First Twitter...now Facebook!

Hello readers!

It is a Sunday evening and I ain't doing much. Sitting on my couch I started fiddling with a Facebook Between the Seats account. As of this moment, there is virtually nothing on the page and, if I may be blunt, I am unsure about what to put there. I think having a Facebook page is a neat idea, but this blog is rather small (but the love of our readers makes it feel large and grand!) and hosting a Facebook page may or may not change things.

I'm open to suggestions as to what I could to spruce up the page. Of course, if any of you beautiful people have Facebook accounts, be they for your blogs or for yourselves, and want me to 'friend' you (are we really using that as a verb nowadays?), just ask. Or friend me. Or whatever the heck it is one is supposed to do at Facebook.

Between the Seats at Facebook.

Forgotten Film Noir: Border Incident

Border Incident (1949, Anythony Mann)

This article is now available in the Friday Noir column at Sound on Sight.

Forgotten Film Noir: Lady in the Lake

Lady in the Lake (1947, Robert Montgomery)

One poll question

Hello readers,

I put my thinking hat on this morning when wondering what sort of features could be added to Between the Seats. The reviews featured here are quite extensive and thorough (at least, we try to make them thorough). Sometimes, depending on how much time you have or the interest in a given film, a quicker, to-the-point review will suffice. Therefore, I ask you, the readers, should Between the Seats begin producing capsul reviews of films we watch, all the while writing the longer, analytical reviews you are accustomed to? This could pertinent in that Between the Seats would be sharing its views on almost all the movies we see (trust me people, the reviews published here are for perhaps 33% of the movies viewed). On the flip side, capsul reviews would feature less analysis and more 'gut reactions' to movies, more in the vain of the many reviews featured across the internet already.

So, what do you think?

Review: Looking for Eric

*Context: Below is a special review I wrote at the Filmspotting message boards in the leadup to the community's annual award event (their version of the Oscars in many ways). I was asked by one of the members, codename pixote to review the most recent Ken Loach film, Looking for Eric.

Looking for Eric (2009, Ken Loach)

Dictated by pixote

I like going into movies with a little bit of context, such who the director is, which actors are involved, maybe a screenwriter, the premise, etc. Being unfamiliar with Ken Loach’s filmmography, the cast or the screenwriter, I was left with a plot synopsis, which explained the Looking for Eric told the story of a lower middle class man named Eric (Steve Evets), living a sad, unfulfilled life as a Manchester postman (unmarried, two teenage stepsons who don’t respect him in the slightest) who receives some unexpected emotional support from the former footballer (soccer player) he idolizes, the one, the only, le roi Cantona (Éric Cantona), a legendary player for Manchester United.

review: Inception

Inception (2010, Christopher Nolan)

‘What is the most resilient parasite? Bacteria? A virus? An intestinal worm? An idea. Resilient... highly contagious.’

The above quote, taken from an early dialogue exchange in Inception, perfectly encompasses everything about Christopher Nolan’s latest venture. Ideas are where Inception begins and ends. However, this is not meant in the more traditional sense wherein every film, large or small, must begin with a little light bulb suddenly turning on in someone’s mind. Ideas reverberate in what the characters do, why they perform said acts and how they go about them. The ambition on display, especially for the first time viewer, can be somewhat heavy, particularly with a film that stretches the nature of ideas, thoughts and dreams (which are all connected, after all) to the umpteenth degree, lending them a fluidity and malleability all the while proposing to depict specific ‘ideas’ the characters have concretely, with things that can be touched and felt. This is a high-concept film that chooses to express its fantastical notions in some very literal ways, providing one of the odder viewing experiences one can have when exploring recent mainstream Hollywood movies.

Upcoming marathon

Hello readers!

For the past little while Between the Seats has provided rather random reviews with some Far East Specials thrown in for good measure. Well, it's time to get back to marathons. I thought it would be smart if for once I chose a series of films I know I have easy access to that way when I saw that a marathon shall take place...it actually will! I was thinking that we haven't looked at many movies from the noir genre, so that would be a nice venue to use in order to get back on the marathon train track.

Review: Each Dawn I Die

Each Dawn I Die (1939, William Keighley)

Don’t do the crime if you can’t pay the time. What it is like however if you did not commit the crime at all, but rather were falsely accused on the premise of planted evidence, this the work of a powerful enemy accustomed to bending the rules for events to unfold in their favour? At first, your friends on the outside do their best to unravel the enemy’s web of sin to get you free. As time progresses, the forces keeping you behind bars prove that their poisonous tentacles have an unimaginable reach, and your hope slowly turns to frustration, which in turn morphs into depression. The lack of freedom, the oppressive guards who take you for the scum the law erroneously claims that you are, and, as the stress of staying on the inside mounts, your degrading behaviour earns you time in solitary confinement. Welcome to Hell.

Far East Specials: I Saw the Devil

I Saw the Devil (2010, Jee-Woon Kim)

Revenge movies are a dime a dozen these days, meaning that finding the good ones poses something of a challenge. Were we to list which countries which produce the finest (admittedly an arbitrary criteria, but let us run with it anyhow), Korea could make a strong claim for top honours. The work of director Chan-Wook Park alone, with his memorable and artistically challenging Vengeance Trilogy, is of sufficient evidence and worthy of in-depth analysis, but that series is not the topic of the day (although if readers want that to be a topic in the future, all you need is ask…). Nay, today we discuss the latest from Park’s fellow countryman, Jee-Woon Kim, aptly titled I Saw the Devil.

review: San Quentin

San Quentin (1936, Lloyd Bacon)

The 1930 and 1940s can be considered the golden era for the gangster picture, movies that captured the attention of countless movie goers looking for thrills and chills initiated by some of the most memorable anti-heroes cinema has ever seen. Warner Brothers studios was the principle producer of this fascinating genre, with many of the entries dealing with varying sub-themes such as the rise and fall of criminals and capitalist America (a dark twist on the notion of the American dream, if you will) and the hot topic of the 1930, prohibition. Some however, ventured into different territory, such as what happens after the crooks are caught by law enforcement and thrown behind bars. Enter the jail movie, where instead of pushing people around in the free world, the gangsters are forced to understand new survival modes in a world where their freedoms no longer hold any meaning.