Film & TV Lunch Club: November 2019 - Philosophy
Queer Eye, Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind, Coco
The titles to watch for discussion of this month’s theme of ‘Philosophy’ in order to mark World Philosophy Day are listed below. The idea is to watch one or all of them (as well as supplementing with your own TV and film choices if you wish – see the list of suggestions below). So far our themes have been fairly clearcut but this theme provides some wider thinking, which can only be a good thing!
🎞 November Selection 🎞
Coco | UK Trailer | Disney UK
Queer Eye (2018 – present) – Season 2, Episode 1: ‘God Bless Gay’
Reality TV: A devoutly religious woman with a gay son and a giving heart gets a new look - and a makeover for her church's new community centre. This is the suggested episode but feel free to dip in to any of the four seasons on Netflix.
Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind (2004; Dir: Michel Gondry)
Drama/romance/sci-fi: When their relationship turns sour, a couple undergoes a medical procedure to have each other erased from their memories.
Coco (2011; Dir: Lee Unkrich and Adrian Molina)
Animation: Aspiring musician Miguel, confronted with his family's ancestral ban on music, enters the Land of the Dead to find his great-great-grandfather, a legendary singer. DVD available to borrow.
🎬 Optional Extras 🎬
Other notable films/TV shows suggested for the theme:
o Black Mirror - An anthology series exploring a twisted, high-tech world where humanity's greatest innovations and darkest instincts collide – available to watch on Netflix.
o Pan’s Labyrinth - In the Falangist Spain of 1944, the bookish young stepdaughter of a sadistic army officer escapes into an eerie but captivating fantasy world – available to watch on BoB.
o Momento - A man with short-term memory loss attempts to track down his wife's murderer.
o Sophie’s Choice - Sophie is the survivor of Nazi concentration camps, who has found a reason to live with Nathan, a sparkling if unsteady American Jew obsessed with the Holocaust.
o One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - A criminal pleads insanity and is admitted to a mental institution, where he rebels against the oppressive nurse and rallies up the scared patients.
o Groundhog Day - A weatherman finds himself inexplicably living the same day over andover again.
o The Truman Show - An insurance salesman discovers his whole life is actually a reality TV show.
o Iraq’s Secret Sex Trade – Working with an undercover reporter, BBC Arabic's Nawal Al Maghafi investigates Shia clerics at some of Iraq's holiest shrines. Watch this on iPlayer here but note that there is only three days left to watch Part 1.
o A.I. Artificial Intelligence - A highly advanced robotic boy longs to become "real" so that he can regain the love of his human mother.
o City of God – In the slums of Rio, two kids' paths diverge as one struggles to become a photographer and the other a kingpin.
o Orlando - Young nobleman Orlando is commanded by Queen Elizabeth I to stay forever young. Miraculously, he does just that. The film follows him as he moves through several centuries of British history, experiencing a variety of lives and relationships along the way, and even changing sex.
o The Matrix - A computer hacker learns from mysterious rebels about the true nature of his reality and his role in the war against its controllers.
o Inception - A thief who steals corporate secrets through the use of dream-sharing technology is given the inverse task of planting an idea into the mind of a C.E.O.
o A Clockwork Orange - In the future, a sadistic gang leader is imprisoned and volunteers for a conduct-aversion experiment, but it doesn't go as planned.
o V for Vendetta - In a future British tyranny, a shadowy freedom fighter, known only by the alias of "V", plots to overthrow it with the help of a young woman.
o Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter… and Spring - A boy is raised by a Buddhist monk on an isolated floating temple where the years pass like the seasons.
o What Dreams May Come - Chris Nielsen dies in an accident, and enters Heaven. But when he discovers that his beloved wife Annie has killed herself out of grief over the loss, he embarks on an afterlife adventure to reunite with her.
o Old Boy - Obsessed with vengeance, a man sets out to find out why he was kidnapped and locked into solitary confinement for twenty years without reason.
o The Good Place - Four people and their otherworldly frienemy struggle in the afterlife to define what it means to be good.