{"id":1339,"date":"2011-03-31T13:38:35","date_gmt":"2011-03-31T17:38:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.movienight.richardlohr.com\/stuff\/?p=1339"},"modified":"2011-04-06T14:29:06","modified_gmt":"2011-04-06T18:29:06","slug":"movienight-thursday-march-31st","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.movienight.richardlohr.com\/stuff\/?p=1339","title":{"rendered":"White Material: MovieNight material?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a rel=\"attachment wp-att-1349\" href=\"http:\/\/www.movienight.richardlohr.com\/stuff\/?attachment_id=1349\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1349\" title=\"Izzy in the bush\" src=\"http:\/\/www.movienight.richardlohr.com\/stuff\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/whitematerial.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"373\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.movienight.richardlohr.com\/stuff\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/whitematerial.jpg 640w, https:\/\/www.movienight.richardlohr.com\/stuff\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/whitematerial-300x174.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I watched <em>White Material<\/em> a few weeks ago from an unusual vantage point: I had succumbed to my first cold in over a year, and since I had just completed a satisfying number of paid assignments, I saw no plausible reason to not languish in my sick-bed for one or two days until I started to feel better. After all, rest is the best treatment for the common cold, unless you simply can&#8217;t afford to take the time to be sick&#8230; in which case one might consider striking a Faustian bargain with the diabolical concoction, Theraflu. I actually considered taking that route, until I found myself standing in Duane Reade, looking at the list of ingredients and cautions on the Theraflu packaging. No thanks. Not this time.<\/p>\n<p>Wait. What&#8217;s this got to do with <em>White Material<\/em>? I&#8217;m just setting the scene, so that you might understand my initial appraisal of <em>White Material<\/em>. As I lay in bed watching the movie on an aging, non-flat-screen TV, my on-and-off feverish near-delirium allowed me an intimate connexion to this story of the the absurd sequence of events which accompany the demise of colonial authority. The non-linear narrative style took some time to sync-in to, but the pieces started fitting together soon enough. In the end, I was left feeling that the situation in this symbolic, unspecified African country was near hopeless. Not good MovieNight material, I thought.<\/p>\n<p>In the days that followed, though, scenes remembered from <em>White Material<\/em> tracked me like the soulful eyes of a begging dog, and I realized that I had to share this one. Judging from the number of unoccupied seats (none!), I did the right thing. Of course, <em>White Material<\/em> was not a feel-good experience, and not to everyone&#8217;s taste! In one amusing MovieNight moment, Flea started growling and barking at a particularly menacing-looking group of rebels (ah&#8230; the reality of Blu-ray) and one first-time (and last?) guest heckled, &#8220;Yeah. I know. Terrible movie, right?&#8221; Ya think?<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">More about this film on IMDb  <a title=\"IMDb\" href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt1135952\/\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-348\" title=\"imdb\" src=\"http:\/\/www.movienight.richardlohr.com\/stuff\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/imdb.gif\" alt=\"imdb\" width=\"31\" height=\"15\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I watched White Material a few weeks ago from an unusual vantage point: I had succumbed to my first cold in over a year, and since I had just completed a satisfying number of paid assignments, I saw no plausible reason to not languish in my sick-bed for one or two days until I started &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.movienight.richardlohr.com\/stuff\/?p=1339\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">White Material: MovieNight material?<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1349,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[11,12,4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.movienight.richardlohr.com\/stuff\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1339"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.movienight.richardlohr.com\/stuff\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.movienight.richardlohr.com\/stuff\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.movienight.richardlohr.com\/stuff\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.movienight.richardlohr.com\/stuff\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1339"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/www.movienight.richardlohr.com\/stuff\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1339\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1368,"href":"https:\/\/www.movienight.richardlohr.com\/stuff\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1339\/revisions\/1368"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.movienight.richardlohr.com\/stuff\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.movienight.richardlohr.com\/stuff\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.movienight.richardlohr.com\/stuff\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.movienight.richardlohr.com\/stuff\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}