28 Film Discussion Threads Later

[Derek]

Ahh, that makes sense then. I haven't seen any of Bauer's films. What's his best?

After Death, then Dying Swan and Daydreams. The first two are on one DVD called Mad Love: The Films of Evgeni Bauer. All 5 I've seen are all around 45 minutes, so they're pretty easy to watch. Feverish madness as one would expect from a good Russian.

[Stay Puft]

I actually started using it because of Stay Puft.

You can't put this on me.

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Show Spoiler

j/k, everything is cool, peace and love, Greenaway is awesome

]

[B-side]

Complete Bresson retrospective hitting LA next month! Assuming we get everything that showed in NYC, it'll be everything but A Gentle Woman. Fuck. yeah.

I'm assuming that's the same one, but the one in Vancouver includes A Gentle Woman. Unsure of the condition of the print, though. It's gotta be decent, right? No such decent print exists for the home video market, unfortunately. I think the issue with Four Nights of a Dreamer is some rights nonsense. You'd think the 5 bucks total someone would make from royalties wouldn't be enough to keep the fucking thing from reaching the hands of so many film fans.

[B-side]

A production reminiscent of Soviet-style stasis (think Sharunas Bartas 16 years before he was anything, and perhaps even slightly less eventful than his output), Still Life is a portrait of rural social alienation in Iran. The color palette is drab and the dialogue is restricted to short sentences -- no more than a few at a time. We watch an elderly couple live out their meager existence on the outer edge of society. The woman splits her time between serving food and tea and sitting hunched over by her loom. The man takes in a ritualistic homemade cigarette at the expense of his embattled lungs and walks back and forth to his job at the railroad tracks bringing the gate up and down a few times a day. Their daily ingestion of tea sees the woman asking the man to remember to ask someone for tea and sugar, something which he never seems to do. When the man is delivered a governmental letter he can't even read informing him of his retirement, he confoundedly asks the young man who gave him the letter what exactly it means to be retired. He returns to the small cabin near the tracks, the size of which can't even accommodate the small man lying down straight, after his forced retirement, and encounters the young man who is replacing him. In a last ditch bit of defiance, he locks the cabin and takes the key home, only to have the young man follow him home and sit on his porch until the older man finally invites him in for supper, a distinctly humane moment that stands out amidst the time-draining ennui. The old man repeats "I've been dismissed" like a self-defeating mantra. His only means of maintaining what meager means he had has been taken away and he's left with only time to question the motives behind the letter. Their rundown house is roughly painted blue, the wife sleeps on the floor, the man sleeps on what can barely be considered a bed and only a photograph of Elvis and a small mirror decorate the cement walls. Their aged frames can barely hold the tea in its plate without it rattling a steady hum. Still Life isn't as good as Bartas' better films, but it's certainly not without its own appeal.

[Spinal]

He's not dead...

I know. I meant that I miss the Greenaway who makes spectacularly good films.

[Qrazy]

I know. I meant that I miss the Greenaway who makes spectacularly good films.

Ahh I haven't seen anything post-The Pillow Book (which I didn't care for), nothing really stacks up?

[MadMan]

Oh c'mon.

Agree with Spinal that I wouldn't really call this beautiful, but it's a hell of a fierce films and probably the most impressive condemnation of Thatcher's England I've seen. Check out A Zed and Two Naughts if you haven't already.

I wish A Zed and Two Naughts was available on Instant Viewing, but it isn't. I'm really considering going back to one DVD out at a time/Instant Viewing even though its 15.00 a month, but if I have a job (which I do at the moment) then its no big deal.

Yes, it is. 12% of your movies are in the top 1% of your scale. OCCUPY MADMAN! The 40s, 50s and 60s have to eat!

12% isn't particularly large, though. Come back to me at the end of the year. For 2011, I saw about 9 or 10 movies that got the 100 rating out of 142. If anything, I loathe the **** scale these days because its too easy to give out ****'s.

Well, if you misspell a word wrong, that means you spelled it correctly, so no one will tell you when that happens.

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Sorry, I couldn't resist. [/jackass]

]

I had to re-read this joke twice. I'm slightly amused :P

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The [/jackass] tag was a great touch.

]

[Spinal]

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Show Spoiler

The [/jackass] tag was a great touch.

]

Just make it your sig, Derek.

[Derek]

Just make it your sig, Derek.

I'll do you one better.

[Grouchy]

I'm sorry I haven't been posting here for a while, but I wanted you guys to see what I'm doing since it relates so heavily to watching movies, which is what we all like doing after all.

www.ramonareyes.comuv.com

It's in Spanish for obvious reasons. It's a Monday movie show with different monthly themes (we're currently showing a month on black and white movies where - sometimes - there are guns) and we also try to make a different Sweden remake each week.

[B-side]

Utamaro and His Five Women is the most sexually explicit Mizoguchi I've seen thus far, and coincidentally, also probably the best. Being that it was filmed before his post-1950 transformation into more simple technical frameworks, it's full of brilliant, deep staging and those superb and ever-so important tracking shots. Swastikas decorate the lamp posts throughout town, and Utamaro is sentenced to 50 days of house arrest for offending a shogunate -- his hands handcuffed so as to not allow him to paint -- so I'm inclined to read autobiographical elements into this.

[Morris Schæffer]

Horror Express was.....solid. My copy was in horrible health, but I enjoyed it enough. Yes, two stars isn't much, but it's sort of a ramshackle production. Not amateurish, but just devoid of interesting shots, or anyone particularly standing out from an acting pov. Having Cushing and Lee was a major casting coup, but apart from realizing these are horror heavies, I wasn't greatly engaged by the acting on this. Some shots are pretty creepy though especially when the lights go off and the creature's red eyes are exposed. I liked the trick with the eyeballs and the images it yielded. I should say that I haven't seen any Hammer movies of which horror express is supposedly very reminiscent so I'm not sure how this adds up to the best of Hammer flicks. My guess is the great ones such as Dracula are probably superior still. That said, while not massively scary, it was a decent watch.

[Yxklyx]

Horror Express was.....solid. My copy was in horrible health, but I enjoyed it enough. Yes, two stars isn't much, but it's sort of a ramshackle production. Not amateurish, but just devoid of interesting shots, or anyone particularly standing out from an acting pov. Having Cushing and Lee was a major casting coup, but apart from realizing these are horror heavies, I wasn't greatly engaged by the acting on this. Some shots are pretty creepy though especially when the lights go off and the creature's red eyes are exposed. I liked the trick with the eyeballs and the images it yielded. I should say that I haven't seen any Hammer movies of which horror express is supposedly very reminiscent so I'm not sure how this adds up to the best of Hammer flicks. My guess is the great ones such as Dracula are probably superior still. That said, while not massively scary, it was a decent watch.

My favorite is The Devil Rides Out which reminds me a lot of a creepy well made Dr Who episode with Christopher Lee as the Doctor.

[MadMan]

I'm sorry I haven't been posting here for a while, but I wanted you guys to see what I'm doing since it relates so heavily to watching movies, which is what we all like doing after all.

www.ramonareyes.comuv.com

It's in Spanish for obvious reasons. It's a Monday movie show with different monthly themes (we're currently showing a month on black and white movies where - sometimes - there are guns) and we also try to make a different Sweden remake each week.

Whoa. Trippy opening page, followed by a really cool layout. Nice. Too bad I don't speak Spanish.

I'll do you one better.

:lol:

Just make it your sig, Derek.

Ouch, heh.

As much as I love The Horror Express, The Devil Rides Out is the better film of the two.

[Grouchy]

Horror Express is an insane movie. I love it so much. I would rank it above The Devil Rides Out which I also love.

I saw Sherman's March. Never thought a documentary with that premise and running time could be entertaining, but it is.

[Qrazy]

I saw Sherman's March. Never thought a documentary with that premise and running time could be entertaining, but it is.

Yep, it's good.

Did you watch Le Trou yet?

[Grouchy]

Yep, it's good.

Did you watch Le Trou yet?

No! But I'm sure I'll watch it soon. We decided to do a month on prison escape films.

[Qrazy]

No! But I'm sure I'll watch it soon. We decided to do a month on prison escape films.

Hah! My montage is coming along so you'll get some good ideas there.

[NickGlass]

I saw Sherman's March. Never thought a documentary with that premise and running time could be entertaining, but it is.

Yes, it's fantastic. Definitely check out more of McElwee's films if Sherman's March worked for you.

[StanleyK]

Had Freedom Writers foisted upon me. Not a good movie. I mean, just read the IMDB synopsis:

A young teacher inspires her class of at-risk students to learn tolerance, apply themselves, and pursue education beyond high school.

Yup. It appears I'm the only person that watched it on this site. Nobody's missing out on anything.

[Stay Puft]

Vertical Ray of the Sun (Tran, 2000) 8

[B-side]

:lol:

I'll be honest, for the first, say, 20 minutes, I was pretty indifferent, perhaps because I just wasn't quite sure what I was getting into, but after about a half hour or so I realized I was pretty taken, and my fondness for its warmth grew.

[B-side]

Thanks to Masters of Cinema's Twitter feed, I've been alerted to the fact that Ford's unreleased and fantastic The Sun Shines Bright is available to watch on YouTube. If you're a Ford fan, do yourself a favor and watch it. You won't regret it.

[B-side]

Thanks to Masters of Cinema's Twitter feed, I've been alerted to the fact that Ford's unreleased and fantastic The Sun Shines Bright is available to watch on YouTube. If you're a Ford fan, do yourself a favor and watch it. You won't regret it.

And the 300-some word blurb I wrote to accompany it.

[Qrazy]

Long Days Journey Into Night
The Pawnbroker
Fail Safe
The Verdict

The Hill and The Fugitive Kind are good, but don't need to be prioritized.

Going to have to disagree somewhat. Just watched it and The Hill was great. Better than Fail Safe and The Pawnbroker imo.