Random Film Thoughts: As we start a new...

[BTN]

Lisa Shwarzbaum strong rave of The House of Mirth and Gillian Anderson got me to see that! She was right. Though her Machinist review was so awful. Bale is insulting holocaust victims by losing weight? That was just a bizarre review and I didn't get it. And she was also right about The Crucible and was an interesting read. Like she turned out to be the biggest Peter Jackson fan of all time and wrote love letters to all his movies. LOTR and King Kong. She was unwavering. Her reviews of the first two potter movies were weird because the grade did not match the text in the slightest. OG is interesting in his own way with his triple comparison trademark. "It's like this doing that doing something" - If you read him you know what that is.

[RRA]

Finally going to watch A Clockwork Orange tonight.

Is it sad that I'm more nervous about watching it than I was for all of my exams last semester?

Content wise I don't think its shocking, kinda tame considering your average Law & Order Special Victims Unit episode. Still highly engaging and thoughtful, however.

And only movie I know of where a cock sculpture was used effectively as a murder weapon.

[haqyunus]

Why do people hate on Paltrow?

Anyway, I stumbled upon Rachel, Rachel last night from the late 60s for the first time and was nicely surprised. It provided an interesting comparison with last years much talked about The Deep Blue Sea. Though they are, if you go into the details, significantly different but the overarching theme of a woman finding and fighting herself and the society to be free (and find herself) is similar. Paul Newman's debut direction is dreamy and moody (maybe because of the source material) and in some places by contrast, a bit exaggerated (the preacher scenes and the first time Nick and Rachel meet) like other movies from that era but at the same time the setting and overall approach seem to be of maintaining realism. Where Blue Sea is exquisite and claustrophobic, reflecting the main character, Rachel is open and mysterious in a sad, pathetic way. She is not trapped anymore but it might be that she never realized that and now it is too late and there is nothing stopping her now but sadly there might be no where left to go now.

Joanne Woodward is beautiful and heartbreaking in the role and should have won here rather than the conventional Three Faces of Eve I have seen all nominated performances from that year and only Vanessa Redgrave in Isadora was in real competition with her this year (well Redgrave might even be better but that is then expected from me )

[cdmc]

Tired of hearing about Zero Dark Thirty? May I suggest the 20-minute REEL-UNREEL by Francis Alÿs, which will show at the MoMA next month. Fortunately, the artist made it available on his website. This is a lovely little film and allows us to take a refreshing perspective on daily life in Afghanistan.

http://www.francisalys.com/public/reel-unreel.html

[Largo]

Oh my ever-loving God. Shaking and in awe and fucking Malcolm McDowell.

Why did I not watch this before. WHY. MY LIFE. FEELS. PERFECTION.

I am not writing a review tonight because it'd be keyboard smashing.

[bryan1311]

Celeste and Jesse Forever

I was actually pretty impressed by this. Rashida Jones gives a wonderful and nuanced performance and her script is nicely observed. It's not the most original film of all-time, but all of the beats felt realistic. I loved the opening scene where Celeste and Jesse (a charming Andy Samberg) are on a double date with their best friends and they're doing overly cutesy "couple" stuff (in this instance, talking in exaggerated German accents) and the other couple is obviously annoyed and then it twists the convention by revealing that they're actually separated but are still trying to act like nothing has changed. It's a nice starting point for the film because you can just imagine them spending the last six months doing similar things and finally they need to both grow up and find out who they are as individuals and together. What follows is a series of awkward dates with other people and even more awkward relapses where they find themselves in bed together. And in the end it has some really nice, mature thoughts about relationships and marriage. Definitely one of the more underrated films of 2012, imo.

[bryan1311]

The General.

[crazyfists3600]

I watched Porco Rosso last night. Not sure what I was expecting, but I was genuinely moved by the subtle nature of the film's core. It felt so light and airy and yet packed a solid punch especially during Porco's flashback scene.

[Cricket]

I thought Alain Resnais' You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet was sublime. At 90, Resnais is as inventive and engaged as he's ever been. Playful and serious, romantic and disenchanted, theatrical and cinematic, classical and modern, this is a film of real craft and vigor. I'll have to see it again and think about it more to unpack all its meanings. It seems to me to largely be about the way performance intersects with real emotion until they are indistinguishable, and how the memory of something that never happened can be somehow more powerful and coherent than real life (think of how all the actors are ostensibly playing themselves). Put more generally, it's about art, as it relates to time and memory. But, whatever it all means, I had a smile on my face almost the whole time. (And yet it's also quite moving.)

My only slight complaint would be that I wish the Azéma/Arditi pairing could have been balanced out a bit more with Cosigny/Wilson (or even the young actors, for that matter), though you can't fault Resnais for lavishing extra attention on his wife. Still, the performances are all outstanding, particularly Mathieu Amalric and Michel Piccoli in a small role. The actors, many of whom are Resnais regulars, clearly have a shorthand with the director, and inhabit his strange, off-kilter world with perfect fidelity. Terrific production design too; the whole thing is beautifully staged and composed.

[RRA]

Oh my ever-loving God. Shaking and in awe and fucking Malcolm McDowell.

Why did I not watch this before. WHY. MY LIFE. FEELS. PERFECTION.

I am not writing a review tonight because it'd be keyboard smashing.

I find it funny that of all the classic movies I haven't gotten around to seeing yet....SINGIN' IN THE RAIN is the biggie.

I mean Gene Kelly hated Kubrick forever afterwards.

[BBKing44]

I just about loved the Invasion of the Body Snatchers remake. It makes a few tiny mistakes in the second half, but it's filled with brilliant scenes and individual moments. The last 15 minutes or so are especially unsettling, if for nothing other than the image of the banjo guy's head on his dog's body . Holy crap, that was f*cking scary. I can't remember the last time something genuinely creeped me out like that did.

[Jonathan]

The General.

I consider myself a Chaplin man, but this really is a timeless, top-to-bottom masterpiece and one of my all time favorites. It may be 86 years old, but it hasn't aged a day.

[Dent]

The General.

Yeah, that about sums it up.

[BTN]

I thought of the Brendan Gleeson movie directed by John Boorman.

[David Giancarlo]

Bless their Little Hearts has been one of the biggest cinematic surprises for me. I went into this film last night because of a friend’s recommendation, knowing literally nothing about it, or without any previous exposure to the films of the LA Rebellion. This film was really moving, and its portrayal of Charlie, a failure of a father and husband, who is so selfish, unmotivated to find work in order to feed his family, defensive and self-pitying, makes him a taxing and infuriating character, but also finds moments to see that he is strangely loveable, and sympathize with his confusion, and lack of direction or purpose. The standout here is Kaycee Moore, who I hear is also wonderful in Killer of Sheep and Daughters of the Dust, and hers is a long-suffering wife for the ages. She is so expressive, conveying a weariness and bitterness in a performance SO lived in, and so committed that it appears to be a somatic characterization: in the film’s highlight (a 13 minute take where she confronts her husband about spending all the money that he makes on a lady that he cheats on her with, and laments the fact that she bears the burden of nearly solely providing for their children, while hearing his excuses and lies about all of it), her eyelids literally droop with fatigue, and her hands tremble with spontaneity, without any sense of technique or calculation. Charles Burnett’s photography is fantastic for such an inexpensive production, and the screenplay is marvellous, even if it feels like many of the film’s most memorable beats were probably improvised. I still haven’t seen Killer of Sheep, but am really anxious to see it, now, and regretful of the fact that I missed seeing the recent retrospective screening of it at the TIFF Cinematheque (which, was apparently sold out). I was disappointed that there were only about 15 people in this screening, and that the people who went to see Killer of Sheep did not turn out for this. I hope that more people will eventually see this, because I can hardly find anything written about this!

[Largo]

I mean Gene Kelly hated Kubrick forever afterwards.

Yeah, I can see why.

[Addison de Witt]

I've just watched Drive for the first time.
Gosling's iconic character is for the ages.
Very stylish and creative direction by Refn. All the details were so spot-on. I loved it.

P.S. That scorpion jacket is quite something

[Stéphane]

I'm still in love with Monica Vitti. I can't believe she has alzheimer's.

[Jonathan]

Dazed and Confused didn't quite hit the highs of some of Linklater's greater films for me, though some of that might have to do with having been home-schooled and not ever being near the high school culture. Not that this has hampered any other high school entertainments for me (Freaks & Geeks is only a few years off from this and one of my favorite shows ever) but this seems to have a deeper connection with the little -isms about high school life and coming of age through it.

I must say for a second feature (Which was following up a film as low-key as Slacker) it's a pretty incredible piece of work - it has a large, sprawling ensemble but remains very well-focused throughout. In a way, this is Before Sunrise in macro (Just following people over the course of a significant day/night), though it's not as successful as that film. Still, very fun.

BTW Erik, if you see this, do you remember when you compared me to a character from this many years ago? I don't why I remember this (I don't even remember the context), but it came back to me when I was watching it and it's been driving me nuts.

[Dally]

Has anyone seen The Condemned of Altona (Vittorio de Sica, 1962)? It's very good, very chilling. Maximilian Schell is a former Nazi (well, maybe!?) presumed dead but secretly holed up in the attic of his family's mansion in Hamburg some fifteen years after the war ends. Based on a play by Jean-Paul Sartre, the film unfolds when a patriarch of a ship-building empire (Fredric March) reveals to his son and daughter-in-law (Robert Wagner and Sophia Loren) that he is dying. Loren uncovers the secret of Schell, the eldest son, but The Condemned of Altona is really about the war-profiteering both during the war and after and how the powers that emerged unscathed after World War II may not have lost the war at all. The film also wrestles with the idea that rank-and-file German soldiers were also war criminals and how, despite profitability and wealth in the decades following the war, Germany can not fully escape its past without, well, locking it away in an attic.

It seems most actors are dubbed in Italian but that doesn't effect the performances much (though Robert Wagner is, lol, out of his league). Loren and March are superb but this is Schell's show. I highly recommend this provocative film and it is a shame that it isn't better known, being De Sica and all.