The movie in the beginning shows a man who has been tortured to have fessed up to knowing the location of Ali LaPointe.  Pontecorvo clearly abhors torture but he did fudge the efficacy of it in that specific instance.  There have been a lot of retrospective, post-9/11 pieces that find that aspect of the movie highly…

@avclub-df106893a4574bccb7bce1ff66e788b9:disqus and @avclub-d980b15d49101608dc407770f35b1d75:disqus Come to think of it, it is probably in my queue that I probably went on a binge-looking spree for movies on Netflix in the thick of sleep deprivation.

@avclub-f6f154417c4665861583f9b9c4afafa2:disqus Interesting.  Will seek that out.  I was actually referring to him in the extras of other directors (Spike Lee and Mira Nair among the others) speaking on the film's influence on them. 

She also called Pontecorvo the 'most dangerous kind of Marxist- a Marxist poet', which is such a Kael thing to say.  Although Kapo is problematic, the crowd scenes there are also incredibly well-done.  A bit too melodramatic but it is a movie where you go 'Emmanuelle Riva and Susan Strasberg are in a Holocaust movie…

It definitely is the movie where 'won the battle, lost the war' could not be more highlighted.

Brando has regarded Burn! as having his best performance.  There were rumors that it would get Criterion treatment.  Hope it does.  Last time I watched it was on low quality youtube link. 

Pontecorvo wanted it to look and feel like documentary.  The disclaimer of 'not a single inch of documentary footage was used' was no accident.  He supposedly actually fooled people into thinking he used some documentary footage in the re-accounting.

I don't want to say seeing this movie changed my life, but it kinda sorta did.  It became the topic of my political science thesis that was exhausting ('twas much longer than I ever anticipated) but very rewarding.  I did come out still thinking it was one of the great movies and in my personal all-time top ten.  My…

France is not really judged beyond the sobering score in the torture scenes, and the pied noirs (white colonial Algerians) get the exact same treatment in the score as the tortured when they are bombed.  Col. Mathieu is portrayed as coldly efficient leader who wins the battle and not as some monster which kind of…

The first episodes of The Killing were clearly following a template which may have played up the cliches and drabness early on because of it using source material.  But it was still moody and dour that I root for in the shows.  Then it betrayed its own structure (and by Season 2 completely bulldozed it) and got…

I need these comments to remind myself I still have not watched Red Riding Trilogy when it is in my Netflix queue. 

This is wonderfully demented in the nicest way possible and I am glad it was not me doing this.  Yet, I too have a Chastain obsession.   I blame the fact she clearly monitors her Facebook fan page. 

I remember her bio just having she went to Julliard.  Now it includes her going to some state school in Cali and Julliard.  Probably how the years were shed off, although she could definitely pass 3-4 younger than she is. 

She actually wanted to hide that too.  Jason Clarke, who she has been friends with for years, casually mentioned it in their joint interviews for Zero Dark Thirty and seemed a bit embarrassed telling him, 'I don't want everybody to know I'm vegan!' 

Honestly the lady commune is something that shows a lot of self-awareness to the ridiculousness of its set-up, if just for Holly Hunter's appearance in the first episode (or hour) alone.

I have this odd feeling that it will become a mini-series the way Missing became a mini-series.

She was shooting it when Mad Men Season 5 were talking (as much as they could because the season had not yet started) at PaleyFest.   Jon Hamm mentioned where she was and what project she was doing due to her absence from the panel.   If anything, that is what cut into her Season 5 screen-time. 

Norman and Mrs. Bates in MODERN TIMES?

She couldn't ask Taissa to get her into American Horror Story Season 3?  

I remember learning that the UK got to watch the original series and ate it all up and honestly wondered if that could ever happen here.