Recently Watched Films 2010

[Gaendaal]

Monsters (2011, dir: Gareth Edwards)

A strange film that hovers on the border between being hauntingly sparse and blandly empty but I think, think, that I enjoyed it quite a bit. Some commentators have compared it to Stalker (which is pushing it a bit in my opinion but I can see what they mean...) whereas a lot of negative reviews dwell on the fact that it's not really a sci-fi movie. It's about people more than the alien arrivals, they bemoan, but if you want aliens then, well, why not watch Aliens?

I possibly would've liked to see more of the various plot points developed and less of the protagonists staring out over jungle but then I have a sneaking suspicion that, if it had gone that way, it would've gone up its own pew-pew laser firefight arse like District 9 did.

All shot on a shoe-string budget with a handful of crew, apparently, and the CGI knocked up in the director's bedroom which only goes to show how truly dreadful big blockbuster sci-fi films like Transformers actually are.

Nice soundtrack, too.

[Dan Warburton]

Werner Herzog, The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, 2009

I can see now why Herzog was so unhappy about the title, though contractually powerless to change it: I, like many others I suspect, originally expected a remake of Ferrara's heavy Catholic guilt trip, whereas this is nothing of the sort. Instead of wishing Herzog and his cast would die in hell, old Abel ought to get off his ass and make something as good as this. Excellent all round - Cage (and I'm not normally a fan) is terrific, which is just as well as he's in every scene.
HERE BE SPOILERS, MAYBE I love the skewed morality, what the director calls the "bliss of evil" in an interview accompanying the DVD, the dark humour (and the darker it gets the funnier it gets.. the scene with the grandmother and the oxygen pipe had me falling off my chair - very Lynchian too, the same kind of oh-my-God! breathtaking humour as Mr Eddy's "driving lesson" in Lost Highway), and the way Herzog manages to nod to noir without resorting to all-out Mel Brooks-style parody. From Columbo (the dog) via Dirty Harry (well, of course) and (Melville's) Le Cercle Rouge (Yves Montand's DTs.. though his iguanas didn't sing and dance - that reminded me of Lynch too). And reference his own work too, with the dancing chicken music from Stroszek. Great movie all round.

[cheerios]

Finally in the swing of watching movies again, well at least for now. Just finished a Louis Malle film called, "Au Revoir Les Enfants". About a boarding school in France who is hiding Jews during WWII. Nice filim about boys at a boarding school, the classes they take, the tom foolery they get involved in, the friendships they make. The ending seemed like it was done in a hurry, could've had more back story to it, but otherwise good flick.

[bedouin]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUe1tGO6 ... re=related

Akadimia Platonos
decadent, but so real. amazing self-parodying view on racism with no rhetoric, or moral teaching to go with it. totally recommended.

[leroysghost]

W.S. Van Dyke - The Thin Man (1934)

not funny. bad script and mostly bad acting. a dog/hydrant gag and a couple of nice shots (like the one above) from James Wong Howe are the only redeeming qualities. read the book.

guess it's back to the Colley box for holiday jollies.

[P. Wretch]

I've been watching one of the BFI's DVDs of public information films from past decades, many of which - particularly the ones aimed at children - present a world of omnipresent threat and lurking misery. This 70s short, in particular (voiced by Donald Pleasance), is more sinister than the majority of horror films from the period:

[sevenarts]

W.S. Van Dyke - The Thin Man (1934)

not funny. bad script and mostly bad acting. a dog/hydrant gag and a couple of nice shots (like the one above) from James Wong Howe are the only redeeming qualities. read the book.

Wow, I thought everybody could appreciate the banter between Powell and Loy. They're just a blast to watch in this, and make even the subsequent films in the series, none of which are quite as good, at least lightly enjoyable. It's so much booze-soaked fun.

[leroysghost]

I would have appreciated the banter, had it been funny...

I thought it was a chore to watch. Power and Loy aren't bad, but the film is mostly annoying supporting characters and bad jokes (frequently delivered haphazardly).

[yonhosago]

Jean-Luc Godard Le gai savoir (1969)



Jean-Luc Godard JLG/JLG - autoportrait de décembre (1995)

[Dan Warburton]

Bryan Singer, The Usual Suspects, 1995

Having seen it four times now - and wondering whether a fifth will ever be necessary - and figured out what's "real" from what's "made up" by Verbal (though of course it's all made up by McQuarrie and Singer, "just a film".. the closing sequence of Inception plays with the same kind of mise en abyme, yawn, plus ça change etc etc), the only fun I get out of Suspects now is enjoying Spacey's shifty performance, and the real fuckups that found their way into the final movie: the cast cracking up at the identity parade, Baldwin's surprise when the cigarette was really flicked into his face. And falling off the chair laughing at Pete Postlethwaite's ridiculous accent.

[mudd]

saw true grit tonight.

liked it a lot.

m

[DarkAttraktor]

Antichrist was superbad. Failed occult thriller turned biblical camp.

Saddening.

[billygomberg]

Daisies (dir. Vera Chytilová, 1966)





anyone else? surreal in the classic sense, just spazzy and arty.

a couple JLG's coming up...

[yonhosago]

Jean-Luc Godard
Histoire(s) du cinéma: Toutes les histoires (1988)
Histoire(s) du cinéma: Une vague nouvelle (1998)
Histoire(s) du cinéma: La monnaie de l'absolu (1998)

it affected me. very much

[Dan Warburton]

Check out Eloge de l'Amour (2001) too - that was one of my favourite films this year. Anyone seen Socialisme yet? The idea of Alain Badiou and Patti Smith on a Mediterranean cruise is intriguing..

[Gaendaal]

Got my wife the two Almodovar box sets for Christmas so we spent quite a while watching them. Great fun!

I've been watching one of the BFI's DVDs of public information films from past decades, many of which - particularly the ones aimed at children - present a world of omnipresent threat and lurking misery.

Hah hah! Some (adult) friends of mine said that they'd 'walked across the frozen canal' on Boxing Day and I had a total, horrendous flashback to similar public safety films that got shown in school.

'Billy decided to take a short-cut through the electricity sub-station...AND NOW HE'S DEAD!'

[surfer]

The Apartment (Wilder, 1960) - I know lots of people love this movie, but I found it rather dull and predictable. Though Jack Lemmon is quite good as the corporate sychophant with the heart of gold, both Shirley MacLaine (as a spineless, self-pitying doormat, most of the time) and Fred MacMurray (as a one-dimensional heartless corporate bureaucrat) are very flat. MacLaine's character (unlike, say, Hepburn) imo lacks nuance, vasillating between extreme mopyness and self-confidence. MacMurray's Sheldrake is a total cardboard cutout. Best character in the movie might be Lemmon's neghbor, the doctor next door.

[leroysghost]

The Apartment (Wilder, 1960) - I know lots of people love this movie, but I found it rather dull and predictable.

+1

i hate that movie.

[Dan Warburton]

+2

[sevenarts]

Anyone seen Socialisme yet? The idea of Alain Badiou and Patti Smith on a Mediterranean cruise is intriguing..

I've seen it twice so far (once with Godard's "Navajo" subtitles and once with more complete English ones) and am still struggling to put my thoughts together about it - it's the most confounding, baffling, deliberately over-everyone's-head film Godard has ever made. And I love it, of course.