non-ecumenical ramblings

Have started to wonder whether folks will still be making WWII films centuries from now. Cannot recall a a movie on the War of the Roses, or the 30-years War or the Punic Wars in my lifetime - will guess some fairly obscure films do exist (just found a 1961 version of Mother Courage from East Germany), but overseas war films are generally about WWII & our domestic war films are generally the Civil War or WWII.

Zelary is a far more worthy nominee than Twilight Samurai, but covers very familiar ground & is definitely too long by 45 minutes. Country fellow has to hide escapee from the Germans, and they fall in love though he's a country boy & she's a city girl in part because of the exigencies of the war (brought back memories of Cold Mountain). There are a few subplots floating around with the other characters, so the film does pick up after they move to the country, so a reasonably good film, though I believe the academy made the right choice with The Barbarian Invasions - more imaginative film, or at least less derivative.

I can understand how the war left scars on Europe that have still not healed, but at some point, can we have a moratorium on WWII films? How many more angles are there to cover? How much will folks care in 2,000 years (hat tip to Leon Russell).


Oddly, I've only seen 1 nominee for best documentary (Super-size me) and none of the foreign nominees. It's taken me until now to see 3 of the 5 Foreign Film nominees from last year & 4 of the 5 nominees for best documentary - no date on DVD's for the remaining 3 films. Given that I saw 2 of the documentaries & the winning foreign film last year in theatres, who knows how long it will take me to see the other nominees this time around. OK, I just added the films to Netflix. Of the 9 films that I haven't seen in the 2 categories, 2 are released & 1 has a release date. Will be curious if I can make it up to 7 of 10 by this time next year - guess you'll have to blog in to find out!