Delicatessen (France, 1991, Jeunet & Caro) – 9/10
Raising Arizona (US, 1987, Coen Bros.) – 7.5/10
Richard Pryor: Live In Concert (Margolis, 1979) 9/10
I’m not sure the movie’s visuals do real justice to Pryor’s performance. At least they don’t event try to compete with the brilliance of its subject, who is at the height of his powers here. This film reminds you what a mensch Pryor was at heart despite his demons. And what a killer as a comedian!
Being There [1979, Hal Ashby] — 9/10
Sellers gives the performance of a lifetime. This is one of my favorite comedies.
Punch-Drunk Love [2002, Paul Thomas Anderson] — 8.5/10
I love this film.
Watched a few more shorts on YouTube, this time animated.
I Met The Walrus (Dir. Josh Raskin, 2007) – 4/5
A recorded interview between a 14 year old and John Lennon animated.
Procrastination (Dir. Johnny Kelly, 2007) – 4.5/5
Animated definitions of procrastination.
Operator (Dir. Matthew Walker, 2007) – 4/5
A man asks for God’s number through the telephone operator.
Magnetic Movie (Dirs. Ruth Jarman and Joe Gerhart, 2009) – 4/5
Natural magnetic fields explained by researchers and animated before our eyes.
Rabbit (Dir. Run Wrake, 2005) – 4.5/
A quite macabre tale of two children who kill a rabbit only to discover a magical idol inside it.
THE ROOM (Wiseau, 2003)
2/10
THE ROOM is mind-bendingly, achingly bad. How on earth did this get made?
Yes, an Ed Wood film is the only possible comparison.
I think Wiseau was trying to make a kind of Giallo… a crime-drama with noirish aspects and plenty of sex.
Where did Wiseau acquire the money to make this? And do you suppose he’ll perversely recoup his expenditures?
The script is appallingly written, filled with ghastly non-sequiturs, and Wiseau hasn’t the strength or intelligence to direct his actors. All the actors are novices who understand nothing about a line reading…. how to punch the operative word in a line.
Wiseau also understands very little about American culture and his command of the English language is limited at best.
Wiseau needs to understand the Socratian dictum on drama: A PROBABLE IMPOSSIBILITY IS BETTER THAN AN IMPROBABLE POSSIBILITY.
THE ROOM (Wiseau, 2003)
2/10
THE ROOM is mind-bendingly, achingly bad. How on earth did this get made?
Yes, an Ed Wood film is the only possible comparison.
I think Wiseau was trying to make a kind of Giallo… a crime-drama with noirish aspects and plenty of sex.
Where did Wiseau acquire the money to make this? And do you suppose he’ll perversely recoup his expenditures?
The script is appallingly written, filled with ghastly non-sequiturs, and Wiseau hasn’t the strength or intelligence to direct his actors. All the actors are novices who understand nothing about a line reading…. how to punch the operative word in a line.
Wiseau also understands very little about American culture and his command of the English language is limited at best.
Wiseau needs to understand the Socratian dicym on drama: A PROBABLE IMPOSSIBILITY IS BETTER THAN AN IMPROBABLE POSSIBILITY.
THE ROOM (Wiseau, 2003)
2/10
THE ROOM is mind-bendingly, achingly bad. How on earth did this get made?
Yes, an Ed Wood film is the only possible comparison.
I think Wiseau was trying to make a kind of Giallo… a crime-drama with noirish aspects and plenty of sex.
Where did Wiseau acquire the money to make this? And do you suppose he’ll perversely recoup his expenditures?
The script is appallingly written, filled with ghastly non-sequiturs, and Wiseau hasn’t the strength or intelligence or flexibility to direct his actors. All the actors are novices who understand nothing about a line reading…. how to punch the operative word in a line.
Wiseau also understands very little about American culture and his command of the English language is limited at best. This is a problem if you’re making an American movie. You start to realize just how skillful and successful Roman Polanski was when he made his early movies set in Britain and the USA.
Wiseau needs to understand the Socratian dictum on drama: A PROBABLE IMPOSSIBILITY IS BETTER THAN AN IMPROBABLE POSSIBILITY.
THE ROOM could be very useful in filmschools…. in providing a veritable textbook on what NOT to do in filmmaking…
Alice in Wonderland. 7.
I liked it , a lot, the movie was a reminder of what imagination, vision, wonder, desire, determination and a belief in your dreams can do for our lives. I’ve always wanted to be mad, bonkers, off your head.
Hey David…did you like the Room? ;) j/k
Beach Boys and the Satan (german produced in English)
very lucid and factual account of the ties the band had with Manson and depression through Brian Wilson’s close up interview confessions and old studio footage rarely seen…worth seeing for a grim look at the death of the hippie movement ( the manson/tate murders being closely related to Manson’s relationship with Dennis Wilson and the record producer living with Tate at the time) 8/10
Assasination of Jesse James by the coward Robert Ford
beautifully shot and surprisingly well acted…a lot of scenes with built up tension make this just shy of something as intense as There will be Blood…the all too literal and distracting narration and over the top climactic ‘assasination’ score keep this one from being truly great for me.
7.5/10
the squid and the whale. i know, i’m late to that party.
9.5/10
i thought the acting was brilliant, because all of the characters are ridiculously unlikable, but you still relate to all of them. it’s kind of saying, “hey, you’re all shitty people.” i also really enjoyed how walt went back to the museum like he was redeeming himself.
plus, you can’t go wrong when you put noah baumbach and wes anderson on the same movie.
Make Way for Tomorrow
I had pretty high expectations for it, considering all of the praise it has been getting lately since finally being released on DVD. It pretty much blew me away. Five stars, highly recommended.
“Les Miserables” (1933-34) 9.5/10.
After “Wooden Crosses”, the second, third and fourth of Raymond Bernard’s major sound films from France are, together, considered the most comprehensive cinema adaptation done of Hugo’s novel.
Criterion has assembled the “Miz” films onto 2 discs running 4hrs, 40mins.
Harry Baur gives one of the great screen performances as Valjean, going from bitter convict to respected gentleman, but always dogged by obsessive, misguided police chief Javert (an intense Charles Vanel.)
Baur makes us care about this bitter hulk who initially violates the goodness shown him, later to work for atonement while Hugo teaches us about the many ways we steal and hurt.
Valjean’s tenderness towards the orphan girl, his honesty when charged, this is material that can make you weep at simple moments, simple gestures. It is melodrama, yes, but underpinned with great honesty and understanding.
Bernard’s breaking-the-boundaries style uses expressionism and theatrical flourishes, and also free-wheeling hand-held camera work and long tracking shots (a similar technique he used in ‘Wooden Crosses’, his anti-war epic.) I did all of “Miz” in one go, and given the linearity of the story, it benefits the viewing.
If you want to treat yourself to some strong storytelling, and get an early-sound cinema education by a master director who inexplicably has fallen through the collective cracks, “Les Miserables” and “Wooden Crosses” will bring it home in spades.
And some short films…
Tuna Tune (Dir. Anne Delporte, 2009) – A look at a Tokyo fish market where the numerous calls and sounds also become rhythmic as the film goes along. – 8/10
I Graduated, But… (Dir. Yasujiro Ozu, 1929) – My first Ozu and a good one as that. A recent college graduate finds himself suffering from unemployment. – 8/10
Sunday aka. Domingo (Dir. Nacho Vigalondo, 2007) – From the director of Timecrimes is a tale of a couple who bicker over the importance of recording a UFO sighting over the video containing their honeymoon film. – 8/10
Island (Dir. Fyodor Khitruk, 1973) – A man on an island finds himself being exploited by everyone who passes when he only wants to be rescued. – 9/10
Paradise (Dir. Jesse Rosensweet, 2007) – The restricted world of 50s America (?) through mechanised tin puppets. The message is obvious but its striking and the production values to get the figures to work are brilliant. – 8/10
Genre (Dir. Don Hertzfeldt, 1996) – A hapless cartoon rabbit suffers through multiple genres by his creator. – 7/10
Alice In Wonderland (Dirs. Cecil Hepworth & Percy Stow, 1903) – The first and older adaptation of the Lewis Carol story, only surviving despite the massive damage to the film because of the BFI. – 6/10
Blazes (Dir. Robert Breer, 1961) – A series of rapid-cut images of abstract paintings and images. – 8/10
Short Circit aka. Trumpas sujungimas (Dir. Antanas Janauskas, 2003) – A Lithuanian animation about two people, a man and a woman, coming together when their two halves of a boulder connect together. – 8/10
Schwechaer (Dir. Peter Kubelka, 1958) – An Austrian beer company asked an avant-garde artist to make an ad, and after many months losing patience with him editing the thing together, they got a 90 second long abstract work with extreme rapid cutting images of barely visible people drinking beer that probably didn’t help sell beer but is remarkably interesting. – 8/10
The Big Shave (Dir. Martin Scorsese, 1967) – A Martin Scorsese short which is apparently a reaction to Vietnam but is much better just to see a well made surreal work of a man continually shaving until he mutilates himself. It definitely shows where Scorsese would go in his later work, and as someone who already had a phobia to shaving with razors, I felt creeped out by its gruesomeness. – 8/10
Red Hot Riding Hood (Dir. Tex Avery. 1943) – When the characters in the fairy tale complain of having to do the same old story in the same old way, the story gets transformed is a steamy, surreal piece of animated slapstick at its best. – 10/10
Russian Ark
Alexander Sokurov
2002
9.8/10
Noise
Tony Spiridakis
2005
9.5/10
Shutter Island (Martin Scorsese – 2010) 8/10
I liked this a lot more than I was expecting. Predictable story, but great acting and absolutely stunning cinematography.
The Messenger (Oren Moverman – 2009) 6/10
Again very predictable and nothing too interesting to say about war or soldiering, but very good acting. Ben Foster is turning out to be one of the more interesting Hollywood young guns, and Harrelson is getting better with age.
Pandorum (Christian Alvart – 2009) Woof!
Nothing to see here folks. Move along.
Odds Against Tomorrow (Robert Wise – 1959) 8/10
Excellent noir with a couple of great performances by the two leads. Very nicely shot.
The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek (Preston Sturges – 1944) 8.5/10
Very funny with some priceless dialogue. You should catch this film immediately, if not sooner!
Hail The Conquering Hero (Preston Sturges – 1944) 7.5/10
A bit too ‘messagey’ at the end which kind of took the shine of this one for me, but still very good.
Tunes of Glory (Ronald Neame – 1960) 7.5/10
Takes a while to get going, but is quite an absorbing character piece once it heats up. As great as Alec Guinness is his ‘Scottish’ accent is pretty bad here.
Dolls (1987) Stuart Gordon – 7/10
Rumplesink: I caught a bit of Tunes of Glory on TCM a few months back. Looked kind of interesting, but I had forgotten the title ’til now. :D
S. - Ronald Neame films are usually a good bet.
Rumplesink: What else has he directed? Anything in particular that you’d recommend?
The Horse’s Mouth
Gambit
The Million Pound Note
The Man Who Never Was
Hopscotch
The Odessa File
I’ve always had a soft spot for The Poseidon Adventure too.
Rumplesink: Thanks, I’ll look into those. :)
Gambit sounds especially familiar.
It’s a hoot. Michael Caine and Shirley MacLaine. It’s a heist movie.
Rumplesink: Ah yes, I just looked it up! I remember having read that the Coens supposedly considered remaking it.
+ 1,000 for mentioning The Horse’s Mouth
Buffalo ’66 – 5/5
“Ronald Neame films are usually a good bet.”
cough, cough, cough……said by the guy who’s “exploring” cinema, cough, cough, cough…
Hey dimitrius – do you just lurk about all day picking on people? thats so lame.
Those Who Love Me Can Take the Train 1998
Ceux qui m’aiment prendront le train
DIR Patrice Chereau
SCR Danièle Thompson, Patrice Chereau, Pierre Trividic
112 Min
Recommended by David E, this was well done and has the requisite art-film elements water, people smoking, gratuitous/explicit sex.
A better title might have been Those Who Love Me Can Suck My Cock, since evidently, Jean-Baptiste didn’t like taking it up the ass because it hurts or maybe he liked it because it hurts?
The universality of the film makes it accessible to ‘hets’. The conflict expressed in the film seems to present the universal mystery: why are people attracted to each other – why do they overvalue each other in a way that hurts?
8.5/10
Office Killer
Not my genre, so I was wondering why I was watching it.I saw Cindy Sherman’s name on the credits and that explained why -I’m a fan of her photography.
I don’t know enough about the genre to rate it, but my experience of the film wasn’t good.
traag-1
The Hourglass Sanitorium (poland, 1973) 7.5 out of 10
different but not so out there as people have mentioned and what led me to watch it…still fascinating and surreal and thoroughly entertaining