22 January 2014

Life Is Short

Life Is Short is an as-needed series documenting the films we just couldn't make it through. We like to refer to these movies as "Damsels in Distress." Previous entries are here , here, and here.

TWO THIS WEEK:

I couldn't handle "12 Years a Slave." I just couldn't sit in a theater with about a half dozen other middle-aged white people watching snarling white actors (an embarrassment for Pauls Giamatti and Dano) beat, denigrate and dehumanize black actors, all under the stylish gaze of a flashy British director.

Maybe I'm unable to properly empathize with people who don't look like me; perhaps I'm more comfortable with indie sagas of middle-class angst. Maybe I'm a coward, unable to face up to a painful, horrifying history. But I'm tired of wallowing in the old order -- at least the dramatizing of it. I'll watch a documentary about slavery. But I see no reason to put Chiwetel Ejiofor through such a spectacle.

Title: 12 YEARS A SLAVE
Running Time: 134 MIN
Elapsed Time at Plug Pull: 60 MIN
Portion Watched: 45%
My Age at Time of Viewing: 51 YRS, 1 MO.
Average Male American Lifespan: 81.2 YRS.
Watched/Did Instead: Sampled about 20 minutes  of two other films at the cineplex and then went home and watched a documentary
Odds of Re-viewing This Title: The first half: 100-1; the second half: 5-1.

***


As a fan of  Frederick Wiseman's documentaries, I was prepared to commit more than four hours to his latest fly-on-the-wall examination of life, this one at the University of California's hardcore liberal enclave. Unfortunately, his style is all wrong for this project -- at least what I saw of it.

Much of the first half hour is taken up by one class's droning discussion of poverty, where students are given minutes at a time to make their points, which are often, in the style of the young, poorly articulated and repetitive. A good chunk of the rest of the hour involves faculty and staff rambling on and on about the budget crisis at the school.

Perhaps I'm just a grumpy geezer, but I can't imagine wanting to sit in a classroom with earnest, naive college students purporting to solve the world's problems. This whole project cries out for editing. Massive editing. Maybe I'm missing a masterpiece, but I'll get on just fine.

Title: AT BERKELEY
Running Time: 244MIN
Elapsed Time at Plug Pull: 60 MIN
Portion Watched: 24.6%
My Age at Time of Viewing: 51 YRS, 1 MO.
Average Male American Lifespan: 81.2 YRS.
Watched/Did Instead: Watched some of "Saturday Night Live" and went to bed
Odds of Re-viewing This Title: 40-1

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