Milk

Great acting, but it's still a biopic. I don't like them, there seems to be only one way of doing them, and they're always very linear, very this-then-this-then-this, and they tend to leave very little room for a director's vision. This is what happened here. There are great performances, but Gus Van Sant is pretty much anonymous. There's nothing of his unique visual style - what we saw in Elephant, Last Days, Paranoid Park, My Own Private Idaho. Shame.

Stolen Kisses (Baisers volés)

Me and Al never got round to buying the Criterion Antoine Doinel boxset, but Al did find Stolen Kisses on DVD, which is the third installment, after The 400 Blows and a short film we're not sure the name of.

Me and Lil watched Stolen Kisses tonight. This, along with Une Femme est Une Femme by Godard, sums up the lighter side of the French New Wave so wonderfully. This was a joy to behold. The speed of it, Jean-Pierre Leaud's face...wonderful! Here's a clip:





and the great opening:





oh and my favourite scene from Une Femme est Une Femme:





oh and this from Bande a Part!:



b

The Spy Who Came In From The Cold

I'd been waiting a while to see this, and Al got given it for his birthday so the other night we made cocktails - black cherry martinis; cassis & vodka - and watched it on the big screen, courteousy of Al's projector.

It was a grey and dank and paranoid as I'd been led to believe, and it had a brilliantly evocative score to go with Richard Burton's grim visage. It reminded me a lot of Conrad's Secret Agent. Seeing Burton's agent go down the labour exchange bears similarities with the shopkeeper/agent in Conrad's book.

There was a great end speech from Burton too (starts at 2:40):

The Five Obstructions

Finally saw this.

As the final narration says, "it is always the attacker who reveals himself". This film reveals (as if it wasn't highly suspected already!) that Lars Von Trier is ever-so-slightly odd.

Casque D'Or

I fell asleep during the main plot points of this film, although that is not a comment on its quality, merely an note of the fact that I'd been working all day.

I will remember the strange, slighly elaborate dress of French gangsters at the fin de siecle.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Or, rather, the last 2 thirds of it. I came in on it after finishing an essay I was writing, but what I saw was fantastic.

Pola X

Most of it, til the DVD broke 20 mins from the end. Odd film.

Slumdog Millionaire

Che (Part One)

The first film of 2009 wasn't such a turkey as last year's; it had a rather toned-down atmosphere.

I read somewhere that it had no dramatic tension, which is true, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Although not necessarily good either. It was a strange film, and I'm still not entirely sure what I thought of it. I suppose its elements of dullness could be seen as a positive thing, showing the dreariness of revolution, showing how dull and drawn out and boring it must've been, rather that the exciting, invigorating thing we tend to assume revolution is. Similarly, Benicio del Toro is so good you forget he's acting.