Recently Watched Films 2010

[Dan Warburton]

I"ve yet to see Safe, but I'm a huge fan of Far From Heaven. It's a film I've spent a lot of time with lately, as I use it with my high level English students, and it's been a blast watching each scene over and over again. Every single shot is beautifully crafted. Great lighting, camera movements, Elmer Bernstein soundtrack, yumyum, and fine acting all round. Of course, if you don't dig Sirkian melodrama you probably won't like it. Now I'm looking forward to the publication of my pal John Gill's book on the film http://www.palgrave.com/products/title.aspx?pid=335470

[Dan Warburton]

Dennis Hopper, Colors, 1988

[surfer]

A Christmas Tale (Desplechin, 2008) - Its like a ____________ version of ___________. (French, The Royal Tennenbaums).
Some odd transitions and musical accompaniments and forced exposition aside, not too bad.

[billygomberg]

Berlin Alexanderplatz (Fassbinder, 1980)



finally finished this tonight. can't really think of what to write on it at the moment...

[jon abbey]

can't really think of what to write on it at the moment...

what did you think of the epilogue? we're due to watch this again sometime soon.

[leroysghost]

I'm a huge fan of Far From Heaven.

i've just seen this and now i am too (and i've never even seen a Sirk film). beautiful lighting, but i couldn't help thinking what it would have looked like with period color. i wonder if that option was ever explored.

in any case, it got my hopes up for Mildred Pierce (Evan Rachel Wood is awful but that's kind of perfect for Veda).

[Dan Warburton]

François Truffaut, L'Enfant Sauvage, 1970

Based on the true story of the Wild Boy of Aveyron http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_of_Aveyron Truffaut himself plays Dr. "Citoyen" Itard (the fact that this took place in 1798, shortly after the Revolution, is significant). His high speed deadpan narration - which I've always found smacks of Brecht as well as Hitchcock, as in "don't get emotionally involved it's only a movie" - and attempts to teach the child basic language skills, and with them, a sense of morality, are both amusing and touching. To watch in a triple bill with Herzog's Jeder für sich und Gott gegen alle and Lynch's Elephant Man.

[billygomberg]

can't really think of what to write on it at the moment...

what did you think of the epilogue? we're due to watch this again sometime soon.

for as exhilarating and inspired and just Fassbinder-crazy as the epilogue was, both Anne + I were a bit let down by it. The rest of the film is just so detailed, while I'm happy to receive such a beautiful descent into Franz's real madness, there was little resolution to the story. Which I don't always think is necessary for a film, but we wanted a little more for Franz. without being too spoilery, I get that the narrative was about his release into a society that eventually simply drives him to a breaking point, but so many relationships (all of them, really) were just dropped. but the whole film is pretty damn magnificient, and worth all the time it takes.

[Dan Warburton]

Alfonso Cuarón, Y tu mamá también, 2001

[Mo Noyz]

A truly outstanding flick.

[Dan Warburton]

Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Angst von der Angst, 1975

Hell, I'd reach for the cognac, valium and Leonard Cohen LPs if I had to spend my life married to Kurt (and wait until you meet his mother and sister upstairs, not to mention the sinister stalker in the street below, Herr Bauer). Great stuff - as usual an informative write up from Jim here http://jclarkmedia.com/fassbinder/fassbinder25.html

[billygomberg]

Black Swan (Darren Aronofsky, 2010)



just back from this. awesome, psychotic and really fun (actually - subtle campy moments really kept the whole thing pretty pitch perfect).

[Wombatz]

All that Heaven Allows by Douglas Sirk. Glorious opening credits, I’d be happy to have seen the film for those alone. Then squares, lots of nagging-aggressive squares, do they really exist in real life? I’m usually bored by that tradition vs individuality juxtaposition that governs so many 1950s films, Japanese films, wherever, and here I’d also be bored if the whole thing were a little less perfectly crafted. The smoothness with which we glide from one frame to the next alone. The acting is also superb, I thought Rock Hudson was the guy with Doris Day. Social envy sets in because nature boy who cares for nothing in life seems to earn enough to feed a dozen families like mine from unloading a few Christmas trees. The film keeps its balance for most of the time, because all is so pointless (quote our heroine), until the cop-out ending, where Jesus for sentimental reasons makes Rock fall down a snowslope and nearly die, so Jane can rush to his bedside. But then that’s Christmas.

[surfer]

I Am Love (Guadagnino, 2009) - Disappointing. Not terrible, but I was expecting a bit more. The real star here is MILANO, written in that nice modern sans serif font that probably cost a hundred dollars online. I felt like I was flipping through the big soft glossy pages of a Architectural Digest, Editioni Milano. Swinton is good, the other actors are fine. The "steamy" scenes between her and Antonio are so laughably cliche with their soft focus rolling in the grass, rediscovering Eden, bumblebees banging the hell out of those flower's carpels, the sensuality of the food they feed each other, the waterfalls. Its just too much. The climactic death is also more than a bit silly and operatic (in a bad way). The odd choice of John Adams to score the movie actually works imo, it gives it a Italian Futurist feel, all brassy kinetic energy and constant angular (odd time signatures floating in and out) momentum.

[jon abbey]

we've been watching a ton of films since finally getting HDTV a couple of weeks ago...



Hour Of The Wolf, Ingmar Bergman, 1968.

dunno how I never saw this before, if only because it was obviously so influential on David Lynch (Twin Peaks, Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive). Bergman was just such a master at atmosphere, I wonder if anyone else has made as many great films as him (preemptive answer, I'm not much of a fan of Hitchcock or Kurosawa).

[leroysghost]

Kurosawa is far more inconsistent than folks give him credit for.

i've only seen about a dozen Bergman so i can't definitively say, but my go to shortlist would tend to be Herzog, Huillet, Hawks, and (yes) Hitchcock (for alliterations sake i'd also add Hooper although they admittedly have fewer films). Imamura and Buñuel might actually come out on top after an actual inventory tho

[sevenarts]

dunno how I never saw this before, if only because it was obviously so influential on David Lynch (Twin Peaks, Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive). Bergman was just such a master at atmosphere, I wonder if anyone else has made as many great films as him (preemptive answer, I'm not much of a fan of Hitchcock or Kurosawa).

The Silence and The Rite are also rather Lynchian, and of course Persona is all over Muholland Dr; I think Bergman's definitely a spiritual predecessor to much of Lynch. Bergman's great, it's a shame that his rep seems to have fallen a bit with a lot of cinephiles in recent years.

[surfer]

Bergman's great, it's a shame that his rep seems to have fallen a bit with a lot of cinephiles in recent years.

Yeah, spearheaded by Rosenbaum who kicked up a small firestorm when he published this essay: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/04/opini ... nbaum.html ("Scenes From An Overrated Career") a few days after Bergman's death in 2007. I disagree with a large part of that essay, though he makes a few good points, and Ebert actually published a response to it, which I agree with just about wholeheartedly: http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbc ... E/70808002 ("Defending Ingmar Bergman").

Hour of the Wolf is a great movie, but Virgin Spring might be my favorite.

[sevenarts]

Yeah, I remember that Rosenbaum piece, and though I usually like him, I thought that was really silly and ill-timed. Especially since one of his points seems to be that Bergman is losing relevance because he's not taught in film courses as much anymore or isn't screened as often. Kind of odd for a critic who generally champions such obscure films to be making the argument that popularity is important to greatness.

[jon abbey]

oh, right, I'd forgotten about those. I love Rosenbaum and I'm all for attacking the status quo (although maybe not just after someone dies), but I think he's pretty off base there.