Recently Watched Films 2013

[Jesse]

Georges Franju, Les yeux sans visage, 1959

I saw this in the early 80's, when Minneapolis could boast of an amazing U Film Society curator, and there were 4 theaters dedicated to imaginative screenings of both repertory and contemporary films (one theater, the Uptown, enjoyed pairing films like Aguirre / Apocalypse Now, which was pretty fucking hip in 1980).

Anyway, this one burned into my consciousness; you mention Edith Scob's glide through the manse - her elegant movements alone induce chills. I envy your first viewing, it has been a while since I have enjoyed a similar shock.

[Dan Warburton]

William Friedkin, Sorcerer, 1977

I can't for the life of me see why certain crrrritics described this as "distant" and "uninvolving" - those are about the last two adjectives I'd use. Sure, Hurricane Billy was taking a risk remaking Clouzot's Wages of Fear in the first place, even more so without a big box office star to lead the cast, though as far as I'm concerned Roy Scheider is just fine - can't imagine Steve McQueen, Friedkin's first choice, doing any better (the price of McQueen's participation was a part for Ali McGraw, so just as well the director said no - interestingly, he might have got Marcello Mastroianni and Lino Ventura aboard if McQueen had taken the lead, but again I have no problem with Bruno Cremer and Francisco Rabal). In several respects I prefer the remake to the original: the opening half hour with the back story of the four characters is superb - the Jerusalem anti-terrorist raid and New Jersey car crash are brilliantly filmed and edited - and the ending (which I won't reveal) is more chilling than Montand careering drunkenly over the cliff in the Clouzot. The contrast between Cremer's swanky Avenue Foch apartment in Paris and the squalor of the unnamed Central American Republic he finds himself in couldn't be more extreme. So I can't see what the detractors are moaning about, to be honest. This is an action film about four desperate guys driving trucks of unstable nitroglycerin through a wild jungle, not an adaptation of Dostoyevsky, dagnabbit. But, yes, it bombed at the box office, taking in less than half of the $22m it cost to make (the seemingly rickety rope bridge alone cost a million, and had to be built twice during the shooting) - maybe because it opened just after Star Wars. Pas de bol, as we say round these parts. But for my money it can stand alongside The French Connection and The Exorcist with pride. See what you think.

[jon abbey]

I think that was one where all of the reports of problems on the set hurt its initial reception, a bit like Apocalypse Now, if I recall (I was 10 when it came out, but somehow I remember). I remember seeing it a long time ago and being underwhelmed (maybe even before first seeing the Clouzot?), then seeing it in more recent years with lower expectations and being more into it.

[dialectics of shit]

Zero Dark Thirty - Bad, just shoddy filmmaking. Trying to cram this story into a ~2 ½ hour film is silly. Should have been a miniseries or two-part film à la Carlos or Che. Main issues:

• Chastain's character is insufferable. Not only is she a bitch, so much of her behavior is unrealistic; very hard to accept that someone would act or be allowed to act like that. Too bad because I like Chastain as an actress.

• They skip so far ahead in the manhunt. Like, "well 9/11 just happened let's fast-forward to 2010."

• So many characters and details seem glossed-over/conflated. I have trouble believing that someone (big schnoz dude) involved with tactical CIA stuff would also be one of the "canaries" taking part in the final raid.

• None of the supporting acting is anything special, except for Édgar Ramírez. Gandolfini's role, in particular, is useless.

• I saw someone compare this to Zodiac, which is completely off-base in terms of parallel quality, but is useful to demonstrate how this film could have been done well. Zero Dark Thirty may contain some procedural minutia and evidence-building but it never comes close to the sort of modestly-presented-yet-thrilling footage of Fincher's great film, chiefly because ZD30's characters are boring and their characterization lackluster.

[Dan Warburton]

Kevin Smith, Chasing Amy, 1997

Smart script, quality acting, beautiful timing, sharp editing (the ice hockey match - great). Frrrresh for 1997 you suckers. And still fresh 15 years down the road.

[jon abbey]

wow, would not have pegged you for a Kevin Smith fan. I still think Dogma is easily his best, but I know I'm in a serious minority on that.

[Dan Warburton]

Still many more of them to see, but yes, a fan of what I've seen so far (I prefer Dogma too, but it's daft to compare it with this, don't you think?).

[jon abbey]

Still many more of them to see, but yes, a fan of what I've seen so far (I prefer Dogma too, but it's daft to compare it with this, don't you think?).

kind of, but since all his films (or most of them anyway) take place in an overlapping universe (Jay and Silent Bob are in most, for starters), it's tempting to make comparisons. anyway, glad you like Dogma!

[Dan Warburton]

You know I do - already posted about it twice here, I think. Anyway, I'll let you get back to arm-wrestling with Alex over on the (mistitled) Boardwalk Empire thread

[Lao Tsu Ben]

wow, would not have pegged you for a Kevin Smith fan. I still think Dogma is easily his best, but I know I'm in a serious minority on that.

I have not seen Chasing Amy yet, but I'd give my vote to Clerks II, there is a kind of voluptuousness in the images, it makes you want to work THERE. Ok, there is also Rosario Dawson, but it's definitely Kevin Smith who makes her, and the other characters, so likable.




The Guatemalan Handshake, Todd Rohal, 2006

A sorry disappointment. I'm not so much on the hater side for this one, but the film looked to me as indie cinema at its most cliché. There is a streak of magical realism, and as a natural consequence, pinchbeck poetry everywhere, there is a girl who wanders through the countryside, looks a little like the boy from Gummo, and ponderously and sensitively, reflects in a voice-over on what is going on (not much, but I don't remember), like an unconscious Transcendalist, or a little Malickian soldier, Bonnie 'Prince' Billy with shorts, pink socks who sings a not uncharming duet in the best Moldy Peaches manner, scouts (an important formative experience for Rohal it seems, as we shall see with his next film) who, after selling a car, throw the money in the wind, a guy named Stool who is too dumb and weird to be true, and whom we are supposed to find, I assume, funny and moving in the end. And other things I didn't care about. Reminded me of this article about "Beast of the Southern Wilds" and of Julian Barnes' scoffs at magical realism. America love its naive artists, its mavericks, as they say, but give me Junebug or George Washington any day of the week, or Farrah Abraham, for that matter.

[Dan Warburton]

Ha, I enjoyed this one much more than Catechism Cataclysm, which as I recall you liked. Vive la différence (and bonne année à toi Ben)

[Lao Tsu Ben]

Ha, I enjoyed this one much more than Catechism Cataclysm, which as I recall you liked. Vive la différence (and bonne année à toi Ben)

Yep, but I am now wondering whether my appreciation of it was not a little too sympathetic. Bonne année Dan, the board is unusually busy I see, that's nice.

[mudd]

hate kevin smith.

m

[Mo Noyz]

Same here. But, I did find Dogma pretty entertaining.

[jon abbey]

You know I do - already posted about it twice here, I think. Anyway, I'll let you get back to arm-wrestling with Alex over on the (mistitled) Boardwalk Empire thread

actually I have no memory of that, and I'll probably forget this one again soon too. and if I never interact with Alex again, it'll be too soon...

[Dan Warburton]

You know I do - already posted about it twice here, I think. Anyway, I'll let you get back to arm-wrestling with Alex over on the (mistitled) Boardwalk Empire thread

actually I have no memory of that, and I'll probably forget this one again soon too. and if I never interact with Alex again, it'll be too soon...

Aww, I hope you never say that about me Yo Mudd, is that "hate kevin smith" an imperative or a declarative? (Round these parts the words "I Hate" usually mean quite the opposite.. )
Thanks for the link to that magical realism broadside, Ben - a splendid piece of writing. By a strange and horrible coincidence I wandered away into the kitchen five minutes ago, turned on BBC Radio 4 and they were going on about.. magical realism! Agh!

[mudd]

i dislike the style and substance of the works of film writer and director kevin smith. i have not seen many because the ones i have seen make me unhappy to a degree that i do not believe the venture would result in a positive use of my time.

m

[Mo Noyz]

That's one of the most flowery ways of saying "he sucks" that I've ever seen.

[Dan Warburton]

Jean Renoir, La bête humaine, 1938

For once the book is more spectacular and violent than the film adaptation, with its spectacular train crashes, poisonings, slit throats and stabbings, but Renoir's interest lies more in the human than the beast, especially in casting the ever-likeable Jean Gabin (at the time 34 but he looks more than 40) as Jacques Lantier (who in the Zola novel is only 26). In a DVD bonus intro, Peter Bogdanovich speculates that the opening rolldown quote from the book must have been the producers' idea rather than the director's, which would make sense (as Gabin says the same lines himself later) and that the film proper should begin with the shot of the furnace and the thrilling footage of the train journey from Paris to Le Havre. He's also on the money describing it as a film noir - one of the earliest of the genre too - with Simone Simon's Séverine a proto-femme fatale. Shame the Kosma soundtrack is a bit overemotional; everything else is pretty top notch.

[negative potential]

i dislike the style and substance of the works of film writer and director kevin smith. i have not seen many because the ones i have seen make me unhappy to a degree that i do not believe the venture would result in a positive use of my time.

m

all of this is really really wrong, to the point where they actually have a moral at the end of many of the movies. not sure what you've seen (there have been 12 films that he directed total, and if you've seen 3 of them, I'll be surprised), but I'm not trying to convince anyone.

P.S. Just kidding. I don't like Kevin Smith either. Just seeing if this ends up in the Dead Letter Office, or if Abbey isn't the only one who gets to make these kinds of obnoxious pronouncements.