Recently Watched Films 2019

[Dan Warburton]

Antonin Peretjatko, La loi de la jungle, 2016

Following on from Antoine's recommendation above, here's Vincent Macaigne again, accompanied by a hilariously butch chainsmoking Vimala Pons in a high-speed ultra-cynical jolly romp in the jungles of French Guiana where's he's supposed to be overseeing the construction of an indoor ski slope (it'd be even funnier if one didn't already exist in Dubaï). Peretjatko and Guillaume Brac (see review above) seem to be part of the latest new wave of post-New Wave Cahiers-approved directors, and once more Rozier seems to be a significant influence, along with a rich tradition of French comedy, both slapstick and cynical. It's great fun, even if, like its two protagonists, it gets a bit lost in the jungle.

[henriq]

On the subject of Ian..

one more Penman pun before I stop

No, don't stop - but well, yes, you do seem to have been OD'ing on Penman lately (I still can't access his blog, not that I have time to read much of it)

Well, in that case, check out his latest, it is gorgeous:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Gets-Home-This ... 169&sr=8-1

Makes me want to buy Sinatra, and I didn't think that would happen.

Check the glide between original and remix for an example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtP6arjZmzI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkQ9LtmJfeU

Eurgh no thanks. I made it to about a minute in the original - really can't stand Antares Auto-Tune. Call me old, I don't care, I like to hear a voice. Cracks, imperfections, Chaka, Billie..

Mostly there for rhetorical purposes, I'm not trying to sell either T-Pain or AutoTune (a hard sell, that, and I'm not at all convinced myself). I like the remix a lot more, and for the Texans I am a partisan.

[henriq]

(I still can't access his blog, not that I have time to read much of it)

His blog has been dead for thirteen years, that could be why. I've had some trouble accessing the archives myself, at times. Read him in print, much less whimsical.

[Antoine]

Antonin Peretjatko, La loi de la jungle, 2016

Following on from Antoine's recommendation above, here's Vincent Macaigne again, accompanied by a hilariously butch chainsmoking Vimala Pons in a high-speed ultra-cynical jolly romp in the jungles of French Guiana where's he's supposed to be overseeing the construction of an indoor ski slope (it'd be even funnier if one didn't already exist in Dubaï). Peretjatko and Guillaume Brac (see review above) seem to be part of the latest new wave of post-New Wave Cahiers-approved directors, and once more Rozier seems to be a significant influence, along with a rich tradition of French comedy, both slapstick and cynical. It's great fun, even if, like its two protagonists, it gets a bit lost in the jungle.

Yes, Peretjatko's movies have imperfections, but somehow they give a touch of charm (in the big mess).
Also: "Je ne vais pas au cinéma, j'écoute Le Masque et la Plume, ça me suffit!" is priceless.

[Dan Warburton]

Elia Kazan, The Visitors, 1972

Wikisummary: "Kazan used an article written by Daniel Lang for The New Yorker in 1969, and Lang's subsequent book Casualties of War, as a jumping-off point for this film [..] Bill Schmidt and his long-term girlfriend Martha Wayne and their young son Hal live in a small Connecticut farmhouse owned by Martha's overbearing father. One snowy winter Sunday, two of Bill's ex-army buddies, Mike and Tony, arrive. A few years ago, they had all served together in Vietnam in the same platoon but later ended up on opposite sides of a court-martial. Bill has never told his girlfriend what happened in Vietnam nor at the court-martial. The story slowly unfolds. Under orders in Vietnam not to take any prisoners, and faced with potentially hostile civilians who might attack them if left behind, Mike kills a civilian. Bill testifies against him and Mike is sent to the stockade (military prison) for two years. He is angry. There is sexual tension between Mike and Martha. The tension builds and --"
Ha, that's as far as I go without spoiling the funny games. But it's not fun - in fact, there's a sense of menace and impending disaster throughout. I still don't understand why this isn't better known - it's as if someone in the Hollywood establishment was determined to make Kazan pay for the 1952 HUAC testimony. It's certainly better than De Palma's later Casualties of War, and can stand up well alongside Straw Dogs, with which it has several points in common. Did Kazan know Peckinpah's film? Maybe - his second marriage to Barbara Loden certainly brought him in contact with a younger generation of filmmakers. A bit like Betty plugging Miles into electricity, Jimi and Sly. Shot on a shoestring budget (16mm?) in Kazan's own Connecticut farmhouse, with a script (tad too wordy at times methinks) by his son Chris, it's a family affair. Great performances from Woods, and especially Steve Railsback, fresh out of Actors Studio and already on the road to Manson. Truly scary: as Vincent Canby wrote, "looks like the sort of a nice, clean-cut, small-town American boy who could eat a piece of apple pie with one hand and cut a friend's throat with the other."

[Dan Warburton]

Lasse Hallström, My Life as a Dog, 1985

Finally got round to watching this after being nagged to do so by wife and son for years. Can't say I enjoyed it as much as they did - I don't mind the odd eccentric character but here's a whole town full of them - but young Anton Glanzelius gives a good performance as young Ingemar. Michael Jackson thought so too, and invited him to Hayvenhurst to meet Bubbles. The horror, the horror..

[henriq]

Lasse Hallström, My Life as a Dog, 1985

Finally got round to watching this after being nagged to do so by wife and son for years. Can't say I enjoyed it as much as they did - I don't mind the odd eccentric character but here's a whole town full of them - but young Anton Glanzelius gives a good performance as young Ingemar. Michael Jackson thought so too, and invited him to Hayvenhurst to meet Bubbles. The horror, the horror..

We agree with each other there, too cute by half. Stuff the film full of lovable quirks and watch everyone fall over themselves over how lovably quirky it is? A little bit my problem with Fellini too, though he's better. You can certainly see how Hollywood fell in love with Hallström. A few other of his Swedish films are better, see if you can find them with decent subtitles somewhere.

[Dan Warburton]

Paul Verhoeven, Soldier of Orange, 1977

A well-crafted good old-fashioned WWII yarn, part buddy movie (though most of the late lamented Rutger Hauer's buddies don't make it to the end of the film), part resistance thriller. Makes for a nice double bill with 2006's Black Book.

[Dan Warburton]

Edgar G. Ulmer, The Naked Dawn, 1955

A rather silly title - the alternative one, "The Bandit", is nearer the mark - for a rather unconventional western. Wiki: "The story focuses on a poor but proud farmer named Manuel and his wife Maria. When glib-tongued drifter Santiago tries to get Manuel mixed up in a robbery, the farmer is at first resistant, but is goaded into joining Santiago. Corrupted by the prospect of untold wealth, Manuel begins plotting the murder of Santiago; meanwhile, Maria makes plans to run off with the handsome stranger." It's an odd tale,rather wordy, but a fine performance by the bandit himself, Arthur Kennedy. It's almost a postmodern western (The Hired Hand, The Shooting..) before its time. Worth checking out if you a fan of the genre.

[Dan Warburton]

Guillaume Brac, Tonnerre, 2013

Tonnerre is a sleepy town not far from Chablis in northern Burgundy, where (moderately but presumably not astronomically successful - we're not told) pop singer Maxime relocates to live with his widowed (but far from sexually inactive) father. Tonnerre is also the French for thunder, and the seemingly mild-mannered Maxime - Vincent Macaigne, another superb performance - reveals a hitherto invisible dark side, when the local girl he's fallen for, a young journalist prone to depression herself, goes back to her ex, a football-playing jock. Really fine acting throughout - Solène Rigot and Rozier-veteran Bernard Menez are both superb - it's a film well worth your time.

[henriq]

Boots Riley - Sorry to bother you (2018)

OK, if you want your Communist Manifesto in the form of a comic book rap video - and don’t you just? - look no further. Brilliant agitprop from radical rapper Boots Riley of The Coup. Set in an alternate Oakland, a young, black member of the precariat gets employed by a callcenter company, and after a stuttering start finds extraordinary prowess with a pitch perfect White Voice that sees him shooting for the stars of Super Callers on the upper floor, torn between the lure of success and wealth and lingering affiliation and solidarity with his radicalising and organising co-workers. Many brilliant and hilarious ideas: the calls that place him and his desk right across from the people he’s calling, as they’re having breakfast, fucking on a sofa, or torn up over a dying husband: the White Voice that is indeed so white it’s voicecast with white actors, David Cross and Patton Oswalt - the ventriloquism that ensues both funny as hell and not just a little creepy. The film even derails a bit into Grand Guignol horror - not as unhinged and philosophically assured as Assayas’ Demonlover, but still cool. Arousingly militant in that it orchestrates everything through a recourse to distinctly populist or lowbrow genres and tropes: rap video, horror, comic book. Reactionary fantasies like Frank Capra’s are skewered - when video evidence of the evil corporation’s heinous genetic engineering is made public and our hero does his victory lap through the tv studios, no one much cares and the stock of the company actually skyrockets! - and the message that nothing works or counts but organising and solidarity comes through loud and clear. There is, of course, even a twist ending. In tone and texture, a little similar to Bryan Barber's and OutKast's Idlewild, or to Barber's music videos for the group - an example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHNSmlZ9Rwo

Great soundtrack for this film too, if black music is your thing.

[surfer]

Not as enthusiastic as you seem to be henriq. i saw it about a year ago, so some of the details are fuzzy, but the denouement and climax are, quite frankly, ridiculous even if you are willing to suspend your disbelief and accept the events as farce. The performances, cinematography, dialogue, and music are recommendable, and maybe that wins the day, but the plot and conflicts are pretty banal. Will he or wont he sell out? What does the (tech iirc) company actually do? I wanted to like this movie more than I did, but I cant recommend it.
Though Riley shows some promise as a director.

[henriq]

It might be one of those things that dies down in a few days, watched it just this evening and loved it, wrote something quickly when I got home. If that happens, like Herzog I'll gladly eat a shoe. Should say, also, that I'm a big fan of Boots Riley and The Coup, so the movie came a little pre-sold to me. I loved the texture of it, the media and art pervading everything. But yes, the denouement beggars both belief and disbelief at the same time. We shall see how it fares down the road!

[Dan Warburton]

Shomei Imamura, The Insect Woman, 1963

IMDb plot summary: "Amorality in Japan. Tome is born into poverty in rural Japan, in the late 1910s. Chuji, her father, dotes on her; her mother is less faithful. Tome becomes a neighbor's mistress, works at his mill as World War II rages, and has a daughter. After an affair with a mill supervisor, Tome goes to Tokyo to seek her fortune. She leaves the child, Nobuko, in Chuji's care. Tome's a maid at a brothel, learns trade from the madam, enjoys the protection of a businessman whose mistress she becomes, and is soon herself the boss. As Chuji ages and Nobuko grows up with her own ideas, can Tome's self-preserving schemes provide continued comfort? Or will the mice scamper over her?" That last line refers to the fate of the small insect in the folk song heard throughout the film, doomed whatever it does - which gives you a pretty good idea of what befalls our heroine. Heroine that is until she becomes the brothel madame herself. The details are raw: in one scene one of the girls slashes her arm to provide blood to fill a vial used to convince one of the punters he's just deflowered a virgin, very much in demand it seems (there's not enough blood so they grab the cat.. meoww!). The portrayal of the rural poor is just as vicious - Brutti Sporchi e Cattivi comes to mind - and the disturbing music (Toshiro Mayazumi this time, not the mighty Toru) is sparingly and strategically used to great effect. A fine, fine film - but not a happy one.

[Piano Mouth]

Does anyone here know any producers or directors to send a one sheet to for a TV Show I had in mind?

[Dan Warburton]

Does anyone here know any producers or directors to send a one sheet to for a TV Show I had in mind?

Thought you had some contacts with the folks who run Mubi.. Why not ask them? I doubt more than half a dozen people read this thread anyway

[Dan Warburton]

Jacques Rozier, Fifi Martingale, 2001

The only one of Rozier's films not to have been graced with a quality DVD release, alas - and, unless you're pretty fluent in French, the only available (unsubbed, still, and I snatched it seven years ago!) rip will be something of a mystery. Set in the typically French world of the théatre du boulevard, it's extremely funny, and features some standout performances from Jean Lefebvre (a theatre legend himself here) and Yves Afonso. Pray for a subbed decent re-release.

[Dan Warburton]

Will Tremper, Die endlose Nacht, 1963

IMDb summary: "A few hours at Berlin-Tempelhof airport. The thick fog forces the travelers to persevere on the ground. Among them is a businessman who is facing ruin [..] throwing his girlfriend to another man's neck in order to save himself. A young actress has spent her last penny at the hairdresser and is stranded in a strange city. A farmer from Kenya falls spontaneously in love with a woman and offers her a new life." Not only that, but there's an ageing actor en route to play Lear in Hanover, another businessman who takes advantage of a delayed flight to go and see his mistress, a wealthy agriculturalist who falls in love with the girl at the KLM counter, etc. And a Polish jazz quintet who unpack their instruments and add to the already good Peter Thomas soundtrack. Nice, crisp, economical, enjoyable.

[Dan Warburton]

Emilio Miraglia, The Red Queen Kills Seven Times, 1972

Indeed she does, and there's plenty of blood - though not everyone gets stabbed - plus bats, rats and leeches. A classically stupid convoluted plot complete with blackmailing heroin addict, nymphomaniac models, far too much J&B whisky and a Bruno Nicolai soundtrack. Giallo, quoi.

[Dan Warburton]

Edmond T. Gréville, Le Port du Désir, 1955

Further proof, were any needed, that Gabin was a mighty actor, able to inhabit any role he took on with total conviction, as Bertrand Tavernier so rightly noted. And it's thanks to Tavernier that I've been discovering Gréville's work, and very fine it is. This tale, where Gabin plays a no bullshit hardened Breton skipper in charge of dredging up a ship that's sunk just outside the harbour in Marseille, is another unjustly neglected gem - as it turns out, the ship was carrying contraband cigarettes and the body of a girl whose sister comes to town looking for her, only to fall foul of the local villains, and very villainous they are too. Splendid stuff.