Recently Watched Films

[michael]

friend of mine sugested avatar be retitled 'dances with aliens'. haven't seen it, though.

yeah someone had mentioned this to me as well. i had forgotten the plot of dances w/ wolves but after watching avatar, the comparison seems pretty apt

someone also threw out a fern gully comparison, but i dont remember that plot either

[michael]

from the otherwise largely worthless "year in review" articles in today's paper:

Cameron’s “Dances With Blue People’’ is politically deranged and as tin-eared as all his movies.

he then goes on to praise it as a technology wonder that everyone and his brother should go see. it annoys me so much that a film that people so openly bad mouth is still considered worthy while a cheaper made marvel like District 9 is basically disregarded despite it's more positive reception.

yeah, i mean, its definitely a problem. but for pure visuals, d9 cant touch avatar.

its kind of like recommending someone watch birth of a nation for its film technique

if anyone asked me about avatar, id tell them the movie is laughable, but it *is* an impressive visual feat

[leroysghost]

Ki-duk Kim - Real Fiction (2000)

sophomoric experimental bravado, which is only really embarrassing when you take into account that it was was made immediately after the wonderful Seom.


(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rgBt5EkIKE)
Werner Herzog - Tod für fünf Stimmen (1995)

i really wish there was one more affordable box set to compliment the two anchor bay ones. i'm thinking (at least) Land of Silence and Darkness, The Great Ecstasy of Woodcarver Steiner, Bells from the Deep and Death for Five Voices.

[Enoah_Ballard]

Speaking of Herzog, I watched yesterday in a little cinema his most recent one:



The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call, New Orleans

For all my skepticism regarding Herzog's newly-found fascination for mainstream Hollywood, I have to say the film was quite a thrilling ride. I abhor Cage but he played phenomenally well. And the style, well, let's just say that Herzog didn't forget to mix in some of his own idiosyncrasies.

i really wish there was one more affordable box set to compliment the two anchor bay ones. i'm thinking (at least) Land of Silence and Darkness, The Great Ecstasy of Woodcarver Steiner, Bells from the Deep and Death for Five Voices.

You might want to try Herzog's own distributor. The 6 DVD collection is a real treasure. I too have the 2 Anchor Bay releases.

[surfer]

AI (Spielberg, 2001) - Watched half of this, right up to the point at the Flesh Fair where the woman stands up and says, "Dont hurt him, he's only a child!", and then there's a redneck riot, and David the robot and that fucking ridiculous teddy ruxpin walk out untouched. Off button. What a mess.

[Dan Warburton]

Alan Rudolph, The Moderns, 1988

Google Images can't find a decent image from the film, so you'll have to settle for a photo of Mark Isham & Charlelie Couture's soundtrack album instead (which is as good as the movie). Enjoyed this, though I can see why others wouldn't. The sets are as glaringly artificial as on One From The Heart (another favourite), and the dialogue is too (favourite line: "I ran into Maurice Ravel in the men's room. He didn't recognise me.") - the plot gets more and more out of control as the film progresses (and what the hell are those punks doing watching TV in one scene?? This is 1926, isn't it? Of course it isn't..), but the acting is strong and pulls it off. Just.

[Enoah_Ballard]

Alan Rudolph, The Moderns, 1988

Google Images can't find a decent image from the film, so you'll have to settle for a photo of Mark Isham & Charlelie Couture's soundtrack album instead (which is as good as the movie).

[michael]

streetcar named desire and chungking express.

never seen the former before. initial reaction is that its a tad overrated. @ first vivian leighs acting grated on me but I was won over in the end. brando was a force to be reckoned w/ for sure. the acting and mannerisms as a whole felt a bit exaggerated in the way that plays sometimes have. def thought the acting was the strong point of the movie. the plot was a little too weird and discrete for me to really feel an emotional impact

[michael]

hadn't seen chungking express in a while, but really fucking good. but I feel like I think that everytime I watch it and just kind of forget til I watch it again. the scenes where the girl is in tony leungs apt kills me everytime. I've got a huge crush on her character. it was also interesting watching it with my relatives who grew up in hk talk about cultural elements in the movie that may not be as conspicuously significant to others

[leroysghost]

i really wish there was one more affordable box set to compliment the two anchor bay ones. i'm thinking (at least) Land of Silence and Darkness, The Great Ecstasy of Woodcarver Steiner, Bells from the Deep and Death for Five Voices.

You might want to try Herzog's own distributor. The 6 DVD collection is a real treasure. I too have the 2 Anchor Bay releases.

affordable was the key word i'm afraid (plus that box you linked to is missing Death for Five Voices and doesn't seem to have have wonderful commentaries like the Anchor Bay releases do).


Andy Warhol - Vinyl (1965)

i don't like Warhol much as a painter or a person, so while i'd like to shoot this film down as a tepid rip off of Anger and Smith, i think he may be on to something here. the framing is excellent, with everything happening all at once and events drifting in and out of the background depending on the action and on where your eye focuses (the "story" taking place mostly in the foreground while an S&M session starts at the back and eventually merges with the "story" while a handful of Warhol hangers-on sit, dance, grope and take various substances at the margins). Gerard Malanga is a great (if not as hunky) proto-Dallesandro, woodenly spouting the lame 60's off-off-broadway dialogue (what little of it you can manage to make out on the soundtrack that is) and getting subjected to an S&M re-education. the black and white photography holds up beautifully too.

[Dan Warburton]

Federico Fellini, La Dolce Vita, 1960

I searched in vain for a photo of the giant ray washed up on the shore at the end of the movie, but all I could find was Anita Ekberg in the Trevi Fountain - odd that that scene has become so famous: there are plenty of others in the film that I find just as striking (the flying Christ opening, the family of the little girls posing for the paparazzi - this is the film that gave us that word - on the balcony of their apartment..). Great movie - and closer to Antonioni (La Notte in particular) than I realised last time.

[surfer]

Great movie - and closer to Antonioni (La Notte in particular) than I realised last time.

Truly great, and a much more pessemistic movie than people make it out to be. People always seem to forget the title is meant sarcastically. L'Avventura (which came out the same year) is imo a less depressing movie, if only because Antonioni is portraying obviously shallow people who unsurprisingly behave shallowly. I dont find that particularly depressing. But in LDV, I find the Steiner incident, and Marcello's life and reaction to the suicide much more depressing, as these are intelligent people who are able to surmise the superficiality of their existence and profession, and yet seem unable to extract any meaning out of their lives, or value from their friendships or intellectual and professional pursuits. I find the ending, where he is trying to hear the young girl's voice above the sound of the wind, to be more evocative of the isolation and alienation from others one feels, and more frightening than anything in Antonioni's trilogy. I honestly dont remember enough about La Notte to make comparisons, but I remember I liked it the least of the trilogy.

[surfer]

Reverse Shot's best of 2009:

http://www.reverseshot.com/article/reve ... _best_2009