Recently Watched Films 2014

[Dan Warburton]

Werner Herzog & Dmitry Vasyukov, Happy People: A Year In The Taiga, 2010

No, it's not the opening of Carpenter's The Thing (that was a helicopter not a snowmobile) - but the climate's about as inhospitable. If your idea of happiness is sitting in a wooden shack in -50° temperatures (with only plastic sheet for windows) throughout the winter.. well it's not mine. My idea of happiness is watching a documentary as fucking awesome as this with a glass of Burgundy in my hand

[Piano Mouth]

[Dan Warburton]

Niels Arden Oplev, Män Som Hatar Kvinnor ("The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo"**), 2009
** title translates more accurately as "Men who hate Women"



Daniel Alfredson, Flickan som lekte med elden ("The Girl Who Played With Fire"), 2009



Daniel Alfredson, Luftslottet som sprängdes ("The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest"), 2009

Nice job - a few sluggish bits in the final episode, but that's hardly surprising given the complexity of the plot(s) to be resolved. I don't think Mr Fincher needs to bother remaking volumes 2 and 3 of Millennium, but it looks like someone's planning it anyway.In any case, I can't imagine they could find anyone as good as Micke Spreitz to play Ronald Niedermann

[F&B]

Speaking of Godard, I was surprised to see him speak so highly of Cocteau in this recent documentary of the latter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJ06xWvxlfI

(in seven parts on youtube)

Why was that surprising?

[schiksalgemeinschaft]

Werner Herzog & Dmitry Vasyukov, Happy People: A Year In The Taiga, 2010

No, it's not the opening of Carpenter's The Thing (that was a helicopter not a snowmobile) - but the climate's about as inhospitable. If your idea of happiness is sitting in a wooden shack in -50° temperatures (with only plastic sheet for windows) throughout the winter.. well it's not mine. My idea of happiness is watching a documentary as fucking awesome as this with a glass of Burgundy in my hand

I didn't know of this Herzog docu, thank you. It was awesome indeed. I had mine with a Westmalle Tripel though.

Makes one wonder on how detached we live from nature, or maybe even reality, or at least a reality that is lost to us. I could not help but become melancholic and think for a minute that a simple life is indeed a better life. Of course, the documentary only shows 90 minutes and as such is a romanticization. Still, I'm getting a farm someday.

[walto]

Speaking of Godard, I was surprised to see him speak so highly of Cocteau in this recent documentary of the latter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJ06xWvxlfI

(in seven parts on youtube)

Why was that surprising?

Partly because of their stylistic differences, and partly because I'm used to nearly everybody badmouthing Cocteau--a situation he seemed to encourage. He was a little bitch.

[Dan Warburton]

Takashi Miike, Lesson of the Evil, 2012

Yeah, she said it. Never trust a nice teacher.

[Dan Warburton]

Liu Chia-liang, The 36th Chamber of Shaolin, 1978

I feel like one of those mid-19th century fops who used to go to the Opera here in Paris only for the ballet Forget about the storyline (you can guess what happens, anyway) and dig the choreography

[Dan Warburton]

Jean-Paul Rappeneau, Cyrano de Bergerac, 1990

Say what you like about Depardieu - and the guy's done some pretty dumb things in recent years, from taking up Russian nationality to avoid paying taxes, whipping his johnson out (the one he cut off in La Dernière Femme ) and taking a slash in the aisle of a plane, and boasting that he downs no fewer than twelve bottles of vino a day (I'll take that one with a pinch of salt..) - but his performance as Cyrano is simply awesome.

[Dan Warburton]

Christian Nyby (Howard Hawks), The Thing From Another World, 1951



John Carpenter, The Thing, 1982

That adorable husky above reminded me to take another look at Carpenter's Thing, this time in a double bill with the Hawks original. Damn good, both of them

[Dan Warburton]

John Woo, A Better Tomorrow, 1986



John Woo, A Better Tomorrow II, 1987

I felt like watching Bresson's L'Argent again, but settled for the next best thing instead

[Piano Mouth]

Interstellar 2014

ImageUploadedByTapatalk1418356211.834518.jpg (244.69 KiB) Viewed 33140 times

Ah yes this one wasn't bad, it didn't even seem like a nearly 3 hour movie. They could've expanded on the characters more though, and it is a little too heavy on plot with the occasional "flash appearance" of interesting cameos from famous folks along with the regular cast, whose backstories are not revealed in too much detail, so it can be hard to like them, not knowing much about them while they are in the movie a lot. The robot was pretty cool though.

[walto]

Enough Said is, I guess, "a grown-up" movie. The thing is, I believe it was cast with the expectation that J. L-D, being beautiful and sexy, would always be questioning getting involved with fat, unattractive Gandolfini. But he is more attractive than she is in this movie, very cute, cuddly, and lovable, and she isn't really a bombshell anymore. So the premise doesn't work well with this cast. The sub-plot of the kids going off to college really resonated with me, but the main plot wasn't much, largely, I think, because of this casting issue. Toni Collette's Australian accent is ridiculous, and J. L-D is much better in "Veep" but the acting is pretty good. I have a sister-in-law who's a lot like the Keener character.

I also saw Gone Girl, which seems to me a fitting continuation of the Double Indemnity--Body Heat franchise. I didn't like the female lead myself, but it's a pretty tough part, I suppose. Anyhow, nice plotting and a good meditation on marriage.

[Dan Warburton]

Lazybones that I am, I always appreciate it if you put the director's name and date (at least of the film you're reviewing) - thanks! Behind on "reviews" here - too busy watching films more soon

[Dan Warburton]

Alejandro Amenábar, Tesis, 1996

With one or two minor surprises, the plot is quite straightforward - you know that any girl dead set on researching snuff movies is bound to end up in one herself - but when that girl has the gaunt, spectral eyes of the wonderful Ana Torrent (Secrets of the Beehive, Cria Cuervos..).. well, I don't mind. In tbe hands of a schlock 80s director on the other side of the Atlantic, it would probably have starred Jamie Lee Curtis and been a cheapo slasher mess, but as it stands it's quite classy

[Dan Warburton]

Pablo Larraín, No, 2012

I guess I'd need to do a bit of background research into the tail-end of the Pinochet regime to appreciate this more fully. As it stands, despite some fine acting from Alfredo Castro and Gael Garcia Bernal (though admittedly he doesn't have to much other than look characteristically deadpan), I found the (deliberately?) crappy cinematography annoying. All those washed out shots into direct sunlight must have some symbolic significance but, well.. no

[Dan Warburton]

Werner Herzog, Heart of Glass, 1976

The stories behind this one deserve a whole book - and in fact there is one already, Alan Greenberg's Every Night The Trees Disappear, required reading for any self-respecting Herzog-head. Wait till you read the story about the duck featured above

[Dan Warburton]

Werner Herzog, God's Angry Man, 1981




Werner Herzog, Gasherbrum - Der Leuchtende Berg ("The Dark Glow Of The Mountains"), 1984




Werner Herzog, Encounters at the End of the World, 2007




Werner Herzog, Lessons of Darkness, 1992

As you can see, we've been working slowly but surely through the Herzog documentaries, and what an extraordinary body of work it is. From the saccharine gospel choir of "evangelist" Dr Gene Scott (whose late nite rants I used to tune in to upon returning from the boozer in Rochester NY when I was studying there - believe me Dr Gene is a fuckin' trip after a pitcher of Genesee Twelve Horse and a Garbage Plate from Nick Tahou's) to Reinhold Messner bursting into uncontrollable tears three miles high in the Himalayas, from Henry Kaiser's awesome underwater photography in the Ross Sea (though the kooks Werner encounters at the McMurdo base are just as weird as the fluorescent jellyfish under the ice) to the truly staggering aerial shots of Kuwait ablaze, it's a real adventure. Hard to choose - not that anybody's asking me to, mind - but I think I'd have to say Lessons of Darkness is a film absolutely everybody on this doomed planet has to see (KG freeleech week coming soon, but I for one and going to buy the new DVD of this too..) I think I can only say that of one other film offhand, which would be Resnais' Night and Fog. Infandum, as Virgil wrote: unspeakable the horror Herzog films. Literally unspeakable too - the two poor souls he interviews (a mother who watched her sons being tortured to death and a little boy who saw his father shot from under the heel of a soldier's jackboot) both literally lost the power of speech. But the mother's forlorn hand gestures and inchoate howls say more than words ever could - and the boy did actually tell his mother he wouldn't speak anymore. As if that, and the tools on display in the torture chambers, isn't enough, the images of the burning oilfields beggar belief. Only Bosch came close. This is hell. Mindblowing.

[Dan Warburton]

Hal Ashby, Harold and Maude, 1971

Love it - and quite apart from being a touching if slightly crazy story, it's beautifully filmed and magnificently edited. No great fan of Cat Stevens, but his music works well in context.




Antonio Pietrangeli, La Visita, 1963




Abbas Kiarostami, A Taste of Cherry, 1997

Finally getting round to Kiarostami - will report back later when I've got a couple more under my belt. But mighty impressive - what do you make of the ending, those of you who've seen it? (Spoiler warning please for those who haven't)




David Cronenberg, Maps to the Stars, 2014

It's not only Julianne Moore who deserved to get bludgeoned to death - Benjie must be the most detestable character in modern cinema. Napalm would be too good for him. Who cares about these awful fucking people? Cronenberg? God knows why we need yet another film about spoiled Hollywood has beens staring into their navels. Terrible.

[Dan Warburton]

Germaine Dulac, La souriante Madame Beudet, 1923

She doesn't smile at all, actually - and neither would you if you were married to the clown above. First great feminist film? Well worth checking out (and up on Youtube I think)




Stanley Tucci, Joe Gould's Secret, 2000

Ian Holm's absolutely awesome as Joe Gould, who sponged around the Village in the 40s bumming small change from everyone he met, claiming to have written the Oral History of The World (don't spoil the ending by googling the true story - enjoy Tucci's fine, understated performance as the New Yorker journalist who falls under Gould's spell..)




Jean Renoir, Le déjeuner sur l'herbe, 1959

Catherine Rouvel.. yum yum. Delightfully potty comedy filmed in and around the Renoir family home on the Riviera. He knew every tree in the garden (his father too, and painted them).




Sergio Corbucci, Vamos a matar, compañeros, 1970

One of the best spaghettis (if pushed, I might take Corbucci instead of Leone) - three iconic actors, Nero, Milian and Jack Palance (permanently stoned too - a trip), a rock'n'roll Zapata plot, terrific cinematography and.. well of course the music's great. If you're spaghetti fan and haven't seen this, do so!