Recently Watched Films

[Dan Warburton]

Peter Weir, Picnic at Hanging Rock, 1975

This has stood the test of time much better than the Demme (see previous post, end of last page), despite being "very 70s" - all that slowmotion, David Hamilton-y soft focus (filmed through a bridal veil in fact), rather too obvious symbolism (corsets, swans and all those phallic rocks) and Bruce Smeaton's dire mellotron-heavy soundtrack - and it's still intriguing. Rachel Roberts' Victorian schoolmarm widow headmistress with not-so-repressed sadistic / lesbian tendencies is outstanding, and there's a subtle sexual tension simmering throughout. And, of course, there's no clear idea at the end of the movie as to what really happened up there on the rock. Some great lines: "everything begins and ends at the exactly right time and place" has stuck with me ever since I heard it. If you don't know it, check it out.

[leroysghost]

My wife HATES Kurosowa..

haha why? i could maybe understand hating Mifune, but Kurosawa himself?

...the almost complete abandonment of antiquated "vampires and sunlight" device

...and it's replacement by the more recent and considerably more scientifically accurate "they can climb trees like squirrels even when carrying someone piggyback" conceit.

the sunlight thing only really made sense to me in black and white movies. i tolerate it, but i'd just as well have done with it all together. inhuman strength, on the other hand, has no color pallet.

And the Fall song is nowhere near loud enough.

undoubtedly! it's been years, but at the time i liked Brian Cox's Hannibal Lecter in Manhunter much more. it never ceases to amuse me that the serial killer in Lambs now plays the police chief in that folksy OCD cop show Monk (his voice is so distinctive that i can't help but smile every time a see an ad with him in it).

as for Peter Weir, i can't speak for Picnic at Hanging Rock, but i though both The Last Wave and Gallipoli had aged pretty dismally when i saw them.

[Dan Warburton]

it never ceases to amuse me that the serial killer in Lambs now plays the police chief in that folksy OCD cop show Monk (his voice is so distinctive that i can't help buy smile every time a see an ad with him in it).

Well, Hannibal Lecter certainly launched Hopkins into the bigtime, for sure Amazes me that that film won five Oscars, including Best Movie.

as for Peter Weir, i can't speak for Picnic at Hanging Rock.

Check it out if you have the chance, LG - I'd be interested to know what you make of it.

[leroysghost]

it never ceases to amuse me that the serial killer in Lambs now plays the police chief in that folksy OCD cop show Monk (his voice is so distinctive that i can't help but smile every time a see an ad with him in it).

Well, Hannibal Lecter certainly launched Hopkins into the bigtime, for sure Amazes me that that film won five Oscars, including Best Movie.

yeah i never cared much for Hopkins or Silence of the Lambs either, but i was referring to the other serial killer, the lotion in the basket guy.

this is what that actor is doing nowadays, i see ad's for this show constantly on TV:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytRSPBoI ... re=related
you would even have trouble recognizing him if he didn't have exactly the same voice. hearing that voice come from such diametrically opposed characters makes me laugh.

[Dohol]

My wife HATES Kurosowa..

haha why? i could maybe understand hating Mifune, but Kurosawa himself?

You would be surprised...Kurosawa hatred is quite common in Japan. "The nail that sticks out gets hammered down.." Very Japanese..

[walto]

yeah i never cared much for Hopkins or Silence of the Lambs either

I'm with you. He's always been overrated for some reason, and that movie is the purist crapola. That it could even be nominated for a single Academy Award says a lot about the Academy.

[Dohol]

yeah i never cared much for Hopkins or Silence of the Lambs either

I'm with you. He's always been overrated for some reason, and that movie is the purist crapola. That it could even be nominated for a single Academy Award says a lot about the Academy.

It won the Oscar the same year Goodfellas was up for it, right?


Very strange..

[Dan Warburton]

It won the Oscar the same year Goodfellas was up for it, right?

No, Goodfellas was nominated in 1990. It didn't win Best Picture (Costner got that with Dances With Wolves), but Pesci got Best Supporting Actor.



John Schlesinger, Sunday Bloody Sunday, 1971

Any trivia buffs out there know whether this kiss between Peter Finch and Murray Head (yes, him) is the first onscreen kiss between two men? Whatever, the film's portrayal of a menage à trois (the third corner of the triangle is Glenda Jackson, though God knows what she or Finch see in Murray Head) in turn-of-the-70s London (not as swingin' as it was - decadent and scarred, rather..) holds up well. Good camerawork, editing, script, the lot.

[Jesse]

District 9 [Director: Blomkamp]

Fantastic, subversive, extraordinary to view as I (coincidentally) am reading Said and Sacco's accounts of Palestine.

[Dan Warburton]

Matteio Garrone, Gomorra, 2008

Think I might postpone that holiday to Naples. Bleak, squalid, scary, very well done - but not a film you're likely to want to watch again and again, I suspect.

[Chromosome]

Matteio Garrone, Gomorra, 2008

What timing! This film has been on my mind recently because we're showing this at my university tomorrow evening.

Think I might postpone that holiday to Naples. Bleak, squalid, scary, very well done - but not a film you're likely to want to watch again and again, I suspect.

Yeah. I have both excitement and unease at the thought of watching it again.

[leroysghost]

Matteio Garrone, Gomorra, 2008

Think I might postpone that holiday to Naples. Bleak, squalid, scary, very well done - but not a film you're likely to want to watch again and again, I suspect.

i don't know, i thought this one was just okay. there were certain parts (the "stupid macho teenage wannabes" plot line in particular) that were very ham-fisted and undermined the tell-it-like-it-is documentary style of the film for me. it's a well made film, it just didn't seem to be the cure for all those glamorized gangster films that everyone was making it out to be.

District 9 [Director: Blomkamp]

Fantastic, subversive, extraordinary to view as I (coincidentally) am reading Said and Sacco's accounts of Palestine.

i saw this for a second time recently and i still say it's the film of the year, even in light of great films like Thirst and A Serious Man (not to mention solid outings such as In The Loop and Inglourious Basterds).

[Root Doctor]

Payday, directed by Daryl Duke


Casque d'Or, directed by Jacques Becker

[franz bieberkopf]

there were certain parts (the "stupid macho teenage wannabes" plot line in particular) that were very ham-fisted and undermined the tell-it-like-it-is documentary style of the film for me. it's a well made film, it just didn't seem to be the cure for all those glamorized gangster films that everyone was making it out to be.

what about it did you find to be ham-fisted? i saw it over a year ago now, but i don't remember feeling that way.

[leroysghost]

there were certain parts (the "stupid macho teenage wannabes" plot line in particular) that were very ham-fisted and undermined the tell-it-like-it-is documentary style of the film for me. it's a well made film, it just didn't seem to be the cure for all those glamorized gangster films that everyone was making it out to be.

what about it did you find to be ham-fisted? i saw it over a year ago now, but i don't remember feeling that way.

all of the "stupid macho teenage wannabes" plot line and the bit where the little kid betrays his former friend were quite melodramatic, which is fine, but i found them to be very by-the-numbers and more than a little bit out of sync with the film's ultra-realist style. the Scarlett Johansson dress bit might also have been a little much, but i kinda liked that part in spite of myself.

[P. Wretch]

the "stupid macho teenage wannabes" plot line [was] quite melodramatic, which is fine, but i found them to be very by-the-numbers and more than a little bit out of sync with the film's ultra-realist style.

I thought that the film did a pretty good job of emphasising their dopey naivety (and the unexciting-ness thereof), rather than portraying them as romantic young tearaways or innocent victims. Some over on the Criterion Forum complained about the boys' quotation from Scarface as being too obvious an allusion, but surely that is exactly the point: fantasising about Tony Montana (a slightly dated Hollywood fiction) underscores the banality of the situation, not its pathos. Maybe parts of the storyline are tinged with melodrama, but then I suppose real life (particularly where the mafia are involved) can be.

You're right that Gomorra isn't an antidote to more generic gangster pictures - no film could be, because even 'realist' films must make use of the same narrative and visual devices as more artificial ones - but I don't think it sets out to be. Like Franzbiberkopf, it's been a while since I saw the film, but it made my putative top 10 list for 2008, more for the way they shot the locations, and the anti-perfectionist diffuseness of the plot, rather than for the acting performances. Another amusing point is that even most Italians had to watch this with subtitles, most of the dialogue being in Neapolitan dialect.

[leroysghost]

Some over on the Criterion Forum complained about the boys' quotation from Scarface as being too obvious an allusion, but surely that is exactly the point: fantasising about Tony Montana (a slightly dated Hollywood fiction) underscores the banality of the situation, not its pathos.

it's not so much that the allusion is obvious, it's that the entire situation is too obvious. the minute those characters were introduced i knew just what was going to happen to them and just where the film was going as far as they were concerned and to a lesser extent i felt the same way about the plot with the young kids. since the film doesn't allow for much fun with these situations there was very little to keep me engaged with these plot lines that took up such large chunks of the film. this film style was perfect for some of the other parts though (the minutiae of toxic waste management for example). i just wish that they had kept to such journalistic situations instead of delving so much into the more symbolic characters.

for the way they shot the locations, and the anti-perfectionist diffuseness of the plot, rather than for the acting performances.

this i agree with. as i said before i think that it's a well made film.

[Enforcer]

Tremendous. One of the most beautifully shot films ever.



Very highly recommended.

[Dan Warburton]

François Truffaut, Une Belle Fille Comme Moi, 1972

Sassy, sexy and silly - but brilliantly executed. I read on IMDb that this isn't available in the States on DVD- hope that isn't true. Check it out, Bernadette Lafont is sensational

[Dan Warburton]

Jacques Deray, La Piscine, 1969

Delon, Schneider, Ronet and Birkin all on spectacular form - sensual, stylish, understated and tense. Great minimal script, classy camerawork. Delon never better. Probably too slow for today's soundbite textmessaging iPhoning Twit(ter)/scatter generation (nothing much happens until about an hour and a quarter in) but that's fine by me. Interestingly, the English version of the film, The Swimming Pool (not to be confused with François Ozon's 2003 film of the same name!) was shot at the same time (since all the actors were bilingual - well, sort of). Makes for an interesting comparison with the French version because they're not edited exactly the same way. But I only got halfway through the English version last night before fatigue kicked in and I crawled off to bed to dream of whipping Romi Schneider's bare back with a tree branch (oops sorry spoilers heh heh) so I'll return to finish it off later.