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The Story of G.I. Joe. One of the best war movies I've ever
seen. Listen up, Mr. Spielberg, Mr. Scott. An audience does not have
to be bludgeoned with blood and gore in a film to be affected by the
realities of war. The photos I see in Newsweek are bad enough.
The Story of G.I. Joe follows columnist Ernie Pyle as he covers
the American men involved in WWII's campaigns in North Africa and
Italy. The film used his prose to such good effect that it made me
want to read everything he's written.
In the Bedroom. I can't not recommend this film, but I didn't
like it. It's a beautiful, honest film. I have no complaints about
either the production or the acting. I just intensely dislike the
choices the characters make. I felt this way after I saw Fight
Club, too, which I liked much better after a second viewing. It'll
be a long time before I can see In the Bedroom again, however.
Big Deal on Madonna Street. Tons of fun and a welcome relief
after the heavy films earlier in the week. A masterpiece of the wacky
Italian comedy genre, Big Deal on Madonna Street is a caper
film featuring the most inept band of criminals I've ever seen. Plenty
of gorgeous women and screaming in Italian.
Sebastião Salgado at Hosfelt Gallery. Back to the hard stuff.
Salgado takes gorgeous black and white photographs of displaced people
around the world. Each photo tells its own story, and it can be
pretty overwhelming to face a whole gallery of them at once. The
images are indelible. A bank of open tenement windows. A lone human
figure trying to outrun a border patrol truck in San Ysidro,
California. A woman using a water pipe as her walkway through a
Bombay slum. Sun breaking through the clouds above a city's sprawl.
The eyes of frightened children. A happily gurgling baby taking a
bath in a bucket on a dirty city sidewalk. Berkeley Art Museum also
has some of Salgado's photos up right now, and I'd like to go spend
some more time with his work. Maybe toward the end of the month.
In
the Bedroom
Sebastião
Salgado
Hosfelt Gallery
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Heidi J. De Vries
