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