Adam's Favorite Movies

[Adam]

Because I know you're all very interested

I'm going to try not to make this lame, but easier said than done I guess. It's not going to be in any sort of order, either, because I'm never happy with the lists I make. Just going to do little write-ups of random favorites, whatever I feel like writing about at the time. And I'll pick stuff I don't see on a lot of other folk's lists, as a change of pace

Let the self indulgence begin

PINEAPPLE EXPRESS (http://www.match-cut.org/showpost.php?p=222988&postcount=2)
MODERN ROMANCE (http://www.match-cut.org/showpost.php?p=223019&postcount=4)
KING OF HEARTS (http://www.match-cut.org/showpost.php?p=223536&postcount=12)
THE PASSENGER (http://www.match-cut.org/showpost.php?p=224217&postcount=17)
SHALLOW GRAVE (http://www.match-cut.org/showpost.php?p=224280&postcount=18)
FLOATING CLOUDS (http://www.match-cut.org/showpost.php?p=225328&postcount=22)
DAVE CHAPPELLE'S BLOCK PARTY (http://www.match-cut.org/showpost.php?p=229889&postcount=27)
LAST NIGHT (http://match-cut.org/showpost.php?p=244806&postcount=35)
PORTRAIT OF JENNIE (http://match-cut.org/showpost.php?p=244807&postcount=36)

[Adam]

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Pineapple Express
David Gordon Green - 2008

Okay, so Pineapple Express pretty much had me about from three minutes in when Bill Hader starts pantomiming a blowjob and then lets loose one of the most devastating "Fuck you"s I've ever heard. And it's not just because of Hader's brilliant delivery. On the one hand, this moment feels so like any other chunk of Apatowian humor that pervaded seemingly every big-time comedy in the aughts. But then you notice how subtly active the camera is as it smoothly moves in for a close-up on Hader and there's just a sense that this is something totally different. There's a level of artistry and nuance and warmness and playfulness going on here that feels so fresh and disarming and it never lets up the whole way through. Purely entertaining as all get-out, in the shouty moments just as much as in the quiet ones

It's all because of David Gordon Green. David Gordon Green has the touch. It would be so interesting if guys like him directed movies like this more often. Look at Eastbound and Down for the easiest dichotomal example. The Gordon Green helmed episodes of Eastbound are darkly comic masterpieces on par with the UK Office at the height of its back-breaking cringiness. The Jody Hill/Adam McKay episodes, meanwhile, can't help but fall flat by comparison because they're so dang conventional, despite the wonderful writing/performances. And it's the same deal with Pineapple Express. Pineapple Express is everything that's great about Knocked Up or Anchorman, except it's handled with ten times the craft and care and talent

That said, impressively, this would almost definitely still be a fairly dynamite ride even if it was removed from the filter of Gordon Green. Not one of the actors hits a note that rings false and you get the sense this was already an affable enough, offbeat Midnight Run riff on the page before all the improvised material was introduced. Such a loose tone to it and it's reminiscent of many of my favorite '80s, Into the Night-ish movies in that you can never quite get a handle on where it's going. It's a testament to the film's ramshackle charm that even when things get absurdly, awkwardly violent towards the end, it never once feels like a buzzkill

Speaking of buzzkills, this is a personal list, so let me get a little boring and personal. A big whopping factor in this film being wrote up here is because of the time I came to it in my life. Intelligently stupid movies like this, even when they're directed by hipster-approved icons like David Gordon Green, aren't usually the first thing you'd think of when trying to come up with especially impressionable films for yourself. It seems silly to write how important this dumb movie is to me and I don't even have a great story to back it up. All it is, is that I went and saw Pineapple Express with someone I really cared about at a midnight screening the week before I left for college. Last summer of my adolescence, essentially. We were very high and so was everyone else in the very packed house and it remains my favorite movie-going experience, ever. So I feel like I owe it for that. I also feel like this movie was made for me

And it all leads to that final scene, which is so tender and delicate and lovely. The closest approximation of a couple of potheads shooting the shit I've seen a major motion picture nail. The fact that they're twinklingly reminiscing about car chases and gunfights instead of parties or tv watching or whatnot is beside the point. This scene is played so chillingly accurate it hurts. It's an observed and beautiful ode to everyone who gets it, just like the rest of the film. And like I say, on a personal level, I already recognize that this was a formative experience in my life and I'm just a little over a year removed from it, so chances are I'm only gonna look back at Pineapple Express more fondly as the years drag on

[Boner M]

And it all leads to that final scene, which is so tender and delicate and lovely. The closest approximation of a couple of potheads shooting the shit I've seen a major motion picture nail. The fact that they're twinklingly reminiscing about car chases and gunfights instead of parties or tv watching or whatnot is beside the point. This scene is played so chillingly accurate it hurts. It's an observed and beautiful ode to everyone who gets it, just like the rest of the film. And like I say, on a personal level, I already recognize that this was a formative experience in my life and I'm just a little over a year removed from it, so chances are I'm only gonna look back at Pineapple Express more fondly as the years drag on
Solid paragraph. Lookin' forward to the rest of the list!

[Adam]

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Modern Romance
Albert Brooks - 1981

Okay, let me ask you something... If a person's not home, and you start driving around their house, and you drive around and around and around and you start driving around the city and you're going ninety miles an hour and you're calling them every four seconds and you don't think of anything else, what is that?

Is that not love?

I think I try to paint myself as this hopeless romantic sometimes, when the truth is I'm so much closer to the semi-deranged, neurotic id that is Albert Brooks in this movie. I see the worst of myself in Modern Romance's quixotic, self-absorbed, overly possessive antihero. This is a man who calls old girlfriends on a jealous whim after taking too many quaaludes and goes on painfully awkward dates with them. He's self aware in a way, but he can never get out of his head long enough to see the forest for the trees because he's terminally bogged down in what he convinces himself to be true love

Brooks plays Robert Cole like he plays all his surrogates, making slight tweaks to serve darker subject matter than usual. The object of his affection is played by Kathryn Harrold and if it were up to her, their relationship would probably have been legitimately over well before the point where we catch up to it in the movie. But Cole has this perverse way of breaking down her defenses with flopsweat and they seem like they're destined to perform this sad dance of breaking up and getting back together until they die or at least until she grows some balls. When the movie's over, we leave the relationship on the same note we started with and it all makes you laugh, even if you should be cringing

To lighten things up, the film takes a couple of detours to riff on some of the less destructive character faults of the Albert Brooks archetype. The scene where Super Dave (Brooks' real life brother) takes advantage of Cole's insecurities in a sporting goods store is a classic. And almost as an added bonus, there's a subplot woven in revolving around the editing of a b-grade science fiction movie starring George Kennedy. There's nearly enough material there to make up a decent satire of Hollywood, but in the end it exists to illustrate how Cole's obsessive behavior has bled into every other part of his life

If Albert Brooks is the Left Coast's answer to Woody Allen, then I guess you could call Modern Romance his depressing spin on Annie Hall. The fact is, though, that's a supreme disservice to this movie as there's a lot more agonizing truth here and a lot less whining. This is Brooks' magnum opus because it never sacrifices that truth or its unrelenting bleakness for the sake of laughs and it gets them anyway. It's a movie about clinging onto those you no longer really love because you can't bear the thought of seeing them find happiness with someone else. It's an almighty condemnation of the romantically selfish as much as it is a bizarre tribute to them and it's also the greatest romantic comedy I've ever seen

[Melville]

It's not going to be in any sort of order, either, because I'm never happy with the lists I make. Just going to do little write-ups of random favorites, whatever I feel like writing about at the time.
This seems like by far the most practical approach to such a thread.

Great reviews thus far.

[B-side]

I'll be watching. :)

[Derek]

Great pick with Modern Romance and spot-on review. It's my favorite from Brooks as well.

[Ezee E]

Pineapple Express has a very good first half or so, with an awful second half.

I basically watch it up until the car chase, and call it quits after that.

[Raiders]

Pineapple Express has a very good first half or so, with an awful second half.

I basically watch it up until the car chase, and call it quits after that.

On a second viewing, I think I liked the second half even more than before. It works especially well when paired with that final scene. It sort of lends the entire second half to a kind of ridiculous, bizarre and incongruous stoned fairytale. It does drag in spots and I wish the section was shorter (or maybe even more action-packed), but it's still pretty great.

[Ezee E]

On a second viewing, I think I liked the second half even more than before. It works especially well when paired with that final scene. It sort of lends the entire second half to a kind of ridiculous, bizarre and incongruous stoned fairytale. It does drag in spots and I wish the section was shorter (or maybe even more action-packed), but it's still pretty great.
Agreed that the second half is a stoned out fantasy, but it's bizarreness did not make me laugh at all.

[Adam]

Well, obviously I disagree with that, but thanks for reading, everybody

[Adam]

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King of Hearts
Phillipe de Broca - 1966

This one's for anybody who's ever felt like the last sane man (or woman) on Earth. At the tail end of the first World War, Alan Bates' Charles Plumpick is a mild-mannered Scottish soldier sent in to diffuse German time bombs stashed somewhere in an apparently abandoned French village. Once he gets there, though, the town is quickly overrun by a group of inmates from the local asylum who begin acting out their most whimsical fantasies. Plumpick gets swept up in their madness and it's not very long before he realizes that as crazy as they all are, they're nothing compared to the lunatics he's been answering to

At first blush, the film's take on warfare/humanity is a naive and overly simplistic one, but actually it's sneakily perceptive in its own surreal way. It's never subtle about what it wants to say, but it never insults your intelligence, either. Though its slapstick and performances can seem over-the-top at times, it's the more understated moments that stick with you. In maybe the film's most iconic scene, a young woman in a yellow tutu walks a tightrope between two buildings. It's an oddly musical walk that puts you in a trance and makes you, like Plumpick, forget completely about the bomb that's sure to kill all these wonderful people. King of Hearts has a lot of scenes like that. This is a movie that's so full of love and goodness and charm and unabashed silliness that it can be irresistible to even the most cynical of bastards

As much as King of Hearts stands as a staunch denunciation of the stupidity of war, it's simultaneously a celebration of the joy of being human. Plumpick is a man on a mission, but it's a mission he was ordered to blindly undertake. The Man has stripped him of his backbone and his identity and his common sense and his humanity and it takes a band of whacked-out loons to make him do something about it. He's with them for only a few hours, but in that time, he dances and laughs and falls in love and it's great

When push finally comes to shove, Plumpick decides to leave his company and play out his days in the mental asylum where his newfound family lives. While that ending is ostensibly a happy one for Plumpick, it's also tellingly lacking much hope for the rest of us. If the people in charge are more dangerous, deranged and demented than a bunch of mental cases, we're kinda royally screwed, yeah? King of Hearts was an immensely popular midnight movie amongst American college students throughout the seventies and, unfortunately, its message is just as relevant today as it was to those who grew up in disillusionment with the conflict in Vietnam. No matter what, humanity should never be defined by the wars we wage. War is an endless, futile, horrible and, above all, absurd proposition. Most people probably don't need some farcical film to tell them that, but yeah, sometimes it is still nice to be assured that you're not, in fact, the last sane man (or woman) on Earth

[Adam]

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By the by, King of Hearts also has the beyond gorgeous Geneviève Bujold at her absolute foxiest playing the woman of Alan Bates' dreams (and mine). So whether you're a peace-loving lamb or a war-mongering asshole, it's worth watching this movie, anyway, if only to ogle her for two hours

[MadMan]

I've only seen Pinapple Express, which is a wonderful, hilarious, and awesome movie. Probably one of my favorites of the current decade, too. The other ones I have not heard of, but I am considering putting them on my Netflix to watch. Keep going man, keep going.

[Raiders]

Ugh. I hated King of Hearts. It's a silly little film that struck me as being so stupid as to make the idea of war seem less stupid by comparison.

[Adam]

I can kinda sorta see how KOH would be irritating for some people, but I dunno, it's so dang delightful

Did you ever consider that maybe you're just a heartless monster?

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"That's you all over, Raiders, bad taste and no heart"

[Adam]

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The Passenger
Michelangelo Antonioni - 1975

In a neat bit of stunt casting, Nicholson plays against type as disillusioned and laconic BBC journalist David Locke, a man who's frustrated, detached and disconnected in life. Locke's on assignment in Africa when the film opens, composing a piece about revolutionary guerrillas, ruthless local dictators and corrupt political agendas. He meets a fellow named Robertson there in a hotel and they have a pleasant enough chat. But the next day, Robertson dies of a heart attack and Locke, quite casually, assumes the man's identity

Everyone in Locke's previous life believes him to be dead. He's abandoned his wife and child and career and now he just has to decide what he wants to become. He takes his time. Turns out Robertson was a gun runner and maybe more for the North African rebels and so Locke, for no particular reason other than maybe sheer curiosity, decides to start taking Robertson's meetings in exotic locales all around the world. Somewhere along the way, he teams up with the beautiful and mysterious Girl, played by Maria Schneider, who further convinces him to carry on acting out Robertson's itinerary because, well, what else does he have to do? They fall in love. Meanwhile, Locke's wife becomes obsessed with watching old footage of him and eventually sets out to find this "Robertson" whom she's learned knew her husband back in Africa. Soon Locke is in over his head, being pursued by shadowy Government agents whilst juggling his feelings for The Girl with his determination to escape his old life

Just from that plot description, The Passenger almost sounds like an existential riff on Graham Greene, but Antonioni seems bored by all the superficial globetrotting intrigue. He's more interested in giving the viewer an experience and a feast for the eyes, assuredly letting us figure certain mysteries out on our own. There are exquisite flashback sequences that are, I would think, unique in their execution in the history of cinema. There are compositions of cinematic artistry that will remind you why you love movies so dang much. Luciano Vitoli's camerawork is remarkable. The penultimate shot, which tracks out of a hotel window and around a courtyard, is over 7 minutes long and it's very famous and you probably have to watch it a couple of times before you understand what it means. There's so much here and yet The Passenger has a real, palpable emptiness to it, reflecting effectively on Locke's inner angst

Nicholson plays Locke with the kind of understated naturalism he used to do so well. He's a traditional Antonioni protagonist - consumed by the pervasive sensation of ennui and lacking direction. Here is a man who acts on the very appealing notion of assuming someone else's identity, though he's curiously dispassionate about it all. He sees something in Maria Schneider's Girl and he wants a life where he can believe in a cause or a faith or anything, but that never really happens for him. Locke is a fascinating character, mostly because he's played so close to the vest with his larger motivations remaining relatively unclear all the way to the end

The film is languidly paced, especially so when you consider that it's about a man desperately trying to outrun himself. Every shot is held a beat longer than it should; a lot of lingering going on. The Passenger is clearly an Antonioni film in those ways, though maybe slightly more accessible if only for the presence of Nicholson. It might be the director's best. A visually wonderful, unflinchingly unsentimental exploration of identity, politics, belief, life, death and love

Play me out, Iggy (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLhN__oEHaw&feature=fvw)

[Adam]

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Shallow Grave
Danny Boyle - 1994

Oh yes, I believe in friends. I believe we need them. But if one day you find that you just can't trust them anymore... well, what then? What then?

Absolutely required viewing for any new roommates; Shallow Grave documents the disintegration of a friendship between three snarky yuppies as they try to figure out how to handle the package deal of a corpse(s) and a suitcase full of money that finds its way into their fab Edinburgh flat. Things start out merrily enough, but it all devolves pretty quickly into the realm of strange vibrations, mistrust, paranoia, murder and dismemberment. And then there's the ending - an easy candidate for the most satisfying in probably the past twenty years of film. You might see all the twists coming from a mile away, but the final couple of punchlines are still very much worth it

When Shallow Grave came out, it was immediately tagged as Hitchcock for the hip, techno-listening Gen X set. This is maybe one of the only movies where you can say that sorta thing and not mean it as a total, flippant dismissal. The Hitch wannabes have made some snazzy looking pictures over the years, but the things they never seem to lock down are a) the sense of humor and b) the intelligence. Shallow Grave does it right, though, and you won't find many more modern thrillers that so nail such a rare brew of biting drollery, grisly horror and casual cool. It's the kind of thing where you've seen the bare bones story told before, yet seldomly this well

It's also a dark as fuck character study of a few very specific types operating under a unique brand of tension. A damning social statement about the level of morality that exists amongst affluent young adults once they get within even a whiff of a little bit of money. The film more or less comes out and openly demands you take a moment and think about what you would do if put in the place of Ewan McGregor's prickish, dreaming journalist, Kerry Fox's smug, aloof doctor or Chris Eccleston's awkward, squirrelly accountant. Once things begin getting progressively more gruesome, the idea is that you see yourself in the characters and try to come to terms with the unfortunate choices they make. None of them are particularly likable people, but they still become pretty sympathetic figures when their backs are up against the wall

So yes, it's all very smart and morbid and flashy and weird, but the real key with Shallow Grave, I think, is how much of a flat-out delight it is. For a film with such obnoxious and despicable characters and moments of such abject revulsion, it's also wildly hilarious and breezily paced. Boyle's always had the visual flair and the kinetic enthusiasm, but the thing is I don't know if he'll ever get back the pitch-perfect performances, the delicious snideness or just the pure, diabolical wit Shallow Grave boasts

[Melville]

It might be the director's best. A visually wonderful...
This is the first movie on your list that I've seen, and I can't say I agree with your assessment: I thought that L'Eclisse was a far more powerful and visually wonderful exploration of similar themes. However, I'll repeat that you've got some great reviews here. I'd rep you if I weren't all out of rep.

[Boner M]

I found Shallow Grave empty and un-thrilling. I find Boyle pretty worthless outside of Trainspotting & 28 Days Later.

The Passenger is wonderful, though I'm inclined to agree with Melville that L'Eclisse is better.

Great reviews for both, though, though. Keep 'em coming.

[Adam]

Hmmmm, yeah well with Antonioni I've only seen 4 of his films. So I said The Passenger might be his best since I enjoy making reckless, unfounded, sweeping declarations, but maybe Zabriskie Point or some such shit is the better movie? I will definitely take The Passenger ahead of L'eclisse, though, mostly because for me, it's the snazzier, more interesting bit of filmmaking. Either way, Alain Delon's still the coolest cat around, for sure

And Boyle - I'm not a fan outside of Shallow Grave, Trainspotting and 28 Days Later. Like I say, I just think Shallow Grave had the right mix of everything for what it was trying to do. You don't even think it's funny, Boner?

[Adam]

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Floating Clouds
Mikio Naruse - 1955

Floating Clouds opens with Japanese repatriate Yukiko Koda, played by the wonderful Hideko Takamine, returning to the country she ran away from years before. She doesn't really have anywhere to go, so she turns to Tomioka (Masayuki Mori), a former colleague in Indochina whom she had an affair with during the war. He had promised to leave his wife for her, but he doesn't. Yukiko is only slightly deterred by this. She has built up a great love in her mind and she spends many years trying to convince Tomioka to give himself to her. Even after Tomioka's wife dies, he still can't commit to Yukiko, but by this point she has fully deluded herself into thinking her obsession and devotion will have a happy ending. Despite her love, though, Tomioka always remains distant. He deceives her, he carries on with younger women and just in general he gives her the total high hat while she endures all manner of horrible shit. Maybe he loves her in the only way he can love someone, maybe he doesn't love anything anymore or maybe he never loved her in the first place? We kind of get the answer to this in the bummer of an ending, though by then it's too late. Whatever the case, Yukiko doesn't want to let go of her love. She gradually loses her naiveté and innocence, but through everything, no matter how bitter she gets, Tomioka remains all she has to hold on to. She can't move on and it's that heartbreaking spirit that ruins her

I have watched two Naruse/Takamine pairings. They are a match made in celluloid heaven. Takamine is one of the most adept actors I've ever seen at communicating things without speaking so she's served well by Naruse's subtle, almost indistinct style. There's a certain intoxicating lyricism to the sustained sequences of Yukiko and Tomioka ambling up and down roads and side roads, but those scenes are so enchanting precisely because Naruse never calls attention to his tricks. The director had an easy mastery of how to tell this type of story. Floating Clouds is about a tragic and decidedly unrequited love and Naruse most deftly shapes that heartache through reminiscences and graceful flashbacks to a past life when his two stars were together

The transitions between ripe and sunny wartime Indochina and soul-crushing post-war Japan are drastic and jarring (though smoothly edited). It's immediately clear that those crazy kids who fucked around in Dalat are worlds apart from the very different individuals who meet again in Tokyo. Tomioka has been broken by a war he didn't even fight in. He actually makes several references to their time in Indochina being like a "dream" and that's not meant wholly in the figurative sense. As we go through this life, each past chapter and each past love gets cast aside for a new one. Things get hazy and confusing and we often project/invent thing that weren't even there to begin with. Yukiko is longing for happiness with a man she has forced herself to love and she's blinded herself to all his outward stoicism, lies and affairs. She's been hurt before. She tries not to consider the thought that she idealized their time in Indochina to protect herself from pain. But when people desperately try to cling to those bygone times, all that happens is their present and future becomes fractured. These fleeting memories and feelings and hopes and loves and dreams are ultimately doomed to float from us like clouds out through the ether of time and sometimes we just have to reconcile ourselves with the idea that the past's in the past and that's that

[soitgoes...]

Word.

[B-side]

Meh.:lol:

[Qrazy]

Hmmmm, yeah well with Antonioni I've only seen 4 of his films. So I said The Passenger might be his best since I enjoy making reckless, unfounded, sweeping declarations, but maybe Zabriskie Point or some such shit is the better movie? I will definitely take The Passenger ahead of L'eclisse, though, mostly because for me, it's the snazzier, more interesting bit of filmmaking. Either way, Alain Delon's still the coolest cat around, for sure

And Boyle - I'm not a fan outside of Shallow Grave, Trainspotting and 28 Days Later. Like I say, I just think Shallow Grave had the right mix of everything for what it was trying to do. You don't even think it's funny, Boner?

Zabriskie Point is a terrible, terrible film.

[Melville]

Hmmmm, yeah well with Antonioni I've only seen 4 of his films. So I said The Passenger might be his best since I enjoy making reckless, unfounded, sweeping declarations, but maybe Zabriskie Point or some such shit is the better movie? I will definitely take The Passenger ahead of L'eclisse, though, mostly because for me, it's the snazzier, more interesting bit of filmmaking. Either way, Alain Delon's still the coolest cat around, for sure,
I didn't find anything very interesting about the filmmaking in The Passenger, but I might have been looking in the wrong place. The opening and closing scenes of L'Eclisse, on the other hand, contained some of the most interesting explorations and utilizations of space that I've seen. Haven't seen Zabriskie Point; what I've heard about it sounds a bit silly for my taste.

EDIT: though I should amend that to note that some of the editing early in The Passenger and the very long panning shot at the end were both interesting.

[Adam]

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Dave Chappelle's Block Party
Michel Gondry - 2005

This is an example of when keeping it real goes right

Once upon a time, Dave Chappelle felt way guilty for making a ton of money and so he dreamt up an under-the-radar concert/party in Brooklyn to confirm his humanity. Here is the glorious fruit born from that dream tree. A block party that's welcoming and warm and vibrant and flavorful and funny. The concert is stacked with some of the most important musicians of the '90s and '00s. It rains, but nobody cares. The audience is made up of regular folk. "5000 black people dancing in the rain. 19 white people peppered in the crowd." In addition to any locals who wanted in, Dave invited various others who wouldn't normally be able to go to this sort of thing to come and watch, too. And he got the terminally whimsical Michel Gondry to capture it all on film

Gondry's probably my favorite director of the aughts. He has a flair for putting things together in such a way to maximize all good feelings and Chappelle and Friends emit a great deal of good feelings. Block Party has an easy pace to it and spread throughout all the dynamic performances, there are little slices of life thrown in and comedy sketches and stories told and mini-profiles on very special people. On the one hand we have Kanye West, Mos Def, Talib Kweli, Erykah Badu, Jill Scott, The Roots, Dead Prez, Common, The Fugees and on and on and on. Every artist getting a shot in the spotlight. Then on the other hand we get to meet kids who are clearly happy to be alive. We meet unique individuals with a variety of talents and quirks and they're all a joy. Dave Chappelle's usually hanging around, too. Telling jokes and acting goofy and having fun and making people laugh

And I mean the music alone stands in its own right. Not that you'd ever want to, but if you did take out all the good vibrations and the Chappelle and the celebrating community and the Gondry - you still have The Roots and Lauryn Hill and whatnot making beautiful, positive music in the rain. You still have Black Star at the height of their powers. You still have Jill Scott bellowing away. There isn't a musical performance in this film that falls flat. But of course, yeah, it's not only the music that makes Block Party sing

It's just so rare to see something that can sustain the level of giddiness or exuberance you get here. Chappelle calls one of the days leading up to the party the greatest day of his career and you totally buy that. This is one of those movies where you have a huge shit-eating grin on your face the whole time you're watching it, partly because you know everyone involved was having the time of their lives making it. This film feels like a hug. It opens its arms to people from all walks of life and you just live in this happy, happy world for 90 minutes of infectious jubilation

So now I'm getting ridiculous and comparing films to hugs, but that's fine. Here's my absolute favorite thing about Block Party: Like so many of my favorite albums, when this film's over, I feel it ringing in my heart for hours afterward. Ringing right down to the very cockles of my core. You can taste this movie. This movie reverberates. It sings. It flat-out flows

Greatest concert film, ever? Yeah, probably

[MadMan]

Block Party is one of my favorite movies of the 2000s. Does it crack my Top 20 for the decade? Nope. But is it beyond awesome, and a joy to behold? Hell yes. Not only did introduce me to some really cool acts, but it also made showcased some that I truly like a lot. Plus that scene with the marching band, with Dave Chappelle just jamming out, rules.

[Qrazy]

Yeah Chappelle's Block Party is great.

[Adam]

Plus that scene with the marching band, with Dave Chappelle just jamming out, rules.

Yes. Part of my love for this film is definitely due to the fact that I am totally in the bag for Chappelle. I could watch that guy do just about anything for 90 minutes

[D_Davis]

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Dave Chappelle's Block Party
Michel Gondry - 2005


Greatest concert film, ever? Yeah, probably

Great film, I really like how uplifting it is - it's a celebration of art and humanity, but not my favorite. Best concert film, IMO, is Pink Floyd: Live in Pompeii. Talking Heads: Stop Making Sense and The Cure in Orange are also up there.

[Adam]

I've never seen Live in Pompeii or The Cure in Orange, but speaking in my capacity as a rabid fan of both Talking Heads and Jonathan Demme, I will say Block Party is slightly more entertaining than Stop Making Sense. But both of those films are trying to do way different things, so whatever

[MadMan]

Yes. Part of my love for this film is definitely due to the fact that I am totally in the bag for Chappelle. I could watch that guy do just about anything for 90 minutesSo could I. He's constantly entertaining. Plus the movie contains Mos Def, who's fast becoming a favorite of mine in terms of acting and his music as well.

[Spaceman Spiff]

Greatest concert film, ever? Yeah, probably

http://www.jackhodgson.com/weblog/img/2007/lastwaltz.png

http://dryden.eastmanhouse.org/media/stopmaking.jpg

?

[Adam]

http://i560.photobucket.com/albums/ss47/adamstone20/LastNight_1__0005-2.jpg
Last Night
Don McKellar - 1999

Con los pobres de la tierra, quiero yo mi suerte echar
El arroyo de la sierra, me complace más que el mar
Guantanamera, guajira Guantanamera

Serving as the loveliest bit of counter-programming imaginable for all those offensively garish and tasteless apocalyptic disaster flicks churned out at the tail end of the 20th century; Don McKellar’s Toronto-set Last Night is about the end of the world. What it’s really about, though, is the improbably redemptive and incorruptible nature of mankind. How we can (mostly) shine just as brightly in our darkest moments, no matter what horribleness is staring us down. At the end of this film, everything that has ever lived or will ever live is gone. Somehow, though, that’s all right. It remains a poignant, moving, deliciously irreverent and, maybe above all else, hopeful experience

But yes, for unexplained reasons, the Earth is going to end. The public at large has known about this for a couple of months now and, for the most part, folks have come to terms with the inevitability of their fate. Last Night focuses on our final six hours and how everyone chooses to spend this time differently. Callum Keith Renne wants to go out humping, Sarah Polley decides to celebrate alongside her fellow man, David Cronenberg plans on committing mutually assisted suicide with his wife and so on. Character threads intertwine freely throughout and everybody leaves a mark on one another. People say their goodbyes and then they move on. Our hero, Patrick (Don McKellar), is going to stay home by himself; maybe listening to a bit of music and drinking wine. He is comfortable enough with himself, he says, that he doesn’t feel the need to go out and manufacture relationships just so he won‘t die alone. Or at least that was the thought until he meets the perpetually frazzled Sandra (Sandra Oh). She’s stranded miles away from her husband. Her car has been destroyed and cell phones don’t work, anymore. She’s pregnant and she wants to know if that’s wrong. She needs help and so Patrick helps her

Disarmingly calm for a film about the end of days, this is still a very honest movie. There is confused violence and general dispiritedness and most everything else you’d expect out of the story of individuals facing their last few hours of life. Vitally, though, Last Night is tonally unique in its down-to-earth, existential and almost bemused take on the apocalypse. From that standpoint, it’s closest cousin is probably Miracle Mile, though this film is much richer. And it’s all very Canadian, whatever that might mean. The cast from top to bottom is pitch-perfect. McKellar, who is generally awesome in everything I've seen him in, especially embodies the film’s abstract, deadpan charm. But really everybody gets their moments

The film was apparently made after someone challenged McKellar to make a movie concerning the turning millennium and the Armageddon which certain loons decided was coming with it. His version of the end of the world openly plays on those overarching millennial anxieties, but he’s way more interested in examining how this would all go down on a personal, human level. He’s very successful, I think. In fact, it's almost a shame the world didn't end on Y2K Eve, because humanity couldn’t have hoped for a more elegantly bittersweet swan song than Last Night

[Adam]

http://i560.photobucket.com/albums/ss47/adamstone20/portraitofjennie4.jpg
Portrait of Jennie
William Dieterle - 1948

What an indescribably, intoxicatingly romantic film

Joseph Cotten stars as Eben Adams; a frustrated and starving painter in Depression-era New York City who has technical ability, but has never been able to realize his full potential. Eben’s jollily stereotypical Irish friend (David Wayne) is quick to tell him he’s living the dream, doing what he loves, and he’s got a concerned, kindly art dealer (Ethel Barrymore) watching his back but, all told, it’s still bad times for the guy. Nobody wants his work (it's ironic Adams can't sell his boring paintings of landscapes since he's starring in a film with some of the most beautifully rendered and stunning backdrops/skylines in celluloid history) and he‘s desperate to latch onto something, ANYthing, that will spark his creative juices. He eventually does find his muse in the form of Jennie (Jennifer Jones); a girl who appears to him intermittently in varying stages of age and otherworldliness. Jennie may or may not be a time traveling ghost, but either way, Adams doesn’t sweat it too bad and neither do we. It’s not long before he’s thoroughly swooning and, more importantly, painting his masterpiece

As Eben’s fascination and obsession over Jennie grows, so do the visual stakes. This is a film bathed in beauty. Really I can’t even begin to do justice in words to the jaw-dropping and completely innovative cinematography and art direction. It’s all very dreamy and very atmospheric - an absolute feast for the senses and an experience to be swept up in. There’s just so much here. The vaseline-covered lens which melts Eben’s peculiar visions of Jennie in stirring waves of fog. The canvas shot-through and superimposed over compositions, creating the effect of a living, breathing painting and blurring the line between artist and subject. The fantastic realization of a romanticized, snow-covered Central Park. The ethereal greenish tint that drips over frames in the climatic scenes of a brutal storm at sea. The shadows dancing over faces, casting characters in shrouds of tantalizing mystery and on and on and on

The entire film is just one big burst of style and artistry and that’s a reflection of Eben’s own orgasmic creative awakening. Drab and cold NYC morphs into a phantasmagoric smorgasbord, black and white turns to color and Eben himself becomes the success he was always supposed to be. He’s lived an impoverished life and we meet him at the absolute end of his rope and then out of nothing comes a woman from the heavens who finally opens him up. She frees him from whatever was stymieing his abilities and gives him an inspiration to last a lifetime

In the end, even if he wasn’t ready to give her up, Jennie slips away from Adams. He comes out the other side okay, though. And once he’s lost her, he reveals himself to be the patron saint of any artist who‘s experienced a period of crippling creative blockage. Inspiration is hard to come by when you’re toiling away in abject poverty, living an increasingly unfulfilling life, but there’s always hope and there’s always dreams. Maybe you’ll never make anything as gorgeous as Portrait of Jennie, but at least you haven’t sold out, yet

[hey it's ethan]

Glad to see Last Night. I saw it over five years ago and it's stuck with me since.