28 Film Discussion Threads Later

[Derek]

Mad Detective may be lacking in the story and character department, but it is among the best directed films I have ever seen.

It's fantastic. My favorite To so far actually.

Sparrow is my favorite To. Pure formalist delight.

Will obtain.

[MadMan]

Midnight In Paris was a really wonderful experience. The film is funny, entertaining, and delightful, plus its worth seeing just alone for Adrien Brody as Dali. Well, almost. I like that [

Show Spoiler

Woody Allen never bothers to explain why or how Owen Wilson's Gil is able to travel back to the 1920s. Its not important, and it would have ruined the mystery.

]

[TGM]

Midnight In Paris was a really wonderful experience. The film is funny, entertaining, and delightful, plus its worth seeing just alone for Adrien Brody as Dali. Well, almost. I like that [

Show Spoiler

Woody Allen never bothers to explain why or how Owen Wilson's Gil is able to travel back to the 1920s. Its not important, and it would have ruined the mystery.

]

[

Show Spoiler

I liked to think that what we were watching was actually his novel being played out to us. Certain things, such as the way the characters had to point out that the fiance of his novel's main character was cheating on him, sort of tipped me off to this conclusion. It showed that the book was clearly about him and his current experiences in Paris, yet it was already a fully written novel before he let the famous historical characters read it.

]

But I dunno, that's my thoughts on it, and I just thought that might be a neat explanation. Though like you, I do like how it's not flat out explained to us, leaving it open for interpretation.

[MadMan]

[

Show Spoiler

I liked to think that what we were watching was actually his novel being played out to us. Certain things, such as the way the characters had to point out that the fiance of his novel's main character was cheating on him, sort of tipped me off to this conclusion. It showed that the book was clearly about him and his current experiences in Paris, yet it was already a fully written novel before he let the famous historical characters read it.

]

But I dunno, that's my thoughts on it, and I just thought that might be a neat explanation. Though like you, I do like how it's not flat out explained to us, leaving it open for interpretation.

I really like that take on Midnight In Paris, and it makes a great deal of sense, actually.

[

Show Spoiler

Especially since when him and Adriana travel to the 1890s he realizes that he really should stop being so focused on the past, and that he should make the best of his own current time.

]

I must note that after watching the movie I realized that, even though I wouldn't mind going back to, say, the 1970s, I like my own time. Every decade has its problems, some far more than others. This one right now sure the economy sucks, but I can watch movies and TV shows on my laptop and converse with people miles away about film. That said, I wouldn't blame the people from the 1930s and 1940s for thinking those decades sucked, and I don't know too many people longing for the 80s (yuck).

[B-side]

The Telephone Book was crazy fun. Felt a little directionless at first, mostly because I wasn't sure what to expect, but it picked up quickly into this ball of raw creative energy and sexual politics. The lead actress' gorgeous, child-like eyes and squeaky voice betray her overt sexuality and subsequent enormous sex appeal. She's crafted almost into the ideal female figure for men; an innocence secreted in her voice -- a sort of attractive naivete and an adorable little figure complete with curly blonde hair. She's exploited a few times on her road to discovering the man who phoned her and proceeded to please her with sexually explicit eloquence. A man offers her dimes for phone calls so she can call all the John Smiths in the phone book if she'll get him off with dirty talk, so she tells an anecdotal story about a pastor baffled by his erection and how she needed to help him get rid of this medical affliction, as he referred to it. An older, possibly lesbian, woman offers her use of her phone and proceeds to pleasure her with a vibrator while she talks on the phone. I suppose the broader theme is that of the many ways in which sexuality expresses itself. A little sly mockery of Freudian sexual analysis and the topical hippie movement. The final 5-10 minutes are a combination of hilariously profane animation and orgasmic climax. It's just really unique and I kinda loved it.

[MadMan]

Whoa, Brightside. That movie looks, well, interesting to say the least.

[Russ]

The Telephone Book

...want...

[B-side]

...want...

You'd love it.:P

[soitgoes...]

You'd love it.:P

I'll be watching it soon. Seems like my kind of film too. Or not.

[B-side]

Seems like my kind of film too.

I... couldn't say.

[soitgoes...]

I... couldn't say.

Considering I still have no idea what your tastes are, I feel confident I'll like this one. Maybe you and Russ can watch Top of the Food Chain for me. I'm certain Russ will like that one. Certain.

[B-side]

Considering I still have no idea what your tastes are, I feel confident I'll like this one. Maybe you and Russ can watch Top of the Food Chain for me. I'm certain Russ will like that one. Certain.

Whoa, it's that hot older lady who tried to steal Joey in Degrassi!

[soitgoes...]

Whoa, it's that hot older lady who tried to steal Joey in Degrassi!

I don't know what any of this means.

[B-side]

I don't know what any of this means.

You wouldn't, philistine.

[soitgoes...]

You wouldn't, philistine.

:cry:

[B-side]

The Stone isn't "about" anything in a traditional sense. It's not a narrative film with an accentuating atmosphere. It's an atmosphere film with an accentuating narrative, or at least some vague steps in that direction. Not reading a synopsis, or anything, really, about the film beforehand, I can't claim to have grasped onto any narrative strands here. Only after scanning a review on IMDb did I get any sense of the supposed narrative involved here. A young man enters an old home and drags an aging man out of a bath tub he's been in with clothes on and the rest is kind of a blur of barely discernible characters amidst an image warped and abstracted in chiaroscuro mud. The very atmosphere seems to be slowing their every movement to a crawl. Case in point: a scene in which we witness with static mid-level camera the aging man getting dressed for upwards of 3-4 minutes straight. Interestingly enough, the scene I found most engaging involved the two men seated next to each other at the dinner table, their faces squeezed into Sokurov's 4:3 frame, elongating them, as the older man posits existential and spiritual rhetoric to the cynical younger man. So what does it all amount to? I really have no idea. Give me a better print and I'll be happy to give another go and try and answer that.

[Dukefrukem]

85 Films You Need To See To Know Anything About Film

[Ivan Drago]

A 35mm print of Battle Royale is being screened at midnight for a couple nights here in April at the arthouse theater close to me. Can't. Wait.

[StanleyK]

85 Films You Need To See To Know Anything About Film

I've only seen 23 of those. Looks like I know even less than I thought I did (about a quarter of 'anything', apparently).

[Winston*]

85 Films You Need To See To Know Anything About Film

Man, I've only seen 24 of those.

The article's kind of disingenuously framed, though. I imagine if Scorsese was actually creating such a list, it would significantly different.

[Grouchy]

The article's kind of disingenuously framed, though. I imagine if Scorsese was actually creating such a list, it would significantly different.

Heheh yeah.

[Sycophant]

Pretty disingenuously framed, and unforgivably shrill and obnoxious for it. If this were really a summation of Scorsese's outlook, Vincente Minelli is apparently the one of the only truly worthwhile craftsmen to come outta Hollywood and his support of Kurosawa films in the eighties was a weird rebellious phase he went through.

I've seen 19 or 20 of those.

[Sycophant]

(Not that Minelli isn't one of the greats, mind.)

[Ezee E]

Scorsese should do another Century of Cinema documentary again. Those are wonderful.

[Russ]

So cool...

watch this.