Why Write It Down When You Can Make A MUBI List? Part One of Twelve

By: Kai White

With a new year upon all of us, but more specifically, me, I have decided that it’s time for a 2011 New Year’s Cinephile resolution, of sorts. The primary thing is, I want to actually watch all of the movies I own a copy of – rather unfortunately, there are several that I’ve owned for years and never watched once. The next thing, and maybe just as important as the first goal, is to broaden my horizons. It is time for me to become more familiar with films outside of whatever regions or boundaries I have unintentionally set for myself. The last “resolution” is to, as we get closer to the end of the year, reevaluate some of the films I have listed as favorites, and some others that I didn’t list as a “favorite” that continue to resonate with me months and years after I’ve seen them. So, to that end, each month I’m setting up a bit of a project for myself – twenty films to watch that meet one of these three criteria, although, for the moment, I’m a bit more focused on the first two. And then, just to make sure I get around to the bottom of the list, I’ll tack on three silents that I’ve been meaning to get to :).

1 – 5 are selections recommended to me by other MUBI users. Many, many thanks to Chasing Butterflies for numbers 3, 4, and 5, numerous users for number 1, and both Javier Quintero and Venus Sands (but especially Javier’s work) for Passing The Meridian.

6 – 20 are in my DVD collection. There are several there that I have watched online, or maybe partially watched somewhere along the way, but, hell, I spent money on them, I should watch the damn DVD.

21 – 22 are silents I want to watch this month. Not included, because it’s not in the database, is:
Brudeferden i Hardanger – Rasmus Breistein (many thanks to Kuxa Kanema for the unintentional reminder)

Also, because one of my New Year’s resolutions was to read more, this month’s film related book will be -

Gender & Society in Contemporary Brazilian Cinema by David William Foster

Not sure how I came to possess this book, but it seems like a good source of future film-watching ideas.

Update – I have read as much of this as is humanly possible to understand without seeing the films he has analyzed. I must say, this is probably a companion piece to some college course out there (the book is short), but, damn, this guy needed an editor. Every sentence seems to encompass four different ideas over the span of about seventy words. So, it’s a rather tough read, but the thirteen films analyzed, for the edification of both myself and whoever else out there, list as follows.

Jorge um brasileiro
Lamarca
Opera do malandro
O boto
Capitalismo selvagem
Yndio do Brasil
A hora da estrela
Eternamente Pagu
Que bom te ver viva
Bananas Is My Business
Barrela
O beijo no asfalto
Vera

WATCHED

1-6-11 – Come Drink With Me – 6/10. Folks, be sure to learn Kung Fu from the Bamboo Sect. You will learn a.) how to use an air pressure hose inside you shirt sleeve, b.) the dreaded alcohol spit to the face, and c.) that no matter how determined or skilled the woman next to you is, if you’re a man, no matter what kind of man, your mission is surely more important.

1-7-11 – Westinghouse Works – 10/10. Some films simply have to be made when they’re made, by the people they’re made by, in the way that they’re made, and can’t exist any other way. This would be one of those. An interesting look at a "day in the life of . . . " of this massive factory, but this also functions now as a great tribute to the working class. Through all 21 segments of this, I was thinking, “WOW.” Brilliant time capsule, I loved it.

1-8-11 – Black God, White Devil – 8/10. I am capable of admitting that I respected the movie more than I liked it. Some parts were so vibrant and vital (Manoel’s fight with the cattle owner, everything involving Sebastian, Manoel’s laborious carrying of the rock) and hit me like a ton of bricks. Everything else was fine, but it was a little uneven in how it hit me. This is a good candidate for reevaluation somewhere down the road, though.

1-9-11 – Lucia – 8/10. You know, the one thing about making a film in three parts like this, one part invites comparisons to the others. As such, I LOVED the first part, thought part two was pretty good . . . but then part three did nothing for me. Overall, the film was very well done, but the energy of the first part (what an ending to that!) was lost about five minutes into the second part.

1-10-11 – The Diving Bell and The Butterfly – 7/10. I had the same problem here as I have with most bio-pics . . . I have no idea who any of the other people are, and I mostly find the idea of what they could be vastly more interesting than the main character. Still, it had some nice touches, and I was mostly emotionally responsive to it. This kind of straddles that fine line between three and four stars (out of five) for me.

1-11-11 – Passing The Meridian – 9/10. What a great experience! Seething social commentary provides us with the ultimate shitty day for a Colombian elevator operator. Check out Javier Quintero’s excellent intro thread for this movie here.

1-14-11 – Dog Day Afternoon – 4/10. Meh. MEH. I guess I’ll be nice and say this did nothing for me, outside of Durning’s performance. I think this would have sat better with me if I would have seen it as a teenager. Now, eh, not so much.

1-16-11 – Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb – 8/10. Sellers’ Dr. Strangelove is hilariously memorable. There are lots of parts to this that are, actually. Does that make it a great movie? I don’t think it really was, but it was very funny and entertaining, and that’ll get you a lot of places.

1-18-11 – Das Boot – 7/10. This manages to overcome some fairly large shortcomings mostly because it’s so entertaining. The secondary characters are so one note . . . actually, hell, so are the primary characters. That said, the story is very well-written, and it moves along at a good clip, so that even something as big as a “how the hell did they get out of that alive, and how the hell are they winning now?” moment gets glossed over.

1-19-11 – Harvest: 3000 Years – 10/10. Oh, wow. About as good a film as I’ve ever seen. It handles it’s own agenda very well, but it also infuses a lot of joy amongst that. I caught myself smiling just as much as any other reaction I was having. To be honest, I was a little worried that this might have been overrated by those who had discovered it, but I was dead wrong in that fear. I loved every second of it, and Kebebe is now one of my favorite characters in all of film.

1-20-11 – Center Stage – 8/10. I’m kind of torn here. The movie was incredible on a lot of levels. One of my major complaints about bio-pics is the lack of “fleshing out” the secondary characters, but that is not a problem here, thanks in large part to the cutaways of them filming this actual movie. But there in lies my only quibble with the movie, those cutaways really detract, for me, from the narrative flow of the film. Bonus point for trying something different, but it wasn’t the home run it might have been.

1-21-11 – Celine and Julie Go Boating – 6/10. Yeah, this just wasn’t for me. I get the story, I’m just not digging the storytelling. That said, it was at least better than other things I’ve watched, so I can’t really rate it any lower than this, but I didn’t enjoy myself.

1-22-11 – High and Low – 8/10. Damn, this was so good for most of the movie. I was really into it, but then the cops get to the point where they’ve figured out who the kidnapper is and have a chance to get Gondo’s money back . . . but they wait even longer to get the guy on murder, too? Hmm, I don’t know about that. The first hour and a half, though, is great.

1-23-11 – Romance for Bugle – 9/10. After having watched this movie, I immediately realized that not everyone will respond to it the same way I did. I also realized that I find it very tough to define my own taste, as I seem to gravitate to whatever makes me feel the most. I definitely felt a lot for Vojta and Terina and their tragic romance, their road left untravelled, and Vojta’s impossible request to retrieve a lost moment in time. Beautiful and heartbreaking, for me, anyway.

1-24-11 – The Deer Hunter – 5/10. I think that rating might be a point or two generous, but hey, maybe it’s not. I suppose the cast was good, I just didn’t think they were really asked to do much until the last hour. Speaking of which, that wedding just on screen was far longer than my real life one, I think. And I didn’t know that all that happened in Vietnam was russian roulette. That part must have been left out of my history books. Oh, there was more, you say? You wouldn’t know it by watching this.

1-25-11 – Entranced Earth – 9/10. It took me a while to grasp what was happening, but when the proverbial lightbulb turned on above my head, all of a sudden the world was right and the movie was near perfect. I wish I had those moments every day.

1-25-11 – Variety – 7/10. This definitely has it’s moments, and Jannings is always a pleasure to watch. There is some unintentional hilarity involved, though, such as when Berta-Marie throws herself dramatically down the stairs towards the end. All in all, though, not a bad watch.

1-27-11 – The Horse Thief – 8/10. I was more than a little shocked by Norbu killing the lamb, not because I’m an animal lover (I’m not), but it was just a jarring moment in what I considered to be an otherwise quiet little movie. I don’t know what I expected really – I liked the whole movie, quite a bit actually, it was just missing that extra special whatever to make it a great one.

1-28-11 – Hunger – 8/10. I watched this on my computer a while ago, and I have to say, watching it on my TV made a world of difference. Oscarsson’s performance is ridiculously good, and most of the movie finds all the right notes, except that girl, and that’s the same problem I had watching it on my computer. Absolutely worth watching for Oscarsson, though.

1-30-11 – The Hidden Fortress – 6/10. This is not particularly my cup o’ tea, as it needs two stumbledoofuses to propel the action forward. That’s never been a narrative ploy that I’ve appreciated. I thought the transitions from one scene to the next were grossly overused, as well. Nevertheless, it’s got it’s moments, especially the Fire Festival.

1-30-11 – A Deadly Invention – 7/10. The animation and visuals were outstanding, and there were certain parts of this that were really very well done, especially the sinking of the Amelie, but outside of it’s “cool” factor, the story here was fairly inconsequential. Regardless of how I feel about it, I’m quite impressed with how unique an experience it was.

1-30-11 – Khrustalyov, My Car! – 6/10. I’m not supposing that rating does it justice, but it does reflect how I feel about the film. There were some parts of it I wish would continue for hours, some parts I’d rather not have been in there, and the whole last hour was a let down for me. Still, The General is one of the most creative characters I can recall having seen, and he was worth the price of admission. Well, I didn’t pay to see it, but you get my point, I’m sure . . .

1-31-11 – Brudeferden i Hardanger – 7/10. Most of the Scandinavian silents I’ve watched have one or two “gut punch” moments, where you feel like you’ve just gotten the wind knocked out of you (or, at least, I do). But this is like the slow, simmering version. It’s a little bit of a laborious watch because of it’s pace, but if you’re a restoration buff, this is as good a print as you’re likely to see of anything from 1926 that isn’t commonplace to have around. The acting isn’t particularly good for the era, but I’m really impressed with how completely different this felt from other films of the region and time period.