Showing posts with label movie. Show all posts
Showing posts with label movie. Show all posts

Sunday, January 2, 2011

Documentary: Last Train Home (2009)

























Info
Last Train Home tells the story, movingly and without narration, of the world's largest human migration, which takes place once a year during the Chinese New Year's holiday. That's when 130 million Chinese migrant workers, many of whom have come from rural villages to work in urban factories, return home to visit the families they left behind.How to tell such a huge story? By focusing on a single family.
It's depressing enough to watch this family's struggles with life. But their pain really hits home when you think that the pants you might be wearing could have contributed to it.

Review from New York Times
Tells the story of a family caught, and possibly crushed, between the past and the future--a story that, on its own, is moving, even heartbreaking. Multiplied by 130 million, it becomes a terrifying and sobering panorama of the present.

Review by Emanuel Levy
This extraordinary Chinese-Canadian documentary illuminates the human price involved in China's ascent into a global economic power: every year over 130 million migrant workers take an arduous journey back home. Emotionally engaging and starkly beautiful, the film offers intimate observations of one fractured family, shedding light on the human cost of China’s ascendance as an economic superpower. It's hard to think of another film that captures so vividly and painfuly the human price paid in the country's rapid process of modernization.



Some notable films made by EyeSteelFilm:
Antoine A film about a very creative blind boy. Watch the trailer.
(if you find a download link let me know)

RiP: A Remix Manifesto A very fun documentary about the remix & mash-up culture and the music industry's reaction to it. Watch the trailer.

Up the Yangtze A film about the collateral damage caused by the building of the Three Gorges Dam.Watch the trailer.

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

The Naked City (1948)

In short
One of the first films made 100% on location.
► Mixed documentary & film noir style.
Inspired by New York photographer Weegee.
► Simple but very detailed story about a realistic, straightforward police investigation. We see everything that goes on almost without any emotion for any of the characters.
► Some details that were odd for that time: Movie has no opening credits but is narrated by the producer + Not much of a soundtrack to make it more realistic.

Review by Glenn Erickson
Film Noir historians reserve a special place in their hearts for Mark Hellinger and Jules Dassin's The Naked City, a highly influential crime thriller filmed almost entirely in the streets of New York City. Malvin Wald's original story blends standard Hollywood storytelling with documentary techniques to produce a new kind of heightened reality. Cops go after a mysterious killer and viewers are shown a fairly accurate image of how real crimes are solved -- handsome private detectives are not part of the equation. Louis de Rochemont took his cameras to real locations for The House on 92nd Street but The Naked City adds a dimension of journalistic poetry by telling its story through an omniscient POV narrator, who seems to be the soul of the city itself. "There are eight million stories in the Naked City" has entered the language as an indelible catch phrase.

Review by Rob Edelman
The leading actors are familiar faces, but not stars. Except for, perhaps, Barry Fitzgerald, their names were unfamiliar to audiences. The Naked City is peopled not so much by performers as faces, everyday faces. The murder victim's parents appear in several key scenes, and the actors portraying them give heartwrenching performances. But, most importantly, they look like an anonymous couple from the New Jersey boondocks who have lost their only child to the glitter of the big city.

More links


Monday, November 15, 2010

2 Detroit Documentaries: Requiem For Detroit? + Detroit Lives (2010)

I really wanted to post some films to diversify the blog for some time so these 2 excellent documentaries are a nice start. I will only upload movies if they are impossible to find but mostly I will post torrent links. I would love to post the great documentary on early Detroit techno scene "High Tech Soul: The Creation Of Techno Music" - but I just can't seem to find some proper links so please post some if you find any. Otherwise, I'll have to upload the whole damn thing.

Requiem For Detroit? (2010)
Law and order has completely broken down in the inner city, drugs and prostitution are rampant and unless you actually murder someone the police will leave you alone. This makes it great for filming – park where you like, film what you like – but not so good if you actually live there. The abandoned houses make great crack dens and provide cover for appalling sex crimes and child abduction. The only growth industry is the gangs of armed scrappers, who plunder copper and steel from the ruins. Rabid dogs patrol the streets. All the national supermarket chains have pulled out of the inner city. People have virtually nowhere to buy fresh produce. Starbucks? Forget it.

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Detroit Lives (2010)


The Motor City has been declared dead more times than Rasputin. But over the last few years, while The News Media (and Dutch tourists) were hemming and hawing over a few neglected streets that had started to look more like meadows, a bunch of creative badasses were quietly buying abandoned 9-story buildings, filling them with everyone they knew, and making Detroit actually pretty fucking incredible. Our old buddy Johnny Knoxville paid a visit to the D to explore for himself.


Also, Check out this small but excellent Detroit in Ruins photo gallery. All photos are from Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre.

Thursday, January 1, 2009

REFRESHMENT: RELIGULOUS THE MOVIE (2009)

My first movie post so far. The links are not mine I got them in an e-mail so I decided to put them to good use. There are only 4 rapidshare parts so it should be a quick download.

CERTAINLY NOT THE BEST BUT POSSIBLY THE FUNNIEST RELIGION DOCUMENTARY EVER
DIRECTOR`````LARRY CHARLES
MOVIE```````````
RELIGULOUS
GENRE```````````DOCUMENTARY, COMEDY
YEAR``````````````2008


MY SHORT REVIEW:
Bill Maher brings a fresh and direct attack on religion as a whole in this amazingly entertaining documentary. There are a number of movies and video lectures that are far more serious, important and fact driven than "Religuous" but some moments from this movie simply must be seen as they completely unravel the ENORMOUS amount of PURE bullshit some people can say in front of a camera and then stick to that. I'll post a big post about some critical documentary movies filled with recommendations and links to torrents and stuff soon so stay tuned.

Someone wrote a nice and short critique at imdb about this movie and I agree with it completely so you should read it below.

SHORT REVIEW FROM IMDB:

Author: ctg0724 from United States
Two things about this film took away a star. One was that Bill Maher spent so much time with the ones he tried to make look bad that he didn't meet with enough experts who could further the points he was making. The second problem is that the people he interviewed could have easily made fools of themselves without him cutting them off and lecturing them. That being said, let's get to the good points.

For one thing, he makes it so clear how illogical the mass amount of people can be. He exposes phony beliefs and shows how they can become very protective against his film crew. The film stock they put into use is done masterfully. Plenty of laugh out loud moments (particularly the image of Jesus as a teenager, you will see). My word must be taken as truth when I say that the final part of the film MUST be seen. This isn't just about cracking jokes on faith. This film is about the human race taking responsibility of itself and stopping the damage it has been doing for far too long.

PART 01
PART 02
PART 03
PART 04
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