lusiphershangout

An analysis of  Francois Truffaut's 'Fahrenheit 451' In this video, I will analyze themes from 'Fahrenheit 451', a 1966 British film by director Francois Truffaut who co-wrote the script with Jean-Louis Richard, based on the 1954 novel of the same name by Ray Bradbury. The film stars Julie Christie as Clarisse, Oskar Werner as Guy Montag, and Cyril Cusack as the Fire Captain of Engine House 451. In a totalitarian society in a dystopian future, individuality is denied, conformity is the law, and firemen are paid to burn books. This is the seminal film on thought censorship, as relevent today as it was when it came out. 

Network 1976 Film In this video, I analyze themes from the 1976 satire/black comedy ' Network ' directed by Sydney Lumet , written by Paddy Chayefsky , and starring Peter Finch , Faye Dunaway , William Holden , Robert Duvall , and Beatrice Straight . The film is about a television station that gets a ratings boost after 1 of its anchors tells his audience that he is going to commit suicide on live television. Incredibly, the film won Academy Awards in 3 acting categories (Best Actor: Peter Finch; Best Actress: Faye Dunaway; and Best Supporting Actress: Beatrice Straight). The film also earned an award for Paddy Chayefsky 's script. This film is prophetic and more relevant today than when it was made. One of the great films ever! 

An in-depth analysis of 'Klute' directed by Alan Pakula and starring Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland In this video, I will analyze key scenes and themes from the film ' Klute ' directed by Alan Pakula and starring Jane Fonda , Donald Sutherland , and Roy Scheider . The film is about a prostitute who becomes emotionally desensitized as a result of a beating she suffers at the hands of a john.

David Fincher's 'Fight Club': an in-depth analysis In this video, I will analyze the psychological and symbolic themes in 'Fight Club' the 1999 psychological/thriller by director David Fincher based on the book by Chuck Palahniuk starring Edward Norton , Brad Pitt , Helena Bonham Carter , Meatloaf , and Jared Leto . The film follows a recall specialist whose existence is defined by materialism and an addiction to support groups, particularly a support group for men with testicular cancer. A chance meeting with a soap salesman named Tyler Durden blows up Jack's old life and gives him a new life free from the norms and cares of society. The 2 men start a new club for men only called Fight Club.  

In this video, I will go in depth into and share my thoughts on Norman Jewison's 1969 bank heist classic 'The Thomas Crown Affair' starring Faye Dunaway, Steve McQueen, and Paul Burke. 

In this video, I will analyze Ingmar Bergman's 1960 film 'The Virgin Spring', an allegorical take on the crucifixion of Jesus Christ about a young virgin girl who falls victim to rape and murder at the hands of 3 herdsmen while on her way to deliver candles for mass. 

In this video, I will analyze key scenes and concepts from director Stanley Kubrick's 1963 science fiction film '2001: A Space Odyssey.  Star Child 2001: A Space Odyssey gives us an abstract picture and asks us to interpret it any way that we see fit. This is what makes this film great because it is not attempting to answer anything at all; it, instead, forces us to ask questions, about ourselves personally and about where we are heading as a species. The film can be a metaphor for the individual as well as a cosmic metaphor. The direction of an individual in his own life or that of a species completely transformed by a single event. Thanks for watching this video and please feel free to leave a comment.

In this short video, I will off my perspectives on Lester Pine's 1974 film 'Claudine' starring Diahann Carroll, James Earl Jones, and Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs with music by Curtis Mayfield and Gladys Knight and the Pips!

In this video, I will examine the 1st episode of 'Band of Brothers: Currahee' Utah Beach--code name of the German occupied beachhead on France's northwest coastline; Camp Toccoa, Georgia--home of Easy Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division Utah Beach--June 6, 1944; Camp Toccoa--June 4, 1942 Between Utah Beach and Camp Toccoa, June 4, 1942 and June 6, 1944 , the US Army will train men to jump out of C-47s into hostile territory. But before these recruits can call themselves Easy Company they must conquer 2 great foes: a steep hill called Currahee in 15 minutes, 3 miles up and 3 miles down; and they must also conquer a steep hill of ego in an extremely detailed, overly ambitious drill sergeant named Sobel, who himself finds out that there's a huge difference between having rank and being a leader! This outstanding 2001 American war drama miniseries is widely considered THE greatest miniseries ever (along with Mad Men) based on S...

Some thoughts on Mad Men: Smoke Gets In Your Eyes Don Draper is a product of his time: he is sexist; he is racist; and he smokes! But he is also discreet, professional, and principled. Don Draper is the top ad man at Sterling Cooper because he can sell anything, even a lie, even death--the trick is to make it seem like happiness. Everything and everybody stays in their place, but, like the Dylan song goes, "times are a changin'" and Draper's changing, too, whether he wants to or not! This period drama that looks at the world of advertising as a metaphor for the 60's-the most turbulent decade of the 20th century-is the history of America in a nutshell. What makes Don Draper appealing to me as a Black man is that despite the fact that he's racist, sexist, and steeped in the mindset of the establishment, he is conflicted as all of us are--if we are willing to admit it! He has secrets and isn't what or who he pretends to be. But, above anything else, he's ...

Some perspectives on Dennis Hopper's 'Easy Rider' After scoring a drug deal in Los Angeles, 2 hippie bikers with a gas-tank full of money travel cross-country to Mardi Gras. Their ride starts in the Southwest where they see the American Dream in a man and his family living off the land and a weed-smoking commune, disconnected from modern civilization. Their ride, the American Dream, and the hippie movement ends violently in the Deep South:  "They talk to you about individual freedom, if they see a free individual, it's gonna scare 'em." "Well, I don't make them runnin' scared." "No, it makes 'em dangerous!" This low-budget 1969 road film written by Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper and Terry Southern won "Best Film By A New Director" at Cannes for Dennis Hopper, a film based on 60's counterculture that attained cult status by defining its period in the same way that Saturday Night Fever defined Disco in the 70's. ...

Some thoughts on Ingmar Bergman's 'The Seventh Seal' In this video, I offer my perspectives of Ingmar Bergman's 'The Seventh Seal', a story set in medieval Europe that follows a Knight who returns from the Crusades to find his homeland of Sweden ravaged by the Black Plague. Antonius Block challenges Death to a game of chess to buy time to get the answers to existential questions pertaining to the meaning of life and the existence of God. A truly great film from a true master. 

My perspectives on Orson Welles' 'Citizen Kane' He took a fledgling newspaper and transformed it into the most powerful newspaper in the world; Xanadu, his luxury palace, was half the size of Rhode Island and housed more priceless works of art than any museum in the world; he bought his own opera house and from nothing--like his paper, The New York Inquirer-- took Susan Alexander, his mistress, and willed her from nothing into an opera star; when he needed writers for his paper, he went across the street to his rival's paper, pulled a wad of cash out of his pocket, and bought his rival's entire staff. Charles Foster Kane had everything and lacked nothing, nothing except 1 thing: Rosebud! Based on the life of newspaper titan William Randolph Hearst, Citizen Kane was a film ahead of its time, so good that it literally destroyed Director Orson Welles's career. Considered the greatest film ever made, Citizen Kane--released in '41--received 9 Academy Award nomina...

An Honest Review of Christopher Nolan's 'Dunkirk'  Saw Christopher Nolan's World War II film Dunkirk Saturday and it is the lamest of all of his films, surprisingly. Very safe. More of a fall or winter movie. Great cinematography. Heavy British accents alienated me. Should have included subtitles. 90% of my collection of almost 2500 movies are subtitled so I don't have a problem with foreign films whatsoever. Dunkirk seemed very dull and kept me waiting for "the moment" up until the anticlimactic ending. Very little action. Actually, what you see in the movie's trailer concentrates all of the action in the entire film. Like I said, the acting was very good, the cinematography as well, just don't go in with any expectations along the magnitude of Saving Private Ryan as far as characters that are memorable and an engaging plot which I found as flat as a warm beer that's been left out overnight. Now, I know there are those who are going to have a ...

Here are some of the sociological perspectives I got from watching the 1st episode of Mad Men: Smoke Gets In Your Eyes Discontentment Don Draper is the top ad man at Sterling Cooper . In this episode, he needs to come up with a way to pitch a cigarette brand called Lucky Strike despite the fact that the government says that smoking causes cancer. Today, he’s meeting with the owner of Lucky Strike and if he doesn't come up with an angle around the FTCs findings, the agency will lose the account. Don trying to figure out an angle to justify smoking is metaphor for him trying to justify maintaining a relationship and a life that he is not happy with; this is why he has a mistress which is just another dead-end relationship. At the meeting with Lucky Strike’s owner and son, Don’s pitch is not to disprove the FTCs findings that cigarettes are poisonous—all cigarettes are poisonous. What sets Lucky Strike apart from its competitors is that they are “roasted.” Just as he dances around the...

Hi, this is a summary of the very 1st episode of my all-time favorite series ' Mad Men '. Don Draper is alone at a table in a restaurant writing on a napkin. He asks the Black waiter for a light and what brand of cigarettes he likes. The White manager reprimands the Black waiter for speaking to the customers. Don sends the manager to fetch him a drink and picks up his discussion with the waiter. The Black man tells Don that he loves smoking Old Gold and Don writes this down. Don drops by his mistress’ apartment and they make love and afterwards they smoke cigarettes. Workers stream into the Sterling Cooper office building. Young ad men surround the new girl in the elevator. The ad men make lewd remarks and ogle the new girl as if the Black elevator operator isn’t there. A young ad man named Pete Campbell is on the phone with his fiancé telling her that he and some co workers are going to see a movie after work but they are actually going to a striptease club. A tall curvy red...

Billy Wilder's Double Indemnity  Here is a short video I posted to Youtube giving my perspectives on Billy Wilder's great classic film 'Double Indemnity' starring Edward G. Robinson, Barbara Stanwyck, Fred MacMurray based a script Wilder co wrote with Raymond Chandler. The film earned 7 Oscar nominations and is widely viewed as the standard for film noir, even to this day!

Band Of Brothers: Currahee Prologue World War 2 vets recall the draft for U.S. Army paratroopers and their eagerness to sign up. Story Film begins June 4, 1944 with Easy Company loading gear onto C-47 transport airplanes. Troops are chomping at the bit and ready to go into battle. But at the last minute, they are told that they can’t go out because of bad weather. Everyone is dejected and the barracks are quiet.  Two years earlier, Camp Toccoa, Georgia Fresh recruits stand at attention as Lieutenant Sobel inspects them 1 by 1. Sobel finds everything wrong with them from specks of rust on the stock of a bayonet to a stray piece of thread. He revokes all weekend passes and orders them to run up Currahee Hill—3 miles up and 3 miles down—in 15 minutes. Privates run 3 miles up Currahee and return downhill 3 miles in 15 minutes total. Sobel berates them on the way up. After completing the hill in PT gear, Sobel makes them run the hill again in full heavy gear. Sobel drives the recruits h...

Gaspar Noe's 'Irreversible' What will we find if we backtracked our lives to the beginning, the very beginning? This is the question Gaspar Noe asks in his ingeniously constructed riddle 'Irreversible.' A beautiful woman named Alex (Monica Bellucci) is brutally raped in a subway just moments after seeing her boyfriend in the arms of another woman. When Marcus (Vincent Cassel) sees Alex on a stretcher he vows revenge and embarks on a journey that ends at an S&M club called The Rectum where he finds the man who destroyed his Alex, the man known as The Tenia. Afterwards, a series of effects and causes backtrack to the beginning and the chain of events leading to the Rectum. Some choices we make can be changed and others are immutable. Gaspar Noe’s ‘Irreversible’ is not a film, it is an experience and a most strange tribute to Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey that you have to see to believe. No matter how many times I see this film, the effect it ...

Alfred Hitchcock's 'Lifeboat' In this video, I offer my perspectives of Alfred Hitchcock's great film 'Lifeboat' or Titanic Jr.

Mike Nichol's 'Carnal Knowledge' In this video, I offer my perspectives of Mike Nichol's 1971 comedy/drama 'Carnal Knowledge' starry Jack Nicholson and Art Garfunkel as coeds whose philosophies on love and sex follow them into middle age. 

William Friedkin's 'The Exorcist' In this video, I will share my perspectives on William Friedkin's 1973 film, The Exorcist.