Ah yes, The 90’s…an intellectually-bankrupt time for film. Still…
Education for Death - Based on the anti-Nazi propaganda book by Gregor Ziemer and directed by Clyde Geronimi, this cartoon portrays the life of one of the Hitler Youth.
It’s a Girl - In India, China and many other parts of the world today, girls are killed, aborted and abandoned simply because they are girls. The United Nations estimates as many as 200 million girls are missing in the world today because of this so-called “gendercide”.
This documentary film tells the stories of abandoned and trafficked girls, of women who suffer extreme dowry-related violence, of brave mothers fighting to save their daughters’ lives, and of other mothers who would kill for a son. Global experts and grassroots activists put the stories in context and advocate different paths towards change, while collectively lamenting the lack of any truly effective action against this injustice.
Moonrise Kingdom, a film by Wes Anderson
andreainspired: Tampopo (1985, Juzo Itami)
“First, caress the surface with the chopstick tips. To express affection. Then, poke the pork. Just touch it. Caress it with the chopstick tips. Gently pick it up, and dip it into the soup on the right of the bowl. What’s important here is to apologize to the pork by saying, ‘See you soon.’”
In this fragile and poignant film, four Japanese children all live together with their mother in a small apartment in Tokyo. Each child is the result of a different relationship, and a different father. In the beginning of the film, the mother and her eldest son, Akira, sneak the youngest two children into the apartment from inside their luggage, as if it were a game that they have played many times before. “Was it hot in there?” asks the mother as she opens the mid-sized container, freeing the young boy. “It was super hot.” Later in the evening, Akira is sent out to retrieve his younger sister and bring her back to their new home. She is too large for the luggage game.
From time to time, the children’s mother leaves them alone for the night as she frolics about, meeting new men. She comes home, smelling of booze, and wakes the sleeping children to play games. Akira is the only child who is a student; the others are told that they do not need an education.
Eventually, the mother begins leaving the children alone for longer amounts of time. Soon they find themselves alone for days, weeks and even months with nothing but an envelope full of money left by their estranged parent. Akira is oddly mature, even more so than his mother, and fully able to fulfill all the necessary deeds to continue life in the apartment without the outside world knowing of their presence, and of their desolation. When the money runs low, Akira visits the fathers of all four children and hangs out to ask for money, as if it were a routine thing. “Yuki ain’t my kid. Every time I did it with your mom, I used a prophylactic.” The man gives Akira the money.
The sight of young Akira and the children’s lives passing them by is crippling. Crayon drawings find homes on overdue water bills, clothes dirty and tear, and hair grows out past the eye line.
Someone scanned in the rare out-of-print Blade Runner sketchbook.
Headshot - The story of man shot in the head, who wakes up several months later, with no memories of what happened. And realizes he now sees the world upside down.
The King of Pigs
The Descendants
