Recently Watched Films 2011

[Dan Warburton]

Alfred Hitchcock, Topaz, 1969

Hitch's cameo half an hour in shows him getting out of a wheelchair and walking away, but his tepid Cold War spy thriller remains terminally crippled by second division actors (Michel Piccoli and Philippe Noiret excluded, but they appear so late in the film they hardly make an impact), a script cobbled together at the last minute by Samuel Taylor (and you'd never guess this was the guy who penned Vertigo), and a (typically) flaccid score from Maurie Jarre, which Hitchcock apparently just grafted on to the film without listening to very much. It's amusing to see Americans and German actors trying and failing miserably to do French and Cuban accents (John Vernon's Castro-lookalike Rico Parra is hilarious) while the Frenchmen have to speak English, and Hitch trying in vain to outdo Bond by casting an ex Bond-girl and hiding microfilms in razors and cameras in sandwiches and roast chickens (!). There are a few great Hitch moments (the overhead shot of Juanita above) but the fact that he couldn't even get the ending right - he tried three of them, and none really satisfies - makes the whole thing a rather depressing experience.

[Dan Warburton]

Stanley Kubrick, Killer's KIss, 1955

A real discovery, this - four years before Shadows, here's Stanley shooting with a borrowed Eyemo camera in Times Square, Penn Station and on the subway (some fun trivia in IMDb about the director persuading local bums to vacate their alley), doing his tracking shots à la Godard with a pushchair and throwing in enough virtuoso shots (at one point a character hurls a glass directly at the camera! and what about that final showroom dummy showdown? easily as impressive as Orson's mirrors in Lady from Shanghai) to keep film school students busy and jealous for years to come. Plot's pretty standard, and of course there are no stars in sight (Kubrick was apparently on welfare when he did this and had to borrow $ left right and centre) but the acting is solid and sincere and you can freeze frame just about any shot in the movie and your jaw will drop. And you can see where Raging Bull started out, of course. Check it out if you don't know it, really. Certainly one of the best half dozen films I've seen this year.

[jon abbey]

along those lines, it's funny/sad how much Kubrick had lost touch with Manhattan by the end of his life, the scenes allegedly set in Greenwich Village in Eyes Wide Shut are embarrassingly poor simulacra of the actual city.

[sevenarts]

along those lines, it's funny/sad how much Kubrick had lost touch with Manhattan by the end of his life, the scenes allegedly set in Greenwich Village in Eyes Wide Shut are embarrassingly poor simulacra of the actual city.

I don't think that soundstage Greenwich Village is supposed to be a realistic portrait of NYC, any more than almost anything in that movie is meant to be taken literally.

[markt]

Withnail & I (1986, Bruce Robinson)



"We want the finest wines available to humanity, we want them here and we want them now!"

[surfer]

Burke & Hare (Landis, 2011) - Enjoyable comedy from John "I put the 'b' in subtle" Landis. Dark Ages black humor Monty Pynthon type humor. I dont know the two capable leads Serkis or Pegg, but Isla Fisher looks exactly like Amy Adams, and Tom Wilkinson is always good. Some inspired scenes, some tired scenes, but overall thumbs up. IFC in theatres, but you can see it On Demand through your box.




District 9 (Blomkamp, 2009) - Suspenseful and taut, but I wasnt prepared of the level of gore and violence, which I thought was at times gratuitous. One could play the "bit of ET (Christopher's son), bit of Star Wars (mission to infiltrate MNU headquarters), bit of Children of Men (atmosphere of camps) game, but that's spoiling the fun isn't it. The only other mild criticism is that the movie becomes, after Wikus adorns The Transformer machine, a pretty typical Hollywood shoot em up escape thriller. The first half was better. Didnt spend much time mulling over "what it means to be human", or "how this serves as a metaphor for apartheid South Africa".

[Gaendaal]

Burke & Hare (Landis, 2011) - Enjoyable comedy from John "I put the 'b' in subtle" Landis. Dark Ages black humor Monty Pynthon type humor. I dont know the two capable leads Serkis or Pegg, but Isla Fisher looks exactly like Amy Adams, and Tom Wilkinson is always good. Some inspired scenes, some tired scenes, but overall thumbs up. IFC in theatres, but you can see it On Demand through your box.

This got soundly panned in the UK and, I dunno, even with the separation of time (albeit not quite back to the Dark Ages) I can't really see the murder of 17 people as knockabout comedy material.

[surfer]

I can't really see the murder of 17 people as knockabout comedy material.

Really? I can name hundreds of movies in which material much much darker than this is used for comedic effect.

[surfer]

Shoeshine (De Sica, 1946) - Heartbreaking. Maybe doesnt have quite the compositional elan of Bicycle Thieves, but still beautiful. Very much influenced 400 Blows I would think. Just as good.

[Jesse]

Really? I can name hundreds of movies in which material much much darker than this is used for comedic effect.

[surfer]

Weekend-at-Bernies

How about Delicatessen? Not only are people murdered (offscreen), but eaten as well.

[Jesse]

You're talking to a guy with a pretty dark humor sensibility, I have no beef with people getting offed for yuks, as long as the yuks are delivered. IT'S A MOVIE.

[surfer]

as long as the yuks are delivered.

Re: Burke and Hare, that part is debateable, but I for one enjoyed it.

[Gaendaal]

I can't really see the murder of 17 people as knockabout comedy material.

Really? I can name hundreds of movies in which material much much darker than this is used for comedic effect.

Maybe I'm being picky and maybe it's that the film doesn't seem very funny. Burke & Hare were operating just down the road from me and it was a suprisingly brutal and callous period, so...

Not going to start picketing the movie, though...

[leroysghost]

as long as the yuks are delivered.

Re: Burke and Hare, that part is debateable, but I for one enjoyed it.

Yeah it's definitely a YMMV film. Personally I thought it just hit all the easy and obvious jokes and went on it's way. It was diverting but disappointing given the promising cast. Andy "Gollum" Serkis is always a pleasure to watch (he was a particularly good Ian Brady in the Longford film a few years back). Pegg has been a Brit sitcom staple since the mid ninties but he seems to have traded that in for bottom barrel Hollywood fare like Star Trek and Seth Rogen alien fatboy running. He can be quite funny on occasion however. And just for the record Amy Adams looks like Isla Fisher, who FWIW is married to Sasha Baron Cohen and has been stealing shitty movies Anna Farris style since at least '05.

[surfer]

Andy "Gollum" Serkis

Ah, he also "played" the monkey in Planet of the Apes. I was a little slow to make that connection. Cant disagree with any of that Leroy. I will single out the scene where Serkis and his wife (reminding me of McTeague and his wife) are having sex while brainstorming ideas, and as they hit upon better ideas about how to capitalize on corpses, she gets more and more violently aroused.

Also the last scene when Pegg standing on the gallows looks out forlornly towards Fisher and declares "I did it for love." and Fisher swoons, the hangman says, "Right then." and hits the trap door. A very Python-esque moment.

I'd say its diverting, well made and nice to look at, well acted all around, with a few good set pieces and jokes, however you're right it does hit a lot of obvious jokes (the bedpan contents dropping on their faces, cmon now ) and isnt as clever or witty as the best of Python. But expecting it to be belly laughs galore is missing the point. Black comedies arent like that.

[johnson]

[Dan Warburton]

Appropriate choice for someone called "Johnson" Interestingly enough, there are a few Johnsons (along with Willies, Dicks, Wangs and Wieners) in this, which for some inexplicable reason I felt like watching last night



Jay Roach, Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, 1999

[Dan Warburton]

Agnès Varda, L'Une Chante, L'Autre Pas, 1976

Enjoyed the first hour, an odd sort mix between Eric Rohmer and Mike Leigh, but the second hour dragged, the plot became less believable (when Pomme lets her husband fly back to Iran with their baby boy in exchange for a second pregnancy so she can keep on touring provincial French towns in a beat up VW bus with her feminist pop group.. wha?) and the songs (with pro-family planning lyrics by Varda herself) got on my nerves. The Artifical Eye DVD is worth it though for the bonus short on Varda's uncle, filmed in happy hippy Sausalito in 67



Agnès Varda, Oncle Yanco, 1967

[Dan Warburton]

Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Welt am Draht ("World on a Wire"), 1973

Saw Part One only last night, so don't be mean and tell me what happens in Part Two! But great to get hold of this at last in a good quality DVD restored print. More tomorrow when I get my head round it, if I can.