I’m a month behind again! Hey, I’ve been putting more effort into watching and reading than writing. (No, really. I’ve been busting through my goals pretty well this year. I’m practicing for grad school, when I hear I’ll have half as much time to do twice as much work. We’ll see.)
Also, some day I’m going to write about something other than movies and books. Really. I promise.
Reactions, not reviews, blah blah blah jaffacakes.
Movie recommendation:
My parents and I went to see this last Saturday, and we all came away very impressed. Sophie Scholl was a 21-year-old student in Munich in the early 1940s, and she and her brother were arrested in 1943 for distributing leaflets that detailed the failure of the Nazi army on the Russian front and the inability of Germany to win the war due to Hitler’s poor leadership. A large portion of the movie is taken up with Sophie’s interrogation by a Nazi police investigator, and even though it’s basically the two of them talking, it’s absolutely riveting. Sophie’s strength of character and steadfastness in her beliefs stymie the otherwise formidable investigator, and by the end it’s clear that although they will always be on opposite sides of the Nazi question, he has gained a grudging respect for her.
Julia Jentsch is incredible as Sophie, imbuing her with a quiet intensity that carries the movie along. The film itself is full of this quiet intensity…it hits all the necessary points, but doesn’t belabour any of them. There are no anvils here. It’s made clear that Sophie is a Christian, and she prays several times throughout the film. She knows the Nazis are perpetuating heinous acts against humanity, against the Jews in particular, and she doesn’t shy away from telling the investigator exactly what she thinks about that. But it’s also clear that her problems with Hitler are not only humanitarian, but also political…this girl is no bleeding heart, but clear-headed and able to see that Hitler is bad not only for Jews and other “undesirables”, but for Germany itself and the German people in general. This is a point of view that I don’t think has been terribly well-represented, certainly not in film.
This year I’ve been posting short run-downs of what I’ve read and watched each month over at my LJ. Thought I’d post them here, too. Because I can. Mwahahahaha. I suppose I could just link to my LJ entry, but where would be the fun in that?
Without further ado, movies I watched and books I read in February. Oh, disclaimer: These are not reviews, they are reactions.
I try to keep up with watching movie trailers over at apple.com, partly because I enjoy seeing movie trailers (seriously, I cry if I get to the theatre too late to see the trailers), and partly because I like to make my movie-going decisions based on actual footage as well as word-of-mouth. Granted, the actual footage is chosen by marketing gurus whose goal in life is to make me want to see the film, but still. One you’ve seen enough of them, you can pretty much pick the good from the bad from the enjoyable from the excruciating.
So without further ado, my current list of must-sees, on-the-fences, and what-the-hell-where-they-thinkings. (These aren’t all the trailers that are up…just the ones that struck me.)
Call me crazy, but I didn’t even notice that Pastor Meyers had gone overtime the past two Sunday evenings. That’s because he was talking about postmodernism as part of the Cultural Discernment series. First off, I love all the Cultural Discernment evenings. Secondly, things that smack of philosophy and media and pop-culture, especially all mashed together, pretty much tops my list of Interesting Things I Want To Hear More About. Thirdly, postmodernism itself especially interests me, and I was glad to hear such a clear and non-judgmental presentation of it. I thought he did a really good job of pointing out the good things about postmodernism and the critiques it has made against modernism, as well as point out places where postmodernism itself goes to far, or in a misleading direction. He’s posted this week’s presentation on his blog, in case you weren’t there Sunday night.
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