meryl streep

Happy second birthday Film Club!!

/ antonioyrocinante / Leave a comment

Well, what an honor it is to celebrate the second anniversary of Film Club! It is such a pleasure to sit (in the interweb) with three brilliant film lovers and just talk about the 7th art. It is one of the highlights of the month for me. If the weather cooperates, I will set up on my back porch, prepare some cheese, crackers, a little vino, a square of chocolate and a cigar. Then sit back and enjoy the meeting. We take turns talking about each movie. Of course, the best bits are when we disagree. By now we have a good sense of who is going to like which films, so we have an excellent rapport.

This month we are slowing down a bit to only two films: Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai and the American Western it inspired: The Magnificent Seven.

And the movies! Every month exploring four films in whatever genre we choose for our turn. I ventured off from a genre in July, to explore Meryl Streep’s acting. It was sad we could only watch four of her films, August Osage County was so good I wrote about it here. Another innovation this year was inviting a guest curator, Russian Literature, Film, and Culture professor Anthony Anemone (yes, he is the dad of one of our members) who recommended four brilliant films and had a great presentation for each.

I would write more about the films we watch every month, but I do not want this blog to be a film review blog, there are plenty of those and only one with my silly stories, so there.

Here is what we have watched this year. (For last year’s list, click here)

War (March)

Bridge over the River Kwai (1957)

The Deer Hunter (1978)

Come and See (1985)

Tropic Thunder (2008)

Crime and Punishment (April)

The Killing (1956)

Dirty Harry (1971)

Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead (2006)

Un Prophete (2009)

Art (May)

Tambien la Lluvia (2010)

Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)

Mr. Turner (2014)

Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019)

Meryl Streep (July)

Kramer vs Kramer (1979)

Sophie’s Choice (1982)

Julie & Julia (2009)

August: Osage County (2013)

Fantasy (August)

Princess Mononoke (1995)

Tale of Tales (2015)

A Monster Calls (2016)

The Green Knight (2021)

The System is Broken (September)

Brazil (1985)

I, Daniel Blake (2016)

Judas and the Black Messiah (2021)

The White Tiger (2021)

Spy (October)

Dr. No (1962)

The Lives of Others (2006)

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)

An Officer and a Spy (2019)

RomCom (November)

Roman Holiday (1953)

Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)

The Birdcage (1996)

Punch Drunk Love (2002)

Childhood (December)

Paper Moon (1973)

Stand by Me (1986)

Moonrise Kingdom (2012)

Moonlight (2016)

Russian/Polish as Curated by Tony Anemone (January)

Taxi Blues (1990)

Hipsters (2008)

Ida (2013)

Leviathan (2014)

Documentaries (February)

Jiro Dreams of Sushi (2011)

Icarus (2017)

Gunda (2020)

Fireball: Visitors from Darker Worlds (2020)

Women (March Women’s month)

Todo Sobre mi Madre (1999)

Lady Bird (2017)

Revenge (2017)

TAR (2022)

August: Osage County, a 21st C. Bernarda Alba

/ antonioyrocinante / 3 Comments
August: Osage County British poster

I recently wrote about Federico García Lorca’s La casa de Bernarda Alba (you can read about it here). But since I had not written about film, or Film Club since March, here is an update.

This month for Film Club, we chose to do a deep dive on Meryl Streep. This is the first time we try this format as we normally pick a theme or genre, but it worked out well, I think. We saw (in chronological order) Kramer vs. Kramer, Sophie’s Choice, Julie and Julia, and August: Osage County.

Warning, only minor spoilers. In August, Streep plays Violet, a recently widowed, pill popping matriarch and mother of three women (played by Julia Roberts, Julianne Nicholson, and Juliette Lewis who all do phenomenal jobs!). When the family arrive for the father’s funeral the drama unfolds, just like it does in Bernarda Alba… the hidden truths come out, old stories float up to the surface, rivalries are woken, and so on.

Just like with Bernarda, the action takes place mostly in the house, and in Summer. Both these factors add to the tension in both works. August deals with a larger cast which does an amazing job, but the brunt of the work falls on Streep and Roberts; to see both these heavyweights in the same frame is powerful and dramatic.

Of course one has to keep in mind that these works are almost a century apart, but the human drama, emotions, and feelings are the same.

The film is Tracy Lett’s adaptation of her own play and is intense, well crafted, and poetic.

If you want to see outstanding performances, specially from Streep and Roberts, this film is highly, highly recommended.

With my niece pre-show