Category: movies

Not a Movie Review

personby Nancy Jane Moore
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This is not a review of The Odyssey movie. I have not seen The Odyssey and am not planning to see it, because, given Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, which I have seen, I doubt his take on The Odyssey will appeal to me. I’m clearly not Nolan’s target audience.

What Nolan cared about in Oppenheimer was the way men pushed against each other, including how men who thought they were powerful, even gods — the physicists in particular — turned out to be subordinate to both the military men and the politicians. I wrote about this when I saw the movie (which, by the way, did get a lot of the history around the bomb right, but wasn’t really about that).

My take was that the movie was “an analysis of how men in a patriarchal society behave toward other men.” Given that The Odyssey is about a very patriarchal society – you can start with Penelope’s son telling her to shut up and keep going from there – I suspect the new movie is also more interested in how men behave toward other men than anything else.

Apparently Odysseus is portrayed as having some angst about the Trojan War, which is in keeping with Oppenheimer’s angst over the bomb. I have no objection to such angst (regardless of whether one considers it appropriate to a story set in such ancient times or not) or to a filmmaker deciding to focus on it, but I’m also not particularly interested in men suffering angst for doing horrible things these days.

Though that’s certainly better than the apparent lack of conscience among the many men (and unfortunately not just men) doing horrible things right now.

I gather that the movie is epic and makes good use of the effects that only movies can provide, and also that those playing the women of the story are excellent actors who contribute something in their own right. In her brilliant review of the movie in the London Review of Books, translator Emily Wilson calls it “a family-friendly audiovisual spectacle, like an elaborate Fourth of July fireworks display – and with about the same level of narrative and emotional depth.” But I should note that other people whose opinion I respect have enjoyed it.

I suspect it really depends on what you want out of a movie. I certainly don’t want to criticize people for choosing movies for a bit of escape and pure entertainment. I’ve been reading Agatha Christie’s Tuppence and Tommy novels of late for precisely that purpose.

And it is noteworthy that the entertainment movie of the moment is an ancient epic. Continue reading “Not a Movie Review”…

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”…