Stardust Memories (1980) - check
Brazil (1985) - check
Five Easy Pieces (1970) -check
Screening Pastiche:
Avant-Garde Cinema - check
Friday, October 29, 2010
Hands on a Hard Body
Hands on a Hard Body (1997)
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)
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)
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.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Retro-Viewing: Exit Through the Gift Shop
Exit Through the Gift Shop (2010)
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).
Thursday, October 21, 2010
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)
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)
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
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Cleo from 5 to 7 (1962)
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
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
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)
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)
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)
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.
Saturday, October 9, 2010
Retro-Viewing: The Signal
The Signal (2007)
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.
Saturday, October 2, 2010
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
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