Watching Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.
It’s finals and I spent all day watching films that take place during the 60s..half of them in the south; one in the north.
Whale Rider is a 2002 New Zealand drama film directed by Niki Caro, based on the novel of the same name by Witi Ihimaera. The film stars Keisha Castle-Hughes as Kahu Paikea Apirana, a 12-year-old girl struggling to become the chief of the tribe. Her grandfather Koro believes that this is a role reserved for males only.
(via wikipedia)
This film made me cry in class today, such a great film, I totally recommend it.
Un Chien Anadolu (1939)
One of my favorite movies…everrr
La Haine is one of the most socially epic indie films I’ve ever seen. Totally recommended.
What you see in this film: Police Brutality, Racism, youth unemployment, violence, Influences of American Hip-Hop culture and even just American pop culture. One thing to consider, the characters political and social culture/environment.
Filmed in Black and White in Paris, France in 1994, La Haine (‘Hate’ in English) tells the story of three friends, Vinz (who’s Jewish), Hubert (Black), and Said (Arab/North African) over a period of 24 hours. This film follows their lives of living in the banlieues (directly translated into “suburbs” in the U.S., the equivalent of these areas would be ‘the projects’) after a riot that happened the night before. During the riot, a friend of theirs winds up in the hospital due to police brutality. Vinz seeks revenge once he discovers his friend is dead, Hurbert longs to leave ‘les banlieues’, Said is often found in the middle between both of his friends. I won’t spoil this film for anyone who wants to see it, its worth it. =)
My favorite quotes from this film:
- Said: “Wow, what a speech! Half Moses, half Mickey Mouse.”
Hubert: Bullshit! You pointed a gun at a cop! We coulda been killed!
[an old man flushes the toilet and walks out of the stall]
Old Man: Nothing like a good shit! Do you believe in God? That’s the wrong question. Does God believe in us? I once had a friend called Grunwalski. We were sent to Siberia together. When you go to a Siberian work camp, you travel in a cattle car. You roll across icy steppes for days, without seeing a soul. You huddle to keep warm. But it’s hard to relieve yourself, to take a shit, you can’t do it on the train, and the only time the train stops is to take on water for the locomotive. But Grunwalski was shy, even when we bathed together, he got upset. I used to kid him about it. So, the train stops and everyone jumps out to shit on the tracks. I teased Grunwalski so much, that he went off on his own. The train starts moving, so everyone jumps on, but it waits for nobody. Grunwalski had a problem: he’d gone behind a bush, and was still shitting. So I see him come out from behind the bush, holding up his pants with his hands. He tries to catch up. I hold out my hand, but each time he reaches for it he lets go of his pants and they drop to his ankles. He pulls them up, starts running again, but they fall back down, when he reaches for me.
Hubert: Then what happened?
Old Man: Nothing. Grunwalksi… froze to death. Good day.
Infamous line- Herbert: Heard about the guy who fell off a skyscraper? On his way down past each floor, he kept saying to reassure himself: So far so good… so far so good... so far so good. How you fall doesn’t matter. It’s how you land!
Movie of it’s own, in its own right. Other movies similar to this would be “Boys in the Hood, spike lee’s “Do the right thing” and “Clockers”, and possibly “Kidulthood”.
