Recently Watched Films 2011

[surfer]

Beginning to look like a one-man thread

I havent lost interest in this thread, I just havent had time to watch movies at all. I do post them here when when I do, though I barely have time to even surf anymore.

Warburton, guilting me into watching more movies:



Everything Must Go (Rush, 2010)

I'm vainly trying to think of one thing in this movie I liked. From Will Ferrell's sad sack Bill Murray acting school performance, to Rebecca Hall's cute lonely housewife nextdoor with a sympathetic ear, to the eager-to-please chubby black kid sidekick, this movie just drowns in cliches. Taking stock and letting go, I get it. Divorced from the movie, the soundtrack isnt bad I suppose, but using the lyrics to instruct the audience as to what the protagonist is feeling, and milking every track for emotional cues just makes me sad. I need a drink.

[Dohol]

Beginning to look like a one-man thread

hope you keep the posts here coming, though, I enjoy them...

amen to that..

[Lao Tsu Ben]

Everything Must Go (Rush, 2010)

I'm vainly trying to think of one thing in this movie I liked. From Will Ferrell's sad sack Bill Murray acting school performance, to Rebecca Hall's cute lonely housewife nextdoor with a sympathetic ear, to the eager-to-please chubby black kid sidekick, this movie just drowns in cliches. Taking stock and letting go, I get it. Divorced from the movie, the soundtrack isnt bad I suppose, but using the lyrics to instruct the audience as to what the protagonist is feeling, and milking every track for emotional cues just makes me sad. I need a drink.

Thanks for the tip. In fact I watched it without paying much attention to it and it seemed nice - and I would go as far as saying that I liked it. There is a particular "vibe" to it- it's flowing.

[Dan Warburton]

Takeshi Kitano, Dolls, 2002

My first Kitano! Honest! Very much enjoyed (except the music which was, as they say here, a bit gna gna) - now folks, recommend me other Kitanos please, pronto

[Jesse]

sonatine [ for an *early* work, just revisited last week] and hana-bi/fireworks [my favorite]. his zatoichi remake is high-camp, and mostly fun, save his distressing capitulation to using c.g.i. for the arterial splatter.

[Dan Warburton]

Thanks, O Mighty Crow. Will keep you posted.

[MRS]

Angel Heart (Alan Parker, 1987)

Much better than I'd expected, don't get your hopes up. Memories of a near X rating via Denise Huxtable getting thrown about the room colored my anticipation, but machts nichts and I screened an unabridged cut. Anyone who cares to explain the nose shield, step right up. The stage New Orleans-ness (as in stage Irishness) is only irritable at first but ends up enveloping the whole at the close (soemone actually gets boiled to death in a cauldron of gumbo, not kidding). Evidently the novel stays in New York for the entirety. Brownie McGhee has a terrific little role. Decent 80s noir, lots of old industrial fans, trinkets, morbidly obese policemen, gaudy wallpaper and dirty white suits. I'd be very cautious with any kind of horror tag.

"Ever watch the Mickey Mouse Club? Do you know what today is? Today is Wednesday. It's Anything Can Happen Day."

[surfer]

Anyone who cares to explain the nose shield, step right up.

Allusion to Chinatown.

[Dan Warburton]

Agnès Varda, Jacquot de Nantes, 1991

An affectionate but in no way maudlin reconstruction of events from the childhood of her husband, Jacques Demy ( who died of AIDS ten days after she finished shooting) intercut with extracts of his films. Some background from Agnès here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5DsE-KNUyg

[bryan]

sonatine [ for an *early* work, just revisited last week] and hana-bi/fireworks [my favorite].

Seconded. Those two are my favs.

[bryan]

Somers Town (2009) dir. Shane Meadows
Cloying music in the beginning got us off on the wrong foot. I gave it a shot but couldn't make it through the whole thing. The cloy kept coming back.



Everest (1998)
IMAX doc that seemed perverse to stream onto a small computer screen. It chronicles a 1996 expedition up Mt. Everest, which was during an Everest season notable for a deadly storm that left climbers stranded (some for eternity) high on the mountain. The narration and interviews with the climbers were pretty weak as of course this film would rely heavily on its huge IMAX visual (and of course they don't show you the details, like the ladder bolted to the mountain near the top for all the climbers to easily make it up what would be the hardest actual climbing). You might think that a film about climbing the tallest mountain in the world, one which many have died on, would have some insightful soul-searching as to why anyone would do this at great financial cost and personal risk but no, it's way shallow even when one of the main climber's best friends dies on the mountain. Climbing Everest is so commercial and so weird now (oldest person to climb, youngest, amputee, blind, and so on). Someone get Herzog up there to make the definitive Everest doc... in 3D. This is totally his thematic terrain: brutality of nature, madness, absurdity.

[Dan Warburton]

Wolfgang Petersen, Troy, 2004

Ugh. Third-rate cheap imitation Lord of the Rings, shoddy script, appalling music, uniformly dull performances (Pitt especially bad, and looking for some reason remarkably like Benicio del Toro). Trying to think of a redeeming feature, but can't. Avoid like the plague.

[cheerios]

Hirokazu Koreeda - Still Walking

[Dan Warburton]

Sidney Lumet, The Anderson Tapes, 1971

That's Christopher Walken on the left, btw, in his first significant starring role. I found this all pretty hilarious, but I'm not sure I was supposed to. Then again, I love heist-goes-wrong films (from The Killing to Reservoir Dogs via The Italian Job and, of course Dog Day Afternoon, for which this a kind of dry run), and 70s Big Brother Is Watching And Listening To You surveillance paranoia (this time, however, as the ending makes clear, they were watching and listening to the wrong guy..), there's something rather charmingly inept about both the caper itself (meticulously planned though it was by Connery and Martin Balsam, whose camp queen "antiques dealer" is priceless) and Lumet's direction of it. Those Quincy Jones synth BLEEPS every time there's a flash forward or surveillance device do get a bit tiresome after a while. Still, good fun.

[billygomberg]

Sidney Lumet, The Anderson Tapes, 1971

That's Christopher Walken on the left, btw, in his first significant starring role. I found this all pretty hilarious, but I'm not sure I was supposed to. Then again, I love heist-goes-wrong films (from The Killing to Reservoir Dogs via The Italian Job and, of course Dog Day Afternoon, for which this a kind of dry run), and 70s Big Brother Is Watching And Listening To You surveillance paranoia (this time, however, as the ending makes clear, they were watching and listening to the wrong guy..), there's something rather charmingly inept about both the caper itself (meticulously planned though it was by Connery and Martin Balsam, whose camp queen "antiques dealer" is priceless) and Lumet's direction of it. Those Quincy Jones synth BLEEPS every time there's a flash forward or surveillance device do get a bit tiresome after a while. Still, good fun.

I caught up with this a few years back and, yeah, it's not top-tier Lumet, but Connery (having a good time), brand-new Walken, and as you mention, Martin Balsam's camp-as-camp-can-be performance, Manhattan locations...yeah it's fun.

[leroysghost]

Kiyoshi Kurosawa - Retribution (2006)

At this point I kinda had to...and lo and behold it's the first Kurosawa I've seen where the plot wasn't stupid beyond belief! Gorgeous cinematography by Akiko Ashizawa, sound design is tops, and yes, cardboard boxes are involved (and coincidentally, even ticking clocks and some lovely shadow play on the walls). Yôko Chôsokabe even has a bit part as a nurse.

So yeah, totally relevant but also worth checking out on it's own merits.

[Dan Warburton]

Dario Argento, Suspiria, 1976

Talk about style over substance.. behind all the gorgeous sickly reds and greens, anamorphic lenses and flashy stuff (love the swooping camera in the deserted square with the guide dog), there's little more than a flimsy plot with a hilariously infantile script (well, it was originally written with 12 year olds in mind) hammed up to perfection by veteran actresses Joan Bennett and Alida Valli. Meanwhile Jessica Harper is delightfully hopeless (though she does have the right eyes for the job). Read somewhere that a remake is forthcoming.. with Nathalie Portman? Can't imagine it without the Goblin OST though.

[Dan Warburton]

Jacques Becker, Touchez pas au grisbi, 1953

He may look a bit old to be a ladies' man (ha, they said that about Dominique Strauss Kahn too), but Gabin a de la gueule (guy got class). Even opening a tin of paté, brushing his teeth and folding his pyjamas (great scene - great sounds too). Ventura and Moreau (above) both starting out and looking remarkably young, yet to find their style, and I think Melville and Dassin did the seedy Pigalle cabarets better, but the plot makes sense and the photography's great. If yr French slang isn't up to it, go for the Criterion.

[leroysghost]

Jacques Becker, Touchez pas au grisbi, 1953

my favorite moment is when the fence's secretary/lover (a very fetching Delia Scala) tries to play a kissing game with Gabin and he is having absolutely none of it. he just stares blankly ahead, keeping his eyes on the loot

[Dan Warburton]

Ha, yes - and how he brushes his teeth meticulously before jumping in bed and.. lighting a cigarette!