Quickie Review - Calvary

Let's start right off with letting you know....this is a comedy. It is not as funny as The Guard, which was written and directed by the same guy and also starred the amazing Brendan Gleason, but it is hilarious at times. What you have to realize is that it isn't necessarily American humor and if you're sensitive about religion, especially Catholicism, you might not love the attitudes within. That being said, you do need to know a little bit about Christianity to get the story. Then again, this was my one knock on the film. I won't give it away in here, but a few huge "symbols," pretty much tell the tale. Taking away a bit of the dramatic mystery, but still holding your attention. It is not a knock on religion so much as an exploration of faith. There are no punches held back, but they also aren't going to floor anyone.

The real joy is the dialogue. The attitudes towards the church and how modern day life, even in a small town in Ireland, are put against the hundreds of years of biblical thought. If you pay attention to what is being said, the issues are ones that go back centuries and how they are handled are the same and different. It's also a movie about smaller stories, but many are used to fuel your curiosity and nothing more. Some will cringe at the finale, but I thought it was perfect, for cinematic and personal reasons.

Comments

White Privilege

This was a post I wrote on Facebook after surprisingly not seeing any moaning about the Documentary by Jose Antonio Vargas, titled White People Dayyum! I just scrolled my timeline and not a single white person got their feelings hurt by White People. I unfortunately haven't seen it, but the number of fake accounts that popped up on twitter, tells me it was a damn good show. Here's the thing. If someone of color aka non-white says "White Privilege," are you offended? If you said yes, then you are exhibiting white privilege. It has nothing to do with how hard you work or study, how you stayed out of trouble, because here's the thing, that is entirely the point. Somewhere out there, there are 100 Black, Spanish, Native American, Arab, Asian, who worked and studied as hard as you and never got in trouble, but they don't have what you "earned" or achieved. Stop looking at the one person you know who isn't white that achieved as your benchmark. Loo

11 Rules of Life - Bill Gates?

I read this on Facebook this morning. A friend had posted it and said that every child should have to receive this. I of course read it and started to think. I immediately wondered who really wrote this, as I rarely see things like this attributed to the proper person. I immediately found it was written by Conservative Charles J. Sykes when he wrote a book about how America is dumbing down our youth. I read it twice and started to wonder how true it was. Below is a link to the actual picture I saw. So let's look at each of the rules and analyze them. Rule 1: Life is not fair — get used to it! - Life is not fair in that we are not all afforded the same opportunities based on race, creed, color, socio-economic background, but in general, those who are afforded the same opportunities to succeed are very often rewarded for their individual efforts. Sure there may be underlying circumstances, but hard work is proven to pay more often than not and those who strive for succ

Quickie Review - Finding Vivian Maier

While I thoroughly enjoyed the film, especially the first 15-20 minutes, I was a little bothered by the way the film played out. The interviews with the clearly disturbed brother, sister and the mother, who obviously, was in for a cut, didn't need to be in the film. Then the woman who suggested abuse, yet seemed to have her life defined by Maier, as she tried to muster every ounce of emotion and fake guilt. Her friend, more than happy to be party of the charade. People who talk about abuse for the first time, usually don't do so on camera. The fact these scenes were so prominent, shows that they felt wronged that they were not rewarded. Maloof on the other hand, seems to disappear from the documentary during this part, almost hiding away from the fact, he went from complete praise, to even making money off of her, to destroying her personal legacy. He almost mentions the family of boys taking care of her rent, as an afterthought. Her burial spot, never shown, yet a video of her

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