dir. Elizabeth Lawrence
USA, 2009 (?)
Great documentary on charismatic North Dakotan Chris Sand, who has a double-life as a cowboy and country/hiphop musician.
Wednesday 7 September 2011
The Skin I Live In
dir. Pedro Almodovar
Spain, 2011
A fan of those "torture-porn" films like Saw could watch this and in some scenes respond in the same way as they would those horrific Hollywood films. They could do that whilst also being comprehensively critiqued and attacked without realising it, such is the twisted genius of Almodovar's film. Every instance of apparent misogynistically-inclined control or violence is turned inside out and sent back at the misogynist whilst conning him into thinking the film's in agreement. Mindboggling.
Spain, 2011
A fan of those "torture-porn" films like Saw could watch this and in some scenes respond in the same way as they would those horrific Hollywood films. They could do that whilst also being comprehensively critiqued and attacked without realising it, such is the twisted genius of Almodovar's film. Every instance of apparent misogynistically-inclined control or violence is turned inside out and sent back at the misogynist whilst conning him into thinking the film's in agreement. Mindboggling.
Tuesday 30 August 2011
Shock Corridor
dir. Samuel Fuller
USA, 1963
The Johnny in this that becomes catatonic a relation to the Johnny in Vertigo who becomes catatonic?
The murder plot strangely muted, the film is grouped around three monologues that split off into the colours of eastern religious rituals (Japan, Korea), three monologues from American contradictions. The US soldier who defected to "the Reds" only to be re-re-brainwashed into extreme US patriotism: he now thinks he's General Robert E Lee. The educated black "founder" of the KKK, parading down the corridor (known as "the street") with a banner reading "Integration and Democracy Don't Mix". The Nobel Prize-winning scientist who worked on the atom bomb now reduced to the mental age of a 6 year-old, drawing crude portraits of the other patients.
Monday 15 August 2011
Northfork
dir. Michael Polish
USA, 2002
The blurb on the front of the DVD captures it well: "Twin Peaks meets Six Feet Under"
Le Samourai
dir. Jean-Pierre Melville
France, 1967
Another greatly cold Melville/Delon/gangster flick (those three / generally guarantee a corker). Slow, grey, restrained, silent. Melville at his very best, the opening scene with Delon's Jef Costello lying smoking on a bed in a grotty GROTTY hotel, smoke swirling up and two big windows looking onto a grey street, the light reflected on the ceiling and cars going past.
Cria Cuervos
dir. Carlos Saura
Spain, 1975
Absolutely astounding. One of the best films I've seen this year, would love to write about it properly one day.
Thursday 11 August 2011
Limitless
dir. Neil Burger
USA, 2010
Both worse and better than I thought it would be. A potentially interesting film (insofar as it reveals stuff about America) that I'll think about and maybe write about further.
Road to Nowhere
dir. Monte Hellman
USA, 2011
Unremittingly awful, totally not made up for by the fact that we saw it in an indie movie theatre in San Francisco. Saddeningly bad.
Tuesday 21 June 2011
Klute
dir. Alan J Pakula
USA, 1971
The first of his "paranoia trilogy" is less explicitly political, but has some amazing moments, like after a heavy-breather phone call the camera pans away from Jane Fonda's bed, through her darkened apartment, her sitting up in bed, terrified, the jangly chime-like music perfectly matching the isolation.
USA, 1971
The first of his "paranoia trilogy" is less explicitly political, but has some amazing moments, like after a heavy-breather phone call the camera pans away from Jane Fonda's bed, through her darkened apartment, her sitting up in bed, terrified, the jangly chime-like music perfectly matching the isolation.
Senna
dir. Asif Kapadia
UK, 2010
Brilliant and sad. Not really about F1, more about a person who lived on that thin line between life and death. Reminded me of Man On Wire.
UK, 2010
Brilliant and sad. Not really about F1, more about a person who lived on that thin line between life and death. Reminded me of Man On Wire.
Wednesday 15 June 2011
Who Are You, Polly Maggoo?
dir. William Klein
France, 1966
Batty take-down of 60s Parisian fashion. Surely influenced by/influenced Monty Python, Terry Gilliam, the New Wave.
France, 1966
Batty take-down of 60s Parisian fashion. Surely influenced by/influenced Monty Python, Terry Gilliam, the New Wave.
The Social Network
dir. David Fincher
USA, 2010
Fincher has this amazing ability to make a broad, culturally on-the-ball film without it becoming empty. The closing image of Zuckerberg robotically refreshing his own Facebook page is an image for our time like Fight Club was for the 90s.
USA, 2010
Fincher has this amazing ability to make a broad, culturally on-the-ball film without it becoming empty. The closing image of Zuckerberg robotically refreshing his own Facebook page is an image for our time like Fight Club was for the 90s.
Sleep Furiously
dir. Gideon Koppel
UK, 2008
Masterfully controlled portrait of disappearing life in Wales.
UK, 2008
Masterfully controlled portrait of disappearing life in Wales.
Robinson in Ruins
dir. Patrick Keiller
UK, 2010
A little of the magic gone, but a much more mature interweaving of narration and image. The description of the financial crisis to the image of a spider building its web is masterful.
UK, 2010
A little of the magic gone, but a much more mature interweaving of narration and image. The description of the financial crisis to the image of a spider building its web is masterful.
Death of a Cyclist
dir. Juan Antonio Bardem
Spain, 1955
Remarkable film noir (and anti-Franco parable) by our Bardem's grandfather.
Spain, 1955
Remarkable film noir (and anti-Franco parable) by our Bardem's grandfather.
London
dir. Patrick Keiller
UK, 1994
So utterly transfixed I forgot I had the flu. Very beautiful and very sad, like an aesthetic treatment of my childhood and my relationship with my dad.
UK, 1994
So utterly transfixed I forgot I had the flu. Very beautiful and very sad, like an aesthetic treatment of my childhood and my relationship with my dad.
Rewatch: The Shadow of the Vampire
dir. E. Elias Merhige,
USA, 2000
The uncanny likeness of Eddie Izzard to the actor that played Hutter in the original, and the complete miscasting and unlikeliness of the actor that played Ellen in the original to Catherine McCormack, who played Greta Schroeder playing Ellen in this.
USA, 2000
The uncanny likeness of Eddie Izzard to the actor that played Hutter in the original, and the complete miscasting and unlikeliness of the actor that played Ellen in the original to Catherine McCormack, who played Greta Schroeder playing Ellen in this.
Nosferatu
dir. F.W. Murnau
Germany, 1922
Still scary, yet unavoidably - and unconsciously - funny. The strange modernity of the heroine, she looked like she should be alive now, she didn't fit into the film; unlike the actor that played Hutter, who was so much of his time.
Germany, 1922
Still scary, yet unavoidably - and unconsciously - funny. The strange modernity of the heroine, she looked like she should be alive now, she didn't fit into the film; unlike the actor that played Hutter, who was so much of his time.
Tuesday 24 May 2011
Punishment Park
dir. Peter Watkins
USA, 1971
Fantastic pseudo-documentary that has very unsettlingly eerily scarily similar arguments made for brutal punishments of dissidents that today's America of the Patriot Act and Guantanamo Bay seems to indulge in...
USA, 1971
Fantastic pseudo-documentary that has very unsettlingly eerily scarily similar arguments made for brutal punishments of dissidents that today's America of the Patriot Act and Guantanamo Bay seems to indulge in...
Rewatch: Blackboards
dir. Samira Makhmalbaf
Iran, 2000
Wonderful to see this again, a film that has a strange (when thought about after) mix of neo-realism and magical otherness...
Iran, 2000
Wonderful to see this again, a film that has a strange (when thought about after) mix of neo-realism and magical otherness...
Adam
dir. Max Mayer
USA, 2009
Strange film that didn't know what it wanted to be: a run-of-the-mill-Hollywood-heartwarmer or an actually decent little indie about a guy with Asperger's...
USA, 2009
Strange film that didn't know what it wanted to be: a run-of-the-mill-Hollywood-heartwarmer or an actually decent little indie about a guy with Asperger's...
Saturday 14 May 2011
The Thorn In The Heart
dir. Michel Gondry
France, 2009
Wonderfully touching film dedicated to Michel's aunt Suzette and her career as an "avant-garde" teacher in the Cevennes in the 50s, 60s and 70s...
Koktobel
dirs. Boris Khlebnikov and Aleksei Popogrebski
Russia, 2003
Very much like The Return, which I liked rather more
Happy Together
dir. Wong Kar Wai
Hong Kong, 1997
Al got me this DVD for £2 years ago, when Global Video on Great Western Road was shutting down, and when I was in the initial blooms of a Wong Kar Wai obsession. Strange, then, that I hadn't gotten round to watching it til now. Perhaps it's to do with seeing a film at the CCA a while ago that used a few frames from Happy Together ran on a loop as the visual back-up for a film essay on diasporas, travelling, love, theory, literature, film and so on. It reminded me Wong Kar Wai's wonderful use of colour, and the use of that colour to create emotional states visually, of making the film be the state, rather than show it, of making film live as a feeling, I suppose.
Rewatch: Songs From The Second Floor
dir. Roy Andersson
Sweden, 2000
I remember seeing this when it came out, when I was 17. I had recently got glasses for short-sightedness, but had forgotten them on that particular evening, which meant that I watched the entirety of this film squinting - but not a full squint, a semi-squint - trying to read the subtitles. Luckily there aren't many.
From that first watch 11 years ago, all I remember really is the general aspect of apocalypse and humour, and the scene where a mountain-top of dignitaries push a gifted child off a cliff.
Watching it now, I feel more aware of it fitting in to a particularly European existential sense, maybe, or a dark/black humour, the sort that connects Bunuel and Monty Python with the grey landscapes of Scandinavian winters. It's much more explicitly political than I remember, although I do remember the large proportion of shots of middle-aged men sat pondering, in their pants and vest, on the edge of their bed, in the middle of the night, their bedside lamp on, their wife asleep.
Monday 11 April 2011
Oranges and Sunshine
dir. Jim Loach
UK/Australia, 2011
A bit over-written/expository, but an important story told.
Source Code
dir. Duncan Jones
USA, 2011
Like a much much better version of Inception. Made me comment on the preoccupations of a lot of American cinema and TV at the moment - hard to pin down ideas about time travel, control over time, terrorism, heroism, the organisation of memory, the role of the armed forces, a low-level constant murmur of suspicion. This is a fascinating film that I think I should see again to write about properly.
Repo Man
dir. Alex Cox
USA, 1984
Great B-movie-punk-sci-fi-slacker something-film. Endlessly well-written, great performances, a brilliant soundtrack, and heavy heavy heavy with revealing stuff about American culture - the food and drink packaging an eerily similar design to Tesco's value range (plain white packets, blue writing - "FOOD", "DRINK"), chasing money, the weird cult-like spirituality, strange observing government agencies, street-corner philosophers. This is a brilliant film.
Tuesday 5 April 2011
Seconds
dir. John Frankenheimer
USA, 1966
Another dark Cold War-era paranoia picture from the director of The Manchurian Candidate, again focussing on singular identity in a world where no-one quite knows who is who. The cinematography by James Wong Howe is absolutely superb, especially the camera attached to the actor to give a sort of "floating head" effect, and the masterly use (and non-use) of music - the opening sequence of a man being followed is conducted entirely without music, or dialogue, with the floating head camera the only overtly "expressive" aspect. Here it is, with opening titles by the master, Saul Bass:
There is something in it too about image and self-image, about the relationship between identity and image, between inside and outside, surface and depth, all wrapped up in a hair-raising, skin-tingling air of suspicion and vaguely-defined menace.
This is a fantastic film, certainly one of the best I've seen for a long time.
Danger: Diabolique
dir. Mario Bava
Italy, 1968
Ridiculously camp 60s cops-and-robbers film, with a terrible actor in the lead role. Basically Austin Powers without the irony.
Monday 14 March 2011
Thursday 3 February 2011
The Case of the Missing Switchboard Operator
dir. Dusan Makavejev
Yugoslavia, 1967
Irreverent love affair-goes-wrong in melting pot Belgrade. Eva Ras's amazingly fresh presence
is at the centre of a film that Al described as having the "best strudel preparation scene in the history of cinema". Here it is:
Yugoslavia, 1967
Irreverent love affair-goes-wrong in melting pot Belgrade. Eva Ras's amazingly fresh presence
is at the centre of a film that Al described as having the "best strudel preparation scene in the history of cinema". Here it is:
Portrait of Jason
dir. Shirley Clarke
USA, 1967
A one-of-a-kind guy - houseboy, hustler, would-be-cabaret artiste - called Jason pontificates in front of a film crew in his house for an hour and a half, getting progressively drunker.
USA, 1967
A one-of-a-kind guy - houseboy, hustler, would-be-cabaret artiste - called Jason pontificates in front of a film crew in his house for an hour and a half, getting progressively drunker.
Black Swan
dir. Darren Aronofsky
USA, 2010
Brilliantly darkly camp. Colour pallet like a black forest gateau. Wonderful performance from Natalie Portman. Five stars, definitely.
USA, 2010
Brilliantly darkly camp. Colour pallet like a black forest gateau. Wonderful performance from Natalie Portman. Five stars, definitely.
Monday 10 January 2011
Disco Dancer
dir. Babbar Subhash
India, 1983
WONDERFUL Bollywood film about the trials and tribulations of Jimmy, a street-kid from Mumbai who becomes a star!
Great bad editing, music editing, acting, camera work, great great music. MIA sampled parts of it:
This was my fave:
India, 1983
WONDERFUL Bollywood film about the trials and tribulations of Jimmy, a street-kid from Mumbai who becomes a star!
Great bad editing, music editing, acting, camera work, great great music. MIA sampled parts of it:
This was my fave:
Mammoth
dir. Lukas Moodysson
USA, 2009
Stars Michelle Williams and Gael Garcia Bernal.
This film appeared as if Moodysson had been given themes - sex trafficing, Western economic imperialism/exploitation, banality of consumerism, lack of family/time etc - and had a bit of a freak out and clumsily put them together. This film was BAD, but there were moments of accidental (and totally not down to Moodysson's choices, I don't think) power - like the cut from Williams opening the garage-sized fridge in her SoHo loft to the tiny Phillipines kitchen of her nanny's family. That is a vulgar fact and maybe actually was helped by its communication in the clumsy vulgar way that Moodysson does it - to make it subtle is to misunderstand the very nature of the thing you are trying to communicate, which is quite possibly the least subtle, most vulgar thing possible: people have a lot and others have not much at all.
The film was full of these moments, making it a very strange proposition indeed. It really was BAD, don't get me wrong, but it was bad in a very, VERY odd way. The weird spiritualistic mammoth/elephant metaphor running through it, complete with ominous-sounding droney music; the first cut to the nanny's boys growing up in the Phillipines, when you realised that as well as a semi-Lost in Translation it was also a semi-Babel; the bemusing choice of Williams' character's profession (a ER doctor) when the seeming point of this couple's existence in the film was to show the vacuousness of Western life. The strange non-relationship that Williams' and Bernal's characters had - no amount of time was spent establishing what it was like, so one got the impression it wasn't that bad not that good either, and one wondered that in a better film this relationship would have been fleshed out more but also maybe in the process too-determined, too causal, too subtle, really, thus making it less realistic, that maybe the point of this relationship was that it was not "in crisis" nor "perfect".
Perhaps "not subtle, but in which clumsiness performs the same functions as subtle" would be a good way to describe this odd film. Perhaps not. Either way, Lilya 4-Ever is MUCH better.
USA, 2009
Stars Michelle Williams and Gael Garcia Bernal.
This film appeared as if Moodysson had been given themes - sex trafficing, Western economic imperialism/exploitation, banality of consumerism, lack of family/time etc - and had a bit of a freak out and clumsily put them together. This film was BAD, but there were moments of accidental (and totally not down to Moodysson's choices, I don't think) power - like the cut from Williams opening the garage-sized fridge in her SoHo loft to the tiny Phillipines kitchen of her nanny's family. That is a vulgar fact and maybe actually was helped by its communication in the clumsy vulgar way that Moodysson does it - to make it subtle is to misunderstand the very nature of the thing you are trying to communicate, which is quite possibly the least subtle, most vulgar thing possible: people have a lot and others have not much at all.
The film was full of these moments, making it a very strange proposition indeed. It really was BAD, don't get me wrong, but it was bad in a very, VERY odd way. The weird spiritualistic mammoth/elephant metaphor running through it, complete with ominous-sounding droney music; the first cut to the nanny's boys growing up in the Phillipines, when you realised that as well as a semi-Lost in Translation it was also a semi-Babel; the bemusing choice of Williams' character's profession (a ER doctor) when the seeming point of this couple's existence in the film was to show the vacuousness of Western life. The strange non-relationship that Williams' and Bernal's characters had - no amount of time was spent establishing what it was like, so one got the impression it wasn't that bad not that good either, and one wondered that in a better film this relationship would have been fleshed out more but also maybe in the process too-determined, too causal, too subtle, really, thus making it less realistic, that maybe the point of this relationship was that it was not "in crisis" nor "perfect".
Perhaps "not subtle, but in which clumsiness performs the same functions as subtle" would be a good way to describe this odd film. Perhaps not. Either way, Lilya 4-Ever is MUCH better.
Le Deuxieme Souffle (Second Wind)
dir. Jean-Pierre Melville
France, 1966
Great piece of Melville cool, lots of macs, hats, guns held at right angles to the body. A good heist scene in the chilly scrub of hills above Marseille, and a strange pronouncement on the police's moral code in a title card before the film starts. And Lino Ventura's stubby face...
France, 1966
Great piece of Melville cool, lots of macs, hats, guns held at right angles to the body. A good heist scene in the chilly scrub of hills above Marseille, and a strange pronouncement on the police's moral code in a title card before the film starts. And Lino Ventura's stubby face...
Wednesday 5 January 2011
Partir (Leaving)
dir. Catherine Corsini
France, 2009
Kristin Scott Thomas in impressive form as a bored bourgeois wife to a doctor husband who is the sort of man who thinks of his wife as part of a portfolio of what makes him a successful/upstanding/etc man who has an impulsive affair with a Catalan builder, which soon turns into more: they fall in love and she leaves her increasingly odd/threatening/violent husband, which in turn leads him to increasingly baroque forms of punishment/attempts to get her to come home, including getting his friend the mayor to arrest the builder...
Particularly impressive in Scott Thomas's performance are the moments when she's alone, in a park or in her car, where she giggles or smiles to herself, the excitement and naughtiness of her affair making her appear as a teenager...
The tension ratchets up (despite, as the Guardian pointed out, the film begins and ends with a bang of a gun, though to be fair we hear and don't see who the shot is aimed at) to the point where we see who gets shot...
Rather a good companion piece to the very good I've Loved You So Long, with Kristin Scott Thomas again given the sort of well-written role she wouldn't get in the UK or Hollywood. Some have thought this film more emotionally raw than I've Loved You... but I'm not sure. This
is perhaps less hard-hitting for being stretched across the whole film, whereas I've Loved You...'s emotional hit comes right at the end.
France, 2009
Kristin Scott Thomas in impressive form as a bored bourgeois wife to a doctor husband who is the sort of man who thinks of his wife as part of a portfolio of what makes him a successful/upstanding/etc man who has an impulsive affair with a Catalan builder, which soon turns into more: they fall in love and she leaves her increasingly odd/threatening/violent husband, which in turn leads him to increasingly baroque forms of punishment/attempts to get her to come home, including getting his friend the mayor to arrest the builder...
Particularly impressive in Scott Thomas's performance are the moments when she's alone, in a park or in her car, where she giggles or smiles to herself, the excitement and naughtiness of her affair making her appear as a teenager...
The tension ratchets up (despite, as the Guardian pointed out, the film begins and ends with a bang of a gun, though to be fair we hear and don't see who the shot is aimed at) to the point where we see who gets shot...
Rather a good companion piece to the very good I've Loved You So Long, with Kristin Scott Thomas again given the sort of well-written role she wouldn't get in the UK or Hollywood. Some have thought this film more emotionally raw than I've Loved You... but I'm not sure. This
is perhaps less hard-hitting for being stretched across the whole film, whereas I've Loved You...'s emotional hit comes right at the end.
Monday 3 January 2011
The Front
dir. Martin Ritt
USA, 1975
Hitherto unknown (to me) film starring Woody Allen as a front for a group of TV writers blacklisted during the McCarthy era. Unexpectedly stirring to see Allen tell the HUAC committee to "go fuck yourselves"...
USA, 1975
Hitherto unknown (to me) film starring Woody Allen as a front for a group of TV writers blacklisted during the McCarthy era. Unexpectedly stirring to see Allen tell the HUAC committee to "go fuck yourselves"...
Departures
dir. Yôjirô Takita
Japan, 2008
Rather OTT story of an ex-chellist who moves back to his country home and becomes a "professional encoffiner" as the subtitles dutifully told us, and deals with his troubled relationship with his father...
Japan, 2008
Rather OTT story of an ex-chellist who moves back to his country home and becomes a "professional encoffiner" as the subtitles dutifully told us, and deals with his troubled relationship with his father...
Heartbreaker
dir. Pascal Chaumeil
France, 2010
Very silly but fun film with the lovely Romain Duris and Vanessa Paradis about a group of professional relationship breaker-uppers. Guess what happens when Duris's seductor-for-hire meets Vanessa Paradis's rich girl who is about to get married to Egg from This Life...
France, 2010
Very silly but fun film with the lovely Romain Duris and Vanessa Paradis about a group of professional relationship breaker-uppers. Guess what happens when Duris's seductor-for-hire meets Vanessa Paradis's rich girl who is about to get married to Egg from This Life...
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