Village Vidiot

Thousands of brief movie reviews from decades of film watching from a guy who loves the cinema.

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Author: Village Vidiot

Grey Gardens

Posted on October 31, 2020November 12, 2020 by Village Vidiot

  “Grey Gardens,” October 31, 2020 (1975), DVD.  This is considered by most film cognoscenti to be one of the great American direct cinema documentaries.  It is reality filmmaking, the predecessor of reality TV.  But the subjects here, unlike the current crop,  live as they are, regardless of the camera’s presence.  Or so it appears. …

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Divine Order

Posted on October 25, 2020November 12, 2020 by Village Vidiot

  “The Divine Order,” October 25, 2020 (2017), DVD, Swiss-German with subtitles.  In a way, this third film in three days brings elements of “Marriage Story” and “Portrait of a Lady on Fire,” together.  The synergy was not planned but the films just fit very well.  This last is the simplest of the three offerings….

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Portrait of a Lady On Fire

Posted on October 24, 2020November 12, 2020 by Village Vidiot

  “Portrait of a Lady on Fire,” October 24, 2020 (2019), DVD. Auteur Celine Sciamma has produced a period piece that is less interested in being a record of the time than an exposition on art, gender, power, love, class, and myth. It posits a woman’s world in what might also have been outside the…

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Marriage Story

Posted on October 23, 2020October 27, 2020 by Village Vidiot

  “Marriage Story,” October 23, 2020 (2019), DVD of film made for Netflix.  I’ve been a big fan of director Noah Baumbach since I emerged deep in thought (well, for me) from his 2005 The Squid and the Whale.  This look at a Brooklyn couple’s dissolution in 1986, as one artistic career, the father’s, collapses…

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The King of Staten Island

Posted on October 21, 2020October 25, 2020 by Village Vidiot

  “The King of Staten Island,” October 21, 2020 (2020), DVD.  Pete Davidson stars in and, with director Judd Apatow, wrote this look New York’s working- and middle-class bedroom, Staten Island.  Davidson play Scott Carlin a 24-yo slacker, ADD tattoo artist wannabe (of dubious talent at best) living at home, hanging with his stoner homies,…

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The Trial of the Chicago 7

Posted on October 18, 2020October 20, 2020 by Village Vidiot

  “The Trial of the Chicago Seven,” October 18, 2020, Netflix.  It has been forever since we’ve seen a movie, as we’ve been watching various series on TV.  However, I read about this film in the NYT and in a friend’s comment on Facebook from Denmark.  Both B and I really looked forward to it. …

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“Molly’s Game”

Posted on August 22, 2020August 30, 2020 by Village Vidiot

  “Molly’s Game,” August 22, 2020 (2017), Netflix.  Our daughter Bronwen recommended this one to us and we caught it last night.  A good, solid, based-on-a-true-story film.   It is also an excellent film about father-daughter relationships where the parent demands fealty, total commitment, and over-achievement from their child.   I wonder if there was a message…

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Little Women

Posted on August 14, 2020August 16, 2020 by Village Vidiot

  “Little Women,” August 14, 2020 (2019), DVD.  There are very good reasons critics loved this most recent incarnation of Louisa May Alcott’s classic novel of the March family as written and directed by Greta Gerwig.  This is a sumptuous presentation filled with the gender challenges, edginess, and several of the possible ways of dealing…

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JoJo Rabbit

Posted on August 1, 2020August 13, 2020 by Village Vidiot

  “JoJo Rabbit,”  August 1, 2020 (2019), DVD.  Anachronistic serio-comedy from Taika Waititi about the surreality that ruled during the last days of the 3rd Reich and in our own times; well, those before Covid and the US’s imperial collapse.  Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, as the world collapses around them.  Its 1944/45, and…

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They Shall Not Grow Old

Posted on July 26, 2020July 29, 2020 by Village Vidiot

  “They Shall Not Grow Old,” documentary, July 26, 2020 (2018), DVD.  Crafted by New Zealander, Peter Jackson, this non-narrative documentary relies entirely on film from WWI from the War Museum and other sources, magazine graphics for battle scenes, interviews with veterans done during the 1950s and 1960s, and amazing tech work on the film. …

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A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

Posted on July 18, 2020July 21, 2020 by Village Vidiot

“A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood,” July 18, 2020 (2019), DVD.  I was in great need of something that was essentially nice.   Covid induced isolation, concern for my family and friends, and the insanity of racist violence and Donald Trump destroying the nation are not making me crave films that feed my anxiety.  I did…

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Disturbing the Peace

Posted on June 2, 2020June 8, 2020 by Village Vidiot

  “Disturbing the Peace,” documentary, June 2, 2020 (2016).  Members of Combatants for Peace, men and women on both sides, made this film over a decade to show their entry into peace work and their efforts to bridge the seemingly unbridgeable gap between Israelis and Palestinians.  The Israelis had all served in the IDF, the…

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Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorcese

Posted on May 23, 2020May 25, 2020 by Village Vidiot

  “Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorcese,” Real/imagined documentary, May 23, 2020 (2019), Netflix.  Pieced together by Scorcese from other materials and concert footage from the Rolling Thunder Tour in 1975, Scorcese invents an understanding of Dylan’s second great return to the road.   Most of it seems to be lifted from…

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Unorthodox

Posted on May 22, 2020May 25, 2020 by Village Vidiot

  “Unorthodox,” TV Series, May, 2020, Netflix.  Yes, we finally got Netflix.  This 4-part series is loosely based on the memoir of the same name by Deborah Feldman.  It follows Esther “Etsy” (the amazing Shira Haas) as she fleas the hidebound, ultra-Orthodox Satmar religious community in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.  Starved for both experience and affection, the…

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Catfight

Posted on May 21, 2020May 25, 2020 by Village Vidiot

  “Catfight,” May 21, 2020 (2016), Netflix.  Funny thing.  We wanted to see “Killing Eve” and thought it was on Netflix.  It took us to this, and as we’ve never seen “Killing Eve,” we thought this was an episode because it stars Sanda Oh.  Over time, we realized it wasn’t and we figured we’d see…

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Springsteen on Broadway

Posted on May 15, 2020May 25, 2020 by Village Vidiot

  “Springsteen on Broadway,” May 15, 2020 (2018), Netflix.  I really like Bruce Springsteen as a writer and performer.   I’ve been to one show (thank you Dr. Yates) but can’t afford the freight to see this man of the people.  I suspect he gets the paradox. Bruce’s one-man/one-woman show (featuring Patti Scialfa, his wife and bandmate for many…

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Echo In the Canyon

Posted on May 10, 2020May 25, 2020 by Village Vidiot

  “Echo in the Canyon,” documentary, May 10, 2020 (2018), Netflix. B liked this one more than I did.  This film chronicles Jakob Dylan of the Wallflower’s exploration of one portion of the music scene from Laurel Canyon/LA in the mid-1960s, focusing on particular aspects of the evolution of both folk and rock in that…

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Cold War

Posted on May 9, 2020 by Village Vidiot
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Planet of the Humans

Posted on May 7, 2020May 25, 2020 by Village Vidiot

  “Planet of the Humans,” May 7, 2020 (2019), Amazon Prime.  Michael Moore produced this attack on both the activist ecology movement (e.g., Bill McKibben) as shilling for Green Capitalism and destructive forms of energy generation, such as biomass.  As McKibben acknowledges in a rebuttal, he initially supported biomass but shifted his position not, as…

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The Two Popes

Posted on May 7, 2020May 25, 2020 by Village Vidiot

  “The Two Popes,” (some subtitles/English/Spanish/Latin/Italian), May 7, 2020 (2019), Netflix.  Brilliant acting from Anthony Hopkins as Benedict XVI and Jonathon Pryce as Francis I.   It’s an exciting and frequently very funny film that also graphically takes one into the horrific torture chambers and mass executions of the Argentinian junta’s rule.  This film follows from…

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Brittany Runs a Marathon

Posted on April 17, 2020May 27, 2020 by Village Vidiot

  “Brittany Runs a Marathon,” April 17, 2020 (2019), Amazon Prime during Covid-19.   We saw this two nights before the Boston Marathon would have run thus year.  Brittany  (Jillian Bell) is not an easy person to be around.  Her NYC career has not gone the way she’d hoped, she’s gained a lot of weight, and…

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Midway

Posted on March 31, 2020May 27, 2020 by Village Vidiot

  “Midway,” March 31, 2020 (2019), DVD.  I was really looking forward to this and, as has been the norm of late, was terribly disappointed.  Based on the true story of the battle of Midway in 1942, this script is about as trite as it could be.  The acting is flat and the characters one-dimensional. …

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Ford v Ferrari

Posted on March 21, 2020May 27, 2020 by Village Vidiot

  “Ford v Ferrari,” March 21, 2020 (2019), DVD.  I’ve been very stressed out, what with the virus, the economy, online teaching, and the like.  I turned to this as a piece of cinematic escape, and it was that.  Carroll Shelby (Matt Daman) was the only American to win at LeMans (1959) but then had…

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Downton Abbey

Posted on March 13, 2020March 14, 2020 by Village Vidiot

  “Downton Abbey,” March 13, 2020 (2019), DVD.  I had high hopes for this cinematic spinoff from the acclaimed English TV series chronically changes in England through the noble Crawley family and their servants.  I’d enjoyed the first few seasons although I dropped out at the end.  It was too much of a soap about…

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Welcome Back.

Posted on March 10, 2020 by Village Vidiot

No, not a movie. I’ve recreated this blog as thevillagevidiot.com, having lost the ‘villagevidiot.net’ url. So it goes. I’ll be entering more films in here and hope to edit many more already in with photos and other information.  Please return and browse at will.  Your friend, The Village Vidiot.

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