Recently Watched Films 2013

[Mo Noyz]

Eh, Williams sampled Stravinsky. I'm still amazed that he gets so much credit for that theme.

Either way, I've always been a huge Jaws fan. Scared the living fuck out of me when I was a kid. Recently purchased it n Blu-ray and watched it with my 12 y.o. son. He jumped several times. Pretty humorous.

The original, if not accidental, summer blockbuster. And one that affected the American psyche more than any other. As experienced by those of us who lived by, and went to the beach on a regular basis.

And perhaps the finest example of what you cannot see being far more frightening than what you can.

[Mo Noyz]

Oh, and the book was a thousand times better.

[Dan Warburton]

Ray Müller, Die Macht der Bilder ("The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl"), 1993

Fascinating documentary, if a little on the long side - sure, it's certainly impressive to see 90-year old Leni in her scuba gear stroking a giant stingray, but that's not exactly what we came for - it would have been nice to have had more detail on how she managed to propel herself into instant stardom from being a cabaret dancer, and not a very good one at that. Müller's juxtaposition of Goebbels' diary entries mentioning soirées passed in her company with her vehement denials and oft-repeated claim that he hated her is a subtle indication of what the director might be thinking himself; not so subtle is his crosscutting between Leni's "I had no idea of what was going on" with images of concentration camp corpses being shunted into a mass grave. There are numerous often amusing rows between the director and his formidable subject, as she refuses to speak her lines while walking in the old UFA studios ("I can't speak and walk at the same time, I am not a ghost!"), or lectures him on where she should be standing to show off the Alps behind her - one gets the impression that if he'd really tried to push her into a corner she'd have chewed him up. Instead she manages to trip herself up nicely once or twice ("Triumph of The Will isn't propaganda because there's no spoken commentary!" - as if one were necessary). The mastery of her framing and editing in her films is truly breathtaking - Riefenstahl's right up there with Eistenstein, Pudovkin, Hitchcock, you name them - but her claims for her work to be appreciated as pure art are hard to take, and always will be. She signed a Faustian pact and paid the price.
Background reading on Riefenstahl's photographs of the Nuba in Sudan: http://www.history.ucsb.edu/faculty/mar ... cism75.htm

[Dan Warburton]

Hal Hartley, Surviving Desire, 1993

I see some French blogger describes Hartley as "le Godard grunge", but (although I think I know what s/he's getting at) there's nothing grungy about this 53-minute moyen métrage. The timing, the framing, the editing are immaculate. I imagine for some folks the dialogue is something of an acquired taste, like Rohmer's. Happy to say I love 'em both.

[Lao Tsu Ben]

Ray Müller, Die Macht der Bilder ("The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl"), 1993

I read her autobiography a few years ago, but I don't remember much about it. She said something about rejecting Goebbels' sexual advances and having somehow to cope with the consequences. She also says that her treatment of the Olympic Games was quite objective, and not the propaganda stuff they were made to be. I've not seen Olympia but I can read on wikipedia that "in the hallucinatory documentary Triumph of the Will... [she] painted Adolf Hitler as a Wagnerian deity... But that was in 1934–35. In [Olympia] Riefenstahl gave the same heroic treatment to Jesse Owens..."- actually a quote from Time magazine. " I wonder how it compares to Maximilan Shell's documentary about Marlene Dietrich (in which you don't see her, but only hear her voice, since she didn't want to be filmed), which is quite amusing and interesting. See it if you can.

Hal Hartley, Surviving Desire, 1993

I see some French blogger describes Hartley as "le Godard grunge", but (although I think I know what s/he's getting at) there's nothing grungy about this 53-minute moyen métrage. The timing, the framing, the editing are immaculate. I imagine for some folks the dialogue is something of an acquired taste, like Rohmer's. Happy to say I love 'em both.

"Godard grunge" seems unfortunate indeed. Beautiful movie, I remember thinking, there should more movies of this length.

And yesterday I watched this:



Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, Paul Mazursky, 1969

A moral tale about sexual frustration and marital relationships set in the sexually-liberated LA of the end of the sixties; it's bleak and funny in a way few films are. Bob and Carol are a couple of hopeless would-be hippies that a group therapy provides with some truth about openness, a truth which proves very disturbing to their dear friends played by Elliott Gould and Dyan Cannon, who, as Kael puts it, "looks a bit like Lauren Bacall and a bit like Jeanne Moreau, but the wrong bits". Robert Gulp, on the oth,er hand, who plays Bob looks so much like Hugh Grant, it's disturbing, but Hugh Grant, for instance, would have made the character look sympathetic, while he's here an astonishing jerk- so contented with himself it hurts when you laugh at him. I had seen Moscow On The Hudson, but as it was a Robin Williams vehicle (it's worth noticing that much of the dialogue is in Russian, nonetheless), I had to see some vintage Mazursky to have an idea of what he is about. The script, which he wrote with Larry Tucker, is brilliant, and foreshadows the comedies of Albert Brooks and of Judd Apatow more recently, while displaying uncanny and interesting links with Rohmer. And Tarantino. Kael says that the picture is "designed as a series of sketches", that was also the case of Inglorious Basterds, and, to a lesser extent, of Django Unchained. In both cases, the characters are constantly negotiating their way in or out a scene, which may take a long time, it drags, but that's not meant in a bad way. There are also priceless moments of awkwardness, which are shown in a off-handed, casual manner, such as when Natalie Wood, who walks in panties through most of the movie, is trying to speak to her maid in Spanish. It ends with Jackie DeShannon's interpretation of "What The World Needs Now", which, as beautiful as it is has never sounded gloomier.

[Dan Warburton]

Nice write-up Ben. That's been on my "to watch soon" list since I read the same PK review. I should have read her brief take on this



George Cukor, A Star Is Born, 1954

before sitting through what she describes as "a terrible, fascinating orgy of self-pity and cynicism and mythmaking". Nothing more cringeworthy than Hollywood patting itself on the back while pretending to slap itself on the wrists, especially when it steals so many ideas from Singin' In The Rain, one of the few exercises in Hollywood navel-gazing that has stood the test of time. Judy Garland, 32 at the time but "not looking a day over 45" as one online wag puts it, plays the aspiring (perspiring more like) star and James Mason her whisky-soaked has-been husband, and both do a good job, though Garland's campy, teary excesses aren't exactly my bag - and that's just about it. Every other character in the movie is either ineffectual (the producer) or caricatural (the detestable press attaché), the big production numbers somehow just don't take off, and after two and a half hours watching Judy and James hamming it up in those blatantly artificial sets overloaded with props and gadgets you feel like wandering into the sea to drown yourself too. Haven't seen the original 1937 version with Janet Gaynor, haven't seen and won't see the 1976 remake with Streisand and Kristofferson, and sincerely hope a projected fourth version directed by Clint Eastwood never comes to pass.

[hnismokehash]

David O. Russell, Silver Linings Playbook

Watched a for the most par crappy online stream of this movie, which might have effected how I felt about it, but I don't think it deserved whatever Oscar nods it got. The first half of the movie I liked a lot; everybody is pretty messed up, but the heaviness of their problems is offset with humor. I've never really liked Bradley Cooper, but he plays a crazy person pretty well here which jibs up well with Jennifer Lawrence's craziness. Robert De Niro is Robert De Niro, but I liked how his own craziness is dealt with. Unfortunately, the movie fails in a couple of places. First and most importantly, Chris Tucker is severely underused. He is one of my favorite actors and I probably wouldn't have been interested in seeing this movie if he (and Jennifer Lawrence) weren't in it. Secondly, in the last half of the movie, the implausibility of the situations just passes a point where I couldn't suspend disbelief. This is a problem from the start (implausibility, not suspension of belief), but it lost me in the second half. This was also when the streaming got especially bad, and I had to watch the important scenes at the end missing every other frame or so. I was enough involved in the movie that I needed to know what would happen, but I wasn't terribly satisfied with what did. So maybe I lost some of its essence, but I doubt it. Good acting, though, which can usually hold me, but, unfortunately, didn't in this case.

On a separate note, found this interview (http://www.vulture.com/2013/01/steven-s ... ation.html) with Steve Soderbergh that I thought people might be interested in.

[Mo Noyz]

I've heard from multiple sources that the last 20 minutes of that movie is just awful.

[Lao Tsu Ben]

I've heard from multiple sources that the last 20 minutes of that movie is just awful.

Your sources should have told you that those last 20 minutes are a traditional way to end a romantic comedy. It's their right not to like it, but I loved that film as much as I loved Three Kings and I Heart Huckabees, and David O. Russell keeps surprising me. Armond's review is unusually good (in both senses), and articulate (people who reads this thread know that I like Armond White), so I'll say no more. Damn, that's why I don't do streaming. How could you watch a film in those conditions?

[Antoine]

Didn't know where to paste this, so I choose this frequently visited topic.
A list of recommendations in the field of architecture documentaries: http://www.archdaily.com/324255/the-30- ... h-in-2013/

[hnismokehash]

Damn, that's why I don't do streaming. How could you watch a film in those conditions?

It was really only that bad for those last infamous 20 minutes, or so. I was in too far and had already switched streams multiple times. The first half of the movie was a surprising clear and smooth stream, but that crapped out on me and I had to go to a lesser one, and then finally to another lesser one, with a big Weinstein Brothers watermark.

It did end the way a romantic comedy ends, and I didn't like it, but mostly because it seemed incongruous with the elements of the movie I enjoyed of what came before. A lot of the character's issues didn't seem to resolve themselves so much as to just disappear. I donno; I liked the movie, and I would recommend it, but it was flawed, like everything else.

[leroysghost]

Silver Linings Playbook has a cookie cutter romcom structure. the ending couldn't be more congruous with the rest of the film. i'm as far from a David O. Russell fan as you can get, but i could see what they were going for. gently bending the genre to a deeply depressing place.

[hnismokehash]

the ending couldn't be more congruous with the rest of the film.

Maybe so, but like you said, Russell bent

the genre to a deeply depressing place

and that facet of the movie, the deep pain that it seemed every character had within them, seemed to disappear at the end, and that was the facet I connected with most as I was getting into the movie. It was what tied me to the characters' fates, and made me not want to turn it off even when the stream became nearly useless. I liked that Russell was never to heavy with the sadness, and didn't let it define the characters, but I didn't feel the ending provided a plausible reason for its disappearance.

[Mo Noyz]

I've heard from multiple sources that the last 20 minutes of that movie is just awful.

Your sources should have told you that those last 20 minutes are a traditional way to end a romantic comedy. It's their right not to like it, but I loved that film as much as I loved Three Kings and I Heart Huckabees, and David O. Russell keeps surprising me. Armond's review is unusually good (in both senses), and articulate (people who reads this thread know that I like Armond White), so I'll say no more. Damn, that's why I don't do streaming. How could you watch a film in those conditions?

Fair enough, my friend.

I may check it out when it comes to video.

[Dan Warburton]

John Boorman, Point Blank, 1967

Enough material for an essay which I have no time to write, so I'll just point you to someone else's instead http://sensesofcinema.com/2007/cteq/point-blank/ Love this film, so many wonderful and inexplicable moments - who is Walker? who is Yost? how did Walker get off Alcatraz? was he ever there to start with (the final scene plays out at Fort Point)? why was Alcatraz used a) as a place for the mysterious gambling drop (and what is being exchanged?) and b) as a location for the film itself? how did the Overture from Die Meistersinger end up on network TV? Why do I like just about every film I've ever seen that was shot in the Los Angeles River and its storm drains (Chinatown, Repo Man, To Live and Die in L.A., T2..)?

[Dan Warburton]

Jean-Luc Godard, King Lear, 1987

I'd been shying away from this for a long time, put off no doubt by the anecdotes that surround its inception - a contract between JLG and Israeli producer Menahem Golan hastily drawn up on a napkin in a restaurant during the 1985 Cannes Film Festival - plus my own stuffy fear that Godard was going massacre my beloved Shakespeare (ha, as if Shakespeare belonged to me, personally - sorry, I guess it's a peculiarly English trait: there's almost fuck all to be proud of anymore in the UK so I cling to the Bard with quiet desperation). But my fears were unfounded. Godard sticks closer to the text than you might think, and understands it far better than any of the critics who panned his film, with a few notable exceptions - if you have time do check out these fine write-ups http://www.jonathanrosenbaum.com/?p=7695 http://www.openlettersmonthly.com/a-que ... d-a-death/- and his use of sound is quite extraordinary, layering several levels of spoken text (Burgess Meredith's reading is grandiose) and chopped and screwed (yes) Bach and Mozart. Godard's own appearance as the potty Professor Pluggy - dig those jackplug dreadlocks - is further designed to annoy (everybody, from Shakespeare purists to film critics to those poor unsuspecting sods who went along to see this because Molly Ringwald and/or Woody Allen were in it). He certainly managed to piss off Great Writer Norman Mailer, who only stayed around long enough to suggest a Mafia reading of the play - Don Learo, indeed - before leaving in a huff saying something about a Godard script implying incest between him and his daughter Kate. But "words are one thing, and reality, sweet reality, is another thing, and between them is no thing."

[Dan Warburton]

Yasujirō Ozu, Tôkyô monogatari ("Tokyo Story"), 1953

You don't need me to tell you how good this is.

[Dan Warburton]

David Cronenberg, Videodrome, 1983

This has aged remarkably well, compared to, say, De Palma's Blow Out made just a couple of years earlier. That looks back to the 70s and 60s, The Conversation and Chappaquidick, while Videodrome points its fleshy gun towards the director's later work (but this is so much better than eXistenZ) and the world of today when people spend more time looking at screens than they do at each other. Woods is terrific throughout, his acne-scarred shifty smirk perfect for the sleazeball he's playing, but the smaller roles are also well cast and played (Peter Dvorsky as Harlan and Leslie Carlson as Convex, and of course Debbie Harry purring into her radio mic and stubbing out cigarettes on her breast - yeowch). Good soundtrack and great special effects. Nice one.

[dave quam]

Man, I watched Videodrome for the first time a few months ago, and had to watch it AGAIN the next night. Can't believe I had never seen it before. Woods rules.

Some stuff I've seen lately:

No One Will Play With Me (Werner Herzog 1976)

Cute short film from Herzog. Nothing special, but it's pretty cute, especially the guinea pigs at the end.

Zero Dark Thirty (2013)

Plenty of problems with this one, but entertaining I guess. Jessica Chastain was annoying.

Crips: Strapped n Strong

A documentary about surinamese crip gang members in the Netherlands.

Coconut Revolution (2001)

A documentary about the Bougainville revolt. Loved this one, though "Our Island, Our Fight" from 1998 was the first documentary on this subject, and seems like it's probably going to be better. Still trying to see it someplace.

Rising Son: The Legend of Christian Hosoi

This one ruled, the best skateboarding documentary I've seen.

[Dan Warburton]

Maya Deren, At Land, 1944

I had a quarter of an hour to spare this morning, and what better way to spend it than watch Maya climb up a tree trunk on a beach and end up crawling along a dinner table to swipe a pawn from a chessboard. A comment over at IMDb rather astutely makes the connection with the idea of the totem in Inception) - layers of a dream, indeed. Love it when John Cage suddenly shows up walking by her side too.