h.g. Wells

Today’s film challenge for Day 5 is a film you think is underrated. This is a tough category for me because I am not much of a film critic nor do I feel qualified to critique the value of films. As a matter of fact, I did not like this film the first time I saw it — it assaulted my naive view of the world. It was a favorite of my husband’s so we watched together. As I skimmed the film today, I realize all the nuances I missed when I initially watched the movie.

”Somebody Has to Shoot the Picture” is a made for television movie about a death row inmate who asks a photojournalist to document his execution. It is not an easy watch, but it is a worthwhile watch. It is a disturbing movie reflecting disturbing realities and given our current state of affairs, perhaps worth watching again. But it is a tough one — maybe not for the faint of heart. It does make us evaluate the value of a single person’s life.

The screenplay is written by photojournalist/author Doug Magee based on his book Slow Coming Dark: Interviews on Death Row. The movie stars Roy Scheider, Bonnie Bedelia, and Robert Carradine. The entire movie is available to watch on YouTube and I have linked it here if you are interested in watching.

I decided to take on this challenge for July after reading about it from SandmanJazz. Check out his blog and his entry for the fifth day of the challenge. Maybe even join in!

We have arrived at day 4 of the 30 day film challenge.

Today’s challenge is to write about a film that starts with “The”. Talk about a wide playing field — there must be hundreds that fall into this category, but I am choosing one of my all-time favorites from my childhood — “The Time Machine”.

This movie stirred everything in me that has to do with imagination and making the unbelievable believable. Add that to the fact that I always had a fascination with time travel and loved the everything time related: the television series “The Time Tunnel”, the movie “Somewhere in Time” and then add to that the title of my senior term paper “The Non-existence of Time” and you have a match!

I LOVE this movie. It would also fit in the category of films I have watched over and over. The actual title of the movie is “H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine” and is of coursed based on the 1895 novella written by H.G. Wells. The film was made in 1960, produced and directed by James Pall, a Hungarian-American animator.

The film stays fairly true to Wells’ work, but there are departures. I should revisit the novella since it is available free on Gutenberg.org — a great source for free reading material. It is hard to pick out my favorite scenes from the movie — but I narrowed it down to two. The talking rings and the mannequin in the dress shop. I opted for the talking rings.

This movie was one our family watched repeatedly throughout the years. I was intrigued by the idea of time travel, scared of Morlocks, disappointed in the Eloi, and wanted to have a daughter named Weena. We had so many conversations over the years discussing our ideas about what he took back with him to the future.

I decided to take on this challenge for July after reading about it from SandmanJazz. Check out his blog and his entry for the fourth day of the challenge. Maybe even join in!