Criticker MOM - August 2014

[Bojangles]

*shrugs* oh well...I've got a copy of Cabeza de Vaca too, I've got high hopes for this one. should get to it this weekend.

Cabeza de Vaca is good. Typical art film. Plenty of surreal moments, extravagant shots, and even some heavy pathos thrown in. This one will stay with me.

[snallygaster]

Guess I'll touch base although I don't have much to add. Apaches has been well-covered and I think it's interesting how strongly the awareness that it's a PIF guides reactions to the film. It certainly took me a while to decide what to make of it. Anyway, my review:

Peculiar entry in the PIF ouvre; typically we would expect the deaths to be the central focus of the film, but here they're treated incidentally. The script seems like it was written for a comedy sketch but the film as a whole doesn't seem to be a send-up of the PIF style. What was the intention here and who are the target audience? My best guess is that this approach is a sincere attempt to draw attention to the issue of farm safety among an audience that no longer responds to conventional PIFs

I put it in my T3.
Off-topic, but here's a playlist of some of the particular public safety films that turned me off honest hard work for life.

Man in the Attic was pretty meh for me:

Since the movie takes the bold approach of making it pretty plain from the beginning that the titular Man is indeed the Ripper, I assumed that there would be some twist around the end. There isn't. The bad guy is the bad guy. And the songs were dumb.

It wasn't that bad, but lands in my T1.

[Gregzilla]

Seems I'm the lone wolf who thinks each movie should have it's own thread, so fuck that idea I guess.

I'm with you. I haven't spoke up because I hadn't seen both the movies until today, So I somewhat avoided this thread. We've been doing it this way a long time, So whatever.

It seems we've reached a pretty solid consensus concerning Man it the Attic. Wholly underwhelming and dull in its competency. Unfortunately meh to be sure.

I'll be a (kind of) dissenting opinion on this. Not that I think it's a great movie, But I enjoyed it. My initial reaction was that I should be watching either/or both Lodgers instead. Eventually Jack Palance and Aunt Bea won me over and I probably was in the right frame of mind for something '50s. I loved the two coppers walking their beat too. I'm being way to generous with my rating here as I gave it a 70/100, A Tier 9!


As for Cabeza de Vaca, I gave it 60/100, A Tier 7! The first half was fine. A stranger in a strange land amongst some very strange companions and Alvar's unexpected “awakening”. Good stuff. But then things get kind of normalized. It's like the movie went from “The Holy Mountain” to “Dances with Wolves”. Still better than “ Dances with Wolves” though.

In the long run I should probably switch the ratings. Man in the Attic is fine for what it is, But Cabeza de Vaca is the more interesting of the two.

[snallygaster]

Bumping since the month's almost over. I don't have much to say about Cabeza de Vaca but it squeaked into my T9. I also thought of Jodorowsky while watching, I guess because of the atmosphere, since this isn't nearly as surreal or "weird" as Holy Mountain et al. Also the battle scene near the beginning with the arrows is pretty damn good.

[hellboy76]

I also just snuck in Cabeza de Vaca. I have it at as a T7. I thought it was very pretty to look at, but the story structure seemed a bit off so I was left a bit confused at times. As I stated in my review, I may just be stupid.

[mattorama12]

Finally caught up with Cabeza de Vaca myself. Here's my mini-review:

Has a great look and the choice to use the language barrier made this a much more immersive experience than I've seen before in a story like this. On the down side, the pacing was tedious at times and I really don't know what I'm supposed to take away from the movie.

I've seen a bit of discussion about this, but I'd love to hear other's take on this. The film can't simply be about showing the humanity of the natives and emphasizing the tragedy of their eventual near-genocide. If so, our main character's struggles and spiritual revelations are mostly superfluous. So what's the movie really about?

[Gregzilla]

[spoiler]Even with de Vacas' rather major shift in worldview I don't think he ever renounces the church and, early on at least, his faith may have actually helped him. But the last scene shows the conquistadors marching into the new world, and the resulting genocide, carrying a cross. So...[/spoiler]

[ribcage]

[spoiler]i got a "tread the line" feeling. that faith should have passion, but needs to be used compassionately and controlled from becoming a blind zealous fervor. there's certainly a condemnation of the church's actions as a corporate entity, but i didn't get a wholly anti-religious vibe from it. it is really unclear though.[/spoiler]

[mattorama12]

Re: Cabeza de Vaca:

[spoiler]Even with de Vacas' rather major shift in worldview I don't think he ever renounces the church and, early on at least, his faith may have actually helped him. But the last scene shows the conquistadors marching into the new world, and the resulting genocide, carrying a cross. So...[/spoiler]

Yes, and I agree that this is part of the message. But, if that's all, why follow de Vaca at all? I dunno, just seems like there's a lot more there that I'm missing.

[spoiler]i got a "tread the line" feeling. that faith should have passion, but needs to be used compassionately and controlled from becoming a blind zealous fervor. there's certainly a condemnation of the church's actions as a corporate entity, but i didn't get a wholly anti-religious vibe from it. it is really unclear though.[/spoiler]

I like this

[hellboy76]

Re: Cabeza de Vaca/i]:

[spoiler]Even with de Vacas' rather major shift in worldview I don't think he ever renounces the church and, early on at least, his faith may have actually helped him. But the last scene shows the conquistadors marching into the new world, and the resulting genocide, carrying a cross. So...[/spoiler]

Yes, and I agree that this is part of the message. But, if that's [i]all, why follow de Vaca at all? I dunno, just seems like there's a lot more there that I'm missing.

[spoiler]i got a "tread the line" feeling. that faith should have passion, but needs to be used compassionately and controlled from becoming a blind zealous fervor. there's certainly a condemnation of the church's actions as a corporate entity, but i didn't get a wholly anti-religious vibe from it. it is really unclear though.[/spoiler]

I like this

Makes sense, I think everyone can agree it wasn't a clear message. Maybe that was the message, since so much of almost all religions are unclear anyways. SEE , I am contributing! That sounded kinda smart right? Guys?