Omar
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Post by Omar on Mar 25, 2007 22:25:08 GMT
Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte(1964/Robert Aldrich) [First Viewing] An aging southern belle, thought to once be guilty of murder, struggles with keeping her property from a greedy cousin.Creepy and very atmospheric, but way too long to be thoroughly enjoyable. Many of the elements are extremely over the top and border on camp, which would have made the film something of a guilty pleasure, if only it didn't take itself so seriously. The Killing of Sister George(1968/Robert Aldrich) [First Viewing] An aging soap opera actress struggles with the threat of her character being killed off of the program.The film's sense of humor makes it enjoyable, but it's epic length diminishes it from keeping a lasting effect. The satirical look inside television production is the backbone of the film, with explorations on lesbianism and various other subplots lulling the film down tremendously. Gerry(2002/Gus Van Sant) [Second Viewing] Two individuals get lost in the desert.An incredible achievement of cinematography, scope, and establishment, from it's beautiful opening shot to the long lasting shots of the two central characters wondering around in a ghost like state through the twilight landscape of the desert. The plot, while considered non-existent, is actually an ambiguous approach toward identity and self discovery. A completely mesmerizing experience. Elephant(2003/Gus Van Sant) [Second Viewing] A high school is interrupted from it's daily routine by two shooters.Interesting look at various perspectives on a single incident. The acting is rather weak, but Van Sant's choice to take the route of authenticity in casting local teenagers ultimately pays off, and does nothing to take away from the matter of fact approach. Van Sant steers away from sensationalism, and approaches the serious topic with a refreshing sense of bluntness. Last Days (2005/Gus Van Sant) [Third Viewing] A rock star wastes away in the confines of his estate.Possibly the most ambitious film of Van Sant's 'Death Trilogy', and it partly stands at a different direction than the others, focusing mainly on a single individual. Once again, the film plays with various aspects of perception, but it's exploration of the mental death of a human being, before the physical death even occurs, is both haunting and poetic.
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Omar
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Post by Omar on Mar 27, 2007 20:09:25 GMT
The Bridge on the River Kwai(1957/David Lean) [First Viewing] A group of British POWs during WWII help construct a bridge for their captors.Unlike most war films of it's time, it does not go out of it's way to be overly patriotic, or neither does it go directly into the direction of an anti-war film. Instead, Lean absorbs us in the plot, accompanied by the wonderful jungle imagery, beautiful cinematography, and tight editing and pacing that create some amazingly suspenseful moments, especially during the now famous finale.
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Capo
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Post by Capo on Mar 28, 2007 15:36:26 GMT
Skammen Shame Ingmar Bergman 1968 Sweden 1st time; DVD A married couple are brought under turmoil when war breaks out and their home is invaded politically opposed forces. Obscure even by Bergman's standards, a rather apocalyptic and very bleak psychological study of a marriage falling apart, under the allegorical stress of a military invasion. Enlightenment of any meaning outside (or under) its aesthetic comes in fits and starts, meandering from one elusive, unusual feeling to the next. But it has a deeply unsettling atmosphere from the start (relentless church bells in the distance, anonymous phone calls) to the finish (a boat in an endless swamp of water, with the navigator willingly disappearing overboard), with excellent sound design and performances from von Sydow and Ullmann.
The French Lieutenant's Woman Karel Reisz 1981 UK 1st time; DVD An adaptation of Fowles' novel stars two actors who have an affair with one another. Leslie Halliwell said of this that it was an adaptation of a "thin story"; whether the story itself is thin or not, Fowles' original presents an emotionally and psychologically dense picture of two lovers in a society restricted by its own preoccupation with reputation and honour. And so Harold Pinter's script is an ambitious undertaking, in seemingly grasping Fowles' allegory and emphasising it by making the reflection of our own times a conscious element of the film - Fowles' novel is adapted inside the film, with the contemporary setting the production itself. Ultimately, though, as a whole, it seems to be far too frivolous a treatment - having etched an opening for emotional expansion that could really get beneath the fictional characters and merge them with their other fictional counterparts, it only blends the two fictions in its second half. If anything, it feels as if the ambitious part of the screenplay has been cut down, for the sake of having more of a straight adaptation, a period piece of "Victorian" Literature - and so the climax, where sparks really could fly and scenes really could get difficult and uncomfortable, seems tame and frustrating. The straight adaptation parts, though, have excellent production design, meticulous and convincing, and if it is somewhat undercut by the contrivances around it, Streep and Irons are brilliant, and the double ending, one happy and one sad, is very clever.
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Omar
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Post by Omar on Mar 28, 2007 17:13:39 GMT
I've been wanting to view "Shame" for quite awhile now. I'll get my chance soon, when I explore Bergman's oeuvre.
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Capo
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Post by Capo on Mar 31, 2007 16:23:32 GMT
Mayis sikintisi Clouds of MayNuri Bilge Ceylan 1999 Turkey 1st time; DVD A filmmaker from living in Istanbul returns to his home village to make a film, and casts locals and family. Tranquil and beautiful, a mix between very observant realism and an artistic, personal, poetic aesthetic. Fascinating to watch because the film being made within the film develops into one which very closely resembles Ceylan's previous film, Kasaba, and, in the "reality" outside that film is a precursor for his follow-up, Uzak, in which an unemployed drop-out from a rural village (Emin Toprak in both films) visits his filmmaker cousin in Istanbul (played by Muzaffer Özdemir in both films) in the hope of finding work. Visual composition is captivating without ever being excessive, recurring authorial motifs are present but subtle, and the overall structure is casual yet solid, a development upon Kasaba and step toward Uzak. Excellent.
Roll on Climates, which I'm about to see in 45 minutes.
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Post by ronnierocketago on Mar 31, 2007 16:26:15 GMT
300 (2007) - ***1/2
John Milius and Frank Miller must have been seperated at birth. Both macho-men writers though grew up in vastly different environments. While Milius was deeply entrenched in history, philosophy, and literature, Miller grew up with DIRTY HARRY, the sand & sandal movies of the 50's/60s. If Milius the Rocky Mountain libertarian was touched by the Japanese samurai code of honor, the Yankee Miller was altered by the artful manga that depicted such fare.
Film Writer/Director Milius eventually got to make his ancient history masculine-myth in the rather excellent CONAN THE BARBARIAN, while Writer/Artist Miller penned his 1998 graphic novel 300. Both works displayed their engrained-influences.
Since directors Robert Rodriguez and Zach Snyder have effectively altered the autuer theory to make Frank Miller be the primary creative heart of the nearly-straight forward movie adaptations of SIN CITY and 300, this film review will effectly be a review of 300 the graphic novel with some criticisms of Snyder.
300 is a novel and movie that, without the visual fantasy and ultra-violence, could have been released in the 1950s and 1960s with the likes of Kirk Douglas or Charleton Heston being the heroic defender of democracy and freedom in this westernphile propaganda drama, a time when such Cold War-linked stories had the Communist hoardes of the East threaten the advanced civilization of the west. Hell, it partly was with THE 300 SPARTANS, which apparently inspired Miller in the first place.
Certainly you have the apparent elements in spite of history from that time period of Hollywood, which I had a blast with. The heterosexual free Spartans deride Athens as "boy-lovers" and the Persian Empire for its "mysticism" and slavery, while saving freedom from them. Nevermind that the Spartans practiced homosexuality as much, if not more, than the Athenians while slavery was a fact of life for both Persians and Greek cultures that wasn't considered immoral(unless you lose and get enslaved of course). Plus, you all know that Spartan was a military monarchy while Athens as a republic, right?
Of course, in a story with giant elephants, ogre monsters, crazy freaks with blade arms, and ghost soldiers, its all irrelevant. The framework of Miller's ultra-action epic is of an ultra-nationalist propaganda tale that the Greeks tell among themselves before continuing the long-struggle to defeat the Persian invasion until generations later, they are victorius. Thats why the outright insane exaggeration actually works for Miller's writing because it gives that charm of masculine action storytelling that we don't get much from either Hollywood or from literature these days without deviating into pathetic conservative ideology masturbation.
In other words, Miller wanted to craft an ass-kicking roller coaster slamdance, and it works...it actually succedes!
Which comes to my point of contention with director Zach Snyder. He inserted his own additional domestic subplot involving the hero's wife and Spartan politics, that is absolutely useless and pointless in the best of ways. Despite a gory conclusion to this bullshit, it still feels like Snyder was yet another wannabe-Miller punk writer who lacks the macho-ethos or action writing to make it work. That is why this movie, despite star Gerald Butler going all tour de force for his work, loses half a star.
If Snyder had cut all that failed nonsense, I would have gladly delivered a four-star score.
Still, I'll credit Snyder for not shying away from the violence and gore. I just always have a problem with CGI blood. Squibs give the temporary illusion of real blood spurting from wounds, but CGI blood looks as convincing as blood splashes from the old school MORTAL KOMBAT games.
I'm sure the TV cut will be laughably funny someday.
I do worry about Snyder's next movie, his own adaptation of arguably the greatest graphic novel of them all, Alan Moore's THE WATCHMEN. Snyder knows to just use the master writer's penmanship but he's still inexperienced enough to still want to interject his own ideas. Not that I have a problem, except when they bomb.
But with 300's massive box-office success, I feel really great for Frank Miller. 15 years after Orion humiliated him while working on the quite bad ROBOCOP sequels, he's now the Stephen King of comic books, with every studio will buy all his graphic novels and issues, perhaps even pre-publishment for millions of dollars like once was the case for Tom Wolfe. His announced writing/directing project of Walt Eisner's legendary pulp comic serial THE SPIRIT should be anticipated with great interest.
Interestingly, the Iranian government and apparent people are quite pissed with their treatment in 300, but I won't pity them. Much of their government-sanctioned press media draw Americans, westerners, and Jews as evil ungodly monsters all the time, but they hate it when they get the treatment.
People have seriously forgotten the universal Golden Rule...
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Post by bobbyreed on Mar 31, 2007 18:28:47 GMT
Capo, did you finally give up on stars?
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Boz
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Post by Boz on Mar 31, 2007 22:09:33 GMT
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RNL
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Post by RNL on Apr 1, 2007 3:22:34 GMT
MARCH 19 films. 11 first viewings. 1 on the big screen. Ocean's Eleven Steven Soderbergh 2001, USA / Australia[/color] 2nd viewing; DVD[/size] Ocean's Twelve Steven Soderbergh 2004, USA / Australia[/color] 1st viewing; TV[/size] Root of All Evil? Russell Barnes 2005, UK[/color] 1st viewing; download[/size] The Godfather, Part III Francis Ford Coppola 1990, USA[/color] 1st viewing; DVD[/size] FILM OF THE MONTHInland Empire David Lynch 2006, USA / Poland / France[/color] 1st viewing; cinema[/size] Flandres Flanders Bruno Dumont 2005, France[/color] 1st viewing; download[/size] Runaway Train Andrei Konchalovsky 1985, USA / Israel[/color] 1st viewing; download[/size] Good Night, and Good Luck. George Clooney 2005, USA[/color] 2nd viewing; DVD[/size] Blow Out Brian De Palma 1981, USA[/color] 2nd viewing; DVD[/size] The New World Terrence Malick 2005, USA[/color] 2nd viewing; DVD[/size] L'intrus The Intruder Claire Denis 2004, France[/color] 2nd viewing; DVD[/size] Idiocracy Mike Judge 2005, USA[/color] 1st viewing; download[/size] Volver To Return Pedro Almodóvar 2006, Spain[/color] 1st viewing; DVD[/size] Rokugatsu no hebi A Snake of June Shinya Tsukamoto 2002, Japan[/color] 2nd viewing; DVD[/size] Ricky Gervais Live: Animals Dominic Brigstocke 2003, UK[/color] 1st viewing; download[/size] Gwoemul The Host Joon-ho Bong 2006, South Korea[/color] 1st viewing; DVD[/size] Femme Fatale Brian De Palma 2002, France[/color] 2nd viewing; DVD[/size] The Royal Tenenbaums Wes Anderson 2001, USA[/color] 3rd viewing; DVD[/size] Ricky Gervais Live 2: Politics Dominic Brigstocke 2004, UK[/color] 1st viewing; download[/size]
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Capo
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Post by Capo on Apr 1, 2007 14:49:40 GMT
Iklimler Climates Nuri Bilge Ceylan 2006 Turkey 1st time; big screen A university lecturer breaks up with his younger wife when the two become bored by marriage and commitment. Ceylan's films are obviously very personal; and all share the same world, the same vision, you see the same core entourage of actors from film to film, many of whom are friends and family. Here, in perhaps his most personal film yet (dedicated to his son), he and his real-life wife star as a couple whose marriage has already crumbled when the film begins, and generally dives into further despair as it goes along. His style is very unique and very difficult to describe - it doesn't resemble anybody else's, it's visual without being excessive, and his way of editing from scene to scene is very ambiguous. There is a scene early on, for instance, at the beach, in which the director watches his wife swimming in the sea and talks to himself, imagining that he is breaking up with her... only, he moves and behind where he was we see his wife is really next to him (a bit like the mirage scene in Gerry), and she begins to talk back, and so you'd expect to cut to a wide shot at the end of the scene, showing him alone again, with his wife in the sea, so that the conversation is confirmed to have been a dream, an illusion. But it doesn't, it cuts to the next scene, and it's very ambiguous and effective, the way things happen - similar to Julio Medem's dives in and out of realities, but a lot more subtle and casual. This is a fantastic film, full of great, individual scenes which unfold in lengthy bouts of silence, of emotional constipation, of lingering looks and close-ups. There are two incredible, ambiguous sex scenes, one in which two-way seduction turns into aggressive lust verging on rape, the other shot in out-of-focus, slow-motion close-ups, so that the intimacy is held at a distance. Tracing his work as a whole, Ceylan seems to have become more controlled, more disciplined with each film he's made; this shows signs of a more deliberate, self-aware and excessive self-indulgence (as opposed to the seemingly natural, instinctive way his previous films unfold), and it's his best film yet.
I saw 32 films last month, 22 of which were for the first time. 13 were on the big screen.
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Capo
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Post by Capo on Apr 1, 2007 14:52:46 GMT
Capo, did you finally give up on stars? Yeah. I've noticed the board's become increasingly obsessed with lists and images to represent our thoughts on the films we're watching, and I want to get away from that.
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RNL
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Post by RNL on Apr 1, 2007 18:08:46 GMT
I think you should leave the stars in the Director threads, even if you stop attaching them to your Proviews. It's just a shorthand expression of the degree of your enthusiasm for each film and the filmmaker overall. It doesn't prohibit you from going more in-depth, which you were doing anyway.
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Capo
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Post by Capo on Apr 1, 2007 18:28:54 GMT
But it's starting to get a bit contradictory and mathematical for filmmakers I love, and whose works I want to rank through instinct, not by some historical measurement acquired by re-watches. I want to rank Inland Empire higher than Blue Velvet but can't because one has three stars and the other has four, even though the other has four only because I've seen it more times than the one with three (which is, after all, only natural, considering how long Inland Empire has been in theatres). Removing stars is allowing me to be a lot more flexible and immediate in my tastes; I'm tired of trying to remember how this or that film makes me feel in retrospect. It's especially difficult for directors I've seen a lot of, like Hitchcock and Scorsese, but whose films I've not seen in a while. And where I can't rank a director's work because I've only seen one of their films, I'm removing posts entirely. Which is why I won't be posting in the Cuarón thread until I've watched my Y tu mama tambien DVD.
I don't know, I might devise some kind of new system to mark short-hand interest, but stars are very problematic for me now. Besides, most films need a revised viewing anyway.
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RNL
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Post by RNL on Apr 1, 2007 18:33:35 GMT
I agree that it's a bit difficult and frustrating sometimes, especially when ranking loads of films against eachother. I still think it's useful, though. No system will be flawless.
Though I liked the idea of having a ranked list of films for each year, that was an excruciating and depressing process.
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Capo
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Post by Capo on Apr 1, 2007 18:41:41 GMT
Ideally, too, I'd like to post as many Proviews as I can as individual threads, then post links in the director threads, like the Méliès one, so that what you get is a ranked list then links to my thoughts on each.
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RNL
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Post by RNL on Apr 1, 2007 20:09:59 GMT
Just because it was both time-consuming and absolutely unsatisfactory. As I mentioned in one of the threads, it becomes a process of deciding whether Worthless Film X is more or less worthless than Worthless Film Y. Not the best way to while away the hours, really.
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Capo
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Post by Capo on Apr 2, 2007 20:34:11 GMT
Not sure whether to participate in this thread anymore. Omar still does, and I'll continue to read his posts, but if I plan on posting individual threads for films, what's the point in me posting them here? I'm open to suggestions.
For now, I might just use this thread to record when I watch film A or film B, and my very short thoughts on each...
>>> Jamaica Inn Alfred Hitchcock 1939 UK 1st time; DVD Fairly good. Mostly forgettable, though, but for Charles Laughton.
>>> L'armée des ombres Army of Shadows Jean-Pierre Melville 1969 France / Italy 1st time; DVD Fantastic. Probably his best, but it's made me want to watch The Samurai again.
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Omar
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Post by Omar on Apr 2, 2007 20:42:20 GMT
Not sure whether to participate in this thread anymore. Omar still does, and I'll continue to read his posts Wow. I didn't realize the lack in Proview writing. Looks like I picked the wrong day to be lazy. And I will always post in this thread, even if I'm the only one. The Lookout(2007/Scott Frank) [First Viewing] Blades of Glory(2007/Josh Gordon, Will Speck) [First Viewing] Lawrence of Arabia(1962/David Lead) [First Viewing] Ryan's Daughter(1970/David Lean) [First Viewing] Wonder Boys(2000/Curtis Hanson) [First Viewing]
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Post by svsg on Apr 2, 2007 20:46:36 GMT
Capo I have a problem with you not using stars. I have noticed in the past where in the review, you would have lavished praises and still given just one star. When I questioned you once, you said that one star is not a bad rating for you and the movie is noteworthy and has some interesting aspects. So when I see three or more stars in your rating, I presume that they are really good. Now that you have done away with your star rating, I don't know how to form an opinion (short of actually watching it and then deciding), since I have always been misled by the stuff you write, compared to the stars.
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Capo
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Post by Capo on Apr 2, 2007 21:08:34 GMT
Well, I have a problem with using stars exactly because of that: if I give a film one star, I often wish other people would go and see it, but fear they won't because of the star, so I end up giving it more than one star and thus overrating it.
Basically, I want people to start reading my reviews and deciding for themselves whether it sounds like something they might like or not.
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