Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance

Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002)
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0310775/]

The Gist:
Man this movie had some brilliant fucking moments. As a whole, it takes on a sort of piecemeal feel to it, only Chan-wook Park's second film so its understandable that it has some serious flaws, both aesthetically and in terms of plot. However, the visuals at times take a form of pure poetic raw power and the visceral story telling is uncompromising, often brilliant. I left the film feeling brutalized, feeling like I had watched some twisted piece of genius that wasn't fully formed or realized. It was an amazing film overall, and I would write about the plot but I don't think I should. Maybe I'll just say there's lots of people dying, it's fairly wrenching, it kind of made my soul feel dirty. Watch it if you think you can, but I would say it will probably challenge your threshold in "fucked up-ness". That's all I'll say.

Modern Times

Modern Times (1936)
IMDB #83 [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0027977/]

The Gist:
This is maybe the closest Charlie Chaplin ever got to an art/social commentary film. I mean I haven't watched the Great Dictator yet so maybe I'm speaking too soon, but you get the idea. It also happened to be the most insane of all its pictures, at least through the first half. Unfortunately it calms down a bit. However, when Charlie Chaplin was having a nervous breakdown in the factory and sniffing cocaine in jail and trying to get himself arrested after leaving jail the movie was shaping to be a masterpiece. Perhaps it still is, but I have some reservations. First of all, you have these little artistic decisions in the beginning of the film like the juxtaposition of the workers heading to the factory and cattle being herded (fairly reminiscent of Strike by the way), also have this weird quality in the beginning of the film where all human voices are issuing from technology but throughout the rest of the film they are traditionally silent film characters in person. There's an idea of symbolism in all this, the first example fairly obvious, the second an idea that we can only be given voice and shape through the technology that has begun to control us (vaguely reminiscent of some Vonnegut themes). However, these artistic leanings peter out as the film's insanity dies down and a more traditional love story rises from the ashes. Also, I do love the film as a whole but I wish it would have saved this whole settling down thing for its conclusion. Instead you have a sort of "pull yourself up by the boot straps" kind of resolution that just rings false to me. You know, thinking about it the film really is one of Chaplin's best though. Maybe I'm being too nitpicky.

Food, Inc.

Food, Inc.
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1286537/]

The Gist:
Well I read a review that sort of summed up my feelings on the film and I'm tempted to post it but instead I'll just talk. So basically there are two main sources that cover the material that is in this film, I've read neither of these books but I get the feeling from watching the film that I should have read the books. Is the film bad? No, god no. But it is limited, and it lacks focus, and most importantly it has this sprawling nature to it that would doesn't quite fit as well in a film medium. While watching it I just got a general feeling that all my food was fucked up except maybe some organic shit, and that chickens are genetically altered to have larger breasts because people like white meat and so the chickens are all crazy and can't stand up and also that the soy bean company is like the fucking mafia. Despite my problems with the actual filmmaking there's no doubt that the content of the film is staggering. However the editing is awkward and imprecise, it was not structured well, and it only made me read the book so I could feel like I had a better handle on the situation instead of this vague feeling that everything I eat is fucked. Documentaries should be able to take and issue and meticulously peel back the layers to its audience. Food, Inc. suffers from taking too many issues within that broad topic of food and not being able to give us a clear direction for the film.

On Another Note:
The two big books that I must now read on the subject are Fast Food Nation which you've probably heard of since they made a crappy movie out of it (don't ask me how that happened), and also In Defense of Food which I at least haven't really heard of.

Bonny and Clyde

Bonny and Clyde (1967)
IMDB #214 [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061418/]

The Gist:
Bonny and Clyde are two lovely country folk that fall madly in love for each other within the course of an hour or so and go an adorable adventure where they rob banks and kill people and lob grenades at the police and write poetry and get burgers with Gene Wilder and...okay, so this movie's pretty random. It has that sort of carefree attitude toward violence that you would find in a film like Band of Outsiders, where young reckless individuals delve into crime and only come to find out the consequences of these actions too late. Beyond that though, there is something very engaging about this film and its later predecessors (Badlands comes readily to mind). I think its the idea of being lost in youth and embracing violence as a facet of freedom. It's an obviously misguided idea, but powerful nonetheless. And where some would take this concept and turn it into sensationalism, like Natural Born Killers, Bonny and Clyde and its spiritual descendant Badlands extend these actions to a greater nature of man and of nature. At its core, this is what Bonny and Clyde symbolize.

Odd list of the Month

Odd List of the Month: A Decade in Film

Instead of doing a list of the best 10 or 50 or 100 films of the decade I've decided to simply list the best ten films of each year. This of course has many limitations since the only way I've gone about remembering what played when is by going onto Metacritic and looking at the past critics top 10 lists and also looking at a couple decade lists (one 50, one 100). But whatever, so it'll be imperfect, so it goes. Also I'm not going to rank them, that just seems troubling and I'd just change my mind as soon as I did so. Maybe I'll try to avoid ranking things except for lumping them into a ten or twenty or whatever from now on. Anyway, for now I'll put them in alphabetical order. So here they are, working from the bottom up.

2000
Almost Famous
Amores Perros
Billy Elliot
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai
High Fidelity
In the Mood for Love
O Brother Where Art Thou?
Requiem for a Dream
Traffic

2001
Amelie
Donnie Darko
Hedwig and the Angry Inch
Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
Memento
Moulin Rouge!
Mulholland Drive
Sexy Beast
Shaolin Soccer
The Royal Tenenbaums

2002
Adaptation
Brotherhood of the Wolf
Gangs of New York
Lord of the Rings: Two Towers
Monsoon Wedding
Punchdrunk Love
Spirited Away
Talk to Her
Y Tu Mama Tambien
25th Hour

2003
All the Real Girls
Big Fish
City of God
Dirty Pretty Things
Kill Bill Volume One
Lord of the Rings: Return of the King
Lost in Translation
Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl
The Barbarian Invasions
28 Days Later

2004
Before Sunset
Dig!
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
House of Flying Daggers
Kill Bill Volume Two
Primer
Shaun of the Dead
Super Size Me
The Blind Swordsman: Zatoichi
The Five Obstructions

2005
Batman Begins
Cache
Howl's Moving Castle
Kontroll
Kung Fu Hustle
Millions
No Direction Home: Bob Dylan
Oldboy
Wedding Crashers
2046

2006
An Inconvenient Truth
Brick
Children of Men
Half Nelson
Letters from Iwo Jima
The Departed
The Fountain
The Lives of Others
The Science of Sleep
Volver

2007
Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Eastern Promises
I'm Not There
Juno
King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters
No Country for Old Men
Sunshine
Sweeney Todd
The Host
There Will Be Blood

2008
A Christmas Tale
In Bruges
Let the Right One In
Reprise
Synecdoche, New York
The Class
The Dark Knight
The Fall
The Wrestler
Wall-E

2009
Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans
Drag Me To Hell
Facing Ali
Fantastic Mr. Fox
Inglorious Basterds
Sugar
The Brothers Bloom
The Cove
The Hurt Locker
Up

That took more work to compile than one would think. Also here is a short list of films that almost made the cut:

Iron Monkey, Spellbound, District B13, Good Night and Good Luck, Hot Fuzz, V for Vendetta, Nightwatch, Persepolis, 28 Weeks Later, Mongol, Man on Wire, Redbelt, (500) Days of Summer, An Education, Sherlock Holmes

Also, here is a list of films that still need to be seen and thus could upset the tenuous balance I have just established:

In the Loop, A Serious Man, Bright Star, Antichrist, The White Ribbon, A Prophet, Girlfriend Experience, Broken Embraces, 35 Shots of Rum, Summer Hours, A Single Man, Thirst, Tyson, Precious, Imaginaruum of Dr. Parnassus, Funny People, World's Greatest Dad, Two Lovers, Treeless Mountain, Pollock, Quills, Small Time Crooks, The Contender, Before Night Falls, Beau Travail, Yi Yi: A One and a Two, In the Bedroom, Eureka, Gosford Park, The Believer, Far From Heaven, Rabbit Proof Fence, Russian Ark, 21 Grams, Irreversible, Man Without a Past, The Son, Bad Education, Code 46, Dogville, Goodbye Dragon Inn, Goodbye Lenin, Last Life in the Universe, Maria Full of Grace, Tokyo Grandfathers, Touching the Void, Time of the Wolf, The Edukators, Memories of a Murder, Murderball, Mysterious Skin, The New World, The Three Burials of Melquaides Estrada, L'Enfant, Syndromes of a Century, Notes on a Scandal, Who Killed the Electric Car, Why We Fight, 4 months 3 Weeks and 2 Days, La Vie en Rose, Lust Caution, Control, Into Great Silence, Away from Her, The Orphanage, The Flight of the Red Balloon, Che, Happy-Go-Lucky, RocknRolla, Wendy and Lucy, Waltz with Bashir, Paranoid Park, Still Life, Silent Light, My Winnipeg, I've Loved You So Long, Ballast, Gonzo: The Life and Work of Hunter S. Thompson, The Wind that Shakes the Barley, This is England, Black Book, The Limits of Control, Red Cliff

Week Sixteen

Okay, okay, I've fallen behind again. I now have two days to watch 4 films and I'm not sure if I'll actually do that but if not I'll get close. Also next month I'm going to deviate from my usual rules, but I'll get into that later. For now, the new queue:

Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002) - check
Modern Times (1936) - check
Food, Inc. (2009) - check
Bonny and Clyde (1967) - check

On Another Note:
Who knows if I'll actually watch Gojira and Dogville, those two have been kicking around forever. Char holds me back on Gojira and Dogville...I just haven't been in the mood.

Au Revoir Les Enfants

Au Revoir Les Enfants (1987)
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092593/]

The Gist:
It's kind of like 400 Blows with Nazis. I know that's a simple way of relating this film to the average viewer, but it's kind of true. It has the same minimalist tone and attention to small details that the beautiful French Wave film has, it is strongly autobiographical, it gives an honest depiction of youth in a surrounding environment that forces maturity on the protagonist too soon (and the tension that yields), and so on. There are many comparisons, but to me this is the stronger film (*gasp* a film student saying he liked this film better than the influential French New Wave classic?!). Yes, yes I think its a better film in most respects, if there is really such a thing as a "better film" in this sense. For one, you can tell how deeply personal the film is for the director who intones at the end "Forty years have passed but I will remember that day in January until I die" (note: paraphrasing). For another thing, the film has two haunting moments of stillness where all human beings cease to exist save for these two boys. These moments are filled with such palpable emptiness, such loneliness, I was...transfixed. And by the time I reached the end, there was a moment where I winced, several moments even. The film registered on a deeply emotional level to me, it was a film that seemed to try to be honest above all else, to carefully depict a moment in time in the director's life without distortion, clear and distinct, a memory committed to film stock.

The Man Who Knew Too Much

The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049470/]

The Gist:
The Man Who Knew Too Much succeeds on the sheer presence of James Stewart (but I'm biased because he's one of my favorite actors). With the exception of his fascinating screen presence, this is not as engaging as other Hitchcock films, it doesn't really carry a strong line of suspense. There are very strong aspects to the film, the sequence in the opera where all dialogue is drowned out by the music is particularly brilliant, and the use of the "Whatever Will Be" at the end is done with verve and sorrow. However, I never felt any danger for their child, or really for anyone. That's because the film, in terms of plot, is quite conventional. It's a good premise (as are all Hitchcock films really) but in order for this particular plot to really have an impact the viewer needs a sense of threat. Instead, we see a wonderfully engaging setup that loses a little steam as it races to its conclusion. Ah well, que sera.

The Cove

The Cove (2009)
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1313104/]

The Gist:
This is the best documentary I've seen all year, one of the best films I've seen all year, and one of the best documentaries/films I've seen ever. Why? Many reasons, for one it fills you with righteous indignation which is no small feat. You kind of want to get on a plane and go to Taiji, Japan and stop this whole killing 23,000 dolphins a year for no good reason thing within the week. For another thing it lets you see dolphins in a new light, for instance maybe dolphins are smarter than we are. Just saying it's possible. For another, the film, whether this was an intentional effect or not, filled me with such despair over the future of humanity that I wondered if there was any hope for us at all. The fact that we are rapidly consuming the fisheries in the ocean and now the Japanese government (and the many small South and Central American governments that the Japanese have bribed for votes) are trying to justify killing dolphins and small porpoises because they are eating too much fish and ignoring the fact that we, as human beings, are on a self-destructive path and if we don't step back and realize this, if careful measures aren't taken, then we will soon get to a desperate point of no return. Oh they're also trying to kill Whales for the same reason, they really hate that ban on whale killing, in fact that's why they started to kill dolphins. And the lucrative dolphin trainer/seaworld type trade which pays something like 125,000 dollars for a single dolphin manages to support the slaughter of all the dolphins that aren't picked and their mercury-laden meat is sold for maybe 600 dollars. It's senseless, it's frustrating, it makes you want shake your hands of civilization. And yet the movie offers concise action, to stop the practice in this one are in the world. It offers the point that if this single place in Taiji cannot be shutdown than there is no hope at all. And the film revolves around a Ocean 11-esque crew breaking into this facility and getting video footage and sound footage of the slaughter (since obviously no cameras are allowed). It's maybe the most ballsy documentary I've ever seen, akin to Morgan Sperlock's proactive approach to Super Size Me. When you exert your presence into your film, when you take inherent risks, you allow the audience to take personal stock with the struggle (instead of the more dispassionate approach which has its own merits).

On Another Note:
-The legal limit of mercury is .4 pounds per inch or ppi. Dolphins have 2000 ppi.
-There was an attempt to use this insanely dangerous mercury laden dolphin meat in school lunches (which is compulsory by the way).
-Most who eat the sold dolphin meat think that it is whale meat from South America or some such place where it is still legal to kill whales.
-Dolphins are so sensitive to sound that most died in early captivity because the filtration system was too loud. Dolphins also get ulcers from the stress of captivity. Also think if they are sensitive to sound how enervating performing for a cheering stadium in a place like seaworld must be.
-One of the dolphins that played flipper committed suicide. You balk but watch this movie, you'll see.

The Lady Vanishes

The Lady Vanishes (1938)
IMDB #234 [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0030341/]

The Gist:
Tell me if this plot sounds familiar. A woman is on a train with someone, she goes to sleep and wakes up and the older woman is gone and there is some conspiracy where no one claims to have seen the woman on the train in the first place, something sinister afoot. The young woman had received a bump on the head earlier, and now is trying desperately to hold on to the idea that old woman did exist, must exist. Also the old woman had written her name in the window, she sees it just when she's starting to doubt herself but of course it clears up before she can prove anything. ...If anyone has seen the mediocre movie Flightplan, that film is kind of a direct ripoff of this premise. And yet with everything that was done wrong with the premise almost seventy years afterward, Lady Vanishes manages to get everything right. It strikes a sort of theatrical tone that expertly undermines the the credibility of the plot instead of having to painstakingly establish why the conspiracy exists. Instead, Hitchcock turns the cute old lady into a badass spy and throws in a crazy fist fight with a magician and a final shootout in a train car where no one seems to need to reload their guns. If that sounds awesome to you, then you are right.

Additional Project Goal

Okay, so during that last semester with school I sort of shirked on something I had been doing up until that point that sort of resembles the spirit of this project. I'd been consciously choosing things to read (which is kind of how I got into Hemingway and Kerouac which along with Vonnegut are my favorite authors at this point) and I'd like to try and integrate that into this project. For this month I'm going to try for two books (one I'm already in the process of) and when the semester starts next month I'll have to see. If it's too hectic I'll have to go with one book a month (which is really all I could have done this last semester, if that. I was damn busy). Anyway, the book queue for December:

Mother Night by Kurt Vonnegut (check)
If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin

On Another Note: I think I'll be more forgiving if my book reading goes over the deadline. Perhaps I'll just keep an update about which books I'm trying to read and change out when I get them finished. I guess we'll see.

Week Fifteen

Alright, I'm almost back on track for the month so that's good. Perhaps if I finish off my month early I'll go with some retro viewings (which is something that I'm going to have to integrate into this project eventually. There are too many movies that I consider "favorites" that I've only watched once.) New queue:

The Lady Vanishes (1938) - check
The Cove (2009) - check
Au Revoir Les Enfants (1987) - check
The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) - check

On Another Note:
My sister is home, which means that soon we will have a glorious Gojira viewing! GOJIRA!

On Yet Another Note:
Maybe not with the Gojira, since I might have the swine flu and my family are unjustly avoiding me. Sad.

The Bridge on the River Kwai

The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
IMBD #71 [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0050212/]

The Gist:
This is the first real Alec Guinness movie I've watched besides any Obi-Wan incarnation (except for Laurence of Arabia but I don't know if that counts because I can't remember who he was). In any case, he was pretty damn good in the film...had a strong presence that carried the picture (especially since I thought the guy who played Shears was just alright). In terms of pure filmmaking, it is a thoroughly well made picture, it goes on for almost three hours and appears fairly weightless. This is because the struggle they take part in is so engaging, because the whole movie is framed around consistent clashes of ideals and life philosophies. No one goes through any great change as a character, they are even bordering two dimensionality but the director guides the performances well. The result is that we have strong presences that don't change because the story's drama is not in but in the the changing perspective of the characters but in the conflict of these different personalities put into close proximity to each other. Only occasionally does this get too expositional, like the end where the doctor just repeats "madness". Apocalypse Now this is not. In fact, in terms of the technical perfection of Laurence of Arabia this film pales in comparison as well. However, it is a more enjoyable film, not a better film mind you, but one I can see myself watching more often. I guess I'm not a pure film person for that reason, but I can live with that. After all, a little imperfection makes a film unique. In terms of the visuals, throughout most of the feature it is very functional. Lean uses lots of longer shots, taking on a vastness very similar to the aesthetic in Laurence of Arabia. However, there are brief moments where he fills the frames with abstractions, moments of nature, touching upon something that Terrence Malick would hone to perfection in The Thin Red Line (unless you're one of those who think these scenes dominate too much of Malick's film). Here, however, the moments are brief but beautiful. In particular there is a scene where a grenade thrown at the enemy causes hundreds of birds to fly up from the trees in a panic, and they fill the sky throughout the dog fight and then after, still restless as the action dies down...it is a wonderful scene, breathtaking even (to use an appropriate cliche).

Family Guy: Something Something Something Dark Side

Family Guy: Something Something Something Dark Side (2009)
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1329665/]

The Gist:
See, I'm still wondering if I should count this one just for the simple fact of "what the hell am I supposed to sum up here?" ...It's Family Guy crudely recreating The Empire Strikes Back and it is actually pretty damn funny. All the things that Family Guy has done well in the past they seem to do here, and most of the my personal grievances with their humor is fairly minimal. Also I'm sick with the flu and I wanted to watch something mindless and it fits my criteria for the project so fuck it. I figure my slot for recent films can be used as something of a mindless diversion if I want (see: Away We Go). Anyway, I honestly don't know what to put here other than to dissect the different comic bits (it's really all the film was, a series of bits that loosely tie together the source material) but that would be monotonous I think. I guess I'll just post this and be done with it:

Shiri

Shiri (1999)
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0192657/]

The Gist:
So I picked up this movie based on one of my old lectures from my world cinema class, because basically it was given credit as being the impetus of the South Korean art film movement of the last ten years (which has some amazing films under its belt like Oldboy and The Host). While I can see why it would have gotten that credit, since it was in all appearances the first big budget South Korean film really ever produced, it turns out to be a pretty poor carbon copy of a bad Hollywood thriller. I mean I liked it at first, but the twist became obvious in about the first fifteen minutes of the film and I was sitting there thinking "well of course everyone is going to know the dude's girlfriend is the killer, there's no other reason to focus on her so much and everytime the dude's around people she's trying to kill she doesn't kill him because she has grown feelings for him during her undercover whatever and so on and they're not going to play out the whole movie like we're not going to know this...are they?" To answer that question, yes, yes they did. And you know I could forgive the bad shaky cam, I can forgive the fact this bad guy should have been killed like twenty times and for whatever reason the bullets just seem to magically land errant, I can forgive the weird editing gap towards the end of the second act that completely fucks with the narrative flow and logic of the film, but having to go through the motions where the film tries to play on "who is the spy who is always one step ahead of them?" (the girlfriend) or "who is this mysterious assassin who we never show the face of" (the girlfriend) and so on is just...it's frustrating. The plot just gets more ludicrous after we "find out" the girlfriend is the assassin, but I won't bother with going into it. The point is, you've seen this movie in English and you've seen it done much better. Stay far away from this.

On Another Note:
On the off chance someone does end up seeing this, believe me if you are even a scarcely intelligent person I haven't spoiled anything. I mean it, it's that obvious.

The Propostion

The Proposition (2005)
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0421238/]

The Gist:
In consideration of this film I would like to bring up two very different westerns made by the end all of westerns past the glory days of John Ford et al. That is to say, Sergio Leone and his films The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly and Once Upon a Time in the West. After calling up these two films, I want to further state that the Proposition tries to be both kinds of films at the same time. In GBU (abbreviated for the sake of efficiency), you have the spaghetti western at peak badass levels, where every moment in the screen is dedicated to a hyper real, stylized, tension filled epic full on with Mexican stand offs and Clint Eastwood being a serious badass. On the other hand you have Once Upon A Time In the West that makes sparse use of these moments, instead taking a pragmatic approach to the western creating a thoughtful drama that exudes a feeling of nostalgia and antiquity. Once Upon a Time is more careful, more understated, and draws out the natural conflict of men in the semi-lawless environment of the fabled west with little noticable effort. It is possible to make a film that has elements from either style and have it come off as balanced but Proposition is not that film. Instead, it becomes rather jarring when you have a hitman giving a delightfully theatrical drunken performance in one scene and then Ray Winstone sitting subdued with his wife in the next, playing out a quiet drama of the Husband not wanting to share his burdens with his wife. The two styles are at odds with each other, and the whole thing ends up feeling uneven. But man is this film pretty, cinematography on it is insane. I'll be trying to watch this again to see if it bothers me less a second time around because much of this film is truly a marvel of a modern western.

Week Fourteen

Okay, so I got done with finals recently and I'm on vacation so the project is going to suffer a little (hence why week fourteen is almost a week behind). But I don't have school all month so I feel confident that I'll catch up by month's end. New queue:

The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) - check
The Proposition (2005) - check
Family Guy: Something Something Something Dark Side (2009) - check
Shiri (1999) - check

Note: Okay so I know the Family Guy movie is a stretch but I did watch, I did enjoy it, it is technically a movie, as far as I can tell it does satisfy all my film karma requirements, and by this point I'm so behind on the month from finals/vacation/subsequent flu from Boston's frigidness that I say "fuck it".

Double Indemnity

Double Indemnity (1944)
IMDB #56 [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0036775/]

The Gist:
Kind of a badass little film noir film, written by Billy Wilder and Raymond Chandler. This is an odd pairing, with Raymond Chandler coming on to write the screenplay for someone else's noir novel (Raymond Chandler is probably the most famous noir novelist there was). Anyway, the film moves well, its shot in that beautiful noir style, and the story is relatively engaging. However, the movie lives and dies by the words that the actor's speak, and by that token the film does very well. There is talking through the entire movie, either through the omnipresent voiceover that most noir parodies take up or the rapid fire dialogue that characterized the screwball comedies of the time more than most film noir, but it goes down smoothly enough. In terms of the dialogue, it toes the line between being completely badass and being an awful cliche, and surprisingly both work very well and happen consecutively without issue. I don't know how that happens but it does, and the film that we see is something imminently quotable. In fact, I don't have any large complaints of the film, it is a well-crafted genre film with very good writing, it just didn't have the same impact on me as something like The Maltese Falcon or the Big Sleep or Touch of Evil did. I don't think I cared enough about the characters in this film...maybe that's what it is. But it is still very good.

A Christmas Tale

A Christmas Tale (2008)
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0993789/]

The Gist:
At first glance, the film doesn't have a lot to do with Christmas other than that is when it takes place. However, when I think of Christmas I think of a bitter sweet nostalgia that comes with it, this ineffable quality of grief that comes from the thought of your childhood and your family and the beautiful sorrow of snowfall and a Christmas tree filling your living room with soft light as you go to sleep. I don't really know how to describe it and I don't know why it feels that way, I just know what it does feels like, and whoever made this film knows it too. Beyond that the film is very French, in that people act in a way that I can't fully understand, they have a completely different way of seeing the world. That both makes the film fascinating and frustrating at times, mostly the former. Also the film makes very interesting stylistic choices, using the iris shot in a way that was just...well cool, and other things like that, your typical "post new-wave but probably watched a lot of new-wave films" style. Honestly, I mostly loved the film from top to bottom, the characters were always interesting, the writing was excellent, and it felt like a very unique experience. However, I will say that there were parts in the middle that lagged a bit and it needed to be edited down a good ten minutes. Other than that, it is an amazing film.

Downfall

Downfall (2004)
IMDB #80 [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0363163/]

The Gist:
As I was watching this I had to wonder why the film was so popular, why people thought it was so good. I have come up with two reasons, one that Bruno Ganz makes for a pretty convincing Hitler, and two that there is a great fascination of Hitler's final days. Particularly with the second point, I think as an audience we want to see what the man's thought process was when he could see empire crumbling around him, what it would be like to see Hitler have doubts, to have his authoritative view of the world questioned by approaching defeat. In that sense the movie does well enough for itself, centered around a convincing performance (if not as air tight as people give it credit for). However, I do not believe this is a great movie. In fact, in terms of storytelling this is a weak film, because it continually tries to manipulate its audience into feeling something, everything is calculated to evoke what the filmmaker wants you to think instead of letting you make up your mind itself. Most of this comes from bad dialogue or overt compositional choices etc, that professes a poetry of the film too bluntly, like the secretary stating that "it all feels like a dream, blah, blah, blah". The scene has Hitler's soon to be wife leading everyone in the bunker into a dance hall and putting on music and dancing while bombs are still going off. It would already have a lurid dreamlike quality to it, all we need is the secretary's physical reaction to it we don't need it overstated in the dialogue. It just feels cheap. A lot of the film feels that way, its strangled in its good intentions.

On Another Note:
There is a small subplot in this film of a child soldier who tries to find his way back home through war torn Berlin that is good enough to be a movie itself. This might have been the only time where I thought the film truly touched upon something beautiful, a child lost in the death of the fallen city.

The Sweetest Sound

The Sweetest Sound (2001)
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0281249/]

The Gist:
This is a documentary that I watched the first twenty or so minutes in a film class and was interested enough to track it down and finish it off. It's about the director's obsession with names, with identity, and particularly his own name and what it says about his own identity. The director goes so far as to contact all of the "Alan Berliner's in the world" and invite them over to dinner. He gets a solid handful and he interviews them a bit but nothing really comes out of it, which the director readily admits. But that's the film's problem, despite the director's honesty about nothing really coming out of the meeting. In the beginning, when he is exploring the nuance of names (for instance how Alan sounds soft and gentle and Al sound macho and how Al Capone could never have been named Alan Capone) or when he is exploring his own weird reservations of having his name shared by so many different people in the world the film works very well. But it is sort of built around this final meeting, you can tell the director shaped the film around the idea that by setting up this meeting the film would lead itself into new and surprising areas and instead it just sat idle. In the end, the film becomes a fascinating yet anti-climatic film, lacking the dramatic heft of better documentaries.

Three Months

Today marks the third month of my project. Top five films are:

1. La Dolce Vita
2. La Notte
3. Das Boot
4. Swordsman 2
5. Paths of Glory

Honorable Mention: Tokyo!, Come Drink With Me, Samurai I: Mushashi Miyamoto

Week Thirteen

Three months under the belt! New queue:

Downfall (2004) - check
A Christmas Tale (2008) - check
Double Indemnity (1944) - check
The Sweetest Sound (2001) - check

Alright, I'm gonna wait on Gojira and Dogville I think. Waiting for the sisterhead for Gojira, it will be epic.

Foreign Language Tally

So I'm doing languages instead of nationality of filmmakers or where its released because that can get kind of complicated (see: Spaghetti Westerns, etc). Also I'm counting silent as its own category. Pretty much anything besides your standard English. Anyway, I'll keep the tally updated as I go along.


German: 4
The Lives of Others
Das Boot
Downfall
M

French: 28

Amer

Innocence

Bad Blood

Playtime

Cold Cuts

Le Samourai

Mon Oncle

La Bete Humaine

Cleo From 5 to 7

A Town Called Panic

Daybreak

Le Corbeau

Grand Illusion

Freedom For Us

Night at the Crossroads
The Rules of the Game
Irreversible
Pickpocket
Les Diaboliques
Au Revoir Les Enfants
La Haine
Shoot the Piano Player
Cache
[Battle of Algiers]
A Christmas Tale
Elevator to the Gallows
Paris, je t'aime
[The Wages of Fear]

Swedish: 3
Wild Strawberries
Persona
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Korean: 5
Memories of Murder
Thirst
Shiri
Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance
Sympathy for Lady Vengeance

Arabic: 1
[Battle of Algiers]

Italian: 10
Amarcord
8 1/2
The Bicycle Thieves
La Strada
Umberto D.
Nights of Cabiria
Juliet of the Spirits
La Dolce Vita
La Notte
Life is Beautiful

Indian: 2
Sarkar
The Adversary

Spanish: 8

[Finisterrae]
The Secret in Their Eyes
The Spirit of the Beehive
All About My Mother
Y Tu Mama Tambien
Talk to Her
Broken Embraces
[The Wages of Fear]

Chinese (Mandarin and Cantonese): 5
Infernal Affairs
Come Drink With Me
Shaolin Temple
Swordsman 2
Election

Thai: 1
Chocolate

Japanese: 12

Samurai Fiction

Red Beard

Ikiru
Gojira
Ran
Throne of Blood
Samurai I: Mushashi Miyamoto
Tokyo!
Grave of the Fireflies
Tokyo Story
The Twilight Samurai
Stray Dog

Silent: 7
Metropolis
Sunrise: A Tale of Two Humans
Strike
Menilmontant
City Lights
Modern Times
The Passion of Joan of Arc

Romanian: 1
4 Months, 3 Weeks, and Two Days

Russian: 4

[Finisterrae]

Andrei Rublev
Solaris

Stalker

Election

Election (2005)
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0434008/]

The Gist:
Right before I started this project I watched my first Johnny To film, Exiled, and vowed to watch from the director. This is my second film I've watched by the man, and in some ways this movie delivers once more on the tight narrative style of the former movie and in some ways it leaves me a little disappointed. This is basically a gangster film, you can feel the American influence on the way the story is told but I will say that it is its own creature. For one thing, the violence is so weirdly subdued, you never see a gun once in this film. It's all pretty much bludgeoning and slashing, and even those moments are rare. I will say that there is a big fight in the middle with machetes that is fucking awesome. In the end I loved this film up to the last fifteen minutes, then it become every other gangster film I've ever watched where we must show how "being a gangster" will corrupt your soul and make you betray those around you etc. (see: Godfather, Gomorrah, Scarface, Godfellas, and every single other gangster film ever made) I've never really liked this particular genre convention. Well sometimes I do, the first Godfather manages to do this without bugging me (note the second one does this and does bug me). However, it often feels like we trade some of the intensity of the film for a moral standard that was implemented largely because of the Hays Code and the old school gangster films of the late 20s, early 30s or whenever that was. I understand that often it gives the film more depth, but this film is so sleek and stylized that I would have rather it continued with its momentum rather than get bogged down in the closing moments. All in all great film though, I'm sure I'll forgive its ending eventually.

Das Boot

Das Boot (1981)
IMDB #66 [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082096/]

The Gist:
Alright I don't feel like writing a bunch for this one except for to say a few things. One, this film is awesome. Two, this may be the first time I have watched something wanting Nazis to live. Three, the film is three and a half hours long and it manages to keep a thread of constant tension throughout the whole film! (save for exposition in the beginning and a really bizarre and kind of perfect second climax) Do you know how impressive that is? Very, it's insane just thinking about keeping someone in a state of anxiety for like three hours. I mean, damn. Four, this film has brought me to a conclusion that Hollywood is the source of all evil. I had been resisting the fact but this affirms it, that after this film got big the director came to work in Hollywood and put out the following films: Air Force One, Perfect Storm, Troy, Poseidon. Seriously, you go from making one of the best films ever made to making that trite horrid shit? What the fuck?

Tokyo!

Tokyo! (2008)
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0976060/]

The Gist:
Okay so hard to talk about this film as a whole. It's made up of three short films, and even they work as a collective they're all so unique that you can't really lump them together. To start with, Gondry's film was pretty excellent, really abstract, but for me he ruined it a bit in the ending (not to spoil anything but he has the girl narrating a letter that sort of tries to tie things together neatly and just feels forced). Other than that small issue though, his film was fantastic. The second film, which everyone who's seen this seems to like the best, didn't hit me quite the same. It's kind of a strange retelling of the monster film, giving the monster more of a humanistic aspect and I might like it more with repeat viewings but right now felt too distant and lacking tonal depth. The third film, by Bong Joon-Ho (badass Korean filmmaker who made "The Host") was easily my favorite. In fact, it followed a similar pattern as Gondry's film, where you have light moments of surrealism that at a pivotal moment in the film becomes full on surreal. Also the ending feels just a tiny bit forced again, but not nearly as much as Gondry's and it ends on a quiet note that makes it up for me for some reason. As a whole, this is an amazing collection of films and it makes me sad that this sort of thing isn't done more often. I feel like I would like to see films of all lenghts, because some stories are wonderful and are just not feature length stories. It happens. Why can't I see those in my theater, why do I have to be forced to see features just because its more reasonable for mass consumption? ....I need to have access to more film festivals, I need good short films.

Swordsman 2

Swordsman 2 (1992)
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103295/]

The Gist:
This film is amazing, I would just like to state that outright. While other recently watched martial arts films have had borderline ridiculous plots, this film's plot just seems right. It strikes the perfect balance of over the top wuxia and comedic nonchalance and while I was a little disappointed in the mild tonal shift toward the second half of the film I still felt it was delivered with great skill. What I like most is this a likely forefather of the gloriously ridiculous anime and manga and several more recent martial arts flicks that have crazed names for different techniques that they shout out at odd intervals (see: "he's using the flying mountain sword technique!" or something like that), where serious themes of love, life, death, betrayal, grief, and so on are mixed with copious comedic relief. Basically this is the first wuxia film that feels truly connected to one of the first genres that got me into to film.

On Another Note:
I think I might be able to watch any kind of old school kung fu or old school wuxia film. Bizarre plots and bad english subs often only add to its charm. That's some genre film that I'm pretty safe with.

Week Twelve

I am so proud of my little project. With the exception of some minor changes throughout I've stayed pretty steadfast, and I do notice a stark difference in my film knowledge already. I've been thinking that I might change something either at the halfway mark or with a new year of the project where I have a slot for re-viewings of important films, since its often so important to get a second impression of a film and because many films require multiple viewings to fully get across their meaning. Anyway, my new queue for the week:

Swordsman 2 (1992) - check
Das Boot (1981) - check
Tokyo! (2008) - check
Election (2005) - check

Yes I know I have Gojira's picture as my profile pic (and my facebook pic too) and I haven't seen it before but sometimes you know you love a movie before you see it. I can guarantee you I love Gojira. Don't ask me how, me and the movie must just have a spiritual connection or something. Also "Gojira!" is really fun to say. And I also had a similar feeling to the original King Kong and that totally lived up to it. So yeah.

Goodbye Solo

Goodbye Solo (2008)
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1095442/]

The Gist:
This film is made by a director who has made a little niche career in the festival circuit. That being the case, I'm wondering why this feels like a film made by a first time director. That's not to say the film is bad, it's quite good really. However, there are abrupt moments like a frame that is out of focus until the focus point comes into frame and you're sitting there for a couple seconds thinking "why am I looking at something out of focus?" or a really abrupt handheld shift in an important moment of the film that does not feel very natural, or a few stray of awkwardly delivered lines. It's not that it makes it an unenjoyable film to watch, just curious since I would think it would be directed with more of a sure hand. However, where the film does succeed is the character of Solo, a beautiful human being that radiates loves and yet is not perfect, who pries in others' lives trying to help them. The character is very well acted, feels intensely real, and stands as the greatest achievement of the film. In terms of the plot, it's a slice of life kind of film that you get the scope of within the first minute. Like many neorealist inspired efforts, the beauty is in the detail.

Shaolin Temple

Shaolin Temple (1982)
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079891/]

The Gist:
I'm noticing a trend: the more nonsense the story is, the stronger the kung fu. This doesn't make much sense, but is at least pretty accurate when considering Shaolin Temple and Chocolate. For this one, we see a really loose revenge plot, some Buddhist monks that don't even act close to being Buddhist, kind of like: "It is against our religion to kill... Oh what the heck". And then there's a rather disturbing bit where Jet Li accidentally kills this girl's dog, then tries to bury it, then decides to dig it up and roast it on a spit and eats it with a bunch of monks (who are not supposed to eat it because it's a sin, but once again they decide "fuck it"). Anyway, way to go old school kung fu movie for reinforcing bad Asian stereotypes. Oh and then there was a gratuitous shot of a bad guy strangling a sheep which is just weird. Anyway, the bad guys attack the temple, the buddhist monks kick some Shaolin ass and all is right with the world. And in terms of ass kicking, this movie is pretty incredible. This was Jet Li's first feature, and he is in top form here. However, he often doesn't steal the show, because his supporting cast is so damn good and the film thankfully focuses on their fights just as much as the young protagonist. Anyway, the story is thin but its one of those films that can get by on pure action alone which is rare. Besides the fact, with these old movies some aspect of their campy style actually seems to add to the experience...only the dog part still bugs me.

Paths of Glory

Paths of Glory (1957)
IMDB #50 [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0050825/]

The Gist:
Okay, I'm going to have to amend my statement in terms of Stanley Kubrick. He is apparently hit or miss for me. I honestly felt this was one of the best war films I'd ever seen, and it was so succinct almost to the point of putting me off but not quite. To see a Kubrick film that isn't self indulgent was weird (don't get me wrong I often like self-indulgence in films when it serves the story well, which it often does). Anyway, this started out in World War I with a foolish General trying to take a hill that is impossible to take, then trying to fire artillery on his own men who are refusing to leave the trenches since everyone is getting mowed down, then having to make an example of three privates chosen more or less at random, then a badass colonel played by Kirk Douglas defending them to no avail, they get sentenced to death, and it goes on from there. In my mind, at the end of this film there is the single best moment in any war film ever (maybe...at least top three). Anyway, near the end of the film Douglas is clearly losing his faith in humanity and he passes by a bar. Inside, there's a bunch of drunk riled up men in some bar where an entertainer of sorts pulls up a German woman who doesn't know a word of english. They all jeer at her, whistle at her, rudely objectify her, and someone shouts "learn a civilized language!". This is the sort of debasement that happens to make your enemy someone you can kill, to make them somehow less human then you are. Anyway the performer says that she hasn't much talent but she does have a "golden voice" and the crowd yells for her to sing in a brutish sort of way. She starts singing, but the men are so loud she can be heard, they yell "louder, louder". She sings louder. The crowd becomes quiet. Then its just her singing, and it seems to be a song they know. The men, gradually subdued, begin humming along with her singing the German words. All at once you see the illusions that the men have clung to distance themselves from the Germans dissolve and break away. The Colonel, seeing this, seems to find some small hint of hope to be had. Even writing this part out here gives me goose bumps, which makes me think it might be one of my favorite scenes of any movie.

Come Drink With Me

Come Drink With Me (1966)
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059079/]

The Gist:
This is one of the first projects by King Hu that starts the tonal style shift of old school marital arts wuxia films. Instead of the more outlandish over the top style we begin to see a subtlety more reminiscent of Japanese samurai films and a dance like quality to the fight scenes, gaining a rhythm and a stop-go-stop flow. These choices are responsible for a host of badass film incarnations following King Hu's "Come Drink With Me", films that surpass the original in many ways. However, watching this film and its horrible subtitles and its somewhat cheesy action, you still get the feeling of a beautiful set of motion taking place. The film works well on its own, even in context to those that would follow. It also gets points for a plot that isn't completely ridiculous (as we saw in Chocolate and as we'll see again in Shaolin Temple), a story that is simple, well written, and with endearing protagonists. Drunken Cat, in particular, is a badass characterization for a kung fu master (playing on the by now cliche character persona, where he appears to be a fuck up but is really a zen badass). Anyway, this was a great film, but the years and the poor translation were not kind to it.

Week Eleven

Okay, I'm a little tired so the last couple of sum ups for last week were a bit a lazy. But whatever, my project I can be lazy if I want to and for whatever reason I couldn't think of what to say about the Samurai film other than that I liked it and it had a fable like quality to it that I found very engaging.

New queue:
Goodbye Solo (2008) - check
Shaolin Temple (1982) - check
Come Drink With Me (1966) - check
Paths of Glory (1957) - check

2001: A Space Odyssey

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
IMDB #76 [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062622/]

The Gist:
Well, it's a pretty weird movie. But it's very beautiful and for the most part it moves very well and I suppose I'll be thinking about what I make of the more abstract, transformative ending for a little while. I've actually seen the ending before in a film class and wondered what meaning it would take on in the context of the rest of the film. When I think about it, the meaning of the Star Child isn't too obscuring which is good because it allows the smaller details of the film to be studied in its relation rather than being too hung up on some "what does it mean?" obstruction. Also I really enjoyed its meditative quality, but I still think I might have cut down ten or fifteen minutes because I honestly think you could have gotten across the same feeling without isolating some of your audience. But then again, in retrospect, the longer the film goes on the more you dwell on the meaning of its silence so its hard to say if cutting it would be the best choice after all. Anyway, I've never been a huge Kubrick fan but this film and Dr. Strangelove are justifiably great films

On Another Note:
In regard to my feelings on Kubrick, I feel that The Shining, Eyes Wide Shut, and to a lesser extent Clockwork, are overrated.

Samurai I: Musashi Miyamoto

Samurai I: Musashi Miyamoto (1954)
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0047444/]

The Gist:
The first part of a trilogy which uniquely serves the almost exclusive purpose of establishing its characters. There is action here and there, but it is primarily to offer definition to Takezo's struggle to overcome his wildness and become a composed and noble man worthy of the title "Samurai". Most interesting is the role of the wise Priest, who with a steady hand and an ineffable wisdom, guides Takezo through this transformation. The film elegantly passes through the Japanese country side, and becomes an understated symbol of the beauty and grace its people are capable of. It's a fascinating film, which draws us into a delicate struggle of freedom, love, and identity which should set up the following acts of the story well.

Chocolate

Chocolate (2008)
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1183252/]

The Gist:
Did you know that autistic Thai people can become devastating martial arts instruments of death just by watching Tony Jaa on the television? No? Neither did I, but as implausible as that narrative set up may be it is the framework for a pretty badass kung fu film. However, watching the opening of this film I just had to wonder, what the fuck is up with this movie? It's not like it takes its thin premise to quickly set up what will eventually be an increasing climax of gratuitous action that has little connection with character or plot. If so, it would have to have been pretty fascinating kung fu to make me forget my principles (ie that action without a connection to character or setting or plot is by its nature weak filmmaking and less effective due to a lack of connection to "person and place" and thereby a lack of the audience's sense of vulnerability and concern for harm that can make action films so exhilarating in the first place)... Anyway, that's not exactly the case for Chocalate because it actually has a pretty lengthy set up. But while I was watching it I wondered, really? You're going to take all this time and this is what you set up? There's a lot of weak story telling here, lingering too long on moments that can be condensed and not taking that extra time to extend the story further, etc. However, because the film takes its time you do get a connection to the weird story here, and I personally developed a sort of fascination with the oddities of some stray details. Anyway, once the story is set up the action is slow to get going but once it gets a full head of steam is as good as anything out there. In particular, the ending fight on the side of the building was inspired. Also a Thai chick kicking ass is just hot. I don't know why.

La Notte

La Notte (1961)
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0054130/]

The Gist:
After exhausting much of Fellini's canon, I have decided to watch my first Antonioni film. He is a filmmaker often mentioned in the same breath as Fellini, though he doesn't quite share Fellini's prominence or popularity. I even heard him referred to as more "cerebral" than Fellini and maybe that has something to do with it because this film does have a rather cold embrace to it whereas Fellini's films are often filled with warmth (contrasting Fellini's darker themes). However, it would be a disservice to the film if I did not say that it is on the same level of what I consider to be Fellini's best (La Dolce Vita) and was actually made around the same time as La Dolce Vita and explores many of the same themes as La Dolce Vita and has the same actor as the protagonist as La Dolce Vita and now you see why I'm referencing Fellini so much in another man's film. However, the most fascinating elements in the film are the distinctions from its rather similar contemporary. Antonioni has a knack for compositions but sacrifices a lot of the film's coherent fluidity for the sake of a beautiful frame. He also takes great pleasure in these beautiful moments of silence; he has a huge chunk of film time dedicated to Lydia wondering the streets in an old part of town where she and her husband used to live. Also I find the Valentina character one of the most fascinating I have seen on film. And for what it's worth, the ending in this film was far more effective than La Dolce Vita, capturing a desperation for Giovanni to hold on to a love that has long since left him. With all that said, it is a bit inconsistent when compared to the staggering genius of Fellini's counterpart.

Week Ten

Ten weeks, as many weeks as I have fingers, for whatever faux significance that has. Anyway, a new queue:

La Notte (1961) - check
Samurai I: Musashi Miyamoto (1954) - check
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) - check
Chocolate (2008) - check

(I know I'm using up my allotted two slots for recent films early but Chocolate seems way too badass not to watch immediately)

(Edit: I've actually changed the rule, now I can watch Ballast next week.)

To Have and Have Not

To Have and Have Not (1944)
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0037382/]

The Gist:
This film originates more or less as a Casablanca nostalgia piece (if a film made two years later can be called that). However, it thankfully has a life beyond that film that almost comes from the spirit of Hemingway's writing if not explicitly from the book itself that they supposedly have based the film on. Basically they took the names and gave it a Casablana vibe, Vischy France, French Resistance, piano bar, Humphrey being a badass, and so on. The film works very well as a romance, in fact may be Humphrey's best noir romance I've seen. Him and Becall have this fascinating antagonism going on, the dialogue is very crisp, but why is everyone smoking? Ever seen that part in Thank You for Smoking where they talk about this film? Yeah, with reason. People are lighting up cigarettes left in right, it literally becomes an established motif. It's odd. Anyway, the film is pretty badass, my only complaint is that the end is kind of light and nonchalant and felt tacked on they way a lot of hollywood endings tack on. For a film that tries to capture the nostalgia and atmosphere of Casablanca and yet deviate in important ways to create its identity, and for a film that largely succeeds in doing so, the ending is a little disappointing. Oh and also Eddie is a huge drunk cliche that exists in many cases for comedic relief and nothing else which is fine I guess, especially because when he is used as a way to show the extent of Harry Morgan's friendship I'm very glad that Eddie is in the film and am willing to forgive his stereotypical nature.

Infernal Affairs

Infernal Affairs (2002)
IMDB #249 [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0338564/]

The Gist:
Have you ever seen Martin Scorcese's "The Departed"? Then you've seen this film and seen it better. Yes, all I could do while watching this film was think of how good Departed was. Which I don't think was the "proper" response. Everything that happens in this film happens in Departed, its shorter than Departed and feels a little clipped at times, and it has some moments of really cheesy music and flashbacks. Other than that, it's a pretty badass film and I should give it credit for that since it is the original. And the best part of that? There are two more! Even if it is a poor man's foreign language Departed, it's still awesome and I'll have three of them! That's really all I have to say about it.

Away We Go

Away We Go (2009)
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1176740/]

The Gist:
This is what I would call a comedy, even though its kind of not and I don't want to call it a dramedy either. It's about a couple who gets pregnant (the woman does anyway) and goes on a road trip of sorts to find the right home for them to live as a family. It's a film that succeeds on the likability and genuine quality of its main characters. However, these characters often seem to interact with more two dimensional characters throughout moments of the film and the narrative often falls into a false kind of comedy that contrasts with the humorous moments that come naturally from the couple's interaction. In particular, the couple's first few interactions with other couples pits them against caricatures that don't particularly feel fleshed out (the parents, the friends in Arizona, and a really annoying character played by Maggie Gyllenhaal). This bothered me a bit up until this scene with Maggie Gyllenhaal where Krasinski gets his kid to go in a stroller which I know doesn't make sense without context but it was hilarious and it oddly took a scene that felt highly abstract and made it feel real with the couple's growing indignation. From there I never had another issue with the film, and even through these moments Krasinski and Randolph are always real, always somewhere to ground yourself. By the end of the film I felt fairly impressed, the story was simple and sweet, I really liked the look of the film. As it happened, my complaints were not major, but they did keep the movie from becoming something better in my mind.

La Dolce Vita

La Dolce Vita (1960)
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053779/]

The Gist:
Yes I have watched yet another Fellini film, and I am burdened with the knowledge that it won't get any better than this. This, for me, is by far is most potent work. It's nearly three hours of pure genius. It's filled with moments that astonish me they were ever filmed. It's about a man working for a sort of tabloid, searching for meaning, disappointed with the path that his life has taken. He wonders through Rome with one woman or another, never satisfied, passing his time with vacant amusements of the wealthy. And yet this is such richness to so much of this film. The protagonist played by Marcello Mastrianni, who also played the lead in 8 1/2, has an incredible amount of charm and charisma throughout the film. He carries the film with such levity, all while Fellini takes his themes to lower and lower depths. I think the most amazing part of the film is that each segment could stand alone as a work of art, and yet the episodic nature of the film is tied together very strongly by the lead's performance. My only complaint is that in terms of endings, Nights of Cabiria was much more succinct and powerful (thought that's not to say La Dolce's ending is bad, it's just not quite as good in comparison). However, this is a small complaint because the ending is still rather beautiful, and the film overshadows his other work in nearly ever way for me. It's really quite phenomenal...and now I've nearly exhausted all his earlier work and will thus transition into what I've heard called as his "circus films".

The Rules

I have now completed two months of the projects and it has become apparent that I need to set up some guidelines. They are as follows:

1. There will be a limit of four films a month that have been made roughly within the last three years (2006-2010 to allow for the new year). Also they cannot be in the same week.

2. Throughout the course of the year, there will be four weeks for every month and any extra days will be absorbed into those four weeks (ie October has 31 days, 4 weeks is 28 days, the three days are absorbed and do not carry over)

3. There will be the allowance of a series of short films viewed counting as one film entry. (see: Experimental Film Day)

4. Films in a movie theater do not count if they are part of a film's initial distribution cycle. However, a re-release of a film would count (ie 2001: Space Odysessy or Rocky Horror Picture Show)

5. At least one film a week should satisfy a sub-goal of this project, which is to watch the entirety of the imdb top 250 films. Due to the changing nature of this list, any and all films that have appeared on it from the start of this project will be included. A list of the films remaining that I have not yet seen, dated 9/2/09, can be found here.

6. At least one film a week should be a foreign language film. Click here for the current tally.

7. If for some reason I feel like scaling back the project at some point, I will keep track of how many films I need to make up to keep the integrity of the project intact.

8. I reserve the right to ignore any of these rules if I feel like it.

Two Months

Today marks the second full month of the project. The top five films of the month are:

1. All That Jazz
2. Nights of Cabiria
3. Anatomy of a Murder
4. All About My Mother
5. Network

Honerable Mention: Cache, The Birds, The Grapes of Wrath and Umberto D.

(That was a good month)

Week 9

Because of the new rules of my project which I will post at some point soon, I am now back on track with my schedule (doing four weeks to a month, extra days will be absorbed into said four weeks). Anyway, a new week, a new queue:

La Dolce Vita (1960) - check
Infernal Affairs (2002) - check
Away We Go (2009) - check
To Have and Have Not (1944) - check

Talk to Her

Talk to Her (2002)

[www.imdb.com/title/tt0287467]

The Gist:

After watching All About My Mother I immediately picked up another well noted film by the director, and about halfway through the film I was pretty sure I didn't like it. First of all, unlike All About My Mother (where depressing things happen, but the audience is carried through it by the Mother's resilience...and here I said I wouldn't say anything about the film's plot) this film wades through its depression, allows itself to sink into the ground, drenches the film with meloncholic melodies, and so on. Then you have one of the main characters turning out to be a sort of stalker who is now the nurse of the comatose woman who he was basically stalking and...it was creepy, it wigged me out. However, once the film stopped fliriting the line with his character and delved into full on delusion, the film saved itself a bit in my eyes. I feel like what I'm left with is a film filled with fascinating moments, overall very powerful, but too odd to connect to. If the film was just about Marco, I think I would have liked it a great deal. But trying to reconcile my feelings with Benigno ended up having too great an impact.

On Another Note:

In retrospect, that silent film in the middle and the ending with the floodlights on Alicia are both completely brilliant.

All About My Mother

All About My Mother (1999)
[www.imdb.com/title/tt0185125]

The Gist:
This is only the second Almodovar film I've seen, the first being Volver. And while Volver was good, it was not exactly a key representation to why the director is such a significant figure in cinema. This film, however, made more sense of the director as an artist for me. The film destroyed me. What impressed me most was just how clean the film is cut together, there are no unnecssary moments, it moves through time with expert pacing, every moment is clear and concise and powerful. The story itself is something that I don't know if I can talk about without spoiling elements of the film. Like All That Jazz, this is a film I think people should just see and experience without me giving too much information. So I won't and you should.

The Birds

The Birds (1963)

[www.imdb.com/title/tt0056869]

The Gist:

Well, there are these birds and they're trying to kill everyone. Of course, you don't get to that immediately. Instead, the film explores an interesting romantic drama between its two protagonists while throwing off centered forebodings of the killer birds here and there. And then at some point the romantic drama is sidelined by the birds trying to kill everyone. The most impressive thing about the story is how the external conflict impacts the internal narrative. It warms the mother up to the young woman (she had previously been very snooty and perhaps afraid of her son finding a woman he loved and leaving her alone) and it makes the two protagonists stop kidding themselves express their true feelings for each other (there had, of course, been a sort of dance of courtship that involved the two being bitterly opposed to each other). And then you have the birds, which work on two levels. One is the absurd, the attacking birds are often inserted into the film with bad special effects super imposition (which I suppose was good at the time) and it gives the film a sort of camp feel. This fits the film very well because I mean come on, these people are getting their ass kicked! They'll just lie on the floor and let the bird snack on them. Grab them by the throat and choke the shit out of them, what the fuck people go down fighting! Thankfully, the film worked in such a way that I didn't have to take these deaths too seriously, instead I just enjoyed that beautiful Hitchcock melodrama. However, on another level, it does work in a more serious way. Not with how they kill the people, that's still kind of funny. However, the film goes through moments that emphasize the terror of an unknown destructive force in the world, some lurking agent of death without any motive or reason behind it. And afterall, isn't that what death is? Don't the birds work on a greater metaphor for life and death as a whole? Or is that a strange read into the film?

Experimental Film Day

Today (not actually today but almost a week ago) I watched a series of experimental films in my film class, which I will collectively count as one film entry. This action will be legitimized in my upcoming post of a definitive set of rules so that I don't cheat too much in this project. Anyway, I'll talk about my three favorite films that I saw.

The Dark Tower by Stan Brackhage (1999)


the dark tower - stan brakhage

a-lex | MySpace Video

I liked this because of its frenetic feel, how the patterns gained personality and rhythm, how the film isn't trying to convey any deep message but simply is just trying to register an emotional response, is trying to musical without music. I think it's beautiful.

Passage à l'acte by Francis Girod (1993)



For some reason I find this film disturbing, but it's one of the films I remember best from the class. It takes moments, seconds in time, and twists and distorts their meaning. It's fascinating, but I don't like the feeling of whatever new meaning is reached through the manipulation.

A Movie by Bruce Conner (1958)

See Film Here

This was probably the best film I saw. It's a found footage project that explores the relationship of violence and chaos. He begins the film in a comedic and almost jovial fashion but exposes the human individualistic causality of violence by the films end. Cool shit.