Recently Watched Films 2013

[Dan Warburton]

It ends, like Prénom Carmen, with a Tom Waits song, and guess which is the better film...

Ha, that's the kind of red-rag-to-a-bull provocation I like - but then you say

I wouldn't really recommend it, though, it's too much of an acquired taste

Well, so is the Godard, but I'd certainly recommend it to anyone willing to try. Meanwhile



Fritz Lang, While The City Sleeps, 1956

Damn, this has to be the blackest noir I've ever seen. With the possible exception of Nancy, there's not a single good guy to be found. Though it's loosely based on the story of the Lipstick Killer (the true story of which, with its numerous details of incompetence, drug-induced confession and police brutality is something right out of James Ellroy - read this and weep http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Heirens), Lang's real target is the treachery and cynicism of the modern media circus. Not the monstrous ego of the man running it - this is not Citizen Kane (even if the name of the family running the show, Kyne, certainly alludes to it): taking over from his daddy, an old-school decent (well, maybe) media mogul Amos, who literally dies on the job, the new boss, his spoilt-rotten playboy son Walter (Vincent Price at his oiliest and smarmiest) pits his three divisional managers against each other for the job of Executive Director, the winner being the one who nails the killer first. In the end, that's not how it turns out - it's a world of backbiting, blackmail and booze (dagnabbit, those dames knew how to drink - watch Ida Lupino knock it back), and the "happy ending" is so cynical it'll have you squirming in your seat. A sharp script by Casey Robinson, awesome camerawork by Ernest Laszlo, and great performances all round. A real treat, but it's a kick in the balls disguised as a pat on the back. Ouch.

[Lao Tsu Ben]

It ends, like Prénom Carmen, with a Tom Waits song, and guess which is the better film...

Ha, that's the kind of red-rag-to-a-bull provocation I like -.

Actually, I like Prénom Carmen (but not that ending with the Tom Waits song), and I prefer - perhaps - 80's Godard to the former one, my two favorite films of his being Je Vous Salue Marie and Nouvelle Vague (but again, I'm not so sure).

Fritz Lang, While The City Sleeps, 1956
it's a world of backbiting, blackmail and booze (dagnabbit, those dames knew how to drink - watch Ida Lupino knock it back), and the "happy ending" is so cynical it'll have you squirming in your seat.

Maybe my favorite Lang. Loved those scenes in the bar.

[Dan Warburton]

As a Hal Hartley fan, I think you'd find much to enjoy here Ben, assuming that is you don't already know it (and if you don't, it's another glorious KGFT - go snatch, leeches):



Albert Brooks, Real Life, 1979

http://blog.nola.com/davewalker/2009/02 ... ilm_i.html

[Dan Warburton]

Justin Kurzel, Snowtown, 2011

Christ, and I thought Blackpool was the end of the world. Unremittingly bleak tale of Australia's champion serial killer (John Bunting, a chilling performance from Daniel Henshall), all the more depressing because it's all true. Very impressive film, but I doubt I'll want to see it again. Wake In Fright is a jolly romp in comparison.




Bob Clark, Black Christmas, 1974

The killer's-eye-view camerawork is claimed to have inspired both Halloween and Friday the 13th, but silly giallo-like touches like the IQ 75 desk sergeant, the whisky-soaked sorority house mother (role originally offered to Bette Davis, ha) and Peter the hysterical highly strung concert pianist (Keir Dullea) have aged along with the hairstyles and the Henry Cowell inside piano scrapes for the killer in the antic. Some pretty sick dialogue in there. Can you believe those dumb cops never looked in the attic?




Russ Meyer, Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls, 1970

"Ere this night does wane you will drink the black sperm of my vengeance!"

[Lao Tsu Ben]

Justin Kurzel, Snowtown, 2011

Christ, and I thought Blackpool was the end of the world. Unremittingly bleak tale of Australia's champion serial killer (John Bunting, a chilling performance from Daniel Henshall), all the more depressing because it's all true. Very impressive film, but I doubt I'll want to see it again. Wake In Fright is a jolly romp in comparison.

I hated that film when I saw it. Don't remember enough of it to say something about it, but it qualifies as one of my worst experiences as a viewer. Didn't watch it to the end, accordingly.

[Dan Warburton]

It's funny - I can't remember the last time I gave up on a film before the end. Even with Losey's dreadful Truite a couple of weeks ago, where it was pretty clear after about 30 minutes that it was not going to get any better (and maybe a helluva lot worse - which indeed it did), we ploughed on doggedly until the end. I wonder where you gave up on Snowtown - I got the impression that as soon as John showed up, and especially after he talked Jamie into shooting his (John's) dog, that I knew where the film was heading, and that, as with certain pieces of old school minimal music (Reich, Glass), the question was not where it was going but how it would get there, and what the journey there would be like. As it turned out, you didn't miss much by throwing in the towel, I reckon.

[MRS]

The Shooting (Monte Hellman, 1966)

Aimless, existential, quixotic, blah. Splendid, edge of the seat. What complexity around what's just four people riding horses through hot caliche; control, motive, reason are anyone's guess. Sharp, weird cuts from one awful hindrance to their plight to another. So much mention of the death and life of horses, The Woman shooting the roan, Coley asking for $50 from Gashade to buy his lame Shorty a few weeks from being put down. The Woman and Billy Spear gun down rabbits and bluebirds at random along the way. This is the other half of the DVD twofer w/Ride in the Whirlwind, brutal transfer, there's a lot of shouting and it may as well have been in Farsi the sound is so bad. Astonishing how differently Hellman's double down shoots for Corman came out from one another, The Shooting's sweat drowns Ride in the Whirlwind, or Flight to Fury's mood compared with Back Door to Hell. Gashade compares the allure of a woman to a coral snake. Oates is so good, easy to say anywhere but this an exceptional turn. $75,000 of A+.

Gashade: "I don't see no point to it."

The Woman: "There isn't any."

[Dan Warburton]

Is this one you missed out on last time you worked your way through the Hellmans, Michael? If so, glad it caught up with you.I love everything about this film, especially the ending.



Angel Diez Alvarez, La peine perdue de Jean Eustache, 1997

If you're looking for teary, juicy biopic anecdotes and gory suicide details, forget it. It's assumed you're already reasonably familiar with the Eustache life story and oeuvre - if so you'll probably enjoy this elegantly austere 53-minute documentary.

“Along with the simplification I sought in my first films I wanted to be revolutionary, and not to advance cinema, but to leap back to its origins. My aim since my first films was to return to Lumière. I am against new techniques, which is reactionary, but also revolutionary.”

[MRS]

Is this one you missed out on last time you worked your way through the Hellmans, Michael? If so, glad it caught up with you.I love everything about this film, especially the ending.

Yep, that was the lone holdout, one of his strongest to be sure.

[Lao Tsu Ben]

It's funny - I can't remember the last time I gave up on a film before the end. Even with Losey's dreadful Truite a couple of weeks ago, where it was pretty clear after about 30 minutes that it was not going to get any better (and maybe a helluva lot worse - which indeed it did), we ploughed on doggedly until the end. I wonder where you gave up on Snowtown - I got the impression that as soon as John showed up, and especially after he talked Jamie into shooting his (John's) dog, that I knew where the film was heading, and that, as with certain pieces of old school minimal music (Reich, Glass), the question was not where it was going but how it would get there, and what the journey there would be like. As it turned out, you didn't miss much by throwing in the towel, I reckon.

It's a shame I don't have any arguments at hand, as I said, but yes, I thought that it was a manipulative, offensive piece of trash. That film really bugged me.



Barbarosa, Fred Schepisi, 1982

Kael almost loved it. Good call on her part, since it is a truly lovable western. It is concerned with the myth of a certain desperado named Barbarosa (Willie Nelson) whose mere mention fills everyone with terror, especially the Mexicans that he ruthlessly steals from. It's a comedy of a sort (reading the comments over at imdb, I'm the only one who seem to think it is) as Schepisi takes a skewed look at what's going on, Barbarosa and his acolyte don't look too bright, for instance, and before the end, it turns into a kind of vaudeville where death is at every corner. So what's in a name? Lots of things, in that case. It's as if his awestruck victims were reveling in saying it, which is also very funny.

[MRS]

By the way according to Hellman's tweets, Warner Bros. is very close to releasing a proper China 9, Liberty 17, just a minor problem with the soundtrack is in the way.

[Dan Warburton]

Philippe Garrel, L'enfant secret, 1979

The story goes that there's only one print of this in existence, and Garrel has it. It surfaced a year or so ago for a showing at the Cinémathèque as part of a Serge Daney tribute series (and Daney's article on the film is the best I've found http://www.rouge.com.au/1/garrel.html), but has since disappeared again. A Japanese DVD came and went just as quickly, but some enterprising soul managed to rip it before it did, hooray - though there are subtitle issues, mainly because Garrel deliberately submerges the dialogue, what little there is, behind the Faton Cahen soundtrack. Whatever, it's well worth seeking out, for all its - deliberate - imperfections. Daney is right to draw parallels with La maman et la putain, but whereas Léaud, Lebrun and Lafont talk themselves silly for four hours in the Eustache, words are thin on the ground here. The Bresson influence is obvious, most notably in casting Anne Wiazemsky (Au hasard Balthazar) as Ellie and Henri de Maublanc (Le diable, probablement) as Jean-Baptiste, but one senses there's a painful autobiographical undertow to it all. For Ellie read longtime Garrel muse and fellow drug user Nico: she too had a son with a movie star (Delon) who initially wanted nothing to do with the boy after he was born but whose mother, appalled at his behaviour (see Nico Icon http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113973/) ended up bringing up the child. Indeed, the child in question, Ari Boulogne, appears here as the boy in the opening scenes. Like Garrel himself, Jean-Baptiste is a filmmaker, when he gets round to it, so there's the tantalising question as to whether much of the story we see, in which Ellie gradually drifts away from her son, finds other men and takes to drugs is "real" or part of his screenplay. Decide for yourself.

[Lao Tsu Ben]

Didn't know I was that lucky when I saw it a few years ago at Les Trois Luxembourg during a Philippe Garrel retrospective. Dozed off through it, taking a glimpse, among other things, of Anne Wiazemsky supinely striking a pose, wondering what Garrel's instructions could have been as she opened and closed her mouth, having us admire her pearly saliva. Also wondered afterwards whether Henri de Maublanc was that successful entrepreneur whose name came up on google. I'm not fond of Garrel, it seems, but I had some love for Les Amants Réguliers.

[Dan Warburton]

I'm a mere beginner when it comes to Garrel, having only seen this and Le revelateur and La Cicatrice Interieure - haven't seen any of the recent more "traditional" (?) films yet. What are they like? If you can recommend any others in particular, Ben, go for it. Glad to see that someone has finally upped Les hautes solitudes (1974) over at KG, albeit in what looks like a rather grainy mp4 (not that that matters, I suspect). Must try that with the Otomo soundtrack.

[Tanner]

It's funny - I can't remember the last time I gave up on a film before the end. Even with Losey's dreadful Truite a couple of weeks ago, where it was pretty clear after about 30 minutes that it was not going to get any better (and maybe a helluva lot worse - which indeed it did), we ploughed on doggedly until the end. I wonder where you gave up on Snowtown - I got the impression that as soon as John showed up, and especially after he talked Jamie into shooting his (John's) dog, that I knew where the film was heading, and that, as with certain pieces of old school minimal music (Reich, Glass), the question was not where it was going but how it would get there, and what the journey there would be like. As it turned out, you didn't miss much by throwing in the towel, I reckon.

No doubt Snowtown was a bummer, but it's probably one of the most impressive films I've seen in the last five years. Impeccable acting, photography and direction, and, at least to me, there was no pandering to its audience. It was just simply harrowing, and such a strong portrayal of a kind of suburban alienation that can lead to a brutal psychosis. I agree that it's not for everyone, nor does it need to be. But it's a singular film. I'm really interested in seeing where Kurzel goes next.

[Lao Tsu Ben]

I'm a mere beginner when it comes to Garrel, having only seen this and Le revelateur and La Cicatrice Interieure - haven't seen any of the recent more "traditional" (?) films yet. What are they like? If you can recommend any others in particular, Ben, go for it. Glad to see that someone has finally upped Les hautes solitudes (1974) over at KG, albeit in what looks like a rather grainy mp4 (not that that matters, I suspect). Must try that with the Otomo soundtrack.

I don't know his early work, and I'm no more familiar than you with his films, since I knew quite early on that Garrel's romanticism (regarding a material quite obviously autobiographical) wasn't my cup of tea. But his later films are, to a certain extent, more conventionally scripted, and dialogues become more important than they were, for instance, in L'Enfant Secret. For the record, all his films from Les Baisers de Secours to his last one, Un Eté Brûlant are cowritten by novelist Marc Cholodenko who translated William Gaddis in French.



The Jerk, Carl Reiner, 1979

Man, is Steve Martin's voice grating, at least to this ear. Not to mention his facial expressions. I still like him, though, he looks sympathetic enough and the film is utterly charming. Just like Bernadette Peters in it.

[RJMyato]

It's funny - I can't remember the last time I gave up on a film before the end. Even with Losey's dreadful Truite a couple of weeks ago, where it was pretty clear after about 30 minutes that it was not going to get any better (and maybe a helluva lot worse - which indeed it did), we ploughed on doggedly until the end. I wonder where you gave up on Snowtown - I got the impression that as soon as John showed up, and especially after he talked Jamie into shooting his (John's) dog, that I knew where the film was heading, and that, as with certain pieces of old school minimal music (Reich, Glass), the question was not where it was going but how it would get there, and what the journey there would be like. As it turned out, you didn't miss much by throwing in the towel, I reckon.

No doubt Snowtown was a bummer, but it's probably one of the most impressive films I've seen in the last five years. Impeccable acting, photography and direction, and, at least to me, there was no pandering to its audience. It was just simply harrowing, and such a strong portrayal of a kind of suburban alienation that can lead to a brutal psychosis. I agree that it's not for everyone, nor does it need to be. But it's a singular film. I'm really interested in seeing where Kurzel goes next.

at the very least i thought it was a good takedown of the cool moral vigilante movie (boondock saints, etc.). plus i thought it was just aesthetically good. i enjoyed it a lot (of course it was depressing repellent etc. in subject matter, you know what i mean)

[Dan Warburton]

Michael Mann, Thief, 1981

I'd forgotten how well done this was, and how bloody awful that Tangerine Dream soundtrack was (but it's just right for the movie, like the Wang Chung in To Live and Die in LA). The music's about the only thing that has aged, though: those slick camera moves and slick city streets are now so much part and parcel of the urban crime movie / series that it all still feels quite modern. Course, the story's pretty daft - just another heist movie (as soon as you hear that "one more job and I can retire" line you know Frank's fucked), but with his used car lot and his bar and his wallet full of credit cards, I wouldn't say he's exactly desperate for money. Nor does he need that much to buy another scuzzy coat for Tuesday Weld or to grease the palm of the greasy lawyer who springs Willie Nelson from jail either. Like Ulu Grosbard's Straight Time, the heists ring true because they are true, with the director going as far as buying a real vault to drill into and (accidentally) blowing up a real house, not to mention casting former criminals as cops (John Santucci) and vice versa (Dennis Farina). But the bulletproof vest finale's a bit weak - at least Mann had the good sense to end it where he did with Frank limping off into the dark, instead of the lame reunion with Jessie in the script http://www.dailyscript.com/scripts/thief.pdf. Well worth it for the diner scene (Mann's good in diners, Caan is terrific here) and Robert Prosky's "I own the paper on your whole fucking life" speech and Jim Belushi being thrown into a vat of acid after it.

[Dan Warburton]

Claire Denis, Trouble Every Day, 2001

I swiped the screenshots from Ed Howard and Jason Bellamy's Conversation on the film in Slant, which as usual is a good read (and would probably be an even better one if I could figure out how to get to page two of it). I see quite a lot has been written about this movie - hardly surprising, I suppose, given its "controversial" subject matter - which is quite amusing given how few words are actually spoken in it. Apart from a bit of background information on Léo's research, there's practically nothing said by any of the characters that we couldn't do without. Can't say it's my favourite Claire Denis film, but Agnès Godard's cinematography is as great as ever, and Vincent Gallo and Béatrice Dalle are both superb. More comments later, perhaps, when I've digested it a bit better (if you'll forgive the awful pun)

[Dan Warburton]

Nicholas Ray, The True Story of Jesse James, 1957

Once more, you wonder how it might have turned out if Ray had been given more control. Some of his innovations in fracturing the timeline of the narrative, like the raid on the Northfield bank - seen twice, once at the opening and again towards the end of the movie, with some shots from different viewpoints - were accepted by the producers, others weren't. The fuzzy little clouds that introduce the flashbacks are annoying (live in hope that someone might find a director's cut one day), and they even had to resort to stealing scenes from another movie (the stunning shot of Jesse and Frank riding their horses over the cliff was swiped from Henry King's 1939 Jesse James http://www.lakehistory.info/jessejamesmovie.html). Just as well though that they persuaded the director not to cast Elvis Presley as Jesse James, not that Robert Wagner is all that great. Jeffrey Hunter's not bad as Frank, but Hope Lange and Agnes Moorehead are about as hammy and clumsy as the soundtrack.