Oddcoupling pt1

As I write this, Angela is commenting about all of the little
similarities that she found in the movie... six degree esque things...
nothing that could add up to a cohesive whole, yet it's my job to find
some common theme between two movies that let's admit, have absolutely
nothing in common.

Hoffa and Pumpkin... movies that have both been named with names. But
I think that these two flicks have common threads; class and
leadership.

In Hoffa, we have Jack Nicholson portraying a man who wants to turn
the Teamsters into the nations most powerful union. For better or
worse, he's organizing the truck drivers against their 'evil
opressors' the owners. In Pumpkin, we have a sorority that wants to
claim the sorority of the year award from the sorority that's won it
the previous 20 years.

Hoffa, decides that he's going to work with the Mafia in order to
attain his goals of winning over the company owners. Jeanine
Kryszinsky (Dominique Swain) decides that she (and her sorority
sisters) are going to work with special ed students in order to win
P.C. points with the Greek Council and boost their chances of winning.
Both, through their choices instigate their eventual doom.

The mafia, once Hoffa gets out of jail and realizes that he's not
going to be able to regain the Teamster presidency, takes Hoffa out
because he won't quiet down. Christina Ricci's character's
relationship with Pumpkin, ruins any chances of the sorority winning
the yearly award.

I know that these seem like tenuous connections at best, but no one
said that finding connections was going to be easy. Angela drew the
next number tonight, but since I have a really early meeting, we
watched a movie that accidentally didn't make it into our pool,
_Miracle_. I grew up hearing the story of the 80 olympic hockey team
pretty often because a lot of the guys were Minnesotan and Herb Brooks
was a Minnesotan... even if you don't play hockey in Minnesota (I
didn't) there's still an appreciation of it amongst a large percentage
of the population. Plus, there's always a bit of a "train wreck"
phenomena with movies that are shot in your own hometown. Even if
you're not that interested in the movie (read: Joe Somebody, Drop Dead
Fred) you watch because you want to see the scenery. I'm glad that
Miracle was better than that.


Tomorrow's movies... when we have more time. 21 Grams and Pieces of April



21 Grams
Directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu
Written By Guillermo Arriaga
Starring
Sean Penn, Naomi Watts and Benicio Del Toro (I dig him)

This is the story of three gentle persons: Paul Rivers (Penn) an
ailing mathematician lovelessly married to an English emigré
(Gainsbourg), Christina Peck, an upper-middle-class suburban
housewife, happily married and mother of two little girls, and Jack
Jordan (Del Toro), an ex-convict who has found in his Christian faith
the strength to raise a family. They will be brought together by a
terrible accident that will change their lives. By the final frame,
none of them will be the same as they will learn harsh truths about
love, faith, courage, desire and guilt, and how chance can change our
worlds irretrievably, forever.


and

Pieces of April
Written and Directed by Peter Hedges

starring
Katie Holmes, Patricia Clarkson, Derek Luke and Oliver Platt

April Burns (Holmes) invites her family to Thanksgiving dinner at her
teeny apartment on New York's Lower East Side. As they make their way
to the city from suburban Pennsylvania, April must endure a comedy of
errors - like finding out her oven doesn't work - in order to pull off
the big event.


So anyway, that's the current scoop. Don't forget the Colorado Springs
Film Society meets this Monday evening with a showing of the
Manchurian Candidate. There's a new print that just came out on DVD
this week and it will be interesting to see it in light of the new
version that comes out next Friday (surprisingly, I hear the new
version is actually quite good in it's own way)


More later,
Brian

Oddcoupling

Ang and I were talking yesterday night and decided we REALLY needed to
pare down the number of DVDs we own that we haven't watched yet. This
evening we sorted out the movies and came up with 32 that we either
haven't seen since they were in the theater, or haven't seen at all.
From that we decided to randomly pair the movies and see what kind of
strange threads these movies could have when thrown together in ways
that they were never meant to be combined.

Here are the pairings that we've numbered off and placed into a hat....
1. Toxic Avenger 4:Citizen Toxie / Auto Focus
2. Bubba Ho Tep / Dirty Pretty Things
3. CQ / Willard
4. Signs / Lost In La Mancha
5. Dark City / The Last Samurai
6. Pumpkin / Hoffa
7. Stevie / 13 Conversations About 1 Thing
8. Novocaine / The Contender
9. Hedwig and the Angry Inch / Ripley's Game
10. Vanilla Sky / Sexy Beast
11. 21 Grams / Pieces of April
12. Northfork / The Last Starfighter
13. Millenium Actress / Metropolis (2002 Japanese version)
14. The Quiet American (remake) / The Kid Stays In The Picture
15. The Heist / The Pianist
16. Midnight In The Garden of Good and Evil / Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon

Tonight, we drew #6 out of the hat and then randomly chose to watch
Hoffa and then Pumpkin. I have NO idea how they could potentially tie
together, but that's part of the (torture) fun.


Movie #1
---------------------------------------------------------
Hoffa http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104427

Directed by Danny Devito
Written by David Mamet
starring Jack Nicholson and Danny Devito
Danny DeVito's portrait of Union leader James R. Hoffa, as seen
through the eyes of his friend, Bobby Ciaro. The film follows Hoffa
through his countless battles with the RTA and President Roosevelt all
the way to a conclusion that negates the theory that he disappeared in
1975.


Movie #2
---------------------------------------------------------
Pumpkin

Directed By Anthony Abrams & Adam Larson Broder
Written By Adam Larson Broder

Perky, perfect Carolyn and her Alpha Omega Pi sisters plan to win
Sorority of the Year by impressing the Greek Council with a killer
charity: coaching mentally challenged athletes for the regional
Challenged Games. When Carolyn's assigned to coach Pumpkin she's
terrified at first, but soon sees in him something she's never seen
before: a gentle humanity and honest clarity that touches her soul. To
the horror of her friends and Pumpkin's overprotective mother, Carolyn
falls in love, becoming an outcast in the process. As Carolyn's
"perfect life" falls apart, Pumpkin teaches her that perfect isn't
always perfect after all.

Play along! Make your own pairings and let's talk about them... I'll
try and post some thoughts at the end of the evening.

Brian
--
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