28 Film Discussion Threads Later

[Russ]

As some here probably know, I'm a big fan of the website, 366 Weird Movies, dedicated to surreal and cult films.

Guess what just happened?



I am not making this shit up.

[Skitch]

Please tell me this isn't real. I don't care what any person thinks about these things, but it deeply disturbs me that the president has so much free time that an obscure film site has managed to squeak into his worldview. AND that he feels it worthy to address the world of the internet about. What the fuck.

[Russ]

Looks like the typical April Fool's joke...one day after the fact!

[Irish]

[Irish]

On the bright side, I now know about 366 Weird Movies

[Russ]

Hah! Yeah...

[Irish]

[TGM]

Say it ain't true, Skitch.

[Dukefrukem]

On the bright side, I now know about 366 Weird Movies

This.

[Ezee E]

I knew it.

[Skitch]

Assuming I only pretend to care about JL is lunacy. I've been annoyingly vocal about my caring.

I've also been honest about being realistic about what it may be. I may be the resident DC fanboy, but I think I've been fair about it.

[Skitch]

Also, <3 European art cinema

[Irish]

These revelations from our President are becoming more and more disturbing ...

[Spinal]

Trump's grammar and spelling are getting suspiciously better.

[TGM]

These revelations from our President are becoming more and more disturbing ...

Shit, I'm ruined.

[Ezee E]

No one in Match Cut is safe from Trump.

[Spinal]

Wow.

Wow. Wow. Wow. Belladonna, where have you been all my life?

Belladonna of Sadness (Eiichi Yamamoto, 1973) PRO

Easy enough to answer since this amazing film has never seen release in the U.S. in it's 40 year history - until now. If you're a member of this target audience, the brand-spanking new blu-ray will have you salivating. Directed and co-written by Eiichi Yamamoto and inspired by Jules Michelet's non-fiction book Satanism and Witchcraft, it details the wedding of Jean and Jeanne (who is, umm, raped by the evil baron and his court on their wedding night because Jean couldn't pay the marriage taxes). It juxtaposes two stories - the divide between the French peasants and the ruling class, and the plight of Jeanne, who succumbs to Satanic influences in order to exact her revenge.

After all that happens in the first third of the film, the only thing I can add is: It's a shame I don't do acid any more because this film was made for just that. It's so gloriously hippy-dippy-trippy in it's psychedlic narrative I literally was applauding the pure verve. But it's not all dayglo-madness, there's beautiful static watercolor paintings and animation techniques far outside the realm of anything else of it's time. Oh. And it's kinda x-rated (but not in any kind of traditional sense). The sexual imagery on display here is of a very twisted and metaphorical kind (think Dante's Inferno by way of Hieronymous Bosch). And in spite of all the extremely erotic (and occasionally, a tad rapey) material, Belladonna ultimately reveals itself as an ahead of-it's-time work of art-cum political, feminist statement.

As I was watching this, I was thinking that if anyone here has seen it, it's probably Russ. Sure enough!

I don't know if I have much more to add to the description above. The songs are quite good and the film is just so peculiar and audacious that ratings are largely irrelevant. It's worth seeing just based on novelty alone. Despite the explicit sexuality, it's not a film that's likely to turn anyone on because the sexual images fall into one of two categories: 'cruel' and 'bizarrely surreal'.

In the interview on the Blu Ray, the director says that he intended his movie to compete with a film like Yellow Submarine, if that gives you any indication of the kind of psychedelic animation you might expect -- although much of the narrative is conveyed through still images without lip-synched dialogue, because the filmmakers felt that it was not worth the extra trouble. The director mentioned that there is a convention in some forms of Japanese puppetry where you hear the dialogue, but do not see the mouths move, so he felt that his audience would be familiar with that style. Honestly, in a film this abstract, it doesn't matter much.

[Russ]

Cool. I would have repped you if not for this forum's idiotic "spread rep around" rule.

[Grouchy]

First, explain your countrymen's love of Eva Perón.

Hah, well, that's easier to explain. Whatever nasty things you can say about Perón himself, you'd find it hard to say about her. She was instrumental in the labor rights movement and in giving women the right to vote and generally just an incredibly charismatic figure.

But anyway, good arguments all around. I was hoping to understand some of the mad love for that one. I prefer the novella.

[Watashi]

Anyone a know a good movie log website besides letterbxd and mubi? I use both, but I would like to search my films logged by year, director, actor, etc.

[Skitch]

Can't you do that on letterboxd? Under diary?

[Dukefrukem]

Anyone a know a good movie log website besides letterbxd and mubi? I use both, but I would like to search my films logged by year, director, actor, etc.

http://matchcut.artboiled.com/showth...ighlight=movie


Criticker.com is the other one.

[Dead & Messed Up]

Any thoughts on Lost Highway? While watching, I felt an Ebert-ian disdain for its particular brand of nonsense (and the '90s-as-hell soundtrack didn't help). But once it was over, I was thinking about it some, and after reading some kinder reviews/analyses online, the flick comes across as... pretty okay. It plays like a warm-up for Mulholland Drive with its whole fractured noir-dream and notion of someone escaping into a juvenile, idealized version of their ambitions. Obviously its story isn't nourishing, but a lot of evocative moments/scenes/ideas keep it interesting to the end.

[

Show Spoiler

There's not much that can be firmly interpreted - it's best "explained" as all being one dream with different tiers - which frustrates my somewhat hard-headed brain. There's a part of me that instinctively resists this type of filmmaking, because I think films are communication, and the artist/viewer meet in the middle with the artwork (for example, I sorta hate "death of the author" theory). Lynch's work, when it's at its worst, sorta feels like a therapist who just keeps saying, "I don't know, what do you think?"

The fact that he can still sorta get me with this stuff is a testament to Lynch's skill at, go figure, traditional filmcraft like knowing how to compose shots and supervise art direction and pull intriguing performances out of actors (here, Arquette and Loggia are fantastic).

]

So far it's Mulholland Drive (sumptuous) > Blue Velvet (mostly effective) > Lost Highway (haphazard but worthwhile).

[transmogrifier]

Lost Highway is great. A rough draft for Mulholland Dr., really. Both are [

Show Spoiler

wish-fulfillment fantasies for a main character who sees themselves as an innocent victim of the nefarious plottings of a shadowy underworld.

]

(spoilered on the off-chance there is someone silly enough around here to have not seen either of these movies yet, though the spoiler is kinda vague)

[Melville]

Any thoughts on Lost Highway?

It's one of my favorites, and just as great as Mulholland Dr. in my eyes. Some of the most powerfully evocative filmmaking around. I wrote a combined review of it, Mulholland Dr., and Inland Empire at some point: https://melvillian.wordpress.com/201...inland-empire/

There's a part of me that instinctively resists this type of filmmaking, because I think films are communication

I can't think of a filmmaker who communicates more than Lynch.