White God. Good dog turns bad… temporarily.

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Hagen was a good dog. Not a pure breed, though, and when the estranged father of his owner discovered that a “Mongrel tax” would be levied, Hagen was turned out into the street. Kornel Mundruczo’s White God is steeped in symbolism, to an extent that perhaps one has to be a purebred Hungarian to fully appreciate. In a brief, post-movie wrap-up, our resident reviewer, Norris*, expressed his frustration with some unexplained references. “I used to be a professor.” Why? What happened? My guess: an inappropriate relationship with a student, which led to the birth of Hagen’s thirteen year old owner… OMD!

*Of course Norris is actually Chris Norris, a gifted writer, whose recent, fascinating New York Times piece should be read here. Say “Butterfly” in Urdu? Easy!

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Gilda. Are you decent?

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A perennial (well, not quite exactly perennial) favorite of MovieNight, Gilda did not fail to deliver once again. Rita Hayworth (28 years old at the time) was just soooo sexy, and the film makers managed to sneak a lot of pretty racy stuff past the sensors.

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A clever bit of back lighting with just enough detail.

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The side-boob shot!

On another note, although I am still missing the gentler inter-frame interpolation of the old Panasonic projector, the new Benq does a far superior job of making pure neutral black and white. I guess you can’t have everything… certainly not at these prices!

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Nine Queens – Hang on… what just happened?

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A MovieNight repeat screening (about 12 years on?) revealed that Fabien Bielinsky’s fast-paced, twisty-turny crime thriller, Nine Queens, has not been slowed by the passage of time! In fact it might be argued that it’s stayed as fast, and some of us have slowed down which, in effect, makes it faster, relatively speaking (I was always pretty good at math).

Thanks to our stalwart MovieNight crew for coming to play on such a gorgeous spring evening.

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