‘Arts’ Archives
Fish Tank & Repo Man
by Howard McQuitter Fish Tank (2009) **** Lagoon Drama Running time: 123 minutes Director: Andrea Arnold Unrated The movie starts rather slowly, but the plot becomes more clear as the main character Mia (Katie Jarvis) waddles through meaning her life at age 15. She feels trapped by her environment in the projects in an English city. Her mother Joanne (Kiersten Wareino), is a blond busty woman who loves to party and dance. Mia”'s little sister Tyler (Rebecca Griffins) plays around the tenement though she would often prefer following Mia around. Joanne”'s boyfriend Connor (Michael Fassbender of “Inglorious Basterds” and “Hunger”) seems okay, a happy-go-lucky guy with a job at a factory. The film is seen through the eyes of Misa, a school drop out, teased by boys in the neighborhood and she”'s a loner. She often uses a vacant apartment above her own to practice break-dancing while watching break-dance videos. She tries to free a [...]
Top 10 movies of 2009*
by Howard McQuitter, II Hurt Locker War/drama Rated: R Director: Kathryn Bigelow Staff Sergeant William James (Jeremy Renner) has the most dangerous job in the world, disconnecting road bombs in Baghdad. There”'s not enough money to compensate him for his task. Sometimes Sergeant J.T. Sanborn (Anthony Mackie), James”' superior, thinks James is a little crazy. Baader Meinhof Komplex Drama/History/Thriller/Adventure/Mystery Rated: R Director: Uli Edel German with English subtitles The meanest leftist groups in the west, the Red Army Faction, aka Baader Meinhof Gang, emerges in the late 1960s and into the 1970s in reaction to too much ultraconservatism in the West German government. They seek to take extreme measures, bombing banks, government buildings, etc., against the status quo. (more…)
Casablanca: “Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”
by Howard McQuitter ***** 1942 Warner Brothers Parkway Theater Drama/Romance/Mystery Running time: 102 minutes B/W, English, French, German Director: Michael Curtiz “Casablanca” is one of those special films I have seen many times over the last 50 years, but every time I see it, the feeling is like the first time. The first time over many times, the Humphrey Bogart/Ingrid Bergman duo, the cynical Claude Rains as Captain Renault, the Czech freedom fighter and escapee from a Nazi concentration camp, the memorable piano player “playing” “As Time Goes By” in Bogart”'s character Rick Blaines”' Rick”'s Café American, and so forth. However, as many times as I have seen “Casablanca”, there were things I didn”'t know until now. At a showing of “Casablanca” at the Parkway Theater in South Minneapolis last month, poet par excellence John Flynn explained that there were 35 nationalities [...]
