Recently Watched Films 2013

[Dan Warburton]

Takashi Miike, Chakushin ari, "One Missed Call", 2003

This is more like it - haven't yet explored Japanese horror films in any detail, so unable to comment on comparisons I've read here and there to others of the same genre, but thoroughly enjoyed this one, especially the confusing ending. Miike knows just which buttons to push to get the adrenalin flowing, both visual and aural (that teddy bear ringtone.. gaaah!). Love the TV show with the guru shaman backstage trying to persuade the stagehands to buy shares in his "product"

[jon abbey]

Audition is the Miike I'd recommend most, Dan, not that I've seen more than a handful.

[Dan Warburton]

Yep, that's in the queue - with about 150 others! Thanks Jon, remember your comments on that one from the Miike thread a while back

[Dan Warburton]

Jacques Tourneur, I Walked with a Zombie, 1943

Another classy Lewton / Tourneur collaboration with not an ounce of fat on it - 69 minutes and that's yer lot mate - with a Curt (brother of Robert) Siodmak script loosely based on Jane Eyre (via Rebecca) and solid performances from Frances Dee, James Ellison and Tom Conway. Rather wooden, Tom, but that's the script, I reckon (his accent is hilarious - I'm sure [pron. shore] Brian Sewell would approve - and if he reminds you of George Sanders, well he should: he was his older brother). Terrific lighting - almost too good, in fact: rather shows up those matte backdrops - especially in the sugar cane fields. Check out Carrefour: the zombie, not the bloody supermarket

[Lao Tsu Ben]

Kontroll, Nimród Antal, 2003

A movie about ticket inspectors in the Budapest metro, which, says a metro official at the beginning, has nothing to do with reality but is intended as an allegory about good and evil. Sounds rather heavy, doesn't it? But Nimród Antal (what a name), who went to make the rather good, if unambitious, thriller, Vacancy , and the dreadful Predators (benevolently and unsurprisingly produced by Robert Rodriguez) does a pretty good job for his first film. I went once to Budapest, and there were guys built like wrestlers (or "armoires à glace") at the entrance of every station in lieu of the turnstile that is usually found, as in Paris where it is commonly jumped by people who want to spare a little money, so I assume it's difficult not to pay for your ticket (except at the airport, where there is nobody, supposedly, some guidebooks say, so that you have to pay a fine later, but perhaps it's something that I've just made up). Neat framing, plus the score that sounds a little like Mark Isham at times (though it is hardly an argument, but still does something for a lukewarm Alan Rudolph fan like myself) make for a worthy experience, somewhat diminished by the sometimes clumsy editing. Antal probably had Stanley Kubrick in mind: it's not too subtle (that girl in the bear suit, that's cheap poetry for you) but I was agreeably surprised.

[Seth]

Audition is the Miike I'd recommend most, Dan, not that I've seen more than a handful.

I adore Zebraman, but don't take that as a recommendation. It's exactly the kind of stupid shit I'm into, your mileage may vary.

[Dan Warburton]

John Waters, Serial Mom, 1994

Of course, Kathleen Turner steals the show ("the only 'serial' I know about is Rice Krispies!") but nobody says FUCK YOU as venomously as Mink Stole Hands up anyone who knows why you're not supposed to wear white after Labor Day (I don't). Great sick fun.

[Dan Warburton]

Sam Peckinpah, Cross Of Iron, 1977

Sam was downing four bottles of spirits a day while shooting this in Yugoslavia (as it used to be called), but presumably sobered up when it came to editing the footage. If he didn't do it, whoever did deserves an iron cross too, as it's mighty impressive. Too many shells going off and people flying through the air for my taste, but that's war (film) for you. Fortunately this one is saved by a fine script by Julius 'Casablanca" Epstein, even if (apparently) they ran out of time / money to shoot the end of it properly. Can't say the ending of the film as it stands, with the freeze frames and the Brecht quotation, does much for me, but it's worth the price of admission for Schell, Coburn (his best performance?) and Mason.

[Dan Warburton]

Sergio Corbucci, Django, 1966

Makes you realise just how much Tarantino has swiped from Corbucci, from the theme song right down to the garish red titles (and we're not just talking Django Unchained only, either.. remember another movie where someone gets their ear hacked off?). Maybe after three or four decades QT's film(s) will acquire the kind of baroque splendour of the original (kinda doubt it, myself, but..). The director described it as a kind of "cold comedy", and it's hard not to smile at the outrageousness of it all, from the bitch fight in the mud to the red outfits (Garibaldi meets the KKK - and Quentin nicked those too) and of course that coffin being dragged about. Also amusing to see how the different dubbed versions and subtitles differ from each other - but then again the words don't matter. It's basically a silent film.

[Dan Warburton]

Georges Franju, Judex, 1963

Terrific. Famous surreal costume ball scene here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HM_hN6uDvk nice Ed Howard write-up here http://seul-le-cinema.blogspot.fr/2009/ ... -1963.html and if your French is up to it, just about everything you ever need to know about the mighty Franju here http://www.cinematheque.fr/zooms/Franju/

[Dan Warburton]

Orson Welles, The Immortal Story, 1968

Shot largely in Welles's own house outside Madrid, with extras from local Chinese restaurants and Hanzi scrolls draped about the place to make it look like Macao, this a touching moyen métrage made for French telly telling the story of rich old grouch (Orson, of course, son) who pays a sailor to impregnate a local girl (supposedly his young wife, but here the daughter of his erstwhile deadly enemy) to carry on the family line. The sailor's called Paul and his bride-for-a-night Virginie (ha, shades of Jacques-Henri Bernardin de Saint-Pierre - but Welles based his script on a tale by Karen Blixen), and they're played by, respectively, Norman Eshley, who looks like he'd be perfect as one of Derek's suntanned centurions in Sebastiane, and Jeanne Moreau, who is, to quote some wag over at IMDb, simultaneously ravished and ravishing. Not a masterpiece by any stretch of the imagination, but not without its points of interest: rare to find Orson shooting in colour, and beautiful close-ups in the love scene. Nice to see it on a big screen too (we went to the Cinémathèque) instead of the home cinema.



Raoul Walsh, High Sierra, 1941

Fascinating cocktail of hardboiled gangster flick and dustbowl melodrama, with Bogart's Mad Dog Earle steering between the two extremes, from nice guy offering to pay for Velma's clubfoot operation out of the kindness of his heart, aww, to tough cop killer beating folks over the head with the butt of his handgun. It's a tricky balancing act, and I'm not sure it always comes off - same can be said of Ida Lupino, who morphs from feisty moll to teary fiancée a little too easily - but it's a fun ride, ending with a great final shootout on the slopes of Mount Whitney and Bogie's stunt double falling 90 feet down the rock face (he wanted to do another take, to which Walsh replied "Forget it, it's good enough for the 25-cent customers"). He should have followed his own advice, though, and shot the dog.

[Dan Warburton]

Philippe Muyl, Cuisine et dépendances, 1992

Unlike Monsieur Bresson, I have no problem with film adaptations of stage plays - Friedkin's Birthday Party, Donner's Caretaker, Resnais's numerous Alan Ayckbourn projects - and found much to laugh at in this light but punchy reworking of Agnès Jaoui and Jean-Pierre Bacri's smash hit comedy. DVD French only, no subtitles - though I see some noble soul has done English subs for it over at KG. Bravo.

[Dan Warburton]

Jean Epstein, Finis terrae, 1929

Kill the music on whatever version you have - if you need a soundtrack, try and find the noisiest "field" recording you have of waves breaking on rocks and stick with that. But if you're looking for car chases, gunfights, gore and guts, this tale of a young Breton with an infected thumb who has to be rescued in thick fog from the wild island of Bannec to be rowed to the almost-as-wild island of Ouessant (Ushant, as they call it in BBC Shipping Forecasts) off the coast of Finisterre (hence the title) isn't for you. I think it's utterly stunning, myself.




Jacques Rivette, Paris s'en va, 1981

You can amuse yourself by figuring out how Rivette's editing corresponds to the jeu de l'oie, the board game that the Ogiers mère et fille may or may not be playing here. It might make more sense though if you watch Le pont du nord first - though to describe the 29-minute Paris s'en va as a trailer / prequel would be misleading.. as in Spectre, Rivette's "remix" of Out1, events are reordered drastically, and there's no hint of the storyline that appears (more or less) in the longer film. Alternatively, you can just enjoy it as a cinéphile's Paris dream, with its numerous references to the many films that have been shot in the French capital. Playing "spot the movie" starts out with a couple of easy ones - the Pont de Bir-Hakeim (Last Tango in Paris) and the Hotel du Nord (Carné's film of the same name). After that things get more tricky. But if you're a fan of early Greenaway-style structuralism, with literary underpinning (the entire text of the film is available for consultation on the Criterion forum), I can't think of a better way to spend half an hour.

[Lao Tsu Ben]

L'Ombrellone, Dino Risi, 1965

What is the English title for this film? Imdb says it's Play-boy party, wikipedia Weekend, Italian Style. According to imdb, the film was released in January 1968 in the USA, a few months before Godard's Weekend. Not that the two films, besides those titles, are exactly comparable (though they are, in some respects; every weekend shall come with a traffic jam), L'Ombrellone is an unoriginal sex comedy, filled to the brim with Italian pop songs. Shallow as hell, like an undramatic version of La Notte (note those unities of time), but pleasant enough- a pervasive but undisguised feeling of depression makes things a little more complicated than what they seem. Also to note, a very sympathetic turn by Enrico Maria Salerno as the frustrated husband.

[Dan Warburton]

Olivier Assayas, Irma Vep, 1996

"Just play yourself." Ha, easier said than done - but Maggie Cheung does it with such grace (an important concept, in both the film and Assayas's ideas behind the film - not that the two are all that easy to separate). Some interesting background here http://fanapart.blogspot.fr/2013/01/not ... a-vep.html (I agree with what s/he has to say about the Rivette connection), and a lengthier essay on the director here http://sensesofcinema.com/2006/great-directors/assayas/ As usual, Ed Howard's on the money http://seul-le-cinema.blogspot.fr/2010/03/irma-vep.html. I'm so entranced by it that I know I have to spend more time with it - hm, said that about demonlover last year too, and have only managed one return visit - before trying to write anything about it.

[jon abbey]

somehow I still haven't seen any Assayas, I should fix that.

[Dan Warburton]

Huge fan of 8½ that you are, Jon, I think Irma Vep would be a cool place to start in - enjoy!

[Dan Warburton]

Gus Van Sant, Paranoid Park, 2007

I've managed to watch this three times since Tuesday morning (twice all the way through non-stop, once in four twenty-minute chunks), trying to work out why I like it so much. The soundtrack has a lot to do with it - quite apart from being a sucker for Nino Rota (anything from Giulietta degli spiriti or Amarcord is fine by me), I get that Billy Swan song stuck in my head, don't ask why. Even the dreamy glitchy laptop stuff with the sexy French voiceovers during the skateboard action seems just right - and I'm no great fan either of that post-Endless Summer drizzly noodling or skateboarding. Have never been able to get more than six inches in the wrong direction on a skateboard. But the combination of naturally banal dialogue (Subway sandwiches - "Mayo's sick", baby brother's Napoleonic film résumés -"Ew, I'm not gonna use nurse chapstick, you sicko!") and the artiness of it all, notably the fractured chronology and the ending (not spoiling.. but what's to spoil?) works surprisingly well. Of course, many crrritics were put off / pissed off by Gabe Nevins' "clinically inexpressive" acting, but I thought he did a great job. What's fun is GVS spends far more time than he should on details that aren't central to the story - maybe that's the point, that in today's world the centre is hard to find, and probably not where you're heading for anyway - it's gloriously self-indulgent. Love the shower scene.. this from the guy who remade Psycho shot for shot. The slide down the wall. Nice.

[surfer]

Of course, many crrritics were put off / pissed off by Gabe Nevins' "clinically inexpressive" acting, but I thought he did a great job. What's fun is GVS spends far more time than he should on details that aren't central to the story - maybe that's the point, that in today's world the centre is hard to find, and probably not where you're heading for anyway - it's gloriously self-indulgent. Love the shower scene.. this from the guy who remade Psycho shot for shot. The slide down the wall. Nice.

Havent seen this in a couple of years, but what sticks with me is Nevin's performance (the best thing about the movie, and the reason it suceeds; one's opinion of the movie is going to hinge on that), the shower scene (best scene in the movie, along with some of the skateboarding scenes imo), and the pivotal scene at the trainyard, which iirc I had mixed feelings about compositionally.

[MRS]

Just read McCarthy's excerpt "Scenes of the Crime" in the new New Yorker, it reads like McCarthy dictating a Fast & Furious screenplay. And Ridley Scott.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Counselor