BuñueL

Frampton Criterion

2012-01-26T20:23:00.000-08:00

Criterion has announced that they will release a two disc Blu-ray and DVD of some of the works of Hollis Frampton. Very cool. Some of his work can be seen over at Ubu-Web.

The Promise

2012-01-10T16:05:00.000-08:00

The Promise

This Channel 4 mini-series, directed by Peter Kosminsky, is a compelling work but with regards to the creation of Israel and the present day situations it is a tad one-sided. Or at least questionable in the sense that it is probably a bit too Pro-British and pro-Palestinian and anti-Israeli [though not anti-Semitic] without giving us an even-handed treatment of the history or the issues.

I'll admit I know very little about the history of the birth of Israel and the settlement of the Jews after World War II by the British in Israel. I too know little about the 1948 Palestinian exodus. And only until recently did I learn about the King David Hotel bombing or the Irgun or the Haganah. So I can't speak for the film's historical accuracy or the politics of the era.

However, I know movies and character development and I know when a movie works to present one side of the story at the expense of the other. The Promise does that and, therefore, is nowhere near as powerful as it could be.

The mini-series deals with a young British woman named Erin (Claire Foy) who goes to Israel in the present day to see off her Jewish friend who has joined the military. While there she stays with her friend's family [who live in a wealthy area of Tel Aviv] and each day reads her grandfather's diary, which he wrote while he was a British Sergeant in the the post-war phase [1948] of the British Mandate of Palestine. Each day we see, as the film effortlessly flashes back in time, that he was right in the thick of things as the British soldiers attempted to aid the Jewish settlment and create Israel.

As Erin continues to read the diary she becomes more and more emotionally involved in her grandfather's history, which becomes fraught with daily dangers. Then she finds a key that her grandfather has stashed in the diary. Once she realizes the key belongs to a Palestinian family she becomes determined to find the family and return the key. But doing so is close to impossible and most certainly unwise when it becomes evident she will need to travel into places tourists don't travel; including Hebron and Gaza.

The story of her grandfather, named Leonard or Len (Christian Cooke), parallels her own adventure albeit with more bloodshed and intrigue with regards to the battles [both militarily and emotionally] that he fights with the Zionist groups that want the British and the Palestinians out of Israel. Both sections of the film deal with betrayals, violence and death.

I became interested in the series after I heard an interview on a Chicago radio station in which Tom Luddy said this series would never get play in the United States. So, curious as to why the heck not, I ordered it from Amazon UK. He's right. The reason is because most of the Jewish characters are presented as racist, suspect and superficial. Even the one Jewish character we are supposed to associate with seems a bit off; at one point he picks up a gun and shoots back at some Palestinians much to the chagrin of the main character. On the other hand, the Palestianian characters are all presented as a friendly people who are victims of the Zionist machinations. No doubt, many were victims - no one deserves to be run out of their homes. But at a point the Arab's own military push back should have been acknowledged.

There are two scenes in particular that really stand out and may not be credible. One is a scene in which Len's buddies get shot point blank by Zionist nationalists while a bunch of other Jews sit around a cafe completely ignoring the violence and sipping their coffee. Really? Another scene in present day Hebron presents us with young Jewish children throwing rocks at Palestinian girls while soldiers stand around impartial to the whole thing. Both these scenes feel heavy-handed.

The mini-series is undoubtedly effective at eliciting emotion. It is well acted and directed and at almost 6 hours it accumulates its dramatic effect and becomes a very engaging experience. But - besides the character portrayals - the other film's weaknesses include push-button conflicts that are telegraphed and obvious. Only rarely does the film achieve the kind of balance needed to make for a more heartfelt [and real] experience.

The Promise is recommended and anyone with an open mind should be able to look past the narrative actions and portrayals to see the larger picture - which is mainly about a young woman trying to fulfill 'the promise' of her grandfather toward a family he felt close to. But, if anything, the series is primarily an entry point to a larger conversation about Israeli's history, the role of the British in 1948 and the present day Israeli / Palestinian conflict.

Best Movies 2011

2011-12-30T19:32:00.000-08:00

I watched more movies this year than in any year in the last ten. So, naturally, choosing ten is tough. But due to the fact that my top three were so easy I figured I would go ahead and name my top ten in order. But the next ten after that are in alphabetical order. It was another terrific year in film. [I think they all are]. Here are my favorites.

1. Poetry - devastating
2. A Separation - heartbreaking
3. Melancholia - exhilarating
4. A Dangerous Method - intellectual
5. Win Win - nuanced
6. The Princess of Montpensier - impressive
7. Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall... - theological
8. Seena - dynamic
9. Le quattro volte - authentic
10. Sucker Punch - audacious

The next ten.
Beginners
The Descendents
Drive
Hanna
Le Havre
Meek's Cutoff
Midnight in Paris
Project Nim
Source Code
Tree of Life

A few of others I liked:
Bill Cunningham: New York
Buck
The Conspirators
Martha Marcy Mae Marlene
Mysteries of Lisbon
Nostalgia For The Light
Of Gods and Men
Point Blank
Sarah's Key
Source Code
The Strange Case of Angelica
X-Men First Class
A bunch of movies I have yet to see from 2011...

Older Film Discoveries 2011

2011-12-23T20:41:00.000-08:00

Here are 10 great films I finally caught up with or discovered in 2011.

Pandora and The Flying Dutchman [Albert Lewin, 1951] - I'd always avoided this film because of the title and because it seemed to have that psychological drama soap thing I dislike about a lot of 50's cinema. But when I realized is was shot by Jack Cardiff I realized it was time to see it. On Blu-ray it looks delicious.

By The Bluest of Seas [Boris Barnet, 1936] & The House of Trubnaya Square [Boris Barnet, 1928 - Soviet films are always so darn serious but Barnet's films are a real treat for film lovers; he makes high art delightful and fun while still maintaining the social themes that were required by the USSR.

Revenge of a Kabuki Actor - aka An Actor's Revenge [Kon Ichikawa, 1963] - Ichikawa is one of the great Japanese filmmakers yet his films remain a tad out of reach [read cold] because his themes and his filmic structures don't try to entertain us. This film is self reflexive and deep - can I use that word?

The African Queen [John Huston, 1951] - Yes, I know this falls under the 'I can't believe you had never seen' this category. Years ago I was busy cutting my teeth on Fassbinder and Fellini and I passed Huston by. Glad I am finally catching up with his work.

Il momento della verità - aka The Moment of Truth [Francesco Rosi, 1965] - I reviewed this a couple months back. It's one of Rosi's rawest yet truest films. Brutal, beautiful and full of life and death. It is not easily forgotten.

The Man Who Could Work Miracles [Lothar Mendes, 1936] - This [sort of] falls into the quota quickly category for which the Brits excelled in the 1930's. It's solid fun from start to finish as a man finds he has enough power to run the world - until he tries.

The Phantom of Liberty [Luis Buñuel,1974] - Yes, this terrific and crazy Buñuel film still remained on my 'to see' list. I'm like the cat who leaves a little food in the bowl because I don't want there to be a last bite. I can't bear to have no more new Buñuel films to discover.

The Spy in Black [Michael Powell, 1939] - The first of the Powell / Pressburger films is a wonderful picture that had me guessing all the way to the end. Most remarkable, perhaps, is that the lead character is German. This during a time of war.

Love and Pain and The Whole Damn Thing [Alan J Pakula, 1973] - How do you make awkward endearing? This film is full of cringe-worthy scenes and performances but by the end you realize how refreshing it is to see a movie that is a lot closer to who we are rather than who we think we are when we see perfect movie stars in relationships.

Man Deer and Drinking

2011-12-22T17:43:00.000-08:00

This news item caught my eye:

Cops: Drunk tried driving hurt deer to NY hospital

But the comments were especially humorous:

He tried to buck the system. Instead, he'll have to cough up some doe.

He's gonna have to hoof it for awhile with that DUI sentence.

That's going to cost him a few bucks

It's nothing to fawn over.

Oh deer

IndieWire vs Film Comment polls

2011-12-19T20:52:00.000-08:00

It's year-end, which means movie polls!

Here's the Film Comment list of 50 best films of the year. The poll included 120 film journalists and critics.

Here's the IndieWire list of 150 [or so] best films of the year. The poll included 162 film critics.

Here's the Village Voice List polls 95 critics.

Of note:
Drive
#4 on IW
#22 on FC
#9 on VV

Shame
#11 on IW
#21 on FC
#19 on VV

The Artist
#13 on IW
#27 on FC
#17 on VV

Martha Marcy Mae Marlene
#15 on IW
#35 on FC
#13 on VV

A Dangerous Method
#16 on IW
# 5 on FC
#12 on VV

We Need To Talk About Kevin
#18 on IW
NOT ON FC top 50
#32 on VV

Poetry
#21on IW
#10 on FC
#18 on VV

Le Havre
#30 on IW
#12 on FC
#34 on VV

Why the differences?

Hugo Okay...

2011-12-13T17:51:00.000-08:00

Martin Scorsese has made a film love letter to the world of film he reveres and to film fans everywhere.

However, when Scorsese gets out of his element his films tend to be rather flat and very safe. Much like Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, Age of Innocence and Kundun Hugo hits all the narrative points it needs to to be a successful film but it doesn't soar when it should.

That is not to say it is an usuccessful film. I love that it highlights the career of Georges Méliès. And it's cool that the two kids sneak into Safety Last*, and that it has an melancholic automaton that holds the secret that spurs the narrative forward. But despite all of this - as well as the fine 3D quality - the film really feels like it is by-the-numbers filmmaking. It is also a tad slow for the type of film that it is. The film's pace is slack when it should be charging forward. Much like The Artist too - the other homage to film - the story is fairly simplistic. And, yes, it is based on a kids book but watching it, it didn't feel like a kids film. It instead felt like a kids film made for adults.

Look, it's not like my opinion matters much anyway; Hugo has a whopping 93% on Rotten Tomatoes. The film is definitely worth seeing. But I wish Scorsese could have tweaked it a bit to make it more exciting and more memorable.

* Note that Safety Last came out in 1923 yet Hugo takes place in 1930. I can only guess they were sneaking into a revival screening of a silent film.

Denby vs Rudin

2011-12-06T15:44:00.000-08:00

I'm on the side of common sense with regards to the David Denby, Scott Rudin ,The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo farce. Which is to say I mainly side with Denby.

If a producer / distributor screens a movie for critics with the hope of winning a critic's award then they are, essentially, asking for a review from all the critics who will then write on their ballot their list of the year's best films. So you should not then be upset when a critic writes an actual review of the film.

Sure, Denby should keep his word however the 'embargo' for expressing an opinion ended the very minute the film was screened for the critics.

Rudin has to know this. But he wants to control the media because he knows that some day he may release a lousy movie that could get killed at the box office if it receives early negative reviews. I am guessing, too, he is upset that the film did not win the New York Critics Circle Award for best film and his only recourse is to call Denby 'immoral' for writing what is, in fact, a positive review.

Puleeze....

The Artist

2011-12-02T13:30:00.000-08:00

Dial down your expectations for The Artist. Yes, it is good - as well as rather impressive that the director star, Michel Hazanavicius, manages to pull off a black-and-white silent film in an era that is ready to shift into 3-D. But it is not the best film of the year per the New York Film Critics. For one thing, it is too simplistic and lightweight to have any real lasting impact on the audience. It's a movie movie that certainly can and will charm film buffs. The film is, if anything, an ode to the silent era and at times feels like a stunt to see if the filmmaker could make a silent film. He can. Bravo. But being that the movie seems to only exist as an artifact to prove a point it ends up feeling rather thin.

There are many things I found lacking about the film... suffice it to say if it were 60 minutes long it might work better. I'll also add that there is one sequence that is brilliant to the point that if the film followed that particular narrative twist it would have put the film into a fun gonzo orbit somewhere in the realm of Being John Malkovich. But, alas, what we have is a fairly entertaining and unique film with some nice - albeit predictable - moments. But nothing more.

Got your back

2011-11-16T13:09:00.000-08:00

[Hat tip to this blog]

Combined Movie Titles

2011-11-13T11:05:00.000-08:00

Just for fun...

A Room With a View to a Kill - While staying in a nice hotel in Florence James Bond learns that he has been given the wrong room. He trades his room with a repressed Englishwoman who's father, it turns out, is at the center of a crime ring that is rigging horse races.

Blow Out of Africa - A movie sound effects technician working on a movie in Kenya unwittingly captures audio evidence of a famous woman author from Denmark who may or may not have something to do with a cocaine related murder.

Man Bites Dogma - A serial killer and his friend turn the camera on themselves and try to philosophize on how they can get into heaven after committing a bunch of atrocious murders.

Swing Time Bandits - A boy dancer enters a historical, fantasy, dream world where he encounters dwarfs and a fleet-footed dance teacher who helps him escape once he is pursued by evil characters.

Displaced Desire

2011-11-08T11:55:00.000-08:00

Two posters forty years apart that have other things on their mind other than doorbells and safe cracking.

Martha Marcy May...

2011-10-28T15:49:00.000-07:00

It's tough to say 'Martha Marcy May Marlene' quickly. It is also difficult to remember the title if you are hard pressed at a cocktail party. But the appeal of the movie resides in a bit of confusion - so the title is apt.

Elizabeth Olsen gives a terrific performance as a young women who gets swept into a Charlie Manson-like cult [lead by a wiry, appealing and at times scary John Hawkes] but manages to escape and spend a few days trying to find her bearings with her uptight sister - who is the only family she has.

Besides the performances and quality direction [by first time director Sean Durkin], the film's form and editing is what makes it all work. It skips effortlessly back and forth in time from the first day Martha [Marcy May] enters the cult in the Catskill mountains of New York to her paranoid days living with her sister and [even more uptight] husband who are on vacation at a lake in Connecticut.

The film continually presents us psychological conflicts and interestingly tense situations that seem as though they will boil over but which, actually, smoothly role along giving the film an effectively slow creep.

Oh, yeah, and Elizabeth Olsen is really rather darn attractive. [At least to this reviewer]. She is in every scene and we often see many close-ups of her expressive eyes. She has a natural beauty that - in some ways - manages to distract from the plot; Especially when the tastefully done but obligatory indie-film nude scenes come along.

Nonetheless, all for authenticity!

If there is one weakness in the film it is the cult that Martha belongs to. The film asks us to believe in the character yet it wants us to believe she would belong to a cult that seems to have no reason for being other than to please the cult leader's sexual desires. If the audience is asked to believe in a full-fledged character you have to also make that which they believe in believable. I other words, the screenwriter should show us why Martha and the other women would want to belong to the cult. Especially because each of them have to endure the pain and humiliation of rape soon after they join. If the only reward is gardening and occasionally sneaking into rich people's homes then the motivation invites incredulity.

*SPOILER OF SORTS*

Some are confused or annoyed at the film's ending. But, if you think about it, it would be completely unsatisfactory for the film to end any other way. They would have had to tack on another 30 minutes at the end of the film and [most likely] find a way to kill the cult leader - which would make the movie a completely different one and, to my mind, an unrealistic one.

To those who don't get the movie's ending; It's called form following content; Martha is confused and paranoid and her own state-of-mind is precarious. Therefore, the movie puts us in that place as well. By the end, we don't what the heck is going to happen - and neither does she.

Netflix still pretty good

2011-10-24T17:41:00.000-07:00

I know there were a lot of people who were upset when NetFlix switched up their model, splitting between streaming and DVD units thus raising the monthy subscription around 60%. [They lost 800,000 customers last quarter] However, I notice a lot of comments about how Netflix streaming content sucks. Let me just say if someone cannot find good movies to stream on NetFlix then they are either completely ignorant of what is actually offered or they only want brand new mainstream crap.

If they want the crap then let them toss their money over to Blockbuster and RedBox. Or let them pay $3.99 per movie at Amazon or iTunes rather than the still pretty inexpensive $7.99 a month offer.

But, seriously, people need to expand their horizon's beyond the latest Hollywood hits. Viewers willing to do that will find it very easy to build an extremely long queue from what NetFlix has to offer. I find great old movies, foreign language films and hidden gems all the time. True, they will lose some of the Criterion titles to Hulu-Plus soon but it's not like the average viewer cares about Criterion titles anyway so it is no loss for the mainstream Mike's and Mary's out there. For the rest of us - who appreciate non-mainstream films - it will be a loss - but then Hulu Plus offers the titles at $7.99 a month, which ain't bad.

Get out there and look for streaming titles. I see no reason for me to list the great films I have streamed on NetFlix. If you can't find them you probably don't care anyway.

Happy viewing.

Pale Skin

2011-10-16T18:31:00.000-07:00

It's amazing that a movie by a gifted director with many intriguing ideas about identity topped with grisly thriller and sexual elements can ultimately be rather dull. The first half sort of lumbers along and the second half, while better, manages to be rather predictable even though it goes places few movies ever have.

Pedro Almodovar's early films had ways of shocking audiences even though the subject was as straightforward as homosexuality or sex. But 'The Skin I Live In' has multiple elements sure to offend even the most seasoned film goer, yet it never gets off the operating table.

All the pieces seem in place and the structure is very tight [maybe too tight] but it doesn't soar like Almodovar's best.

Thinking about it a day later it seems that it surely must have been better than I thought. After all, the main conceit of the film is a whopper. [Think 'Vertigo' and 'Frankenstein' dropped into a blender] But the feeling I had as I sat in the theater watching it was rather underwhelming.

Rare DVDs III

2011-09-30T08:40:00.000-07:00

Plenty of DVD's come and go and we often miss them or don't even know they exist. These are a few rarely seen films that are not necessarily hard to find.

Circle of Deceit [Kino]
This German film deals with a journalist in a war zone who must come to grips with what is going on around him in war and in his life. Bruno Ganz stars as the journalist and Hanna Schygulla is the woman he has fallen in love with. Directed by Volker Schlöndorff with a terrific amount of verve the film was shot in Lebanon while a war was going on. They shot in and around actual abandoned bombed out buildings and it feels at times like a documentary.

Danzon [Facets]
Okay, this one is sort of rare because it is out-of-print. It's a well made, engaging Mexican film about a woman who goes in search of her missing dancing partner - an older gentleman she hardly knows. While looking for him she ends up in Veracruz where she befriends a cross-dresser who helps her find herself. [The films is not as salacious as it sounds; This is not Almodovar territory].

We All Loved Each Other So Much [BYU]
This one goes by the title C'eravamo Tanto Amati and is rather expensive and hard to come by but if you like fast paced delightful Italian comedy/dramas this is the ticket. Directed by Ettore Scola and starring Nino Manfredi, Vittorio Gassman, Stefania Sandrelli the film deals with a group of friends recalling their tumultuous lives growing up together - all of which deal with the men falling in love with the woman at various stages.

25 Firemans Street [Kino]
I would categorize this Hungarian film as Eastern European, communist, surrealism. Directed by István Szabó it has a unique style that is almost completely alien to us today. Each shot is precise and involves rather intricate roving camera tracking shots that often utilize the zoom lens. It takes place entirely in one run-down apartment building that, quite clearly, is a metaphor for Hungary circa the early 70's.

Mr Thank You [Eclipse / Criterion] [Also on Hulu Plus] [[Maybe not so rare]]
This film by Hiroshi Shimizu is an amazing snapshot of Japan in 1935. The main character is a bus driver who does a daily trip from Tokyo to the nearby mountain towns that exist in the area. Along thee way he encounters the many peope in the region. It is very simply directed yet has an endearing quality and some rather inventive editing to move the story along. This film is rather easy to get now - although it is part of a box set, which has many other terrific films by the same director

Il momento della verità

2011-09-26T09:43:00.000-07:00

Every time I see a Francesco Rosi film I wonder how is it possible he is not better known. Even among cinephiles he doesn't get his due. Of course, his films are hard to come by so that certainly plays a part.

Il momento della verità [aka The Moment of Truth] is not one of his well known films but thanks to Criterion / Hulu Plus it is now available. And what a masterful film it is.

The basic story is that of an Andalusian farm boy who in order to get out of poverty moves to Barcelona to become a bullfighter. The film is both a documentary and a feature film. The bullfighting scenes, as well as various bullfighting festivities - such as bulls running through crowds and plowing into spectators - are all real. Very real. When the bull is gored and blood spills profusely out of his mouth it is all real. And disturbing. Yet it is this authenticity that makes the film all the more effective.

Despite the narrative arc about the young man's rise to fame this is not a film about bullfighting so much as a neo-realist film [in color] about the travails of the working poor in Spain circa 1965. It shows us in blunt terms that the choices are limited. If you are a male you can remain on the farm working just to survive or you can go to the city and work for someone who forwards you money, which you then become indebted to thus never really getting ahead. Or, if you are a fearless and athletic young man, you can try bullfighting and makes a good living - albeit one that is very risky.

It should be noted this film could not have been made in the mid 60's by a Spanish filmmaker due to the Franco dictatorship. So it took Rosi - an Italian - along with his great cinematographer, Gianni Di Venanzo, shooting the documentary scenes with a 16mm silent, color camera - to get it done. The fictional scenes were - I believe - shot in 35mm as they could be under controlled direction.

The actor who plays the lead is a real [legendary] bullfighter named Miguel Mateo 'Miguelín' and he is truly amazing to watch. Not only in the way he handles the cape and the muleta but in some of the scenes in which he brushes up against the bull and pats him on the head before eventually thrusting the sword [estoque] into the bull's shoulder blade are astonishing.

It is evident from the first moment he steps into the ring that he has talent. In fact, if the film has one weakness it is believing that a peasant can come from a farm and in such a short time become such an accomplished torero. Nonetheless, since the time it takes for him to become a bullfighter is never really established it is a minor point.

As in most all Rosi films the hero's demise is imminent. Most Rosi film's actually begin with the main character's death and then go back in time to show us what lead up to that death. This film begins with a ceremony from Holy Week - shot as a documentary giving us a full flavor of Spain in that period - and then dives into the story.

Rosi and Di Venanzo frame shots beautifully. And the editing of the documentary scenes with that of the fictional scenes are both convincing and compelling. Particularly so because the main actor is often in both making for a smooth transition. Of course, the film is dubbed into Italian from what appears Spanish. But it is so visually rich, well paced and put together that dialogue becomes secondary to the overall effect.

This is a terrific film with a sound political message. It's also has the best [and brutal] bullfighting scenes I've seen in a movie. I am glad Criterion has made it available on Hulu Plus.

-------
Postscript: Bullfighting has been banned in parts of Spain.

------
Update: Soon to be available on DVD and Blu-Ray

Drive

2011-09-22T08:59:00.000-07:00

Drive is a mainstream art house movie. Or maybe that's an art house mainstream movie? Either way the reason that a lot of people won't like it is because it's not really for the mainstream audience but it is being marketed as though it was.

Ryan Gosling plays a laconic mechanic / movie stunt driver who occassionally lends his services as a robbery getaway driver. He also has compassion, a mean streak and the ability to sacrifice himself for the right reasons, which often makes for a good movie character. He has no name in the movie but at one point he identifies himself as a shark [are there good sharks?] and a scorpion [a scorpion is emblazoned on his jacket]. Yet his nature is not threatening so much as just focused and intense.

If you combine the movies Le Samurai by John Pierre Melville and The Driver by Walter Hill and maybe Bullitt by Peter Yates then you'll get an idea of what Drive is like and what it is about. With a particularly stronger attachment aesthetically to Le Samurai.

Both Drive and Le Samurai take an American ideal genre - the crime film or film noir [not a genre] - and turn it on its head by slowing it down and giving it something contemplative and intellectual while still maintaining a modicum of Hollywood.

Overall, I think Drive does exactly what the director (Nicolas Winding Refn) and writer (Hossein Amini) want it to do. But the question is do they succeed? I would say yes and no. What works in the movie is the overall mood as well as the build up to the [inevitable] violence. What doesn't necessarily work is the development of the characters as well as the development of the relationship between the driver (Ryan Goslin) and the young woman (Carey Mulligan).

The director / writer essentially give us interesting archetypal characters that are not necessarily mainstream but are also not necessarily well-developed. The movie is also perhaps a bit too consciously clever of itself. Part of the problem is that in slowing the movie down Refn lets the audience think about each scene a little too much and in most crime films if the audience has time to stop and think about it they will find reasons to question what they are watching. With Drive this is particularly true early on when the movie has a lot of awkward pauses and moments of silence.

However, the pacing is not a bad thing. In fact, it is rather hypnotic to the point that if you get into the rhythm of the movie [which may also remind some of Michael Mann's Collateral] then you will overlook all the shortcomings as you gear up for the second half as the tension builds and the violence comes.

Overall, it is a rather effective movie; Especially in the second half when the pace picks up and the narrative focus becomes a little stronger as well as more dramatic and bloody. The movie goes exactly where is should go - if you think about it. And that's one reason to recommend it since it is essentially a formulaic film - albeit with art house street cred but mainstream aspirations.

Soviet humor

2011-09-18T10:05:00.000-07:00

Here's the terrific opening scene from Boris Barnet's The House of Trubnaya Square. At once a humorous, realist, Soviet montage style scene.

The film too is wonderful and it can be seen in full here. [No subtitles for the intertitles but it is easy to follow]. It will also be released on a Soviet film collection DVD this week.

More on little known Russian director Boris Barnet here.

Bromberg's silent show

2011-09-11T20:31:00.000-07:00

Serge Bromberg of Lobster films is a great entertainer who each year presents a show in Paris of short found and restored silent films. The last few years he has taken the show on the road. Recently he has been presenting a show at the Telluride Film Festival and then he hops over to Los Angeles. I watched his show a couple of years ago in Telluride and it was terrific. I just attended his most recent show at the Academy's Samuel Goldwyn Theater and while I don't think the show was as good as the one from two years ago it was still entertaining and - as always - a learning experience for film buffs.

He is tied in with Flicker Alley which released such DVD titles as Saved From The Flames and a great collection of Georges Méliès films so he knows his stuff and has a treasure trove of films to present.

For this show the main focus was a restoration of a hand colored version of Melies' A Trip To The Moon as well as an assortment of 3-D films.

Here are the titles he presented - a good number of which can be found online. I've included links.

A Trip Down Market Street - a 1906 short single take down Market St in San Francisco a few days before the 1906 earthquake. The reason they know it was only a few days before the quake was because a historian did some work to find out weather conditions as well as license plates on some of the cars that passed by in front of the camera, which was mounted on a cable car. The short is available online here.

San Francisco Apres La Catastrope - A very short film from 1906 of the devastation. Found in Europe.

Metamorphoses du Papillon - A hand-tinted 1904 short that shows a centipede turning into a butterfly. Only it's all done with an actor. Pleasantly funny. Watch it online here.

The Acrobatic Fly - Described - with a smile - by Bromberg as 'atrocious' it is rather funny until you realize why the fly can't move. Then it is grimly funny. This was shown as part of Bromberg's show at Telluride in 2009. Watch it online here.

La Peine du Talion - A 1906 hand-tinted fantasy film about a guy out chasing and catching butterflies who gets his comeuppance. Watch it online here.

Flirt en Chemin de Fer - A 1902 short that Bromberg said was one of the first films to deal with 'sex'. A man kisses a woman on a train. The train goes through a tunnel very quickly and whatever they did together is over.

Apres Le Bal - An 1897 Méliès film that Bromberg described as erotic. A woman comes home and her maid gives her a bath. The 'water' the maid throws on her looks more like coal dust than water. Watch it online here.

Gwalior - A 1907 travelogue through India. Hand-tinted images of people and an elephant strolling though the town and country.

Joy of Living - A beautiful free flowing animated short from 1934. The film did not necessaily fit with the rest of the program but it is a nice bit of art work. I had seen this before it is an extra on the Mauvaise Graine DVD - an early Billy Wilder film. Watch the short online here.

La Donna e Mobile / Als Wie So Trugerisch - A 1907 sound film! An actor lip synchs a few moments from the famous opera sung by Enrico Caruso. Mildly amusing but more notable for the sound element which [in its day] utilized a cylinder to play the audio in synch with the image.

Les Kiriki - Very humorous 1907 short with 'Japanese acrobats'. In truth, actors wearing Japanese style hair pieces and the director / editor using trick cinematography to make it look like the troupe is doing magnificent acrobatic tricks. Hand-colored. This was shown as part of Bromberg's show at Telluride in 2009. Watch it online here.

Bunzli System - This was a series of three really short films that were originally processed on a machine developed by Rene Bunzli in the 19th century. Rather that celluloid the film is made of a paper-like substance and utilizes a glass disc and was run through a hand-crank stand-alone viewing contraption that presented the films with a stereoscopic 3-D effect. These shorts were presented to us in 3-D so we had to don the fancy glasses. One dealt with the arrival of a train, one dealt with a brothel and I don't remember the other one. All were about 10 seconds long so they showed them twice.

The three Méliès shorts shown were not originally meant to be seen in 3-D but ironically because of the way Méliès filmed them they were able to be seen that way. The reason is because once Méliès became popular he began to shoot his films with two cameras side by side. One print would be sent east and one to the west. Years later historians would stumble upon the films and notice that one print was slightly off-kilter from the other. Due to this phenomena they were able to lay one film over the top of the other one and create a 3-D effect. Pretty amazing.

The three films were:

Le Chaudron Infernal - A short film with a devil and a cauldron he tries to stuff people into. Hand tinted. Watch it online here.

L'Oracle de Delphes - 1903 short in which a thief attempts to steal some jewels from an Egypian tomb and gets caught by a ghost and some statutes.

La Cornue Infernale - 1902 short that involves a sleeping wizard, a snake and a series of phantasmagorical images that come to life. This one had the best 3-D effect. Watch it online here.

The final film was a color version of Méliès A Trip To The Moon. The fact that is was in color was remarkable because up until 10 years ago no one knew a color version of the film existed. Of course, it had been hand-painted at some point long ago. But the problem was when the reel was purchased it was severely deteriorated and would take a miracle to make it come back to life. With determination and ingenuity Bromberg along with Tom Burton, the head of the Preservation Department at Technicolor, managed to get the film restored.

Even though the film was warped and shriveled Bromberg brought it back by - ironically - building a humidor to speed up the disintegration, which would in time make the reel of film soft enough to slowly peel. Then they took individual digital photos of each and every frame they could. They ended up with more than 10,000 frames, which were then put onto discs and into a computer where a long two year process of reassembling the movie took place.

The final result is pretty cool. It premiered at Cannes last May complete with a [somewhat inappropriate] soundtrack by the French duo Air.

The non-color version of the film can be seen here.

After the screening Tom Burton gave a Power Point presentation of the whole process. And then they screened it again but this time with Bromberg playing the piano.

Overall, a good night at the movies.

[Fellow blogger Phil was there too.]

Telluride Film Festival 1991

2011-09-02T14:06:00.000-07:00

Twenty years ago this weekend I was part of the Telluride Film Festival Student Program. I wrote an essay on 'McCabe and Mrs Miller' which was good enough to get me accepted to the festival. [Confession; the student program was less competitive then, plus I attended a college in the area]

I had been to the festival for the first time in 1990 so I was excited to return for the beauty of the area as well as the selection of films and the friendly crowds that gathered each Labor Day weekend in the spectacular town of Telluride.

The festival, then [the eighteenth one], was much, much smaller then than it is now. However, in 1991 they expanded the festival by adding a new large location that they called The Strand, which was a High School gymnasium that they had converted to a theater.

There was no gondola, therefore no Chuck Jones theater. And the Galaxy theater was not there yet either. Instead what they had was a Quonset hut called The Community Center, which was in the same vicinity. The other theaters, still there today, were The Opera House, the Nugget, the Mason's Hall and of course the Abel Gance Outdoor theater. What was especially notable was the festival was more compact then. When the noon seminars came around each day there were no other events. So people either went to the seminar or went to lunch. And, of course, the lines for each movie were shorter.

In those days they only had 30 movies that played over the four days, the cost of the festival pass was $325.00 [individual tickets per movie were $7.00 or $10.00 for the Opera House] and they had a federal grant for the National Endowment of the Arts. The main corporate sponsor was Premiere magazine.

That year the tributes went to:
Nature's Filmmakers - An interesting cross section saluting various 'nature filmmakers'. That year the 'Trials of Life' series was to be shown on PBS.
Sven Nykvist - The famed cinematographer for many of Ingmar Bergman films. That year he had a film of his own titled 'The Ox'.
Jodie Foster - After 30 years of actiung she had her first directed film there titled 'Little Man Tate'.

The rest of the line-up was the usual interesting cross section of films that Telluride - like any quality festival - was known for. But in those days Telluride was not necessarily known for big premieres - although they had a few every so often. They were known more for the art of old and new films that the cinefiles out there could appreciate.

In 1991 the guest director was Laurie Anderson the eclectic musician who can only be described as unique. She is both funny and wise and is great at weaving intricate and interesting stories, which she did when she came to talk to us in the Student Program.

This was only the second year they had a guest director and so rather than the customary five film selection they have now established there were only two films. She chose a terrific Mexican drama titled 'Danzon' and a selection of short video works titled 'New Video Art'.

Here were the film selections that year:
FEATURE FILMS [NEW]
A Captive In The Land - John Berry
Danzon - Maria Novaro
Dogfight - Nancy Savocca
The Double Life of Veronique - Krysztof Kieslowski
Hors La Vie - Maroun Bagdadi
I Want to Fly [aka Volere volare] - Maurizio Nichetti
Let Him Have It - Peter Medak
Little Man Tate - Jodie Foster
New Video Art - various short experimental videos
The Ox [aka Oxen]- Sven Nykvist
Prospero's Books - Peter Greenaway
The Rapture - Michael Tolkin
Rambling Rose - Martha Coolidge
Sanctus / Lyrical Nitrate - Experimental and reconfigured silent films
Scream of Stone - Werner Herzog
A Tale Of The Unextinguished Moon - Yevgeny Tsimbal
A Woman's Tale - Paul Cox
Raise The Red Lantern - Zhang Yimou

FEATURE FILMS [REVIVAL]
3:10 To Yuma - As part of a mini tribute to Glenn Ford and Elmore Leonard
Lucky Star - Frank Borzage 1929 film [rediscovered]
Prix de Beaute - Louise Brooks film from 1931
Ride The High Country - Sam Peckinpah film from 1962

DOCUMENTARIES
Anima Mundi - Godfrey Reggio
Empire Of The Air - Ken Burns documentary of radio
Hearts of Darkness - Documentary on Apocalypse Now by George Hickenlooper
The Other Eye - Documentary on GW Pabst
The Tourist - a personal diary documentary by Robb Moss
Wild By Law - Doumentary on the Wilderness Act in the US

The closest Oscar contending film was Rambling Rose, which garnered nominations for Laura Dern and Diane Ladd. In a fair world Sheila Florance from A Woman's Tale would have been nominated for her brave role of an elderly woman dying of cancer, which in fact was really what was happening to her when she made the film.

Raise The Red Lantern and The Double Life of Veronique are today classic foreign language films. In the case of Veronique many had not yet heard of Kieslowski. This was his first film outside of Poland.

Hearts of Darkness became the standard for films about filmmaking but the other documentaries quietly came and went as was the case with documentaries until a few years ago,

A good number of films never really saw distribution in the US including A Tale Of The Unextinguished Moon, Hors la Vie and The Tourist. Many had minor releases such as A Woman's Take, Oxen, I Want to Fly and Danzon.

Highlights I can recall:
* The Lucky Star screening at the Opera House with a musical score by Adrian Johnston was transcendent. The film had not been seen, much less heard of, for over 60 years so no one knew what to expect. But what a discovery. Most of the audience were in tears if not because of the subject matter [a Borzage weepy about a man in a wheelchair who learns to walk again] but because of the beautiful score by Johnston.

* Ken Burns addressing the students. As I learned, it became customary for Ken Burns to address the staff before the festival began. He brings an eloquent and friendly charm that wins everyone over to his way of thinking. He got us excited not just about the festival but about filmmaking and the valuable service a good filmmaker [especially a documentary one] can do for the arts and society.

* Watching Werner Herzog run down the mountain after the Labor Day picnic. In those days the Labor Day picnic was held at the top of the mountain [see photo at top]. The main way to get there was to take the chair lift. Once the picnic and the seminar were finished people get back in line and ride down the mountain. Werner saw the line was too long so rather than wait [which technically he did not have to do] he decided to just head off straight down the mountain. Me, being a mountain runner, badly wanted to follow him down the mountain. However, I was already on the chairlift descending to town. So I was able to watch him tear down the grass, weed, and rocky trails. When I got to the bottom I asked him how he enjoyed his route and he said he enjoyed it and had to do it because he wanted to get the the screening of Raise The Red Lantern.

* Meeting Irene Jacob at the Labor Day picnic was a delight too. As is often the case in Telluride it is fairly easy to approach a star and say hello. Irene Jacob was easy going and spoke to some of the students about The Double Life of Veronique. She pointed out to me that the film is edited differently in the two parts of the film. The first part in Poland is analytical while the second part in France was more poetic. She explained it all but it was hard to concentrate on what she way saying. After all she is the same age as me and very attractive.

Telluride has a great film festival and I returned to it for many years from 1992 to 2008. 1991 was special because of many of the people I met in an educational type setting. Of course, it is only 4 or 5 days of film. But it is intense and exciting. I am still in touch with four friends I met that weekend. Which is about as many people I am still in touch with from college.

Monroe calling....

2011-09-01T10:00:00.000-07:00

She looks as though she is on an invisble cell phone.

"Hello, Arthur..."

Best of 1974

2011-08-30T17:08:00.000-07:00

A list of some of the best films of 1974 [some of which were not released in the US until later].

Chinatown
We All Loved Each Other So Much [released in the US in 1977]
Going Places [Les valseuses]
Ali Fear Eats the Soul
Bring Me The Head of Alfredo Garcia
The Phantom of Liberty
Celine and Julie Go Boating [released in the US in 1978]
Lancelot of the Lake [released in the US in 1975]
California Split
Lacombe, Lucien
Godfather Part II

Antonioni fog

2011-08-11T12:49:00.000-07:00

I'm seeing the beginning of a pattern here.

Nim

2011-07-08T08:35:00.000-07:00

Project Nim

The documentary Project Nim is about a bunch of humans who acted like wild animals in order to get a wild animal to be more human.

Okay, there is more to it than that but it is quite evident that the people who initiated the project - to teach a chimpanzee sign language - went about it the wrong way. It started when they forcibly tore him from his mother's arms when he was two weeks old. His journey from there was full of adventure, delight, destruction, sadness and sorrow. But not just for the chimp; for the people involved as well.

In 1973 a scientist named Herbert Terrace had a theory that a chimpanzee could learn sign language and communicate with humans in that way. They took a baby chimpanzee - who they named Nim Chimsky - and moved him in with a human family who raised him as one of their own. But the family did not attempt to teach him sign language enough so Terrace moved Nim out of the house to an estate with a young eager teacher. From there many other trainers and teachers came along to raise and teach Nim. But not much progress was made - although Nim did manage to learn around 100 signs as well as bite and scratch the teachers enough to make the sessions challenging for everyone involved.

After five years Nim could no longer be part of the human world because he was getting too big and strong. He posed a threat. Plus, it seems his learning days were over. But what happened next is really what the documentary is about. Essentially, Herbert Terrace had no real plan other than to just hand Nim to a chimpanzee farm [of sorts]. But, clearly, to do that to a chimp who was solely raised by humans was a tad inhumane. It got worse for Nim.

James Marsh, who directed the terrific, award winning Man On Wire and the fascinating and dark Wisconsin Death Trip here taps into his heartfelt side and for the most part succeeds. The movie, if anything, becomes a good place to start a debate about animal testing - which, if done right, can yield important and useful results. But it is a debate that is very much with us today.

Of interest, no one in the documentary mentions that Nim was named after Noam Chomsky who is a highly influential linguist. And because of that they also don't get into the core of Chomsky's [at the time] controversial theory, which is that language is essentially an instinct. It is not something that can be taught. Humans are born with an innate ability to speak human language. Chimps are not. They speak chimp language - if one can call it that. They can learn a code but not the essential syntax of human language. So the idea that you can bridge the gap between species - even if it were somehow easier to deal with a chimp's wild-nature attitude - is not really possible. At least not in the way the scientist or trainers believed it to be possible.

Of course, it took Terrace's experiments to come to this conclusion.

This does not mean that Nim and his trainer/ teachers could not communicate or that there was not a strong bond. As is evident in the documentary these trainer /trainers had an emotional bond with Nim and he with them. So the documentary is in some ways a cautionary tale about how naïve the scientist was to pull Nim from his species, raise him among humans and then after five years throw him back to the chimpanzee world.

It's pretty easy to conclude that experiments and testing were not necessarily foolish but that the planning for how to end the project was.

Mont Blanc vittles

2011-06-27T09:43:00.000-07:00

There are four books from the 19th century that I could find that begin with the title:
"A Narrative Of An Ascent To The Summit Of Mont Blanc...." followed by the year of the climb. One is from 1821, two are from 1827 and one is from 1830.

In the book by John Auldjo [in 1827] he provides a list of the provisions he and his group of a half dozen or so took for the two day ascent. Suffice it to say these are not the freeze dried, high energy light-weight snacks one would take today.

Our stock consisted of the following articles: twenty bottles of vin ordinaire; one bottle of champagne; one bottle and a half of vinegar; two bottles of brandy; one bottle of sirop de vinaigre; two large pieces of veal; two large pieces of mutton; six sausages; sixteen chickens; two large fowls; several loaves of bread; six lemons; sugar; a large quantity of cheese; raisins and French plums.

Letters from directors

2011-06-23T20:39:00.000-07:00

Kubrick wanted it 1.1:66 and Lynch wanted the sound 3db louder than usual and a director of animation says watch those eye lines!

In a Field

2011-06-10T13:56:00.000-07:00

Movies that feature posters [and a still] with one guy in a field.

Tree of Life

2011-05-29T20:39:00.000-07:00

The Tree of Life, by Terrence Malick, is a serious film in a cynical time. It is a film that you have to either fully or partly embrace if you are to appreciate or even like it. Similar to the the films of Theo Angelopoulos or Alexander Sokurov this is a film that deals with big themes in an honest [even earnest] way and if you don't ride with them you may feel like turning away.

The film is not a typical narrative film. It is instead a cinematic poem that is comprised of a series of visual and aural moments and vignettes that flash by onscreen in the way that a memory might in the mind of someone who remembers their childhood with an acute clarity. [Critic Todd McCarthy likens it to a symphony].

Most all movies have poetic moments in which the filmmaker presents us with a montage that breaks away from the narrative to express a particular tone or to show time passing. It is a narrative technique that can infuse a movie with energy and distinction as well as give us a rest from the plot. The Tree of Life is a movie almost completely made up of such moments. That is both a good thing and somewhat of a challenge.

Good because [if anything] it lives up to the promise of the trailer. What I mean by that is there are many times we see a trailer that captures the best poetic and visually interesting moments of a film. But when we see those moments in the context of the film they seem almost banal. Not in the case of The Tree of Life. This is a movie that maintains the intoxicatingly splendid visuals and editing thrills from start to finish.

Somewhat of a challenge because the movie is like a high wire act in which the audience is the one on the high wire. And this begs the question, how long can most of us remain engaged when the visual and aural moments are of such splendor? Or, more to the point, how long can we stay focused when the narrative never really establishes itself from the overpowering form? How long can we hold-out without a story to grab our attention?

If you cry watching The Tree of Life it won't be because of the death of a young boy [a plot point we know in the first reel] but because of the way Malick edits music and visuals together in such a magnificent way. I happen to think that is a perfectly legitimate reason to shed a tear or two. But others may disagree. Others may want us to feel the emotion by intimately getting to know the characters. Others too may want a traditional narrative with character development and a plot to follow. Malick is not interested in that. And, frankly, I don't think we should be either - because, after all, this is his vision and his way of telling a story. And so it should be judged on the merits of the expression of his vision.

The acting, such as it is, is good. The children are best because they seem to fit into Malick's grand innocent and mysterious world view. They don't seem to be acting but rather existing and reacting to the world around them. Brad Pitt juts out his jaw a lot as the authoritative father but he maintains a believable attitude throughout. Jessica Chastain has a purity to her that is angelically bland and Sean Penn seems lost in thought when he is on screen - which he is, actually.

The cinematography by Emmanuel Lubezki and the editing by numerous editors over a three year period are the real winners here. As is the utilization of the musical score, which comprises works from such masters as Bach, Brahms, Berlioz, Mahler, Smetana and contemporary film score maestros Alexandre Desplat and Zbigniew Preisner - the former who is credited with the score.

Malick has given us a vision of life - all of life; from beginning to end. From the big bang to the creation of earth to evolution to the death of dinosaurs to the innocence of growing up in 1950's Texas [where DDT is merely a cool thick fog] all the way to present day and beyond. It is film that is at once Biblical and personal, terrifying and reassuring, dreamlike and surreal but also grounded in the cycles of nature. It deals with grace and hope in ways that might make you cringe or cry but which you cannot deny is presented with power and originality.

I think it is a great film with some flaws. Some would say that about life.

I can't wait to see it again.

More Reading:
An article on the cinematography.

Some good observations and background on the film.

Popmatters considers the themes of Malick's films.

George at Cannes

2011-05-24T17:59:00.000-07:00

My friend George the Cyclist was at Cannes again this year and he managed to see 70 movies. I am not really sure how he did that, but he loves movies enough to make it happen. Here are blurbs on some of the notable movies he saw.

Airirang
Documentary by Kim Ki-Duk. He has been a recluse all this time living in a tent...overcome by the near death of an actress on his last film and also by the betrayal of two of his assistant directors. He concludes that life is sadism, self-torture and masochism.... A remarkably original film.

The Artist
A superbly crafted re-creation of a silent film [set in the time] when the silent era was drawing to a close. [It] will be a hit at film fests and on the art house circuit.

Bonsai
A made-to-order film for Cannes. [Filmmaker] had the formula down--a polished, arty film, with convincing performances about some young struggling writers. The film looked nice, and was a palatable film-going experience, but didn't amount to much.

Drive
An immensely pleasing, highly stylized film of honor and quiet strength. Ryan Gosling, oozing boatloads of charisma, brilliantly protrays a Hollywood stunt driver who also works in a garage and moonlights as the getaway driver for criminals.

Footnote
This was a highly intelligent film with an orginal premise and an unflinching, butally honest study of academic rivalries. The moral dilemmas raised provide some of the festival's best fodder for post-film discussion.

Le Havre
Kaurasmaki the majordomo of droll...[this] will rank among the best of his films.

Hors Satan
It is another of [Dumont's] rural Flanders films with a grizzled male who is either saintly or sinister, coming to the aid of the wayward.... I have friends who think Dumont is repugnant and others who think he can do no wrong. This film will not change the regard of any of them.

Melancholia
Von Trier does not disappoint and Dunst goes though a range of enough torments to be a worthy award winner.

Michael
A generally understated Austrian feature that managed to be quite engrossing and compelling. [Main characters] takes his [ten year old] hostage on outings and lets him come out of the basement for meals. The tension doesn't necessarily build, just the curiosity of how this will end.

Miss Bala
A film about a young beauty pageant contestant who inadvertently falls into the clutches of a high-powered drug gang and is forced to do their bidding. The film does not sensationalize or go overboard on the violence. [An] honest and original film.

Tree of Life
As the film gradually swept over me and settled into a semblance of a narrative... Malick won me over. This was High Art, a film that lovers of cinema will be happy to see again and again, not only to fully fathom it, but to appreciate it more and more.

We Have a Pope
French stalwart Michel Piccoli plays a just-elected Pope who doesn't care to accept the position. [S]urpsingly thoughtful movie from the often goofy Moretti.

We Need to Talk About Kevin
This is a film that justifies those who like to limit their daily intake of films to three or four at the most per day, to fully absorb and recover from each. This is a film that might take an entire festival to recover from.

Blonde Leather

2011-05-23T13:02:00.000-07:00

From Blonde In Black Leather a schlocky Italian comedy with Claudia Cardinale Monica Vitti

Cannes 2011 - blurbs II

2011-05-19T11:06:00.000-07:00

The Kid With a Bike - Dardenne Brothers
YAY
'The Belgian siblings are again at the peak of their powers in this impeccably observed drama.' - Rooney, Hollywood Reporter

'The Dardennes strike a perfect balance...it's dramatised superbly.'
Sandhu, Telegraph

NAY
'An unwieldy epilogue, with a series of awkwardly written and executed scenes that seem to be suggest Cyril needed a form of karmic payback for some of his rash, rascal-ish actions.' -Boyd van Hoeij, IndieWire

'I’ve never been sold on the Dardennes — [this film] hasn’t changed my mind.' - Zacharek, Movie Line.

Miss Bala - Gerardo Naranjo
YAY
' As a political and social document, Miss Bala is shock, awe, and pure cinema at its finest.' - Heath, Slant

'People will look back at the lineup in years to come and marvel that this powerhouse wasn’t in Competition' - D'Angelo, AVClub

NAY
None that I can find....

Outside Satan - Bruno Dumont
YAY
'Another "WTF?" film from Gallic writer-director Bruno. Word-of-mouth... should make "Satan" a must-see among artfilm aficionados' - Nelson, Variety

'It will find admirers among Dumont’s hardcore followers - and indeed, anyone with a taste for art cinema at its most uncompromisingly gaunt.' - Romney, ScreenDaily

NAY
'“Hors Satan” is a slog. A capital P pretentious film that is made in the tradition and fabric of an arthouse film that seems dated and laughable.' - Jagernauth, IndieWire

'[Dumont] a filmmaker who solemnly believes that every stylistic devise, forced camera angle, monosyllabic utterance or careless shrug from an actor conveys great meaning to his audience.' - Honeycutt, Hollywood Reporter

Cannes Scorecard

2011-05-17T08:42:00.000-07:00

Here is a screenshot from ScreenDaily's digital edition.

Cannes 2011 - blurbs

2011-05-13T19:24:00.000-07:00

Who knows how we feel about a film until we see it? I have often loved films that other critics hated and hated films that other critics loved.

This is especially true of the reception of the films that play at Cannes. Year in and year out the critics give us the buzz and by the time the films reach us it seems as though the critics were reacting to and writing about other films.

So with that in mind I will simply give a small sample of both positive and negative blurbs for some of the films that are at Cannes this year. In most cases these blurbs will be slightly out of context because a good many films get a mixed reaction from any one critic. But like the marketing companies out there I'll avoid any of that gray area writing. Here are five films that have YAH and NAY reviews.

We Need to Talk About Kevin - Lynne Ramsay
YAY
'Extraordinary' - Brooks, Guardian
'I want to throw up,' I remarked to a friend upon exiting the theater. 'But in a good way.' - Lodge , In Contention

NAY
'Frequently buckles underneath the weight of its labored and schematic story.'- Abrahms, L Magazine
'Most critics raced from this wildly overwrought Alain Resnais remake of The Bad Seed'. - Hoberman, Village Voice

Poliss - Maïwenn Le Besco
YAY
'Impressive. Convincingly jumps from laughter to tears and back again' -Mintzer, Hollywood Reporter
'When it’s good it positively crackles.' - Romney, Screendaily

NAY
'Could very well be the worst film I see at Cannes this year' - Heath, Slant
'One colleague admitted he endured the two-hours-plus running time just so he could hiss at the end.' - Anderson, Artforum

Restless- Gus Van Sant
YAY
'A gently moving hymn to life.' - Goodridge Screendaily
'Somehow, by the end, it all comes together. The very final shot is a peach.' - Bochenski, Little White Lies

NAY
'Treacly' - Dargis, NYTimes
'Treacly' - McCarthey, Hollywood Reporter

We Have a Pope - Nanni Moretti
YAY
'Superior [to The King's Speech].' - van de Klashorst, ICS
'Gentler and more benign than you'd expect from a left-wing non-believer.' - Romney, London Review

NAY
'Humdrum' - Kohn, IndieWire
'We have a papam; we also have pap.' - Anderson, Art Forum

Sleeping Beauty - Julia Leigh
YAH
'Near-perfect cinema.' - Rocchi - IndieWire
'An assured debut.' - Bradshaw, Guardian

NAY
'A cold film about heated things.' - McWeeney - Hitfix
'Was greeted with unimpressed silence, followed by a desultory smattering of whistles.' - Romney, London Review

Two trailers

2011-05-10T14:04:00.001-07:00

Two films playing at Cannes have cool teaser trailers.
This is why I like teaser trailers so much better than traditional trailers.

MISS BALA

The latest film by Sang-soo Hong.

Poetry

2011-05-08T19:24:00.000-07:00

The Korean fllm Poetry opened in Los Angeles Friday.

It's about a mother [and a grandmother] who must deal with situations in her life not of her choosing. Up against cultural clashes, legal matters and her own mortality she has to make choices. Choices none of us will hopefully ever have to make.

Much like other films by Lee Chang-dong it is heavy. But not heavy handed. And he has learned to pull back a bit and let the character and the story develop without us feeling it is being forced on us.

It's a devastating film and one of the best of the year. No matter how many films I like this year Poetry is assured to make my top-ten. Go see it if you can.

I wrote a review of it in relation to another Korean film, Mother, last year.

Future Music

2011-04-30T15:16:00.000-07:00

I love rare albums. I particularly like albums you can hear before they are released. But what about albums that won't be released for 14 years! Note the release date on this screen grab.

Something happened here but I'm not saying anything. I like future music.

Romantic Netflix

2011-04-27T08:28:00.000-07:00

Netflix has recommendations. But half the time they are odd. For instance, I don't think they [or their algorithms] know what is or what is not a romantic film.

Besides this screen grab here are a few titles they recommend as romantic films based on my taste:

That Obscure Object of Desire
Secret Things
Talk to Her
Emmanuel 7
La Jetee
The Piano Teacher
Jerichow

Notes on 7 films

2011-04-22T16:48:00.000-07:00

Win Win
A lawyer / wrestling coach commits a criminally liable act but finds a way to redeem himself by helping a struggling teen and his recovering drug-addicted mother, which he would never have had the chance to do had he not done the crime. Every scene intricately ties into every subsequent scene until it builds to a satisfying whole. Its win, win for all involved including the audience.

Meek’s Cutoff
A family of homesteaders in Oregon are lost thanks to an incompetent mountain man named Meek whose cutoff has led them to a dry dusty plain. Slow, methodical, often very hushed this is a film that lingers like a summer afternoon. Shot in 1.33:1 aspect ratio with a good number of shots that just observe the action rather than propel it forward. The film is not as engaging as it could be and perhaps a tad bit revisionist [or liberal] in its view of history but also more accurate than most westerns. Director Kelly Reichardt has built a respectable track record.

Bill Cunningham’s New York
An enjoyable documentary about an unpretentious man in a pretentious industry. Bill Cunningham is a 80-something down-to-earth fashion photographer who completely belies everything about the fashion world by photographing people on the New York City streets wearing the fashions of the day. He bicycles all around New York; he lives in an apartment with nothing but filing cabinets and a bed. He’s the real article and people love him for it - on his own terms. The documentary doesn’t dig deep into its subject but why should it?

The Princess of Montpensier
Four men vie for one woman in 16th century France while religious wars ensue, court intrigue and royal power plays manipulate everyone, sword fighting disrupts the order and beautiful castles dot the distant landscape. What’s not to love? This is Bertrand Tavernier at his best getting quality out of every performance, every line of dialogue and every foot of film. Save for the high production value this is a film Hollywood could not make. And I don't mean 'costume drama' because everyone does those - but instead that certain je ne sais quoi that only the French do so well. See it and you'll know what I mean.

Source Code
A movie that somehow has critics [and some scientists] embracing as darn near probably. Huh? How? Well, who cares? The movie is ‘Groundhogs Day’ [or maybe a Hindu tale] done as a sci-fi fantasy. It is enjoyable but when it attempts to display an emotional human core it stalls the narrative just long enough to make us think about what we are seeing - and that’s not what you want in this kind of film.

The Adjustment Bureau
A Matter of Life and Death by way of Wings of Desire, It’s A Wonderful Life, Here Comes Mr. Jordan, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Jump along with shades of Total Recall, Minority Report, Twilight Zone and the X-Files. It is about as original as a snack of milk and cookies but it is pleasant enough if you don’t stop to think about it much.

In A Better World
This Danish / Swedish drama is like watching a long row of domino's with spikes fall in slow motion along someone’s back; Predictable and painful. It is very well acted, directed, shot and edited but the story plods along imprisoning all the characters in a relentless world of fate. The parts of the film that take place in Africa are by far the best and could make a separate and better film than the other heavy-handed section about two boys wrecking their lives. There is no denying the talent behind and in front of the lens but director Susanne Bier has done better.

Renoir on Nixon

2011-04-12T13:55:00.000-07:00

I found this humorous anecdote in an article that Peter Bogdanovich wrote for The New York Observer a few years ago on a visit he had with Jean Renoir [and is wife Dido] one afternoon in Los Angeles.

One time, I brought my mother over to meet Jean and Dido. She was a great admirer of his work—as my artist father also had been. It was a lovely afternoon, sitting in the living room, sipping some white wine from antique sterling silver cups. At one point, while we were discussing dubbing of voices in movies, Jean said, “In a really civilized time, like the 12th century, a man who dubbed voices would be burned at the stake as a heretic for presuming that two souls can exist in one body!” Later, we got onto world politics and Nixon, who was still president then, and my mother remarked that Nixon’s gestures never seemed to fit with what he was saying. Everyone agreed. Suddenly, Jean called out to her: “Madame! I have it! Nixon is dubbed!” Renoir was as delighted with his conclusion as my mother was.

Lumet

2011-04-10T21:51:00.000-07:00

Sidney Lumet [1924 - 2011] made movies for six decades. He carved out a respectable status as a high quality director churning out many different kinds of films.

He made movies amid many different eras and had one released almost every year from 1957 to 1990. Some years there were two. He started in the golden age of television in 1951 and made a first feature film - '12 Angry Men' - in 1957, which was made at the tale end of old Hollywood.

He went through the conformist 50's, the turbulent 60's, the gritty 70's, the corporate 80's and into the blockbuster 90's and the new century. He had a pretty strong run from 1972 to 1977 a period in which he made: 'The Offence', 'Serpico', 'Murder on the Orient Express', 'Dog Day Afternoon', 'Network' and 'Equus' - all films that helped cement his reputation.

His last film 'Before The Devil Knows Your Dead' was made in 2007. What is most remarkable is that the year his first film - '12 Angry Men' - came out there were also films by such old time film making legends as Raoul Walsh, Delmer Daves, Rene Clair, King Vidor and Leo McCarey. Each had started making films in the silent era.

Lumet was in many ways a bridge between eras. Other than other currently working directors such as Manoel de Oliveira, Andrzej Wajda and Arthur Hiller he was one of the last of his kind to make films over such a long period of time.

Few filmmakers, either, have ever had as long a run.

Article about his career on Salon

Lost Island of VHS...XI

2011-04-06T14:37:00.000-07:00

Mädchen in Uniform - Leontine Sagan, Carl Froelich - 1931

This German film was one of the first big foreign language 'art' films to play in the United States. It tells the tale of a 14-year-old girl named Manuela (Hertha Thiele) who is enrolled in a very strict boarding school by her aunt after the death of her mother.

While there she makes some new friends. But she also grows attached in both a romantic and a mother/daughter sense with one of a sympathetic teacher - Fraülein von Bernburg - whom all the girls have a crush on. This forbidden relationship leads to trouble for both her and the teacher.

If this film were made today the 'sensitive girl falls in love with a female Nazi teacher' angle would be played up as an exploitative steamy lesbian tale. No doubt in 1931 it was controversial as well. But seen today it is rather tame on the ‘lesbian’ angle and instead more of a solid story about a young vulnerable woman trying to make sense of the strict boarding school in the emerging militarized world of the Weimar Republic. Indeed, the lead actress years later was quoted as saying: "I really don't want to make a great deal ...or account for a film about lesbianism here. That's far from my mind, because the whole thing of course is also a revolt against the cruel Prussian education system."

I personally did not feel the film was any more a lesbian film than it was a 'heterosexual' film. It is pretty evident that the girls are rather harshly treated by all the teachers and most particularly by the school's Principle - who is as unsympathetic as you would expect a 'Nazi' character to be. And so the girls take a liking to Fraülein von Bernburg because she is so much fairer with them. In one scene one of the girls shows elation and relief when she realized that von Bernburg will be doling out punishment to her. It is not that von Bernburg will grant her some tenderness but rather the penalty will simply be less severe.

Fraülein von Bernburg becomes the equivalent of a mother, a sister and someone who relates to them. And they love her for that. It is also worth noting that there are no boys around. So any tenderness the girls show toward the teacher and she toward them need not necessarily be lesbian in nature. And, despite the one affectionate bedtime kissing scene, that is my reading of the film.

The film was remade in 1958 with Romy Schneider as the school girl.

A good long article here. And a review from After Ellen here. The original 1931 NY Times review is here.

Movie Titles

2011-03-28T11:30:00.000-07:00

Movie Titles in Movies

A Brief History of Title Design

Elizabeth

2011-03-23T13:53:00.000-07:00

Elizabeth Taylor

Certified response

2011-03-22T17:57:00.000-07:00

Those expecting Certified Copy to be a 'Juliet Binoche' movie will be disappointed.

Those expecting Certified Copy to be an 'Abbas Kiarostami' movie will [most likely] not be disappointed.

The US trailer and the UK trailer make the movie seem to be a 'Juliet Binoche' movie. And what I mean by that is not a slap against Binoche - who has had roles in a good number of challenging and interesting [good] films. What I mean is the marketing by IFC, Artificial Eye and MK2 is reaching out to the mid-30's to mid-50's art house viewer [mostly women] who want to see a romantic film set in Northern Italy.

Yes, the film has an undeniably romantic setting. But it ends there. The film is actually an intellectual exercise with some raw emotions at the center of the story.

Mom's favorites

2011-03-18T08:40:00.000-07:00

My mother loved movies.
She grew up in San Francisco and was able to see many while she was growing up.
But she moved to a small town in Colorado in the 1960's and spent the remainder of her life there and was only able to see a few in the theater through the years. Once video came along she caught up with many of the classics she had missed as well as new ones that she grew to love.

Here is a list of a few she loved:
Beauty and The Beast [Cocteau] - A fairy tale for adults.
Brief Encounter - Purely romantic.
Bullitt - San Francisco in the sixties appealed to her.
Forbidden Games - One she remembered with fondness.
Four Wedding and A Funeral - Always made her laugh.
Gone With The Wind - She loved the book and felt the movie did it justice.
It Happened One Night - She loved Claudette Colbert.
The Red Shoes - One of the Powell Pressburger films she found magical.
Roman Holiday - After she had been to Rome this meant more to her.
La Ronde - Elegant and funny.
Room With a View - Romance in Italy.
La Strada - Funny and tragic.
Wages of Fear - French suspense film in South America.

My mom didn't watch much TV. In fact she really only watched Masterpiece Theatre.
Poldark
Pride and Prejudice
Summer's Lease
Upstairs Downstairs

There are many more of course, which I may write about later. I am sorry I will no longer be able to share new and old movies with her. Bye mom and thanks for everything.

Buñuel documentary

2011-02-28T13:56:00.000-08:00

Here's a good 30 minute French television documentary from 1964 about Luis Buñuel's and his early career. Lots of good interviews with those who worked with him and knew him as well as a rather enjoyable interview with Buñuel himself.

Avatar to Metropolis

2011-02-25T13:49:00.000-08:00

From Avatar [2009] to Metropolis [1927] via directors and cinematographers [and through Fuller and Borzage].

Avatar was directed by James Cameron
James Cameron directed The Terminator
The Terminator was shot by Adam Greenberg
Adam Greenberg shot The Big Red One
The Big Red One was directed by Samuel Fuller
Samuel Fuller directed Merrill's Marauders
Merrill's Marauders was shot by William Clothier
William Clothier shot China Doll
China Doll was directed by Frank Borzage
Frank Borzage directed Three Comrades
Three Comrades was shot by Karl Freund
Karl Freund shot Metropolis

Lost Island of VHS...X

2011-02-22T12:27:00.000-08:00

The Stars Look Down - Carol Reed - 1940

When 'The Stars Look Down' came out in 1940 the British critics [as a whole] voted it the greatest British film ever made, Pauline Kael has called it Carol Reed's best film and Parker Tyler placed it as one of the 75 best foreign films ever made in his 1962 book 'Classics of The Foreign Film'.

So how does a film with such praise not even make Time Out's recent list of 'best British films'? Well, of course, it is partly because Reed went on to make a trio of terrific films that overshadowed this one and cemented his place in film history; Odd Man Out, The Fallen Idol and The Third Man. But it shows you how much time's change too.

History shows that it received a lukewarm reception for political reasons. You see, although Reed made a film [based on a novel by A. J. Cronin] that argues against the private ownership of mines and calls for the rights of the miners it also lays blame at the feet of both mine owners [who are presented as criminally greedy] and unions [who turn a blind eye to the dangers of the mine].

Michael Redgrave plays David an intelligent and conscientious young man who aspires to leave the small Welsh community where his family have lived and worked for generations. While away at a university he falls in love with an uncaring woman [Margaret Lockwood] who uses him to get back at another fellow she loves - who is an old friend of David's but who now happens to be in business with the corrupt mine owners. David leaves the school but finds much dissatisfaction in the unhappy marriage. When Redgrave learns that the owners are considering re-opening a particularly dangerous underground seam he speaks up as eloquently as he can to prevent it from happening. But no one will listen. His wife also leaves him telling him he needs to put all this mine business behind him.

The film pretty much stacks the deck against David [and the poor miners] and I have to admit I found the film a bit heavy-handed at times. But the film successfully fits into the category of realism and completely eschews Hollywood formula at every turn.

The film is not on DVD [in the US] and VHS is tough to find. I found a copy on VHS that someone had made [and was renting] from a PAL copy.

- A little history of the film here.

Clair on editing

2011-02-18T08:13:00.000-08:00

René Clair wrote in his book Cinema Yesterday and Today:

- Editing is in fact a procedure peculiar to the cinema which has no equivalent in any other medium of expression or art form.

One day I was in a projection room with a five-year-old child who had never seen a film of any kind. On the screen, a lady was singing in a drawing room, and the succession of images was as follows:

Long Shot: The drawing room; the singer is standing near a piano. A greyhound is lying in front of the fireplace.
Close-up: The singer
Close-up: The dog watching her.
At this last image, the child uttered a cry of surprise: "Oh! Look! The lady has turned into a dog."
For a new eye, one image replacing another in a flash does in fact give the impression of a magical substitution or a lightening-like metamorphosis.

Criterion to Hulu

2011-02-16T12:10:00.000-08:00

The news that The Criterion Collection will be available to stream exclusively through Hulu Plus set the movie community into a a bit of a frenzy yesterday. Some love the idea and some hate it. I'm on the fence about it and here's why.

Is such an embarrassment of riches available to us all at once a good thing?

Criterion is a brand name that many of us know and love. With this move - which starts with 150 movie titles and moves to upwards of 800 titles in a short span of time - Criterion will basically be chucking out their successful business model. As someone who collects their DVD's [and now Blu-ray's] I can tell you that one of the appeals of the company is there slow but eventual release of great titles. Every few months they bring out a few titles, which they announce three months [or so] in advance. This helps build excitement for the release and [I would think] boosts sales a bit. By releasing titles in such a manner they can build awareness and anticipation around the title. But by putting up to 800 titles out there so quickly - a good number of which are not yet on DVD or Blu-ray - for us to stream they are essentially burying the unreleased titles.

And so the effect might be that they bury the title and then kill it. Meaning that the excitement for future new releases will be much less exciting because the film will already be available to stream. So, essentially, the consumer would see that some previously unavailable Kenji Mizoguchi or Michael Powell title is coming soon to Blu-ray but then they would see that it is already available on Hulu Plus. So they would hook into Hulu Plus, watch the title and then no longer be interested in buying it.

Maybe they think they are giving the customer the best available option to see the films in their library? They certainly cannot be accused of withholding the titles now. But I am looking out for the future of Criterion as well as the life of these films. By presenting the options like this it would seem that the films will not get the proper [traditional model] release into the marketplace and this would affect both sales and awareness about a title. They must have signed a heck of a deal.

Exclusivity can have its faults

Another problem I find curious is that they are going to only now stream exclusively [by the end of 2011] through Hulu Plus. If a company wants maximum exposure it seems odd [and foolish] to narrow the options of your audience to only one streaming service - especially one that is not as widespread as NetFlix. Part of the deal Criterion found appealing was that Hulu will give them there own section making it easy for consumers to peruse titles. Apparently, NetFlix would not give them this deal.

Long time coming

I'm no Luddite. I love the idea that someday every title I want to see will be at my fingertips. And I know that this option is one Criterion feels is moving toward the future of home film viewing. But I can't help but feel they could do a better job of upholding their business model by continuing to whet our appetite and getting us excited for the films in the way that they have for so many years.

I don't have Hulu Plus but I will likely get it because the idea of having access to 800 amazing titles for a mere $7.99 a month is hard to resist. Of course, it also means the future of video stores and DVD and Blu-ray sales is pretty much history. But that is a different argument for a different time.

Melville on Nouvelle

2011-02-12T19:43:00.000-08:00

Jean Pierre Melville's relationship with the young turks that became the French New Wave started well but then became a bit frosty. Even though he had a bit part in Godard's À bout de souffle he was always an outsider and more of a paternal figure to the movement. But by the time Cahiers du cinéma magazine savaged Le Samouraï and L' Armée des ombres [which is amazing when you think about it because it is so outrageously political] he had turned on them as much as they had on him.

The Cinema One book Melville on Melville by Rui Nogueira has this exchange:

Q: What do you think of the Nouvelle Vague style?
A: There's no such thing. The Nouvelle Vague was an inexpensive way of making films. That's all.

You have to admit that - as influential as the movement was to world cinema - in France it was indeed a series of lower budget films made by a wave of new directors that managed for a while to get more attention than the directors of the bigger budgeted films. But eventually some of the Nouvelle Vague directors came into the fold.

It's too bad they had a falling out because in retrospect the cinema of Melville is as good and significant in its own way as the cinema of Godard, Truffaut, Chabrol and Rivette.

La Dolce Vita boffo box office

2011-02-09T12:01:00.000-08:00

Fellini's La Dolce Vita was acquired by Astor Pictures for release in the U.S. in 1961 for a then astonishing sum of $625,000. It went on to make an equally amazing box office gross of $19.5 million.

Most foreign language films released in The United States today are purchased for anywhere from 50K to $1 million depending on the clout the picture carries [an Almodovar film will usually be acquired for more than a million dollars] and don't make anywhere near $10 million. So making close to 20 million in 1961 dollars means that La Dolce Vita essentially would make well over $100 million in today's dollars.

Considering La Dolce Vita was a three hour movie with subtitles [dubbed in some markets] says something about the state of foreign language distribution 50 years ago versus today.

de Oliveira's Angelica

2011-02-06T09:05:00.000-08:00

The latest film by Manoel de Oliveira, The Strange Case of Angelica, is a beguiling film in many ways. I found that it is best described by an answer that Manoel de Oliveira gave to an interviewer.

- Question: What is cinema for you today?
- Answer: It's the same as it was for Lumière, for Méliès and Max Linder. There you have realism, the fantastic and the comic. There's nothing more to add to that, absolutely nothing.

The film rolls this basic idea into one.
I have to say I enjoyed this film more than his previous film Eccentricities of a Blond-haired Girl if only because it is a far more intriguing.
I would argue that the film is more than just a simple fable about a photographer who falls in love with a dead woman. I would say it is - at the very least - a film about a man who dies the moment he has a strange encounter with the dead woman. Only he doesn't literally die. He just slides into a funk that leads to his inevitable death. In the context of the film it is about the way in which his spirit eventually leaves his body.

But why would he want his spirit to leave his body for a woman he never actually met?

In part this can be explained by the way Oliveira employs various anachronistic touches. The photographer -who still uses real film - seems to be a character out of time. He spends some of his time photographing day laborers who work on a hill lined with olive trees [Oliveira means 'olive tree']. He doesn't seem interested in 'modern' technology or ideas. And so it seems Oliviera is saying something about our contemporary age as well.

However, in part this might be because the film was derived from a project Oliveira had developed in 1952. It should be noted that according to an interview with Oliveira [from the press notes] he says the protagonist of the original idea for the film was a Jewish man who had fled Nazi persecutions and settled in Portugal as a photographer. This bit of information, which is nowhere alluded to in the finished film, is an interesting back story that [would] in part explain why he seems lost, confused out-of-place and and out-of-time.

If this was actually part of the film then the encounter with the dead woman would just be one reason for him to leave - or die. I kind of wish that World War II element was in the film because it would explain much more. It would provide a history to the character and explain his motivations. But as it is it in the film all the motivations are more puzzling and almost surreal.

Here is the trailer.

Template change

2011-02-05T11:10:00.000-08:00

Don't be confused. The template has been changed. Carry on.

70's vs 80's

2011-02-01T19:31:00.000-08:00

Mubi had a forum in which someone asked for people to list the movies that exemplify the difference between the 1970's and the 1980's. Here's a few I came up with [and one I didn't*].

Obviously, I am being selective to the point that I am highlighting gritty and more independent [70's] vs more glossy and mainstream [80's]. But I'm also sticking with the films that are more memorable for the era in which they were made.

GANGSTER FILMS

70’s – The Godfather
80’s – The Untouchables

COMEDIES

70’s – Nashville
80’s – The Breakfast Club

COP MOVIES

70’s – Dirty Harry
80’s – Beverly Hills Cop

COP MOVIES II

70’s – The French Connection
80’s – Lethal Weapon

WESTERNS

70’s – McCabe and Mrs Miller
80’s- Silverado

SPORTS

70's - Breaking Away
80's - Hoosiers

LOS ANGELES

70’s – Chinatown
80’s – To Live in Die in LA

MEDIA

70’s – Network
80’s – Broadcast News

HORROR

70’s – The Exorcist
80’s – Nightmare on Elm Street

CAR MOVIES

70's - Two Lane Blacktop
80's - The Cannonball Run

SCORSESE

70’s – Taxi Driver
80’s – The Color of Money

SCI-FI

70’s – A Clockwork Orange
80’s – Back to the Future

SCI-FI II

70's - Alien
80's - Aliens

AFRICAN-AMERICAN

70's – Superfly
80's – Do The Right Thing

NEUROTIC COMEDIES

70's - Annie Hall
80's - LA Story

ITALIAN

70's - The Conformist
80's - Cinema Paradiso

FRENCH

70's - La Maman et la putain
80's - Diva

SPANISH

70's - The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie
80's - Matador

* SCI-FI 2

Dogtooth

2011-01-25T14:31:00.000-08:00

No nomination surprises me more than the best foreign language nomination for the Greek film Dogtooth. The movie is not what one would call an 'Academy friendly' film. But one thing I do find sort of appealing is the fact that there will be many curious people out there who will seek it out and, man, are they in for a shock.

It's a rather twisted film in which a mother and father keep their two kids locked up in compound of sorts [a house in the country] to keep them protected from the outside world. They teach them incorrect words for things, they convince them that anything from the outside is evil including cats - and to satisfy their sexual needs they bring in a guy to have sex with them.

Of course things go horribly wrong.

I read the film as a metaphor: The parents represent the government, the children represent the people and the compound is the country [Greece, perhaps].

I don't think the film works too well except as a black comedy with some shock value. Mainly because I found the kids too old for the part. If the kids were 10 then it would have been more convincing [and more disturbing no doubt]. But they are around 20 and, frankly, the situations that come up seem highly unlikely to me.

One thing I know is that the Academy nomination process for foreign language films is not understood by many. Basically, a very small number of folks nominate the films and apparently Dogtooth was really liked by one person who had influence.

It won't win but it is now on the map. Score one for Kino International and for Greece.

Anticipated Movies 2011

2011-01-18T20:03:00.000-08:00

A list of some of the most anticipated movies of 2011 in the art house and the multiplex.
If half of these are good or great films it will be a good year in film.

Terrence Malick's Tree of LIfe
Pedro Almodóvar's Skin That I Inhabit
Alexander Payne's The Descendants
Wong Kar-wai's The Grandmasters
Alexander Sokurov's Faust
Lars von Trier's Melancholia
Bela Tarr's The Turin Horse
Guillaume Canet's Little White Lies
Lynne Ramsay's We Need To Talk About Kevin
Walter Salles' On the Road
David Cronenberg's A Dangerous Method
George Clooney's The Ides of March
Michael Haneke's Love
Susanne Bier's In A Better World
Aki Kaurismaki's Le Havre
Richard Linklater's Bernie
Dardennes Bros.' Set Me Free
Arnaud Desplechin’s Psychotherapy of a Plains Indian
Hou Hsiao-Hsien's The Assassin
Jia Zhang-ke's In the Qing Dynasty
Terence Davies' The Deep Blue Sea
Jason Reitman's Young Adult
Steven Spielberg's War Horse
David Fincher's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Martin Scorsese’s Hugo Cabret
Steve McQueen's Shame
Steven Soderbergh's Contagion
Jon Favreau's Cowboys and Aliens
Cameron Crowe's We Bought A Zoo

Lost Island of VHS...IX

2011-01-14T12:25:00.001-08:00

The Clouded Yellow - Ralph Thomas - 1950

This is a terrific British thriller made in 1950 that has more than one comparison with the best of Hitchcock.

Trevor Howard plays David Somers a former British Secret Service agent who is in need of a break. He finds it by going to work off in the countryside cataloging butterflies for a couple at their estate. While there he befriends the couple's niece Sophie (Jean Simmons). The job is about as far removed as you can be from his former job. Until, that is, the local gamekeeper ends up murdered and Sophie becomes the prime suspect.

Somers realizes something is not right so he helps Sophie escape arrest and they lead the police on a cross-country chase in what seems to be a virtually impossible escape. The film is an entertaining combination of romance and suspense. I saw it at UCLA a couple of years ago and the audience loved it; reacting to each scene as it built toward it's terrific climax.

I am not sure why it is not on DVD yet but perhaps one day it will show up in a box set of British noirs or thrillers.

Bitter Rice

2011-01-12T12:30:00.000-08:00

I just saw the movie Bitter Rice, which was one of the big European films to hit the American screens in the 1950's. It combines Italian Neorealism with Hollywood elements and a little sex appeal. At the time it was actually banned in some places due to some of the racy shots of scantily clad women working in the rice fields. But seen today it is rather tepid - not to mention dated.

I dug up the original New York Times review and darn if the critic doesn't make it sound a whole lot better than it is. The review was by Bosley Crowther who seemed to be a fuddy duddy 17 years before he flubbed his infamous negative review of Bonnie and Clyde. Here are some of the highlights of his Bitter Rice review.

>"Passion toils and tumbles through it like the wrestlers in a gas-house free-for-all, and torments of carnal hunger are boldly and rawly exposed.

>[The director's]candid and natural presentation of the robustness and earthiness of life in a camp full of migrant women workers is bulging with vitality, and his episodes of violence and love-making are slices of life in the raw.

>[T]he ultimate seduction of the oddly perverse heroine is a wildly accelerating traffic in mayhem, sadism and reckless lust. And the final resolution of personal conflicts in a white tiled slaughter house, amid blood-dripping beef cadavers, is literalism carried close to the absurd.

>Silvana Mangano, [is] full-bodied and gracefully muscular, with a rich voice and a handsome, pliant face, she handles with vigor and authority the characterization of a tortured libertine. It is not too excessive to describe her as Anna Magnani minus fifteen years, Ingrid Bergman with a Latin disposition and Rita Hayworth plus twenty-five pounds!"

I want to see this movie! I mean, I did see it. But I want to see the one Crowther describes.

Lost Squadron

2011-01-10T19:01:00.000-08:00

The Lost Squadron Press book

The Lost Squadron is a terrific aviation picture made in 1932 about a group of airmen who get a job after the war as stuntmen for a sadistic film director played by Erich von Stroheim [who else] who in order to get realism into his film rigs it so the airplanes will go down in mid-flight. It's got action, comedy and a good amount of irony. It is also a darker film than you might expect from the period - except it should be noted that there was a certain fatalism in many of the aviation pictures of the time, which reflected some of the malaise soldiers felt after the affects of World War I.

The press book link is from the William K Everson archive at NYU. For those who don't know William K Everson seek out his views. He was a film publicist / historian / programmer who knew everything about American cinema in the pre-VHS/DVD world of film. Which means he was watching movies on the big screen, programming them and writing extensive notes to keep viewers informed about great films. The archive has many of his notes and press kits to peruse. He also wrote a good number of books that are worth seeking out. I consult his Screwball Comedy book all the time as it is about the best on the subject.

[It should be noted that Everson was a mainstay at the Telluride Film Festival for the first few years after it's inception. He helped with programming and introduced many films].

Older Film Discoveries 2010

2011-01-06T21:14:00.000-08:00

Here are 11 great films I finally caught up with or discovered in 2010.

The Landlord [Hal Ashby, 1971] - Ashby started his career with this terrific social comedy about a rich white kid who takes over a tenement building in NYC housing black tenants who won't pay their rent. Pure seventies cinema.

Humanity and Paper Balloons [Sadao Yamanaka, 1937] - A fine Japanese film about lonely masterless samurai in feudal Japan. Made by a filmmaker of great skill who died too young.

Léon Morin, Priest [Jean-Pierre Melville, 1961] - Melville never disappoints. Here again he has such great style and high quality acting with a good story.

La Chinoise [Jean Luc Godard, 1967] - One of the few Godard films from the 1960's that I had not seen. Revolutionary polemics and cinematic poetry in only the way Godard can do it.

La Femme Publique [Andrzej Zulawski, 1984] - A notorious Polish film that is more an assault on the audience than a quality film but that makes it a rather unforgettable experience.

Wife, Be Like a Rose! [Mikio Naruse, 1935] - This was the year I finally caught up with Mikio Naruse films. I managed to watch five of them [thanks in part to YouTube]. This was possibly the best of the bunch. All were terrific in their own way.

The Night Of The Following Day [Hubert Cornfield, 1968] - I always stayed away from the less-than-classic Brando pictures and after seeing this I wonder why I did. This is an enjoyable, nasty and arty little thriller. I guess it's not mainstream but all the more reason to recommend it.

The Treasure of The Sierra Madre [John Huston, 1948] Yeah so I have to admit I had never seen this. A classic that lives up to the hype.

Los Angeles Plays Itself [Thom Andersen, 2003] - Fascinating critical documentary on many films that have been shot in Los Angeles. Every film buff should see it even if they disagree with some of the points the filmmaker makes.

84 Charing Cross Road [David Hugh Jones, 1987] - A good, literate and engaging film about two people who sort of fall in love through letters. A different era than the one we know today yet not so long ago really.

Le Combat Dans L'ile [Alain Cavalier, 1962] - A forgotten French [New Wave] film about a man caught between his passion for a woman and his passion for a lost political cause. The French do this so well.

Best movies 2010

2010-12-25T19:04:00.000-08:00

As is often the case I get to the end of the year and have a tough time compiling a best movies list. Some movies have to sit with me for a while and, of course, I need to catch a good many that I missed throughout the year. This past year was no different and so I find it a bit easier and more entertaining to list the films in categories. The 28 films [!] are listed under each heading by preference. [If I haven't listed a movie that is making a lot of other lists it is probably because I have yet to see it].

What Dreams May Come

-The Social Network
-Inception

Life is Harder Than Death

-Vincere
-Secret Sunshine

Where Art Thou

-The Art of The Steal
-Henri George Clouzot Inferno
-Exit Through The Gift Shop
-Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child

Psycho Trauma

-Black Swan
-Shutter Island
-Mother

The Old New Wave

-Around A Small Mountain
-Inspector Bellamy

Whose Family is This Anyway?

-The Father of My Children
-The Kid's Are All Right

Formula Ones

-The King's Speech
-The Town

Escape is Impossible

-The Ghost Writer
-The Prophet

Terror Error

-Carlos
-Farewell

Picking Up The Pieces

-Soul Kitchen
-Winter's Bone

The West Was Guns

-The Good The Bad The Weird
-True Grit

Cuts You Up

-Salt
-Centurion
-Machete

Korean sons

2010-12-16T21:01:00.000-08:00

Two Korean films this year dealt with Korean boys committing crimes and their guardian mother trying to deal with it. The two films were Mother by Joon-ho Bong and Poetry by Lee Chang-dong.

*Spoiler Alert*

The crimes are somewhat similar in that they deal with the death of a young woman at the hands of the boys. But the handling of the crimes by their respective guardian mothers is very different.

Mother features a rather crazy mother who is fiercely protective of her mentally unstable son. To the point that when he unwittingly kills a young woman she does everything in her power to get him released from jail and then cover up the crime. The film is a dark comedy/ drama that remains unsettling and unpredictable in every scene.

Poetry is very different in that it is a grandmother who is caring for her grandson who it turns out is part of a gang that rapes a young woman who then commits suicide. The story is more about the way the grandmother deals with her early stages of Alzheimers all the while trying to write a poem that expresses how she feels. But the issue of her grandson fits into the whole piece in that she wants to do the right thing before she is no longer able to. By the end she refuses to protect her grandson from police detectives even though there is pressure for her to do so by the fathers of the other boys involved in the crime.

What we see in both films is a [Korean] cultural obligation to protect sons. But both feature the situation from the extreme edges of the issue. One is a woman who will stop at nothing to protect her son and the other is a woman who decides doing the right thing is far more important than saving face or doing what is expected of her.

Both are very good films and worth seeing if you can. Mother is available on DVD and Blu-ray. Poetry will be released next year in the US by Kino International.

Why Season's Change

2010-12-14T14:10:00.000-08:00

Axial Tilt.

I love the sound of this:

The obliquity of the ecliptic is not a fixed quantity but changing over time in a cycle with a period of 41,000 years. It is a very slow effect known as nutation.

The obliquity of the ecliptic!

Crossplot

2010-12-06T19:29:00.000-08:00

Crossplot (1969) is hardly a great movie but it is a rather fun one. Undoubtedly it is a film that helped launch Roger Moore into the Bond franchise four years later. This film - directed by veteran TV director Alvin Rakoff - plays more like a comedic Bond film with it's swinging London locale, sexual relations between Moore and his co-star Claudie Lange and the dizzy incompetence of the crooks. It's very much a film that can be lumped in with 'Casino Royale', 'Danger Diabloic' [even 'Blow Up'] and all the Connery starring Bond films as a film that inspired the Austin Powers films.

The plot almost doesn't matter. Claudie Lange plays a Hungarian model who is wanted by an underground group of criminals because she accidentally overheard of their assassination attempt on a world leader who is coming to London. Roger Moore plays an ad-exec who unwittingly comes to her rescue. With his charm and wit he manages to uncover the plot and get her to fall in love with him. The film has a fair amount of repartee between the two stars that recalls some of the humor we see in screwball comedy; along with the conceit that the two are in love with each other but they don't know it yet.

Style is really what matters here. The women wear colorful clothing, mini-skirts and have big hair while the men sport long sideburns and wear frilly shirts. These along with subplots about students rioting and an assassination attempt make the film a relic of its time. It also has a rather unique scene involving a helicopter chasing a 1920's automobile.

Is it worth buying? No. But it is worth checking out on Netflix where you can stream a somewhat below par video copy.

The trailer can be seen here.

Kagemusha

2010-12-01T19:46:00.000-08:00

Akira Kurosawa’s Kagemusha is visually impressive but the plot is both weak and convoluted to the point that it is hard to follow or even really care about what happens. However, stylistically it is a very interesting film.

It as though Kurosawa had imagined it as a play and then was given millions to create it as an epic, which he then decided to keep in the format of a play with a few scenes of great color, movement and light. Much of the action takes place off-screen and instead of seeing action we are told about it. When the emperor is shot we hear about it and then later the would-be assassin explains to his interlocutors how he did it and we see him shoot a tree.

Vincent Canby's New York Times review astutely notes:

Kagemusha is majestic, stately, cool, and, in many of its details, almost abstract. It appears very much to be the work of a director who, now seventy years old, is no longer concerned with the obligations of conventional drama or even with moral questions. He is, instead, contemplating history, not as something to be judged but, rather, acknowledged and, possibly, understood.

We keep being told about war but never really see it. Instead riders on horses charge around or the battle takes place just over the hill. All other times we see scene after scene take place indoors or around the various outposts. This, of course, is a stylistic choice by Kurosawa and while I have no direct facts as to why he chose to make the film this way it seems as though financing had something to do with it. After all we do know that Kurosawa had trouble getting funding after his previous two films and his disaster in trying to work in Hollywood.

However, despite this the film is still rather effective due to the prince and pauper formula about the poor thief doubling as the emperor. But too the final scene is particularly strong because of the stylistic choice, which involves showing us gunners firing from fortified positions, various battalions charging to their death and the reactions by the commanders and the [now] former emperor stand-in all powerless to the carnage they are witnessing. We never actually see the slaughter and it is made more powerful because we don’t. And then Kurosawa gives us a series of amazing final shots with bloodied horses and people dying in super slow motion.

Although Kagemusha is not a remake per se it is a film that had been made before in Japan and to my mind the earlier version is a better film. Directed in 1963 by Umetsugu Inoue it is titled Daisan no kagemusha (The Third Shadow Warrior). It's better precisely because it shows us the action all the way through and draws us into the story in a way that Kurosawa's film does not. We care about the character in Umetsugu's film because we see the challenges that the hero faces continually and wonder when and if he will be caught. In time he becomes the emperor because the people who know him to be a double all die. While in Kurosawa's film the double never escapes and is always in a role, which - granted - is part of the film's message.

Overall, Kurosawa is after bigger themes and grander statements. For an excellent overview of all these themes you can't do better than Donald Richie's chapter on the film in his book The Films of Akira Kurosawa.

I think both films should be seen because both can be enjoyed and appreciated for different reasons. Umetsugu's film can be found on eBay or on some Asian DVD websites. Kurosawa's film is available on Blu-ray from Criterion and looks great.

Brown ads

2010-11-05T15:11:00.000-07:00

Okay the election is over so I don't have to make any political pitches now. I can view them in an historical entertaining context. These two ads by Jerry Brown were brilliant. They may not have alone won him the election - but they were to the point in a way that voters could understand.

AFI Free = dumb idea

2010-10-28T10:27:00.000-07:00

The AFI Film Festival in Los Angeles [Hollywood actually] is free again this year. And it is a dumb idea. Here's why. As of right now tickets are available for free [started at 10 am] - but most people cannot access the site now because [duh!] everyone is swamping the site.

But here's the thing, most everyone who can access the site can afford to buy tickets. The folks who would benefit most from the festival being free don't have easy access to a computer. And a good many others are at work right now and cannot access the site because...well they are working and it's not advantageous for them to be perusing the site.

The only other options are to buy a pass for $500.00, which is not really a good choice, or to join AFI and get a chance to aquire tickets...well yesterday. This scheme is obviously a nice way to advertise AFI. And maybe that is the whole idea behind the concept.

But I say here's a better idea: Stop making the AFI Festival free and instead sell tickets again so people can get tickets for movies they want to see without the hassle.

That said, I saw five or six films last year at the festival and none of them were sold out. So there is a good chance that films will still have seats available on the day of the screenings. But a good many people will not want to drive across the city, pay for parking and take a chance that maybe they can get into a film.

It's time for AFI to admit that the only reason they offer free tickets is as an adsvertising tool. It's a nice idea in theory. Let's hope next year they stop advertising and let us buy tickets again.

Kuroneko

2010-10-22T11:58:00.000-07:00

One of the best films I've seen this year is the 1968 Japanese horror film Kuroneko directed by Shindō Kaneto’s who is known for directing Onibaba a film somewhat similar in plot and theme. But while that one is a bit more realistic this one is a ghost story of sorts in a sub-genre known as bakeneko mono or monster-cat tales.

The film's first scene involves a group of samurai who invade the home on Yone (Nobuko Otawa) and her mother-in-law Shige (Kiwako Taichi) whom they brutally rape and murder. The two women lay dead and a cat comes along and laps up their blood, which leads to them being transformed into vengeful spirits or bakeneko, "beautiful cat-like women" who have taken an oath to kill and suck the blood of all Samurai.

Subsequently, they settle in a home deep in the forest where they lure samurai to kill them. As the story unfolds we learn that the mother has a son - married to her daughter-in-law - who went off to war. He returns and is promoted to samurai by the local warlord who tells him to go in search of the spirits that are killing the samurai. He, of course, doesn't realize that these spirits are his mother and wife.

The story is quite good as it builds tension amid some of the horror elements - although to be honest the film is not particularly scary or bloody. At least by today's standards. However, the cinematography is stunning both in the use of black & white lighting but also the staging of each scene in the forest and some visual references which recall the influence of Nōh theatre.

Overall, the formal elements are terrific and the fillm's story really builds a very engaging suspense.

More info here:

MediaSeized analysis
Film Ref review
DVD Outsider review
DVD Beaver review

Fish Wanda Poster

2010-10-17T10:14:00.000-07:00

I just unexpectedly saw A Fish Called Wanda at The American Cinematheque. I say unexpectedly because I had read the calendar incorrectly and thought I was going to see a German film, which actually plays next Saturday. Anyway, I had seen A Fish Called Wanda when it came out in 1988 and for some reason was not impressed. Twenty-two years later I have to admit my original opinion of the movie was wrong; it is truly a comedy classic. I laughed a lot. The crowd loved it too.

It was showing as part of a retrospective of Jamie Lee Curtis' career. She was in attendance and provided an entertaining interview after the movie. In the interview she talked about how the original ending was scuttled in favor of a happier with a love story element. Apparently, during the testing phase American audiences did not respond as well to the original darker ending in which is was evident that the Jamie Lee Curtis character was going to knock off the John Cleese character once they got to Rio. So various scenes were shot after principle photography to give the film a bit of a love story element.

One other thing she mentioned was that the original film poster was scrapped for a different one. I have included the poster above. This poster was supposed to have been destroyed due to an image flaw. But enough copies got out that it still exists today. If you look closely at it you will see that Jamie Lee Curtis is standing in an awkward way. The reason is because her image is a composite of two different poses she took during the photo shoot; One in which she was standing sideways and one in which she was standing looking straight ahead. You'll note that her upper body is facing us directly but her lower body is to the side. The pose, while not impossible, is off kilter in such a way that Jamie Lee Curtis had the poster redone. A bit of trivia for a fine and very funny movie.

1999 best

2010-10-10T14:12:00.000-07:00

One of the best recent years in film was 1999. Check out a list of over 40 films released in the US that year. [I've only included films I either liked or that were significant in one way or another. I've also only included films that got an official release of a week or more in the US in 1999].

Affliction
All About My Mother
American Beauty
Audition
Autumn Tale
Beau Travail
Being John Malkovich
Besieged
The Blair Witch Project
Boys Don't Cry
Buena Vista Social Club
Dogma
The Dreamlife of Angels
Election
The Emperor and the Assassin
Eyes Wide Shut
Fight Club
Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai
Go
Humanité
Human Resources
The Insider
The Iron Giant
It All Starts Today
Late August Early September
The Limey
Magnolia
The Matrix
My Best Fiend
Not One Less
Princess Mononoke
Ride with the Devil
Rosetta
Run Lola Run
Show Me Love
The Sixth Sense
The Straight Story
Three Kings
Time Regained
Topsy-Turvy
The Wind Will Carry Us

Penn

2010-09-29T21:56:00.000-07:00

Arthur Penn 1922 - 2010

Penn was a very good filmmaker who sort of remained in the shadows due to making so few films over the past twenty years. While Bonnie and Clyde was never forgotten [and won't be] many of his other films were. In some cases films like The Left-Handed Gun and The Miracle Worker and The Chase lost to time and critical apathy. While Little Big Man, Night Moves and The Missouri Breaks remembered mainly by film lovers but defended strongly by those who especially like them.

True, he made three westerns but I would argue that he was one of those filmmakers who made a wide variety of films that are tough to label as 'a Penn film' in the same way we could label a Kazan or a Kramer or a Frankenheimer picture. You could watch The Left-Handed Gun [a Paul Newman western with a 50's psychological edge] and then turn and watch Mickey One [an intriguing independent 60's drama] then Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore [a late 60's 'hippie' dramedy] and finally Night Moves [a 70's private detective drama] and you would be hard pressed to know they were all directed by the same director if you didn't know better. In my book that is the quality of not only a talented director but one willing to stretch beyond his stylistic comfort zone. True, they have a common theme regarding the outsider failing to fit in, the violence of America and the corrupt myths of America. But cinematically along with the tone of their drama they were all different.

We would call such filmmakers journeyman directors. But he was a cut above. I've liked everything of his that I have seen.
[photo from Todd McCarthy's indiewire column]

Cookware giver

2010-09-27T19:46:00.000-07:00

Perusing through an April 1966 Life Magazine it didn't take long to find a politically incorrect ad.

Lost Island of VHS...VIII

2010-09-22T13:12:00.003-07:00

The Comfort of Strangers - Paul Schrader - 1990

One of the more intriguing films of the 1990's and certainly one of Paul Schrader's finest films is The Comfort of Strangers. Based on an Ian McEwan novel and adapted for the screen by Harold Pinter it is about a young couple played by Miranda Richarson and Rupert Everett vacationing in Venice Italy who get caught in a very odd web of dark desires with an older Venitian couple played by Christopher Walken and Hellen Mirren.

At times the film recalls Luchino Visconti's Death in Venice crossed with something by David Lynch. Especially with it's mysterious atmosphere, underlying black humor and use of sexuality. At the heart of the film is Walken's role, which is certainly one of his finest, as a character who has a particularly old [masculine] world view that borders on charming and dangerous. He regales the couple with stories of his father, a man who seems to have been the embodiment of imperialism and fascism.

As the story unwinds it becomes evident that the couple are working through a rough patch in their relationship. But, after their first couple of encounters with Venetian couple, they begin to grow closer together. Yet as they get sucked into the deviant web it seems that the survival of their relationship is the least of their worries.

The cinematography by Dante Spinotti really deserves a special notice. The film showcases beautiful lighting along with lengthy, smooth, slow tracking shots that - coupled with the Badalamenti's score - add to the creepy milieu as the film moves along to an ending that is both inevitable and shocking.

So how does a film this good with such names as McEwan, Pinter, Walken, Mirren, Badalamenti, Spinotti, et al. stay relatively unknown 20 years after it was made? I have no idea. It could be because MGM owns the rights and they have no desire to release it on DVD. Or it could be because it is an unconventional and too dark. But I will say some day when there is a retrospective of Paul Schrader's work this is the film that - I think - will make people reevaluate Schrader's work as they wonder why they had never heard of it. It is not available on DVD in Region 1 but you can buy it for under $10.00 from Amazon UK.

Chabrol

2010-09-12T12:19:00.000-07:00

Claude Chabrol, 1930 - 2010
Another great filmmaker has left us.

Chabrol was the most prolific of the primary filmmakers in the French New Wave making close to 70 features in 52 years.

I've managed to only see a handful of his films. Most are suspense films hence he was considered the French Hitchcock. But too his films have an eye on class. Many of his characters are working or middle class who come into conflict with the upper class. And there is always a murder in there somewhere. His direction was always controlled but not so tightely controlled that he railroaded the narrative from start to finish. Instead he often develops characters within a particular setting and then spins the tale from there all the while leaving a bit of suspense and a little surprise to jolt us out of our complacency.

Of his many films the ones I highly recommend that I have seen are:

Le beau serge
Les bonnes femmes
This Man Must Die
Le boucher
La rupture
La cérémonie

But there are so many more to catch up with. Mubi has some great links.

Bertolucci Plaisir

2010-09-07T09:30:00.000-07:00

I came across a 'Guilt Pleasure' article by Bernardo Bertolucci from the July / August 1996 issue of Film Comment. In it he writes about the films he likes. One of the films was Le Plaisir by Max Ophuls. As you will see his response is a peculiar form of pleasure.

My wife took me to see it nine years ago in Paris, and after the first episode, "The Masque," I was so excited that I got a fever and couldn't stay for the other two episodes. Two or three years later, in a little cinema in Rome called Film Studio... I went again and saw the first part and then the second, "Le Maison Tellier," in which the brothel closes so that all the hookers can go to he Holy Communion of the daughter of one of them. And it was so beautiful I couldn't stand it - it was too moving. And again, I had a fever and had to leave the theatre. A few years later I could see the third episode, "La Modele," which is devastating.

Le Plaisir is one of the least known of late Ophuls works but just as beautiful as La Ronde or The Earnings of Madame de.... Most will have seen it by now if they have seen the other two. But if not make sure to see it. And, just to be safe, have some aspirin on hand so you can enjoy it in one sitting.

Telluride 1990

2010-09-01T11:26:00.000-07:00

Twenty years ago today [and to the hour of this post] the above photo was taken [by my dad] at the Telluride Film Festival. On the left is Annette Insdorf who hosts the seminars and on the right is film critic Roger Ebert. This particular panel [called 'noon seminars'] was about film critics. The highlight of the discussion was Ebert taking on Richard Corliss who had written a critical article in Film Comment about the thumbs up and thumbs down culture of film criticism. Also on the panel were Manny Farber and Paul Schrader. Manny Farber, known for his cantankerous nature, was in fine form taking on everyone including people who asked simplistic questions as well as Premiere Magazine, which was hosting the event. It was really rather enjoyable to sit in the park, feel the high altitude sun, look up at the high peaks surrounding the town and listen to the discussions echo through the speakers.

The four day festival was special for me in part because it was the first festival I had ever attended. But too because I was there with family and friends. The previous spring I had graduated from college and with a friend had gone to the East coast for the summer. There we met a young French couple who we became friends with and by summer's end had convinced to drive back to Colorado with us. They came along and loved the trip. As their vacation was coming to an end my dad and I told them we were going to attend the film festival in Telluride and they decided to come along. We drove up in my dad's green VW. Upon arriving we got a camp spot just outside of town and prepared for the nights first films. The French couple were particulary excited because they had learned that Gerard Depardieu was there; something they could not really believe since they were in this small Colorado mountain town.

Before the festival started I managed to sneak into the student program intro, which was being held in an old school house. The host that day was Bertrand Tavernier, who was the festivals' guest director that year. I had no idea who he was but was amazed at his knowledge of old Hollywood. Thereafter he became a frequent Telluride attendee.

That evening the festival began with the opening night party [they call it the 'feed']. Back then the feed was not held on the main street but was held in a courtyard that was part of the New Sheridon hotel. We looked on as the passholders mingled with the festival guests. All of a sudden my dad and I saw the French couple among the crowd. They had simply gone into the Sheridan lobby and snuck in through a side door. We decided to do the same.

Telluride is a very small town. And back in 1990 some of the streets were still unpaved. At that time the festival too was still generally small and the lines for each movie were relatively short. There were five film venues all within short walking distance of each other. The biggest venue was in a quonset hut [called The Community Center] located next to an old school building, one was in an old opera house, one was in the Mason's hall, one was outdoors, and one was an actual movie theater. The quonset hut has since been torn down and replaced by an auditorium but the other venues are all still used today.

Highlights that year were tributes to Clint Eastwood [White Hunter Black Heart], Gerard Depardieu [Cyrano de Bergerac] and director John Berry [He Ran All The Way].

Other films of note shown were:
Archangel - Surreal and funny early film by Guy Madden.
The Civil War - Ken Burns' most celebrated documentary.
The Comfort of Strangers - Paul Schrader film set in creepy but beautiful Venice.
Reversal of Fortune - Barbet Schroeder fillm about Claus von Bülow.
King of New York - An early Abel Ferrara movie with Christopher Walken.
L'Atalante - A definitive restored version of the Jean Vigo masterpeice.
The Nasty Girl - Inventive, thought provoking German film by Micheel Verhoeven.
Freeze - Die - Come to Life - A stark film by Pavel Nazarov about two kids in Siberia.
Ju Dou - Zhang Zimou's first real international hit.
All The Vermeers of New York - Jon Jost's beguiling film about art and love.

Lost Island of VHS...

2010-08-22T10:24:00.000-07:00

Wife! Be Like A Rose - Mikio Naruse - 1935

This is a terrific film from what many call the fourth master of the classic Japanese cinema: Mikio Naruse. Naruse, no doubt, stands on his own in film history but having never seen any of his films this one felt like a fusion both in style and content of two of those other great masters Yasujirō Ozu and Kenji Mizoguchi. Like the films those two filmmakers made this film deals with domestic issues in 1930's Japan as well as the plight and/or roll of women in the society. In this film a young woman (Sachiko Chiba), soon to be married, goes to the country to bring back her father who left his wife and kids for a geisha twenty years before. What she does not know is that he has fathered two other children and is quite happy in his present life.

Despite the built-in drama and serious themes Wife! Be Like A Rose is on the lighter side and almost comedic at times. In part, this is due to the actress Sachiko Chiba who charms and smiles in each scene. Nothing much seems to phase her as she comes to accept the fact that reuniting her mother and father in not in the cards. [The Japanese title is Kimiko, which is the main characters' name].

Stylistically, the film also incorporates the "tatami shot" - used notably by Ozu - in which the camera is placed at a low height, along with distant framing shots and smooth camera movement which were utilized so well by Mizoguchi.

I'm am not sure why only one Naruse film is available in the US on DVD. I can only guess there are rights issues. Perhaps Criterion will eventually unspool a few of them in an Eclipse set. One can only hope.

A longer review of the film can be found here.

An interesting piece of history on the film when it opened and closed in New York in 1937 is here.

There are good notes on Naruse retrospectives at Filmforum and Harvard Film Archive.

Also a good piece over at The Evening Class.

It's time for Naruse to be re-discovered...or maybe just discovered.

Cameron punk'd?

2010-08-16T11:01:00.000-07:00

In the dept of "he doesn't get it" director James Cameron has said he will now reconsider making a sequel to Avatar based on the experience he had after showing the film to the Achuar - an Amazonian community who want to keep oil companies from drilling near their homelands.

From the interview:

These are people who had never been in a movie theater. They’re wearing feathers and paint. And they put on the glasses and watch Avatar, the first movie they’ve ever seen. And when they came out, the BBC interviewed them. This one woman, a tribal elder, says, 'In this movie, they solved their problems by fighting. We are not afraid to fight, but we have decided to try to solve our problems through dialogue. So this movie needs a better message.' I felt like I’d been punk’d. But it made me think."

He felt like he had been punk'd? What? Is it possible he has gotten so close to his own movie that he can't see a major message in it is using violence to solve problems? I mean, sure the way the story unfolds the Na'avi characters have no choice, but to people in the real world who have never seen a movie I would think the action would be pretty tough to look past.

Moon Gutter

2010-08-15T10:01:00.000-07:00

Moon in the Gutter is a film I have wanted to see since I first read about it in the winter 1989/90 issue of Sight & Sound magazine. Despite the fact that it was a monumental failure and one that had apparently sunk the French company Gaumont I was intrigued enough to seek it out. How could one not be? But I could never find it on VHS and it didn't seem to come around even to the many venues in Los Angeles.

But just recently it was released on DVD by Cinema Libre.

Starring Gérard Depardieu, Nastassja Kinski, Victoria Abril and Dominique Pinon the film is about a dock worker named Gerard (Depardieu) who becomes obsessed with finding the man who killed his younger sister. Hitting an emotional snag in his life he falls for a photographer (Kinski) and attempts to leave his girlfriend (Abril) and the dingy docks where he lives and works. But that proves impossible.

The film succeeds mostly in the production design and cinematography departments. The sets are big and colorful and even though they feel like set pieces each scene has just the right aesthetic - at once claustrophobic and wide open. The DP was Philippe Rousselot who employs beautiful tracking shots and an almost too glossy look to what is otherwise a dark setting.

To be sure, Moon in the Gutter can only really be judged by the criticisms stacked against it. And after now viewing it I can see why the critics were disappointed. Coming off of the success of Diva Beineix was expected to be the next big French director. And as critics are wont to do they sunk their teeth into an artist whom they had previously placed on a pedestal. Adding insult to injury Gaumont trashed the extra footage negatives thus making it impossible for Beineix to ever create a definitive version like he did for Betty Blue.

The film is a tad long and considering Beineix's original length was around 4 or 5 hours I can't imagine the film being better or even more fleshed out. I can only imagine more beautiful shots and perhaps more intrigue. If anything there is a lesson here about studios giving a director too big a budget and a director who thought he could fulfill the promise of that budget.

Moon in the Gutter is a film worth seeing but an asterisk will always hang above it.

Nuclear or Magnetic

2010-08-06T12:33:00.000-07:00

Anyone else confuse Margot and the Nuclear So and So's with Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros? Looking for the song 'Home' [a title I had forgotten] I kept looking for songs by Margot and the Nuclear So and So's. Finally found the song - but it is by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros. Now I know.

Ultrarunning comic

2010-08-05T18:48:00.000-07:00

An old Tank McNamara strip I keep around.

Black Magic Woman

2010-08-04T14:41:00.000-07:00

'Black Magic Woman' was written and performed by Peter Green & Fleetwood Mac before Santana made it famous.

Stinson Dipsea

2010-07-28T13:08:00.000-07:00

In May I was up in the Bay Area and I did a great loop trail run from Stinson Beach up the Matt Davis Trail to Pantoll station and down the Dipsea trail.
It was a cool windy day, which made for great running weather.

This shot looks down the Dipsea trail toward Stinson Beach.
[It is also similar to this drawing presented below]

Goo music covers

2010-07-19T09:13:00.000-07:00

Italian prog record from the 1973 and a blues rock album from the 2003.

Two Waving

2010-07-15T08:27:00.000-07:00

Think about this for a moment; Way back in 1961 "L'année dernière à Marienbad" by Alain Resnais and "Paris nous appartient" by Jacques Rivette were released. The Nouvelle Vague had just leapt onto the world stage and Hollywood was beginning to wane a bit as many filmmakers and movements were about to burst forth in what would be the most creative decade in world cinema since the 1930's.

But for the sake of this post consider the fact that there is little doubt that no one was thinking that almost 50 years later in 2009-2010 both Resnais and Rivette would still be making films and giving cinephiles everywhere something to delight in for a couple of hours.

The world of cinema is a very different one than it was in 1961 - but it's reassuring to know that Resnais and Rivette still make the films they want to make with little or no interference from producers, studios or the marketplace. They have pretty much set their own pace and the world has had to conform around them.

So what about the new films?

Les herbes folles [Wild Grass] by Resnais is a rather dramatic and surreal tale about the power and mystery of love and 36 vues du Pic Saint Loup [Around a Small Mountain] by Rivette is a tale about a woman's reluctant entrance back into the world of the circus with the help of a man she doesn't know. Both are not what I would call masterworks but they have elements that only masters could really attain. Rivette's pacing is tremendously sure and Resnais has a way of turning a film from drama to comedy to surreality in the matter of one agile scene.

Rivette, as he usually does, plays with the conventions of a fictional proscenium as an allegory to the real world ultimately leaving us satisfied and reflective while Resnais plays with narrative structure never really defining the story or the character motivations and leaving us even more puzzled [but exhilarated] by the end.

Both films are unconventional love stories featuring older [40 and up] characters who are trying to reconcile their past so they can get on with their lives. Both deal with men who show up in a confused woman's life but then the tables reverse as the women, though independent, find they need the men in their lives at this particular point. And the men then find they need to make some sort of commitment in order to free the women.

Stylistically the films are very different. Resnais eschews his recent theatrical staged films for a lot of swooping camera movement [by DP Eric Gautier] and color while Rivette keeps it more laid back and simple with scenes that frame their characters outdoors [with a mountain in the background] or in dark tent of the circus.

Both films are recommended and welcome.

Or... Walker

2010-07-12T15:38:00.000-07:00

These two movies have nothing to do with one another but the posters have a similar natural pose by the person on the poster.

Inferno

2010-07-05T09:19:00.000-07:00

Trailer

film clip

Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Inferno

Total freedom is both the dream of every artist and a promise of catastrophe. If free verse, as Robert Frost said, is like playing tennis with the net down, then free filmmaking means no white lines and no court: just an umpire, a few players, and a load of balls. - Anthony Lane from his review of the film.

But what gorgeous freedom....

Hands in the air

2010-07-04T18:48:00.000-07:00

I saw the new Hold Steady CD cover and knew I had seen something similar before. It was a cover by Stars from a couple years ago.

Psycho turns 50

2010-06-16T17:45:00.000-07:00

"Psycho" should be seen at least three times by any discerning film-goer, the first time for the sheer terror of the experience...; the second time for the macabre comedy inherent in the conception of the film; and the third for all the hidden meanings and symbols lurking beneath the surface of the first American movie since "Touch of Evil" to stand in the same creative rank as the great European films.
Andrew Sarris's original review

Belle de jour

2010-06-13T17:27:00.000-07:00

Shots from Bunuel's Belle de jour

Hopper on camera

2010-06-10T10:11:00.000-07:00

Dennis Hopper screen test by Andy Warhol. [From the DVD '13 Most Beautiful... Songs for Andy Warhol Screen Tests']

Das Kabinette

2010-06-09T08:31:00.000-07:00

Rare Minimalist album from 1983.

Another track here:

The Evil of His Kiss

Hedy

2010-06-08T11:10:00.000-07:00

Hedy Lamarr Magazine Covers

La Femme Publique

2010-06-03T20:33:00.000-07:00

La Femme Publique [1984]

Andrzej Zulawski's La Femme Publique (The Public Woman) is a film you either find interesting and hate or you find terrible and hate. I take the former view. It has plenty of interest to offer but it makes me want to kick the screen. It is a film with such raw emotions and over-the-top scenes that the entertainment values is like a hammer to the head. And the scenes come at the viewer so loud and fast that it doesn't give one time to consider any implications; It's like an auto accident for the screen. There is nothing subtle about the movie; it is something you experience rather than enjoy.

The films stars Valérie Kaprisky [in a notably shrill performance] as a young woman who leaves home, becomes a nude dancer posing in a photography studio and is one day spotted by a completely mad Czech director (Francis Huster) who casts her in his film version of Doestoevsky's The Possessed. She has an affair with the director but then falls for another completely mad [Czech] dishwasher who was married to the previous movie-star the director used [and apparently terrorized] in an earlier movie he directed. While in the particularly volatile relationship with the dishwasher she begins to role play as though she is his wife. All the while being emotionally humiliated by the director of the film she is shooting.

Although it is not technically a Euro-trash film, in the best tradition of that style, the film is full of symbols, loudly perverse scenes, a political subtext and sex. Did I mention it has sex? The actress is rather attractive and her nudity gets good screen time. So much so that it borders on exploitation. Her nudity is such an attraction in the film, in fact, that if you do a Google image search and set the results on 'strict' you still get naked images.

But that is just window dressing to the whole experience. It's a tough film.

That said, the fact that I am spending time writing a post about it let's you know that at least the film makes you feel something. So, despite it's egregious tone and its questionable artistic merit, I'll say if you like a good knock to the head every so often consider watching La Femme Publique. It has it's defenders. It was also shot by Sacha Vierny who has shot such classic films as 'Last Year at Marienbad', 'Belle de jour' and 'The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover'. He seemed to be in the right place at the right time for a few cinematic artistic successes.

Nigel

2010-06-02T17:13:00.000-07:00

Making Plans for Nigel

Original by XTC

Cover by Nouvelle Vague

Cover by Primus

Laughing all the way - Banksy

2010-05-30T20:29:00.001-07:00

**Spoiler Alert**

Exit Through The Gift Shop

I'm going to play it safe and say that 'Exit Through The Gift Shop" is an elaborate hoax. Ostensibly a film about street artists and one eager and clumsy Frenchman - who follows them around videotaping them as they tag walls with spray paint and pasted paper images - the film is really about the nature of art and the art world. Although while watching it you won't necessarily detect the message; it is made with such a brisk and entertaining pace.

Watching it I was caught up in the whole thing until everyone in the film became critical of the Frenchman - Thierry Guetta aka Mr Brainwash. It then occurred to me that if the film was made by Banksy there is just no way he would put himself in front of the camera and openly be hostile toward Mr Brainwash while at the same time also interviewing him. In other words, if the film had been made by someone else the hoax would have played itself out more convincingly.

That said, it is a rather brilliant film specifically because Banksy fires his arrows right through the heart of the art world. There is one scene where he has an art opening in LA near skid-row in some warehouse. The centerpiece of the show is a real live elephant. Here we see the literal and figurative come together quite succinctly. Banksy knows that the elephant in the room is that people are willing to shell out thousands [or millions] of dollars for just about anything done by an artist with a name.

As Banksy spins his yarn our hero Thierry Guetta puts down his camera and takes up street art on a whim and takes the moniker 'Mr Brainwash'. Soon he is creating work that he and the art world feel is worthy of Banksy, Shepard Fairey, Space Invader and many of the others he apparently followed for a while with his camera. And he gets so caught with the bug he buys a studio and [Warhol-like] hires a bunch of people to mass produce intriguing art prints. Or, so it seems. He then goes on to create a huge show to be presented in CBS’s Columbia Square. If you are asking yourself, "How the hell...?" Trust me, go with your gut. It couldn't be funded by him. Banksy is all over it and Mr Guetta is simply fronting as an artist in the studio - which, again, is mass produced work. Hardly original or difficult if you have the capital, some graphic designers and a vague idea of what you want. [Warhol did it extremely well].

Anyway, the LA Weekly fell for Mr Brainwash's 'Life is Beautiful' show big time back in 2008. And it makes you realize that the press can be easily duped if the hype seems legit. [Although, who knows, maybe they played along?] In this case, Banksy and Fairey promoted the show. So what's not to love, then? If some unknown Frenchman did an art show of provocative graffiti images it would barely register a blip with most of us. But the value of promotion - in this case hoaxmotion - and some press coverage suddenly thrust this character into the spotlight.

So the bigger question might be, "What the hell is art?" Ah ha! Ask Arthur Danto who will tell you it's just about anything if people accept it as such. Have a problem with that? Look, if you're willing to shell out the cash for something you truly like then that's great. Watch the great documentary 'Herb and Dorothy' if you want to see pure art lovers who are really only in it for the art. But if you are merely a collector hoping to have the latest and greatest to keep up with the buzz of the art world then Banksy has a message for you with this film.

So yeah, Banksy's got to be loving this because he is at once showing how utterly bankrupt and gullible the art world is as well as showing us his role in it. But too, the problem I see is that Banksy is as phenomenally cynical as he is talented. He tips his hat to Andy Warhol as well as Orson Welles' 'F is For Fake' all the while making money and truly laughing all the way to the bank. See?

------

For reasons that I cannot fathom Roger Ebert seems to think Guetta is the real thing.

------
Is this Banksy?

Dennis Hopper photos

2010-05-29T19:02:00.000-07:00

Fuller on Peckinpah

2010-05-28T12:53:00.000-07:00

A reprint of a Sam Fuller review of a Sam Peckinpah film from Movietone News 60-61, February 1979.

Peckinpah’s Balladof Cable Hogue is a sensitive, emotional, surgical job on an American desert hermit without familiar sagebrush stuffing.