Cinebanter #18 - CHILDREN OF MEN
The MP3 file of Episode 18 of Cinebanter is available here.
In this episode, Michael and Tassoula have a dreadful fight over the effectiveness of CHILDREN OF MEN, starring Clive Owen. They also share their Last Five® and their picks for the upcoming Screen Actors Guild Awards on January 28. The breakdown is as follows:
• 00:00 Intro
• 00:32 CHILDREN OF MEN Discussion
• Break
• 26:16 TO SUM IT UP
• Break
• 27:02 The Last Five®
• Break
• 40:23 SAG Award Picks
• 51:48 Credits and Outtakes
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Michael's Last Five in this episode were: SHERRYBABY, SHORTCUTS, STAGECOACH, BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN, and THREE COLORS TRILOGY. Tassoula's Last Five in this episode were: DEXTER: SEASON ONE, EPISODES 10 THROUGH 12, JOYEUX NOEL, BRIDGET JONES'S DIARY, THE WIRE: SEASON ONE, EPISODES 1 THROUGH 5, and THE WIZARD OF OZ.
Special thanks to Brad Daane and Mark Cummins for providing the music in this episode.
Reviews and/or notes of every movie Michael sees can be found at his MichaelVox website.
Tassoula has movie reviews/musings at Tassoula's Blog.
Feedback is always welcome - you may leave comments here or e-mail the hosts at cinebanter@gmail.com.
We hope you enjoy the show!
Labels: 18, Children of Men, cinema, episode, film, movie, podcast, review
posted by Cinebanter @ 7:44 AM
1 Comments:
Hi Tassoula and MichaelVox –
I want to thank you for your reviews of ‘Children of Men’ because it directly paralleled the discussion my wife and I had after seeing the movie (she hated it; I loved it). I am writing to let you know some of my thoughts on the movie and why Tassoula is dead wrong about it.
The idea behind the movie is that it is a lot easier to embrace despair than hope. Just one small change in the status quo will drive someone to abandon all hope. Throughout the film, people embrace hope without any sort of payoff – Julianne Moore, Michael Caine, and even Clive Owen all wind up never finding out if all their efforts were for naught. The film expects you to appreciate their hope in a hopeless situation, even though that hope is never rewarded, and the film concludes by putting the audience in the same situation – you don’t know what happens yet, but do you have hope? Or will you choose to embrace despair?
As to Tassoula’s complaint, “What do these people do for fun?” I think the movie does a great job of showing this, especially in the scene where Clive Owen goes to visit his well-connected cousin with the wired-up, video game playing child. (What was that thing on his hand? I called it Rubik’s Cube 2020.) While the world falls apart, the privileged few respond not by working to make things better, but by holing up in little media bubbles. This scene struck me as an indictment of America and its obsession with entertainment above everything else. When contrasted with the refugee camps, it seems ludicrous and horrible – which is no doubt how people in war-torn areas of the world see us.
Having said all that, my wife was physically sickened by all the vertigo-inducing hand-held camera work, and she called that one scene, “The most unflattering portrayal of the birthing process – EVER!” She also didn’t like the fact that there was no payoff for all the suffering she endured.
So… there you go.
Really like the show. Thanks for the good work. Keep up the lively discussion.
-M. Robert Turnage
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