28 Film Discussion Threads Later

[transmogrifier]

Here's how awesome my rating system is - the average score of the movies I have seen each year, according to my viewing log:

2007 - 61.75
2008 - 62.66
2009 - 62.18
2010 - 63.00
2011 (so far) - 61.80

That's consistency.

[MadMan]

Here's how awesome my rating system is - the average score of the movies I have seen each year, according to my viewing log:

2007 - 61.75
2008 - 62.66
2009 - 62.18
2010 - 63.00
2011 (so far) - 61.80

That's consistency.

Now I'm curious about what my averages are. Knowing me its probably in the 70s or 80s.

[B-side]

Surprised it took me this long to get around to it, but I watched and kinda loved Gamer.

[Winston*]

The Dam Busters was pretty boring. Though it does have a moment of triumph punctuated by the line "It's Nigger", so that's something.

[dreamdead]

Hitchcock's Spellbound is just bad. Pervasive sexism and ridicule of Ingrid Bergman's psychoanalyst by the other leads and secondary roles, the plot never pulls together, and the admittedly conceptually great Dali sequences are psychoanalyzed by the characters to such an extent that the narrative divests these images of their power.

The first-person shooter finale, and the Dali sequences prior to the excessive enumeration of meaning, are the sole bright spots. It's a shame that Selznick's control suppressed any of the cut Dali footage from being seen or included. Blerg.

[Rowland]

Just rewatched Hou's Three Times in my film studies class for the first time since I was indifferent to it in 2006, and it's clear that my sensibilities have changed some since then, as well as that Hou's cinema is best appreciated projected in a screening room. The first and third segments are lovely and unexpectedly riveting given my recollection of being bored stiff, but I'm still not convinced that the middle segment works beyond its complementary context within the whole, which is admittedly ambitious and fascinating.

My class predictably hated it, and I can't say I particularly blame them. I don't think I'd open an introductory Film History course with Hou Hsiao-Hsien.

[Ezee E]

What's the historical significance of that movie anyway?

[Rowland]

What's the historical significance of that movie anyway?

I think he was going for how the film encompasses three separate time frames, including the middle segment essentially being its own self-contained silent short film, as well as how both its stylistic divergence from mainstream cinema and its themes of rhyming motifs throughout history may theoretically prepare the class for opening its mind to early cinema. Or, as he put it, "tossing us right in the deep end."

*shrug* I still wouldn't have opened the class with Three Times, almost comes across as self-consciously alienating many of the students. I liked the film, much more so than I did half a decade ago, but Hou's cinema is an acquired taste that I only began to appreciate after years of my own cinephilia and exposure to several of his works, and listening to the students decry Three Times as the worst movie they've ever seen, or akin to watching security cam footage of people doing nothing, was dispiriting.

[elixir]

Maybe they would have liked Flight of the Red Ballon better.

I love Three Times, I think it's an incredible movie. Though the second section is my least favorite (though I still like it of course!). Still, it's the interplay between the three that make it great.
I'm in a film class too right now, and I don't know about it...the teacher keeps making remarks like "I'm not sure if all of you will be able to analyze film this way" and "not everyone is capable of doing this" and I don't really understand why she is being discouraging before we've even handed one assignment in...it's a bit off-putting. And during screenings, we have to take pages and pages of notes on mostly technical stuff and I'm not sure I find that method too rewarding.

[Boner M]

Making students look at "stylistic divergence from mainstream cinema" of Hou et al is just begging for them to hate it.

'Dispiriting' is a good word to describe my experience of the film classes I've taken; less for the reactions from students to films we watched, and more because week after week it seemed our teacher(s) were ensuring no one in the class would venture outside their cinematic comfort zones ever again.

[Ezee E]

I had good luck in my classes. Liked all of them, even if we had to watch a few painfully long ones.

[Boner M]

That reminds me, I recent stumbled across reviews of Michael Sicinski from his students.

I remembered watching a movie that was 20mins long, consisting of black and white screens shot out randomnly. Drove me insane. 2-hr lectures on cinema bored the crap out of me. I quit reading the textbk after taking the midterm because he gave out a review sheet. You will do well if you study the review sheets, watch the movies & write the journals

haha this guy makes me laugh. i didnt learn all that much but this class was easy and fun. good guy.

[Rowland]

It also struck me as odd that the instructor (who is only a cinema studies grad student) apparently didn't know how to work a DVD player, so he thought we had to watch all the previews at the beginning instead of skipping ahead to the menu. As such, he passed the time by asking us to analyze individual frames from Killshot, The Protector, and Clerks 2. Also, while awkwardly reading a seemingly random passage from a handout to us, he didn't know how to pronounce the word verisimilitude, so he just mush-mouthed it in a failed attempt to disguise the fact, which made me cringe.

[B-side]

It also struck me as odd that the instructor (who is only a cinema studies grad student) apparently didn't know how to work a DVD player, so he thought we had to watch all the previews at the beginning instead of skipping ahead to the menu. As such, he passed the time by asking us to analyze individual frames from Killshot, The Protector, and Clerks 2. Also, while awkwardly reading a seemingly random passage from a handout to us, he didn't know how to pronounce the word verisimilitude, so he just mush-mouthed it in a failed attempt to disguise the fact, which made me cringe.

That sounds excruciating. I seem to hear much more bad than good about film classes.

[Boner M]

As such, he passed the time by asking us to analyze individual frames from Killshot, The Protector, and Clerks 2.

Oh wow.

[elixir]

That sounds excruciating. I seem to hear much more bad than good about film classes.

Well, I really liked my film class from last semester. It's too early to tell with the one I'm in now. I think I'll be watching good movies at least.

[Rowland]

Oh wow.

Just try wrapping your head around what Kevin Smith was attempting to communicate when he chose to shoot a scene featuring Jason Lee insulting some fast-food employees in deep focus and slightly off the center of the frame.

To be fair, this was just after we had discussed basic components of film language, so I think he was just giving us an excuse to analyze anything, no matter how generic. But it was still ridiculous. I did however make one astute observation, noting how the presence of fire in the background of a fight scene from The Protector made it look "hellish."

[B-side]

I did however make one astute observation, noting how the presence of fire in the background of a fight scene from The Protector made it look "hellish."

:lol:

Please tell me he didn't say that was an astute observation and you're just retrospectively playfully mocking yourself?

[Rowland]

:lol:

Please tell me he didn't say that was an astute observation and you're just retrospectively playfully mocking yourself?

The latter. I saved the big guns for our post-screening class discussion, where I went into how the individual segments of Three Times echo Millennium Mambo, Flowers of Shanghai, and Goodbye South, Goodbye on both thematic and aesthetic grounds. Don't think he saw that one coming.

[Watashi]

My film classes were decent.

My teacher's favorite movie was No Country for Old Men, so he would not shut up about that movie for the entire semester.

Watched some fun movies like The Piano, The Player, and Red River.

Best student reaction is when we watched Audition in my screenwriting class.

[Rowland]

He also said Hou had a new release showing at TIFF that he hoped to catch, and encouraged us to make the drive as well (I'm an hour and a half away). I didn't know what the hell he was talking about, being reasonably certain that Hou hadn't directed anything feature-length since Flight of the Red Balloon. Yeah, I was right.

[B-side]

The latter. I saved the big guns for our post-screening class discussion, where I went into how the individual segments of Three Times echo Millennium Mambo, Flowers of Shanghai, and Goodbye South, Goodbye on both thematic and aesthetic grounds. Don't think he saw that one coming.

Nice. I really want to take a film class, if only for the experience. I guess I'm prematurely bitter about them. You know, that whole "film classes destroy creativity" thing. I realize that's kinda silly, especially given that I don't actually create anything and haven't been through a film class to be able to assess its ability to actually destroy creativity.

[Rowland]

I imagine it's painful for the instructors as well. I still remember the look of depressed resignation on the face of my high school film studies teacher some ten years ago when my class voted almost unanimously in favor of Rocky having more proficient fight scenes than Raging Bull after we'd just spent time analyzing the formal qualities (or lack thereof) of both in detail.

[Ezee E]

We did two exhausting, but amazing 4 hour classes to Citizen Kane back in the day.

[Bosco B Thug]

The Lady Eve (Preston Sturges, 1941) 6

Saw this too! I liked it more than you. Had two of the greatest/funniest lines I've experienced in a while:

[

Show Spoiler

"Oh, I thought you were the horse" (most brilliant set-up ever) and Stanwyck's first and/or second "Oh, now you're upset...." during the train sequence.

]

Meanwhile, Billy Wilder makes such modern movies. Not sure I'm too into it. But they're good movies, caustic and bold and incredibly smart. I'm not sure how many people think this, but I thought Sugar Cane was such a great character, and the way she's written really puts modern comedies to shame.