"Primer" on Netflix.
A movie about time travelling made for $7k.
I still don't know wtf happened.
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"Primer" on Netflix.
A movie about time travelling made for $7k.
I still don't know wtf happened.
Oh and "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel." Straight in the dustbin with the DVD of this after viewing. Puerile, cliched and dreary. The worst sort of cosy british comedy. Only Judi Dench emerges with any dignity from this shambolic mess - and she should have known better than to sign-up.
"Beasts Of The Southern Wild" which has a six year old girl called Quvenzhané Wallis, in the main role as a little girl with a dying father in a strange community in the Bayous of Louisiana. Odd film. No real narrative almost like a dream She is tipped for an Oscar and deserves it. But the film is puzzling.
Now that I didn't get -even though I saw Hercules Unchained..er..some time ago and yes, Primo Carnera is in it as a giant. But the more I think of it, what IS the connection, other than the word 'unchained'...?Quote:
Originally Posted by Prospero
Puss in Boots (2011)
Changed my view of Humpty Dumpty anyway...
Puss In Boots Movie Trailer 2 Official (HD) - YouTube
"zero dark thirty"
Re: "Unchained" Like many moments in Tarantino the reference is all - like the silly moment where the main character has his horse do a little dance. s I say can't recall if that is roy rogers or Gene Autry but again, what's the point....
Ken Russell sometimes played the same game. There is a moment in his Mahler which has the composer gazing listlessly at a character dressed exactly like Tadzio from the film version of "Death in Venice." (Presumably because it had used Mahler's 5th Symphony in the soundtrack.)
Over the last year I have been returning to films I first saw in the 70s and 80s and have been surprised at those which have failed the test of durability -Kubrick, Antonioni and Pasolini are the outstanding casualties.
Three impressive trilogies then:
Andrzej Wajda's first major offerings: A Generation (1955), Kanal (1957), Ashes and Diamonds (1958).
All three films are set in the last years of the war, or just after it, and concern the rivalry between Polish Communists and Nationalists; A Generation now looks primitive but in the circumstances this is excusable, and its apparent naivete is offset by Wajda's early experiments with light, which become a key factor in Kanal (which for some reason I didn't realise contains a luminous performmance by Vladek Sheybal whom for years I thought was an Hungarian). Ashes and Diamonds must be one of the top 100 films ever made -the script, the acting, the lighting, the mise-en-scene confirm the huge importance of Wajda to the development of eastern European cinema after 1945.
The Bill Douglas Trilogy: My Childhood (1972), My Ain Folk (1973), My Way Home (1978). I didn't believe the bleak poverty of these autobiographical films when I first saw them, but a childhood friend in the documentary on the dvd confirms that his childhood really was that bad; and reflects the grim reality of Douglas's childhood in Newcraighall outside Edinburgh in the 1930s -he even managed to film in the old miner's dwellings before they were torn down in the 1970s. It is hard to think of films which concentrate so much on the images you see; with virtually no dialogue this is minimalist cinema-making, yet the accumulative effect is profound: Jamie/Douglas lives a loveless, careless, hungry, apparently hopeless life, even later when in the RAF in Egypt he cannot express himself -yet he wants to be an artist and the final image of the trilogy, of apple trees in bloom is a moment of radiant hope -and the truth is that Douglas did escape the rank poverty of his childhood to become an artist, dying at the shockingly early age of 57. Perhap the greatest tragedy is that both the actors playing Jamie, and his half-brother (in real life his cousin) died in the 1980s as a result of the heroin epidemic that swept Edinburgh in the late 1970s and 1980s. Jamie, played by Steven Archibald, was filmed a few weeks before his death, a melancholy footnote to the trilogy:
Stephen Archibald - From The Heart Part 1 - YouTube
I also saw his film Comrades (1986), about the Tolpuddle Martyrs, the first part of which is superb, the second half less so. Oddly, I don't think he fared well with a large budget.
Finally, the Glauber Rocha trilogoy: Black God, White Devil (1964), Land in Anguish (1967), Antonio das Mortes (1969). Rocha's films are the most difficult to assess; occasionally brilliant, the sound is often terrible, yet he attempts to situate Brazil in the context of military rule, local history, capitalism -vs- marxism and the results are mixed. Nevertheless, at his best he had a fantastic eye, but the films can look dated.
Haven't watched that yet...but if you like that type of thing, you might want to give the Spanish film "Timecrimes" (also on Netflix) a look.Quote:
Originally Posted by dc_guy_75
It's a well made little film that will certainly pass the time and shouldn't leave you feeling cheated.
A GOOD day to DIE HARD... The new die hard movie....it was TERRIBLE...Im done going to the movies
"The Hunger Games." Puerile. Pretty girl in the lead.
i concur. as soon as i saw her the first time, i knew what i had to doQuote:
Originally Posted by Prospero
http://i.minus.com/ibiWrxkU3EoES.gif
In the movie theater saw "Warm Bodies" not bad but could have waited for the DVD on redbox.
I agree with you absolutely about Bill Douglas, Stavros - a unique cinematic and social vision in British and western European cinema as well as an entirely authentic Scottish voice. I first saw the trilogy on a single day at the Glasgow Film Theatre in the 80s and it haunted me for weeks. It didn't reflect my own upbringing, but it resonated so much with childhood visits to relations on my mother's side in the grim and grinding pit communities in Lanarkshire, West Lothian and especially in Fife.Quote:
Originally Posted by Stavros
On the same day saw SkyFall and Texas Chainsaw Massacre in 3D.
Over the weekend I watched: Cosmopolis. I think you may, just may have to be a fan of David Cronenberg. He makes some odd albeit interesting films.
Cosmopolis (2012) - Official Trailer [HD]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3ZmIwteUAY
Finally got my screener for On The Road. This is a book I've read many times over and I have been curious to see just how a director would tackle something deemed 'un-filmable'. It's very possible I cant offer an objective critique because I know so much about the subject matter but I guess, so does most everyone who will see this film so here goes: It reminded me of The Motorcycle Diaries - for good reason. I was glad it wasnt a page by page storyboard, but what I have always considered the most 'visual' parts of the book were left out, making the mistake of starting his journey in Bear Mt. for one as well as his stint as a security guard in San Francisco. What did stand out was the importance the director placed on showing the world through the women in Dean Moriaritys life. In the book they are disposable but the film makes them central figures and if you are one of those Kristen Stewart haters I think she is phenomenal in this. And thus, the problem in my opinion. The book wasnt about the girls and much of the film is and that means a lot of the Neal / Kerouac / Ginsberg dynamic just never shows up on screen. The sexual tension between Ginsberg and Neal is one sided, the Steve Buscemi cameo seems gratuitous and the biggest sin of all - it ends up just being about driving across country a few times without stopping to see whats along the way.
5 stars out of 10
Prospero - Dead on about that stupid Marigold Hotel movie. I got suckered into watching it. Look at us we're soo not willing to grow old! Look at me Im Indian and everything I do is servile and in earnest! Look at me I am closed off and dont want to be in this strange place! Guess which one gets to die first? Fuck you. A shit movie for the one foot in the grave crowd - and they deserve better.
The Ladykillers - a British comedy from the early 1950s with Alec Guinness and a young Peter Sellers. Remarkably I discovered I'd never seen it. Lovely dark comedy.
Now that IS strange!
Wasn't there a thread running here recently about films you've never seen which everyone else has? Well I guess every Briton has seen this - but probably not so many Americans.
Seven Psychopaths-Colin Farrell, Christopher Walken, Sam Rockwell, Woody Harrelson. Good cast. It was quirky. Not a great movie but I enjoyed its spirited approach to things. Original.
The Magdalene Sisters.
Caught this on TV the other night.
Quite an eye-opener!
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0318411/?ref_=sr_3
Crows Zero (Takashi Miike 2007)
The first part of a two part film about the rites of passage that young men take if they want to become part of a Yakuza syndicate, or just to prove that they are the toughest, roughest, meanest geezer on the block. The drama centres on two rivals fighting to become the head of Suzeran, the school which has classrooms but no teachers. The cartoon-like depiction of these wild young men is accentuated by the music, the overlay in sound when someone is punched or hits the ground, and by the use of language which is vulgar, and has that tonal resentment that the Japanese seem to do so well -but if you look beneath the surface of the violence, which mostly involves punching and kicking rather than guns and knives, the old Miike themes remain: what makes a group cohere, or fall apart? What is the real nature of loyalty? There is also an understated quasi-homosexual love story here too from a director who has toyed with sexuality before in his films. It isn't one of Miike's best, but is better than some of his earlier films. A world away from the films of Ozu and Mizoguchi!
Crows Zero (Kurôzu zero) Trailer - YouTube
Thanks for that. Do you like Fudoh: The New Generation and Deadly Outlaw: Rekka? A couple good ones I don't remember discussing with you.Quote:
Originally Posted by Stavros
Joe Dirt
Pariah
Pariah trailer - YouTube
Fudoh went in the purge of my dvd collection a couple of years ago, I just had too many cluttering up the place and sold them to the entertainment centre. I don't think Fudoh is one of his better films -dont know Deadly Outlaw. Have Crows II to get through next.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dino Velvet
Beyond the Law w/ Charlie Sheen. Couldn't get into it....
The Ladykillers was indeed a very funny film. Never saw the remake w/ Tom Hanks.
"To The Wonder" the latest by Terrence Malick. "Days of Heaven" or "The Thin Red Line" this ain't. It features two truly beautful women and gorgeous cinematography, but is tedium upon tedium. Whispered dialogue where there is any. He's striving for a poetic meditation upon the possibilities of love - human and divine. But the film meanders and meanders endlessly. Avoid.
I have a couple of boxsets covering almost the entire Ealing canon, but The Ladykillers remains my favourite, although Kind Hearts and Coronets runs it close. One of the things which makes these films so precious is that their on-street locations capture views of London from the early 1950s which are gone forever. They're valuable social history documents as well as delicious comedies.Quote:
Originally Posted by Prospero
I've never understood the high standing of the mediocre to frankly dreadful Carry On series. Not one of them is worth five minutes of an Ealing classic.
Killing Zoe.
This is supposed to be a cult classic and is a crime caper taking place in Paris. But I thought it was a bad movie. Why? Nothing good about it. It was somewhat predictable in that the crime seemed unplanned and no surprise went badly. The love story was thin, the friendship not much elaborated on, and without any payoff. A waste of time.
Rust and Bone (Jacques Audiard, 2012)
Audiard tends to make films about people who have difficulty expressing themselves and may live on the edge of mainstream society perhaps on the wrong side of the law; if they also lead unstructured lives then maybe, as in this film, they will discover a means of being different in a positive way. Although this is a conventional love story with an unconventional storyline, it is another powerfully made film from this director, yet lacking something his earlier films like A Prophet had -more tension? Marion Cotillard is wonderful as usual, someone whose name on a poster usually makes a film worth seeing.
Rust and Bones UK Trailer (English Subtitles) - YouTube
Crows II (Takashi Miike, 2009)
This film extends the story begun with Crows Zero and presents again the domination of a 'school' as the greatest prize in what may be Yakuzua apprentices. There are two extra pretty boys in this -one of whom is capable of extreme violence- and two girls who can't get laid because their guys either can't, or won't -reinforcing the 'brotherly love' of this genre....Miike's films are always well made, but this one was frankly just more of the same....
CROWS 2 de Takashi Miike (Trailer español) - YouTube
Finally "Argo" and yes it was a thriller - even though you knew the denouement.
Baraka (Ron Fricker. 1992)
I watched the whole of this film for free on YouTube then discovered there is another version with subtitles that identified the locations, which is a modest improvement. The film is beautiful to look at, has suitably 'meditative' pseudo-music which grates after a while, and loses its focus on spirituality at later stages; I don't really want to see bodies being cremated on the Ghats of Banares, I found that intrusive and unnecessary, and ultimately it didn't really tell me anything about faith -its just an often stunning film to look at, but if you point a camera at the Himalayas I guess that's what you get (did Kathmandu ever look so photogenic? Other parts of it are not so famous for it!).
The follow-up, Samsara may also be worth seeing as a poster recommended a while ago
Baraka _HD 720p_Engsub - YouTube
my wife and i have sworn off movies in the theater until May. We just don't think anything that is coming out in the next 2 months would be worthwhile. anyone agree?
The link will take you to a list which includes the mind-boggling decision to remake Dirty Dancing, The Hangover 3 (as if the previous two were not bad enough, Yasmin Lee notwithstanding), another crack at Superman (Man of Steel), sci-fi/futurist/world-gone-zombie-mad films with Will Smith, Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise etc.
http://www.denofgeek.com/movies/1905...of-summer-2013
Or you could wait in anticipation for this British film (The Lotus Eaters) of which the promo reads:
Follows a group of young Londoners as they struggle to find meaning in their lives while masking their discontent with sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll. The story centers on ex-model and aspiring actress Alice (Antonia Campbell-Hughes) as she struggles with her relationship with Charlie (Johnny Flynn), her drug-addicted ex-boyfriend. The fashionable group of friends epitomizes a new modern “lost generation” reminiscent of Ernest Hemmingway and his cohorts.
Maybe best to stay at home, or go to Cannes!