Recently Watched Films 2017

[Dan Warburton]

Vincente Minnelli, The Pirate, 1948

If like me you enjoy watching Gene Kelly hamming it up and making fun of himself in Singin' in the Rain, you'll love this kitchissime extravaganza - one look at Judy Garland's tartan beret and you know you're in trouble. If you don't like cheese, try something else. But if you do, watch out for Walter Slezak (the Nazi in Hitchcock's Lifeboat) as the baddie

[MRS]

Gus Van Sant, Drugstore Cowboy, 1989

Burroughs steals the show, as you might expect, but even so it's a splendid debut, well cast and well filmed. Love the scene (an accident, thanks IMDb trivia) where Matt Dillon smashes the lamp practising his golf swing.

My favorite in the entire film, as the cops tear up his apartment, emptying cereal boxes, hacking off the mantle with an ax, Tom (Dillon) pleads to Gentry (another splendid turn from Remar) not to smash his Ben Hogan's, Gentry suddenly mellows (cares for Tom almost) and starts lining up his driver on the floor, it's almost out of a Continental Op story:

"Whadda ya' hittin' these days?"
"Uhh, I got my handicap down 'round near eight"
"Eight? Bull-shit. Where do ya' play?"
"Mayfield I hit a 75 last time I was out there"
"Ha, I don't play those public courses greaseball Mayfield is for pussies and that's why you have an eight handicap"
"Well how'm I supposed to play my clubs are all broke come on man. . .have a heart"

[Wombatz]

we saw the servant by joseph losey (1963). it's very good. you can either watch it as some sort of english class system allegory, but that's boring. or you can watch it as a french film except it's so english (structurally french, texturally english). (what gave me the hunch that this was probably a nouvelle vague film in flannel, was that the uppers pronounced everything not individually posh but flat and patient like generic english learning vinyl, which must be a tip of the hat to ... darn in which movie did they learn english from a portable record player in the mornings? something from the doinel cycle?)

[Piano Mouth]

I just saw Margaret due your recommendation Walto, it was really good.

[Dan Warburton]

darn in which movie did they learn english from a portable record player in the mornings? something from the doinel cycle?)

I think you're right with Truffaut, but in 1963 he'd only made two of the Doinel films, Les 400 coups and Antoine et Colette, and I just skimmed through the latter again and it isn't the one you mean (Antoine plays LPs and even gets a gig working in a pressing plant but he plays Bach, not Berlitz). Will have to check. Damn! That's the kind of trivia question I love to hate. Keep 'em coming Lutz. That said, what do you mean by "structurally" French? I've never found Losey's work particularly French, even with names like Jeanne Moreau and Michel Legrand on board in Eva. To the best of my knowledge he only worked with French DPs twice - Pierre-William Glenn in the (excellent) Monsieur Klein, and Henri Alekan in the (execrable) La truite - while he had a long working relationship with several stalwarts of the Ealing and Wembley Studio days (Freddie Francis, Douglas Slocombe, Reginald Beck..). If anything I'd say his films look more German - I saw a lot of Lang in the last one I saw (above, somewhere).

Meanwhile, I thoroughly enjoyed this yesterday afternoon:





Corrado Farina, Hanno Cambiato Faccia "They Have Changed Their Face", 1971

Here's the blurb from Amazon (spoiler alert): "A fog shrouded countryside, swinging sixties outfits, counterculture attitudes and creepy crypts. These are the elements of ‘They’ve Changed Faces’, a novel vampire film that conflates the old myths of vampirism with the policies of capitalism and comes up with a new meaning for the term ‘bloodsucker’! Alberto Valle (Giuliano Disperati) works for Avia Motors. He is informed one day that he has an appointment to meet with the company’s owner, Giovanni Nosferatu (Adolfo Celi), at his villa in the mountains. Arriving there, he finds it to be it is a strange place, very cold and without the normal woodland sounds of animals. Meeting Noseferatu, he’s quickly offered the job of CEO of Avia Motors. But a bit of investigating soon turns up a nursery full of babies, a file with complete information about his entire life and a tomb for Nosferatu with a birthdate of 1801 and no date of death. But his scariest discovery is yet to come. The ‘Board Of Directors’ meeting which includes members from all walks of society (including the church) with a plan to merchandise LSD to the masses and to rebrand ecologically polluted detergent as Clean Water. Nosferatu is not only a biological vampire, but an industrial one as well. By controlling production, supermarkets, infrastructure, newspapers, the police and the clergy, he sucks the life blood of society in a very chilling manner."
And there's more info here: http://www.denofgeek.com/us/movies/corr ... their-face

[Wombatz]

what do you mean by "structurally" French? I've never found Losey's work particularly French

another scene that appeared french at the core to me was when bogarde picked up his girlfriend from the station and they were goofing around. the way the whole thing escalates, subversiveness for the sake of itself (while the balance of power between the protagonists is taken seriously, the story itself hardly is). also the subversive element that invades the home, translated from the french bourgeoisie to english upper-class, like a tip of the hat to (later) films by chabrol ... i don't really believe any details here were done in homage, it's more like the nouvelle vague gave losey permission to tell a story that kind of way (maybe unbeknownst to him ).

[Antoine]

Koolhaas Houselife, Ila Bêka & Louise Lemoine (2008)
Funny one
+ http://www.living-architectures.com/Koo ... selife.php

[Piano Mouth]

The Last Patrol (John Ford 1934)



This one was fun but not as great as his other films, like Stagecoach and another one I can't remember about sailors and it had John Wayne in it. I think Thomas Mitchell was in that one as well, I kinda have a thing for him now can't wait to watch him in Gone with the Wind


Mr. Smith Goes to Washington



Not a big fan of Frank Capra after seeing Lost Horizon but this one was pretty good. It's impressive how they had access to the Congress Building for so long. I didn't know the 30s were so great for Hollywood.

[Wombatz]

as these things go, lost horizon is my favorite capra (and jimmy stewart acting the good american is on a level with adorable puppy photos (as proven by your choice of a still!))

[Piano Mouth]

I gots the skills to pick the stills

[walto]

as these things go, lost horizon is my favorite capra (and jimmy stewart acting the good american is on a level with adorable puppy photos (as proven by your choice of a still!))

Mine is Bitter Tea of General Yen--with Meet John Doe a close second.

[Wombatz]

Meet John Doe a close second ...

this one was also so damn forthrightly american, i seem to remember ... makes it difficult for me. my second favorite would be it happened one night, that is good clean fun.

[Piano Mouth]

Rewatching lost horizon almost finished but really like it the 2nd time around

Sent from my SM-J100VPP using Tapatalk

[Dan Warburton]

Marcel Hanoun, L'été, 1968

Slogans daubed on the wall, pretty young things spending the summer reading Kleist under apple trees in the Normandy countryside, 1968 quoi. First (chronologically) episode of Hanoun's Seasons tetralogy, and I'm looking forward to the other three http://www.culturopoing.com/cinema/marc ... s/20160414

[Dan Warburton]

Andrea Arnold, American Honey, 2016

Though it's extremely well made, and I find much to agree with here https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/o ... rk-kermode
I must admit that, with each passing year, I have less and less desire to return to the America Arnold shows here, or engage with the kind of people she's chosen to portray. Not as wacky and dysfunctional as the town in Korine's Gummo, or as glitzy as Spring Breakers, or as downright depressing as the Louisiana Minervini reveals in The Other Side, this is still a far cry from the other famous road movies it's been compared to. You won't find any of these kids reading Kleist. But then again, who needs literature when you've got hip hop? Make America great again, indeed.

[Dan Warburton]

Lech Majewski, Młyn i krzyż ("The Mill and the Cross"), 2011

A very fine, delicate film - and a fine review by Roger to which I have little to add http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-m ... cross-2011

[Dan Warburton]

Yasujirō Ozu, Late Spring, 1949



What an awesome film - the shot of the apple peel falling to the ground, followed by waves breaking on the coast is utterly shattering. Masterpiece.
http://www.asharperfocus.com/LateSpring.html

[Dan Warburton]

Claude Chabrol, Le scandale ("The Champagne Murders"), 1967

Chabrol was just on the cusp of his "great period", but he wasn't there yet. Maurice Ronet, once more a troubled alcoholic (hm, typecast since Malle's Le feu follet), is drawn into a web of deceit and confusion by Anthony Perkins and - no, I won't spoil it for you (but my wife spotted Stéphane Audran's disguise instantly) - but Gegauff's bored / boring and thoroughly detestable rich kids get on the nerves easily. Quite apart from how well the film is put together - and I have a few "issues" with that too - I don't care for any of these fuckers and so I don't feel in any way concerned about the misfortunes that befall them. Unless you're a Chabrol completist you can probably give this a miss.

[Dan Warburton]

Werner Herzog, Bells from the Deep, 1993

The boundary line between fact and fiction in a Herzog documentary is often as thin as the ice these characters are trying to peer through to catch a glimpse of the sunken city, but the local Jesus Christ is not made up, because my pal Jean-Luc Brechat, who was also DP on the sensational Goldman Sachs documentary https://vimeo.com/49904381 actually went there to film him for French TV. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vissarion Hallucinant, as we say round these parts

[Dan Warburton]

Jean Renoir, Le crime de Monsieur Lange, 1936

There was a DVD in 2008 but the sound still needs cleaning up - the English hardsubs on the version over at KG are excellent though, and the film is so damn good you can put up with a bit of aural fuzz. Excellent essay here (in English too ) http://www.filmsufi.com/2012/10/le-crim ... enoir.html