Just this weekend I watched a rare Frank Borzage film titled: MAN’S CASTLE. Made in 1933 it stars Spencer Tracy and Loretta Young in Depression era America who find each other. It’s both romantic and tough. I say it is rare because it is not on video or DVD. One of the reasons could be because it is 66 minutes long. Great film.
Yes! I DVR’d that, been hearing about it for eons it seems, can’t wait to see it. Glad someone else is turned onto Borzage.
The Departed (4th time watching and damn it just keeps on getting better. For a while i have argued that Paul Greengrass was more deserving of the best director oscar, but Scorsese clearly was hitting all the right notes with this directorial effort. A true scorsese masterpiece.) Walk the line and Kign Kong(another very underappreciated great film) are also on my dock.
I just saw Andrzej Zulawski’s Possession…
weird Bergman/Polanski/Cronenberg-like artsy blood feast…
The last movie that I saw was “Hamlet 2,” just because I wanted to see something stupid and entertaining…And, also I wanted to see where Focus Features spent their 10 million dollars… Let’s say I really hope they will hit it really big in UK with this film as much as they hoped, otherwise it looks like they might be losing ‘some’ money… Though, regardless of these, the movie was funny, but was it worth all that much money? Nope…
http://horsefingers.com/
HORSEFINGERS is this strange trilogy of films by Kirsten Kearse. I was suitably surprised by HORSEFINGERS 3: STARFUCKER, to the extent that I watched it twice. It’s an independent production. I think she lives in New York. A director to watch? Maybe…
http://notebook.theauteurs.com/?p=255. anyone know where I can get this light shone into my eyeballs?
I heard that Dorsky is getting some kind of retro in NYC this Fall…that might be as close as you can get.
This week, I saw these film.
SOLARIS – Tarkovsky
BLOW UP – Antonioni
MANHATTAN – Allen
STARDUST MEMORIES – Allen
INTERIORS – Allen
I’d like to see Dosky’s films, how is it possible ? Is there a DVD ?
What did you think of the Allen films?
I know that Dorsky is being shown in the Views from the Avant-Garde program at the NYFF this year…
Also, this is who distributes his work : http://www.canyoncinema.com/D/Dorsky.html
The forgetable End of Days with the teaming of Arnold with Rod Steiger. I know i know but i sa it in blu ray. It was loud though. a real turd!
Thanks Gina/Dkaz, will pursue it through distributors unless I can get to NY.
Lawrence of Arabia (1962) by David Lean… 70 mm film on a big cinema screen… it was a treat!
Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters. (Paul Schrader) A feast for the eyes, and full of eloquent parallels.
Frozen River (2008) by Courtney Hunt … in a nutshell, it is a nuanced account about bad things that happen to good people, friendship, motherhood, inter-racial relations between Caucasian-Americans and Indians living on a reservation (called a nation, a territory spread across the Canadian-US border), etc. A very good movie indeed.
Just saw
Son of Rambow.
A really nice/cute film.
Hammer and Tongs nailed down that Goonies/ Stand by me, 80’s tone.
Loved it.
Juan ^ I also loved “Son of Rambow”!!! I thought it was very entertaining and totally charming without being manipulative. It literally made me happier upon watching it…
The last movie I saw was “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” by Woody Allen. And, the more I think about the movie, the more I like it… I really like all the cast (Penelope Cruz, Scarlett Johansson, and, especially, Javier Bardem) so I already knew I was going to enjoy it, even though I am not the biggest Woody Allen fan in the world… The movie woke certain emotions in me, the strongest one being: It made me want to jump on the first plane to Barcelona and have a passionate fling/affair/menage-a-trio… Even though, it wasn’t a perfect film, I still liked the films take on ‘modern’ relationships, or more accuratarely, the failure of these relationships…
Vicky Cristina plays very well.
I really enjoyed watching it.
BUT the film has serious editing, and voice over problems.
but, then again, it plays very well.
Kiss of the spider woman- William Hurts performance is riveting and beautiful yet very sad. Also Raul Julia is excellent, although i wasn’t feeling Sonia Bragas pretty monotone performance. I loved what Babenco does for the movie within the movie, but i thought the acting was too stiff and the deliveries way too stoic. All in all a sad and beautiful film that paved the way for films like brokeback mountain and my own private idaho.
Paranoid Park..a great knockout.Gus Van Sant did it again…the film blew me away.
Up the Yangtze (2007) by Yung Chang… depressing film about people (peasants/common man) being sacrificed in China in the name of progress and the greater good for all. Eye opening.
Hate to ramble on about Blu ray but just saw “how the west was won” and it looked amazing. The colors and the cinematography unbeliavable. The story tries hard to satisfy but falls just short. Though the performances are bit to narrow to build up the massive story. The ensemble which included the likes of richard widmark, gregory peck, the duke, debbie reynolds, and the great jimmy stewart. But the true star of this picture is the cinerama beatifully photographing landscape and amazing compositions. You try and just take in all these images coming at you at once. Try and experience it. After viewing this film i popped in speed racer. WOW. unfortunately the wachoski’s forgot that it’s based on a children’s cartoon and on top of over saturing the screen with CGI they bloat the story with too much information. The racing scenes in blu ray and HD looks out of this fucking world. Please stay away if you are prone to seizures this thing will blast out your eyeballs. Beautiful use of colors but with a running time of over two hours, about forty minutes too long. you see a movie in their, they just didn’t want make that one, they wanted to make their version of speed racer. One they would enjoy. But again watch it in blu ray.
In a desperate attempt to rescue what was potentially a shitty Sunday,
I set off to watch a series of films, that had nothing to do with each other.
SOAPDISH
An 80’s extravaganza about the making of a soap opera.
Funny, well… retro-funny.
Sally Field is in this. I kind of hate her. The only film I liked her was in Punchline.
Robert Downey kicks ass.
Over all, not too bad.
LITTLE CHILDREN by Todd Field
This film was the high-point of my day. By far.
Why did nobody tell me about this film before?
The writing is just perfect. Beautifully shot.
I will probably see this again very soon.
TROPIC THUNDER by Ben Stiller
After a couple of hours of somber dvd watching, I had to go out to the big screen,
Now this was this was my friends choice, and I’m not justifying me going out to see this piece of crap.
A true cinephile watches EVERYTHING.
Anyways… yeah… piece of crap.
Only Robert Downey Jr. made my money worth.
Oh, and Tom Cruise too. He actually made me laugh.
THE SEVENTH SEAL by Bergman
Hadn’t seen this in a long long time.
Nothing much to say about this that hasn’t been said.
I just needed to calm down after ben stiller shittiness.
I just recently watched John Woo’s latest film “Red Cliff” yesterday night. And, I must say I was pretty impressed… Even though, the script of the film was a bit redundant at times; Still the cast (especially always-mesmerizing Tony Leung) and the visuals of the film were just breath-taking. It will most definitly please the people who are into the epic movie genre…
It is already one of the most popular movies of Chinese History( since it is alreadt considered as the biggest Chinese Blockbuster), which was released in China as two movies. Though, I heard that for the Western Audiences they are going to edit the two movies into one movie. I really hope that won’t be the case, cause I believe a lot of the visual power of the film will be edited out…Just saw transformers and i must say that michale bay is clearly one of the most overrated and overhyped filmmakers of our time. Yes the movie is breathtaking to view, but really the movie falls a bit short, how they hire people who were not fans of the series is beyond me. Little things are added for the die hard transformer fan but for the most part Bay misses. I remember the show from my childhood and honestly i was a little bit disappointed, i mean you don’t see the transformers till the second hour. Anyways another film that could’ve been about 30 minutes shorter. please stop giving Michael Bay so much money to blow things up.
How can one of the most universally mocked filmmakers be the most overrated? Unless you mean overrated by the industry, which keeps giving him $200 million budgets…
Watched Resnais’ recent film “Coeurs” last night, a subtle, intricate and well performed ensemble piece but not altogether memorable or as multi-layered as one might expect from one of the most innovative filmmakers of the 20th century.
I agree with the Transformers comments: the movie definitly didn’t captured the magic which totally mesmerized me as a kid… To add my two cents about Bay, I think when it comes to him, the (majority of the) film world is divided into two: people who like him and people who don’t… I still haven’t made up my mind about him yet, but a lot of the time, I feel like I am in the minority…
L.A.™
The Grifters. Great modern film noir.