Recently Watched Films 2012

[dialectics of shit]

I find that Akerman image beautiful.

As for TGW, I don't have much worthwhile to say--I definitely think its hype compounded my negative reaction, as so often happens. I remember feeling like the dialogue was very stilted/unintentionally funny and the acting, particularly of McGregor, wooden. Afterward I remember being like, "this was a top-ten film of the year?!"

[Dan Warburton]

Ah, shame I couldn't find a better screenshot of the Akerman - there are some gorgeous shots in that film. Thanks for checking back in on Roman's Danish holiday, o shitty one (sigh.. I do wish I knew people's real names at times on this board ). I didn't find the dialogue all that bothersome, bearing in mind the film was adapted from a "railway station" book (maybe we should compare it to things like The Pelican Brief or Day Of The Jackal..). As for McGregor, I take LG's point - if you're drawing up a list of Great Actors, I doubt you're going to put Ewan anywhere in the top 100 (for sheer gormlessness and lack of depth he's done much worse: try Young Adam), but sometimes a middling actor is right for the part - Heston in Touch of Evil, Reeves in Matrix, Harrison Ford in just about anything - and the whole point of Harris's story is that he (the Ghost) was utterly naïve. If not, he wouldn't have followed up on some of the leads in the plot. So, yes, not a great film by any means, but that didn't prevent me enjoying it and appreciating its craft - the sets and cinematography most notably.

[jon abbey]

as for Polanski, I saw Knife In the Water for the first time recently and was very underwhelmed. I should see Repulsion sometime, but I'm beginning to think he's almost as overrated as Brian DePalma was by Pauline Kael.

I would tend to agree. Chinatown is great, but the other films of his that I've seen (including Repulsion) have been a total waste of time.

I even think Chinatown is a little overrated, honestly, it hasn't held up well on repeat viewings for me at all. and Dan, I wrote 'beginning to think'.

and Pauline had her quirks and foibles, but she is still a blast for me to read now, whether or not I care about the film she's talking about.

[leroysghost]

as for Polanski, I saw Knife In the Water for the first time recently and was very underwhelmed. I should see Repulsion sometime, but I'm beginning to think he's almost as overrated as Brian DePalma was by Pauline Kael.

I would tend to agree. Chinatown is great, but the other films of his that I've seen (including Repulsion) have been a total waste of time.

I even think Chinatown is a little overrated, honestly, it hasn't held up well on repeat viewings for me at all. and Dan, I wrote 'beginning to think'.

on rewatch you couldn't be more right. faye dunaway is insufferable, and if i wanted to watch a movie that hinges on a groan worthy racist joke i'd just watch UHF

and Pauline had her quirks and foibles, but she is still a blast for me to read now, whether or not I care about the film she's talking about.

this is my biggest gripe with film criticism, it's all about the writer and often not about the film at all.

[jon abbey]

well, that's pretty much all arts criticism, except for a few exceptions. I know it's become chic to slam Kael recently, but I am still a fan.

also I have her to thank obliquely, because when I was just out of college and thinking I wanted to be a film critic, reading her made me think I could never be as good as her, so I found something else to do (eventually). and I would have been miserable as a film critic, so thanks, Pauline!!!

[Dan Warburton]

I think the first couple of books are terrific, and even if I disagree with some of her legendary body slams (Badlands, Dirty Harry..) there's much to enjoy in the later reviews too. But that pedestal she's been placed on is dangerously high.
On the subject of Chinatown, I must have seen it in total somewhere in the region of 30 times, as I use it with English students (getting a bunch of uptight middle-aged secretaries to explain "your wife closed her legs too quickly" is always a blast), and it's still raising the goose bumps. Certainly won't be watching The Ghost Writer 30 times though.

[Dan Warburton]

Alan J. Pakula, All The President's Men, 1976

[Dan Warburton]

Quentin Tarantino, Reservoir Dogs, 1992

I love scrolling around the IMDb trivia pages for this one.. what if Timothy Carey had been cast as Joe Cabot and not Lawrence Tierney? What if George Clooney had ended up as Mr Blonde and not Michael Madsen? What if Monte Hellman had directed and not QT? What if they'd used Sweet's "Ballroom Blitz" instead of the Stealers Wheel, or Pink Floyd's "Money" instead of "Little Green Bag"? Still haven't found a convincing explanation of the title of the film though.

[grisha]

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Modern Times




Carnage

[Dan Warburton]

Ha, while you were watching Ms Winslet's latest (so, how was it? care to join the Polanski debate?), we were enjoying her heavenly debut --



Peter Jackson, Heavenly Creatures, 1994

[grisha]

i enjoyed it a lot. it's not anything earth shattering, but it's really good, funny, well paced picture. and the acting is great.

as for the debate: i don't know what "overrated" means. never could quite understand it, despite best of efforts. anyway, i've seen seven Polanski's films, five of them quite a while ago. i thought one of them sucked (The Ninth Gate), have conflicting feelings for another (Bitter Moon), two were competent thrillers that i quite enjoyed (Frantic, The Ghost Writer). two i liked (Knife in the Water, Chinatown). based on this, i think he's good, but not great director: it's hard to call him an "auteur", more a "pro", and his films seem to be as good as the script is. i might be wrong, though.

i'm afraid that's all i can contribute.

[Dan Warburton]

it's hard to call him an "auteur", more a "pro", and his films seem to be as good as the script is.

I'll go along with that.

[billygomberg]

it's hard to call him an "auteur", more a "pro", and his films seem to be as good as the script is.

I'll go along with that.

for many reasons I have always had problems with "auteur theory," this is one - well put.

[savantgarde]

All I know is I love The Tenant madly. He's a great director in my book, just on the strength of that work :] Not that Rosemary's Baby is anything to scoff at either.

[cheerios]

The Tenant is great. I wonder if he did that stunt at the end where he jumps from his apartment.

[leroysghost]

i never understood the appeal of The Tenant

[Dan Warburton]

Stop arguing about that and check out this -



Luis Buñuel, The Young One, 1960

Also apparently known as White Trash and Island of Shame, which are probably better titles (don't for goodness sake confuse with the Rik Mayall comedy series). "A jazz musician seeks refuge from a lynch mob on a remote island, where he meets a hostile game warden and the young object of his attentions," sez IMDb. No wonder this bombed spectacularly when it opened in New York in 1960 - in just an hour and a half Buñuel, operating from a safe distance in Mexico, manages to push all the panic buttons that would give Hollywood producers heart attacks, from rape to racism (there are more "niggers" here than in Boyz n The Hood) with animal cruelty (footage of a rabbit being shot, a raccoon loose in a chicken pen and a tarantula being stomped to death) thrown in for good measure. For my money it blows To Kill A Mockingbird out of the sky. Key Meersman, in only one of two appearances she made in film - but what a performance - plays the innocent (sexually maybe, but smart enough to hide money in her dress and tough enough to deal with that spider) 13 year old girl. Traver (Bernie Hamilton, whose only subsequent claim to fame was playing Cap'n Dobey in Starsky and Hutch) is a likeable cat (and it's odd and amusing to hear his hip jazz vernacular in this desert wilderness, like finding Spook from Top Cat in the middle of a jungle), but he's no Sidney Poitier. And Zachary Scott does a terrific job playing Miller, a man we should by rights hate for what he does to the girl (though as racists go he pales into insignificance alongside the truly detestable Jackson - Crahan Denton, who also pops up in Mockingbird, incidentally) but who ends up helping Traver to escape (though goodness knows where he'll end up, with a lynch mob no doubt waiting for him onshore..). Amazingly good film, beautifully shot, terrific script, the lot. Check it out. (Photo btw comes from Jonathan Rosenbaum's article, which describes it - rightly - as a neglected masterpiece http://www.jonathanrosenbaum.com/?p=22909)

[Dan Warburton]

Sigh, I wish they all could be that good. Unfortunately, this definitely wasn't -



Stephen Daldry, The Reader, 2008

That's the second time I've seen Kate Winslet sharing a bath with someone in three days. How she got the Best Actress Oscar for this one though beggars belief (unless they awarded it for make-up - at least at the end of the film she could indeed pass for 60 with matted grey hair in her ratty grey cardigan), as she spends most of her time practising guilty downwards glances à la Streep - but Sophie's Choice this is not. (The word is débandante..) Similarly, Ralph Fiennes looks perpetually wounded and guilty, perhaps for playing Amon Goeth so well last time he tackled the Holocaust. But Schindler's List this is not. Based on a novel by Bernhard Schlink (who, like his protagonist Michael Berg, has a day job as a judge in the Constitutional Court in Heidelberg, and he should stick to that instead of writing schlock like this), it's the preposterous tale of a former SS guard who takes the rap for war crimes simply because she's too ashamed to reveal she can neither read nor write. Nice filming (Roger Deakins), and creditable if not great acting despite a truly lousy script, but director Stephen Daldry does here to the Holocaust what he did to the Miners' Strike in Billy Elliot, taking historical events of major importance and turning them into primetime slush, ably abetted by an incessant cloying soundtrack from Nico Muhly (remind me next time I get a CD of his stuff to use it as a beermat). Ugh. I'll agree with Anthony Lane on this one: "a low-grade musing on atrocity, garnished with erotic titillation.'"

[Gaendaal]

Completely agree, Dan. I couldn't see anything of worth or interest in The Reader.

[Dan Warburton]

Dario Argento, Phenomena, 1985

Everybody's got something to hide except me and my monkey, indeed. Great fun, this, from Pleasence's duff Scottish accent to the squadrons of bees descending on the Richard Wagner Institute (coffee grains, in fact, as special effects whiz Antonio Corridori admits in the bonus documentary - how Italian!) to the pool of festering corpses that Jennifer Connelly falls into, not to mention the deformed killer dwarf. "Walt Disney for adults" is how Corridori describes it all - Scooby Doo, perhaps, as the baddie always ends up being someone you run into quite early on (not giving you any clues, but the formula's the same as in other Argento films). And then there's the intentionally flat, almost emotionless script and totally over-the-top soundtrack, with Iron Maiden and Motörhead this time (talk about verfremdungseffekt), which is so bad it's great. And that chimp, before going apeshit at the end of the film, actually bit part of Jennifer Connelly's finger off during shooting