Recently Watched Films 2012

[savantgarde]

Dario Argento, Phenomena, 1985:

Sounds like something I might enjoy, although I've seen little by the guy (Suspiria and Profondo Rosso are the ones that come to mind). I think I'll try to get hold of it Love the piece of Jennifer Connelly trivia too, sounds like the kind of thing that might happen at an Italian film production indeed.

[Dan Warburton]

Alas, Phenomena was Tanga the chimp's only film role. Good job he (she? maybe a she, come to think of it) only bit Jennifer too - you should see what s/he does with a razor blade.. (oops, did I spoil the ending? )

[savantgarde]

Haha, sounds like a talented girl (although Jennifer might think otherwise)

[Dan Warburton]

Quentin Tarantino, Death Proof, 2007

[Dan Warburton]

Ridley Scott, Gladiator, 2000

"Terrific race, the Romans. Terrific." There's clearly something wrong with the world when a pot of boiling shit like this wins the Academy Award for Best Picture. Or maybe it's just the Oscars that are fucked up. Hilarious to read that they spent three million bucks on CGI for Proximo after Oliver Reed died of a heart attack during filming, presumably in self-defence. Shame it wasn't ("composer") Hans Zimmer. But everyone seems to have gone barking mad on this film, from Crowe - reportedly telling "writer" Bill Nicholson "Your lines are garbage but I'm the greatest actor in the world and I can make even garbage sound good" - to David Hemmings, who groomed his pointy eyebrows specially for the occasion. Not as much fun as The Fall of the Roman Empire or Spartacus (neither of which are much fun to start with), but better than Troy. Only just.

[presquepartout]

went to the nc art museum last night to see a print of



alain resnais' last year at marienbad

[Dan Warburton]

Ah, I must go back to that one soon - haven't seen it for years. Good call. Meanwhile, yesterday's double bill was an old favourite from the year before Marienbad



Karel Reisz, Saturday Night, Sunday Morning, 1960

followed by




Jean-Luc Godard, Prénom Carmen, 1983

Our own Ed Howard must like this as much as (Godard DP) Raoul Coutard (who describes it as his favourite JLG film), since he swiped the great shot of the hand and TV screen for his blog (as you all know). Apparently, according to Colin McCabe at least, Isabelle Adjani was originally slated to play Carmen X. Thank goodness JLG got Maruschka Detmers instead. I wonder if he would have been able to get la Adjani to reveal as much, as it were. One of the most accessible and enjoyable Godards, full of sharp, funny lines, great montage and outstanding images.

[Dan Warburton]

Park Chan-wook, Old Boy, 2003

I'm no Animal Rights activist, but feel rather sorry for the four octupuses that had to die in the making of the infamous sushi bar scene, which, like the tooth-pulling and the celebrated one-take battle in the prison corridor is jolly impressive but serves no real purpose. OK, so it was all based on a manga, but even so Lee Woo-jin's elaborate revenge plot, with its titillating Oedipal / incest overtones, is laughably puerile. He got 15 years for telling his chums in the playground he saw homeboy sucking on his sister's nipple? Gimme a break! It's almost as daft as Inception. At least we get Vivaldi instead of Hans Zimmer. As sleek and flashy as an iPhone, and about as essential.

[jon abbey]

agreed, I hated that.

[billygomberg]

exactly. I think we spent the last 1/2hr or so of that film being all like 'really?'

yeah.

[Dan Warburton]

Yeah, I mean if Lee Woo had that much money, why the hell didn't he do something useful with it like fund Balloon & Needle releases?

[leroysghost]

jeez glad i didn't go to high school with you folks

there's a girl who went to my middle school has yet to live down a rumored relationship with her step-brother, a suicide resulting from ridicule from an actual incestuous relationship is totally plausible.

as i've mentioned earlier, Tom Ripley ruined a dude's life for not shaking his hand. the less sane the motivations for a psycho are the better. don't hang on the MacGuffin.

that Breaking Bad/Tarantino fanboys would diss on Oldboy is totally perplexing to me

[jon abbey]

can't stand those Tom Ripley novels either (and I LOVE that area generally), dunno if that confuses your image of my taste even more.

[leroysghost]

i was referring to the film Der Amerikanische Freund, which Dan likes enough to have seen more then once. never read any of the books, but i like Plein Soleil a lot as well.

and as far as taste goes, it's just that Chan-Wook Park mines the same self referential/superficial/meta/poor taste area that Breaking Bad and Tarantino do, so i'd think that the tastes would line up nicely, especially considering that pretty much everything Tarantino/Breaking Bad does is purile and serves no real purpose and has stupid plot twists (more so then any Chan-Wook Park film imo).

[jon abbey]

funny how much we agree on music and disagree on films/TV. and it's 'puerile'.

[leroysghost]

i have inexplicably broken english, you got me there...

just be glad you aren't the one who wrote the totally shit script i'm reading right now! (a soon to be produced film based on an already half shit book)

[Dan Warburton]

don't hang on the MacGuffin.

A MacGuffin is a mere element of the plot - here, the high school revenge story is the plot, and is supposed to explain everything we've seen. I think there is a difference.

that Breaking Bad/Tarantino fanboys would diss on Oldboy is totally perplexing to me

The Tarantinos I don't particularly care for are the two Kill Bills. Must be something about that manga sensibility. But since you raise the comparison, I think what I don't really go for in cinema, or any artform for that matter, is flashiness for its own sake: technique is a means to an end, not an end in itself. Old Boy (and Requiem for a Dream, which we discussed earlier) are a little too flashy, as I mentioned before. Nowhere near as bad as something like Enter The Void, but the clever shit often gets in the way. Scorsese runs dangerously close to the line too at times (compare The Departed to Infernal Affairs), and Fincher quite often, but if the script / story is solid and well acted, it can often come off. Still, your observation has got me thinking.. why do I still enjoy watching something as utterly implausible as The Game but dislike Old Boy? Have to think about that one. Meanwhile, am happy to be called a fanboy of this director -



Jacques Rivette, Jeanne la Pucelle I Les Batailles, 1994

Will comment further when we've seen part two tonight (all 176 minutes of it, following on from 160 minutes here), but so far so good. Here's to the small things that give pleasure, here's to the everyday things that bring a smile: shoeing a horse, skinning a rabbit, peeping through a crack in the door, falling asleep at a table. Not for everyone, I suppose (and despite the realism, Rivette's choice of an actress who's clearly twice as old as the girl she's portraying might raise eyebrows), but I'm a fanboy, hey.

[Dan Warburton]

Actually, I see now that image I inserted above comes from the second part. No risk of getting this one wrong -



Jacques Rivette, Jeanne la Pucelle II Les Prisons, 1994

- but did she really have to wear that hat ("as the flames rose to her Roman nose and her Walkman started to melt")? Jokes aside - but there are some good ones, like the graffiti I saw once in Montmartre that read: "Joan of Arc - the only time the English ever cooked anything properly" - this is an outstanding piece of work. Both parts can (and I think should) be seen back to back, as The Prisons picks up right where The Battles left off, as a single 5 hour 40 minute film. Not an epic, though - this is as about as far from Quo Vadis? as you can possibly get - but a refreshingly direct and intimate portrait. Not as austere as the Bresson, not as mysterious as the Dreyer (can't comment on the Preminger because I haven't seen it yet - Leroysghost? - and Luc Besson's bit of fluff doesn't even rate), but just as beautifully made, and so exquisitely paced that you don't notice the long duration at all.

[Eyjafjallajökull]

Darbārehye Elly, Asghar Farhadi, 2009



Still Bill, Damani Baker, 2009

Poignant.

[Dan Warburton]

Great pics, great username (however you pronounce it) - stick around!