Recently Watched Films 2011

[billygomberg]

remake was eh OK but didn't add any insight upon the orig (I saw it mostly out of curiosity). haven't read the book.

[Dan Warburton]

Michael Haneke, Das weiße Band - Eine deutsche Kindergeschich, 2009

Very fine indeed - comments to follow on the Haneke thread, when I have time to re-read and digest earlier posts.

[Dan Warburton]

Mario Bava, Reazione e Catena ("Bay Of Blood"), 1971

Apart from the special effects (nice job with the squid there), there's not a whole lot to get worked up about.. predictable everyone kills everyone plot, pretty hopeless acting (not that acting is what folks like about this film) and typically trashy soundtrack. Maybe if I'd had a better quality DVD I'd have liked it more.

[eraritjaritjaka]

The Titfield Thunderbolt - Charles Crichton (1953)
















Sullivan's Travels - Preston Sturges (1941)




























This Gun For Hire - Frank Tuttle (1942)



this gun for hire - i loved this, though admittedly i'm a sucker for this type of story.

[leroysghost]

This Gun For Hire - Frank Tuttle (1942)

i always thought the plot for this was one was pretty terrible, and not very well acted. this bridge scene is tops however.


Jim Sharman - The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)

"Dana Andrews said prunes gave him the runes and passing them used lots of skill..."

[Dan Warburton]

So good you had to say it twice. Nice. Pretty lowbrow cinema weekend here, starting off with this again ('cause the wife didn't see it last time round)


Danny Boyle, 127 Hours, 2010

followed by this, which none of us had seen but we all evidently had to see.. no great surprises if you've read the book.. all I hope now is Mrs Rowling won't be tempted out of retirement by Warner Brothers

David Yates, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part Two, 2011

and, to round off the evening with a little lite entertainment, this again

Quentin Tarantino, Death Proof, 2007

[Dan Warburton]

Luis Buñuel, El ángel exterminador, 1962

Roast lamb, anyone?

[yonhosago]

http://vimeo.com/24595172

Sam Fuller’s screen test for Hymen Roth (Godfather II)

[Dan Warburton]

Nice - but I still prefer Lee Strasberg. More subtle, more scary. Meanwhile, finally sat down for all 220 minutes of this last night



Jean Eustache, La maman et la putain, 1973

Hated it the first time I saw it a decade or so ago, now I think it's absolutely fuckin extraordinary. (Back then I wasn't into long films at all.. remember discussing the question with Alan Licht, who was (is)). Shame I had to make do with a rip from a VHS - was it oldirtybastien here who posted saying a DVD release was not forthcoming because of legal wrangles? Hope they can get those sorted out. Stellar performances from Léaud, Lafont and Lebrun. But if you're expecting car chases across the Nevada desert and naked blondes riding around on motorbikes or virtuoso tracking shots plunging into swimming pools from the heights of tall buildings, you got the wrong film mate.

[kangaroo?]

Re: La maman et la putain

did you see this subtitled, or en francais, Dan?

[Dan Warburton]

French, no subtitles. But happy to report that I can understand everything - which I can't always say for other French films, even if I've been here for 23 years! Sometimes I have problems catching all the dialogue in a Rivette (the mic placement is crazy in La Religieuse) or especially a Bresson (that deadpan delivery), and have to pause the disc and ask for help from Marie. And sometimes she can't catch everything either! I remember we once rewound a snatch of dialogue from Mouchette about a dozen times, and even then she wasn't sure. As for Godard, even Marie prefers subtitles (in English!). I have no problems with Rohmer and Truffaut. But this Eustache.. well the writing is so goddamn beautiful, I feel like reading the screenplay as a novel in its own right. (It has been published in its entirety.) Some of Léaud's monologues, and especially Francoise Lebrun's amazing speech just before the end (is this the longest single take in cinema? I wonder) are as good as Flaubert.
Funny, I was just watching the last hour of the film again just twenty minutes ago - last night I was half asleep at the three-hour mark and missed a few details - and am even more blown away. Like it or hate it - I know, I've tried both - I know of no other film like this.
On the subject of subtitling, I don't think it'd be all that difficult to come up with fine English subtitles for this, but the weight of words like "baiser" in French is just not the same as "fuck" in English.. Veronika's monologue mentioned above, which is pretty baise-heavy, would look oddly vulgar in English, with all its F words. (Plus she keeps on saying "j'ai rien à foutre", which is best translated as "I don't give a fuck"!)
Anyway, Kostis, haven't got round to watching Un homme qui dort yet - and thanks again for sending it on - but look forward to.

[Dan Warburton]

http://www.jonathanrosenbaum.com/?s=jean+eustache

[Dan Warburton]

Jozef von Sternberg, The Shanghai Gesture, 1941

This was a gift from Michel Chion, and one of his favourite films. Great fun too, with Victor Mature and his fez, Gene Tierney trying to look as ugly as possible and Ona Munson as the hydra-hairdoed Mother Gin Sling
Well, ya can't watch Jean Eustache movies every day, y'know

[leroysghost]

it's a lateral move anyway. Mike Mazurki saying "you likee chinese new year?" is as good as any monologue.

[Dan Warburton]

Yes! Some really great dialogue in there, a real blast. You know more about Sternberg than I do, LG - which others would you recommend? The only other one I have is, of course, the Blue Angel

[leroysghost]

gun to head my top five are:
Dishonored (1931)
Morocco (1930)
The Scarlet Empress (1934)
The Shanghai Gesture (1941)
Anatahan (1953)

i like almost all the Dietrich ones though, and his silents (Underworld, The Last Command, The Docks Of New York) are great too.

[Dan Warburton]

Cheers mate, there goes another week's salary

[Dan Warburton]

David Fincher, The Game, 1997

Dunno, it seems to be hip to take mighty dumps on Fincher these days, but I've always enjoyed this jolly Scrooge / Wizard of Oz / Alice in Wonderland romp, and it still works third time round. Douglas is splendidly detestable, Penn utterly ridiculous, the whole story utterly implausible, but who cares? It's just cinema having fun with itself.

[Mo Noyz]

I grew up watching the original Star Trek with my father, so I was somewhat interested in seeing the new Star Trek movie.

The most horrid turd of a movie I've seen in quite some time. I actually had to bail on it before it was over.

[Dan Warburton]

Quentin Tarantino, Kill Bill (Vols 1 & 2), 2003-2004

Not my favourite QT, but we'd never seen both films back to back so we thought we'd give it a go. That Pai Mei kills me every time (as it were).