Week Four

New Queue:

Stardust Memories (1980) - check

Brazil (1985) - check

Five Easy Pieces (1970) -check

Screening Pastiche:

Avant-Garde Cinema - check

Hands on a Hard Body

Hands on a Hard Body (1997)

[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116481/]

The Gist:

Hands on a Hard Body is a documentary that's pretty slipshod, low production value, but succeeds admirably by its fascinating subject matter. Here, it's a contest where a group of people put their hands on a truck and the last person to remove his hand/lean or squat/pass out etc wins the truck. This whole premise is, of course, laden with conflict and the reasons for wanting the truck vary from needing it for a job that someone will lose otherwise to someone who had won it the year before and is in it for the competition alone. The film chronicles the various strategies, the profile of specific personalities, the heartbreaking delirium and crushing defeat of nearly everyone trying to win the damn thing. It's definitely interesting.

Mon Oncle

Mon Oncle (1958)

[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0050706/]

The Gist:

Mon Oncle is my first Tati film, and it was interesting enough to warrant me to write my paper on a comparison between Tati and Renoir (which seems a little counter-intuitive but I have a good in for it). Tati's films are minimalistic, the sets insanely complicated which provoke silent-era esque gags that serve the greater function for social commentary (specifically how the modernist technology is essentially killing our individuality, and how it's a plague on society, etc). In any case, Mon Oncle is a bitter sweet film that challenges the viewer and allows them to actively engage with the image.

Red Beard

Red Beard (1965)

[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058888/]

The Gist:

Red Beard is a great late stage Kurosawa flick that explores the character arc of a young egotistical doctor under the tutelage of the wise, gruff head doctor of some poor inglorious clinic in rural Japan. This gruff doctor is Red Beard, who is played by long time Kurosawa collaborator Toshiro Mifune. This is actually the last time the two would work together as well, and you see Mifune finally achieve the role of patient yoda figure instead of the impetuous youth he had played in many of his previous roles with the director. Finally, the structure of this film is pretty great, widely episodic, with a flashback of a dying patient that could be its own movie. My only complaint is that film feels a little nostalgic at times, a little conventional, and doesn't take some risks that could have made it harder to watch but better poetry in any case. But for the most part they are just small quibbling points, and the intelligence of composition and the way the narrative is weaved together is frequently complex and moving. This is top form Kurosawa and deserves a rank among his best films.

On Another Note:

The fight scene pictured above was weirdly random, brief genre mixing. It came out of nowhere... Kind of great, really.

Retro-Viewing: Exit Through the Gift Shop

Exit Through the Gift Shop (2010)

[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1587707/]

The Gist:

So I already mentioned that I had seen the film before in Boston, but I did want to take the opportunity to see it again. I have to say, this film is an honest contender for my favorite of the year (I think the only film that can potentially beat it out at the moment is A Town Called Panic). It's just so fascinating, it manages to be a movie about so many things all at once. It's a film that captures the beginnings of street art movement and subsequently street art's assimilation into mainstream commercialism. It's a film about both Banksy and Thierry as individual personalities. And finally it's a film about the nature of art, and the implications of art's relationship with society, how the ravenous consumption of art changes it into something else. Of course, I find it appropriate that Thierry's “Mister Brainwash” was making direct references to Andy Warhol, and that Banksy referred to him as the true successor to Andy Warhol in a lot of ways, because the ideas of Warhol really are expounded upon in Thierry's work. I think if there's any chance that the film is a fake or a partial fake, it has something to do with that inherent connection to Warhol. Not only are the artistic sensibilities of Thierry linked to the man, but the exploitation of promotion and commerce are completely in line with what Warhol was doing in the art scene as well. Either the connection is one of those bizarre coincidences (because through the film you get the impression that Thierry is not fully aware of the extent of that connection between him and Warhol) or it's a clever ruse concocted by the filmmakers. I tend to believe that the film is a legitimate non-fiction effort, agreeing with a reviewer at the Boston Globe who noted that the film was too perfectly weird and bizarre to have ever been made up. However, if there was hoax involved in the film, I would think that it was only involved with the Mister Brainwash gallery and that the rest of the film (and Thierry's character in particular) was real. I can believe that Banksy cleverly set up the gallery as a way to provide a narrative punch to the film, a statement about the art scene. However, Thierry feels to real for me to think he was a character. In fact, all of it feels pretty real to me, on an instinctual level. That's just my opinion though.

On Another Note:

The Gist is that long because I saw this again for an extra credit assignment for my doc class and had to write a one-page response and I figured I would just post that here. Also the picture isn't from the film itself, but from street art found by Banksy at Sundance on the day of the film's premiere (kind of cool).

Week Three

New Queue:

Mon Oncle (1958) - check

Hands on a Hard Body (1997) - check

Red Beard (1965) - check

Retro-Viewing:

Exit Through the Gift Shop (2010) - check

La Bete Humaine

La Bete Humaine (1938)

[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0029957/]

The Gist:

La Bete Humaine is the fourth film in my current expedition of Renoir's filmography, and it settles itself just barely lacking the qualities of a masterpiece. I say this a criticism really, because the second half of the film achieves moments of such poetic depth that I have to shake my head and wonder why the whole film couldn't have been this way. I think, in the end, it's because the script is straight-jacketed by its source material. The set-up is well done, but lingers too long, going over details that are important to the book (the main characters mental disorder) but are ultimately unimportant in the grand scheme of the film's narrative. Specifically with the mental disorder, or whatever that really is, it shouldn't have been in this film. It seems like it's needed, but if you see the film imagine it had started with the scene on the train and then chose to prolong certain aspects of the romance. It works pretty well in my head, anyway, I'm just saying. Oh, I haven't really said what the film is about have I? It's about a guy who is enamored with a girl who is trapped in a marriage with a jealous murdering husband and then the guy and girl have an affair and the film goes from there. Well, that's sort of it anyway. I don't want to spoil anything but you (and by you I mean no one because I'm sure no one is reading this) should see it. It's a pretty damn good film with an absolutely beautiful final third of screen time.

Jesus Camp

Jesus Camp (2006)

[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0486358/]

The Gist:

Jesus Camp could pass for one of the most unsettling horror films I've ever seen. As it stands, it's merely a documentary about the extremism of evangelical Christianity in our country and the indoctrination of the youth into that staid and potentially dangerous set of beliefs. Here we a Christian summer camp take the shape of a cult, spouting nonsense in the same vein as Muslim extremists waging their holy jihad. It's all stupidity, and it would be ridiculous and something to laugh off if it wasn't so god damn (heh) terrifying in its practical implications on our society and our future as a nation and as a human race. Anyway, my opinions about the Christian Right and subsequently this specific film are pretty clear at this point, ne?

Cleo from 5 to 7

Cleo from 5 to 7 (1962)

[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0055852/]

The Gist:

Cleo from 5 to 7 is about a woman named Cleo (obviously) who is waiting for medical results that will tell her whether or not she has cancer. The whole film is imbued with a sense of doom, since it opens with a tarot card reading that makes predictions both to the characters death and to the "talkative man" she meets near the latter half of the film. She wonders around Paris in a sort of dejected, petulant daze, but when she does actually meet the man the film shifts into a gentle poetry. The film becomes more about how the people we meet and our interactions with them shape our lives and give our lives meaning. It's beautiful New Wave stuff.

Screening Pastiche: Andy Warhol

A Quick Note About Warhol:

Warhol is the kind of filmmaker that either really works or really doesn't. When he's working with a concise and contained premise his films are pretty fascinating but when he tries for something more complicated his films become pretty damn tedious. Kiss and the Screen Tests are pretty damn interesting but Vinyl is really hard to get through (though the ending is great, and according to my professor if you watch it again knowing the ending it really makes the whole film).

Anyway, full list:

Vinyl (1965) [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059880/]

Kiss (1963) [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0213035/]

Screen Tests (Note: I might mute these, since that's how they're supposed to be seen):

Edie Sedgwick

Ann Buchanan

Dennis Hopper

Week Two

New Queue:

La Bete Humaine (1938) - check

Jesus Camp (2006) - check

Cleo from 5 to 7 (1962) - check

Screening Pastiche:

Andy Warhol Films - check

Andrei Rublev

Andrei Rublev (1966)

[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060107/]

The Gist:

Andrei Rublev is the third Tarkovsky film I've seen and it's just as beautiful as the first two. However, I will say that out of the three, this is perhaps my least favorite simply because the medieval setting isn't as engaging to me (It's about a religious icon painter). Tarkovsky uses science fiction in the former films, Solaris and Stalker, as a way to add depth and subtlety to the minimalism. With Rublev you don't get that fascinating duality quite as much. However, the way Rublev's narrative shifts around in time, leaping through years and decades without warning, and the way the narrative leaves the protagonist in order to center itself on another characters that the protagonist has some weight or pull with is fascinating. Honestly, it's a masterwork just like the first two, it has moments of staggering filmic beauty, and it's three and a half hours of film and I can't think of a single thing to cut. I will say though, that the last segment with the bellmaker could have easily been a film itself and in fact should have been. There's a perfectly confined story arc there.

Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis

Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis (2006)

[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0795406/]

The Gist:

This film is a documentary about Jack Smith. Who's that you ask? Jack Smith was a avant-garde filmmaker from the 60s, an eccentric gay stringently non-commercialized entity that in many ways inspired the zeitgeist of the underground film scene of the era. He took his set pieces and costumes from garbage cans, had his film banned for nudity and depravity (apparently Flaming Creatures is still banned from playing in New York, or at least until very recently), and took his own inspiration from campy Universal pictures from the 40s featuring Maria Montez. After Flaming Creatures, he decided he would never truly finish another film (and risk having it change and become distorted through the commercialization of the industry) and instead would edit and re-edit his film as the screening, blurring the lines between performance and film. More fun tid-bits about his fascinating, purist lunatic: lived off of cheese and water (at a point when he could have cashed in easily on his films), became Andy Warhol's main inspiration (and lent to many of Warhol's "most important ideas"), and purposely contracted AIDS because he thought it would be a marvelous way to die. Weird guy, good artist, interesting documentary.

A Town Called Panic

A Town Called Panic (2009)

[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1433540/]

The Gist:

A Town Called Panic is a delightfully whimsical and imaginative creation. It also holds the distinction of being the most insanely bold use of claymation/stop motion I've seen on screen. The story is a haphazard mash up of one ridiculous situation after another and can be summed up by the following synopsis of its opening moments: Horse (played by a plastic horse) is having a birthday so Cowboy and Indian (played by a plastic Cowboy and Indian) decide build him a barbeque. They try to order 50 bricks to build it but accidentally order 5 million. And the hundreds of trucks come to deliver it and Cowboy and Indian hide the bricks on top of the house.... You know, I'm realizing now that I can't accurately sum up the film's craziness in a meaningful way. Just trust me, it's brilliant.

Retro-Viewing: The Signal

The Signal (2007)

[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0780607/]

The Gist:

The Signal is kind of a mash between a b-zombie film and whatever The Happening might have been if it had been written and directed by anyone other than the hackjob that turned into the one of the top ten worst films I've ever had the displeasure of seeing. It's essentially about a random signal that's run over the tv, the radio, the phones, etc that turns people into paranoid psychopathic killers. However, the most interesting element is that there's a genuine pathos and logic (or illogic) and a distortion of perception that leads to their violence. The signal is really never explained, and so much the better because any explanation would have been so much less interesting than leaving it open ended. The film is also split into three parts, each directing by someone else, and the film has the awesome tonal switch from intelligent indie art-house horror film to black comedy and back again. I will say, however, that my initial high praise of the film is marred a bit by some bad bits of dialogue (one really overly expositional line that becomes a central part of the plot hurts my viewing in particular). However, I still find that I love the movie, it's a good smart indie cult film with a near perfect ending.

Week One

New Queue:

Andrei Rublev (1966) - check

Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis (2006) - check

A Town Called Panic (2009) - check

Retro-Viewing:

The Signal (2007) - check

Film Karma Rules: Year Two

1. I must watch at least three new films a week.

2. At least one of the films must be in a foreign language.

3. At least one of the films must have been made beyond three years ago.

4. I should be attempting to complete the subgoals found here, though it won't be as strictly enforced as it was in the first year.

5. I should have one retroactive viewing a week (that is to say, rewatching something I've seen before or rewatching something with audio commentary). In the event that I don't have this, I should watch four new films for the week.

6. An amalgam of short films can be used as a its own movie slot, as found here.

7. I reserve the right to change, alter, or ignore these rules at any time.

One Year!

I did a top twenty of the first half of the year, so for the second half (in no particular order):

Stalker

Throne of Blood

Persona

Spirit in the Beehive

Rules of the Game

Solaris

Control

Ikiru

For a Few Dollars More

Barton Fink

The Twilight Samurai

The Day the Earth Stood Still

A Serious Man

Les Diaboliques

The 39 Steps

From Dusk Till Dawn

A Single Man

Broken Embraces

Grand Illusion

Irreversible

Finally, I'd like to do a top twenty of the entire year, again no particular order:

La Dolce Vita

Stalker

Throne of Blood

Spirit in the Beehive

Au Revoir Les Enfants

Das Boot

All That Jazz

Persona

Solaris

8 1/2

Wild Strawberries

La Notte

Sullivan's Travels

Control

Ikiru

The Bicycle Thief

For a Few Dollars More

Barton Fink

All About My Mother

Honorable Mention:

First Half - Swordsman 2

Second Half - The Twilight Samurai

Year End Reflections

It's done, that's a whole year, it's over! Well, for the original goal of the project anyway. I ended up breaking my rules three times. One week I did four recent films to catch up for the Oscars, one week I skipped my IMDB sub-goal, and then there was the dark month of August where I didn't watch a single new film (almost). What stands here as August was actually September (with the exception of The Crow and A Single Man). My reflections are brief. I find the project a success, I find that I have watched more films than I would have if left to my own devices, I find that I found a lot of good film shit just looking for something to round out my week (Spirit of the Beehives comes to mind as a completely random discovery that I am entirely thrilled about).

Anyway, I'm going to continue the project, but I'll loosen up the rules a little. I like having the blog as a way to keep track of what films I've been watching. It's very helpful that way.

Mission Statement

I have thought of an odd mission for myself. Originally it was to take place January 2010 but I can think of no reason to delay it. So it will have started as of yesterday September 1st, 2009 and go until September 1st, 2010. My task will be to watch films that I have egregiously not seen yet. Originally I was going to do one every day, but I think that might be a little intense given school and work so I will instead set out for four films a week. Then perhaps I will write something about the films I watched.

I don't expect anyone to read this, it is more for organizational purposes for myself. If any of my friends do come across it, however, feel free to offer suggestions. Also note I don't know why I called the blog "Film Karma". Perhaps because it sounded catchy. Perhaps because of the idea that watching good film will make me a better filmmaker. Perhaps because, according to dictionary.com, the fourth definition of karma is:

4. the good or bad emanations felt to be generated by someone or something.

That seems apt for film.

Click Here to See the Rules

Side Tracked

I ended up taking the last month left on my project off. Mainly because I just didn't want to watch any movies. Anyway, the project is resumed with September acting as August.

Twelve Months

That's it, the project is over. Reflections and new parameters for a new year to follow. Top five of the month in no particular order are:

Ikiru

Stalker

Grand Illusion

Daybreak

A Single Man

Honorable Mention: Frankenstein, High School, Le Corbeau, Blue Vinyl

Stalag 17

Stalag 17 (1953)

IMDB #213 [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0046359/]

The Gist:

Interesting to see another POW film so quickly after Grand Illusion, here a POW film that comments via voiceover that no one's made a POW film before and what an awful shame that is. I guess the guy doing the voice over doesn't watch much French film, neh? Anyway, with this film's position on the IMDB list I thought I might see another enjoyable classic like Great Escape and what I got was a film that took a while to grow on me. I think this is primarily because all the characters were caricatures and frankly unlikable. I did end up liking William Holden's character, but that took a while to take too. Anyway, once the film got into its intrigue of the informant was, its pace improved considerably and I forgave the two-dimensional characters. Maybe I'm too hard on it because I had just watched Grand Illusion and that film mopped the floor with this one. Maybe that's not fair, but so it goes.

Daybreak

Daybreak (1939)

[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0031514/]

The Gist:

Carne's film Daybreak is drenched in atmosphere, dark Parisian streets filled with fog, slow dissolves into romantic flashbacks, cigarette smoke, gunshots, snappy French dialogue. What I enjoy most, however, is that it's just a great set-up. Half of the film takes place in a room where a man has a stand-off with the police after he is found murdering another man. Then through flashbacks we slowly piece together how he has come to this point. If I had a complaint, it's that the film feels a little too conscious of its mood at times, too aware of itself. But that's a complaint I can level at a lot of my favorite films so I'll let it go.

Le Corbeau

Le Corbeau (1943)

The Gist:

Le Corbeau, or The Raven, is a fascinating film made in the midst of nazi-occupied France. It is apparently based on real events, where a "poison pen" sends hundreds of anonymous notes informing dark secrets on his fellow man, causing an uproar. In the film, the protagonist is a self-righteous doctor accused of being an abortionist, and the letters are purposed towards removing him from the town. Eventually hysteria builds to such heights that an innocent woman, who is thought to be the poison pen, is chased through the streets in a mob scene recalling Frankenstein. Likewise, the police try to ensnare the doctor in a set-up abortion as to finally be rid of him and consequently rid of the letters as well. Within the running time of the film, the morality of man is called into question, the idea that there is a clear right and wrong, good and evil. The film itself stands up well, but it's also a curious study in touching a sensitive nerve at a sensitive time. Essentially this film was denounced and banned by nearly every place of authority in France both during the occupation and following France's newly won freedom afterward. The Nazis didn't like that it spoke ill of informing, the French underground resistance movement felt like it worked against unifying the French people, the church cried "Blasphemous!" as usual, and so on. What's most curious is how the government after the occupation continued the ban on the film, almost embarrassed at the film's window into their country's darkest moment.

Blue Vinyl

Blue Vinyl (2002)

[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0303307/]

The Gist:

This was a pleasant, indie documentary about the evils of vinyl. It strikes that same cord of evil corporation responsible for cancer, cover ups, greed, so on. Basically if you've watched Erin Brockovich you can get the idea. Thankfully it approaches everything with a sense of humor, which I find is the only real way to tackle these subjects since they are so innumerous that I can't help but be depressed every time I see another documentary about how we're poisoning ourselves and headed towards a general path of self-destruction, only to have some tacked on resolution that we can really make a difference though sometimes I have a hard time thinking its anything but a losing battle. Oh well.

Week Forty-Eight

New Queue:

Stalag 17 (1953) - check

Daybreak (1939) - check

Le Corbeau (1943) - check

Blue Vinyl (2002) - check

Avant-Garde Short Films

I started an Avant-Garde cinema class, so I'll be posting a collection of the shorts I haven't seen before as an entry (it's allowed in my arbitrary rules, ha). This week:

Maya Deren - Ritual in Transfigured Time (1946)

[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038885/]

Maya Deren - Study in Choreography for the Camera (1945)

[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0124148/]

Kenneth Anger - Fireworks (1947)

[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0039383/]

Kenneth Anger - Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome (1954)

[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0047114/]

Response to Inauguration for my class

High School

High School (1968)

[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0064429/]

The Gist:

High School is an observational, fly on the wall, documentary. By that, it means that there is no voice of god VO, no questions being heard from the filmmaker, and an attempt to illuminate the intrusive presence of the filmmaking process altogether in hopes to capture a truer sense of reality. Of course, there are plenty of moments in this film where you can feel the subjects reacting in a way that is different than if they were not being filmed and the editing continues to add subjectivity to the content but so it goes, nothing's perfect. There is still a distilled truth at work in this documentary, both a sense of the times and something that feels very contemporary. I was the greatest fan of high school myself. It wasn't that I didn't have good teachers, because I had plenty of them, but the system itself is a claustrophobic and unnecessarily, inflexibly bureaucratic. This film reminded me a lot of my high school experience. I could feel an intense truth at work amidst the mild artifice.

Freedom For Us

Liberty For us (1931)

[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0022599/]

The Gist:

This is an early talkie by Rene Clair, and unlike many of its contemporary counterparts it has a decidedly minimalist approach to the use of dialogue. Clair was known to speak out against the trend of dialogue running amok in early talkie pictures, and seemed to only use straight laced dialogue when the plot necessitated it. When he could, he preferred to pantomime or to say it in song. As a movie itself, I found it strikingly similar to Modern Times and so when I looked up the film I was unsurprised to find that Chaplin in fact based Modern Times on this film. Even more interesting is the fact that he never got the rights for it and the production company who held the rights to A nous la liberte sued Chaplin. Clair was not part of the suit, and was in fact friends with Chaplin and was honored that he had taken from his film as inspiration. In any case, Clair's film has some interesting commentary on industrialization that serve as an interesting precursor to the more timely Chaplin counterpart.

9

9 (2009)

[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0472033/]

The Gist:

9 is essentially an apocalyptic vision of the future where little sack dolls brought to life by the splintered soul of their creator battle against the fiendish AI metal contraptions that extinguished all of humanity in the first place. It sounds badass in theory, and looks pretty badass in practice, but the film has no real feel for its own narrative. For one thing, the pacing is just off, distractingly fast paced, where things move so swiftly that we never manage to care about any of it. For another, the dialogue and the voice acting just feels wrong. Shane Acker based this feature on a short film of his that was nominated for an oscar, and you'll notice that the concept works better without dialogue. After all, it helps sustain the mystery of this nihilistic vision, something that adding voices to it just ruins. They should have gone Wall-E on this shit, that's all I'm saying (mind you, I think Wall-E would have been better without all the chatting from the people in the space station too).

On Another Note:

You should avoid this feature and just watch the short. You'll get more out of the concept that way. I'm including it below.

Week Forty-Seven

New Queue:

9 (2009) - check

Freedom for Us (1931) - check

Avant-Garde Shorts - check

High School (1968) - check

On Another Note:

No IMDB 250 movie this week. I'm running pretty low on them anyway, I could probably spare a week.

Ikiru

Ikiru (1952)

IMDB #222 [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0044741/]

The Gist:

Ikiru started off as a film that had flashes of genius, but felt a little theatrical at times as well. For instance, I loved when the protagonist found out he had cancer he had this great scene staggering through his house while all these memories (in the form of flashbacks) flooded over him in an expert rhythmic editing sequence. At the same time, there were a few moments where some bit characters felt a little two-dimensional, particularly in their dialogue. And so I was prepared to enjoy a very good, but far from perfect Kurosawa film. And then the second half came and blew me away. The structure is so intriguing. In the first half of the film the protagonist searches for some way to make his life meaningful before he dies. Then the film flashforwards to his funeral, his action already fulfilled. Through the talk of the mourners, we find out more and more of how it happened, taking in their own perspectives of the man, how they learn that he did in fact know he had cancer. It's so beautifully orchestrated, and the scene near the end where he sings mournfully on the swings? It's out and out powerful.

Grand Illusion

Grand Illusion (1937)

[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0028950/]

The Gist:

Two Renoir films in a row, this one being probably Renoir's second most noted film in his oeuvre (following Rules of the Game, of course). The film plays out like a slightly more somber take on The Great Escape, where the morality of the film is less distinct. Here, we have a band of resolute French men who are bent on breaking out of their POW camp because (as it was emphasized in The Great Escape as well) that's just what you do, you help your side by making as much trouble for their side as possible. Namely, escape. Here though, we have a German figure who is seen as an outright sympathetic character, who even develops a strong friendship with one of the men in the group. I think it's from this later half of the film that the narrative strays from the enjoyable camaraderie that draws comparisons to its Steve McQueen counter part and starts to delve into darker territory. The escape forces the amiable German officer to fire his own weapon at this friend, two others from the group escape and nearly starve to death in the winter countryside of Germany, they are rescued by a German widow who begins a doomed Romance with Jean Gabin. The first half of the film was enjoyable, but the second half was absolutely poignant.

Night at the Crossroads

Night at the Crossroads (1932)

[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0023284/]

The Gist:

This is an early Renoir film, made in the beginning of the sound era, filled with odd film aesthetic choices and strange editing sequences and generally just a hot mess of a film. This makes it, at the same time, a fascinating entry for French cinema, where you can see the rules being broken in a way that would predate Hollywood Film Noir and French New Wave but without the precision of either movement. It follows a detective who solves a murder mystery, and the plot is average at best. Renoir would go on to make far more involving films, this one remains as a standout curiosity into the beginnings of his career (hard to find too).

Super High Me

Super High Me (2007)

[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1111833/]

The Gist:

Going off the formula of the Super Size Me movie, which in contrast to this film was at the time one of the most daring documentaries I had ever seen, Super High Me follows around its stand-up comedian protagonist as he goes 30 days without smoking pot and then 30 days smoking pot "every day, all day". There really is no great risk to this film, no staggering insight uncovered. All it really shows is that people can be more or less functional pot heads and I already knew that. Of course, it varies on the individual, which is a nuance that is beyond this film because it's stilted to begin with using a character who already has successfully lived a life as a functional pot head. If they really wanted to make an interesting film they would have expanded their research to more than one test subject. But whatever, the film's entertaining because essentially it's just Doug Benson the comedian riffing on pot, chatting with his famous comedian buddies, and then the movie's over. I do think his comedy was a little sharper when he was sober, but the difference is fairly minimal.

Week Forty-Six

New queue:

Super High Me (2007) - check

Night at the Crossroads (1932) - check

Grand Illusion (1937) - check

Ikiru (1952) - check

Frankenstein

Frankenstein (1931)

[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0021884/]

The Gist:

I wonder if a gist is really necessary, since the elements of the Frankenstein movie are so pervasive that you know most of the film coming into it. I will say the German Expressionist stylistic flourishes are a welcome sight and that the film succeeds a great deal in its simplicity. It doesn't try to hone in too heavily on the themes of Shelley's book, but allows those themes to come to the surface naturally and concisely. The film only lasts an hour and ten minutes and really should have ended with the shot of the mill burning down. That was the poetic ending. The next scene where Dr. Frankenstein is being nursed back to health by his fiancée while his father rattles on in a way that I suppose was intended to be charming, that was the forced Hollywood ending that hurts my soul. Also, I don't know why Boris Karloff was so good at making "NGGH!!!" sounds and waving around his arms frenetically but he totally was. Good on you dead Russian guy whose name didn't even get into the original credits.

Stalker

Stalker (1979)

[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079944/]

The Gist:

Stalker is the second film I've seen by Andrei Tarkovsky, and is perhaps even more ambitious and subtle than the darkly fascinating Solaris. Here we have a man, known as a "stalker," who leads the abject and meek into a place known as "the zone". The zone is an area cordoned off by the Russian military forces, a mysterious place where a supposed asteroid fell, and then there's some mystical shit about how there's a room that can grant anyone's inner most desire, things like that. It has an odd science fiction/fantasy slant, but it's like Tarkovsky exploits this instead of falls to the trappings of convention (although that would have made a great film too). Instead, what we have is an interesting premise that gives way to beautifully colorful Terrence Malik-esque cinematography of the zone (contrasting the subtle Lynchian-esque drab browns of the world outside of the zone), that gives way to the stalker preaching strange poetic verses, about the miserable men in tow pontificating on the nature of the zone and the room and the path of men. It's fucking awesome, and Jesus is it beautiful. Two hours and thirty five minutes that could almost be described as a visual poem.

The Crow

The Crow (1994)

[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109506/]

The Gist:

It's a campy indie film that has an appeal based on terrible dialogue and overacting and the occasional gratuitous action scene. It more or less succeeds on this level, and has a morbid appeal beyond that due to:

A. It being in the city I currently live in, where I can occasionally go "Oh hey, that's Wilmington, I recognize that"

B. The story of Brandon Lee's death and the curiosity of how it affected the final cut of the film.

Honestly, beyond that it's an enjoyably forgettable experience.

A Single Man

A Single Man (2009)

[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0023284/]

The Gist:

The best way to describe A Single Man is to say that it is a beautifully shot portrait of grief. While that may seem completely complimentary, there are some short comings to that kind of description. Namely, the film occasionally gives the feeling of being too well staged, too beautifully rendered. For the most part this tendency is anchored by Colin Firth's performance, which is subtle and enigmatic. And honestly, the stylistic flourishes eventually won me over, particularly the way color is used to symbolize passion and life. By the end of the film, when Colin Firth recited his voice over monologue the film had me. The sentiments voiced in those final minutes are so honest they hurt and the movie should have really ended there. Instead, it took it one scene to far and it felt like it tried to wrap things up a little toward the end. All in all, they are kind of nitpicking points. The film is rich with moments of tension and frustration and unfiltered beauty, and is one of the better films to come out in the last year.

Week Forty-Five

New Queue:

A Single Man (2009) - check
The Crow (1994) - check
The Stalker (1979) - check
Frankenstein (1931) - check

Eleven Months

Holy shit, only one month left of this thing. And I only broke my rules one week (some time back before the oscars I did a week of newer films to try and catch up). Anyway, self-congratulations and retrospect forthcoming upon its completion, along with modified rules for a new year.

Top five films of the month, in no particular order:

Solaris
Control
For a Few Dollars More
Amarcord
Charade

Honorable Mention: The Adversary, Rebecca, The Fly, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Secret in Their Eyes

Rebecca

Rebecca (1940)
IMDB #97 [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0032976/]

The Gist:
I spent a good deal of time being annoyed with this film only to find out that I hadn't any need to be. And I don't know how to explain that without giving information about the plot so in case anyone does stumble upon this (doubtful), I will reserve my comments. I will only say that this is a Hitchcock film that doesn't quite feel like his early work in England and doesn't quite feel like the better known suspense films he would be known for in the later stages of his career. I suppose it's a bit of a transitional film then, and as such it makes sense that this is the only film of his to win an oscar for best picture (after all, he was never quite their taste as it were). I don't think it's one of his best films, but it is very engrossing, especially as things came to a close. Not so much in suspense, more because of a genuine interest in the characters. I credit the book more for this though, and can't help but feel that something was lost in the translation which is mere speculation having not actually read the book. It's not that the film was bad, merely that I have some odd feeling that the book could be incredible and the film couldn't quite keep up tonally at times.

Amarcord

Amarcord (1973)
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071129/]

The Gist:
Amarcord is one of the stranger Fellini films I've seen. I found it a little off-putting at first, the way the film tries to encapsulate the essence of the town instead of presenting any plot movement (by the way, there is none). This feeling persisted until about a half hour into the film when I felt the rhythm settle itself around two different anchors: 1. A small Italian family and 2. A presumably omniscient narrator character a la "Our Town". Through these two anchors we are given a portrait of Italian life moments before the ruin of World War II had set in. The film did not reference the fascist rule of Mussolini too much. In fact, one elongated sequence of the man visiting the small town was the most it ever figured prominently in the plot. Given the title's translation though (Amarcord = I Remember), you can get the sense of the nostalgia the director is attempting to harness, the carefree moments before death and subsequent financial hardship. The film lacks the primal force of the directors magnificent string of subsequent films in the late fifties and early sixties (8 1/2, La Dolce, Cabiria) but it had these astonishing moments that really blew me away. My favorite was the gorgeous sequence in the fog where the grandfather of the family mused to himself as he wandered around lost about whether this was what the afterlife was like and saying if so he didn't care for it.

The Fly

The Fly (1986)
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091064/]

The Gist:
The creation of Brundle-Fly! Half scientist Seth Brundle, half house fly, all crazy manic sugar eating wall climbing body deteriorating goodness. In Cronenburg's remake of the original (something I still haven't seen), we jump rather quickly into a romance between scientist and investigative reporter that is sidetracked by a drunken night where Jeff Goldblum jumps into his teleportation device without much safety precautions verified (it had only turned an orangutan inside out a few scenes beforehand) and gets his genes spliced with a fly and spends the rest of the movie turning into a monster while making odd scientific observations about his process and getting into arm-wrestling matches at the local bar. A good time to be had by all, even though by the end the sheer wig out factor of this film is pretty high. For instance, a jaw just drops off of Brundle-Fly's face and flops on the floor like a fish. That part was pretty gross.

Solaris

Solaris (1972)
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069293/]

The Gist:
Solaris is a film that evokes a bizarre poetry about the nature of humanity, of how we connect to other human beings, of our sense of purpose. It follows a psychologist to a space station left in ruins where a crew of 93 or so (I forget the actual number) has dwindled to just two. What has happened to the entire crew is something of a mystery, though we have two cases we know of that we can draw conclusions from (1. a recent Suicide and 2. some rescue mission to the alien planet the station orbits). To make a long story short, the alien planet has some strange consciousness that the station is studying and apparently has the ability to manifest human beings from the astronauts subconscious, thus creating a now immortal replication of the protagonists wife who keeps trying to kill herself and can't. Is this sounding awesome to you yet? Because it should. However, all the fascinating aspects of the plot aside, this film is one of the better films I've ever seen due to all the bizarre risks the director takes: switching back and forth between black and white, strange lyrical sections where the plot evaporates like when you sit and watch some cacophonous ballet of traffic for ten minutes, and so on and so forth. Most importantly, it broods on the nature of life and creation, and this duality of the mystery of our own creation when contrasted with the self-aware creations of the alien planet.

Week Forty-Four

New Queue:

Solaris (1972) - check
The Fly (1986) - check
Amarcord (1973) - check
Rebecca (1940) - check

The Adversary

The Adversary (1971)
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066237/]

The Gist:
Satyajit Ray is probably the only Indian director I know by name, a man more influenced by Italian Neorealism and French New Wave and the Swedish art movement (of which I really only know Bergman but I know there's more to it than that) and so on and who doesn't resemble even a little of what Indian cinema is currently known for (ie Bollywood). The first film I saw of Ray's was The World of Apu, which was a great movie experience for me. I don't think The Adversary is as compelling, particularly because through a lot of the film the protagonist feels too passive and because the surrealist imagery feels far to transparent and on the nose (especially when compared to late phase Fellini or Bergman). I do, however, think this is a beautiful film that grows into itself nicely, and whose closing moments truly reflect the work of the master. Particularly when I saw the ending minutes of the film, I knew that Ray had a perfect ending on his hands. That along with the character's emergence into action and the spark of a love interest really validated the film's weaker moments for me.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049366/]

The Gist:
Ah, the campy 50s sci-fi thriller B-movie with social relevance, where some unknown alien threat is taking over the innocent people of small town, USA and replacing them with emotionless drones spurring the paranoiac escapades of Joe Doctor and his high school sweet heart and some other people that aren't important save for alien pod fodder and how it all resembles the collective of communism where everyone is "the same" and thus are debased into evil carbon copies who drive through American highways with trucks full of pods to infect other small towns like a disease and Joe Doctor can't do anything except avoid sleeping lest he or High School Betty get turned into drones themselves and so they shoot themselves up with some anonymous secret stay awake drugs and run away a lot and finally its just Joe Doctor alone screaming frantically in a police station like a mad man with his hair all fussed and uh... Well, in other words, I liked the film.

Great Expectations

Great Expectations (1946)
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038574/]

The Gist:
An early David Lean film, just one year after Brief Encounter (a film I saw earlier in the project), doing a fairly classic rendition of Charles Dickens' Great Expectations (as opposed to Cuaron's more modernist take...which I just found out was by Alfonso Cuaron, kind of crazy). Anyway, the film can feel a little stagnate at times but for the most part I found it very entertaining in its own sort of strict formalist sort of way. What I think helped the film, and perhaps what I think propelled it to greater heights than its imperfect 1998 counterpart, is that it has this gothic vibe that is just very suitable for Dickensian atmosphere. The dark shadows of the graveyard and the cobwebs of the mansion and the dark waters as they make the harrowing escape near the end of the film, it all gives the narrative such life. Now if only the writing didn't feel just a little stale.

Control

Control (2007)
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0421082/]

The Gist:
Control is a minimalist biopic about Ian Curtis, the lead singer from Joy Division. Before this film I had vaguely heard of Joy Division but I didn' t know any of their music, and I didn't know anything about Curtis' life. I liked it that way because the film was something of an intense discovery on both fronts for me. The music is bare, stripped down, very primal, strikes a good cord, and as a character study Curtis is pretty fascinating. However, with only that considered you only have the ingredients of a good biopic. The execution, the performances, and particularly the editing elevate this rather effortlessly to a truly great film. Honest, if I ever taught editing classes I would use this as an example of an extremely engaging style. It allows each moment to breath and yet makes its cuts and transitions before the natural moment (in terms of a more traditional film aesthetic), which keeps things off balance but also cuts into the heart of each scene very well. That bizarrely efficient style mixed with the minimalism, the music, the powerful performances from the three leads... It was a shame when the film was over.

Week Forty-Three

New Queue:

Control (2007) - check
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) - check
Great Expectations (1946) - check
The Adversary (1971) - check

Charade

Charade (1963)
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056923/]

The Gist:
Okay, let's side step the fact that Cary Grant looks really old in this film (sorry Cary), and focus on the excellent writing and odd tonality of the whole thing, particularly anchored in what is possibly the best Audrey Hepburn performance I have ever seen. The director takes the writing, takes what could be sort of zany and madcap and instead subdues all these moments creating a more stark absurdist humor. This is evident in all the performances, but none more than Hepburn who comes off a little crazy and is all the more fascinating for it. The way most would engage in the dialogue is in a carefree, nonchalant, rattle off the top of the head delivery that screwball comedies tend to go for. However, Hepburn uses the dialogue as a means to entice, to enliven, almost to attack. Her character seems moody and cynical in the opening moments of the film, which soon gives way to an obsession with a new love in Cary Grant. The love isn't logical because Hepburn's character isn't logical, and with that we are finally given a good reason for Hollywood's tendency to make characters fall in love within a few days of knowing someone. In terms of plot, the film plays out the way you think it would, with a plot twist you can see coming a mile away. But it's sort of inconsequential at that point.

For a Few Dollars More

For a Few Dollars More (1965)
IMDB #121 [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059578/]

The Gist:
For a Few Dollars More is a continuation of Leone's famous Man With No Name Trilogy, which starts with the carbon copy of Kurosawa's Yojimbo and ends with the glorious holy grail of westerns that is The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Between the two, For a Few Dollars More is much closer to latter. Of course, what I didn't realize until I watched this film is that the three are more of a spiritual trilogy than an explicit one. For some reason it took Van Cleef being a villain in The Good and ending up being a pretty swell guy in For a Few Dollars for me to go "wait a second, they aren't the same character, are they?" Anyway, not that Fistful of Dollars isn't excellent, but this film feels more original (because it is), more visually stunning, more tautly directed. We get badass shootouts, Mexican standoffs, people shooting a cigar from Eastwood's mouth and Eastwood calmly smoking the butt that is left (because he's a badass), and so on. One of the best Westerns ever made, and still debatably only Leone's third best. Guy is an animal.

Predator

Predator (1987)
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093773/]

The Gist:
Sometimes when you watch a wide range of movies, certain standard viewings fall by the waist side. This was the case with Predator, where the film was coming out and I had to admit that I had never seen any of the other Predator movies before. So before I watched Adrien Brody do his best Batman voice as he kicked ass on an Alien world, I sat down and watched Arnold cover himself with mud and fuck up an Alien with a tree trunk and a makeshift wooden bow and arrow. The film works more as a cult movie than as anything more substantive, but the grisly deaths and the anticipation of the Predators arrival works very well here. I also like how near impossible it is to kill the damn thing, makes for good action. However, I do think that after firing thousands of bullets at this guy, it seems a little lame that he's done in by a tree trunk dropping on his ass. Just saying.

Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2009)
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1132620/]

The Gist:
Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is a Swedish film based on a popular book series, and it has a lot going for it. It utilizes what works in the book very well: it's taut, it's character's are interesting, the plot is vaguely depraved in a way that is kind of fascinating. However, I will say that something is lost in translation. First of all, the film tries to tackle too much of the book and ends up with a two hour and twenty four minute running time. Now this wouldn't be so bad in and of itself if it wasn't for the slipshod way the film is editing in order to save time to fit everything in. The overall impact of the editing left me feeling like the moments in the film never had any time to breathe. This could have been solved by starting the film later in the action, letting the information about the trail come second hand through conversation. Also the the film's list of suspects just feels so much smaller than it did in the book, which is a serious problem and gives the genre piece a claustrophobic feeling. However, all the technical issues aside, the actors were perfect for their roles and the movie is still very entertaining.

Week Forty-Two

New Queue:

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2009) - check
For a Few Dollars More (1965) - check
Predator (1987) - check
Charade (1963) - check

The Machinist

The Machinist (2004)
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0361862/]

The Gist:
Yes, that emaciated holocaust survivor looking so and so is Christian Bale and yes that's kind of fucking crazy. Bale has been hailed for his performance in this film and with good reason. I have never seen an actor sacrifice so much for the sake of a role. It kind of puts roles like De Niro in Raging Bull and Clooney in Syriana and Leto in Chapter 27 to shame, mainly because in this film Bale seriously looks close to death. In terms of the movie itself, it is disturbing in a way that I find very reminiscent to David Lynch films, particularly Eraser Head. Both films have the same quality of distilling a setting, making it feel less like a real place and more like a nightmare dreamscape. However, whereas Lynch films would spiral into chaos, this film veers into clarity as the ending approaches and the film is both better and worse for it. The quality of the nightmare dissipates, the landscape of Los Angeles becomes more recognizable, a reason for the insanity is given to wrap everything up neatly making an intriguing game of piecing things together. However, the ending doesn't share the disturbing heft of the rest of the film.

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988)
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095031/]

The Gist:
I honestly haven't seen many old school Steve Martin films, which is a bit of a travesty. This film has him starring opposite Michael Caine, and the two work off each other very well. They play two con men who spend the film sparring against each other, as the film escalates to ridiculous heights like Steve Martin becoming a Navy officer paraplegic and Caine becoming a renowned German doctor who can cure Martin of his condition, and so on like that. Caine's dialogue is particularly well written as a suave swindler with a moral code, while Martin's character has a bit less depth (namely, he's a likable moron). The film isn't the best comedy I've ever seen, it has plenty of formula and everything is so ridiculous that you know these cons could never work in real life (unlike something like Brothers Bloom where I kind suspend belief a bit easier). However, the film is a piece of light fun, which we should always appreciate.

Days of Wine and Roses

Days of Wine and Roses (1962)
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0055895/]

The Gist:
Days of Wine and Roses is a film about alcoholism and every moment it pretends to be about something else, the film falls a bit flat (with the exception of how the couple meet, which is very charming). Honestly, I didn't care much for the film until it got into the heart of its conflict which was well past an hour into the running time. As Jack Lemmon's character struggles with sobriety and the knowledge that he is an alcoholic, there are so many rich moments in the film that it makes me forgive the fact that I found it so boring up until the half-way mark. Lemmon's dilemma is two-fold, not only must he conquer his own alcoholism but he must find a way not to slip back into it as he tries to bring his wife back from the brink herself. His love for her soon becomes a great hindrance to his recovery as she proves a harder case, denying even that she is an alcoholic as she gluts herself on Gin in a dirty hotel room. The film's depiction of alcoholism is unfortunately a bit melodramatic and feels a little disingenuous, but that's something I'll live with if the conflict is good. Here, it's very good, but you have to wait for it.

The Secret in Their Eyes

The Secret in Their Eyes (2009)
IMDB #172 [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1305806/]

The Gist:
Here we have the film that beat out White Ribbon for the Foreign Language Oscar, and after watching it the choice makes a lot of sense. First of all, let's get something out of the way, this film is not as good as White Ribbon. It's beautifully filmed (although White Ribbon's cinematography is phenomenal and not comparable), it runs very smoothly as a suspenseful drama, it's well acted...but with all that considered it relies quite a bit on formula. Don't get me wrong, it takes a certain number of refreshing risks and it is done very well but the film still feels like something I've seen before (something you could not accuse of White Ribbon). The Secret in Their Eyes is perhaps more of an enjoyable viewing, but the films that have to do with detectives (in this case a court official who takes up the detective role) who are obsessed with a case unsolved are innumerable and unlike a film I just recently watched that will be featured next week (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) this film brings nothing new to the idea except pitch perfect execution.

Week Forty-One

It's been a while since I've posted a queue I haven't seen all of yet. New queue:

The Secret in Their Eyes (2009) - check
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988) - check
Days of Wine and Roses (1962) - check
The Machinist (2004) - check

Ten Months

Managed to get through this month without cheating (so tempting). Here's the top five in no particular order:

Stray Dog
The Day the Earth Stood Still
From Dusk Till Dawn
Barton Fink
Rules of the Game

Honorable Mention: Kind Hearts and Coronets, Man on Wire, 4 Months 3 Weeks and 2 Days, Evil Dead 2, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Man on Wire

Man on Wire (2008)
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1155592/]

The Gist:
Man on Wire is a documentary that speaks to a sort of simple poetry, whereby walking on a wire hundreds of feet in the air is exalted as a spiritual experience, as a overwhelming purpose in the life of our protagonist. Immediately, then, we have one of the key components for an excellent documentary, a subject of innate interest. However, I also enjoy how the entire film works as a sort of slow build to the event, taking the audience pace by pace through the preparation and anxious moments until finally we arrive at dawn to this crazy French fucker doing tricks on the rope held taut between the two now nonexistant trade towers, avoiding the police and even mocking them, staying up on the rope for forty five minutes before finally coming down as the wind starts to pick up. This documentary technique was done with a greater pace and a stronger affect in The Cove (which unraveled like a heist film), but what Man on Wire lacks in suspense it makes up for with whimsical spirit.

Full Metal Jacket

Full Metal Jacket (1987)
IMDB #83 [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093058/]

The Gist:
Oddly, this film has a similar feel to From Dusk Till Dawn in that the first half and the second half feel like two completely separate movies that just happen to exist on one chronological plane. Granted, with Full Metal the shift isn't quite as severe but it is quite notable from the boot camp scenes to the leap forward to the thick of the Vietnam War. For my taste, I thought the second half of the film was expertly crafted, very very well done war film. The first half, on the other hand, felt a little uneven and a little dated. I think the whole hard as nails asshole drill instructor was probably a novel concept at the time, in fact I think this film has helped perpetuate the role. However, at times I would think to myself "yes, you're an asshole drill instructor who uses lots of dirty words, I get it". The most interesting thing about the first half was to see the progression of Joker and Pyle, which was good but overshadowed by the taut brilliance of the second half.