Upgrade is so goddamned good.
Despite everyone encouraging me to torrent, I am currently watching Show Me Love on youtube with Swedish audio and French subtitles, even though I don't speak either language. God I love this movie.
Watched Eyes Wide Shut last night for the first time in at least 15 years.
Always enjoyed it, but at this point it may have graduated into my favorites list.
What a rich, powerful experience it is.
Has anyone here seen King Vidor's The Crowd? I can't find it anywhere!
Can't wait to watch my new blu ray next week!Quoting megladon8 (view post)
"Rich" is such a good term to put to that film. Its thick as hell. I love it. Kidman is outstanding and so is Cruise.Quoting Idioteque Stalker (view post)
Just like all of Kubrick's work, I feel like I could spend endless hours dissecting it with someone.Quoting Idioteque Stalker (view post)
It's now either my number 2 or 3 Kubrick.
They are both amazing, yes. I think Kidman was the MVP. She knocked it out of the park.Quoting Skitch (view post)
You're absolutely right, but as a married man, her speeches are so fucking savage (and true to life) they're brutally hard to watch.Quoting megladon8 (view post)
When she tells him about the dream where she's fucking untold numbers of other men, while she watches him and laughs at him.Quoting Skitch (view post)
Remove testicle and place in blender.
Brutal. BRUTAL! I totally understand why Stanley said it's his favorite movie he made, he was always chasing honesty and its unbearably honest.
The entire thing can be read in umpteen different ways.
A couple destroyed by honesty, and the necessity of some level of secrecy in marriage.
Commentary on the class system in modern America.
Conspiracy theory about the Illuminati.
The tangible effect that modern work and career stresses have on family life.
Every reading of the movie has legitimacy, and none are incorrect.
Every one of Kubrick's films (that I have seen) share this trait, and it's pretty much WHY I love talking about movies. You could tell me that Eyes Wide Shut was - to you - an allegory for the Korean War, and I'd be like "yeah that was probably intentional. Tell me what you saw."
It is insane how thematically rich his movies are.
Last edited by megladon8; 07-24-2020 at 02:58 AM.
Yep agreed 100%.
I saw it on TCM about ten years ago. It's mind-bogglingly great, despite being quite possibly the most depressing film ever produced by a major studio.Quoting Yxklyx (view post)
Just because...
The Fabelmans (Steven Spielberg, 2022) mild
Petite maman (Céline Sciamma, 2021) mild
The Banshees of Inisherin (Martin McDonagh, 2022) mild
The last book I read was...
The Complete Short Stories by Mark Twain
The (New) World
Kubrick's not the only filmmaker whose films inspire a variety of interpretations; on the contrary, it's probably the case that most films can be interpreted in different ways, even bad ones (e.g., one could read Uncle Buck as being about John Candy's repressed incestuous desire for his niece, which causes him to behave like a psychotically jealous lover--or more generally, as being about female sexuality as a threat to the established patriarchal order). Moreover, the interpretations aren't latent in the film but are produced by the spectator; whether something is "intentional" or not is obviously irrelevant, since films aren't messages to be decoded. (Even a literal understanding of what happens in a narrative film requires making inferences that go beyond what's actually shown onscreen.) If Kubrick's later films seem particularly amenable to a variety of readings, that's due in part to their deployment of art cinema conventions: The black monolith and the star child in 2001 call out for interpretation by virtue of being enigmatic. (As Bordwell puts it, "the slogan of art cinema might be 'When in doubt, read for maximum ambiguity'.") In any case, it's not clear where those interpretations actually get us. In the case of Eyes Wide Shut, what is it actually saying about class in the US in the 1990s: That rich people really don't want the rest of us to find out about their orgies? Big deal. As for it being about the need for secrecy in a marriage, that's pretty much the film's explicit meaning as articulated by the Kidman character in the final sequence.Quoting megladon8 (view post)
I think Susan Sontag said it best almost sixty years ago in "Against Interpretation":
Just because...
The Fabelmans (Steven Spielberg, 2022) mild
Petite maman (Céline Sciamma, 2021) mild
The Banshees of Inisherin (Martin McDonagh, 2022) mild
The last book I read was...
The Complete Short Stories by Mark Twain
The (New) World
Spent last week slowly going through Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s 6-hour film Happy Hour (on Amazon Prime). It's always understated, lingering on slow developments between relationships and examining the changes across 4 women in their mid-30s. It's a study on the ennui of work and family life in Japan, where Hamaguchi lets two scenes get extended takes (basically letting the camera linger for half an hour of "real" time) that enables the film to achieve a truly lived-in quality. There are instances where this pays off memorably--my favorite is a scene between one of the women and the son of another, where information divulged leads to moment of thanksgiving amidst general apathy--even as the film just sort of peters out after 5 hours of tracking. This and Barry Jenkins's If Beale Street Could Talk have been quiet balms for me these last few weeks.
In more infuriating news, apparently Shane Carruth has a history of abuse. Such a complete bummer for someone like me who loved Upstream Color, taught it multiple times, and found its treatment of abuse and trauma so incredibly affecting. Solidarity with Amy Seimetz.
The Boat People - 9
The Power of the Dog - 7.5
The King of Pigs - 7
Why would he post a restraining order against him?
That's really weird.
I'm not good at twitter, but it appears from the photo Shane didn't intend to reveal that document--or maybe it's some sort of passive aggressive thing. Either way, very disappointing. Just revisited Upstream Color the other day.
*looks at picture*Quoting megladon8 (view post)
Theres no way that wasn't on purpose. I adore Primer (I need to rewatch Upstream Color). I have gut feelings about people with no context or proof or reason. My gut has always kind of assumed he was an asshole. Sad to see this is the kind of asshole he is.
Thanks for sharing, I haven't watched this one yet and now is the time!Quoting Ivan Drago (view post)
Does this mean you wouldn't teach it anymore?Quoting dreamdead (view post)
Just because...
The Fabelmans (Steven Spielberg, 2022) mild
Petite maman (Céline Sciamma, 2021) mild
The Banshees of Inisherin (Martin McDonagh, 2022) mild
The last book I read was...
The Complete Short Stories by Mark Twain
The (New) World
Amy Seimetz's new film She Dies Tomorrow is about to be released, and that pic was a few days after the trailer for it came out. Coupled with the fact that it's arranged so we can clearly see both names and the details of what the paper is without mistake, and I really have a hard time seeing it as accidental.Quoting Idioteque Stalker (view post)
Midnight Run (1988) - 9
The Smiling Lieutenant (1931) - 8.5
The Adventures of Robinhood (1938) - 8
Sisters (1973) - 6.5
Shin Godzilla (2016) - 7.5
No problem!Quoting Zac Efron (view post)
I sadly ended up not having the time to watch it this weekend, but it'll be a priority for next weekend for sure!
Last Five Films I've Seen (Out of 5)
The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and the Horse (Mackesy, 2022) 4.5
Puss In Boots: The Last Wish (Crawford, 2022) 4
Confess, Fletch (Mottola, 2022) 3.5
M3GAN (Johnstone, 2023) 3.5
Turning Red (Shi, 2022) 4.5
Tokyo Story (Ozu, 1953) 5
615 Film
Letterboxd
That's a trickier question than you likely intend. My present institution is really only a literature job so my only place to teach a film is in a 20th to Contemporary world literature class. In that class I've taught Jia Zhangke's A Touch of Sin multiple times, but that's really about it (I've thought about Maya Deren's shorts). When I was first at the job I got to teach a special topics course on 21st Century Cinema, and I taught Carruth's film, as I thought its basically wordless final stretch was a challenge to film norms and deserved consideration. But it, unlike something like Mulholland Dr., never quite opened up to students.Quoting baby doll (view post)
Do I think art by problematic artists should be strictly avoided? Not necessarily. My temperament is to be less forgiving with living artists than dead ones, since royalties and all. A contemporary example: There's a recent question of the private letters that Flannery O'Connor wrote to friends that are tempered in their appeal to racial equality--basically, she stresses that she'd publicly meet and be friends with African Americans in New York but not Georgia--even as her stories excoriate those same racial biases. Does that mean that I might not teach her work? It'd depend what thematic or concept I'm using her work to help illuminate. I'm still grappling with O'Connor and whether the brutal humanity in the stories is more vital than the measured willingness to advocate for equality in the American South (a South, it should be noted, that I presently reside in). With Carruth's film those concerns move from a reclamation of the specifically female-centered trauma (I always identify more with Seimetz's character than his in the film) to an uncomfortably layered repudiation of that sort of community of tortured people learning to live with and work through their traumas. Now the extratextual context of the restraining order undoes that sort of communal therapy. Even if one chooses to argue that this restraining order resides out of the context of the film, the film's very working is precisely about some of those issues, and it forces the film to uncomfortably reside in me now. I acknowledge that adult life is grappling with those uncomfortable residings, but I expect that my appreciation for UC might fade in the midst of this knowledge.
To sidestep this question slightly: I was asked to contribute to an academic collection on American sci-fi films since 2000 at the beginning of this month. While I had initially suggested Upstream Color, I pivoted to suggesting that I write on Boots Riley's Sorry to Bother You--among other things, it helps to reshift the white-dominated focus of the collection's American coverage. While Riley's film is not "strictly" sci-fi, it does a fascinating blend of satire and world-building that warrants closer study for how it intersects with sci-fi themes. Now, at the end of the month, I get to breathe a sign of relief that I don't have that extratextual context to grapple with, and to wonder at how it diminishes my appreciation of a film that I'd treasured. Maybe more time will lead to one of Carruth or Seimetz talking about this personal trauma and offer greater clarity about the specifics of the restraining order, but 1) they're under no obligation to, and 2) my time on this earth is short enough that I'd rather not commit six months to thinking and writing on UC. A week of teaching it might be different if the opportunity arises again.
Last edited by dreamdead; 07-27-2020 at 11:43 AM.
The Boat People - 9
The Power of the Dog - 7.5
The King of Pigs - 7