on second viewing “birth” really got me. i loved this film and i love jonathan glazers sense of direction. People just did not get the meaning of this film. Although the sad ending does not help. Great film and very understated performances from every single person in this cast. Plus Alexandre Desplat’s score is mesmerizing.
The last film that i saw is Godard’s “Une Femme Est Une Femme”. Anna Karina, Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean-Claude Brialy were great, and eventhough it didn’t become one of my favourite Godard movies, i liked it very much, it was fantastic.
I bought:
Michel Brault ONF box-set
There will be blood
Continental, un film sans fusil
All blind buy
(Damn I buy more DVDs than I have time to watch in these times…)
You and me both. Last night i saw batman begins and on second viewing i definitely appreciate it a bit more. Nolan really has honed his craft and is becoming a really good director with the potential for big things. I am putting “interview with a vampire” in my player haven’t seen it in a long time.
Interview with a vampire definitely aged well. Having read the book i don’t agree with many of the changes, but when i find out that Anne Rice adapted the book you have to give her the benefit of the doubt. Most films sacrifice certain aspects to fit both running time and condense alot of plot elements. The cast for this film is superb from Banderas to Jordan regular Stephen Rea. Pitt and Cruise defiintely build the kind of chemistry that we hope to view again. All in all a good film that takes me back to my younger days. I viewed this film in theatres a long time ago.
I watched La Jetee again the night before last, and every time I see it I fall a little deeper in love.
I generally believe there is no such thing as “perfect” movie, in the sense of total perfection of all elements, but that Marker film may indeed be the single most perfect film ever made.
Just watched Truffaut’s “A Gorgeous Girl Like Me” (1972) – Not brilliant, but certainly entertaining like most of Truffaut’s latter films. Bernadette Lafont is great, it was nice to see them working together again since “Les Mistons” (1957).
I just saw “When The Levees Broke” by Spike Lee. Probably his best work in ages and also the most honest movie about Katrina and New Orleans since the disaster happened. It’s not just about how it happened and what happened after, it also raises questions about all the problems that have stained New Orleans and this nation since the get-go.
Saw brokeback mountain and it only gets better. By far one of the saddest films to ever grace the screen. Ledger’s performance is one for the ages ranking with James Dean rebel without a cause, A damn shame he didn’t win for best actor, on first viewing i didnt appreciate Gyllenhall’s performance but on viewing it again it is also a wothy performance. Truly a masterpiece by Ang Lee and a truly beautiful script by Mcmurtry and Osana. Mao also agree with Lee’s doc its pretty damn good. It really encompasses the whole tragedy in an honest and extremely sincere way. A must see for everyone.
I just bought Get Carter, House of Games, The Conversation, The seventh victim and Tod Browning’s Dracula…
I think I’ll probably start tonight with ‘seventh victim’…
Not a movie perse, but I finally tracked down Robbery Homicide Division, Michael Mann’s ill-fated 2002 television show that experiments with digital photography before Collateral and Miami Vice. Great stuff, specially the digital aspect; one episode is plot for plot a precursor to the Miami Vice movie.
The hi-lo country.
Eloge de l’amour / In Praise of Love
among the best of -late- Godard
Just saw “Dark Matter” … it could have been an interesting movie in the right hands, but it was all over the place structurally and was visually underwhelming for the subject matter it was portraying (it’s a shame Chris Doyle didn’t shoot it) and ends up coming off like a TV movie.
4 Months. 3 Weeks. 2 Days. Quite disturbing
Alberto Lattuada’s Mafioso and Pietro Germi’s Divorce Italian Style. Those movies are excellent and so funny
Woman in the Dunes, a beautiful film with an amazing soundtrack about an entomologist who falls in love with a woman after he is help captive in a sandpit
“Lady Chatterley” (2006) – Great adaptation and direction, stunning performances and ‘naturalistic’ cinematography (from cinematographer of Godard’s: Éloge de l’amour, Notre Musique). Nice use of Sibelius and Bach on the soundtrack.
The hi-lo country is Stephen Frears attempt at a western and he doesnt disappoint. I put this one on a double bill with brokeback mountain, Harrelson and Crudup are in top form in this film. The score is excellent and the story evokes a little of johnny guitar in to the film. Excellent ensemble cast and the film was produced by Martin Scorsese.
i just saw 4months, 2weeks, 1day of the romanian director, a really powerful drama and great lesson of cinema.
i just realised that I bought it a couple of days ago.. I’ll watch it now…
“Wanda” (1970), Barbara Loden’s sole effort is a gritty, unsympathetic cinema vérité style ‘road film’ about an alienated woman who wanders about aimlessly and gets herself involved with a two-bit stick-up man. It’s an incredibly bold and fearless directorial debut and Loden also gives an astonishing performance as Wanda, it’s a landmark film for female filmmakers and an important “independent” American film, yet it still remains a largely unknown and neglected film. This presaged the likes of Peckinpah’s “The Getaway”, Malick’s “Badlands” and the countless other portrayals of alienated America.
The holy mountain by jodorowsky.Real Trippy
Carlos Saura’s CARMEN
I just saw STILL LIFE from chinese director ZHANG KE JIA. After the global and wonderfull THE WORLD, he made another touching and profoundly human film about lost and radical change in the world we live in. Absolutely marvelous. A must see !
Finally watched Dreyer’s “Day of Wrath” (1943) – In many ways “Ordet” (1955) was the flip side to this film, in “Wrath” a young woman has the ‘ability’ to take life (or give it) but choses to take it, in “Ordet” a young man has the belief to bring the dead back to life, “Wrath” is dark and shadowy, “Ordet” is full of light, “Wrath” ends in despair, “Ordet” in hope.
Dreyer continues to prove he is one of the original masters of the tracking shot, as he finds new ways to film an inquisition (as in his “Passion of Joan of Arc”), there is also a great sequence where he pans back and forth during a dialogue scene between two characters, it is reminiscent of the technique that Godard would later employ in many of his early films.
Watched David Cronenbergs The Fly and boy does that man love to repulse the audience. Some effects look dated, but for the most part an entertaining treat for anyone who loves science fiction and cronenberg, great performances from davis, goldblum and getz.
For anyone who wants to learn about directing actor’s please watch Charles Kiselyak’s three hour documentary a constant forge. It is an astonishing piece of work on the life and films of john cassavetes. With plenty of known actors who acknowledge cassavetes undeniable genius for getting the best out of his actors. Also enlightens us unto the fact that cassavetes started the independent film movement. After this film you will have to appreciate him for all he has given back to us.
ufuk aksoy
La Cérémonie of Claude Chabrol. Nice film with great actors. I watched the whole movie thinking Claude Chabrol was a woman, he came out to be a man whhich surprised me.