Derek failed at finishing his top 100, but there are a lot of solid reviews in here!

[Bosco B Thug]

#90 - A Grin Without a Cat (Chris Marker, 1977) Wait, I've seen this! Umm... great pick, spot-on write-up... Marker's stuff is so dense - too dense, I can hardly be made to recall chunks of it even when I've had to watch it three times in a week. I read "A cat is never on the side of power" (great line, how does he think this stuff up?) and I'm still only vaguely certain that I've in fact heard it 3+ times now.

[transmogrifier]

Quick question: how does NOT explaining magic in an animated film strip away wonder?

Thx!

[Sycophant]

Quick question: how does NOT explaining magic in an animated film strip away wonder?

Thx!If I may be so presumptuous as to jump in here and answer this question, I'd imagine that iosos is saying there's something a little distancing about a magical world that has no coherent rules or discernable internal logic. It can turn what would be a magical, fascinating wonderland into an incomprehensible, bizarre dream.

Correct me if I'm wrong!

[transmogrifier]

If I may be so presumptuous as to jump in here and answer this question, I'd imagine that iosos is saying there's something a little distancing about a magical world that has no coherent rules or discernable internal logic. It can turn what would be a magical, fascinating wonderland into an incomprehensible, bizarre dream.

Correct me if I'm wrong!

Why does a setting need discernable internal logic to be magical and fascinating though? That's the jump I'm really concerned about.

Seems to me, whether something is "a magical, fascinating wonderland" or "an incomprehensible, bizarre dream" (which actually sounds pretty appealing in the right context) depends a lot on how the film is shot and cut together, and rather independent of the depth and consistency of the Laws governing how this fictional place can behave..

[Qrazy]

If I may be so presumptuous as to jump in here and answer this question, I'd imagine that iosos is saying there's something a little distancing about a magical world that has no coherent rules or discernable internal logic. It can turn what would be a magical, fascinating wonderland into an incomprehensible, bizarre dream.

Correct me if I'm wrong!

Thankfully none of those issues apply to any Miyazaki films.

[Sven]

Why does a setting need discernable internal logic to be magical and fascinating though?

It doesn't. It can still remain magical and fascinating and make very little sense. Howl's Moving Castle is a good example of this. Especially in the last act, where, among other things, the castle is falling apart and the doorway is leading to other realms without any discernment, other than convenience of narrative.


Seems to me, whether something is "a magical, fascinating wonderland" or "an incomprehensible, bizarre dream" (which actually sounds pretty appealing in the right context) depends a lot on how the film is shot and cut together, and rather independent of the depth and consistency of the Laws governing how this fictional place can behave..

I do think that consistency, not necessarily depth, is a key issue in creating interest and consequence, particularly when dealing with fantasy. If you're going to make a vampire movie where the vampires are not repelled by holy water, you'd better have a scene that communicates that idea before executing it as a dramatic motion. It just won't do to show a vampire doused in the stuff, remain unaffected, and not explain it.

The scene in Spirited Away that really bugs me (in fact, it's the only scene that REALLY bugs me) is the bit where Chuhiro - the taciturn boy river God prince warrior dragon whatever - says to Sen "Hurry across the bridge, I'll stall 'em!" or something to that effect, then turns around and blows some leaves and magic or something. You may recall the image, as it was one of the film's popular advertising clips. Anyway, I take it that the leaf-magic stalled her pursuers in some capacity, but Miyazaki errs in not showing us how her chasers are stalled. He doesn't ever cut back to them. They just *poof*. And it's like... if they're going to take such momentous pains to establish this magic disappearing powder (or whatever it is), why doesn't it ever show up again in situations where it would be useful? Also, the sudden appearance of such a specific and effective magic gives the world infinite possibilities, and in a world where anything can happen at any time (like someone pulling out magic "stalling" leaves in opportune situations), nothing really matters much because the audience can feel the storyteller's contrivances. As it stands, it's this random little bit of perfect business that pops up to help its character out of just the right circumstance and then disappears forever. That nerfs resonance.

[origami_mustache]

oops repped isosos for Duncan's E'Clisse post haha

[Sven]

oops repped isosos for Duncan's E'Clisse post haha

Eeeeexcellent.

[Raiders]

It seems only fair I neg rep iosos for including Nausicaa to even this all out.

[Sven]

It seems only fair I neg rep iosos for including Nausicaa to even this all out.

Nooooooo! You have twice as much to take away. Don't do it! Don't do it!

I forgot... you're not a Nausicaa fan? As a Mononoke fan, I'd imagine that the prototype would be of great interest.

[Raiders]

I forgot... you're not a Nausicaa fan? As a Mononoke fan, I'd imagine that the prototype would be of great interest.

I am. I prefer Mononoke (and a few others), but I am.

[Sven]

Duncan
Balloons are beautiful.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v350/iosos/matchcut%20misc/avatar.gif

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v350/iosos/matchcut%20misc/rep.gifhttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v350/iosos/matchcut%20misc/rep.gifhttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v350/iosos/matchcut%20misc/rep.gif
Rep Power: 2
Rep Points: 220

89. Report (Conner, 1967)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v350/iosos/matchcut%20misc/ReportKennedymotorcade.png

Hillary Clinton, in her unnecessarily prolonged bid to become the Democratic Party’s nominee for president of the United States, has recently been criticized for a comment regarding the assassination of Robert Kennedy. In order to gently remind us that the race isn’t over till it’s over she recalled that Kennedy – Democratic frontrunner at the time – was killed in June. It being presently May, many people took this as an almost hopeful suggestion that Barack Obama could meet the same fate. Regardless of whether or not she meant the remark innocuously, the sound byte carries parasitic implications of fear mongering. There are some possibilities that one chooses to acknowledge only silently, though acknowledge them we must. On the unfortunate occasions when those possibilities are realised the majority of people will experience them through the media’s lens. One of those historical moments was the assassination of Robert Kennedy’s brother, President John F. Kennedy. This event and the media’s treatment of it are the subjects of Bruce Conner’s 1967 short film entitled Report.

Report is thirteen minutes long, and approximately five minutes of its running time consists of strobe effects and a ten second countdown that keeps resetting itself. A persistent voiceover describes the assassination of JFK in approximately real time. The reporter is unsure of the details. He is not even sure of who has been shot, just that the President’s limo has sped to a hospital and that doctors have been informed to prepare for a severe gunshot wound. There is a distinct tone of worry and uncertainty in the reporter’s voice that I have only heard one other time in my life, and that was during the attacks of September 11th. Towards the end of the countdown sequence we are informed that the President has died and the film goes silent. Conner cuts to a shot of a horse stumbling back and forth. The camera also wavers, which adds to the feeling of unsteadiness. An odd aspect of this shot is that the horse is forced into its zigzag motion by its rider who seems perfectly happy. He doffs his hat, and the horse bucks playfully. Conner cuts for a few frames to the Lincoln monument, the stone as still as ever. Is the instability merely a show? Are we being put on? The audience in the arena loves what they see. They even love to see the same rider turn matador and deliver the death stroke to a bull all bloodied and crippled. (If a few people in the ring get trampled, all the better for the show.) The audience is just as much a part of the proceedings as the horse or rider.

Is Report, then, just a condemnation of the mutually agreed upon death spectacle created by both the media and the public? No, that is much too simple a reading. It would ignore the anxiety in the reporter’s voice. It would ignore the complexity of the Warholian image repetition Conner utilizes. As with Senator Clinton’s recent misstep, the images of JFK’s last moments have been repeated endlessly. The Zapruder film continues to be shown regularly on television and the internet. There is an unsettling morbidity to its repetition, a dehumanization and quantification of the deceased. Nevertheless, our fascination with this strip of celluloid is not entirely to do with a voyeuristic bloodlust. We are, as individuals, genuinely moved to melancholy by those images. I cannot look at pictures or video of Nine Eleven without wincing. But the images are necessary. They have become, by virtue of their repetition, elegies. They are documents of the catharsis, terror, courage, and failures of will that JFK, Robert Kennedy, and the more than 3,000 people that died on September 11th, 2001 may or may not have experienced. They do not document with falsehood, but with forgiveness and appreciation.

Report is a great film because it so deftly captures this tenuous balance inherent in the images of death presented to us by the media. It understands that these are sensational, bloody commodities to be consumed (as evidenced by the final close up of the “SELL� button). Conner’s film is triumphant, however, because it also understands that repetition can be an act of rebellion in the face of transience.

[Melville]

89. A Zed & Two Noughts (Greenaway, 1985)

http://i239.photobucket.com/albums/ff317/FaulknerFan/zed.jpg

What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

[Melville]

Good reviews all around. But I prefer my magic to make as little sense as possible. If it makes sense, then it doesn't seem as magical.

[Derek]

#89 - The Empire Strikes Back (Irvin Kerschner, 1980)

http://people.bu.edu/rcarney/aboutrc/images/yoda.jpg

A review you expect,
but come it will not.
Seen much as a child this film
and too close to it or simply lazy I am.
Which one it is, you must decide.

[Spinal]

Barely out of the first ten films and already burnout is setting in. Excellent.

[Watashi]

Awesome.

But too low.

[Raiders]

Wow, really? Not a bad pick, but it doesn't strike me as something I would expect to see in your list.

[Raiders]

A review you expect,
but come it will not.
Seen much as a child this film
and too close to it or simply lazy I am.
Which one it is, you must decide.

I believe that last line should be "decide, you must."

[origami_mustache]

I love Report. :thumbs up:

[Derek]

Barely out of the first ten films and already burnout is setting in. Excellent.

Nah, more of a strategic time to take a review off, though it'd make it a little easier to keep up the effort if more than 3 or 4 people ever checked the thread. The fact that you and KF are routing for our failure however will definitely keep us going. :)

But really, I'd be more worried about the continual decline of your previously good taste than a skipped review here.


Germany Year Zero (Rossellini, 1948) **1/2

:crazy:


Wow, really? Not a bad pick, but it doesn't strike me as something I would expect to see in your list.

I've always loved the original three, but especially Empire. It was always my favorite growing up and I've been impressed with it when I've rewatched it as an adult.


I believe that last line should be "decide, you must."

That would be a double reversal. I don't think Yoda's grammar was quite that complex...

[Spinal]

:crazy:


I had to talk myself into that extra half-star.

[Benny Profane]

Nah, more of a strategic time to take a review off, though it'd make it a little easier to keep up the effort if more than 3 or 4 people ever checked the thread.

It's been three months and you're still in the high eighties.

[Derek]

It's been three months and you're still in the high eighties.

Yes, the thread averages about 4 new reviews per week (one each, usually). That correlates to a lack of interest because...? Sorry, that complaint annoys me because why should we be forced to go at any other pace than what works for us? Anyway, I don't want to come of as bitchy...I'm only agreeing with iosos's point from a few weeks ago that we expected a bit more interest. But don't expect more than 1-2 full-length reviews per week from me. I'm a slow writer, these take a lot of effort and I have a lot of other things on my plate these days. Sorry for letting you down Benny.

[Winston*]

I read the reviews when they're posted and think you're all good writers. I just haven't felt the need to post "I too enjoy that particular film and your write-up of it is most interesting" or "I haven't seen this movie you've mentioned but the words you have used to describe it have piqued my interest in seeking it on digital versatile disc". I'm not here to contribute to your ever expanding ego, Derek,

[Derek]

I read the reviews when they're posted and think you're all good writers. I just haven't felt the need to post "I too enjoy that particular film and your write-up of it is most interesting" or "I haven't seen this movie you've mentioned but the words you have used to describe it have piqued my interest in seeking it on digital versatile disc". I'm not here to contribute to your ever expanding ego, Derek,

But my ego can't expand without you. You are the wind beneath my wings, Winston with an asterisk.

[Qrazy]

Nah, more of a strategic time to take a review off, though it'd make it a little easier to keep up the effort if more than 3 or 4 people ever checked the thread.

*checks thread*

*wishes to see another ten listings before able to arouse much enthusiasm*

*leaves thread*

[Qrazy]

Yes, the thread averages about 4 new reviews per week (one each, usually). That correlates to a lack of interest because...? Sorry, that complaint annoys me because why should we be forced to go at any other pace than what works for us? Anyway, I don't want to come of as bitchy...I'm only agreeing with iosos's point from a few weeks ago that we expected a bit more interest. But don't expect more than 1-2 full-length reviews per week from me. I'm a slow writer, these take a lot of effort and I have a lot of other things on my plate these days. Sorry for letting you down Benny.

All of you are striving for too much professionalism... just stream of consciousness rant three paragraphs for each film and do it in double time... go go go!

[Spinal]

But my ego can't expand without you. You are the wind beneath my wings, Winston with an asterisk.

Or perhaps the Brimley to your McCain.

[Derek]

Or perhaps the Brimley to your McCain.

:lol:

Only if he shaves his head and grows a walrus moustache.

[Philosophe_rouge]

I love Nausicaa, it's probably my favourite Miyazaki.

[Benny Profane]

Yes, the thread averages about 4 new reviews per week (one each, usually). That correlates to a lack of interest because...? Sorry, that complaint annoys me because why should we be forced to go at any other pace than what works for us?

Go at whatever pace you choose. You complained, I offered a possible reason. My opinion only, but I'm sure others feel the same way.

[Sven]

#88 - The Cars That Ate Paris

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v350/iosos/Top%20100%20movies/cars-that-ate-paris.jpg

Basically a metaphor for life in its completeness, from violent unasked-for birth through tumultuous and confusing adolescence to the ultimate necessity of constructing one’s own identity by rejecting, as this crazy early film by Peter Weir puts it, the establishments of one’s formative upbringing—or at least forsaking them for a time; as in the Amish Rumspringa, one often sees the extent of an ideological truth when reborn of flame and sin. Luckily Weir’s political bent is less conservative than the town of Paris’s mayor, who willingly participates in the “accidental” slaughter of drivers but flips a twig when the town’s preacher is cruelly beheaded with shotgun buck. Hodophobia is bred from fahrvergnügen in an opening sequence that rivals the best of George Miller in chaotic visual wit, The Cars That Ate Paris encapsulates quite perfectly the fear of indoctrination of inbred morality and the desire (or imperative) to elevate ourselves above that which we know is wrong but feel we have little choice over. In effect, familiar face Terry Camilleri (Napoleon from Bill & Ted’s) is coerced into being adopted by the mayor and essentially chained to the town which “NO ONE LEAVES”. It’s a haunting evocation of the collective horror of pubescent recollection. A dreamy second adolescence, where we’re caught in a perpetual state of remolding at the hands of our <expletive deleted> parents—forcing us into ridiculous positions (like parking patrol jobs, or dating) when we should be trying to find a way to get the hell out of Paris. In a beautiful finale calling on the epilogue of Clouzot’s Wages of Fear, an ominous path is embarked upon—who knows if the traps are real or if they’re set or if any born-again ingenuity will prevail against them. It doesn’t matter… the only thing that does is transcendence. That it’s told with such structural creativity and a fondness for mad scientist dramas and western showdowns is a testament to B-movie imagination. Love it!

Kristen: I'm really surprised I didn't like this more, because I'm a sucker for an absurd premise and a funky, ramshackle 70s aesthetic, but damn, this movie completely baffled me. I'm going to need to give it another chance when I'm not hungover.

[Sven]

Duncan
Balloons are beautiful.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v350/iosos/matchcut%20misc/avatar.gif

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v350/iosos/matchcut%20misc/rep.gifhttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v350/iosos/matchcut%20misc/rep.gifhttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v350/iosos/matchcut%20misc/rep.gif
Rep Power: 2
Rep Points: 220

88. The Ascent (Shepitko, 1976)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v350/iosos/matchcut%20misc/ascent1.jpg

Note: This was written upon my initial viewing of the film.

Nor even in our superstitions do we fail to throw the same snowy mantle round our phantoms; all ghosts rising in a milk-white fog --Yea, while these terrors seize us, let us add, that even the king of terrors, when personified by the evangelist, rides on his pallid horse. – Melville

Sometimes, while walking through areas made most desolate by winter, I am overcome by a chill. I’ll squint, bury my face up to my nose in my jacket, and scan the white landscape. It is open, and it is frightening. The chill passes, but I am grateful for the not-quite-frozen river whose sound accompanies the crunch of my footsteps. Watching Larisa Shepitko’s The Ascent gave me that same chill.

A group of villagers is exhausted and out of food after marching to avoid the Nazis in WWII Russia. It is decided that two men should walk to a nearby farmstead and return with enough food for all. So, a soldier (Rybak) and a schoolteacher (Sotnikov) head out into the Russian winter only to find that the farm has been destroyed. They continue on their search, but Sotnikov is shot in the leg during an encounter with the Germans. Rybak proves valiant, however, and drags Sotnikov through the snow. Whiteness envelops them, and the landscape adopts the eerie quality of a bright void. I didn’t know voids could be bright. Mostly I think of them as dark.

Rybak’s efforts eventually prove futile, and the pair is captured. They are taken to a Nazi camp where they are interrogated by the inimitable Anatoli Solonitsyn. What follows is a sort of morality play and Christ parable. Sotnikov, the Christ figure, never finds the food for those villagers. No water into wine. No fish and bread for the hungry. In fact, we never see the villagers again. They may have starved to death, or have been consumed by the carnivorous war in some other way. Maybe they just faded into that bright void. Maybe they lived happily. I don’t know.

Shepitko strikes me as a director who works best outside. She can take advantage of long takes combined with long shots. As a very general, subjective comment, I will say that this is a cinema that appeals to me. When she goes inside, however, she loses the epic scale of the landscape and resorts to some fairly standard crosscutting. This makes the interrogation scenes more interesting for the script than for the direction. Although, I will say the sound design during one portion of Sotnikov’s interrogation is impressive. Same with the scene near the end atop the mount.

The sacrificial scene is ripe for exploitation. Sheptiko could have squeezed every last drop of milk from that melodramatic utter (ew). Instead, she decides to mute the dialogue and focus mainly on Sotnikov’s face. His features are surrounded by a visual and aural glow. You might expect the Trumpets of Paradise to have a harmonious, brassy sound, but here they turn out to be a rumbling hum. And they’re beautiful. I believe the scene may fall one small boy’s tear short of transcendent, but it’s knocking pretty hard on the Pearly Gates. Shepitko wants desperately to get inside, and to bring us along. Not many directors have the courage to set their cathartic goal so high, and I respect any work that gets this close to that goal.

Finally, we return to Earth and are confronted once again with that bright void. It turns out the void itself isn’t frightening at all. What is frightening is how vast and brilliant we could be, but what little creatures we choose to be instead.

[dreamdead]

Hmms, methinks I need to see this Ascent film once Criterion gets their edition out.

And kudos to the Greenaway film. After the rewatch of TCTTHW&HL, I think that Zed is firmly positioned as my favorite of his films, though I'd really like another viewing of The Pillow Book to guarantee such an assumption. Just really love how metatextual that film is...

[Qrazy]

Hmms, methinks I need to see this Ascent film once Criterion gets their edition out.

And kudos to the Greenaway film. After the rewatch of TCTTHW&HL, I think that Zed is firmly positioned as my favorite of his films, though I'd really like another viewing of The Pillow Book to guarantee such an assumption. Just really love how metatextual that film is...

Yeah I'd like to rewatch The Ascent once it's out because even the online terrible transfer copy was a joy to behold. I'm not too big on The Pillow Book (don't care for the aesthetic) although I'm a fan of the other two.

[Bosco B Thug]

http://i239.photobucket.com/albums/ff317/FaulknerFan/zed.jpg

What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry? Neat.


#88 - The Cars That Ate Paris
I'd love to love this one and I love that it's on your list. Saw it a long long time ago. Was baffled, young mind probably even irritated by it. Will rewatch.

[Melville]

#88 - The Cars That Ate Paris
Bizarro. It sounds like one of those movies that makes me think I should like it simply by virtue of its bizarreness, but which I end up finding tedious or inconsequential. Nevertheless, I'll add it to my to-watch list.

Also, The Ascent rocks. Hard.

[Melville]

88. The Sweet Hereafter (Egoyan, 1997)

http://i239.photobucket.com/albums/ff317/FaulknerFan/sweethereafter.jpg

What Derek said.

[Duncan]

Checking in from Fes, Morocco. Pretty crazy here.

The Cars that Ate Paris sounds pretty cool. I kinda like Weir.

Otherwise, hope everyone is doing well.

[Sven]

Checking in from Fes, Morocco. Pretty crazy here.

The Cars that Ate Paris sounds pretty cool. I kinda like Weir.

Otherwise, hope everyone is doing well.

Sweet!!

For those with ability, The Cars that Ate Paris is going to be on IFC tomorrow. Watch it!

[Benny Profane]

Duncan, I'm going to Fes in August. We gotta talk.

[Derek]

#88 - Deep Red (Dario Agento, 1975)

http://whiggles.landofwhimsy.com/images/commentary-rosso.jpg

Dario Argento's fascination with the act of seeing, in terms of both perception and memory, and his stylistic execution of this interest set him apart from most other horror directors. He often toys with our limited perspective as the viewer by burying clues and evidence in the most unlikely of places on the screen, yet, in retrospect, we realize they were always clearly right in front of us. With his greatest film, Deep Red, he expands on this technique by making his protagonist the surrogate for the viewer, not only with point-of-view shots, but through his struggle to remember the most minute details of the murder he witnessed. Argento has two games playing at once, which mirror and play off one another - the first between our own inability to focus on and parse through all of the visual information and his own God's eye view and the other between Marcus and the villain. Form and content are not merely in harmony - they're one and the same and even the film's most thrilling and suspenseful moments are carefully framed or revealed in a way that reflects our own fragmented perception of the reality presented.

It is no coincidence that Argento cast David Hemmings as the lead here as Argento tackles similar themes as that other famous Hemming's vehicle, Antonioni's Blow Up, in terms of how the protagonist's comprehension of their own memories and reality itself are seemingly in a constant state of flux. As much as I like that film, Deep Red is more impressive for seamlessly weaving genre conventions with the formalist techniques of the art film. The final act is particularly impressive in dealing with these seemingly incongruous concerns when Marcus visits an abandoned mansion to search for clues. The editing becomes increasingly fragmented, often shifting between POV shots and long shots from around the corner or above him, giving us the sense of watching and being watched. The tension is developed not by cheap scares, but through its central thematic concerns. When he scrapes off pieces of the wall to reveal a painting underneath and later breaks through different walls to discover what's behind them, it reflects our own attempts to delve into the three-dimensionality that lies within the two-dimensional screen we're viewing in order to uncover the depth of meaning that lies within. It is through Argento and Marcus's endless fascination with exploring the intricacies and complexities of their environment (and their experiences within and memories of them) that the film so remarkably succeeds at conveying the frustration and obsession with bringing memory and truth together. And what better way to present this than forcing us to consciously go through it ourselves?

[monolith94]

Hmms, methinks I need to see this Ascent film once Criterion gets their edition out.

And kudos to the Greenaway film. After the rewatch of TCTTHW&HL, I think that Zed is firmly positioned as my favorite of his films, though I'd really like another viewing of The Pillow Book to guarantee such an assumption. Just really love how metatextual that film is...
I really like the Pillow Book too, but I have to ask, have you read the book? Because knowing the book itself is, to me, essential to understanding the film itself.

[Sven]

Your review has realigned my critical faculties, unpolished though they may be, to a few of the qualities of Argento's cinema that I find capital--my own calibrator had been wonked up after witnessing the gnarled tumor that was Mother of Tears. Wo! Wo! Such abortively bland idiocy! [/impassioned]

Rep, good man, for a gesture of such baptismal assurance.

[Bosco B Thug]

#88 - Deep Red (Dario Agento, 1975)

Form and content are not merely in harmony - they're one and the same and even the film's most thrilling and suspenseful moments are carefully framed or revealed in a way that reflects our own fragmented perception of the reality presented. Sweet, great review! I like this sentence. "Form and content... one and the same" is actually something I think should always be looked at as true when evaluating the worth of a film.

[dreamdead]

Wonderful thoughts on the Argento film. Really makes me want to watch it all over again; in fact, a friend wants to get into Argento, so I think I'll position this one as an excellent starting place. Just love the mysteries it weaves in, though the pause button could dampen the mood considerably.

[Sven]

#87 - Gremlins 2: The New Batch

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v350/iosos/Top%20100%20movies/Gremlins.jpg

What is there to say about these little green buggers that hasn’t been said? They’re ferocious, ugly, and generally metaphorical, in the first film as a parody of 50’s-era xenophobia, but in the sequel, updated (now archaic given it’s 18 year age) and totally bazzonkers, the gremlins, rather than literally symbolizing the shoddy nature of the cultures from which they derive (and attempt to spread), come to represent the duplicity of corporate America, with a big fat emphasis on advertising and commercial product. Just as Gizmo represents the innocence of Ma and Pa, his progeny (and arguable natural ideological extension) corrupts his homey standing as a proxy for small town values (Dante suggests that such a state of mind is impossible to exist within big city limits, so it’s no surprise that their ultimate undoing is through an amalgam of twentieth century ingenuity: genetic mutation and call waiting).

This movie is fantastic and hilarious. Dante’s appreciation for old horror and science fiction films manifested itself most strongly in the first film, where here, he lets his love for Looney Tunes and the Three Stooges take over. The monsters are less sinister here than they are in the first one, only one human death is acknowledged, and the film closes with Robert Picardo surrendering his body sexually to a transgendered gremlin. One of the key plot devices is the invasion of a genetic research lab, where the filmmakers have all kinds of fun devising different elixirs for the gremlins to take: spider, bat, electric, vegetable, woman, brain (voiced by Tony Randall!). The puppetry is tip-top, Gizmo is as cute as ever, John Glover is a revelation as a Donald Trump surrogate, and the gags just keep coming. I’ve seen Gremlins 2 maybe, I don’t know, ten, twenty times, yearly, pretty much, since its release, and watching it still offers a slew of new rewards.

Kristen: I'm glad I didn't see either of these movies as a kid. I don't think I would have liked them. I would have been scared by the monsters, and I wouldn't have gotten any of the references. I think I preferred the scrappy ingenuity of the first one to the slick manicness of the second, but both were fun.

[Ezee E]

I was watching Gremlins 2 the other day, and in the kitchen my roommate went nuts because of the cartoony sounds and told me to shut it off. I laughed.

There's a lot of funny things happening in the background of this movie.

[balmakboor]

#87 - Gremlins 2: The New Batch

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v350/iosos/Top%20100%20movies/Gremlins.jpg

[/I]

Nice pick. I actually just re-watched this last week. Back in the day, after being hot on Dante after Gremlins, Explorers, and Innerspace, I cooled off with The Burbs and Gremlins 2. Gremlins 2 now looks like a very smart film, possibly better than its predecessor, and the re-watch has kindled my interst to catch up on missed Dantes like Matinee, Small Soldier, and Looney Tunes: Back in Action.

Watching Gremlins 2, I kept thinking Dante was like Larry Cohen's cartoon obessed little brother. It'd be interesting to watch it alongside Q: The Winged Serpent.

[Qrazy]

Nice pick. I actually just re-watched this last week. Back in the day, after being hot on Dante after Gremlins, Explorers, and Innerspace, I cooled off with The Burbs and Gremlins 2. Gremlins 2 now looks like a very smart film, possibly better than its predecessor, and the re-watch has kindled my interst to catch up on missed Dantes like Matinee, Small Soldier, and Looney Tunes: Back in Action.

Watching Gremlins 2, I kept thinking Dante was like Larry Cohen's cartoon obessed little brother. It'd be interesting to watch it alongside Q: The Winged Serpent.

I would think that you would like Small Soldiers.

[balmakboor]

I would think that you would like Small Soldiers.

I'm starting to suspect the same. It's always good to have things to look forward to. Kinda makes me want to never see ALL of the films I want to see.

[Qrazy]

I'm starting to suspect the same. It's always good to have things to look forward to. Kinda makes me want to never see ALL of the films I want to see.

Yeah, I'm starting to realize it's pretty close to impossible though. Everytime I think I've made a dent in film history I find a new list or receive a slew of recommendations which puts me back at square one.

[Sven]

Duncan
Balloons are beautiful.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v350/iosos/matchcut%20misc/avatar.gif

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v350/iosos/matchcut%20misc/rep.gifhttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v350/iosos/matchcut%20misc/rep.gifhttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v350/iosos/matchcut%20misc/rep.gif
Rep Power: 2
Rep Points: 220

87. The Sacrifice (Tarkovsky, 1986)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v350/iosos/matchcut%20misc/bftarko101.jpg

The Sacrifice was released in the year of my birth. It is also Andrei Tarkovsky’s last film. Tarkovsky, being sick with cancer during its production, probably suspected that The Sacrifice would be his final opportunity to voice his thoughts in the language of cinema. It is difficult, then, not to read the film as a sort of last will and testament; as a summation of his philosophy and ideas. Tarkovsky’s philosophy, I must admit, is rather opposed to my own. He was a religious man who believed deeply in the existence of God and in the existence of miracles. I cannot profess to believe in either. We differ also on the central subject matter of this film, that of its title.

Made during the tail end of the Cold War and set in the near future, The Sacrifice deals with the issue of nuclear holocaust. The essential premise is that one man’s sacrifice is capable of saving humanity. So, when it becomes apparent that the world powers are on the brink of mutually assured destruction, Alexander (Erland Josephson) delivers himself up to a god he previously did not believe in. He, in what is one of the more moving monologues ever filmed, promises to give up speech, contact with his family, and his home if the impending catastrophe may be averted. In the meantime, he is informed that if he sleeps with a witch the world may also be saved. He follows through with both and the Apocalypse is averted. Tarkovsky gives us two possible explanations for the miracle. He also implicitly leaves us the alternative that Alexander’s personal actions had nothing to do with world events and that he is as insane as his family believes him to be.

For a last will and testament, this is all very confused. Throw in references to Nietzsche, Leonardo da Vinci, obscure Japanese monks, the singular photography of Swede Sven Nykvist and the result is quite a variety of cultures, ideas, and aesthetics. I have read reviews criticizing The Sacrifice for this, but I believe it is one of the film’s major strengths. The Sacrifice was directed by a man approaching death with a multitude of questions and a few truths that he was sure of. One of these truths is that there is a spectacular greatness in people, though it is one rarely reached or even strived for. Tarkovsky proposes that, as the Christian tradition tells us, a single act of love or goodness embodied in a sacrifice can redeem mankind. (I part ways with him here, but will avoid that detour for brevity’s sake.) Towards the end of The Sacrifice, Tarkovsky’s own son, mute until now, asks, “Papa, why does it begin with the word?� We are called back to Genesis and the creation of Earth, and the full extent of Alexander’s sacrifice becomes apparent. He has forsaken the creative powers that allow us to wear god’s image without embarrassment. The son, however, is just gaining them for they are essentially youthful powers. Each generation, facing death with only the assurance of a few truths, must pass on the same longing to fill the gaps within and between ourselves to its progeny.

Andrei Tarkovsky died a few months before I was born. That I never shared the Earth with a man whose art is so important to me is, for reasons purely irrational, an undeniable discomfort. Nevertheless, I am reminded of the story heard early in The Sacrifice of the Japanese monk who dutifully watered a dead tree until it blossomed. For reasons also of the irrational sort, I think that by watching Tarkovsky’s films, reading his book, and reading interviews I am helping to resurrect (yes, I know how lame this is) a person that no longer exists. Only his creations remain, but they are enough for me to believe in the potential universality of art and in personal transcendence. Even more impressive to the stalwart atheist like myself is that, for a few select moments, this film brings me closer to believing in God. The Sacrifice ends with a dedication: “To my son with hope and confidence.� It is overlaid on a shot of the top of that dead, Japanese tree against the sea. Abstracted, the image is one of faith fulfilled as the sea provides shimmering foliage to a tree that is suddenly full of life.

[Sven]

Easily my favorite Tarkovsky. Which is to say (I say again, at the risk of the same ol' derision), the only one I really like. But I really like it. Excellent review, I must say. You humble me.

[dreamdead]

Da-amn. Fantastic review. I'm bumping this from the middle to the top of the queue based on this alone. Hopefully I'll have thoughts that can enter into a dialogue with yours soon.

[origami_mustache]

Not my favorite Tarkovsky, but an amazing film nonetheless...it's strange how I also find myself disagreeing with his philosophy, but still connect with his films so much.

[Duncan]

I'm back!

[Sven]

I'm back!

It was a pleasure speaking for you. Glad you're back. As you can see, it's been fairly quiet while you've been away.

[Sven]

Aaaaaaaand, now that Duncan's back, Melville is gone, but I've got his back. No reviews, but he's letting us post for him anyway. Hooray!

Melville
Waving my arms absurdly

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v350/iosos/matchcut%20misc/ordet-1.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v350/iosos/matchcut%20misc/rep.gifhttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v350/iosos/matchcut%20misc/rep.gifhttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v350/iosos/matchcut%20misc/rep.gif
Rep Power: 3
Rep Points: 188

87. Lost in Translation (Coppola, 2003)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v350/iosos/matchcut%20misc/lost-in-translation-2.jpg

"OMG ennui" - iosos [/couldn't help self, likes film]

[dreamdead]

Meant to comment on this one awhile back. Despite my appreciation for Coppola's film, which is enough to own it and bust it out once every couple years, it's tempered by my acknowledging that some of her most affecting shots (I'm thinking specifically here of Johansson's head on Murray's shoulders) are cribbed from the filmography of WKW. And though I'll often articulate a postmodern template in my thinking about cinema, this sort of appropriation (wherein the simulacra is more known than the original) has always bothered me.

That said, her films have introduced a more introspective and feminine model of cinema into mainstream attention (one that rejects facile rom-com as the discourse for women in film; even if it's positioned as a "comedy" rather glibly by marketers), and some of her shots are startling in their evocation of modern alienation, so I remain hesitantly appreciative.

As a transitional film into lesser-known filmmakers, it's fantastic. On its own merits, I'm a bit less enthused.

[Sven]

Welcome back, Melville! I only got to post one of your entries, but it was a good'n. Perhaps it's been too assimilated by the annoyingly hip kids these days for me to be jubilant about it (an impulse that borders on questionable, to be sure, but an honest one that I cannot deny... still loved Darjeeling).

As for Derek (and all involved, in fact), when do you suggest is a good time frame to begin prodding for an entry. Do not count this as a prod for an entry, but maybe we should put some sort of limit on days between entries, just to ensure progress--to keep the thread from petering out. Maybe four or five days, and if you can't make it, you post your entry anyway, sans review?

[MacGuffin]

I love Lost in Translation. That picture only makes me love it more.

[Qrazy]

I'm having the same reaction as Iosis to Lost in Translation (and for me also Mulholland Drive) but it's not in reaction to the 'hipsters' or anything like that. I just thought they were good, maybe great films when I saw them, but they're constantly touted as exceptional, pinnacle of cinema level stuff... So I have no problem really with the placement of it on your list Mel, but when those two decimate consensus threads I get a bit annoyed.

[Derek]

Sorry for the hold up. A whole combination of time suckers, recently including getting sick have been keeping me away from this. I'll post a space saver so everyone else can keep moving.

#87 - Decasia (Bill Morrison, 2002)

http://www.mayastendhalgallery.com/images/5billmorrison/600px_paintings/600px_p3.jpg

In this age of digital representation and virtual worlds, it becomes even more crucial, from both a historical perspective and a lover of film as an art form, to acknowledge the properties of actual film and the various aspects that differentiate from not just other visual art forms, but digital films as well. Not to lament too much about the casualties of the post-modern condition and the loss of the original amongst a sea of increasingly "accurate" copies, but it's at the very least a loss worth considering. I for one do not believe film is dead, because the thinness and superficiality of the digital image simply cannot compete with the rich, pulsating vibrace of film. Andre Bazin famously wrote about the spiritual nature of film and how it's chemical properties contain the imprint of reality itself. Where the digital image is akin to tracing an image onto a separate piece of paper, film is like silly putty, not merely copying an image but absorbing what it photographs. Where one is a copy which can be endlessly replecated, the other retains a connection to world it records, albeit one that can be diluted and even disappear over time.

Bill Morrison's Decasia combines decayed footage from various sources to explore these physical properties of film and the nature of aging and time. Opening with a slow-motion shot of a dancer spinning, we see the beauty of film's ability to capture bodies in motion combined with decaying patches containing reminders of the fleetingness of the moment and the unavoidable tyranny of time. Morrison carefully balances the image and decay - a necessary yin-yang relationship that poetically conveys the transformative nature of film and reality and the tragic beauty of man continuously fighting against his own demise. The industrial-style soundtrack gives the film the atmosphere of a horror film, changing the swirling chemicals, scratches and holes into an all-encompassing villain against which the on-screen characters battle. There is one particular sequence that is poignant and amusing where a man on the left side of the screen appears to be boxing against a completely destroyed right side, as if to reverse time, remove the decay and reclaim the truth contained in the original image.

In seeing this highly damaged and distorted footage, Morrison allows us to ponder the delicate beauty of the film image and the dire need for preservation and restoration, while also finding lyricism in the destruction itself. Even as the original characters are stretched, skewed and sometimes lost, ghostly images are formed in smears, suggesting the depth of reality contained within and the inability of time and neglect to destroy everything meaningful. As horrific as these elements are, the film remains hopeful in its elegy and a standing tribute to the artform.

[Melville]

"OMG ennui" - iosos [/couldn't help self, likes film]
I was going to go with "Ennui ftw."


Welcome back, Melville! I only got to post one of your entries, but it was a good'n. Perhaps it's been too assimilated by the annoyingly hip kids these days for me to be jubilant about it (an impulse that borders on questionable, to be sure, but an honest one that I cannot deny... still loved Darjeeling).
I don't think I spend enough time talking to annoyingly hip kids to register which films they're assimilating. I'm woefully uninformed.


Meant to comment on this one awhile back. Despite my appreciation for Coppola's film, which is enough to own it and bust it out once every couple years, it's tempered by my acknowledging that some of her most affecting shots (I'm thinking specifically here of Johansson's head on Murray's shoulders) are cribbed from the filmography of WKW. And though I'll often articulate a postmodern template in my thinking about cinema, this sort of appropriation (wherein the simulacra is more known than the original) has always bothered me.

That said, her films have introduced a more introspective and feminine model of cinema into mainstream attention (one that rejects facile rom-com as the discourse for women in film; even if it's positioned as a "comedy" rather glibly by marketers), and some of her shots are startling in their evocation of modern alienation, so I remain hesitantly appreciative.

As a transitional film into lesser-known filmmakers, it's fantastic. On its own merits, I'm a bit less enthused.
I'm not sure about the indebtedness to WKW. The composition of the head-on-shoulder shot in LiT is very different from the shot in In the Mood for Love (which I'm guessing is what you're talking about... or have I missed a recurring visual motif in WKW's films?):

http://i239.photobucket.com/albums/ff317/FaulknerFan/LOST.jpg

http://i239.photobucket.com/albums/ff317/FaulknerFan/Inthemoodforlove.jpg

Coppola's style seems completely singular to me. The whole of LiT strikes me as the equivalent of My Bloody Valentine's Loveless: it goes further toward capturing a mood of bittersweet, ethereal dreaminess than anything before it. I have serious qualms with the film, but lack of originality or singularity isn't one of them.


Even more impressive to the stalwart atheist like myself is that, for a few select moments, this film brings me closer to believing in God.
I feel similarly about Andrei Rublev and the ending of The Brothers Karamazov. Tarkovsky and Dostoevsky don't really bring me closer to believing in God, but they make that belief seem reasonable and compelling.


As for Derek (and all involved, in fact), when do you suggest is a good time frame to begin prodding for an entry. Do not count this as a prod for an entry, but maybe we should put some sort of limit on days between entries, just to ensure progress--to keep the thread from petering out. Maybe four or five days, and if you can't make it, you post your entry anyway, sans review?
I think four days is probably a good limit. We should really try to get this thread back on our originally intended schedule. I can't remember what that schedule was, but I'm pretty sure it was considerably faster than we've been going. I'll try to catch up on my entries over the next few days.

[Sven]

I would love to see Decasia. I believe Raiders loves it, no? Your joint recommendations have made it a priority.

Will probably get my entry up tonite.

[NickGlass]

#87 - Gremlins 2: The New Batch


I adore Gremlins 2. I've had two close relationships with it over the years. When I was younger, it was a lovably goofy comedy. After I turned 14, it opened my eyes to malicious corporate satire embedded in a mainstream family film. It's so sly and so, so fly.

[Melville]

I added a review for The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. (http://www.match-cut.org/showpost.php?p=70887&postcount=487)

[Sven]

I added a review for The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. (http://www.match-cut.org/showpost.php?p=70887&postcount=487)

And it's excellent. Particularly love:


My primary interest in art is as a means of acquiring an understanding of the world, not as a list of facts and figures or exact visual representations, but as a qualitative figuration of that world as I—and perhaps more importantly, others—experience it.

I've always tried to say the same thing, but never so succinctly descriptive. I usually go with "Great art is essentially the artist's point-of-view of the world" or some other banal variation. "Way of looking at life."

The paintings rocked.

[Qrazy]

Decasia is OK, can't say I was very taken with the execution. I like the idea behind it more so.

[Melville]

I've always tried to say the same thing, but never so succinctly descriptive. I usually go with "Great art is essentially the artist's point-of-view of the world" or some other banal variation. "Way of looking at life."
Yeah, I've noticed that despite our dissimilar tastes, we seem to have similar outlooks on art.


The paintings rocked.
:pritch:

[Sven]

Yeah, I've noticed that despite our dissimilar tastes, we seem to have similar outlooks on art.

More than "world view" for me, though, a great piece of art has to remind me of what it's like to be alive. Very vague, I know, and I'm not talking about the term "life-affirming". I mean that it has to give me a sense of existence, a palpable construction of humanity, for good or ill, it has to communicate to me the fundamental drives of man or men. Whether it be through perspective, action, philosophy, observation, or theory or anything.

This is why I think Robert Altman is the greatest filmmaker that I've experienced. His entire filmography is basically about figuring out man's function.

[D_Davis]

The Sacrifice, I want to see it.

[Qrazy]

The Sacrifice, I want to see it.

Could be wrong and don't take offense but I think you'll be bored. Cause you've said you were bored by To's Election films so yeah.

[D_Davis]

Could be wrong and don't take offense but I think you'll be bored. Cause you've said you were bored by To's Election films so yeah.

Stalker bored me to tears. It felt like it took 20 minutes for that dude to get out of bed.

Still want to check this out though.

[Sven]

Still want to check this out though.

I think you may like it, actually. I'm saying that because I, too, was never engaged by Stalker, but found The Sacrifice to be completely riveting.

I also was very unmoved by To's Election, and did not remember you feeling similarly.

[D_Davis]

The only thing that kept me watching Election was the music.

And I really like To.

[Qrazy]

I'm not a fan of this Election backlash.

[Sven]

Levi-Straussian opposition in action, kids. Watch carefully.

[D_Davis]

I think you may like it, actually. I'm saying that because I, too, was never engaged by Stalker, but found The Sacrifice to be completely riveting.


I really want to like Stalker.

I want to watch more movies that make me feel and think about things in a similar way that all of this amazing SF I am reading does.

I want a Ballard, or Dick, or Bester, or Sturgeon experience from a film. I want something that makes me think about humanity and our reality in a new way.

It's one of the reasons why I want to watch some Von Trier.

I think that, now, I may be able to appreciate him on a respectable level.

[Sven]

86. The Bridge on the River Kwai

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v350/iosos/Top%20100%20movies/Bridge-on-the-River-Kwai.jpg

A very strange movie, this, that has as much resonance in today’s democratic-terror environment as any film I’ve seen. Ultimately, Holden’s heroism (God bless our good ol’ boy William Holden for always being the hardass American cynic) is accomplished by rejecting standards, rules, order, law, duty, and honor, in the face of returning to a site, under the Queen’s direction, to blow up a bridge made by the Queen, for the Emperor. I can’t help but think of the idea that Western morale (or unity or patriotism or choose your euphemism) bolsters dedication to intervention in the Middle East, which in turn propagates terrorism. Yes, we believe in our country and by doing so, abet our enemy. This is a very dangerous ground the film is treading, and there’s many a moment where the picture is punctuated with the surreal (blaring non-diegetic soundtrack interruptions, Holden’s hyper-idyllic trek to safety, the surprisingly appropriate transparency of the film’s day-for-night shooting), giving it an inevitable, nightmarish feeling of never-ending bloodshed.

The film’s panorama is gorgeous. Real settings, real actors, real action, real skies, real sand… it’s colorful, it’s bright, it’s dank, it’s moody, it’s chilly, it’s thrilling. The picture is exquisite. The story unfolds at a hustled pace, despite its length, that makes it a triumph of exciting storytelling (the third act shift to Holden’s escapades only tightens the ghoulish feeling of the inevitable). The film is not without its sense of humor, strongest when it’s skewering the politesse of the British (“I haven’t the foggiest� as a stand-in for “I couldn’t give a rat’s ass�) juxtaposed with the naked expression of Holden’s Americanism. Sessue Hayakawa is incomparable in his role as the desperate Colonel of the prison camp. He’s almost too empathetic—it’s difficult to watch. No moment was so moving as his scene following the release of Guinness’s Col. Nicholson from “the oven�. His gradual concession is heartbreaking, despite his initial cruelty and refusal to obey the Geneva Convention (more signs of a desperate man who doesn’t understand war—and who does? the film asks—than evil). That the film dares to so openly articulate compassion for the enemy is a testament to Lean’s great humanity. Really, the film’s antagonist is not the Empire’s enemy, but the inner politics, the stubbornness and backwards “rules� of the Empire itself (attempting escape being a violation of the Queens orders when commanded to surrender), and in this you will find what makes the film so special. In war, it says, we are our own greatest enemy. Holden’s violent pantomiming of stabbing a man to death near the film’s finish is an apt finale to the horror of war’s inescapable madness.

Kristen: Normally a three-hour running time is a big red flag for me, because a three-hour running time usually means a Sprawling Epic, and Sprawling Epic is my least favorite genre. And make no mistake, this movie is Epic, but not in the sense that "Epic" means "Look, a mob of 5,000 CG characters, not one of whom is interesting." It is "Epic" in the sense that "Epic" means "Awesome."

[Qrazy]

Good pick.

[Ezee E]

Stalker bored me to tears. It felt like it took 20 minutes for that dude to get out of bed.

Still want to check this out though.
Indeed.

[Qrazy]

You guys just don't learn.

[Melville]

More than "world view" for me, though, a great piece of art has to remind me of what it's like to be alive.
Yes, this is what I was referring to in my review. You should check out some phenomenological philosophy sometime.

As for Bridge on the River Kwai, I remember liking it mostly for Guiness's character arc.

[Boner M]

The only thing that kept me watching Election was the music.

And I really like To.
Wait, I thought you defended Election when I meh'd it a few years ago? This, along with your recent turnaround on Bad Boys 2, leads me to believe that Daniel Davis and D_Davis are different people.

[Sven]

Wait, I thought you defended Election when I meh'd it a few years ago?

I kind of did a double take myself, as I remember linking to my negative review for it in a direct rebuttal to Davis's praise.

[D_Davis]

Wait, I thought you defended Election when I meh'd it a few years ago?

I was being a little harsh on it here.

I gave it a 7 in the To thread, and a 6 to election 2.

That is, perhaps, a little higher than I might give them, even now.

This is why I hate scoring films.

:)

I can never really settle on a score that accurately reflects how I feel about the film.

My review on genrebusters is also more positive than I am now. Upon a rewatch when Election 2 came out, I didn't care for it much.


Some films I waffle on, ya know?

Shoot, I put Clerks 2 in my top 10 for that year, and I watched it again awhile ago and really disliked it. Couldn't even finish it.

[Sven]

This is why I hate scoring films.

:)

With you 100%. I have no standard rating conversion system (or rating guidelines, for that matter!). I just come up with some number on the spot, using nothing as a reference points, that seems okay at that second.

[D_Davis]

With you 100%. I have no standard rating conversion system (or rating guidelines, for that matter!). I just come up with some number on the spot, using nothing as a reference points, that seems okay at that second.


Totally. There are certain films that will always get a 9 or 10, and certain films that will always get a 1 or 2, but the stuff in the middle, like 4-7 just seems so arbitrary to me.

I'd rather rate on a Yes, Maybe, No, scale or something.

[Derek]

Decasia review added (http://www.match-cut.org/showpost.php?p=78571&postcount=565).

[Sven]

Decasia review added (http://www.match-cut.org/showpost.php?p=78571&postcount=565).

This is very interesting:
Andre Bazin famously wrote about the spiritual nature of film and how it's chemical properties contain the imprint of reality itself. Where the digital image is akin to tracing an image onto a separate piece of paper, film is like silly putty, not merely copying an image but absorbing what it photographs.

Also, I think you are probably too hopeful. I agree with your assertion about digital v. film, and can still tell the difference, and prefer the latter, but if I were to be asked, I'd probably suggest that we're to a point where we cannot ask audiences to trade in the rich experience of film for the blemish-free ease of digital. I'm a bit cynical in this regard. Everyone wants movies to look like their LCDs.

[dreamdead]

...So, when it becomes apparent that the world powers are on the brink of mutually assured destruction, Alexander (Erland Josephson) delivers himself up to a god he previously did not believe in. He, in what is one of the more moving monologues ever filmed, promises to give up speech, contact with his family, and his home if the impending catastrophe may be averted. In the meantime, he is informed that if he sleeps with a witch the world may also be saved. He follows through with both and the Apocalypse is averted. Tarkovsky gives us two possible explanations for the miracle. He also implicitly leaves us the alternative that Alexander’s personal actions had nothing to do with world events and that he is as insane as his family believes him to be.

[...]Tarkovsky proposes that, as the Christian tradition tells us, a single act of love or goodness embodied in a sacrifice can redeem mankind. (I part ways with him here, but will avoid that detour for brevity’s sake.) Towards the end of The Sacrifice, Tarkovsky’s own son, mute until now, asks, “Papa, why does it begin with the word?� We are called back to Genesis and the creation of Earth, and the full extent of Alexander’s sacrifice becomes apparent. He has forsaken the creative powers that allow us to wear god’s image without embarrassment. The son, however, is just gaining them for they are essentially youthful powers. Each generation, facing death with only the assurance of a few truths, must pass on the same longing to fill the gaps within and between ourselves to its progeny.


Just finished The Sacrifice, and this is the first Tarkovsky that fully immersed me in its visual and philosophical ideas (though Stalker came very, very close). The monologue that you cite above, as the camera closed in on Josephson's face, was breathtaking; the architecture in the background blank and allowing full focus on the words that emanated. Yet, as you note, Tarkovsky allows for the ambiguity of mysticism rather than faith, and its an angle that somehow obviates skepticism and instead gently guides us, with Josephson, to Alexander's realization.

Likewise, the scene where they're all gathered around the tv, until it suddenly snaps off, was incredible, with the framing and lighting just offering an indelible impression of utter defeat, one that is soon voiced by the mother.

And as Qrazy noted elsewhere, it was haunting to have images that have retained themselves in my memory (the levitation and burning house) show up in a radically different context, yet one that also allows for a revision and desire to rewatch The Mirror (been about four years since I've seen it) and see if these scenes are doubles of one another or are in opposition. Nonetheless, that entire final act with the house and fire is liberating, emphatic in its grace, yet stark and haunting all the same. Above it all, though, I suspect I'll remember the final scene, the last line, and the slow pan up the tree. Imparting, as you say, a new voice to question and struggle with one's faith all over again. Breathtaking stuff, and a review that encapsulates the content nicely. Good stuff.

[Duncan]

Just finished The Sacrifice, and this is the first Tarkovsky that fully immersed me in its visual and philosophical ideas (though Stalker came very, very close). The monologue that you cite above, as the camera closed in on Josephson's face, was breathtaking; the architecture in the background blank and allowing full focus on the words that emanated. Yet, as you note, Tarkovsky allows for the ambiguity of mysticism rather than faith, and its an angle that somehow obviates skepticism and instead gently guides us, with Josephson, to Alexander's realization.

Likewise, the scene where they're all gathered around the tv, until it suddenly snaps off, was incredible, with the framing and lighting just offering an indelible impression of utter defeat, one that is soon voiced by the mother.

And as Qrazy noted elsewhere, it was haunting to have images that have retained themselves in my memory (the levitation and burning house) show up in a radically different context, yet one that also allows for a revision and desire to rewatch The Mirror (been about four years since I've seen it) and see if these scenes are doubles of one another or are in opposition. Nonetheless, that entire final act with the house and fire is liberating, emphatic in its grace, yet stark and haunting all the same. Above it all, though, I suspect I'll remember the final scene, the last line, and the slow pan up the tree. Imparting, as you say, a new voice to question and struggle with one's faith all over again. Breathtaking stuff, and a review that encapsulates the content nicely. Good stuff.

Nice. Glad you liked it.

I guess I'm up, eh? I'll try to write something tomorrow.

[Duncan]

86. The Royal Tenenbaums (Anderson, 2001)

http://i205.photobucket.com/albums/bb52/The_Playlist/royal-tenenbaums4.jpg

Good evening ladies and gentleman. Thank you for inviting me to speak this evening. It is an honour to be here and discuss my new memoir The Royal Tenenbaums. As he gained some notoriety in these parts due to the woefully tragic incandescence and subsequent fluttering failure of his progeny everybody knows that Royal Tenenbaum was an asshole. What this book presupposes is…: what if he wasn’t? The Tenenbaums are a family of arrested children and so it is only natural that their patriarch should be the most childish. When I was young I admired everything about the Tenenbaums. I even pretended I lived in their house. There was I, that is Eli, and my three siblings. Richie, my amigo. Ready to ride into any sunset with me. Chas. Chas stressed me out a little. Which brings us to Margot, that foxy lynx, that wildcat…wildcat …Wildcat. Excuse me.

Cash turns his back to the audience and pulls something from his pocket. He pauses a minute before turning round again.

Sorry about that. Margot. Right. Let me explain something about Margot. Margot is a brilliant playwright. Not a genius, but great. She’s adopted, you know. And in love with her brother. Anyway, that’s beside the point. She’s great. She is. I remember her first play at her birthday. Totally believable. When that bear shot that zebra, well, it seemed as though she had captured all the shimmering, friscolating, violet light of what it means to be of a different stripe. A very wise man I know named Runs With Horses once said that you can’t hold a fish by its fin. Nor, would I say, can you hold Margot by that slippery, four fingered fin of hers. It’s like the ATV men trying to hold me down. They just can’t do it. They can chase me all around the park and it’ll get them nowhere. I think they’re part of a band. Mask metal. masks. masks lit by violet light are not frightening no matter what the expression expressions are to be read masks are to be carved violet light? jesus christ he’s chasing me! i'm going over! i go over and all good dogs go to heaven and all stoned egyptians come to my apartment runs with horses i think your going to half to help me owt here but wares the other have?

[soitgoes...]

86. The Royal Tenenbaums (Anderson, 2001)

http://i205.photobucket.com/albums/bb52/The_Playlist/royal-tenenbaums4.jpg

Sorry guys. I feel almost embarrassingly victim-of-modern-ennui-ish saying this, but ever since I started work I haven't had the urge to do much of anything. I'll try to fill this in later. I even have a good idea for a write up.Your picture and statement are a perfect fit. Bravo!

[Qrazy]

As a solution I recommend saying you're going to kill yourself tomorrow and then doing it today... ps. Does anyone think that line was a reference to Malle's The Fire Within?

[Kurious Jorge v3.1]

As a solution I recommend saying you're going to kill yourself tomorrow and then doing it today... ps. Does anyone think that line was a reference to Malle's The Fire Within?

Given Anderson's Malle fetish, I would guess it is a pretty obvious reference.

I would also guess Eli Cash's blonde bob and western get-up is an ode to Dennis Hopper's Tom Ripley character in The American Friend

[Qrazy]

Given Anderson's Malle fetish, I would guess it is a pretty obvious reference.

What are some other Malle nods? I saw Anderson's stuff before I saw Malle's.

[Kurious Jorge v3.1]

There are several bits of dialogue in Tennenbaums that Anderson says he pulled from Louis Malle films on the commentary track.

Also Malle's first film, Le Monde du Silence was a wacky Jacques Costeau sea adventure documentary, and The Life Aquatic's Steve Zissou was a pseudo-Costeau.

[Qrazy]

There are several bits of dialogue in Tennenbaums that Anderson says he pulled from Louis Malle films on the commentary track.

Do you remember/have specifics? I'm just curious.

[origami_mustache]

Great screenshot...my favorite scene from Tenenbaums.

[Kurious Jorge v3.1]

One is in the first quarter or third of the film, it's been awhile since I watched the film with the commentary. And he mentions another one a bit later. I'll pull it out when the All-Star game is over and refresh my memory.

The reference you alluded to was unmentioned but once I saw Le Feu Follet the first thing that came to my mind was Richie Tennebaum's line.

[Qrazy]

One is in the first quarter or third of the film, it's been awhile since I watched the film with the commentary. And he mentions another one a bit later. I'll pull it out when the All-Star game is over and refresh my memory.

The reference you alluded to was unmentioned but once I saw Le Feu Follet the first thing that came to my mind was Richie Tennebaum's line.

The Crossing Guard (Sean Penn - '95) 3

Great film?

[Melville]

I feel almost embarrassingly victim-of-modern-ennui-ish saying this, but ever since I started work I haven't had the urge to do much of anything.
Yeah, I got a rash, man.

I've really been meaning to write reviews for all the films I skipped, but I just can't be bothered. Anyway, my next review will be up presently.

[Melville]

86. The Big Sleep (Howard Hawks, 1946)

http://i239.photobucket.com/albums/ff317/FaulknerFan/BigSleep2.jpg

The Big Sleep doesn’t quite have the stark and shadowy photography of Side Street, the blistering dialogue of Double Indemnity, or the somber fatalism of a Nicholas Ray film, but I always think of it as the noiriest of noir films. Certainly its visuals are steeped in shadows, its dialogue is a veritable parade of the finest repartee, replete with innuendo and non-sequiturs of the wittiest sort, and its narrative has a touch of fatal inevitability. But beyond all this, what makes it so charmingly noiry is its wholehearted, playful embrace of its genre trappings. Rather than focusing on one particular, idiosyncratic feature of its genre, or trying to put its own spin on the genre, it seizes on every genre trope it can find. It’s all witty dialogue, shadowy criminals, stoic private detectives and femme fatales; everything else just fills the cracks in between. Only five years after The Maltese Falcon spun a narrative web around a MacGuffin, The Big Sleep construed its entire plot as a MacGuffin—a seemingly endless series of narrative convolutions executed with winking indifference to viewer comprehension, existing solely as movements of genre elements, rearrangements of characters to afford new encounters between Bogart’s fedora-ed and trench-coated detective Marlowe and an array of sultry, slimy, glitzy, or wistfully corrupt characters.

All of this might be dismissed as filmmaking by rote if each of the genre elements was not so perfectly executed. Bogart’s drawn face and cynical manner is immediately iconic, indelibly defining the noir detective. The dialogue is dazzling in its almost Marxian (Groucho, that is) absurdity:
“I don't mind if you don't like my manners, I don't like them myself. They are pretty bad. I grieve over them on long winter evenings.”
“Eddie Mars: Your story didn't sound quite right.
Philip Marlowe: Oh, that's too bad. You got a better one?”
Each of Marlowe’s series of encounters, of which the film’s structure consists, is perfectly timed, quickly sketching the essence of the characters and a relationship between them and Marlowe, and then moving onto the next encounter at a jaunty pace. (My favorite of these encounters is one of the first, in which Marlowe is hired by a crippled, embittered old man in a conservatory. Wrapped in his blanket in the heat of the hothouse, spouting gothic grotesqueries like “Their [orchids] flesh is too much like the flesh of men, and their perfume has the rotten sweetness of corruption,” the old man seems the morbid patriarch of a Faulkner novel. He slumps like a defeated guardian of corruption, wishing he could accompany Marlowe into the sordid world of film noir.) Perhaps most important of all is the sense of casual, easy charm that Hawks brings to each scene—in particular, the interactions between Bogart and Bacall are filled with effortless camaraderie and romance—which makes the gleeful abandon of narrative, the wholesale embrace of genre iconography, endlessly entertaining.

[Sven]

Excellent review. I'm not too big a fan, I like it, but the confusion factor trumps the style factor to me. I'll see it again, though, if it ever comes around.

[Melville]

Excellent review. I'm not too big a fan, I like it, but the confusion factor trumps the style factor to me.
I remember thinking the plot wasn't too hard to follow the last time I saw it. But when I watched it last night, there was more than one occasion where I had no idea what was going on. Maybe the dumbening has set in.

[Qrazy]

Maybe the dumbening has set in.

There can be only none!

[Melville]

Why does Boner never comment in this thread? And where's his review for O Lucky Man, dag nabit!?

[Boner M]

Why does Boner never comment in this thread? And where's his review for O Lucky Man, dag nabit!?
I can't seem to keep up. Needless to say, it's all consistently excellent stuff and I'll likely do a mass rundown on my thoughts thus far when you reach #80 mark or something.

The OLM review will have to wait 'til I arrive back from my holiday... I know I promised to watch it before I left but work got in the way and I limited myself to yearly consensus viewings only.

To compensate, I'm also working on a 'favorite performances' list that'll come sometime in the next few months. It will be fun.

[Duncan]

Went back and wrote something for The Royal Tenenbaums...I was a little drunk.

Anyway, it's here (http://www.match-cut.org/showpost.php?p=80638&postcount=596).

[Sven]

Went back and wrote something for The Royal Tenenbaums...I was a little drunk.

Anyway, it's here (http://www.match-cut.org/showpost.php?p=80638&postcount=596).

Congratulations, you've destroyed my mind.

[Melville]

To compensate, I'm also working on a 'favorite performances' list that'll come sometime in the next few months. It will be fun.
Awesome.


Went back and wrote something for The Royal Tenenbaums...I was a little drunk.

Anyway, it's here (http://www.match-cut.org/showpost.php?p=80638&postcount=596).
I remember shoehorning the phrase "friscolating dusk light" into a Dungeons & Dragons game one time. It was the crowning achievement of my life as a nerd.

[Melville]

Uh... Derek? Maybe you can just post an entry sans review?

[Derek]

Uh... Derek? Maybe you can just post an entry sans review?

Yeah, sorry, I didn't even notice you posted a review. Working 50+ hours/week plus tutoring a friend in summer school math = non-existent time for MatchCut. Should get a little better after next week.

[Derek]

#86 - The NeverEnding Story (Wolfgang Petersen, 1984)

http://img2.timeinc.net/ew/dynamic/imgs/080317/fairy-tales/The-Neverending-Story_l.jpg

"I can't! I have to keep my feet on the ground!"

:lol: Yeah, I still love it.

I've been wanting to write about this one for a while so I'll get a review up eventually.

[Spinal]

Yes!

[Derek]

Yes!

It had been a few years since I last saw it, so I was thrilled to see it held up as well as I remembered. Still gets me choked up in parts, especially when Atreyu's horse dies and, of course, when the Empress pleads for Bastian's help. Great stuff.

[Spinal]

It had been a few years since I last saw it, so I was thrilled to see it held up as well as I remembered. Still gets me choked up in parts, especially when Atreyu's horse dies and, of course, when the Empress pleads for Bastian's help. Great stuff.

Dude, tell me about it. I popped it in ready to cringe at things not living up to my memory and was surprised to find that I actually liked it more as an adult. That one might need to be in my top 100. Will have to ponder.

[Qrazy]

It had been a few years since I last saw it, so I was thrilled to see it held up as well as I remembered. Still gets me choked up in parts, especially when Atreyu's horse dies and, of course, when the Empress pleads for Bastian's help. Great stuff.

The empress worked for me, Atreyu's horse dying didn't because that kid is a seriously abysmal actor. I liked the film though.

[dreamdead]

90. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Robert Wiene, 1920)

However, after having seen The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, I always feel slightly let down by the later German Expressionist films. Wiene’s film so violently embraces its Expressionist themes that everything following it seems tamed by comparison.


Fantastic review for Dr. Caligari; it's one I love to pop in and treasure when cinema was freakishly, fantastically dreamlike and divorced from the "real world," even if it, as you articulate, contains a fully realized expression of the subjective, and thus problematic, real world.

Yet, because the quoted section interests me so much, I'm curious if you've thought about or can identify films outside of German expressionism, contemporary or otherwise, that have embraced these aspects? I could see something like Maddin's Cowards Bend the Knee embodying these characteristics, but since the Expressionist movement still seems so vibrant to behold, I'd like to seek out other films that articulate this sensibility visually instead of just thematically...

[Melville]

Yet, because the quoted section interests me so much, I'm curious if you've thought about or can identify films outside of German expressionism, contemporary or otherwise, that have embraced these aspects?
I can't think of anything that goes so far with it as Caligari does. I'll ponder it.

[Sven]

Originally this film was a tad higher on my list, but I’ve bumped it down a few notches to act as a counterpoint to the current Dark Knight craziness. And I also suggest that if you don't want to read my review, you at least read Kristen's thoughts, because I think she brings up something interesting in the whole pre-comic-book-movie-craze ideal.

85. Batman Returns

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v350/iosos/Top%20100%20movies/Batman-Returns.jpg

Talk about a corrective. After the whopper of over-serious nonsense offered by Nolan and crew with The Dark Knight, returning to Batman Returns feels like divulging in a wicked slice of banana cream pie. Its tones crisper (instead of muddy we get clearer lines emphasizing shape, color, and motion), its pace brisker, its plot clearer, its characters more believable (actually given a human form), and its thematic ambitions more fully realized and decipherable. Unfortunately it doesn’t contain Nolan’s brand of overt profundity, though Penguin’s Moses-in-the-bulrush-basket beginnings, Pharaohy kill-Gotham’s-first-born-son scheming, and cross-like final collapse, give the film an undeniable religious through line. Still, I’d much rather see a plain visual parable of religious corruption, the search for identity (in Batman and Catwoman’s duality), and womanhood (in the film’s sexual preoccupations) than an over-verbal rumination of abstract psycho-theories. Batman Returns is essentially character-driven, allowing it to work as a tense narrative as well as giving its themes resonance. It works beyond theory—it works as entertainment. Maybe I’m too traditionally minded, I dunno. But Burton’s comparatively languorous storybook creation is far preferable to Nolan’s incoherent jumbles if only on the basis of expressive élan.

Burton’s production design spins circles around Nolan’s. The realistic cityscape of The Dark Knight has nothing on the gothic brood of Batman Returns. The costumes, buildings, and props replicate Burton’s favored art deco/German expressionist style, the Batcave existing as a warp of gadgetry and emptiness. Emblems abound, from the giant green Christmas present that explodes with killer clowns, vertical lines entrapping Penguin in a state of perpetual imprisonment, the grinning spherical cat face that signifies the connection between Catwoman and Max Schreck (her creator and would-be murderer). This latter link relates corporate malfeasance to vigilantism, paralleling the corrupt nature of both in a nearly symbiotic relationship. How fitting that both are demolished with a shared electric kiss.

I missed Batman’s duality issues in The Dark Knight. Bale’s Bruce Wayne is practically a non-entity, whereas this film sets up a complex web of Wayne/Batman interconnection, mirrored by Selina/Catwoman. The line is blurred between the two selfs—one identity bleeds into the other. The film’s theme of the search for reconciliation (Penguin’s inability to meet his deceased parents refuses the reconciliation he needs, so he takes it out on Gotham’s parents) is relevantly tied to its address of femininity. Penguin’s perverse focus on sexual gratification, Catwoman’s explicit form and blatant libido, and Bruce’s ongoing quest for a partner, all congeal to fashion an overt perspective of sexual discontentment. Coupling this with the characters’ ongoing quest to settle their identity issues, the film offers a bold comment on the roles women play, particularly in pop forms like films and comic books. The last line of the film may be a little hokey (a lot of the reason I love this picture is its embrace of the kind of silliness one expects from a story about people dressed up like bats, cats, and birds), but it ties together the film’s issues of womanhood and identitive singularity (the curative for duality, no?) with a big Christmas bow.

Oh, and dude… penguins with rockets.

Kristen: Watching this movie, I kept thinking about how much superhero-movie conventions have ossified in the past 15 years. After 5 or 10 summers of entertaining but interchangeable CG-stravaganzas, it's kind of a shock to go back in time and see a superhero movie with genuine atmosphere, playfulness, and horror. Very few of the comic-book movies of the last few years have made me want to read an actual comic book (at the moment I can only think of one, Hellboy), but this Batman did.

[Teh Sausage]

I haven't seen The Dark Knight yet, but at the moment I consider Batman Returns to be the best Batman movie. It feels more Burton than Batman but perhaps that's why I love it so much. Madly entertaining stuff, and certainly up there with Gremlins 2 as one of the most underrated sequels ever made.:)

Interestingly, my love for the first films in these two franchises has fizzled out a bit. Both Batman and Gremlins seemed rather mediocre the last I watched them; perhaps because I can't help but compare them to their tremendously superior sequels.

[Melville]

Kristen: Watching this movie, I kept thinking about how much superhero-movie conventions have ossified in the past 15 years. After 5 or 10 summers of entertaining but interchangeable CG-stravaganzas, it's kind of a shock to go back in time and see a superhero movie with genuine atmosphere, playfulness, and horror. Very few of the comic-book movies of the last few years have made me want to read an actual comic book (at the moment I can only think of one, Hellboy), but this Batman did.
Admittedly I haven't seen all of the recent superhero movies, but I can't say I agree with this at all. Nolan's Batman, Raimi's Spider-Man, and Singer's Superman have very distinct visual styles and atmospheres. And Raimi's Spider-Man is certainly playful. Actually, I think Hellboy is one of the worst of the recent superhero adaptations, with little of the atmosphere of the comic, none of the idiosyncratic visuals or pacing, and a pointless love interest to boot.

[Duncan]

I remember really liking Batman Returns, but it's been a while. It's on my revisit list.

[Sven]

Admittedly I haven't seen all of the recent superhero movies, but I can't say I agree with this at all. Nolan's Batman, Raimi's Spider-Man, and Singer's Superman have very distinct visual styles and atmospheres. And Raimi's Spider-Man is certainly playful. Actually, I think Hellboy is one of the worst of the recent superhero adaptations, with little of the atmosphere of the comic, none of the idiosyncratic visuals or pacing, and a pointless love interest to boot.

Kristen rambled on and on for about ten minutes a wide range of responses that I cannot even begin to formulate into a coherent response, but one main through line was that the emphasis on CG, as well as setting the films in a recognizable real world, give the films a sameness of visual sheen ("all CG looks the same") and boring construction that makes them all bleed together in her mind. The practicality (puppets, models) and artifice of Burton allow, ironically, for a realer connection with the audience. For example, Spider-man's playfulness is counteracted by its frequent CG-SETPIECE!!-ness.

And I think her comment about Hellboy are mostly prompted from the fact that Perlman's Hellboy characterization is a supreme and creative accomplishment, giving the films a life beyond fan service, and that there aren't decades and decades of Hellboy history to catch up with. NOT that the movie is a faithful rendering of the comic, which she hasn't read all that much of. That's just my conjecture, based on my own feelings, and conversations I've had with her.

[Bosco B Thug]

Am I not grasping something, or underestimating too much all that CGI has allowed us to visualize, if I go ahead and say CGI is the worst thing to ever happen to mainstream entertainment moviemaking for me?

I haven't seen any of Burton's Batman movies. Well, I've seen bits and pieces of 'Returns' on TV and I must say I remember feeling that what I was seeing was sort of silly, dramatically goofy, and inconsequential. But I'll give it a chance in full soon. I'm actually looking forward to seeing them.

[Melville]

NOT that the movie is a faithful rendering of the comic
Well, I don't really care if adaptations are faithful to their sources. I was just listing things that were good in the comic and bad in the movie.

As for the rest, I disagree with all of it. Since Kristen isn't here, I'll just pretend that she agrees to disagree.

Edit: I just realized that my posts might seem inexplicably combative towards your wife. Disregard any apparent combativeness.

[ledfloyd]

Batman Returns is one of my most hated movies. I can't stand it. Batman is decent. I prefer Forever to Returns, and only barely prefer Returns to Batman & Robin.

[dreamdead]

85. Batman Returns
...
Oh, and dude… penguins with rockets.


The fact that you didn't defend the whole penguins-with-rockets thing makes me think that even you recognize how asinine, though (I suppose) logically consistent, this detail is in comparison to the rest of the film's world. Or, should I say, how much this detail reveals the film's admittedly campy adherence to comic/pulp origins ("I am Catwoman... hear me roar"), even if it revels in Freudian psychosexual studies elsewhere.

This is the sole Batman film, though, where I actually gain some measure of empathy for the villains and their plight, as the film's outsiders beget a certain sympathy for "freaks" that feels (subversively enough) far more natural than Singer or Nolan have ever pulled off. Of course, that's a strength to be expected of a Burton vehicle, but I feel that if we gloss this detail as a typical Burtonism than we do a disservice to one of his greatest strengths as an auteur. The film's sympathies, in fact, cast Catwoman and Penguin as an unfortunate corrective to the politics of the (Gotham) City as they currently exist; which, interestingly, gives this film the greatest power of the series.

And Pfeiffer here was the first cinematic crush I ever had. Yowza.

[origami_mustache]

loved the video game

http://www.consoleclassix.com/info_img/Batman_Returns_SNES_ScreenShot 3.jpg http://www.coolrom.com/screenshots/snes/Batman%20Returns%20(2).gif

http://games.softpedia.com/screenshots/1-3950_3.png

[Duncan]

I find that slackening my own guidelines makes these easier to write. So with that in mind please forgive a young man his experiments and read some poetry.

85. Un Chien Andalou (Buñuel and DalÃ*, 1928)

http://www.nicklacey.org.uk/images/chien_andalou.gif

There is no breeze
The cloud is drawn
By a razor’s edge

Ants leave your hand
Before peasants riot
Angels turn geometric
After a woman is struck

Can you play
The meat piano?
I know every
Sinewy chord
The ventricle’s off key
And I cannot find
The ephemeral artery

That butterfly
Has stolen her skull
Doesn’t make her
Less human
It makes him
More insect

Beaches are for
Too young lovers
Springtime is best
To plant the dead

A nude woman
Exists to him
Andalusian dogs
Exist to film

[origami_mustache]

oh i adore this thread...you just never know what to expect.

[Ezee E]

Penguins with rockets is nothing compared to what the dinosaurs with rocket launchers in the Jurassic Park IV that comes out.

[Sven]

Edit: I just realized that my posts might seem inexplicably combative towards your wife. Disregard any apparent combativeness.

Because I have roughly the same opinions as my wife, I'm tempted to take up arms and defend her words to the death! But I'm still exhausted from my Dark Knight smackdown, so despite my unwillingness to agree to disagree (I've never liked doing that), it will have to do...

... FOR NOW!


Or, should I say, how much this detail reveals the film's admittedly campy adherence to comic/pulp origins ("I am Catwoman... hear me roar"), even if it revels in Freudian psychosexual studies elsewhere.

For me, this is what it's all about, and should tell you a lot about my leanings toward Burton, away from Nolan. I don't care about the absurdity because to me, the entire thing is absurd, and when embraced, the picture is unified. Also I like that Burton is not afraid to linger on images. Also, I like that he's not afraid to let the visuals tell the story. Also...

[Melville]

85. Un Chien Andalou (Buñuel and DalÃ*, 1928)
That's a pretty good poem. I wish I were capable of writing anything other than essays.

[Philosophe_rouge]

86. The Big Sleep (Howard Hawks, 1946)

http://i239.photobucket.com/albums/ff317/FaulknerFan/BigSleep2.jpg
I think I've already written about half a dozen essays on this film, and am probably going to write more soon enough. Something about it is endlessly fascinating, it's perfectly constructed, and endlessly fascinating. Like most of Hawks' films, he manages to perfect and trascend the genre he tackles... in this case, especially. It's probably his most realised film, and is perfect for summaring and analyzing his style as an auteur. The female cast is wonderful as well, surprisingly, with Bacall being the weakest link... at least up against Malone and Vickers.

[Melville]

The female cast is wonderful as well, surprisingly, with Bacall being the weakest link... at least up against Malone and Vickers.
Yeah, Bacall's interactions with Bogart are great, but she doesn't really convincingly portray a character. I think she was generally a pretty weak actress.

[Philosophe_rouge]

Yeah, Bacall's interactions with Bogart are great, but she doesn't really convincingly portray a character. I think she was generally a pretty weak actress.
I agree completely, and outside of her work with Hawks she's even less remarkable. She's at her best in To Have and Have Not, and pretty good in Sleep. In everything else I've seen her in, she's serviceable at best... the only time she comes moderately close to being interesting again, is in Written on the Wind. Again though, Malone outshines her by a mile... and she pales in comparison to every other Sirk protaganist I've seen.

[Melville]

85. The New World (Terrence Malick, 2005)

http://i239.photobucket.com/albums/ff317/FaulknerFan/newworld.jpg

Immediately upon experiencing an object or event, we have made it known, forced it into a conceptual framework, equated it with a Platonic form or a part of our sociomonomythical notions of life as a story. But this process of knowing requires a differentiation, a positing of each thing as a thing-in-itself, separate from all other things and, in particular, separate from our consciousness of it. This separation of things from our consciousness thus includes a positing of our consciousness as a thing. Inevitably, then, we become subject to our own process of ratiocination; we define and judge our “selves” just as we do all other things. And once this process has commenced, it cannot be undone: we cannot discover the bare objects beneath our notions of them or our bare experience beneath our awareness of it. We might seek mystical conceptions of a pure, scintillating reality that is obscured by our “reason,” but this is merely another layer of conceptualization. And yet the immediate manifold Being of things, their ineffable particularity and interdependence that cannot be subsumed or revealed by our knowledge, forever lingers. Perpetually, at every moment, we are aware of this Being, even as we are simultaneously aware of our separation of it into defined, discrete parts. Hence, we cannot rightly say that humanity has fallen into a state of knowing; ‘tis better to say that human existence is a perpetual fall (bababadalgharaghtakamminarron nkonnbronntonnerronntuonnthunn trovarrhoun- awnskawntoohoohoordenenthurnuk !).

The New World recasts the familiar tale of Jamestown and Pocahontas as a mythical return to Eden, and in so doing it becomes an examination of our perpetual fall. It opens with a panning close-up of still, mirror-like water that slowly becomes textured with vegetation and reflections, gradually complexifying the initial purity. A voiceover says “We rise from out of the soul of you,” the tranquility of ambient birdsong segues into the ominous strains of Wagner’s Rheingold prelude, and the still water is replaced first by lithe swimming Native Americans and then by the towering man-made forms of European ships. Here, in this brief sequence, lies the film in microcosm: The appearance of modern man is presented as a revolution, a portentous emergence from the original purity of still water, born of a movement toward increasing complexity. America is cast as Eden, pure and unsullied by humanity’s pathological differance; the Europeans arrive dreaming of a return to life before the fall, simple and undifferentiated. The remainder of the film expands on this opening in two ways: firstly by imbuing the same broad process into the movement between the open American wilderness, the European colonists’ small settlement, and the city of London and environs; and secondly by imbuing it into the movement between Pocahontas’ romantic relationships with two Europeans.

To the first of these movements: The film is divided in four. In its first section, upon the Europeans arrival and during John Smith’s early romance with Pocahontas, America as Eden is firmly established. The style is elliptical and dreamlike. Voices and scenes bleed into one another with no obvious temporal or spatial relationship; frequent jump cuts further disintegrate any sense of continuity or geography. Objects and arms drift into the frame and the camera drifts its own response. Shots of surfaces of water punctuate this section, entangling nature’s mood with the characters’: the drops of water on a dim, still surface portending coming melancholy. America is a tone poem, an undifferentiated ether. The field of tall, waving grass spreads to the horizon, filling all the world. And Wagner’s Rheingold is always near.

In the film’s second section, the European’s settlement, Jamestown, has grown into a world of filth and chatter. The score ceases as the camera passes through the town gates, replaced by the harsh voices of yammering children; pure, still water is replaced by decrepit buildings and a palette of dun. The citizenry bicker and struggle for power, floundering like Cain and Abel at the gates of Eden. The film’s third section then sees Jamestown transformed into a stable community, in which people have learned to live in harmony, not according to the unspoken unity of the natives, but according to well-defined social values. Soft browns and greens fill the screen, bathed in warm, golden sunlight, evoking a homely calmness. The camera is more stable and shots are held for greater lengths, providing a sense of continuity that mimics the continuity provided by the community’s defined and accepted notions. Work is constantly being shown: the settlers are no longer aware of the world as a confused, indistinct unity, as they were in the first section, nor as something at odds with them, as in the second, but as a collection of things with specific properties to be utilized in specific ways.

This progression reaches its apex in the film’s final section, in which Pocahontas voyages to London, which appears as a revelation as great as was the Edenic America. The city is a soundscape of voices and bells, an artificial geography of great stone facades and manicured gardens. All natural forms, smooth and simple and melding one into another, have been replaced by human constructions, all sharp angles and clear delineations. Although the film has a unified style (characterized by its startlingly gorgeous, naturally-lit cinematography and its voiceovers that drift beneath the images rather than offer exposition over them), each of its sections has a distinct substyle and mood that distinguishes it from the others. When combined, they leave the impression of having surveyed human history as a whole, from the world of Genesis untainted by the fall, to modern man’s consuming techno-logical self-creation, all condensed into the story of Jamestown.

Now, to the second movement: on love and its existential ramifications. The first two sections of the film are centered on Pocahontas’ relationship with John Smith; the second two sections, her relationship with John Rolfe. The first love precipitates the fall. The love between Pocahontas and Smith is presented as an aspect of the overwhelming unification of the first section: they are lost in one another. The camera dwells on their swooning interactions as if there were nothing else. But this process of unification is predicated on a simultaneous separation, as their love annuls their roles in their respective cultures. Each is overwhelmed by the other’s subjectivity, the fact that the world exists for the other—in voiceover, Pocahontas says “A god to me he seems”—behind which normative reality fades into meaningless convention—“All else is unreal” and “That fort is not the world,” says Smith. But in being drawn out of their social substratum, each is born anew under the other’s gaze: Pocahontas intones “Two no more. One. I am.” When Smith eventually returns to Jamestown, he returns to the forceful reality of society and its mores. And from that perspective, his love is illusory: only logos, the Word, is real. He returns to his society’s notional reality, and without his gaze to support her sense of Self, Pocahontas falls as only the heartbroken can fall: into a state of existence with no fixed meaning, as one adrift at sea, with nothing stable, nothing fixed to hold onto.

However, this fall, as all others, is a fall into new meanings. As Jamestown develops into a functioning community, Pocahontas is married to John Rolfe. Rather than being overwhelmed by him, seeking unity and definition in his eyes, she learns to love him for his particular characteristics. She learns to think of him as an object with a particular fixed meaning: a Good Man. But rather than lessening him by thinking of him as such, she realizes that this is the truth of him; as much as he is a Subject for which the world exists, he is equally a particular man in that world. Conversely, she realizes that she does not require the overwhelming gaze of another in order to truly exist, for society’s notional reality is reality; the artificial structures of London have precisely the meaning that man has provided them, and Pocahontas truly is what she makes of herself within such structures. Notional definitions are her own. By embracing them she creates them. The final discovery, accompanied by the final portentous strains of the Rheingold, is that the American Eden exists in the European world. Our conceptualizations simultaneously constrain our experience and make it real, and the unity of existence lies not in some pre-conceptual reality, but in the scintillating unity of that reality with our notions. Throughout the film, Pocahontas speaks to Mother nature, the ineffable Being of Eden. (Smith, by contrast, speaks to God, the Word.) Finally, frolicking jubilantly through a castle's garden, she intones "Mother, now I know where you live." She realizes that Eden is something we carry with us, a trace that exists only as something behind our notions. It is constituted as something fallen from. It is born of our fall.

[Continued below]

[Sven]

I hate to admit it, but try as I might, I cannot puncture your review, Melville. I trust it is excellent in its logical thoroughfares, as you, as a general trend, tend to make sense. It does not help that I am hardly a New World enthusiast. Like The Dark Knight, I can concede that if one is adequately invested in the goings-on, one may be able to latch onto a theoretical unity. But I could not bring myself to care about either film because of a strained portentousness that I felt about them. Perhaps it's just that I've had my fill of the Malick formula, and had I not seen and loved his other works, would've admired more the multitude of languorous shots of wind blowing through tall grass and the chiseled features of Colin Farrell contemplating love and life in an incessantly omnipresent voice-over. It nearly came off as a parody.

Duncan, your poem is wonderful, and definitely captures the textural spirit of Bunuel and Dali. However, I worry that perhaps it may be a bit too dissociative? I say that only because while the film is seemingly random, I've only seen it once but found it to be quite deceptively straightforward. I was able to detect a plot, its rhymes, reasons, etc. (However, L'age D'or, fuhgeddaboutit--that one blew my mind.) Perhaps I misread the intentions of your poem. I like it, though. Reminds me of William Carlos Williams.

[Melville]

I hate to admit it, but try as I might, I cannot puncture your review, Melville.
Oh, no. Anything I can clarify?


But I could not bring myself to care about either film because of a strained portentousness that I felt about them. Perhaps it's just that I've had my fill of the Malick formula, and had I not seen and loved his other works, would've admired more the multitude of languorous shots of wind blowing through tall grass and the chiseled features of Colin Farrell contemplating love and life in an incessantly omnipresent voice-over. It nearly came off as a parody.
It strikes me as his most clearly structured and philosophically pointed film. (Not that I think its his best. I have more of his films on my list.) It's portentous in the extreme, but its meanings are both profound and very well laid out, so I think it easily bypasses any feeling of pretentiousness. As for the voiceovers, I think I can get behind them more easily than those in, say, Sans Soleil, because they are very emotional (and because they are a mood-setting whisper, not just providing philosophical pointers).

[Duncan]

I like that review a lot. Melville, did you know Malick translated one of Heidegger's books? The Essence of Reasons, according to wikipedia.

The only part I didn't follow was this about the Word: "When Smith eventually returns to Jamestown, he returns to the forceful reality of society and its mores. And from that perspective, his love is illusory: only logos, the Word, is real."

[Melville]

I made a few changes, and somehow I ended up way over the character limit. Here's the final paragraph:




…

The overarching tale of social development inherent in the film's movement from America to Jamestown to London is mirrored by Pocahontas’ personal movement from thoughtless unity with others, to an awareness of her alienation from them and their notions, to a knowing embrace of human notions as her own. As far as we can reduce our experience to a succession of moments, our perpetual fall is a pointlike process, occurring at every instant. In contrast, the development of human society is a process that can only be distinguished after the accumulation of many lifetimes of instants. However, The New World conflates these timescales, blowing up the pointlike existential process and contracting the overarching historical process to the scale of an individual human’s lifetime. And what is revealed in the resulting dreamlike miasma is that these processes are all the same, that humanity is self-similar on every scale…and always falling.

[Melville]

I like that review a lot. Melville, did you know Malick translated one of Heidegger's books? The Essence of Reasons, according to wikipedia.
Yeah. It gives me a bit more confidence that I'm not completely misinterpreting his work.


The only part I didn't follow was this about the Word: "When Smith eventually returns to Jamestown, he returns to the forceful reality of society and its mores. And from that perspective, his love is illusory: only logos, the Word, is real."
I'm going with the Heideggerian description of logos as a fixed structure of notions, created by assigning names, into which objects are forced. The Word is my attempt to make that understandable to people who haven't read Heidegger, and also to tie this structure in with Smith's European religion, in which the Word (and the Word made flesh) is worshiped.

Or is it not clear why Smith's love is illusory when he returns to this structure?

[Duncan]

Gotcha.

[Duncan]

Duncan, your poem is wonderful, and definitely captures the textural spirit of Bunuel and Dali. However, I worry that perhaps it may be a bit too dissociative? I say that only because while the film is seemingly random, I've only seen it once but found it to be quite deceptively straightforward. I was able to detect a plot, its rhymes, reasons, etc. (However, L'age D'or, fuhgeddaboutit--that one blew my mind.) Perhaps I misread the intentions of your poem. I like it, though. Reminds me of William Carlos Williams.

I've always thought of the film in terms of image, so I tried to write a poem of images. What do you think the plot of the film is? If there is one, I don't think it makes complete sense.

[Sven]

I've always thought of the film in terms of image, so I tried to write a poem of images. What do you think the plot of the film is? If there is one, I don't think it makes complete sense.

Having seen it once, I could not mount a defense. I suppose the synopsis on Wikipedia sounds sort of right, though, but to be honest I'd have to see it again. I suppose it's a matter of my thinking about the film in terms of this unity as opposed to the images themselves. I understand it doesn't make a straightforward kind of sense, but in a Lynchian kind of dream logic way, I felt at one with its narrative.

[monolith94]

I really don't think that pissing on Christopher Nolan's lawn is a critically adequate way of establishing the quality of Batman Returns. And I like the film!

[Melville]

What happened to all the avid New World fans and haters around here? I was expecting a lengthy review of a widely-seen, divisive movie to get more of a response.

[Raiders]

I do love it. The best I can do is link to my own review:

http://voyeuristicmalady.blogspot.com/2006/02/malicks-garden-of-eden.html

[Sven]

And I'm not sure there were too many haters. I remember feeling very alone in my response.

As for clarification, I don't know... I follow certain paragraphs, and I trust that you recognize that your first paragraph is quite difficult given your own lampooning of it. This idea of "perpetual fall" I'm unable to grasp in relation to the film. You theorize spectacularly, but I guess I just don't remember the movie well enough to see it.

[Melville]

I do love it. The best I can do is link to my own review:

http://voyeuristicmalady.blogspot.com/2006/02/malicks-garden-of-eden.html
That review reminds me how strange it is that Kilcher hasn't appeared in any movies since her role in The New World. It will be interesting to see if she can pull off any other characters as well as she did Pocahontas. Apparently she has several movies in various stages of production.


And I'm not sure there were too many haters. I remember feeling very alone in my response.
Really? I remember it being pretty divisive on RT, and I'm sure there must be some people here who thought it was pretentious or overly mannered. For some reason, it seems like something Qrazy would dislike.


As for clarification, I don't know... I follow certain paragraphs, and I trust that you recognize that your first paragraph is quite difficult given your own lampooning of it.
Are you referring to the gibberish word at the end of the first paragraph? That wasn't really intended to lampoon what came before it, except to point to the difficulty of describing a fall from pre-linguistic (or pre-conceptual) experience using the tools of language. (The word is actually taken from Joyce's Finnegan's Wake, where it was used for the same purpose.)


This idea of "perpetual fall" I'm unable to grasp in relation to the film. You theorize spectacularly, but I guess I just don't remember the movie well enough to see it.
Hm... I can't see it any other way. The story of man's fall (and its perpetuity) seems to be everywhere in the film. But I'm obviously biased by my own philosophical preoccupations.

[Sven]

Are you referring to the gibberish word at the end of the first paragraph? That wasn't really intended to lampoon what came before it, except to point to the difficulty of describing a fall from pre-linguistic (or pre-conceptual) experience using the tools of language. (The word is actually taken from Joyce's Finnegan's Wake, where it was used for the same purpose.)

Now I'm even more confused!

Have you made it through Finnegan's Wake? I keep telling myself that I'll do it one of these days. Maybe before I die. I dunno. That thing is killer.

[Melville]

Have you made it through Finnegan's Wake?
No, but I've read the first twenty or so pages multiple times :), and that word for the fall was just too good to pass up. (I also thought it was fairly well known, but maybe not.)

And, yeah, finishing Finnegan's Wake is definitely on my list of things to do before I die.

[Milky Joe]

One could say, Melville, that your review prumptly sends me, an unquiring one, well to the west in quest for my tumptytumtoes.

[Qrazy]

Really? I remember it being pretty divisive on RT, and I'm sure there must be some people here who thought it was pretentious or overly mannered. For some reason, it seems like something Qrazy would dislike.


I like it but I do consider it to be the least of Malick's films. I am however a big Malick fan. My major problem with the film is simultaneously it's greatest strength and weakness. That is to say that the way Malick shot the film was very apparent to me on the screen. It's clear that he shot hundreds of hours of footage and then cobbled something together. I find the film lacks the clarity of vision of Days of Heaven, Badlands and even The Thin Red Line (although the latter has much more in common with The New World both stylistically and in shoot/editing approach). On the one hand shooting in this manner allowed Malick the capacity to stumble upon a number of happy accidents (the lightning bolt shot for instance) and to construct a lived in world beyond the film frame. On the other hand, without structural clarity driving the shoot and the edit the final cut is left with a wealth of superfluous and extraneous material narratively (although this is less important and not really the focus of the film) but also aesthetically. The film felt pieced together to me and while I felt it sustained an engaging tone, portrayed a unique and fascinating world (that it very likely would not have been able to if it were more concretely storyboarded) and had a fair number of stand out scenes and moments, ultimately it's lack of focus proves limiting.

[Melville]

One could say, Melville, that your review prumptly sends me, an unquiring one, well to the west in quest for my tumptytumtoes.
Awesome. I've got to read that book someday.


On the other hand, without structural clarity driving the shoot and the edit the final cut is left with a wealth of superfluous and extraneous material narratively (although this is less important and not really the focus of the film) but also aesthetically. The film felt pieced together to me and while I felt it sustained an engaging tone, portrayed a unique and fascinating world (that it very likely would not have been able to if it were more concretely storyboarded) and had a fair number of stand out scenes and moments, ultimately it's lack of focus proves limiting.
Hm... I honestly can't think of anything that felt superfluous. The whole thing felt supremely focused to me. What scenes or aspects do you think didn't fit with the structure that I outlined in my review?

[Qrazy]

Awesome. I've got to read that book someday.


Hm... I honestly can't think of anything that felt superfluous. The whole thing felt supremely focused to me. What scenes or aspects do you think didn't fit with the structure that I outlined in my review?

I don't remember the details of the film well enough to go in depth but the nature footage felt a tad excessive as did elements of the initial colonization and primary love story. However that's in reference to narrative excess which as I said is less integral to the functioning of this type of film. In terms of aesthetic incongruity (and it's not individual shots but in how they're strung together in the cut) I'd really have to watch the film again because those are both extremely specific criticisms (whether or not I feel a shot transition works in relation to the next shot) and extremely general (the totality of the aesthetic as a result of the specific instances seemed to lack focus to me).

[dreamdead]

I’m another in the The New World camp, as I love how it handles the considerations of the historical event. It’s a very dreamy aesthetic, yet the full-on cinematic way that Malick parallels or juxtaposes his characters’ voiceover with the accompanying images is a marvel to me. Sometimes the images are violent, yet they’re contrasted with a yearning for innocence, other times they’re bewildering (yet deliriously subjective) idealistic, yet the accompanying images reveal a more objective lens that grants the film greater resonance. The artificiality of the ideal, yet the constant attempt to go beyond artifice, always lie in his work (I’m thinking specifically of Penn and Caviezel’s discussions in The Thin Red Line here). Naturally enough, the sections in London here operate under the same mechanisms initially, yet Pocahontas’ ability to navigate those spaces and exist within (as well as outside of)them reveals an expanding of Malick’s vision here (as TTRL ended with the denial of that co-existence), one that prevents it from existing as a repetition of TTRL’s themes.

Your analysis of the film’s examination of a perpetual fall is illuminating since Malick’s thematic preoccupations hinge entirely on the exploration of this topic. Here, I feel, is the film where Malick goes beyond his earlier film’s cynical endings and achieves something holy, something transcendent. It’s the film I come back to most of his, as the pace and quietude of the film take me someplace wonderful. Great write-up, so much to ponder….

[Melville]

Your analysis of the film’s examination of a perpetual fall is illuminating since Malick’s thematic preoccupations hinge entirely on the exploration of this topic. Here, I feel, is the film where Malick goes beyond his earlier film’s cynical endings and achieves something holy, something transcendent.
Good call, and great thoughts. It's interesting that as Malick's theme of alienation from the Ideal, or fall from innocence/original unity, has become more explicit, it has also become more hopeful. The ending of TTRL feels almost as transcendent as TNW to me, although since it occurs after Caviezel's death, it still kind of makes that transcendence feel like an impossibility.

[Derek]

I haven't had time to proofread this, but in the interest of keeping things moving along here, I'll post it now and look it over later.

#85 - Double Indemnity (Billy Wilder, 1944)

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/film/doubleindemnity460.jpg

“I killed him for money and for a woman. And I didn’t the money…and I didn’t get the woman.”

If there's one thing that's always bugged me about Double Indemnity, at least in retrospect several years after I last saw it, it was the sense that everything about it was a bit too calculated and the script so sharp that the plot and actor's have no room to believe. Seeing once again, I was struck by how this utter precision - evident in everything from the cinematography which casts shadows and light in geometric shapes and patterns to the dialogue and performances as carefully mannered and crafted as a sculpture - is crucial in developing the film's sense of inevitabilty, giving it the feeling of a funereal march. Every piece of dialogue and movement of the camera and actors is designed to mirror Walter's obsessive attention to the minutest details of the plan. Yet with every move, as carefully and thoroughly thought through, Neff moves another step closer to his own demise, a fate put in action from his very first glimpse at Mrs. Dietrichson's anklet. Underlying this fate is the dissociation between the perfect plan he hatches in his mind and the real world where it must unfold, most importantly the fact that he must trust Phyllis as well as keep his boss, Keyes, at bay. This perfect dichotomy between a plan of technical perfection and an imperfect world where such a plan cannot escape the grasp of predestined downfall is what makes the film, at least in some ways, the quintessential film noir. Wilder and Chandler's screenplay is not simply flaunting its muscles, but creating a vision of haunting despair where Neff, even in carefully sidestepping the traps as they come (the husband at first not taking the train, the stranger from the train coming to the office and Keyes initial hunch that another man helped Phyllis plan the murder), cannot escape the linear death drive once its set in motion. As Phyllis reminds him later in the film, "It's straight down the line for both of us. Remember?"

Neff, played with equal parts caustic wit and utter desperation by the straight-faced Fred MacMurray, is also the perfect blank slate upon which the drama plays out. He is a loner with no attachments aside from his job and, even in that, he refuses to settle down to a desk job, preferring to roam the streets, peddling insurance to strangers. In his first iconic exchange with Phyllis, he mentions that he's learned a lot about the world while doing his job and we get the feeling he didn't like what he saw. His attraction to Phyllis is at first purely sexual as he first glimpses her half-dressed as she comes in from sunbathing, but it is not in his nature to seek permanence in any form, so it's difficult to believe that he ever thought or even wanted their plan to work out despite the obvious care put into it. While Neff is ultimately shown to be a means to an end for Phyllis, the same could be said the other way around. Neff is by nature a drifter - sure, a drifter with a job and the respect of his boss, but still a man with seemingly no desire to conform to the standards of society, at least in the form of settling down with a wife or a job behind a desk. As an outsider with no real desire to become an "insider", it appears to me as if Neff's sexual attraction, while at first tittilating, ultimately triggers a self-destructive psychosis. He admits early in the film that Keyes would sniff out a scheme like theirs in no time, yet he follows through with it for the temporary pleasure of having Phyllis.

Phyllis herself is certainly a prototypical femme fatale, but as much as she pushes Neff into the situation, he lays the groundwork and executes it while remaining aware that their is little chance of its success. His impermanent nature again rears its head twice more later in the film, the first time when he wants Phyllis to keep her distance as Keyes closes in and later when he's instantly willing to let her hang for the crime when he knows Keyes is going to pin it on Phyllis and her secret lover, Nino Zachetti. Both instances suggest that Neff is far from obsessed from getting the happy ending that Phyllis constantly reminds him of while his final actions, turning Nino away from the house and confessing to the crime before Keyes shows up, ultimately convey his true desire simply to be left alone to die. The final image isn't haunting so much in its reversal of roles in the lighting of the match, as in the notion that Neff is left to die with the only person who actually cared for him looking at him as if he doesn't exist. And in some ways, that's what Neff was after all along.

[Duncan]

That's a good write-up for a movie I'm not a big fan of. Do you think the film is funny, Derek? I've heard differing accounts from its fans. It never struck me as a funereal death march.

[Melville]

Great review. I really like your central idea that Neff is almost purposely plunging towards his own doom. That's kind of an underlying theme in a lot of noir, but I've never really thought about how much Double Indemnity emphasizes it. Neff does seem much more aware that he's dooming himself than most noir heroes do.


That's a good write-up for a movie I'm not a big fan of. Do you think the film is funny, Derek? I've heard differing accounts from its fans. It never struck me as a funereal death march.
The main character is definitely on a death march (doesn't the film start with his final phone call?), but I agree that it isn't a funereal one. The characters and their banter-y dialogue are so stylized and lively, and the plot so carefully contrived, that I found the whole thing consistently amusing and frequently quite funny.

[Derek]

That's a good write-up for a movie I'm not a big fan of. Do you think the film is funny, Derek? I've heard differing accounts from its fans. It never struck me as a funereal death march.

I think it has a streak of dark humor running through it, but I wouldn't call it a funny film. While I laughed at several parts, I would say it takes itself fairly seriously for the most part.

And perhaps 'funereal march' was a bit of an extreme expression, but it worked as a setup phrase so I kept it.

[Sven]

I think this funereal-funny debate is entirely fitting in with the nature of Wilder's entire filmography. I think he manages to tow the line between glum, dark, and fatalistic with lively elan better than anyone else I can mentally summon. That is probably the biggest selling point for me. Good review! It's not one of my favorite Wilder's, I think, because mostly I'm not interested in noir archetypes, which this film bathes in expertly. And I've seen it a trillion times, so there's the "rote at this point" factor as well. And I do love MacMurray's performance. I like your idea of the attraction triggering a willing self-destructive psychosis.

[Sven]

84. The Hobbit

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v350/iosos/Top%20100%20movies/The-Hobbit.jpg

There is a moment in the Rankin/Bass production of The Hobbit that chokes me up every time, and I have seen this movie at least a dozen times. It is an unassuming moment that most probably will not recall, and it happens right at the beginning of the movie. The dwarfs and Gandalf have just commissioned Bilbo to join their quest; while sleeping through the night, Bilbo is awoken by something. Glenn Yarbrough accompanies his midnite stirring, singing the ubiquitous, silly, though not at all wanting in fantastic yearning theme song—Bilbo emerges from his Hobbit hole and looks at the moon. Yarbrough croons “The greatest adventure is there if your bold/Let go of the moment that life makes you hold/To treasure the meaning can make you delay/It’s time you stop thinking and wasting the day.”

So blunt, I know, but there’s something in those lyrics, probably lifted from Tolkien despite being credited to Jules Bass, that I find refreshing—the ideal of keeping your idealism appropriately proportioned, of finding the strength to break through life’s pleasantries (“Eggs and bacon, a good full pipe, my garden at twilight, cakes…”) to forge a life of remembrances and action. Bilbo’s journey, being a metaphor for the path towards actualization, is essentially Homeric, ultimately becoming a whole greater than the sum of its wonderful parts, because the end result is an amalgam of varied adventures, memories, acquaintanceships, moral questing, and invention resulting in an actualized self. Through Bass’s concise adaptation of Tolkien’s poetic text, combined with the romantic image of a being on the cusp of a great and unspeakable change wandering outside, having been woken in anticipation, and gazing on the luminescence of the moon in the stillness of night, my heart is all a-flutter with dreams of my own impossible journey. “To take those steps,” he soliloquies at the mouth of Smaug’s cave, “that would be the bravest of all moments. Whatever happens afterwards is nothing. Here is where you fight your real battle.” It is not the event—it is the journey. In this made-for-TV production, specifically in this tiny moment, is the strongest I’ve ever seen that romantic truth espoused.

This version of the story is so much fun. The characterizations are very strange—John Huston’s passive-aggressive Gandalf, Orson Bean’s aloof Bilbo, Richard Boone’s simultaneously sarcastic and no-nonsense Smaug, the strangely German Elvenking voiced by Otto Preminger, but especially Theodore’s incredible eerie Gollum whose obsession absolutely humbles the comic hysteria of Serkis. Resulting is a panorama of eccentric deliveries, twisting witty phrases (script excellently adapted by R/B regular Romeo Muller) into loving quotables (“Your story has the ring of truth, yes, it rings true.”) True, at a brisk 78 minutes, its sense of journey is largely compacted. But if it comes down to 78 minutes of milestones or 180 minutes of watching characters trudge about, well… I must follow my heart. The narrative’s nature as a parable allows for a trimming of space, to make way for spiritual growth. However, one of the movie’s best moments comes during a respite, when Bilbo climbs to the top of a tree in what appears to be a dark and evil forest and emerges into a beautiful sunny day, the treetops looking like a green pasture. An illustration executed many times (Brazil, one of The Matrix Sequels, Pennies from Heaven), rarely with such poignancy.

I love the line-work in this picture. It’s one of the very few pictures that I think successfully blends the art of its background and the art of its mobile figures. The textures on both are tight and topographic, giving a strong sense of edge, dimension, and space within space (to that end, the coloring work is exceptional too, working vivid wonders with its grimy palette and its skillful blending). The landscapes are unbearably beautiful. As a piece of animation craft, I have no problems including this in the upper echelons of fantasy, animation, and therefore, filmdom, and if that means I have to surrender my movie buff badge, well, that’s okay because I didn’t want to hang out with you jerks anyway.

Kristen: A decent-enough adaptation whose heart is in the right place despite it's weirdnesses in tone and pacing. However, it pales in comparison to the 1998 Disco-Claymation version, "Hobbit Fever," which unfortunately has yet to see a decent DVD release due to music clearance issues and the loss of the original print somewhere in my parents' basement.

[monolith94]

*hums "down, down to goblin-town*

[dreamdead]

I'm embarrassed to note how few of iosos' films I've seen thus far, though I continue to applaud the thoroughness with which he writes about them. Obviously there's a wealth of recommendations here in this thread.

Concerning Double Indemnity and Derek, this final part intrigues me:


The final image isn't haunting so much in its reversal of roles in the lighting of the match, as in the notion that Neff is left to die with the only person who actually cared for him looking at him as if he doesn't exist. And in some ways, that's what Neff was after all along.

It's a haunting parallel to how, on some subterranean level, Phyllis has always looked at him over some divide, where, psychologically speaking, she's never cared if he's existed. Yet equally interesting is how morally necessary Neff needs her husband dead to continue a liaison with her. That is a reading that I'd like to go back and analyze on any rewatch, since that sense of moral-being-eclipsed seems to me on some sense a key into going down a different path of (re)reading the film. Maybe it won't reveal anything, but there is surely some reason why he feels it to be necessary when he could have had her regardless of the dead husband...

[Grouchy]

Kristen: A decent-enough adaptation whose heart is in the right place despite it's weirdnesses in tone and pacing. However, it pales in comparison to the 1998 Disco-Claymation version, "Hobbit Fever," which unfortunately has yet to see a decent DVD release due to music clearance issues and the loss of the original print somewhere in my parents' basement.

Awesome.

[Beau]

Somewhere in the deep confounding smog of my memory, I remember seeing a cartoon related to the Tolkien Universe, although I am not sure if it was The Hobbit, or The Lord of the Rings. I do remember a small little man walking through a nighttime forest. But that is all. At any rate, iosos - an interesting inclusion. I will keep a look out for it and watch it. Or is it rewatch it? I don't know.

[Duncan]

84. The Fly (Cronenberg, 1986)

http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-images/Arts/Arts_/Pictures/2007/02/23/thefly460.jpg

Is Jeff Goldblum a hypnotist? He’s not famous enough for his last name to be in Microsoft Word’s dictionary, yet even his bit parts seem to make an impression. “The eye goes to Goldblum,� Conan O’Brien once said, whether Goldblum is using chaos theory as a come on line or mutely travelling around Nashville on a low-rider. The Fly is the only starring role of his that I’ve seen, and it’s kind of awesome. He does gymnastics. He also melts a guy’s arm off with his own saliva. It is a David Cronenberg film, after all.

The Fly is a film that doesn’t have much right to be considered great. The premise is the epitome of dated sci-fi, it has none of Art’s telltale narrative deformities, and it is a remake of a campy film. Why, then, is it not relegated to one of the ever growing irony ghettos where the grass growing through sidewalk cracks is watered by hip detachment? One reason is its refusal to fall into a genre. Most often labelled a horror film, The Fly could actually bear any number of monikers. It begins as romantic comedy. It moves swiftly to AIDs allegory, then steps nimbly into the shoes of an abortion drama while insinuating the nuclear family’s potential viciousness. It ends as bloody tragedy. This is something that separates it from horror classics like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre or The Evil Dead. If those films trade in horror it is always to barter with comedy. The Fly goes much further.

Another of The Fly’s distinguishing features is its director. Recall Alien’s famous chest-burster scene, and then consider where a similarly squirmy life form pops out of in The Fly. And who is there to catch that abomination but David Cronenberg himself dressed in his usual gynaecologist scrubs. More so than in some of his less successful films Cronenberg’s obsession with the human body, its reproduction, and its evolution are integral to this story. Present also is the merging of flesh and technology, and it is here that the film takes its final, tragic stance. Brundle-Fly is diseased and indifferent, but still lusts after life. “I’m an insect who dreamt he was a man, and loved it. But now the dream is over, and the insect is awake. I’m saying that if you stay…I’ll hurt you.� The insect is treated as if it always existed. And what of the copper cables and telepod housing later absorbed by Brundle-Fly? Too little humanity for worthwhile life. If the insect is treated as fundamental, then so must that machine be. If we choose to, we can anoint such a machine. The journey towards the new flesh is an exponential series of accidental suicides only revealed to us upon reaching its limit. If this is the viral path we are following then hope we are not helpless to complete the task when the zero is in sight.

Appendix A: Other Things Goldblum Does
- Collects his own body parts
- Turns a monkey inside out
- Liquefies his donuts
- Jumps through a glass brick window
- Crawls on the ceiling
- Breaks a guy’s arm in half while arm wrestling (Or did his opponent do that? Think about it…)
- Wears out a very sexy Geena Davis
- Turns into a fly
- Has coffee with his sugar

[Boner M]

I vaguely remember a Kids in the Hall sketch involving two of the castmembers naming all the people they know who saw The Fly. I think you'd be more familiar with it than me.

Fun review. I need to see this again soon.

[Sven]

If the insect is treated as fundamental, then so must that machine be. If we choose to, we can anoint such a machine. The journey towards the new flesh is an exponential series of accidental suicides only revealed to us upon reaching its limit. If this is the viral path we are following then hope we are not helpless to complete the task when the zero is in sight.

Excellent review, as usual, but can I request that you clarify what you mean by this part? Are you suggesting the idea of "new flesh" as eventually - or inevitably - incorporating (or perhaps already incorporating) the inanimate? Why do you use the term "viral path"?

[Duncan]

I vaguely remember a Kids in the Hall sketch involving two of the castmembers naming all the people they know who saw The Fly. I think you'd be more familiar with it than me.

Fun review. I need to see this again soon.

Yeah, top tier KITH. It's two or three superheroes in full, ridiculous uniform sitting around some South American bar.

[Boner M]

Yeah, top tier KITH. It's two or three superheroes in full, ridiculous uniform sitting around some South American bar.
Found it. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8c9LauOGuRw) :lol:

[Melville]

The Fly rocks. Simultaneously goofy, grotesque, and filled with pathos. Just like Jeff Goldblum.

I saw The Hobbit a long time ago, but my memory of it is unfortunately combined with Bakshi's LOTR film.

[Duncan]

Excellent review, as usual, but can I request that you clarify what you mean by this part? Are you suggesting the idea of "new flesh" as eventually - or inevitably - incorporating (or perhaps already incorporating) the inanimate? Why do you use the term "viral path"?
I see Brundle's transformations more as revelations of things already present in his being. Because he claims that he was always insect, I feel I can make the claim that he was also always technological. The new flesh can be what you describe above. It is also a reference to Cronenberg's Videodrome, but I have my own interpretation that may or may not be what he intended. Obviously, Cronenberg is pretty into the human body. He might be stuck there, I'm not sure. Most days I feel that he is. Not really one of my favourites. Anyway, I'm taking these revelations from the telepod as psychological poses rather than physical states. Denying any Cartesian duality. Mind and body are one. From that point of view I see the "new flesh" as a state of being absolutely contrary to humanism and empathy, and informed by an increasingly detached and technological world. I also see it as unsurvivable. I use the term "viral path" for a few reasons. Viruses are very biomechanical. No empathy. The film is pretty commonly read as an allegory for HIV. I got that idea in the review from someone else. So, building off of that, I think the final revelation is also viral. And, going back to that Dark Knight discussion about other people influencing you...I think the death of something like empathy travels exponentially like a virus. It starts with a few people who influence a few other. The initial growth is small. Then the curve goes nearly vertical, then flattens out at some limit. Standard S-curve.

[Sven]

You get mad props for being, like, totally insightful and shit.

[Duncan]

You get mad props for being, like, totally insightful and shit.

'cept I define the shape of an exponential curve incorrectly. But, whatever. Metaphor stands.

[Watashi]

'cept I define the shape of an exponential curve incorrectly. But, whatever. Metaphor stands.

That's a right triangle, you idiot! (http://www.fancast.com/tv/The-Simpsons/3745/718071145/Thats-a-Right-Triangle/videos)

[Bosco B Thug]

THE FLY
- Breaks a guy’s arm in half while arm wrestling (Or did his opponent do that? Think about it…) I'm scared to give this a re-watch because of that scene. Gah.

But right on, what I remember is how you describe. Cronenberg, lurid but sophisticated. Calculus metaphors always seem to work beautifully.

[B-side]

I need to see The Fly. Like, now.

[D_Davis]

The last three choices are great!

Double Indemnity is awesome - I could watch this film many, many times and never tire of it.

The Hobbit has amazing art. One of the first books I remember as a kid is a giant coffee-table book of The Hobbit with tons of screencaps from the film peppered throughout, including a few pull-out poster-sized pictures. My parents still have this book, and it is without a doubt the best edition of The Hobbit I've ever seen.

The Fly is amazing - a film that should probably be on my top 100. It is gooey fun at its gooiest.

[Melville]

84. One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest (Forman, 1975)

http://i239.photobucket.com/albums/ff317/FaulknerFan/oneflewoverthecuckoosnest2.jpg

Yesterday, somebody stole my laundry basket. A centipede later jumped out of my sink and scurried into a hole in the wall. Sometimes at night I feel a stifled frenzy in my limbs, and I consider overturning my furniture and burning this damn house down. I drift in a grey sea of the mundane, a nausea of complications. If they weren’t such caricatures, I might feel great affinity for Billy Bibbit and Dale Harding.

With its low-lit documentary aesthetic and its struggle between an anti-establishment hero and an oppressive authority figure, One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest has the ‘70s all over it. But Nicholson’s McMurphy isn’t the brooding, alienated anti-hero of Cool Hand Luke or Five Easy Pieces: he’s a Dionysian dancer. He grins and laughs and rages and burns. He is fleet of foot, quick of tongue—and he gives birth to a dancing star. He is the rupture of the mundane, the proclamation and lustful affirmation of life. His enemy is not authority, but banality, negativity and ressentiment.

And what defeats him is not authority, but impassivity. He overwhelms his surroundings with mercurial vigor, but Nurse Ratched will not be affected. She holds herself at a distance from life; she is the nexus of frustration, the unreachable, impervious being that stares out from the black pupils of the Other. And life conforms itself to her insidious will because she will not be touched by it. When McMurphy finally lashes out and tries to throttle her into feeling something, he can only transform her into burning red fleshiness—he cannot touch the impassive, indomitable Other hidden somewhere within that flesh.

The film undulates under the influence of these two characters; theirs is a battle for the soul of the Last Man. However, the film’s pseudo-realist stylings, and the nuanced performances of Nicholson and Fletcher, are not for nought. McMurphy and Ratched are not reduced to pure symbols: they embody the meanings of those symbols as real, living people. They would not be those symbols if they were not living them. This is the meaning that wells from the film’s four close-ups: Ratched’s aforementioned throttling; McMurphy’s red face as he undergoes electroshock therapy; his thoughtful, wistful face as he thinks he has won his freedom; and his thoughtless, lobotomized face just before his death. The second shot mimics the first, as McMurphy’s lightning individuality is momentarily reduced to pure flesh. The second forcefully reminds us that McMurphy is not just a symbolic entity, but a particular personality. And the last demonstrates Ratched’s victory by emptying the flesh of both the symbol and the personality.

But these four close-ups are merely the well-spring of the narrative; the narrative itself, the undulations caused by this welling, is traced out by the movements of the secondary characters, the Bibbits and the Hardings and the Chiefs. These characters and their personal tragedies are only vaguely sketched, their representations of mental “illness� naïve or irrelevant, but they needn’t be more than those vague sketches. They are made just realistic enough for me to empathize with them in their grey sea.

[Sven]

Your fourth paragraph there reminds me of the chief complaint I have against The Dark Knight: that the characters only stand for something - that the screenplay (and/or limited performances) never gives them the chance to look or talk like anything resembling a human. Character as metaphor doesn't work for me nearly as much it does for most, apparently. Coincidentally, Nicholson impressed me as the Joker for the reason you (and I) like him here: for acting as a symbol (Batman's yin) while still being able to develop and convey a plausible human being.

Excellent review.

[Derek]

Your fourth paragraph there reminds me of the chief complaint I have against The Dark Knight

Repped! Your endurance and grapefruit-sized balls are unmatched!

Great review, Melville. I used to love that one, but my ambivalence had been growing towards it since my last rewatch a few years ago where I wasn't quite as impressed. This will give me plenty to reconsider when I get to it again.

Btw, your review reminds me of how Jean-Luc Godard is just about the greatest director ever, you know, because I thought of that while I happened to reading your review. :)

[Sven]

Btw, your review reminds me of how Jean-Luc Godard is just about the greatest director ever, you know, because I thought of that while I happened to reading your review. :)

:lol:

Well, to be fair, I mean... he explicitly says something that I said earlier and I thought the coincidence was significant, so I verbalized it. It wasn't a random dis.

[Qrazy]

Nicholson impressed me as the Joker for the reason you (and I) like him here: for acting as a symbol (Batman's yin) while still being able to develop and convey a plausible human being.


Yeah, he reminds me of my nextdoor neighbor, in lalaland.

[SirNewt]

I haven't participated in this thread for a while but looking it over again I think I'm in love with Duncan. I just need a few questions answered first.

On the beach, walks by moon or volleyball by day?

Sartre or Descartes?

and last of all

Which was the better Clash album, The Clash or London Calling?

[Melville]

'cept I define the shape of an exponential curve incorrectly. But, whatever. Metaphor stands.
Yeah, I'm still not sure what you're actually talking about with that.:)


Your fourth paragraph there reminds me of the chief complaint I have against The Dark Knight: that the characters only stand for something - that the screenplay (and/or limited performances) never gives them the chance to look or talk like anything resembling a human. Character as metaphor doesn't work for me nearly as much it does for most, apparently. Coincidentally, Nicholson impressed me as the Joker for the reason you (and I) like him here: for acting as a symbol (Batman's yin) while still being able to develop and convey a plausible human being.

I think it depends what the symbols are. If they are symbols of certain types of people, I think it's important for them to actually be recognizable as real people in order for them to actually serve as the symbols.



Great review, Melville. I used to love that one, but my ambivalence had been growing towards it since my last rewatch a few years ago where I wasn't quite as impressed.
I'm also much less impressed by it then I used to be—I think it was once in my top ten. But I still find the character dynamics pretty compelling. My major complaint before I started writing my review was the one-dimensionality of all the secondary characters; but somehow my review convinced me that that wasn't actually a problem.

[Duncan]

I haven't participated in this thread for a while but looking it over again I think I'm in love with Duncan. I just need a few questions answered first.

On the beach, walks by moon or volleyball by day?

Sartre or Descartes?

and last of all

Which was the better Clash album, The Clash or London Calling?

Moon, Sartre (obv.), The Clash.

[Duncan]

Yeah, I'm still not sure what you're actually talking about with that.:) :lol:

I wrote it pretty quick, and then when I re-read it I was like, wow, that's completely wrong. Better make a self-deprecating post before Melville calls me out on it.

[Derek]

#84 - Spirited Away (Hayao Miyazaki, 2001)

http://www.michaelbarrier.com/Feedback/SpiritedAway.jpg

There are a small handful of filmmaker's whose work I find consistently engaging to the point that I am temporarily transported to another plane, be it intellectual, spiritual, magical, etc. and fewer still animated films I consider great enough to be put in that same class as those films. For me, Spirited Away is the ultimate animated film, perhaps not for embodying all of the possibilities of the form, but through its ability to transport me to a new world of unexpected surprises and deep emotional connections no matter how many times I see it. Miyazaki is one of those filmmakers whose mediocre works still bring me much pleasure and whose greatest works cause me to mourn the diminishing frequency of hand-drawn animation. Of course Spirited Away itself marks Miyazaki's embracing of computer animation, but its seamless integration into his typically beautiful, meticulously crafted world accents its beauty without eclipsing it.

The set-up of a lonely girl finding her place in a strange environment may sound familiar for anyone who's seen a Miyazaki film, but the environment is rendered with such richness and complexity that Chihiro's journey takes the form of metaphysical transformation rather than simply a coming of age. The bathhouse itself functions as a microcosm for the adult world; a well-oiled, interconnecting machine that threatens to consume the individual unless they find their own unique, yet useful position amongst it. And here lies the challenge for Chihiro, who, only recently left everything familiar to her behind, must find her place in an unfamiliar world and constantly readjust to her increasingly bizarre circumstances. Her struggle to maintain her individuality while adjusting to the newfound responsibilities that come with being a productive adult is reflected in every aspect of the film. For Miyazaki, the nearly overwhelming amount of strange, sometimes inexplicable, creatures and beings is not merely a show of visual splendor, but an attempt to throw the viewer in the deep end with Chihiro and force us to reset our own bearings from one scene to the next. This sense of newness and discovery makes Spirited Away a thrilling experience, but Miyazaki’s ability to balance the adventure with the tender melancholy of the passing of childhood makes it a film of immense emotional power as well. The train ride near the end is a testament to his ability to blend the fantastical and the emotional, to step outside of the plot and embody the entirety of its themes and emotions not in words or actions, but movement and silence. After a film packed to the brim with gorgeous imagery, this comtemplative sequence gives us space to take in the magnitude of everything that came before it. It's haunting, bittersweet and encapsulates everything I love about Miyazaki.

[Winston*]

I love that movie, Derek!:):):)

[SirNewt]

Yah!

[D_Davis]

Not my favorite Miyazaki, but I can't disparage your choice.

[Beau]

That train ride is a wonder. The movie doesn't really force onto us the melancholy of the sequence. It just washes over us calmly.

[Sven]

The score to Spirited Away is marvelous, and you are right to emphasize the train ride: it is elating. Thinking about it fills me with a rich sense of nostalgia that is rarely tapped.

[Sven]

Due to a few projects coming to the fore, I have to withdraw from this thread, as well as Match Cut at large.

Okay, well, maybe not WITHDRAW withdraw, but my visits are going to be but a fraction of what they were in what I like to deem "My Glory Days" here, but I will continue posting in this thread, although the entries will be lacking in much commentary, no quadrupled pictures, and no snark from Kristen (sadly). So much to do, so much to do!

83. Q&A

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v350/iosos/Top%20100%20movies/qa.jpg

Nick Nolte, Armand Assante, Timothy Hutton in a glorious, fiery triangle of murder, deception, and varying styles of sensational chilliness: in Nolte's guttural grizzliness, Assante's "I'm going to murder you" mafiosity, Hutton's struggle with impartial procedure, and Lumet's operatic direction, heightening this routine cop-thriller to nearly Shakespearean planes (based on a book by Edwin Torres, I find it interesting that De Palma chose to adapt another potential mediocrity, Carlito's Way, and also heightened it with style, import, and resonating emotion). The dialogue is particularly violent here, Nolte chewing up iron-laced monologues and spitting out mortar shells.

[Watashi]

Pfft. Reality is overrated.

You'll be crawling back.

[SirNewt]

But you just got your magoo av! Tsk, tsk, tsk, what a waste.

[SirNewt]

Moon, Sartre (obv.), The Clash.

Yeah, that pretty much seals it. Except, we'll have to work around that last one. . . hm. . .

[monolith94]

Moon, Sartre (obv.), The Clash.
I'd go with moon, descartes, and give 'em enough rope.

[transmogrifier]

Which was the better Clash album, The Clash or London Calling?

Which is better, air or water?

[Duncan]

I too very much like the train sequence in Spirited Away. And I guess I'm up again, huh? I'll try to write something tonight.

[balmakboor]

Due to a few projects coming to the fore, I have to withdraw from this thread, as well as Match Cut at large.

Okay, well, maybe not WITHDRAW withdraw, but my visits are going to be but a fraction of what they were in what I like to deem "My Glory Days" here, but I will continue posting in this thread, although the entries will be lacking in much commentary, no quadrupled pictures, and no snark from Kristen (sadly). So much to do, so much to do!

83. Q&A

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v350/iosos/Top%20100%20movies/qa.jpg

Nick Nolte, Armand Assante, Timothy Hutton in a glorious, fiery triangle of murder, deception, and varying styles of sensational chilliness: in Nolte's guttural grizzliness, Assante's "I'm going to murder you" mafiosity, Hutton's struggle with impartial procedure, and Lumet's operatic direction, heightening this routine cop-thriller to nearly Shakespearean planes (based on a book by Edwin Torres, I find it interesting that De Palma chose to adapt another potential mediocrity, Carlito's Way, and also heightened it with style, import, and resonating emotion). The dialogue is particularly violent here, Nolte chewing up iron-laced monologues and spitting out mortar shells.

This is one of those Lumets I've been meaning to check out for a long time. Now I have another reason it seems.

[SirNewt]

I'd go with moon, descartes, and give 'em enough rope.

give 'em enough rope

really!?

[monolith94]

give 'em enough rope

really!?
Judging by our differences of opinion concerning both the Clash and Jeunet, we may, in fact, be two different people.

[SirNewt]

Judging by our differences of opinion concerning both the Clash and Jeunet, we may, in fact, be two different people.

Perhaps, you misunderstand my surprise or I assume your comment to be more pointed than it is intended to be. I'm really only surprised at your choice because The Clash and London Calling are usually considered their best albums. I thought you might shed some light on your unusual selection.

[Russ]

The Clash is their best and London Calling is very nearly its equal. But my favorite is Sandinista, so what do I know?

[monolith94]

Perhaps, you misunderstand my surprise or I assume your comment to be more pointed than it is intended to be. I'm really only surprised at your choice because The Clash and London Calling are usually considered their best albums. I thought you might shed some light on your unusual selection.
Of course I love London Calling and the Clash, but for some reason, when I want to listen to them, I'll turn to Give Em Enough Rope (or my own version of Sandanista w/ the boring bits cut out). I like Give Em Enough Rope's elegant simplicity, it's energy, and great lyrics. Is London Calling a better crafted album? Maybe. But I just get more kicks out of Give Em Enough Rope.

[Duncan]

I feel like this one got away from me towards the end.

83. L'Intrus (Denis, 2004)

http://www.facecouncil.org/tournees/jpg/intruder465.jpg

The dogs survive by eating a woman’s heart. Alright. That’s the only answer I was truly concerned about having. It’s a good answer from a film that inspires questions with every shot and cut because the answer furthers our ignorance. Why was this woman killed? Who killed her? Why is her heart lying in a field? How does grass stay green under snow?

L’Intrus is essentially a globe trotting thriller. Our protagonist, the mysterious Louis, travels about Switzerland, various parts of East Asia, and Tahiti. What we learn of his background is implied by a lingering shot of the interior of his shed in which his laptop lies amidst dishes and magazines. He’s a casual spy. Or a casual criminal. Whichever. The conflicts Claire Denis is interested in are not legalities or the protection of national secrets. Many scenes seem set up to promote traditional filmic discord but never deliver. In the opening border crossing scene we expect to see a shot of the driver being arrested, or at least a narrowing of the eyes. Denis cuts to the female border guard playfully congratulating her dog. Meanwhile, the scenes of intense conflict are sudden and confounding such as when Louis acts as his own horse-drawn sleigh. It could be flashback, it could be flashfoward, it could be dream. Nevertheless, there are aspects of certainty to the scene: the brightness of the snow; the flatness of the trees shot with a telephoto lense; the texture of a horse’s half-frozen mane. These are what bind us to the film – not plot or anticipation.

Anticipation is to be assuaged. Relax. There’s nothing coming but the next 24th of a second. Perhaps this is why the images of L’Intrus have been so gently washed in ambiguity by extraordinarily talented DP Agnes Godard. Never are we standing steady. Always are we asking questions. But then a strange shift in perception happens. We’ve still no footing, but there are also no forces acting on us. There’s just light moving fluidly as water and air will appear to move around a ship should you rigidly attach a camera to it. And those questions become not-questions. Not-answers. Same thing. It isn’t quite Jeopardy! since there is no distinguishing between the two. Shades of green vie with one another as a hospital sheet is pulled tight. A purple pink wave makes the illusory shift from two to three dimensions. We’ve switched places with the environment now, and it’s being thrown back past us by the feet of sled dogs. Their tails are up and wagging, and their assholes are exposed. It’s kind of funny. How does grass stay green under snow? How does grass stay green under snow.

[Derek]

I feel like this one got away from me towards the end.

It's almost inevitable with a film like this. Your approach definitely fits with the enigmatic nature of the film, which I absolutely adore. Great pick.

[Sven]

You need to stop reading post-modern literature, dude.

Sounds like an interesting picture. Only Denis I've got under me is Beau Travail, which was pretty darn great.

[Watashi]

Alright, I have to be Mr. Negative. I haven't really enjoyed any of Duncan's reviews so far. They're a bit too gimmicky for me.

I still luv u Duncan.

[Duncan]

You need to stop reading post-modern literature, dude. Haha. The last couple of nights I've been flipping through Gravity's Rainbow again and reading Pynchon's short stories from university. I guess it shows. I keep reading passages and thinking, "You can do that?" And then I try to do it. Never turns out as well, of course.

edit: The film itself is also very post-modern.

[Duncan]

Alright, I have to be Mr. Negative. I haven't really enjoyed any of Duncan's reviews so far. They're a bit too gimmicky for me.

I still luv u Duncan.

That's alright. Luv u 2. But I figure if I'm going to write 100 of these things I may as well make them fun to write. On the other hand, the next one's probably going to be more straight forward.

[Benny Profane]

Haha. The last couple of nights I've been flipping through Gravity's Rainbow again and reading Pynchon's short stories from university. I guess it shows. I keep reading passages and thinking, "You can do that?" And then I try to do it.

How are these, by the way? I've heard they are kinda hit and miss.

[Duncan]

How are these, by the way? I've heard they are kinda hit and miss.

The only one I actually read is Mortality and Mercy in Vienna. It started off well. Very funny. It's about this sympathetic guy who goes to a party and ends up a sort of Father Confessor for a bunch of strangers. The only thing I didn't like about it was the very ending. Seemed sort of stupid, actually. I also read a couple of his high school stories (can't believe they still exist). Funny, but definitely written by a highschooler.

You can find them here (http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/pynchon_essays.html), along with a bunch of other neat stuff.

[Benny Profane]

The only one I actually read is Mortality and Mercy in Vienna. It started off well. Very funny. It's about this sympathetic guy who goes to a party and ends up a sort of Father Confessor for a bunch of strangers. The only thing I didn't like about it was the very ending. Seemed sort of stupid, actually. I also read a couple of his high school stories (can't believe they still exist). Funny, but definitely written by a highschooler.

You can find them here (http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/pynchon_essays.html), along with a bunch of other neat stuff.

Ah, I thought you were talking about Slow Learner which is a published collection of short stories written before he came out with V.

I know you weren't all that enthused with it, but it's hard to believe that V. was written by a 24 year old.

[Duncan]

Ah, I thought you were talking about Slow Learner which is a published collection of short stories written before he came out with V.

I know you weren't all that enthused with it, but it's hard to believe that V. was written by a 24 year old.

It's crazy that people like that exist. Whenever I watch Citizen Kane I have to continuously remind myself that it was written, acted, and directed by a 25 year old. Doesn't seem possible.

[Benny Profane]

It's crazy that people like that exist.

What's even crazier is that he was a gifted aerospace engineer, and could very well have worked for Boeing had he not chosen writing instead.

[Duncan]

What's even crazier is that he was a gifted aerospace engineer, and could very well have worked for Boeing had he not chosen writing instead.

I actually have a few friends at Boeing in Seattle, so that on its own I'm not as impressed by. But yeah, combined with the writing it's pretty mindblowing. This may not be as true as I think it is, but I find that people underestimate the more liberal talents of engineers. Maybe it's just the school that I came from where we were forced to take an art history course, Western lit courses, foreign cultures courses, etc. But even at work here, my cubicle mate writes and plays her own music. She just played a concert last night for a few thousand people. Melville is in the hard sciences, but he's a good writer. Some people are just hard core engineers or scientists, but I find the vast majority of them to have artistic ambitions. Afterall, most go into engineering because of its design aspects. I think that if you're as smart a person as Thomas Pynchon then those boundaries are very diffuse. Gravity's Rainbow is filled with engineering details. It makes a lot of sense to me, then, that his engineering life would have been filled with liberal details.

There is, however, one passage in V. about living in the worst of both worlds. It pretty explicitly says that you have to make a choice between them if you want to be happy, so perhaps Pynchon would disagree with the previous paragraph.

[Sven]

Similarly, I know that Tom Scholz, guitarist for Boston, is foremost an engineer, as is Skunk Baxter, the legendary session musician for the likes of The Doobie Brothers and Steely Dan, who now is a missile defense consultant for NASA.

[Benny Profane]

There is, however, one passage in V. about living in the worst of both worlds. It pretty explicitly says that you have to make a choice between them if you want to be happy, so perhaps Pynchon would disagree with the previous paragraph.

I definitely remember that. Do you have the exact words anywhere? It was one of the more thought-provoking passages in the book and I'd like to read it again. I searched online and couldn't find it.

With regards to what you said before, I agree that many engineers are artistically versatile, but when you are at the very VERY top of both fields it's an extreme rarity. I think you get that that's what I meant, but I just wanted to clarify. I can't even fathom how intelligent the guy is. It's a shame he's such a recluse because I'd love to learn more about him, but I can understand why he wants to be left alone.

[Duncan]

I definitely remember that. Do you have the exact words anywhere? It was one of the more thought-provoking passages in the book and I'd like to read it again. I searched online and couldn't find it.

With regards to what you said before, I agree that many engineers are artistically versatile, but when you are at the very VERY top of both fields it's an extreme rarity. I think you get that that's what I meant, but I just wanted to clarify. I can't even fathom how intelligent the guy is. It's a shame he's such a recluse because I'd love to learn more about him, but I can understand why he wants to be left alone.

The book's at home. I have the page dog-eared though, so I'll post it tonight.

[Duncan]

With regards to what you said before, I agree that many engineers are artistically versatile, but when you are at the very VERY top of both fields it's an extreme rarity. I think you get that that's what I meant, but I just wanted to clarify. I can't even fathom how intelligent the guy is. It's a shame he's such a recluse because I'd love to learn more about him, but I can understand why he wants to be left alone. About this, I double checked Pynchon's wikipedia entry, and I don't think he ever actually became an engineer. He joined the navy 2-years into his degree, then returned only to switch to English as a major. He worked at Boeing as a "technical writer." And, maybe it's just that I know what ridiculous people my friends are, but I don't think working at Boeing necessarily means you are at the top of your field. Not that my friends aren't smart.

[Benny Profane]

The book's at home. I have the page dog-eared though, so I'll post it tonight.

Never mind, I found it.

I'll post it in the quote/passage thread.

[Duncan]

Never mind, I found it.

I'll post it in the quote/passage thread.

So I did some more reading on that site, and I think Pynchon actually covered quite exactly what I was trying to say earlier in an essay called "Is it O.K. to be a Luddite (http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/pynchon_essays_luddite.html)?"


As if being 1984 weren't enough, it's also the 25th anniversary this year of C. P. Snow's famous Rede lecture, "The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution," notable for its warning that intellectual life in the West was becoming polarized into "literary" and "scientific" factions, each doomed not to understand or appreciate the other. The lecture was originally meant to address such matters as curriculum reform in the age of Sputnik and the role of technology in the development of what would soon be known as the third world. But it was the two-culture formulation that got people's attention. In fact it kicked up an amazing row in its day. To some already simplified points, further reductions were made, provoking certain remarks, name-calling, even intemperate rejoinders, giving the whole affair, though attenuated by the mists of time, a distinctly cranky look.

Today nobody could get away with making such a distinction. Since 1959, we have come to live among flows of data more vast than anything the world has seen. Demystification is the order of our day, all the cats are jumping out of all the bags and even beginning to mingle. We immediately suspect ego insecurity in people who may still try to hide behind the jargon of a specialty or pretend to some data base forever "beyond" the reach of a layman. Anybody with the time, literacy, and access fee can get together with just about any piece of specialized knowledge s/he may need. So, to that extent, the two-cultures quarrel can no longer be sustained. As a visit to any local library or magazine rack will easily confirm, there are now so many more than two cultures that the problem has really become how to find the time to read anything outside one's own specialty.


I guess the bolded parts are what I was trying to suggest earlier with that "boundaries are very diffuse" comment earlier. It's a fun essay. Recommended reading for all.

[Benny Profane]

As a visit to any local library or magazine rack will easily confirm, there are now so many more than two cultures that the problem has really become how to find the time to read anything outside one's own specialty.

It's a daily struggle.

[SirNewt]

About this, I double checked Pynchon's wikipedia entry, and I don't think he ever actually became an engineer. He joined the navy 2-years into his degree, then returned only to switch to English as a major. He worked at Boeing as a "technical writer." And, maybe it's just that I know what ridiculous people my friends are, but I don't think working at Boeing necessarily means you are at the top of your field. Not that my friends aren't smart.

I can confirm this. I have a very uninsightful yet intelligent friend who builds satellites.

[dreamdead]

Always a fan of seeing Denis on these lists. L'Intrus is a film where the images linger long after the narrative has faded away, so that the purity of the images become all-encompassing. Here the second half of the film, wherein Louis is on the island, is the powerhouse. The simplicity of the narrative at that point, and especially the trust Denis plays in the Other becoming pretty much the main character instead of Louis, gives the film its power.

And, of course, the abandonment of the dogs is powerful. Wonderful film; hers are films that I yearn to return to each year.

[B-side]

I've yet to see a Denis. I suppose L'Intrus is as good a place to start as any.

[Melville]

83. A Time for Drunken Horses (Ghobadi, 2000)

http://i239.photobucket.com/albums/ff317/FaulknerFan/drunken_horses.jpg

A Time for Drunken Horses tells the story of a family of orphaned Kurdish children who survive by smuggling tires across the border between Iran and Iraq. Its style is spare and unsentimental, with a subdued, documentary aesthetic that relies on the snowy landscape and the children’s stoic faces to evoke its bleak emotion. Although the story seems ripe for proselytizing about the plight of poor Kurdish children everywhere, it avoids this opportunity for social melodrama and focuses resolutely on its particular cast of characters. But, like that of any good realist fiction, the film’s particular story is intended to implicitly exemplify much broader issues, and the scenes that stand out most in my memory are those that subtly and affectingly suggest this connection between the particular and the general.

There’s a scene early in the film when a child is questioned by an off-screen interviewer, possibly the director himself. This bit of metafiction could be off-putting to some, since it makes no literal sense in the film’s fictional story. (It also might tempt some to write a review based on Baudrillard’s notion of simulacra and Iranian films’ tendency to blur the line between fact and fiction…but I’ll resist that temptation.) However, the scene is not emphasized, nor does it wink slyly at the audience; instead, it serves to momentarily reify the film’s documentary style. This momentary shift reminds us of the film’s context: the characters are played by amateur actors, and their lives are the lives of many real people. Suddenly this context is no longer a lens through which the film might be analyzed, but an inextricable part of the film itself that cannot be ignored. Such a deformation of the film’s topology affects every scene, knotting the film’s realist form to the social issues implicit in its story.

But far more memorable is the final scene. After a withering series of disappointments and hardships, one of the children sets out on a last-ditch effort (though all of the children’s efforts seem to be such) to raise money for his ill brother. The band of smugglers he is with are ambushed and killed, leaving just him and his mule. The final shot watches, stilly, as the boy walks away into a snowy field filled with landmines. It is devastating in its evocation of hopeless lives in which people have no choice but to strive. But it is simultaneously profoundly humanistic in its display of this striving as a striving for the benefit of another—and a striving that continues even in the face of despair.

[Qrazy]

Yeah I've been meaning to finally see some Denis and I've never heard of Melville's current entry so sweet, new stuff to see.

Downloaded Trouble Every Day.

[Melville]

#84 - Spirited Away (Hayao Miyazaki, 2001)

Great pick. Like everybody else, I love the train scene. As with your review of Double Indemnity, I like how you single out a particular genre element that I had never really thought about (in this case, a child growing up by adapting to a strange fantasy world).


Nolte chewing up iron-laced monologues and spitting out mortar shells.
Hmm... I don't much care for Lumet, but that sounds promising.


I've never heard of Melville's current entry.
Yeah, I guess it's pretty obscure. Ghobadi's later movie Turtles Can Fly seemed to get a lot more advertising.

[Derek]

#83 - The New World (Terrence Malick, 2005)

http://thisdistractedglobe.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/06/NewWorld3.jpg

Set to the deep, rich horns and flurrying violins of Richard Wagner's "Vorspiel", the opening minutes of Terrence Malick's The New World are a majestic, breathtaking introduction full of wonder and a sense of discovery that is rarely found in cinema. The tender, transcendent musings of Pocahontas juxtaposed with langourous images of the ocean and landscape feel so innocent and pure that it seems we are seeing them through the eyes of a child. Malick's typically graceful camera greets the English as they first arrive and patiently allows them, and us, to behold the spectacular beauty of this nearly untouched land. The first several encounters with the natives are appropriately awkward, as if two different species, unknown to each other, crossed paths in the wild, but while the natives are sufficiently welcoming, the English see only savages whose help they may later require. When running short on food and supplies, Captain John Smith (Collin Farrell) is sent to seek that aid, but is quickly captured and ordered to leave with the rest of his countrymen. After being unable to converse with their king, he is nearly executed until the young Pocahontas (Q'Orianka Kilcher) throws herself upon him, begging her father for mercy. Seeing the opportunity for his daughter to learn about Smith's far away land, the king spares his life and the two are left free in the forest to discover one another. In this freedom, the two develop an almost otherworldly love felt and expressed without language and outside of the boundaries of the social restrictions of either culture.

Smith's submersion into their world is perfectly captured by Emmanuel Lubezki's lush photography (shot using almost all natural light), which creates such a vivid sense of nature that the rain, wind and grass take on a physical presence that emanates from the screen. In his own distinct visual prose, Malick explores the deep bond between Smith and Pocahontas, strengthened by their closeness to earth and intense spiritual longings. Their intrinsic connection is brought to fruition through an expressive use of close-ups and extended sequences free of dialogue, allowing the audience to bask in the wonder of these inexplicable, yet painfully beautiful feelings. The freedom to love without consequence ends once Smith must return to his post, where he is greeted contemptuously by rotten souls and eventually accused of protecting Pocahontas for purely personal reasons. While the English prevent Smith from returning to her, her father allows her to be sold away to them after discovering that she gave them not only meat and clothes with which to survive, but seeds to plant corn the following spring. Living as a lone native in a burgeoning colony of Englishmen, Pocahontas is dressed in their garments and emersed in their culture. The tragedy of her transformation from a free-spirited young beauty is compounded by Smith's abandoning her to continue on another mission to find the Indes and once told he had drowned, she is left crushed and alone amongst people who would not understand her.

Malick smoothly transitions into Pocahontas's second relationship, which begins when John Rolfe (Christian Bale), rather innocently, asks to spend the afternoon with her. Distant at first, the two grow closer as they put their personal tragedies behind them, but when she agrees to marry him, she is reluctant because of her deep-seeded connection to Smith. In this final act, Malick crafts a bittersweet and powerful tragedy, reviving all of the sweeping emotions and memories that came before. Pocahontas and Rolfe, now living in England with their young child, are confronted with the reality that Smith still lives and only once the past is confronted can anyone move on. The unfettered natural beauty where she and Smith fell in love is replaced by the man-built stone buildings and controlled, neatly-trimmed shrubbery and when the two find themselves face to face after all those years, it is as Smith says "as if speaking to you for the first time". The realization that their love, once so free and pure, is now dead is matched by the intensity of her newfound devotion to her child and husband. That Pocahontas is no longer the innocent child we met in the beginning and is now contained within the society responsible for destroying her people is a tough pill to swallow, but her core remains strong and untouched by the immense changes. The furious montage at the film's finale, again accompanied by the Wagner piece, reminds us of her immense strength and inner beauty and functions as a melancholy revery of a time when nature provided a spiritual sustenance that could not be replaced by religious or social order.

[Philosophe_rouge]

One of my all-time favourite films, I'm so happy I saw it on the big screen back when it was released. I've seen it several times each, and though, in terms of spectacle, it can't live up to that first experience my affection for it only grows. The sheer strength of Pocahontas as a person and character is incredible, and I love how the film supports this, constantly adapting and transforming to adapt to her moods and evolution. The final few scenes are beautiful, I don't think they could be better.

[Sven]

Instead of reiterating my usual "I can't believe people like this movie" shenanigans, I'm going to use this opportunity to admit that perhaps I got it wrong, concede that I ought to reevaluate it, and determine to do so.

[Beau]

83. A Time for Drunken Horses (Ghobadi, 2000)

http://i239.photobucket.com/albums/ff317/FaulknerFan/drunken_horses.jpg

For a while, there, I almost thought I would never see this film mentioned anywhere by anybody. Glad to see it on this list.

[Melville]

For a while, there, I almost thought I would never see this film mentioned anywhere by anybody. Glad to see it on this list.
Glad to know that somebody else has actually seen it. Have you seen anything else by the director? I've been meaning to see Turtles Can Fly since it came out.

[Beau]

Glad to know that somebody else has actually seen it. Have you seen anything else by the director? I've been meaning to see Turtles Can Fly since it came out.

Same here, sadly. I'll probably get around to it soon, seeing as this thread has reminded me of the director.

[Sven]

82. The Lower Depths (Renoir)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v350/iosos/Top%20100%20movies/Elena55.jpg

Even though Renoir admits that Kurosawa's version of the Gorky play is better than his own, it is Renoir's that I ultimately prefer for that breezy French atmosphere, relieved of the claustrophobia and histrionics of Kurosawa's excellent adaptation. I just really like Renoir, and find that I can, 95% of the time, count on his focus on the crafty elements of cinema, writing, story, character, composition and the like, to assemble something close to masterful. All in all, he just may be the world's greatest filmmaker, and I think that this picture is as good a representation of his talent than anything he's done that I've seen. Surely Rules of the Game is a more incisive film, The Grand Illusion more impacting, but this one has a charm and life of its own.

With this, my vacation concluding, and my completion of my top 25 thread, I slip away again into relative absence. Adieu, adieu...

[Duncan]

I should see more Renoir. The two that I have seen (Grand Illusion and The Rules of the Game) were both excellent.


I'll have something up tonight. I was going to write something yesterday, but ended up falling asleep around 7:00.

[Duncan]

82. Catch Me If You Can (Spielberg, 2002)

http://images.allmoviephoto.com/2002_Catch_Me_If_You_Can/2003_catch_me_if_you_can_021.j pg

Steven Spielberg has made a career out of filming kids in peril. He’s also very good at lots of other things, but that’s his staple. Aside from the odd Japanese kid, it mostly works out well for the children. They escape the t-rex by repelling down a wall, the aliens turn out to be friendly, and the shark attacks someone else. The same pattern can be seen in Catch Me If You Can. This is the film where Spielberg tweaks his well worn strategy so that everything fits. In a career wrought by thematic repetition Spielberg’s permutations find their right form this one time.

Catch Me If You Can’s success begins with a failure. Frank Abagnale Jr.’s parents decide on a divorce after some financial and marital indiscretions by his father and mother, respectively. Frank runs. This is not the typical Spielberg premise. Usually when kids run away it’s to nonsensically chase aliens (see Close Encounters of the Third Kind and War of the Worlds). A divorce is, unfortunately, a common occurrence. It is something that happens to many families and the heaviest consequences often fall on the kids. And this is where Catch Me If You Can starts.

What follows is the true life story of Frank Abagnale, along with what I’m sure are many exaggerations and falsities. It is a life defined by escapism. You could apply the same word to Spielberg’s career. Something his previous films largely have in common is the daydream – or, on occasion, the nightmare – made real. This is another point at which Catch Me If You Can deviates from the Spielberg oeuvre. There’s no daydream in this film. A kid’s parents get a divorce and he wants to fly away. So he flies away. Now he wants to be a doctor – no, a lawyer! So he becomes a lawyer. Who’s going to stop him, the FBI?

A film like Jaws plays on our fears by offering their fantastical realization. War of the Worlds requires us to read allegories into its plot. Catch Me If You Can is distinguishes itself by subverting both these tendencies that are so prevalent in Spielberg’s career. In the first case the fear is confronted directly, not through the cipher of a giant mechanical fish. He deals specifically with the trauma of youth, the same thing he has always done, but candidly (Empire of the Sun, my second favourite Spielberg film, also does this). He overcomes the second tendency, perhaps accidentally, by filming a story too literally reflective of the protagonist’s psychology to be read as allegory. To state that Frank’s actions are an embodiment of his desires as a scared teenager is not allegorical insight, it’s just plot description.

Catch Me If You Can is often criticized as being slight, but then I never considered Spielberg a particularly profound director. The film more or less filters his career down into two hours, fully equipped with power everything (it’s a sporty movie) and a happy ending. But this happy ending isn’t quite like the others. It is simply a return to normal life and the nine to five grind. Frank abandons the airways and decides to ride a desk instead. I have been compelled throughout this review to compare Catch Me If You Can to Spielberg’s other films, so I might as well finish consistently. Spielberg has filmed some zany endings in his time including: the effects extravaganza that topped off this year’s abysmal Indiana Jones and the who really cares?; A.I.’s elongated denouement; and even the incongruous chain of grief that concludes Schindler’s List. The ending of Catch Me If You Can is dull by contrast. Nevertheless, in its uniform suits, drab colour scheme, and simple confirmation of lasting friendship I find something magical that doesn’t exist elsewhere in Spielberg’s filmography.

[Watashi]

Awesome choice, but I assume this is the only time Senor Spielbergo pops on your list?