you passed through this night?” ..Witt, The Thin Red Line
The Hero’s Journey
Solomon Northup’s is metaphorically Pinocchio or more correctly following an abbreviated version of “The Hero’s Journey“. Solomon is naive because he believes that he is free and will be treated like all free men. He is unaware of the evil that lies in the south (The Unknown), because he can’t see it in the north (The Known). McQueen paints a picture of reality. The sky in the south is no less beautiful than the sky in the north. There are no visual manipulation or distinct musical cues. The people in the south believe that they have been given the right to own other people. The people in the north believe they have the right to declare others free. Where do these “rights” come from?
What is gracious about this film is that it avoids the temptation of Revenge. The audience doesn’t cheer at the end. The “evil people” (the people we are not like) don’t get there upcommance.
Edwin Epps, 12 Years a Slave: Sin? There is no sin. Man does how he pleases with his property.
There are automatic triggers that surface when the subject is slavery. People pick sides, assign blame, responsibility, declare ownership, causes, and race becomes the topic debate. Slavery is at times thought of as a unique and horrific American event, that happened in the past and no longer exist. None of which is true, we call it something else now like Human Trafficking, Unlawful Imprisonment or Forced Labor. Slavery may no longer be legal in the world and people still do what they can get away with.
by Bob Martin | Aug 15, 2013 | Art, Blogroll
Tom Cruise in Minority Report
What is “probable cause” ?
In the year 2013 and in the many years that will follow the question of “What the Founding Fathers intended” becomes less meaningful and in some instances useless. It’s increasingly more difficult to “make believe” that back in 1786/7, the vision held by those at the beginning of the formation of United States of American had any clue about a telephone, television or a computer much less an e-mail” or “DNA”.
Recently, the Supreme Court ruled that it is legal for police to collect DNA samples of anyone arrested for what is believed to be a serious crime. Note, being arrested is not the same as being convicted. The Justices aligned DNA to having your finger prints taken which should be shocking to most of us. But aside from some journalist and maybe by a congressmen/congresswomen here or there the scope of what had just happened escaped the public at large. When you have your fingerprints taken what law enforcement has is your fingerprints. When they have your DNA they now have a digital record about all of you, your predecessor and your descendants.
After 9-11-2001, the National Security Agency was allowed, with some restrictions, to collect and mine digital data in search of possible terrorist threats. The placing of the restriction by legislators highlights their unfamiliarity with the technology and that for the NSA to do an impossible job it would need access to all of the data. It would need to know everything.
It is impossible to know everything.
by Bob Martin | Aug 1, 2013 | Art, Exhibits
First Annual
RIP WOODS STUDIO PROJECT
Exhibit
80th Birthday Celebration
OF THE LATE RIP WOODS
@ 934
934 E. Southern, Phoenix AZ 85040
Saturday, August 17th, 2013
7:00PM-11:00PM
Live Music/DJ 1Period
RSVP by, August 10th, 2013
@ 602.486.4272 •
Dee Dee Woods, Collection Curator
Satellite Show
Bill’s Custom Frames – Gallery 11-14
910 S. Hohokam Drive, Suite 105 Tempe, AZ 85281
July 22nd – September 15th, 2013
by Bob Martin | Jun 12, 2013 | Actors, Movies
Mickey Sumner and Greta Gerwig
After two seasons of “Girls” any movie that is about a maladroit young woman has my brain going “copycat” especially when Adam Driver shows up in one of the earliest scenes and I then spend the next 15 minutes looking for Lena Dunham It is times like these when I need to ask my brain to take a time out. I am afraid I missed a lot of this movie playing “One of these things is not like the others, One of these things just doesn’t belong, (Sesame Street)” in my mind.
Frances Ha was worthy of more of my attention and I’m looking forward to seeing it again so that I can enjoy it completely. Frances Ha is not Girls.
Little movies like Frances Ha offer their audience a banquet of opportunities to learn something new, or to be reintroduced to something we’ve forgotten. They are seldom copycats or sequels. Nothing gets blown up and the end of the world is not around the corner. (See “The Women are Gone”) Little movies are usually about something you recognize in yourself. They come close to being real.
