Matewan

This 1987 film (pronounced "Mate-wahn") was written and directed by John Sayles, one of my favorite filmmakers. It aims to document real events that concerned a small coal mining community (called Matewan) in West Virginia in 1920. The miners are trying to organize a union, much to the dismay of the company that employs them. All of the acting is great, including, in the starring role, Chris Cooper, (the Kansas City native who was the abusive father from American Beauty and who starred in another fantastic Sayles film from 1996, Lonestar), David Strathairn as the good-natured but stern police chief, and, in his only movie role ever (here at 14 years old), indie-folk legend Will Oldham, of Palace Music and Bonnie Prince Billie fame. He plays a preacher-in-training in the film, and does such a great job that it seems damn unfortunate for all of us that he didn't continue his acting career--though he would go on to make some great music, and continues to currently. It also features James Earl Jones, aka Darth Vader.

Anyway, the film is very honest, subtle and exquisite. You don't feel, as you do with many films churned out by Hollywood, that things have been altered and embellished for the sake of making it interesting--it's very natural, and it seems very real. You're confidant that Sayles is giving you the truth here, as best he can, through his visual style, restrained, natural dialogue and engaging historic atmosphere.

It's movies like this that renew my faith in period pieces. Important historical films at their best are able to capture a period and bring the audience as close as possible to experiencing the 'feel' of that time--I guess that kinda goes without saying though.

Lately I've been almost entirely disinterested in watching films from this decade and the 90s. I am more interested in reexamining the 80s (for instance, finding movies I never knew about, good or bad), and learning more about American society in the 70s, 60s, 50s, any time period really. I'm discovering lots of cool stuff (see this review and my "Badlands" post) and am sure I'll find a lot more worthwhile flicks.

My idea for this blog

First of all, "Oggy Oggy Oggy!" is a reference to The Office, that funny show from the BBC. Gareth's friend's name is Oggy and he always answers the phone "Oggy Oggy Oggy". So I wasn't just being weird when I titled it as such.

Anyway, I'd like for this to be some sort of forum for recommending movies and receiving recommendations for movies.

I want it to be a freeform kind of thing; that is, post a review or whatever anywhere in this blog...in other words, if the thread started out as a discussion of New York Minute, starring Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, but you want to steer it toward, say, Don't Be A Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice In The Hood, feel free to do so...get it? Hopefully this will be helpful and interesting for all involved rather than boring, stupid and lame. It'd be nice for people to post something more discriptive and useful than "this was good" or "this was bad".

This is my lame blog

I'm bored as hell so I'm creating a blog.

I'd like to focus on movies.......but it doesn't really matter

Here's one I just saw--Terrence Malick's "Badlands", 1973.

I think the pacing, while probably slow by most Hollywood-weened moviewatcher's standards, is perfect. There’s so much I like about this movie, especially after reading some reviews of it on IMDB.com. I’m finding out that my favorite movies are the ones that strive for realism; they’re easier to believe, or rather it’s easier to suspend your DISbelief and it makes for a more rewarding and important experience. Subtlety is the key with good movies, I think. Nothing over the top. This is a very mature and intelligent movie and it makes me want to watch Thin Red Line again, and I want to see Days of Heaven (his other movie) too. Here's a great user review from IMDB that made me think a whole lot more about what I'd already seen:

"Malick's masterpiece, 18 November 2004 Author: Vicenzo-V- SPOILERS

In Natural Born Killers the protagonists has to be bald, he needs to wear sunglasses and a leather jacket, he's used to swearing in every sentence and his childhood, of course, has been very unhappy. With his girlfriend, who shares the exact same personality, he drives across America and kills everything with a pulse, accompanied by loud rock-music in the background. If you hadn't noticed, Mickey's a very bad man. It's easy to distance yourself from such a character, since he isn't remotely like you -- in fact, he's like nobody you've ever met. What makes Kit in Terrence Malick's Badlands a much more interesting character is the unpredictability of his speech, behavior and violent outbursts. From the outside he's not only incredibly handsome, he also appears to be a decent, if somewhat simplistic, lower-class man. In the course of the film we'll learn that the only thing wrong with him is that he suffers from a set of morals that are completely unacceptable. Which is the one thing that links him with Holly, who's otherwise the polar opposite to Kit's character. When Kit kills Holly's father, her reaction can only be described as indifferent. We don't understand why she reacts like this, but we're given two clues -- she's complimented by Kit's affection, whom she idolizes like a movie-star, and her child-like naivety prevents her from seeing the consequence of Kit's actions. If the relationship between Kit and Holly leaves you completely cold that's intentional -- once they're on the road it doesn't function as an emotionally satisfying love-story, instead Holly accentuates the absurdity of Kit's actions -- not by reacting to them the way we would, but in exactly the opposite way. What follows is a road movie with irony in every frame -- the respecting way in which he addresses his victims never matches his blunt and horrifying acts, and there's always a serene beauty and calm surrounding them. Kit's victims die in agonizing pain while they're comforted by the sound of birds. In a scene of surreal and unsettling brilliance, Malick shows that there's a fine line between an innocent girl and and a sadistic accomplice. When Kit is arrested and will probably end up in the electric chair we're not supposed to feel bad about it. We're supposed to be disturbed by the fact that most Americans are in the possession of a gun, and that they're all one loose wire away from becoming like Kit. 10/10"