Category: movies

Time and cold and other vagaries

personby Gillian Polack
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I’m taking a break from reality.

Canberra has almost winter weather, and we’ve not even reached the traditional time to change to autumnal linen and to turn on the heaters. That traditional day is a public holiday, which this year falls on a long weekend … and happens to be my birthday. I will turn 65. I have dinner with a friend the day before my birthday, and lunch with another friend the long weekend Monday, but that’s it. Most Canberrans will, I suspect, be down the coast, trying desperately to avoid below zero temperatures. The coast has a very mild winter and, by Australian standards, Canberra does not. (We don’t get down to zero Fahrenheit, just to reassure you, but we’ve already been below zero Celsius in April.)

Let me ask you all a question, then.

Since it’s a mug’s game to work on one’s 65th, and since the Dawn Service* (which I would’ve liked to go to) requires me leaving my flat before 3 am when the temperature will be below zero, I’ve decided to stay home and watch a sequence of streamed films on Saturday. Which films should I watch? The Lord of the Rings comes to mind, but… I’m not certain.

I was going to watch When Things were Rotten and Robin Hood, Men in Tights, but they require note-taking, since I’m writing an article about them in a few weeks.

Suggest something. All suggestions will be taken seriously.

* The public holiday is ANZAC Day, which is our equivalent of Memorial Day and is the sole day of the year when it is legal to play Two-Up. Two-Up is one of the most boring forms of gambling possible, but it is very, very Australian.

Raising Feminists on Old Movies

personby Madeleine Robins
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My family watches a lot of movies, and many of them are old musicals from the 40s and 50s.  Seven Brides for Seven Brothers is a 1954 MGM musical based on a short story by Stephen Vincent Benet called “The Sobbin’ Women.” Out in the pioneer northwest, a man decides he needs a wife, goes into town, finds one, marries her (she falls in love with him; what his feelings for her are is unclear), and brings her home to cook and clean for himself and his six half-civilized brothers.  Millie (the wife) civilizes the boys a bit, and eventually, after meeting some nice girls from town at a barn raising, the boys (led by big brother Adam, who read Plutarch’s “Rape of the Sabine Women”) go to town and kidnap the girls.  The townsfolk are prevented from rescuing their daughters until the pass clears (convenient avalanche), but Millie staunchly defends the girls’ virtue through the long winter that follows.  In the end, everyone winds up married.  The lesson about being kidnapped?  “They acted angry and annoyed, but secretly they was overjoyed…”

No, this is not a feminist movie. It’s pretty much rape-culture with music.

Why watch it?  It’s pretty, the music is pleasant (although the lyrics are just passable:”Can’t make no vows to a herd of cows…”) and the stars work hard.  Mostly, it has spectacular, athletic, muscular dancing.  The barn raising dance, in particular, is just…wow.  You briefly forget all about the political incorrectness of the surroundings and just gape in awe.

My daughters loved Seven Brides.  It also led to interesting conversations. Oh, we had interesting conversations about all sorts of movies, which often led to what I call “Well, dear,” explanations.  As in: “Mama, why are all those men in turbans so angry with Shirley Temple’s grandfather?” “Well, dear, the British occupation of India…” A movie like Seven Brides required several conversations, which led to more “Well, dear” moments (“No, honey, girls couldn’t vote in America until 1919.” “But that’s not fair!!!” “No, sweetie, it wasn’t.”). Continue reading “Raising Feminists on Old Movies”…

Aqueduct Authors Share Their Favorites From 2025

personby Nancy Jane Moore
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Every year in December, Aqueduct Press invites its authors to share the books, movies, music, plays, and assorted related things that moved them in 2025. A new blog post is put up each day until they run out, usually some time in January.

One of the best things about these lists is that they’re not restricted to work that came out in 2025, which means they can and do include a lot of older books, etc.

Mine went up last Saturday. It’s all books because I seem to be doing more reading than anything else these days even if I did venture out to hear Ruthie Foster in concert.

I recommend reading them all and making a list of things you want to check out!

Radical Hospitality

personby Nancy Jane Moore
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Last weekend I saw a movie that combined science fiction with political activism and food: Earth Seed: A People’s Journey of Radical Hospitality. It was the start of the documentary’s national tour; you can see the schedule here.

The name Earth Seed, of course, comes from Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents. These books have not only resonated with science fiction readers over the years, but also have become focuses for activist groups. They seem all too relevant, in part because they were written in the 1990s about a future starting in 2024 that isn’t as far removed from our own as we would like it to be.

The People’s Kitchen Collective – an Oakland group that has been providing meals for events and gatherings for many years – decided in 2023 to do and film a pilgrimage up California from Los Angeles to Mendocino that echoes the path taken by Lauren in Parable of the Sower.

Along the way, they meet with various community groups and prepare amazing meals while having deep discussions with the people.

It is a movie that inspires activism and community building and, to use their phrase, radical hospitality. In fact, a great deal of the movie as well as the discussion after the screening focused on what those words truly mean.

The film begins in Los Angeles, particularly in Altadena, where it includes a visit to Octavia Butler’s grave. Many of the places where they filmed were destroyed in the fires earlier this year, which made the screening especially poignant. Continue reading “Radical Hospitality”…