What is The Last Movie You Watched?

[Vic]

Keeping it real, it was Sabrina Valentina (Transexual Superstars)! And I must admit, she is a very beautify t-girl! In my opinion, I thought that the fucking in this one was somewhat passive. I like to see a pounding take place in transgendered videos; I guess that I'm a little jaded, and have seen a few too many Shemale flicks? I would give it a 7 out of 10; lets face it the girl is sexy as Hell!

[Stavros]

Can one buy a DVD of Satantango, Stavros? Will watching it make me a wiser person?

Taken seriously, Satantango asks demanding questions of both the audience and the directors (Tarr and his partner Hradnitzky). Tarr has said something like 'cinema is about reality', and if it takes eight minutes for a herd of cows to wander into a field then thats how long it takes -Antonioni used this tactic in L'Avventura so its not new -but some of Tarr's takes stretch the boundaries of endurance and one has to ask -how long can a take be? Also the film is structured like a tango -six steps forward, six steps back, twleve scenes in all, but not in simple order. The overall impact of the film is profound -my guess is that people who have hated it have ducked out of the complete experience, but it is a trial I am not denying that. I went to the premiere of Straub and Huillet's From the Cloud to the Resistance at the London Film Festival years ago-must be 1980 or 81-and there was one exceedingly long take of a man on a cart -someone in the audience even shouted cut! at one point. When a member of the audience asked an unforgettable question of Jean-Marie -'Why did you break all the rules of editing?' he, unforgettably, exploded: 'Whose rules??!! Whose rules???!!'. Satantango is a tough call, I do rub it but that's just me being provocative. The film is in a box set of 3 dvd's. Unfortunately perhaps, its not much of an advertisement for Hungary although I am sure outside Budapest its got something other than mud and rain.

There is also a Bela Tarr box with Werckmeister Harmonies, Damnation, and The Man from London. His latest film, The Turin Horse, can be read about on imdb.

This is a fair assessment of the film:
http://www.avclub.com/articles/satantango,41563/

[Prospero]

Stavros... I got the whole thing overnight by free download but NO SOUND!!! and subtitles in Italian. So gonna have to buy it.

if you enjoy Hungarian culture then try to see the photographic exhibition which just opened at the Royal Academy - masterful (if familiar) work by the likes of Kertesz, Brassai, Moholy-Nagy, Capa and others less familiar (to me). A reminder of the mighty creativity of the magyars.

[Stavros]

Thanks for the tip I wasn't aware of this exhibition. Its a pity that so many of Jancso's films are hard to get hold of, I used to go the Academy Cinema in Oxford St when I lived in London -it was set up by an Hungarian emigre, George Hoellering who used to bring in some of the best East European films of the day.

[Stavros]

Jarhead last night -one of the more intelligent films about Americans at war, probably because its a true story, and also Sam Mendes directing. I like Jamie Foxx as an actor in many of the films he has been in -and the ones that bombed weren't his fault; and also Jake Gyllenhall although I didn't like either Donnie Darko or Brokeback Mountain. My only quibble about Jarhead is when they draw close to the burning wells and camp overnight -surely it would have been impossibly hot? The sudden appearance of the horse is an amazing moment.

[Prospero]

I forgot Jarhead when I drew up my list of top ten war films. it was pretty good . Didn't realise it was Sam Mendes (His Richard III in London right now is stupendous)

[Stavros]

Richard III has had some of the best reviews of a 'new play' in London I have read for years, so I am assuming everyone can't be wrong. I saw the 'transexual' Richard III at the Globe in the summer of -2003? Can't recall the precise year; even with uneven acting it was magical. Olivier's film is a travesty of another kind, a vehicle for that over-rated actor's limitless vanity and unworthy of Shakesepeare. I don't know but I think making the King gay is where the director of Richard III in The Goodbye Girl got the idea from which Richard Dreyfuss finds so hard to achieve. Particularly at the end where Richard at Bosworth field in his pantyhose raises the sword and swishes his legs like a ballerina -one of the most ridiculous things I have ever seen. Presumably Larry was thinking of Danny Kaye and a tryst and assumed the sword was a cock, and so on and so on.

[Stavros]

Kiss the Girls -Ashley Judd is outstanding in this film, but oh dear, there is Brian Cox with another phoney southern drawl, I mean surely America has actors from North Carolina who could do it even if it isn't much of a part -? And why are the nastiests villains nearly always cops or senior officers in the CIA/FBI -is there some cryptic message about public confidence in law enforcement going on here?

[Prospero]

Anybody here from Missouri or Arkansas? Especially the Ozarks? The last film I saw was "Winter's Bone" a brilliant but bleak picture of life among some very poor folk in the Ozarks. Boy - this is a part of the US that the modern world gave only bad stuff to. The picture is one of unremitting darkness and ignorance with the central character a young girl trying to take care of her family the only real moment of redmeption. Terrific though.

[HbgDon]

Transformers: Dark of the Moon