Last Movie You Watched

[snyprrr]

Being homeless and unemployed has allowed me to pursue my passion of being a famous film critic...

[Karl Henning]

Make that lemonade!

[North Star]

Movie fest on the Finnish national broadcasting company's culture channel 20-24th November 

Julien Temple: London – The Modern Babylon (2012)
Sophie Fiennes dir., feat. Slavoj Zizek: The Pervert's Guide to Ideology (2012)
Carl Th. Dreyer: La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc (1928)
von Trier: Melancholia (2011)
Rossellini: Rome, Open City (1945)
Franju: Eyes Without Face (1959)
Almodovar: La piel que habito (2011)
Dassin: Du rififi chez les hommes (1955)
J-P Melville: Le cercle rouge (1970)
Tomas Alfredson: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)
Chomet: L'illusioniste (2010)
Mankiewicz: All About Eve (1950)
Sofia Coppola: Somewhere (2010)
Terrence Malick: The Tree of Life (2011)
Buñuel: L'age d'or (1930)

[Octave]

I envy you guys your state/public (?) television, North Star.  Is the diversity and quality of that programme typical of year-round programming, narrative cinema and otherwise?

Recently:



INFERNO (Dario Argento, 1980)
For years I'd thought I'd already seen this one, but no.  A lot of it looked great in terms of neon-expressionist lighting and production design, and acting and dubbing were not terrible.  The last ~20 minutes seemed to really flag, aside from a remarkably schematic conflagration; the final ~satanic confrontation was ridiculous, almost like the filmmakers had just gotten sick of making the thing and shrugged it off, or run out of time and money.
Still, dozens of little moments that had nightmare-nudge potential.  I'm much more amused now by how baldly Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani's AMER ripped off Argento's style, though I think they kept the good stuff (the passages of almost non-narrative, experimental cinema) and discarded the stuff I don't like.

A chorus from Verdi's NABUCCO was used prominently at least a couple times, including one apparently irrelevant scene in a music-lit seminar.  (Gratuitous musicology!) 

Choice dialogue (you really have to be there):

Woman: And you, what do you do?
Man: Oh, I'm... a student.  Musicology.
Woman: Oh, wonderful!  A professor of toxicology.
Man: No, no, no.  It's not toxicology, musicology.  It's got nothing to go with medicine.
Woman: What is it, then?
Man: The study of music.
Woman: Oh, yes.  Your sister's involved in rather strange work, too.
Man: Strange?  No, she writes poetry.
Woman: Oh, yes.  A pastime especially suited for women.

[snyprrr]

I envy you guys your state/public (?) television, North Star.  Is the diversity and quality of that programme typical of year-round programming, narrative cinema and otherwise?

Recently:



INFERNO (Dario Argento, 1980)
For years I'd thought I'd already seen this one, but no.  A lot of it looked great in terms of neon-expressionist lighting and production design, and acting and dubbing were not terrible.  The last ~20 minutes seemed to really flag, aside from a remarkably schematic conflagration; the final ~satanic confrontation was ridiculous, almost like the filmmakers had just gotten sick of making the thing and shrugged it off, or run out of time and money.
Still, dozens of little moments that had nightmare-nudge potential.  I'm much more amused now by how baldly Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani's AMER ripped off Argento's style, though I think they kept the good stuff (the passages of almost non-narrative, experimental cinema) and discarded the stuff I don't like.

A chorus from Verdi's NABUCCO was used prominently at least a couple times, including one apparently irrelevant scene in a music-lit seminar.  (Gratuitous musicology!) 

Choice dialogue (you really have to be there):

Inferno gets forgotten in the mix, but yes, the lighting, décor, and mood are nicely staged. Argento's tendency towards inconsistency IS maddening (especially after...), but there are many great things here. The devil hands are cool, but the final reveal is not- well, a skull mask does not a monster make! But, they juuust don't make 'em like this anymore it seems.

[snyprrr]

The Revenge of Frankenstein (1957?)

This is quite a nice little cozy Hammer Horror, largely forgotten, that stresses character above all. Be sure to watch it with the original 'The Curse of Frankenstein'. Cushing is supremely arrogant!


BE SURE to catch some nice old '60s Horror on TCM this week!

[snyprrr]

The French Connection

The grainiest movie ever. True grit!

[Karl Henning]

The French Connection

The grainiest movie ever. True grit!

Hm, I've not seen that one yet. I guess you are rec'ing it?

[North Star]

I envy you guys your state/public (?) television, North Star.  Is the diversity and quality of that programme typical of year-round programming, narrative cinema and otherwise?

State-owned TV. Yes, similar movies round the year, lots of documentaries (science, music, arts, culture & history mostly) - like the Swedish series 'Bergmans Video', with all sorts of famous movie directors whose videos Bergman had in his collection of 1711 VHS's visiting his house and being interviewed, with the movies in Bergman's collection and his own ones discussed in theme episodes. They also show a film or two related to each episode afterwards. 
Now if they'd take my hint of programming some Kurosawa next (plenty of him on the centenary).

On the music side: all of the Finnish RSO concerts in Helsinki lead by their chief conductor. 

The economy might affect the programming, though.

[Cato]

BE SURE to catch some nice old '60s Horror on TCM this week!

Yes, they have offered some TCM goodies via my cable company's on-demand service:

The French classic with Simone Signoret (who comes complete in tight dresses and a cancer stick hanging out of the side of her mouth) Diaboliques was offered.

Right now: Vincent Price in The House on Haunted Hill directed by "Schlockmeister" William Castle, who was responsible for two of the oddest movies ever made (not good, just odd): Zotz! with comedian Tom Poston, and Mr. Sardonicus with Oskar Homolka.

My wife met and spoke with Vincent Price 40 years ago or so. Summer theater used to a be a staple for actors who wanted to keep their stage skills sharp.  Dayton had an impresario named John Kenley who brought in TV and movie actors to star in musicals and comedies.  By chance my wife had a student, whose family was connected to the Kenley Players, and they invited her to come backstage after a performance and meet Vincent Price with a few other people.

Anyway, my wife said he was the nicest, humblest man: he just praised her over and over for "sacrificing to be a Catholic-school teacher" and how important her work was, and chatted about other things.  Genuinely modest to a fault, and most personable.

[Octave]

The French Connection
The grainiest movie ever. True grit!

Hm, I've not seen that one yet. I guess you are rec'ing it?

Not to jump snyprrr's gun, but not only FC but FC2 as well, also directed by an accomplished filmmaker (Frankenheimer, who helmed at least several really good maybe great pictures).  I wonder if it's almost better to treat them as two stories that share nothing, not even a character named Popeye Doyle.  Also recommended for prime Hackman 70s quadrifecta are THE CONVERSATION (Coppola) and NIGHT MOVES (Penn).  The almost metaphysical haze of their downer endings makes them essential period pieces.  One could do much worse than seeing these almost back to back.

Only piping up because I accidentally caught the ending of CONVERSATION on TV last night and Hackman was on my mind even before snyprrr mentioned FC.

[drogulus]

Also recommended for prime Hackman 70s quadrifecta are THE CONVERSATION (Coppola) and NIGHT MOVES (Penn).

     I love Night Moves. I'd pair it with The Long Goodbye. Then you can check in to the Betty Ford Center to recover. Hardcore cases may proceed to Straight Time, which will violate your parole.

     Why were the '70s so great for American films? A number of reasons operate, foremost that the counterculture began to seep into Hollywood, so instead of making movies about it, "it" made the movies. Second, the first wave of post studio system producers and directors wanted to make more serious films (see the Kubrick documentary for his own observations on this point), and for a time they managed to do it, until Hollywood established the new paradigm of blockbusters aimed at immature males, which still prevails.
     

[The new erato]

   

     Why were the '70s so great for American films?

Digital graphics and special effects by computer weren't invented.

[drogulus]

Digital graphics and special effects by computer weren't invented.

     Certainly that has given comic book films and sci fi a different look. However the trend was well developed before these innovations arrived. They were part of the change the '70s brought (Jaws, Star Wars, Superman), and they crowded out the film world of Penn, Grosbard, Pakula, Altman, Peckinpah, Coppola, Scorsese, Perry and others. Spielberg and De Palma could thrive in the new environment, for obvious reasons, the others often appeared to be lost.

[Octave]

[...]Perry[...]

Who 'dis?

I have almost unlimited appetite for late 60-70s cinema (U.S. or other) with a certain exhaustion or stunned reckoning seemingly built in to the atmosphere.  Energy Crisis cinema.  I don't think it has much to do with my political prejudices....I just end up finding it good, character-driven, viscerally suggestive filmmaking ('storytelling' optional).  I keep making discoveries, too.  For example Grosbard's STRAIGHT TIME, which I haven't yet seen, it's crazy. 

Two that I recommend from the early 80s that seem to still have that post-traumatic feeling are Grosbard's own TRUE CONFESSIONS (co-written by Joan Didion!) and Ivan Passer's CUTTER'S WAY [aka CUTTER AND BONE].  I saw them both once and thought they were maybe minor masterpieces, at least very good.  CW really is a must-see (Jeff Bridges plays straight-man to John Heard's traumatized wingnut, which almost seems like a pre-echo to Bridges' really fine Rooster Cogburn, 29 years later...maybe this is too facile of me). 

[Octave]

Re: CGI and rooms full of plugged-in nerds with godlike skillz and no sense of artistry whatsoever to counterbalance this vertigo:
This is my harsh opinion, too, and always the thing [CGI, action nonstop] that I reach for when I want to list reasons why I avoid ~all recent Hollywood fare.  But I keep wondering if I am dead wrong and not paying careful enough attention, or expecting the wrong kind of thing, e.g. yet more 70s Rembrandt lighting, a repetition to flatter my intact tastes. 

It's going to be interesting to me to see if some of the CGI looks great to me in ~30 years, assuming I am still alive and capable of vision.  I'm just thinking of good/bad uses of old 'new' capacities like zooms: there is Altman or maybe Leone using zooms (seldom or a lot, whichever), and then there are just hundreds of others zooming all over the place.  Zoom zoom zoom.  It might or might not be tacky, but it can be hilariously dated.  Same with handheld cameras, especially (??) as the low-light-capable tiny digicams come into use.  Why am I emotionally enthralled by some uses (Dardenne Bros.) and distracted and irritated by so many others?  Or moved by some uses of one filmmaker's handheld (Greengrass in UNITED 93) and annoyed elsewhere (all other Greengrass movies)?

Maybe the same will apply to CGI?  I am now trying to think of intensely CGI movies where the graphics were amazing and I simply couldn't digest them.  I watched SIN CITY for the second time not long ago and for a while found it incredibly exciting, until several things mucked it up for me.  That's a movie whose look was virtually all virtual AFAIK, and I was still really impressed.  Did it matter that a major comic artist/writer was an integral part of that project?  Of course, I heard Miller's own THE SPIRIT was crud, and I still haven't caught it.

[drogulus]

     Here are some films by Frank Perry, centered on the '70s but extended a bit:

     The Swimmer (1968), Last Summer (1969), Diary of a Mad Housewife (1970), Doc (1971), Play It As It Lays (1972), Man on a Swing (1974), Rancho Deluxe (1975), Mommie Dearest (1981)

      Perry, needless to say, hadn't a chance in a film world featuring comet-borne sex vampires.

[Octave]

Thanks for that; I can't believe I don't know any of those, and I think I missed THE SWIMMER on TCM just the other night, what a shame.
I see PLAY IT AS IT LAYS is an intersection of Didion and J.G. Dunne, both of whom contributed to the TRUE CONFESSIONS script a decade later.  I know her novel (PIAIL) but have never seen the film.

[drogulus]

    The one Perry film I'd start with is Man on a Swing, which has more than a little of the mysterious quality of The Parallax View, Night Moves and The Conversation.

[drogulus]

Why am I emotionally enthralled by some uses (Dardenne Bros.) and distracted and irritated by so many others?  Or moved by some uses of one filmmaker's handheld (Greengrass in UNITED 93) and annoyed elsewhere (all other Greengrass movies)?

     I can take a great dislike to the methods a filmmaker uses. Altman is a giant to me but I positively loathe his Restless Camera Syndrome. The camera is moving slowly, ever so slowly BUT NOT TO ANY DISCERNIBLE PURPOSE! It's like he's doing it to annoy MEEEEEE!!!