DVD Collectors Online

Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter ... and Spring, a review by Danae Cassandra

Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter ... and Spring  (Bom yeoreum gaeul gyeoul geurigo bom)
Year of Release: 2003
Directed By: Kim Ki-Duk
Starring: Oh Young-Su, Kim Ki-Duk, Kim Young-Min, Seo Jae-Kyung, Ha Yeo-Jin
Genre: Drama

Overview:Miami Herald).

From the brash actions of youth, through the dawn of adolescence and the fullness of adulthood, one man's life lessons are learned as seasons pass, his emotional inner life changing as the landscape around him. Award-winning Korean writer/director/editor Kim Ki-duk has crafted a lushly exotic, yet universal story about the human spirit and its evolution, from Innocence to Love, Evil to Enlightenment, and ultimately to Rebirth that Elizabeth Weitzman of the New York Daily News calls "a beautifully composed canvas, the sort of film one falls into, resurfacing at the end with great reluctance."

My Thoughts:
This gorgeous Buddhist fable might be the film I've enjoyed most this month. It's a meditation on the seasons of the year, the seasons of life, and the price of wisdom. The old monk watches, seemingly impassive, as his apprentice makes mistakes. Only after does he work on lessons from the mistakes, showing the younger that his actions have consequences he must accept. But only through those mistakes, consequences and responsibility does wisdom come. Wonderful film for anyone wishing to know more about Buddhism, or for anyone walking a Pagan path. Highly recommended.

I now also want to visit Juwangsan National Park, because where this was filmed is spectacular.

Bechdel Test: Fail

Overall: 5/5

(From March Around the World 2016 on April 7th, 2016)

NOVA: Lost at Sea - The Search for Longitude, a review by Antares

NOVA: Lost at Sea - The Search for Longitude (1998) 85/100 - To a modern day citizen, finding directions to and fro are as easy as pressing a few buttons on a phone. Global positioning satellites can render your position on the planet down to within a few feet of your actual position. So it's rather curious and somewhat sad that the man responsible for the first true breakthrough in global positioning science is almost completely forgotten by today's historians. We all were taught about Sir Isaac Newton's Law of Gravity, Copernicus' discovery that the Earth revolved around the Sun and Galileo's experiments with a rock & feather. But how many here have ever heard of John Harrison? Who? John Harrison, the carpenter and clock maker who spent his entire life trying to create the most accurate timepiece and prove that astronomy wasn't the way to navigate the world's oceans. Harrison surmised that if you knew when it was twelve noon in England and you had a way to accurately keep time at sea, then you could calculate where you were on Earth within a scant few miles. He set to work on an array of timepieces over 58 years, to prove his hypothesis true. This documentary from PBS details the hardships and problems associated with Harrison's 58 years of tinkering and also of his hardships fighting a bureaucracy that put every obstacle imaginable in front of him in hopes of failure. Through perseverance and eventually, help from his son, he created a portable time piece that proved his theory right. Once again, PBS delivers, through its always fascinating program NOVA, an interesting and captivating story of historic value.

What the color coding means...

Teal = Masterpiece
Dark Green = Classic or someday will be
Lime Green = A good, entertaining film
Orange = Average
Red = Cinemuck
Brown = The color of crap, which this film is

(From Antares' Short Summations on December 7th, 2013)

"Due South" marathon, a review by Rick

The Wild Bunch
My favorite episode so far! Comedy, drama, suspense and action all rolled up into one. It would have made a good 2 part story. They could have expanded a bit on the other dogs missing and how Diefenbaker and his gang got involved and decided to take down the dog-napping ring.
Rating

The Blue Line
Meh
Not good, not bad, just there. Good to see Ray with his car again, although it does take a beating. 
Rating:


(From "Due South" marathon on July 19th, 2009)