Capo
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Post by Capo on Jul 29, 2006 19:01:56 GMT
I feel like every movie I've seen so far this year, save for maybe A Scanner Darkly, has overused the freehand method, a trend that was perhaps set off by Steven Soderbergh with the release of Traffic in 2000. We may be looking at our first defining characteristic of new millenium cinema. This would, of course, be a recycled characteristic from the late 60's and 70's. It's nothing new.
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Boz
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Post by Boz on Jul 29, 2006 19:45:19 GMT
Really? From where? I can't think of anything specific.
Maybe A Woman Under the Influence?
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Omar
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Post by Omar on Jul 29, 2006 20:35:20 GMT
Lady in the Water(2006/M. Night Shyamalan) [First Viewing] An apartment superintendent discovers a woman who emerged through the building's swimming pool.Strange, strange film. It wasn't until near the end when I realized what Shyamalan was going for; a story not unlike "Signs". But, this film is far more....I don't know, careless. It seemed that in his other films he went to great lengths to establish a vivid sense of atmosphere; the funeral in "The Sixth Sense", or the wind chimes in "Signs". I just didn't get that sense at all in this film. Giamatti was good though.
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Capo
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Post by Capo on Jul 29, 2006 21:25:55 GMT
Really? From where? I can't think of anything specific. Nor me, because basically, that "free" sense of filmmaking is what defines the seventies in Cinema. The Graduate, The French Connection, Easy Rider, as far as American Cinema goes; and who can forget La nouvelle vague, and, in particular, Raoul Coutard's shoulder camera as it follows Jean-Paul Belmondo up and down escalators and through cafés, as he chainsmokes his way through Godard's A bout de souffle? But perhaps I've misunderstood what you were trying to say by "freehand method" being a particularly new thing in Cinema. Loach has been using handheld photography since the late sixties. And aren't you a fan of Scorsese? Mean Streets?
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jrod
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Post by jrod on Jul 29, 2006 23:20:42 GMT
Deadwood: Season 1 Really strong show. HBO doesnt seem like it can fail. I really like Tim Olyphants character a lot in it. Its only downfall in my opinion is giving too much time to less interesting characters sometimes (like the Vito thing in Sopranos). Its nice to see a good modern day western...the genre has really fallen off at the movies. Torn Cutain One of Hitchcock's lesser regarded movies, but I really enjoyed it. Apperently he had big fights with Paul Newman and Julie Andrews throughout. It was a lot like The Man Who Knew Too Much (Hitchcocks most overrated) only better. Lots of classic suspense scenes. Topaz One of Hitchcocks lesser efforts. Quite long for one of his movies, no big stars, very few suspensful parts, and a terrible ending
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Boz
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Post by Boz on Jul 29, 2006 23:22:47 GMT
I don't know, I'm not as well-informed on 70's cinema as you are, and I've only seen Mean Streets once a long time ago. I'm not saying no freehand, I'm just saying I feel like it's overused to a dire extent recently, like directors have abandoned well constructed, graceful camera movements in favor of just shouldering the thing and running around. I think it works sometimes (Traffic, United 93) but not in all cases.
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Capo
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Post by Capo on Jul 29, 2006 23:29:35 GMT
Well, judging by your criticisms of such style, I think you should check out Gus Van Sant's last three films; Gerry, Elephant, Last Days.
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Omar
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Post by Omar on Jul 30, 2006 0:31:09 GMT
Les Bas-fonds The Lower Depths(1936/Jean Renoir) [First Viewing] A group of people struggle to survive through poverty.A very well constructed film, perfectly balancing situations of comedy and disturbing sequences of harsh realities. Renoir drifts through the characters, to show us that they are all part of the big picture. And the final shot is a great one.
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Boz
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Post by Boz on Jul 30, 2006 6:03:25 GMT
Well, judging by your criticisms of such style, I think you should check out Gus Van Sant's last three films; Gerry, Elephant, Last Days. Yeah I actually have yet to see a Van Sant. Looking forward to it though.
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Boz
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Post by Boz on Jul 30, 2006 9:16:00 GMT
Rollerball 1975/Jewison Director Jewison presents some interesting ideas and images here and there, but ultimately this heavily-Kubrick-influenced film delivers no resounding message. Too much dialogue to be a sports movie, too much action to be a sci-fi drama. And they kept James Caan's temper under wraps for most of the film and discarded his New York accent. What were they thinking?
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jrod
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Post by jrod on Jul 31, 2006 0:05:21 GMT
Frenzy The New World The Last Waltz
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Post by bobbyreed on Jul 31, 2006 1:09:26 GMT
Why only two stars for The New World, Jrod?
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Post by Mike Sullivan on Jul 31, 2006 5:16:18 GMT
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Post by Michael on Jul 31, 2006 6:46:28 GMT
VideodromeAmazing film with some absolutely mindblowing images. I love how Cronenberg manages to slowly incorporate fantasy with reality until it reaches the point where they become one in the same. The final half hour of this film was absolutely astonishing, everything being perfectly wrapped up with a barrage of surreal images and intense murder scenes. "Long live the new flesh..."[/i]
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Omar
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Post by Omar on Jul 31, 2006 6:58:46 GMT
Scoop(2006/Woody Allen) [First Viewing] A young American student living in London gets a lead on a big story from a dead journalist.Everyone can easily shrug this off as lesser Allen, and they wouldn't be wrong. But no one can deny the extreme talent that Scarlett Johansson has. In "Match Point" she was sexy and psychotic, but here she is very much like the Woody Allen persona, and the two work wonders together. My Super Ex-Girlfriend(2006/Ivan Reitman) [First Viewing] A regular guy realizes his new girlfriend is a Super Hero.Silly film, but the cast tries to be funny. I wasn't expecting much anyway.
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Boz
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Post by Boz on Jul 31, 2006 7:37:56 GMT
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Capo
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Post by Capo on Jul 31, 2006 20:20:26 GMT
La jetée The Jetty / The Pier Chris Marker 1962 France 1st time; DVD A post-WWIII prisoner, haunted by a woman's face from his childhood, is sent back in time as an adult to bring help to the present. Quietly devastating short, a montage of still photographs narrated in a haunting voice-over, which cumulates to an emotional climax of lost youth; probably a film to see when one is young, this essay on memory as a mental image is a convincingly realised concept.Sans soleil Sunless Chris Marker 1982 France 1st time; DVD A woman narrates, and reminsces on, letters she received from a cameraman who travelled the world. Primarily an account of Tokyo, with subtle diversions into the contrasts between the cultures of Japan and Africa, two extremes of humanity's survival, this is an original, subjective and personal take on the world as a kind of alienated planet to itself. As it develops from documentary to science-fiction fantasy, the narration becomes more abstract, more philosophical, and the images more beautiful and profound, evolving into a film similar to Herzog's Fata Morgana.L'année dernière à Marienbad Last Year at Marienbad Alain Resnais 1960 France/Italy 1st time; DVD At a vast hotel of decorated corridors and anonymous mirrors, a man tries to convince a woman they've met a year previously…but did they, and was it Marienbad or Frederiksbad? Another of those films strictly for cinema buffs; the director clearly loves the medium (which New Wave child didn't?) and here he presents the whole proceedings as a completely intrinsic, insular world, detached from any kind of external society or politics. The protagonist, the only character with any kind of life or awareness of his own existence, acts as a kind of self-reflexive justification for the narrative's convolution, which determines what we see and how it is edited. The entire thing floats by like a fever dream, preoccupied with its own form, its own convention, wherein character names matter little, and distinguishing time and space is futile.Toute la mémoire du monde All the World's Memory Alain Resnais 1956 France 1st time; DVD An account of the national museum in Paris, a library of text and resource. Obsessive evocation of knowledge and history as the defining factors for a future truth, that of happiness; Resnais is clearly a fan of Welles.
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Boz
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Post by Boz on Aug 1, 2006 6:26:02 GMT
So glad you finally saw Marienbad and liked it Capo.
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Capo
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Post by Capo on Aug 1, 2006 12:56:47 GMT
Notre musique Our Music Jean-Luc Godard 2004 France/Switzerland 1st time; DVD Three kingdoms: Hell, which consists of archive war footage; Purgatory, in which Godard gives an essay on text and the image; and Paradise, a tranquil forest guarded by sailors. A more subtle, and somehow more rambling work than Godard's previous Éloge de l'amour; there are ideas here so numerous that they cancel one another out. It seems to be an indictment, of some sort, of how modern cultures lack poetry; no doubt, like the 2001 masterpiece, it becomes better upon rewatches.
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Capo
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Post by Capo on Aug 1, 2006 12:59:30 GMT
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