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  • Author: Robert Hamer
    February 23, 2013

    I knew this day would come, and it is with a sense of both excitement and sadness.  By the end of my long deployment, I will have earned the most difficult and significant achievement of my life – Surface Warfare Officer Qualification, and finally perform the mission that my ship and I have been training toward for over a year.  On the other hand, I must sacrifice the time and effort I have placed into a site that has grown so much in such a short time.

    As our Editor himself would agree, what makes me value Awards Circuit is the staff – all the different backgrounds and perspectives on film from all walks of life.  To proudly welcome Nicole and Tiff into our family, I will be assisting Clay in integrating them into the staff top tens dating all the way back to 2000 before my departure.  After that, for operational security purposes, you will not be hearing from me for a while.  But I will not be gone forever! One of my shipmates advised me a long time ago not to let the Navy become my sole identity, and I will hold to that.  Come late 2013/early 2014, I will be back to resuming my full staff writer duties. Read more on Oscars 2013: Will Win/Should Win (Hamer)…

    January 24, 2013

    tabu-eine-geschichte-von-liebe-und-schuldDirector Miguel Gomes’ aesthetically enchanting Tabu didn’t quite capture my affections like it did many of the nation’s top critics, but it is indeed a film the cinephile eye won’t soon forget.  In particular, Rui Poças’ cinematography will linger in your memory for years to come. His use of black-and-white expertly plays off Tabu’s themes of romanticism and nostalgia, accentuating the allurement of Portugal’s colonial period leading up to its end in the early 1960s. For such a dark time in both Portugal and colonized Africa’s past, the black and white tones evince a timeless lusciousness to each scene, emphasizing an Africa that never lost its innate ability to natively shine in spite of enslavement. In fact, it’s the Portuguese colonists who suffer the most – their individual dilemmas are exposed to the viewing audience as byproducts of Western culture. We tend to be overly dramatic, our romanticist tendencies ridiculous and foolish when set against the backdrop of a mellow Africa, a part of the world that history once referred to as “The Dark Continent.” Tabu, despite some pretty bizarre narrative choices and quasi-forgettable characters, succeeds in showing us that “darkness” isn’t a physical entity defined by landscapes and people — it’s an internal one brought to fruition by those with power over others.  Ironically, those in control are powerless to stop their dark tidings from rising to the surface. Read more on Tabu (***)…

    Categories: Film Reviews
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