Recently Watched Films 2012

[Dohol]

I find it very hard to believe The Artist was so highly regarded......I could barely sit through it..

[Dan Warburton]

Yes, it's the difference between Ella Fitzgerald and Amy Winehouse, isn't it? I had to remind myself what a great film was, so I went back yet again (fourth or fifth time?) to this --



Elia Kazan, The Last Tycoon, 1976

Probably said it last time I saw it, but I'll fight to the bitter end defending this one against its (seemingly many) critics (including, apparently, Kazan himself, who claimed he "only did it for the money"). Not only is De Niro not miscast, I'd say his Monroe Stahr is right up there with Travis Bickle and Jake La Motta. OK so Ingrid Boulting as the mysterious Kathleen is no femme fatale (and no great shakes as an actress, come to think of it), but that's the point, that's precisely what causes the otherwise unflappable Stahr to lose his way. Wonderful to see a lousy actor (Tony Curtis) pretending to be a good one, and a great actress (Jeanne Moreau) pretending to be a bad one. Nicholson, Russell, Mitchum and Milland all splendid. Even the soundtrack works well, and I'm no great Maurice Jarre fan. Anyway, probably said all this last time. If so, apologies. You know how it is.

[Dan Warburton]

Jacques Rivette, Histoire de Marie et Julien, 2003

Much as I like Rivette, I couldn't quite get into / behind this one as much as I wanted on a first viewing. Put that down, I guess, to the rather dull Emmanuelle Béart and her pouting botoxed lips (she was OK in La Belle Noiseuse, but that was only a minor role in comparison to this one), and Jerzy Radziwilowicz, who's a fine actor but comes across as rather pale here. You can't help wondering what this might have been like if it had been shot with Leslie Caron and Albert Finney, which was the original idea back in 1975 before Rivette went into a tailspin nervous breakdown and disappeared for four years. But that would have been another film altogether. No point trying to summarise this Gaelic ghost story, then, but I do think Julien's cat (called Nevermore, and that's just one of several notable nods to Poe here) deserves special mention. That and the doggie in The Artist, seems I'm surrounded by superintelligent pets at the moment.

[Gaendaal]

Gothic (Ken Russell, 1986)

I've not since this since my days as a whelp staying up late to watch film nights on Channel 4 and I think the best I can say is 'ripe for a remake'.

The drug-fuelled phantasms of a highly-strung and drug-fuelled group are lost in the ropey effects, the huge rents Julian Sands chews out of the scenery and, oh Lord, Thomas Dolby's hilarious soundtrack.

The filmic equivalent, for the most part, of the haunted house ride in a village fair, plastic skulls and all.

[Dan Warburton]

Zack Snyder, Watchmen, 2009

"Frying tonight!" While we await the release of the new Batman, I thought we'd have a brief superhero fest. The most frequent criticism you read of Zack Snyder's adaptation of the Alan Moore cult DC comic is that it's too damn faithful. Didn't mind that, actually, but if I hear Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" used in another movie I'll puke (and the "love scene" it accompanies is so embarrassingly bad it's almost good).
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/ ... h-20090710
Jackie Earle Haley (Rorschach) gets the best lines - imagine Raymond Chandler crossing over to the dark side of the Force - and delivers them with morbid glee. Elsewhere there's not much acting to be done, though Billy Crudup makes Dr Manhattan's remorse quite believable (more so than the CGI giant clock thingy he conjures up on Mars.. ta-cky). Favourite moments include Nixon's Cyrano nose and Lee Iacocca getting shot in the face. Nice to know who killed Kennedy too.

[cheerios]

This movie is so, so, so bad imo. I don't know how I sat through it, but it's a freakin' miracle that I did.

I recently watched this:



"Solaris" dir. Tarkovsky.

Absolutely loved it. I hadn't seen it before, and am slightly curious about the remake that was done, but feel icky about George Clooney being in it
You can give me Donatas Banionis any day.

[Dan Warburton]

The remake isn't bad at all - if you see it lying around in a two-dollar bin, don't hesitate. Meanwhile, last night's fun:



Alex Cox, El Patrullero ("Highway Patrolman"), 1991

Enjoyed this very much. Apart from one delicious touch of surrealism (during Rojas's visit to the chain-smoking doctor), Cox plays it straight here, with good solid acting (Roberto Sosa and Vanessa Bauche, both excellent) and an honest, touching plot. The director's trademark long takes work well, keeping the tension up and the story moving forward. As usual, more information on Cox's ever-entertaining website http://www.alexcox.com/dir_highwaypatrolman.htm

[Dan Warburton]

Don Siegel, Coogan's Bluff, 1968

Shrewd career move for Clint in 68, moving to the city from the desert, from cowboy to cop, in what became the precursor of the Dirty Harry films (and Dennis Weaver's rather lame McCloud TV series). There's enough material here to keep one of Michel Chion's Morality In Cinema 101 classes busy for a week studying Eastwood's character, Walt Coogan (though I don't think he ever reveals his first name in the movie - he even asks Julie (Susan Clark - dig the eye makeup) to call him Coogan). An intriguing figure: old school macho (insists on paying for Julie's lunch) but not as interested in ladies as he at first seems (except when they can lead him to his prey), man of few words but with some smart putdown lines when he needs them. Siegel takes the old "country boy comes to the big city and tests his frontier values against corruption of civilization" (Ebert) and extends the theme to cinema itself: for "country boy" read "Western" and "big city" read "Cop Movie", drawing some fascinating parallels along the way between Coogan's hunting down of the Navajo Indian in the Mojave desert at the beginning of the film and his pursuit of Ringerman (Don Stroud, deliciously wacko) in Cloisters. What has the sheriff learnt along the way, if anything? He denies the Indian a cigarette at the beginning of the film but lights one up for Ringerman at the end.. is that it? Love the scenes in the hippie disco (how many films before this one showed joints being openly passed around and girls kissing each other?) and the bustup in Pushie's poolroom - compared to the violence in movies today it probably looks tame (my blasé teenage boy was unimpressed, sigh) but it still packs a nice punch. And oh, how I'd have loved to arrive in NYC on a Sikorsky S-61 on top of the (then) PanAm building.. and be able to smoke during the flight!

[leroysghost]

Pigeon Toed Orange Peeeeeeel

A fairly stupid movie but it has it's moments.

[Dan Warburton]

Claire Denis, Nenette et Boni, 1996

You lot know how much I like reading IMDb trivia and user reviews, but sometimes they make me want to engage in some futile Tilbury-style boycott of the USA. Can't resist quoting this one: "A typical French art-house film when you consider most French art-house films to be filled with mindless imagery and deep misleading symbolism with a sharp and incomplete ending. Either way, Nenette et Boni is a nice coming of age drama about growing up and changing as a person. It's innocent how the only character in the movie who isn't 'horny' is the pet rabbit. Everyone else is always on the look out for love, one way or another. Vincent Gallo was a nice surprise. To see an American have a roll [sic - unless he means a cinnamon roll: Gallo plays a baker] in a French film can sometimes be a treat. Here, he is. Much like the rest of the cast, he shows his emotions physically."
Clearly, if this chappie thinks Vincent Gallo is the only "nice surprise" in this film, I don't think there's any point trying to persuade him otherwise (I say "him" because I can't imagine a woman writing anything so stoopid, especially about a film one of whose principal characters is a seven-month pregnant 15 year old girl). As usual, with Denis, expect to have to think - try it sometime, it does you good and costs nothing - those who moan about elliptical storylines are simply not paying attention. Without subtitles for those who don't speak French it'd be impossible to understand (I love the Marseille accent), but as is usual for the director the story is told as much by the images and the lighting as it is by the script (which is, by Denis's standards, quite chattery in fact). Some truly amazing shots - the slow pan over the cakes as la femme du boulanger (Valeria Bruni Tedeschi) stoops to pick up a tombola ticket that's fallen in the whipped cream, and the closeups when she runs into Boni (Grégoire Colin, magnificent) during her Christmas shopping and starts rapping on about "pheronomes" [sic], unaware that he's been masturbating furiously thinking of her for months. Sometimes the light is so beautiful you think you can smell it - wait for Nenette (Alice Houry, fragile and wonderful) in her mustard bath (won't say any more). First of many Tindersticks soundtracks for Denis too - and lovely - but the musical highlight is The Beach Boys "God Only Knows". The ending is abrupt, yes, but (not wanting to spoil anything) you know it can't last - the story continues to resonate long after the credits have rolled. Masterly.

[Lao Tsu Ben]

Always had the impression that Denis' fame was greater abroad than it is here (I think of people like Jonathan Rosenbaum who enthusiastically advocates European auteurs such as her, or Tarr).

What I saw last night, Dan described it as such (thanks to the search function) :

This is a tired, flabby film whose storyline, what little there is, seems to have been hacked down to squeeze it into the 100-minute duration (did they run out of money, or something?).

Sounds like Drive to me, but it was about Mike Hodges' I'll Sleep When I'm Dead, which I find to be a very likable little film. Like Drive, it's more a sketch of a movie than anything else; Simon Fisher Turner's score works - in a similar manner - in spite of seeming out of place sometimes, by giving an hint of what could have been an actual score, according to other, more conventional standards. Clive Owen underacts rather badly by opening his eyes wide whenever he appears, but it must be added that he is also rather charismatic. There is no reason why a perhaps likable jerk like Jonathan Rhys-Meyers' character should be raped, which is pretty much the argument of film, and which makes for some interesting thoughts at the end. Verhoeven and Jordan come to mind, and also, from time to time, Guy Ritchie, which seems unavoidable.

Dan's end of the review read like that, so you are warned:

It's a dull, unrealistic script, and Charlotte Rampling gets all the worst lines, poor thing (no wonder she doesn't smile throughout the entire film.. in fact, nobody does). Not that her character is actually essential to the plot anyway. Nor is Frank, the big bad gangland boss, who's neither big nor bad. Simon Fisher Turner's atmospheric score is also totally out of place. Lousy, avoid like the plague. Hard to believe this was directed by the man who made Get Carter. Sigh.

I'll Sleep When I'm Dead - Mike Hodges

[Gaendaal]

Sounds like Drive to me

Speaking of which...



Drive (2011, Nicolas Winding Refn)

Surprisingly dull. It's enjoyable to watch but all the life's been squeezed out to make room for styling. I mean, I could bang on for hours about the nuances of moral ambiguity and the eponymous character's simmering tensions but why bother dealing with subtext subtleties when you're told so obviously which bits are important to the director by him having them happen soooo veeerrryyyy sloooowwwwllllyyy.

At least they don't need to make a game-to-film adaption of Grand Theft Auto now.

[Dan Warburton]

You can steer clear of this one too, drivers, unless you're nostalgic for old school tits'n'bums British humour. I must have been when I googled it (I remember seeing it at the Film Club in school!) and found it in its tacky entirety on YouTube.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Us820A5HPvI



Jim Clark, Every Home Should Have One, 1970

Feldman, Marty not Morty, who bears a rather striking resemblance to my pal Frédéric Blondy actually (not the right eye though) is an advertising executive whose mission is to make a brand of frozen porridge (!) umm.. sexy. Plenty of delightfully dumb sketches, as Marty fantasizes his way through life (and ends up in bed with the au pair girl Inga who is of course Swedish) and tries to save his marriage after his wife has taken up enthusiastically with a dubious Mary Whitehouse-like keep-England-clean campaign led by a sleazy vicar, and replaced the voluptuous Inga with a Nazi amazon (Penelope Keith, totally over ze top). Raises a few smiles but by and large as dated as Marty's suits. We won't mention hairstyles either. Odd how this one has gone seriously grey while Lindsay Anderson's O Lucky Man! (see a few pages back) is still as fresh as a daisy.

[Dan Warburton]

Richard Lester, Petulia, 1968

Whoa, forgotten classic! Richard Lester returns to the USA from Swinging London, where he'd made his name with snappy, slightly surreal comedies - The Goons' Running Jumping & Standing Still Film (surprise Oscar in 1960), 1965's wacky The Knack ...and How to Get It and not forgetting the first two Beatles films - and lands bang in the middle of 1968 in San Francisco. Yep, before you ask, there is indeed footage of Janis Joplin and The Grateful Dead in groovy lightshow action, but the opening shots of the film, of three impassive well-dressed middle-aged folks in wheelchairs being trundled into a service elevator in a hotel for a road safety fundraising campaign dinner dance already tells you something is terminally fucked in mid 60s America. (And wait till you get to Joseph Cotten's jawdropping speech to Julie Christie in hospital..)
At some point in the dialogue, soon-to-be-dlvorced surgeon George C. Scott describes his decision to get involved with emotionally scarred socialite Christie as "bad timing", and I'll betcha a copy of Cheap Thrills DP Nicolas Roeg never forgot the line. The influences on his film of the same name (see a page or two ago in this thread) are clear: narrative logic ripped to shreds through use of vertiginous flashbacks (hats off Antony Gibbs, the editor of the British New Wave), central character of disturbed doctor orbiting around unstable beautiful girl.. But before that Roeg as director had another chance to shoot Christie, in Don't Look Now. If you like Roeg's stuff, you need to check this out. But enough of him - it's another triumph for Christie, and a wonderfully subtle performance from George C. Scott. Stunning locations too - from the deserted corridors of Fort Mason to Muir Woods to the cubist projects of Daly City (yes, Fort Mason and Muir Woods were also in Vertigo.. and don't think Mr Lester doesn't know it) and some awesome long focus shots of San Francisco from across the Golden Gate Bridge (Roeg's lens must have been as long as his arm). If you haven't seen it, try to.

[Lao Tsu Ben]

The Pumpkin Eater - Jack Clayton, 1964

God, is Anne Bancroft beautiful... This one has highbrow written all over it and ends up being a rather bland affair, it plays like an academic, English (not a fault, don't get me wrong) Antonioni with, perhaps, a little twist. This story of a woman whose purpose in life is to procreate is quite original, but drama and satire are not as well-balanced as they should be, laughs get lost along the way which could have made this film interesting. An extraordinary actress if there ever was one, I would like to say that Anne Bancroft makes everything worthwile, which is a biased way of expressing a semi-truth, while the film is stilted, curiously uninvolving, it is still very agreeable to watch if, like me, you happen to have a thing for her. As someone puts on imdb "The camera doesn't love her, it adores her", or someone else "this is definitely Anne Bancroft's film all the way, and she is breathtakingly beautiful in it". Besides that, she could have done anything in this film, one wouldn't have cared less. Does she even play well ? Not so much as to merit a prize in Cannes, I think. If you want to see her in a great (and it's lightly put) film, watch Ford's Seven Women, if you only want to watch more Bancroft, you can try this one. I mean, do we even know how many children she has in this film ? They are shamelessly presented as nothing more than a narrative conceit. I never really could stomach Pinter, I guess.

[MRS]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=en ... 1llrk&NR=1

Mostly silly plot glue, special consideration to the alien power station in the aft of Cherrito's white Cadillac, but most importantly the Virgin Mother against the blue El Camino at Trejo's incredibly bizarre waterfront cut (1:12), my god what a shot. Stop making crappy movies and craft crappy pulp crime scripts into gourmet chicken salad, please Michael, you can be so good in a long, long mildewed genre.

[Dan Warburton]

Gary Sinise, Of Mice And Men, 1992

I suppose I should compare this with the Lewis Milestone 1939 version with Lon Chaney and Burgess Meredith, which I saw way back during school daze (or with the 1981 TV remake with Robert Blake and Randy Quaid, which I've never seen but would like to), but then again I'm not sure I'm that big of a Steinbeck fan after all. Too many memories of dull grammar school lit crit dissections of Cannery Row and Grapes of Wrath. We got a lot of Steinbeck thrown at us in school. And Harper Lee, too (so can't say I'm surprised to see that the screenplay here is the work of Horton Foote, who also wrote To Kill A Mockingbird). Guess we weren't smart enough for Faulkner. But as it turns out I've never read Of Mice And Men, so can't comment on how close to the original Gary Sinise's adaptation is (it seems to be quite faithful, from what I've read). Sinise teams up with his old Steppenwolf Theater buddy John Malkovich, who to all intents and purposes does a good job playing the retarded giant Lennie (though people invariably fall over themselves to compliment actors who portray the mentally challenged, whether it's Hoffman in Rain Man, Duvall as Boo Radley or the entire cast of One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest). Sinise's own George I found rather flat and uninspired, but maybe he's like that in the book. Idem for his directing. ATTENTION HERE BE SPOILERS Normally I don't mind the odd continuity goof, a boom mic slipping into the frame here or there, but to see Sherilyn Fenn breathing merrily away when she's just had her neck broken or Ray Walston moaning about being one-handed when he's clearly got two kind of takes the wind out of the sails at times. And the ending - close-up on George and flashback to hand-in-hand walk with Lennie through the fields, just doesn't work, adds too much distance, makes the horror of the events in the barn curiously distant. Either end with the shooting or bring back the other members of the posse (which is what happens in the book, apparently) but don't go out like that. Anyway, nicely lit, but rather unimaginatively edited - and Mark Isham's music bland and maudlin (and normally I'm a fan).

[Dan Warburton]

Christopher Nolan, The Dark Knight Rises, 2012

"And the winning number for the tombola is.. 06858!" Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?

[Dan Warburton]

So, with a throbbing headache courtesy Hans Zimmer (I knew it was going to be at least as loud and awful as Inception - so why the hell didn't I take the earplugs with me?) I had to watch a decent film last night to cheer myself up, a nice tale of country folk in lovely, rolling Cornwall..



Sam Peckinpah, Straw Dogs, 1971

The one thing nobody ever mentions about this film is the music, Jerry Fielding's curiously detached neoclassical Stravinsky ripoff (we're talking serious pillaging of L'Histoire du soldat here), and how perfectly it fits in in just about the last places you'd ever expect to find it. Or maybe I mentioned it last time, if so, apologies.

[Dan Warburton]

Danny Boyle, Shallow Grave, 1994

On paper, this has just about everything I normally don't like: three principal characters you really don't care about (Boyle's yuppies aren't quite as over-the-top detestable as Mike Leigh's, but they're not far off), plot holes (drilled through the roof) you can shine a light through, and plenty of gratuitous violence. But for some reason it seems to work, and launched Mr Boyle's career quite nicely thank you, catching the spirit of the mid 90s rather well by appealing to a generation of twenty somethings who grew up under Thatcherism and took selfishness and materialism for granted, riding the wave of rave culture for all it was worth. You wouldn't find music by Leftfield in a Mike Leigh film, would you?