Hello my lovely treasured readers… Well I took a sort of unscheduled break throughout December and it has been wonderful for the psyche, but also for the inspiration. As of tomorrow the posts start fresh and I have a slew of beautiful music, stunning books and exciting films to talk about. The silly season was not so silly […]
Tag Archives: film
Mother Küsters goes to Heaven – Fassbinder and the the question of what comes after exploitation.
posted by lisathatcher
Mother Küsters goes to Heaven (1975) is another of those chilling Fassbinders. Chilling, not just because of the subject matter, but also because it stars Armin Meier who will kill himself over his love for Fassbinder in three years after this film is made and about whom Fassbinder will make In a Year of Thirteen Moons. Typical of Fassbinder it […]
Announcing changes to the Lisa Thatcher Blog
posted by lisathatcher
Good morning my lovely readers. This is a post to let you know there will be some changes to the blog from today forward. I want to thank everyone for your encouraging readership. In terms of daily hit statistics and people signing up, the blog has been a great success in my little world. Many […]
Seven Samurai – Akira Kurosawa starts a trend.
posted by lisathatcher
What a great pleasure it was to watch Seven Samurai! Despite the timeless beauty of Seven Samurai, it is when the film is seen in context that the power of its resonance through the ages is best recognised. This is a film made in 1954 at a time when Japan was reeling from the aftershocks of American […]
High and Low – Akira Kurosawa asks which is heaven and which is hell?
posted by lisathatcher
High and Low is an adaptation of an American novel entitled Kings Ransom written by Ed McBain in 1959. The film is divided largely into three parts, using the crime thriller genre to give us a large dose of Kurosawa’s trade mark social criticism. In the balance between money and incorruptible life, everyone must choose and this is the question Kurosawa […]
The Rules of the Game – Greatest film ever made.
posted by lisathatcher
What a week – month – year – of viewing I have had! Cinema buffs may lament the day and age we live in, that film makers like Michael Bay can get funded, let alone watched, but what we do have over every generation before us is access, like there has never been before, to […]
Rashomon – Stories, lies, perspectives and human weakness.
posted by lisathatcher
“Human beings are unable to be honest with themselves. Even the character who dies cannot give up his lies. Egotism is a sin [and] the human heart itself is impossible to understand.” Akira Kurosawa speaking about Rashomon. Impossible to belive I know, but I just saw Rashomon for the first time last week. It’s been […]
SFF: Faust – Sokurov reads between the lines.
posted by lisathatcher
Easily my most challenging moment of the Sydney Film Festival was Alexander Sokurov’s Faust – a film I billed as the best of the festival until I saw Holy Motors, which for me just nudged Faust to the side. In some ways the two films are very similar, taking a dystopian, ultra contemporary view of […]
SFF: Captive – Brillante Mendoza goes Political
posted by lisathatcher
I saw Captive at the Sydney Film Festival last week and despite the fact that it is terribly clichéd, I had a reasonable film experience. Like so many of these sorts of films, based on true stories, it has received terrible press. I have to confess, the poor reviews are warranted. This is a terrifying […]
SFF: The Angels Share – Ken Loach and the power of feeling good through Whiskey.
posted by lisathatcher
Strangely, whiskey played a rather large role in my very enjoyable experience of the Sydney Film Festival. It started when I saw copious amounts consumed in On the Road and came full circle with The Angels Share last night. What a lovely film this was, filled with all the usual left-wing agendas we know and […]
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