Atonement, The Times of Harvey Milk, La Haine, & The Threepenny Opera

Atonement is the last of the Oscar Nominated films (No Country for Old Men, There Will Be Blood, Juno, and Michael Clayton). And it's easily the worst. The other four are all very good to great films, and this is a film that wouldn't be out of place on a mediocre Masterpiece Theater episode. I have this feeling that the main reason it was nominated was the English accents and the (admittedly very impressive, yet distracting in its flashiness) scene of devastation at Dunkirk.

The Times of Harvey Milk is another of those annoying liberal documentaries about some do-gooder who is unfairly destroyed by an uncaring society. In this case, it's about Harvey Milk, the first openly gay San Francisco councilor, who was shot, along with the mayor, by a former councilor who clearly didn't agree with his lifestyle. It was made by PBS in the mid-80s, and certainly looks like an 80s PBS production. It's just a very frustrating film, not being as informative as I would have liked, but also the story itself with the fact that far too many people are still like Dan White.

La Haine makes me sort of want an Elvis shot JFK t-shirt. I guess I could make one myself, but it's so much easier to buy it. And I'm not a fan of the changing of Asterix and Obelix to Snoopy and Charlie Brown. Maybe no one else in America knows who Asterix and Obelix are (I have read almost all of them), but I'd prefer that the subtitles are what was actually said in the film. Also, the film felt like a talented student film, shot in striking black and white, but with very little actual plot there. Of course, that's sort of the point, as it's about three French youths, one Jewish, one Arab, and one African, who find a gun and try to figure out what to do with it. There's a lot of rage against the police, as they put one of their friends in the hospital during a riot.

The Threepenny Opera is the most cynical musical ever. And it's probably the only time I can imagine a tacked on happy ending fitting completely with the rest of the film without it being a total cop out. The most famous song in it was somewhat rewritten in the mid-50s and then recorded by Bobby Darin in 1959, Mack the Knife. I wasn't familiar with any of the other tracks, and it actually took me a little longer than it should have for that one. But it's a dark Romeo and Juliet tale of the love between the king of pickpockets and the daughter of the king of panhandlers. But with an added bonus of a smooth criminal lead, no whiny young teens, and music rather than iambic pentameter. Very enjoyable.