Redemption Song: 060107

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MOVIES --

- CURRENT -

Yi Yi (2000) [A One and a Two]
Among movie critics' highest-rated foreign films of 2000, Yi Yi chronicles three generations of a Taiwanese family mired in a crisis of self-doubt. A chance meeting with a former lover compels a father to question the assumptions on which his life is based. Warm and thoughtful, Yi Yi posits that truth is something we may never know.
Cast: Nien-Jen Wu, Elaine Jin, Issey Ogata, Kelly Lee, Jonathan Chang, Hsi-Sheng Chen, Su-Yun Ko
Director: Edward Yang

additional info:

Yi Yi = A one and a two /
New York, NY : Winstar TV & Video, Distributed by Fox Lorber Films, [2001], c1999.
ISBN: 0794200540
Description: 2 videocassettes (173 min.) : sd., col. ; 1/2 in.
Cinematography, Wei-han Yang ; editor, Bo-wen Chen ; music, Kai-Li Peng ; production designer, Peng. Nien-Jen Wu, Elaine Jin, Issey Ogata, Kelly Lee, Jonathan Chang.
Videocassette release of the 1999 motion picture.
In Mandarin with English subtitles.
Additional Authors: Kawai, Shinya. Tsukeda, Naoko. Yang, Dechang, 1947- Wu, Nien-Jen. Jin, Elaine. Ogata, Issey. Lee, Kelly. Zhang, Wangyang. Yang, Wei-han. Chen, Bo-wen. Peng, Kai-Li. Peng. WinStar Cinema (Firm) Pony Canyon Inc. Omega Project Co. Ltd. Atom Films (Firm) Fox Lorber Films.

- LAST NIGHT -

Finding Neverland (2004) [J.M. Barrie's Neverland]
Peter Pan and the denizens of Neverland have captured the hearts and minds of J.M. Barrie's readers. But how did the imaginative author ever envision a world so wondrous yet perilous? Johnny Depp plays Barrie, a writer inspired by genius and dedicated to seeing his vision come to life onstage at the Duke of York's Theatre in 1904 London. Kate Winslet co-stars in this magical film that nabbed seven Oscar nominations and won Best Original Score.
Cast: Johnny Depp, Kate Winslet, Julie Christie, Radha Mitchell, Dustin Hoffman, Freddie Highmore, Joe Prospero, Nick Roud, Luke Spill, Ian Hart, Kelly Macdonald, Mackenzie Crook
Director: Marc Forster

- RECENT -

RAN

image hosted by reku.freeblog.hu

image hosted by pbs.org

Ran (1985)
Legendary Japanese auteur Akira Kurosawa retells Shakespeare's classic tragedy King Lear against a samurai backdrop. Tatsuya Nakadia is a warlord who transfers his kingdom to his eldest son. A power struggle ensues, incited by his two disinherited younger sons. Kurosawa is a master storyteller (almost on par with The Bard himself), and Ran ranks among the maestro's most compelling films.
Cast: Tatsuya Nakadai, Akira Terao, Jinpachi Nezu, Daisuke Ryu, Mieko Harada, Yoshiko Miyazaki, Takashi Nomura, Hisashi Igawa, Masayuki Yui, Kazuo Kato, Norio Matsui, Toshiya Ito, Kenji Kodama
Director: Akira Kurosawa

from pbs.org -
A work of intense bitterness and melancholy, RAN shows where Kurosawa went after RED BEARD. As he did in THRONE OF BLOOD, Kurosawa transposes a Shakespearean source (here, "King Lear"; "Macbeth" in the earlier film) to 16th-century Japan and uses the bloody samurai wars and social disintegration of the medieval period as a framework for constructing a Buddhist vision of hell. Kurosawa said that all of the technological progress of the 20th century had only taught people how to kill each other more efficiently, and in this film he shows that forces of violence and destruction, once unleashed, destroy all in their path.
The film's tone is remote, cold, epic. Kurosawa depicts a world devoid of heroes or hope, and the grand majesty of his pessimism gives the film its power and bite. RAN is the culminating work of the melancholy period in his art that lasted from 1970 to 1985. While he moved beyond this pessimism in his last three films, he never again worked on the kind of grand and lavish scale that he did here. RAN contains sequences that only a master director, a giant of cinema, could conceive and design. The most impressive of these is the huge samurai battle and massacre, climaxing with a burning castle, and filmed by Kurosawa as if it were a scroll of hell. This film has the unmistakable aura of greatness.
-- Stephen Prince

"What has always troubled me about 'King Lear' is that Shakespeare gives his characters no past. ... In RAN, I have tried to give Lear a history."
From KUROSAWA.

see also: pbs.org/wnet/gperf/shows/kurosawa

<< speaking of Akira Kurosawa [Kurosawa Akira] -
search this blog for Akira Kurosawa
see also, previous: 051107 [Throne of Blood]
see also, previous: 051229 [Red Beard]

google Akira Kurosawa [Kurosawa Akira]

<<< a little inspiration there, quentin? [see especially the scene where the evil fox devil gets its head cut off]

Don Juan De Marco (1995)
Psychiatrist Marlon Brando is assigned to diagnose a mysterious young man (Johnny Depp) who's convinced that he's Don Juan De Marco, a legendary lover and swashbuckler. The journey into Don Juan's past revitalizes the doctor's own relationship with his wife (Faye Dunaway). The mix of old and new star power plus charm to spare makes this a great first date DVD. The café singer is Selena, who died just weeks before this film's release.
Cast: Faye Dunaway, Marlon Brando, Johnny Depp, Selena
Director: Jeremy Leven

To Live (1994) [Huozhe]
A bold, energetic masterpiece from Zhang Yimou, the foremost director from China's influential "fifth generation" of filmmakers. Continuing his brilliant collaboration with China's best-known actress, Gong Li, Zhang weaves a tapestry of personal and political events, following the struggles of an impoverished husband and wife (Ge You and Li) from their heyday in the 1940s to the hardships that accompanied the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s.
Cast: Ge You, Li Gong, Ben Niu, Deng Fei, Jiang Wu, Dahong Ni, Guo Tao, Liu Tianchi
Director: Yimou Zhang

Bless the Child (2000)
Kim Basinger stars as Maggie O'Connor, a woman whose well-ordered, practical universe has no room for such concepts as Good and Evil. But when her six-year-old niece Cody is forcibly abducted, Maggie learns that Evil is very real indeed.
Cast: Kim Basinger, Jimmy Smits, Holliston Coleman, Rufus Sewell, Christina Ricci, Lumi Cavazos, Dimitra Arliss, Ian Holm, Dan Warry-Smith, Gary Hudson, Yan Birch
Director: Chuck Russell

Shogun, again. see previous: Redemption Song - 050820.1a

search this blog for Toshiro Mifune
google Toshiro Mifune

search this blog for posts which mention Shogun

Captain Corelli's Mandolin (2001)
Dr. Iannis (John Hurt) and his beautiful daughter, Pelagia (Penélope Cruz), live an idyllic life on the Greek island of Cephallonia -- that is, until Italian forces occupy it during World War II. When Capt. Corelli (Nicolas Cage) is placed in the Iannis home as a boarder, he and Pelagia are quickly smitten with each other. But when the Nazis arrive, Corelli must fight to liberate the island from the real enemy.
Cast: Nicolas Cage, Penelope Cruz, John Hurt, Christian Bale, David Morrissey, Irene Papas, Patrick Malahide, Paco Reconti
Director: John Madden

some funky Indian musical

Witness (1985)
In director Peter Weir's tense thriller, cop John Book (Harrison Ford) goes undercover in an Amish community to protect a boy who witnessed a murder. Once inside, the faux-Amish Block must adjust to major culture shock while cautiously romancing the child's mother (Kelly McGillis). Suspense and romance intermingle memorably in William Kelly's airtight script, a frequent model for budding screenwriters.
Cast: Harrison Ford, Kelly McGillis, Josef Sommer, Lukas Haas, Jan Rubes, Alexander Godunov, Danny Glover, Brent Jennings, Patti LuPone, Angus MacInnes, Frederick Rolf, Viggo Mortensen
Director: Peter Weir

<< speaking of Peter Weir, search this blog for posts which mention him or google Peter Weir

above quote[s] from netflix unless otherwise noted

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MUSIC --

Of special note -

Johnny Cash - Hurt
From the Grammy nominated album American IV: The Man Comes Around

image hosted by zoomrang.com

johnnycash.com

from stagepassnews.com -
If someone would have told me that Johnny Cash listened to a 'Nine Inch Nail' song let alone cover one, I would have thought this person was one fry short of a happy meal. ------- Johnny Cash, the living legend and icon of country music for almost 50 years worked absolute magic on the Trent Reznor song 'Hurt'. I for one was completely blown away, and I'm not really all that much a country music buff. There is something about the delivery that was as unnerving as it was powerful coming from this man. Probably the most moving video I've ever seen, bar none.

google Johnny Cash

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THOUGHTS --

"Impeach" is the word...
Hello Everyone, Some of the folks from Daily Kos are teaming up with the freewaybloggers to reacquaint the American people with the word "Impeach" next week, with signhanging to begin on the 8th and 9th. Many of us will simply be posting the word "Impeach", but it is free speech after all, and people can say what they like.

>>> Complete Article with links >>>

- LINK[S] OF THE DAY -

pbs.org

zoomrang.com

freewayblogger.blogspot.com

freewayblogger.com - Free Speech - Use it or Lose it

articles last ten days @ /RENEGADE/

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PEACE! strider

home: fornits.com/renegade/
blogs:
- strider's RENEGADE [activism] -
striders-renegade.blogspot.com
- strider's REDEMPTION SONG [movies, music & thoughts] -
striders-redemption-song.blogspot.com << top of this blog

Redemption Song

Saturday, January 07, 2006

060107

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