Oscar's Cinema Journal 2005

[oscar jubis]

Friday July 15th

Criss Cross (USA, 1949) dvd
One of the 20 or so films directed by Robert Siodmark during his exile in America (1941-1952), Criss Cross has a lot in common with Siodmark's The Killers, which I watched a month ago. Both are film-noirs in which a man played by Burt Lancaster is infatuated with a gorgeous woman involved with a gangster. The woman drags him into a life of crime and eventually betrays him. Both films are highly regarded. I beg to differ. I found Criss Cross eminently inferior. Two major reasons: 1) the femme fatale in Criss Cross is played by Yvonne De Carlo, whose extremely limited acting range results in an unconvincing ensnarement of the hero. 2) the script of Criss Cross is vague regarding the logistics of the plot to rob an armored truck, the central event in the film, which detracts from one's involvement.

The Ister (Australia, 2004) at Miami Art Central
High-brow entertainment, 3 hours and 10 minutes long. A film that is part philosophy essay, part historical travelogue. a) In the 18th century, Friedrich Holderlin writes a poem about the Danube river called The Ister (from "Istros", the ancient Greek term for the Danube). b) German philosopher Martin Heidegger delivers a series of lectures in 1942 inspired by "The Ister". c) Directors David Barison and Daniel Ross deconstruct and analyze the poem and the lectures by: a) Filming a voyage that traces the Danube's full course from the Black Sea to Bavaria while stopping to observe Romanians celebrating their country's entry into NATO, the Mauthausen concentration camp, the bombed city of Vukovar, Croatia, and other sites of historic-political interest b) Interviewing leading philosophers who have studied Heidegger's books and lectures and confronted his politics, including Heidegger's embrace of National Socialism (at his most controversial, Heidegger compared industrialized agriculture to the Nazi death camps) and c) providing quotes from both the poem and the lectures to match cetain images.
If you are not interested in German and Greek poetry and philosophy_or preoccupied with questions regarding consciousness, Being, memory, the ethics of technology and such_ you may want to pass on The Ister. I didn't find the visuals alone compelling enough to justify its running time. But if you find anything in my description enticing then you'll probably find The Ister quite provocative and stimulating.

[arsaib4]

Originally posted by oscar jubis
Not On the Lips (France, 2004) dvd
It's really sad the latest film from Alain Resnais went straight to video. Not on the Lips put a smile on my face from beginning to end.

I also liked it quite a bit. Still not sure why Wellspring didn't release it theatrically; after all, it's a blithe-spirited effort which arthouse audiences would've enjoyed since it comments on our value system. And the film stars Audrey Tautou, whose lesser films have seen the light of day.

[oscar jubis]

Originally posted by arsaib4
it's a blithe-spirited effort which arthouse audiences would've enjoyed since it comments on our value system.

Yes, primarily through characterization, I thought. Take Georges and his barely concealed xenophobia and his wife Gilberte, so shallow and attention-craving. Consider Charley's inflated self-importance and Tatou's Huguette, who is enough of a gold-digger to consider seducing the rich American Eric. We don't need to talk about him. These folks would feel right at home in the 21st century. Yet they remain eminently likable.

Saturday July 16th

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=11803#post11803) (US/UK, 2005) at AMC CocoWalk

War of the Worlds (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=11802#post11802) (USA, 2005) at AMC CocoWalk

[Chris Knipp]

You're keeping up manfully, Oscar -- I'd consider both of those chores, one creepy and the other annoying, but it would have given you something current and cinematic to do with your kids. I myself would consider them "worth seeing" from the technical point of view though I've avoided other earlier versions of both stories; if I get more active in viewing mainstream stuff, I may see them soon, we'll see. And both show off American filmmaking technique I guess. I read your restrained and judicious comments.

I suppose Not on Our Lips will turn up on videoshop shelves, if it has Tautou?

There's a Criss Cross I bet you haven't seen, "a pleasant little diversion," made in 1992 but set in 1969, about the moral dilemma of a boy with a single mom, and it's set in Florida. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104027/maindetails What made me rent it back then was it's directed by an excellent cinematographer, Chris Menges (The Killing Fields, MIchael Collins, Dirty Pretty Things, The Good Thief).

[arsaib4]

Here (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1259) are my comments on Not on the Lips along with some DVD info.

[Chris Knipp]

Thanks. I wouldn't have found it without the link. Will you also write about Mélo? I see the MK2 DVD has English subtitles.

[arsaib4]

I'd love to write about Mélo, and many of his other films, but, as you know, it's hard to keep up with what's out now so a lot of my free time gets devoted to recent films. I believe Oscar has written something on the film. I'll let him find it!

Yup, the French DVD has subs.

[oscar jubis]

*My post re Melo (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=11803#post11803).
*Rosenbaum on Not On the Lips (http://www.chicagoreader.com/movies/archives/2005/0305/050318.html).

Sunday July 17th

In a Lonely Place (USA, 1950) dvd
Bitter Victory (USA/UK, 1957) dvd
Nicholas Ray was one of the most accomplished directors of the mid 20th century. In a short span of 14 years beginning in 1949 with They Live by Night, Ray developed a consistently excellent and thematically unified body of work. Personal problems and studio interference cut short his commercial career. They Live by Night and Rebel Without a Cause (1955) are well known and frequently screened. Many others deserve equal attention but have yet to be fully appreciated by the public at large.
In A Lonely Place can be viewed from three major perspectives:
a) As one of a series of films made in the 50s that viewed show business (and more specifically, Hollywood) with suspicion. Films like The Bad and the Beautiful, Sunset Blvd, All About Eve and The Barefoot Contessa. The protagonist of In a Lonely Place is Dixon Steele (Bogart), a disillusioned writer who is quite cynical about his employment by the studios. Scenes involving an alcoholic silent movie star comment relentlessly on the dark side of the star-making machinery.
b)Dixon Steele as the typical Ray protagonist: an isolated, deeply flawed, well-meaning man who is suspicious of institutions. A man who pursues a happiness that is ultimately too fleeting and fragile.
c) It's also interesting to analyze In a Lonely Place as an autobiographical film. It was made while Ray's marital relationship with the female lead, Gloria Grahame, was deteriorating beyond repair. During divorce proceedings, Grahame accused Ray of violence and brutality. In the film, Steele's inability to contain the violent expression of his anger resulted in his becoming a murder suspect and his losing the possibility of happiness with the smart and lovely Laurel (a fantastic Gloria Grahame, of course).
Bitter Victory is a war movie about a British commando raid on the German headquarters in Lybia during WWII. It depicts a conflict between a manipulative, cowardly career officer (Curt Jurgens) and an archaeologist (Richard Burton) who's sole interest is survival and who used to be deeply involved with the officer's wife. The plot and characterizations afford Ray an opportunity to comment on the nature of war heroics and reconsider who actually are society's outlaws.
Bitter Victory also evidences Ray's predilection for CinemaScope and his brilliant compositions using this widescreen format. Nicolas Ray has mentioned his involvement with Frank Lloyd Wright as influential in this regard. The scenes that take place in North African desert landscapes are particularly impressive.

[oscar jubis]

Monday July 18th

My Best Girl (USA, 1927) on TCM
Mary Pickford as a stock girl who doesn't know the handsome boy she loves is the son of the store owner, who's hiding his identity to prove himself. Moreover, she doesn't know he's engaged to marry a rich society girl. More romance than comedy, The Best Girl features some remarkable camera work by cinematographer Charles Rosher, particularly scenes set in crowded city streets. As usual, Mary Pickford is utterly adorable and charming.

Blood of the Beasts (France, 1949) dvd
Georges Franju's short documentary about the slaughterhouses of Paris and the surrounding area. Franju pays particular attention to the skilled butchers and the methods used to kill farm animals and prepare their flesh for human consumption. A lyrical approach to the subject.

Triple Agent (France, 2004) PAL dvd
One of the few films written and directed by Eric Rohmer not to receive distribution stateside. Slow-paced and dialogue-heavy drama based on the real mystery of the disappearance of two leaders of a Paris-based White Army Vets association. The film concentrates on a Russian named Fyodor and his Greek-born painter wife. About half of Triple Agent's running time consists of conversations between them regarding the political climate in Europe circa 1936 and 1937 and Fyodor's political activities. It can be argued that nothing per se "happens" in Triple Agent as significant events occuring in Paris and elsewhere are merely mentioned and discussed. Rohmer makes ample use of Pathe News footage to provide information and add needed context to the verbal exchanges. The film's value as drama is limited to the issue of how much information can a person in a politically sensitive position share with his/her spouse, and how to maintain intimacy within a marriage characterized by secrecy. A political chamber drama whose appeal is limited to specialized audiences.

[oscar jubis]

Tuesday July 19th

King of Kings (USA, 1961) on TCM
A discreet and sober Jesus biopic directed by Nicholas Ray from a screenplay by Philip Yordan (Johnny Guitar), with Orson Welles providing brief voice-over narration. Released in 70 mm Technirama, and now available on a dvd that respects the original widescreen frame.King of Kings is particularly memorable because of the visual compositions of Nicholas Ray_aided by new diopter lenses that allow for two sharp focal points within an image, and the magnificent use of Spanish locations. The absence of recognizable stars, other than Robert Ryan as John the Baptist,is an asset in that none of the actors carry associations from other films that interfere with one's fantasy that these faces belong to the actual historical persons. Unlike other Hollywood epics, Ray's King of Kings avoids reliance on scenes that require special effects. Musical score by Miklos Rozsa.

Le Chignon d'Olga (France, 2002)
The feature debut of writer/director Jerome Bonnell concers a family living in a provincial town who are dealing with the recent loss of the mother.The film is particularly interested in Julien, a good piano player of about 20 who seems to have lost interest in music. Emma, who seems most affected by her mother's death, is his younger sister. They live with their father, who writes books for children, and doesn't quite know how to handle the sexual advances of a friend's wife. Julien develops a crush on Olga, a girl who works at a bookstore and styles her hair in a bun, but he hangs out a lot with childhood pal Alice, who's five years older and trying to get over a bad relationship.
The obvious comparisons to Eric Rohmer are warranted but may lead the viewer to expect too much out of Bonnel's charming, light drama. Bonnel was 23 when the film was released and Le Chignon d'Olga evidences potential more than accomplishment.Olga is quite pleasant and has many insightful moments, but pales in comparison with Rohmer's La Genou de Claire, for instance.

[oscar jubis]

Wednesday July 20th

La Cienaga (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=11865#post11865) (Argentina, 2001) dvd
Kontroll (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=11878#post11878) (Hungary, 2003) at SoBe Regal

[Johann]

I just read "Scorsese on Scorsese" and he talks about King of Kings a lot. He said he saw it when he was young and that it made a huge impression on him.

I haven't seen it but I see that Criterion feels it's worthy of the treatment.
Nicholas Ray is a special filmmaker.

[oscar jubis]

I think the King of Kings available on Criterion dvd is the silent one directed by De Mille. Nicholas Ray is a major director still waiting to be properly recognized. It's unbelievable that these titles have never been available on home video: On Dangerous Ground, The Lusty Men, Bigger Than Life, Wind Across the Everglades and Run For Cover, a Technicolor Western starring our beloved Cagney. Kings is my third Ray so far in '05. I plan to watch Rebel Without a Cause (and maybe They Live by Night) again before the year is over.

Thursday July 21

Dolls (Japan, 2002) dvd
An art film written, directed and edited by Takeshi Kitano (Fireworks, Zaitochi). Dolls opens with a love story set in the past told by puppeteers performing to a theatre audience in the traditional Bunraku style. Then we move onto an overlapping triptych of tragic romances set in the present. Each involves a couple formed by a partner who renounces love for the sake of fame, money or career advancement and another who engages in a sacrificial act as proof of depth of feeling. These six characters, including a young executive, an older yakuza, and a pop singer, are not presented in full psychological detail, in part because the stories are told visually, with minimal dialogue. What happens is that, as each tale comes into focus simultaneously,their meaning and emotional effect accumulate. I am convinced Dolls would lose substantial impact had Kitano completed one story before beginning the next one, although it would still be worth seeing because of the inspired art direction and use of color. A very skilled editor like Kitano is required to turn an art film that juggless three narratives into an accessible and engaging visual feast.
Dolls received limited distribution in December 2004 but can now be viewed by all on dvd.

Me And You And Everyone We Know (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=11909#post11909) (USA, 2005) at SoBe Regal

[Chris Knipp]

I saw Dolls in December in NYC during it's "limited distribution." I found it beautiful but dreary and sickeningly sentimental. Needless to say, Kitano is a filmmaker work is always worth "checking out," though.

[oscar jubis]

Friday July 23rd
I watched the first half of Charlie... again but fragments of movies don't count. Charlie and Howl's Moving Castle are my favorite summer movies, so far. The doc below came very close. I'll probably watch all three again before listing faves of '05.

March of the Penguins (France, 2005) at AMC CocoWalk
80 minute documentary directed by Luc Jacquet and featuring narration by Morgan Freeman. Set in Antarctica, a most photogenic and rarely photographed environment and absolutely the least hospitable on Earth. Every year, emperor penguins travel 70 miles to where the ice is thick enough year-round to support them as they engage in courtship, mating, hatching and raising their young until they are self-sufficient. This process of reproduction entails enormous sacrifice, commitment and social organization. Jacquet uses close-ups, long shots, even underwater shots to provide the most telling and fitting vantage points as this enthralling story unfolds before our eyes. Sometimes the tendency to ascribe feelings to the penguins in the narration seems overly precious, other times the explanations seem superfluous, but generally the narration provides useful information to the viewer. A must-see.

Detour (USA, 1946) on TCM
This bleakest, most fatalistic of film noirs was made in six days on a miniscule budget by Edgar G. Ulmer (The Black Cat).The film was barely shown at all during the 40s. By the 60s, Detour had achieved a cult following and mythical status among critics and film buffs.It's been called "the greatest B film ever made" and "the cheapest really good film to come out of Hollywood". My second viewing of it confirms that Detour is visually interesting, with excellent dialogue written by Martin Goldsmith, and featuring Ann Savage as the most vile and vicious femme fatale of any noir. On the other hand,the protagonist, a piano player who gets a ride from a man who dies in transit and proceeds to make a series of stupid decisions, is such a dupe it's hard to root for him. And the plot contains too many wild coincidences to suspend disbelief.

[Chris Knipp]

Our tastes have never seemed further apart than they do at this moment. I can't even face seeing Howl's Moving Castle, Charlies seesms creepy but I haven't braved it yet, you don't mention Me and You which you tout so much elsewhere so we'll skip that, but the documentary that you like so much I found grim and nothing but a National Geographic kind of standard study with a stunning lack of variety, and an uninformative, excessively anthropomorphic narration. Not at all up to the glossier Winged Migration (which I didn't find worth reviewing, though devotees of soothing fare liked it a lot).

[oscar jubis]

*Amazing, isn't it?! We can't seem to agree on anything (besides politics, your latest political commentary was very smart). I wonder how long this extreme divergence of opinion will last.
*I know it's way too early to discuss faves of the year, particularly English-language one (since so many "prestige" American and UK films open in fall and winter). Also, many of the films I've liked a lot will get a second viewing before posting lists so they may go up or down. I'm probably forgetting some titles, but so far my faves in English are Palindromes, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and the dubbed Howl's Moving Castle. Close behind, the yet unreleased A Way of Life and March of the Penguins. Others I liked a lot: Me and You...,Dear Frankie, Millions, My Summer of Love, Cinderella Man and Assault on Precinct 13. Given how things are going, maybe you should think of it as a "must-avoid" list :))

Sat July 23rd

On the Run (France/Belgium, 2003) at Cinema Paradiso
After the Life (Fra/Bel, 2003) at Cinema Paradiso
I had written a long review of these two films belonging to the excellent "La Trilogie de Lucas Belvaux" but I "lost" it and I'm pressed for time. Belgian actor/writer/director Lucas Belvaux has crafted a very unique trilogy of films. The three films take place in Grenoble, France during a two week period and involve the same characters. Each film is in a different genre. All characters appear in every film but characters who are protagonists in one film become secondary in another. Each film works without having seen the others. On the Run is a tense political thriller centering on Bruno, a violent activist who escapes from jail to settle old scores, while the compelling drama After the Life concerns the cop who is after Bruno and his drug-addicted wife. The trilogy received limited US distribution in 2004 but it's not available on dvd in the US. The French dvds have subs though.

[Chris Knipp]

I hope you are forgetting some titles, and you promised not to make a best list yet, so if it sort of looks like you're choosing my "must-avoid" list as your faves, it's really just a bad moment. I wouldn't revile the middle-brow Cinderella Man, have not seen My Summer of Love, am only puzzled at Precinct 13 popping up all of a sudden several months later. I'd forgotten it. Really, one of the best? Wow. You see some good stuff; the tide may turn. I see that you like Solodnz, and his minor clones, and weird stuff for or with childlren. I tend to prefer adults-only material, but I may have to see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, if I can stomach it, just to comment. Not Howl's..... his last film did nothing for me as I've mentioned. Give the Penguins some time. They may fade in interest when the weather cools down. It was good to see them yesterday for me when it had been quite hot. The theater air conditioning was cranked up. Glad we agree on politics.

This Belgian trilogy was at the Angelika in New York but came too late for me to see in on a visit. It sounds like an interesting experiment and, if nothing else, one would be likely to learn about editing and genres from watching it. N.B.: Anthony Lane liked it quite well. And so did some of the French critics.

[oscar jubis]

I went over every page of the journal and those 11 are the ones in English, so far, that would merit at least an honorable mention at the end of the year. The top 3 have a good chance to get into the top 10. Who knows maybe we'll agree on some fall and winter movies of note. Without going over my journal, fave foreigns so far include Saraband, 2046, Tropical Malady and Los Muertos. There are many others.

Sunday July 24th

Two Excellent award-winning films from Israel
Campfire (2004) at Cosford Cinema
Checkpoint aka Machssomim (2003) on Sundance Channel

Campfire is the second film from writer/director Joseph Cedar (Time of Favor) and the second to win 5 Ophirs (Israel Academy awards). It's set in 1981 Jerusalem. Rachel is an attractive widow about 40 years old who is having difficulty communicating with her teenage daughters Rachel and Tami. Rachel has reached the point where she is ready to date again. She decides to apply to become a resident of a government-sponsored settlement being built near the Palestinian town of Ramallah. Rachel is under the impression that her support of Zionism and her patriotism is sufficient to be accepted by the selection committee. Gradually she learns that those in charge are prejudiced against female head of households and those below a certain economic level. Things get more complicated after boys, who molest 15 y.o. Tami during a youth-group event, start spreading rumours that she "puts out". Great performances by the three leads: Michaela Eshet, Hani Furstenberg and Maya Maron.Excellent script and sensitive direction by Mr. Cedar, who was born in NYC and emigrated to Israel at age 6.

Checkpoint has won awards at film festivals in San Francisco, Amsterdam, Barcelona, and France. It's the debut of Yoav Shamir, a Jewish man who's passionately against the occupation of Gaza and the West Bank. From 2001 to 2003, Mr. Shamir filmed exchanges between Palestinians and Israeli soldiers at a number of checkpoints including those near Jenin, Hebron, Ramallah, Bethlehem, and the Gaza Strip. Scene after scene depicts all kinds of abuse, humilliation and repression of Palestinians who are trying to get to work or school, take sick relatives to the hospital, visit spouses who work in other towns, or simply transporting merchandise and foodstuffs. The arrogance, machismo, and sense of entitlement of the soldiers and guards is thoroughly apparent. This type of situation can only "fuel the fire" and create more hatred between the two groups.

[Chris Knipp]

We crossed swords a bit on Saraband, but it's not chopped liver. I'd have to consider 2046 one of the major foreign releases of the year and I liked Los Muertos. I'll see Tropical Malady very shortly and let you know.

[hengcs]

Originally posted by oscar jubis
Sunday July 24th
Two Excellent award-winning films from Israel
Campfire (2004) at Cosford Cinema
Checkpoint aka Machssomim (2003) on Sundance Channel



Hey,
I am glad you have finally watched the movie Campfire ...
So, I guess you know what I am talking about here ...
http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1244&highlight=campfire

[hengcs]

Originally posted by Chris Knipp
Have you heard anything about Machuca, directed by Andrés Wood, set in Chile in the early Seventies? It's here next week.

Hi
Did you finally watched it?

Howard and I have some comments here
http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1263

[Chris Knipp]

Not yet. This is only Monday.

[oscar jubis]

*Chris, at least our foreign list will have a few common titles. I'm happy 2046 opens August 5th in theatres.
*Hengcs, my apologies for not posting my comments about Campfire on the thread you opened. I forgot about it. The questions I posed to you have been answered. My conclusion is that the protagonist decides that even though, as a Zionist, she supports the government's settlement policy, life in a settlement is not appropriate for her and her daughters. I've decided that the fact that some in the selection committee are elitists and prejudiced does not constitute a criticism of the policy itself on the part of the director. I agree with you that Campfire is solely concerned with personal motivations. On the other hand, I'm convinced Mr. Shamir, the director of the political doc Checkpoint, would find that Campfire lacks the courage to confront the (im)morality of the occupation.

[Chris Knipp]

that Campfire lacks the courage to confront the (im)morality of the occupation. which would be damning.

[oscar jubis]

*Two Israelis commenting about Campfire on IMdb posted thoughts like "Cedar decided to indict his origins" and "religious/settlement people will hate this movie". This is because, although the film doesn't argue for or against the policy, those who select who lives in the settlements are portrayed unsympathetically. The film is not focused on the politics or morality of the settlement policy and, even though I am very much against the policy, I wouldn't want to damn Campfire because of that. Moreover, a major portion of this film concerns issues between parents and teenagers, and a widow beginning to date again, which are handled extremely well.

Monday July 25th

Fighting Elegy (Japan, 1966) dvd
I've always found Seijun Suzuki's films extremely satisfying to watch because of the daring visual and aural inventiveness, but I have had difficulty becoming engaged by inane genre plots about yakuzas and killers-for-hire. What elevates Fighting Elegy is the historical background (1935 Japan, just before the failed coup d'etat inspired by Ikki Kita) and its relentless satirical criticism of the militarization and imperialism prevalent in Japan until the end of WWII.

Xala (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=11973#post11973) (Senegal, 1975) dvd

[oscar jubis]

Tuesday July 26th

Camel(s) (South Korea, 2002) on import dvd
Black-and-white film written and directed by Ki-Yong Park about a pharmacist in her late 30s spending a day (and night) with a 45 y.o. customer at a resort town. They are both married to other people. They drink. They fuck. They eat. They sleep. They eat. They part. Long takes, minimal dialogue. Somber and restrained to a fault.

*I'll be in NYC for about a week with my family, which means sightseeing, Broadway musicals, a Yankees game, a day at MOMA. Will try to fit in some film-watching and post upon my return.

[oscar jubis]

I'll be posting on films I've watched during the past week. The one below I watched at home before I left to New York.

Wed. July 27th

Detective (France, 1985) PAL dvd
A commercial film, but exclusively as defined by J.L. Godard, which means it uses popular genre conventions and features a recognizable cast_the opening titles name some under the heading of "acteurs" while others are labeled "stars". I believe Godard never stopped being a film critic and that his reviews for "Cashiers" reveal a writing style that corresponds to that of his films. Detective is not a whodunit, although it features Jean Pierre Leaud investigating a shooting. It's a presentation of the component parts of a murder mystery set entirely at the Hotel Concorde St. Lazare after Godard has taken it apart. It functions as a critique of the genre in which Godard experiments with juxtapositions between images and brief, intense passages of classical and jazz pieces. Formally, this is very interesting. Just don't come here looking for the comforting, familiar pleasures of the genre.

[oscar jubis]

Friday July 29th

The Beat That My Heart Skipped (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=12101#post12101) (France, 2005) at Lincoln Plaza Cinemas, NYC.

[Chris Knipp]

That answers my question about where you saw it.

[Johann]

Thanks for your assessment of Detective.

That's a great point about his film criticism and style of making movies. Godard has always stayed true to Godard's Laws.

He demands admiration. He challenges the viewer, and not with pretention as so many claim. He's deeply passionate and a serious film artist. His films are blessings, and when he dies cinema will lose one of it's saints.

I'm sure someone could write a thesis or book that explains and illustrates the massive impact he's had on the medium- an impact that regular movie-goers are ignorant of. Godard's influence has reached into the strangest of places...

[Chris Knipp]

I'm sure someone could write a thesis or book that explains and illustrates the massive impact he's had on the mediumYou can be sure someone has, various someones in fact, though even in Europe the greatest interest would be in his early work, and a lot of his later films don't seem to be available on DVD even in France, much more on VHS. I can get a US tape of Detective used on Amazon for $5.

[oscar jubis]

*I also have great admiration for this cinema saint, Johann. I have yet to come across a book that specifically "explains and illustrates the massive impact he's had on the medium", which would be a very worthy endeavor. Of course there are many books about the artist and his films. I propose that he will continue being a major influence on cinema years after he stops making films because these will become increasingly available to future generations of filmmakers. Many of the innovations/formal experiments contained in his films have yet to be properly digested by the culture at-large thus have not achieve full impact yet.

*Maybe Chris is right when he writes that "even in Europe the greatest interest would be in his early work". This implies nothing negative about the quality of his "later" work. It has more to do with the nature of cinephilia and distribution/marketing realities at the time the films were released. Some well-known critics, particularly Americans, have done a disservice to the understanding and appreciation of Godard's films released in the past three decades. The excerpt below, from an article by Craig Keller posted at Senses of Cinema, concerns this very issue.

The first instance grants that Godard's body of work can be read as a movement that passes through many aesthetic phases but never fails to constitute an oeuvre that examined from any point, yields a poetic and cinematic value consistent with or building upon those films that have come before. It is the second standpoint, however, that has been so consistently adopted by a number of prominent (that is, visible) critics. This flank, whose American roster includes but is not limited to Roger Ebert, Anthony Lane, Andrew Sarris, and David Thomson, have long confused the evolution of the artist Godard with some kind of fundamental betrayal. For this group, Godard is a filmmaker who will forever be associated with pop-art palettes, love-and-guns on the run, and the intellectual exuberance of a breezy, pre-Vietnam 60s youth; but who will never be forgiven for discarding the early use of Hollywood reference points (which the filmmaker's latter-day antagonists had perceived in any case not as aesthetic critique but as blank cool cultural homage), exhibiting overtly political tendencies, exploring in his two tv series the possibilities of a different medium, and then settling on a mode of filmmaking that incorporates narrative cadenzas, historical scrutiny, visual poetry, literary citation, and a dominant mood of elegiac contemplativeness.
In short, Godard has evolved from making films of great complexity and beauty to making films of even greater complexity that frequently approach the sublime. Godard's crime, that which the impatient soul and the Philistine alike deem the greatest felony of all: that Godard is an artist of tremendous agency and authority within his medium, and through the uncompromised expression of his aesthetic and, therefore, moral convictions, demonstrates as little concern for the satiety of the "audience that might have been" as Beethoven or Joyce before him.

[Chris Knipp]

...this cinematic saint....At least you're open about your hagiography.


Godard's crime, that which the impatient soul and the Philistine alike deem the greatest felony of all: that Godard is an artist of tremendous agency and authority within his medium, and through the uncompromised expression of his aesthetic and, therefore, moral convictions, demonstrates as little concern for the satiety of the "audience that might have been" as Beethoven or Joyce before him. Wow! Now that's what I call writing! (He misuses the word satiety though.)

[oscar jubis]

I incorporated the term used by Johann in my response to his post. I had initially put it between quotations. Then I decided to remove them thus taking responsibility for its use, however borrowed. I figure...if catholics can designate hundreds as saints, cinephiles can have at least fifty of our own. A polite provocation: those who wouldn't include Godard among those fifty probably love storytelling more than they love cinema.

Saturday July 30th

5th Avenue Girl (USA, 1939) at MOMA, NYC.

Gregory La Cava is known for directing My Man Godfrey and Stage Door, most of his other films are rarely screened. Fifth Avenue Girl, seen as part of a retrospective of the director's filmography, provides evidence that La Cava deserves as much recognition as Capra and Cukor, better-known contemporaries whose work often deals with similar subject matter. 5th Avenue is one of those witty depression comedies about what happens when a working class person enters the world of the rich. Ginger Rogers meets a middle-aged CEO in Central Park and becomes a catalytic agent who transforms him and the members of his family. This is only my third La Cava film but I'd say he seems to allow more ambiguity into his narratives than Cukor and his view of the poor is less romanticized than Capra's. Oh, and Chelsea and I found 5th Avenue Girl very funny. We didn't stay for the next La Cava film on today's schedule because we had tickets to the new Broadway show "Lennon". Maybe someday I get to watch other films from this director such as Primrose Path and She Married Her Boss.

[oscar jubis]

Monday August 1st

9 Songs (UK, 2004) at the Angelika, NYC.
Michael Winterbottom (24-hr Party People, Butterfly Kiss) is apparently guided by an agenda in his low-budget latest: to normalize the depiction of sex in mainstream cinema. The film opens with Matt (TV actor Kieran O'Brien) flying over Antarctica. Matt's voice-over implies his affair with Lisa (newcomer Margo Stilley) has ended. 9 Songs flashes back to Black Rebel Motorcycle Club performing the first of the titular rock songs. Matt and Lisa meet at the show then go to his place for sex. The minimal dialogue is banal. Most of the 66 minutes concern the couple going to rock shows and fucking. Some scenes are as explicit as porn but shorter and untouched. The sex is not realistic, it's real. Imagine a home movie depicting what goes on inside the apartment of a couple who are having a casual relationship based on sexual compatibility and a shared appreciation for rock. There are couples who do this on the net. It's perhaps historically significant that Winterbottom managed to get 9 Songs shown in theatres. But given the minimal context and character detail, all the audience gets is the satisfaction of subsidizing socio-cultural progress.
*This Monday screening was nearly sold-out. The Village Voice had a still from it on the front cover, which doesn't hurt the b.o. It's going wider on August 12th, if you're curious. I found it unambitious thus can't recommend it.

[Chris Knipp]

Too bad, seems not a fortunate choice. I wonder if you went to Film Forum, or Quad Cinema? Maybe not so much right now at either place, though John G. Young's The Reception at Quad Cinema looks good. Oyster Farmer less so. Nothing much new now at Film Forum, except a documentary about Chechen children. Have you seen Darwin's Nightmare? I haven't. It's at the IFC Center on Sixth Avenue and W 3rd St. Otherwise at Angelika maybe better: Broken Flowers (the new Jarmusch!!!), Junebug (good US inde?), Tony Takitani (Japanese, "A delicate wisp of a film with a surprisingly sharp sting..."," Manohla Dargis), and Secuestro Express (Miramax) which would all be new to me.

[pmw]

Oscar, have I missed your trip? I have been completely swamped and out of town and forgot entirely that you were in the city... how rude. Hope you all are having a great time. Email me if youre still around.
Peter

[oscar jubis]

*I'm back in Miami, Peter but I'll send e-mail to you and Chris soon.
*Broken Flowers and Junebug will open here soon. I had free tickets to a screening of Secuestro tonight with the director in attendance. I passed, based on the trailer. Wish I had seen Tony Takitani or the re-released The Conformist (a personal fave) instead of 9 Songs.

Wed. August 3rd

Rear Entrance (Hong Kong, 1959) on import dvd
I've seen few non-Japanese Asian films made before 1970 so I decided to take a chance on this winner of Best Film at the 7th Asian Film Festival (?). I found this melodrama, about a childless middle-aged couple adopting a neglected 7-year old girl, crudely written and otherwise unremarkable. Direction by Han Hsiang Li (The Burning of Imperial Palace, Enchanting Shadow).

Tout Va Bien (France, 1973) Criterion dvd
The final title at the end of Week-End read END OF CINEMA/END OF THE WORLD. Jean Luc Godard proceeded to form the Dziga-Vertov Group, named after the Polish-born Soviet director who proposed that cinema could instill mass revolutionary consciousness. Prominent among its members was Jean-Pierre Gorin, an avowed Maoist who collaborated closely with Godard, primarily on the scripts of films Godard directed between 1968 and 1974. Generally, these films had an obvious political agenda. In the US, they were primarily shown during Godard and Gorin's tours of American Universities and Film Societies.
Tout Va Bien is perhaps the most commercially viable of the films made during this period, because it features Jane Fonda and Yves Montand, and there's a semblance of plot. It's a meditation on the role of the artist/intellectual in effecting revolutionary social change. Godard has spoken about the pitfalls of attempting to speak for the workers/oppressed/working classes. Fonda and Montand are a married couple who serve as Godard's surrogates. She works for an American TV network and is assigned to report on a strike at a sausage factory. He plays a writer-turned-director who was prominent during the New Wave but finds himself directing commercials to pay the bills. He accompanies her to the factory where she's scheduled to interview the manager. Upon arrival, they learn some workers have occupied the administrative offices. The workers are keeping the manager hostage and decide to do the same to the visitors. The offices and factory are shown as a dollhouse set, with the front wall removed like Jerry Lewis did for his The Ladies Man. The union reps, mangement, several workers, the reporter and the director get to face the camera at several points to present their perspective on the events. The last segment of Tout Va Bien takes a tangential detour into a large department store. The camera pans slowly along multiple checkout lanes back and forth as a consumer riot gradually erupts.

[Chris Knipp]

I guess my recommendatons were a bit late. I forgot the length of your New York stay. Sorry you missed even talking to PMW. but I'm sure you did a lot of good stuff and things that your family loved too and I'll enjoy hearing about. I was hinting Secuestro sounds 'Miramaxical.' If I'd been on a quick trip to NYC I'd have skipped 9 Songs because it's coming here shortly, and because I never saw 24-Hour Party People which is the one of his movies people (party people I guess) really loved (and somehow, I didn't mind missing it from what I heard; I thought maybe it was for another generation). Anthony Lane reviewed (http://www.newyorker.com/critics/cinema/articles/050801crci_cinema) this new one in last week's New Yorker and said, "There is a fine film to be made about the retreat from worldly obligation into erotic rite, and Brando and Bertolucci made it in 1972......This is an awkward stumble for Winterbottom, who made the wonderful 'In the World' (2002)...Only one aspect of '9 Songs' was a shock to me, and that was the music....the cream of current bands, supposedly, although the unitiatied may wonder why most of the cream sounds like a cow giving birth in a wind tunnel."

I did see Machuca finally the other day and will write a review of it.

Now that I may be committing to Netflix (which I'm not at all sure isn't a mistake on my part) I've received a copy of "Le Cercle rouge" and written an evaluation of the expanded version on DVD (from Netflix) (http://www.chrisknipp.com/writing/viewtopic.php?p=450) .

[oscar jubis]

*I was quite aware of what was playing in New York. It was indeed a family vacation and we had tix to two Broadway shows and a Yankees game, and dinner with my sis who was there on business...so I only managed to see 3 movies.
*Why'd Netflix be a mistake? It's cheap, efficient, and they seem to have every Region 1 disc in existence. Even if every film I wanted to watch played at a nearby theatre, I couldn't afford the cost of admission and transport.
*I watched Le Cercle Rouge at the Cosford, 2003 I think. Well worth it.

Thursday August 4th[/i]

Yes (UK, 2005) at Regal SoBe
Driving home after watching Sally Potter's latest, I prepared myself for the scorn and ridicule I predicted some reviews would contain. I also found myself almost grieving over the fact that it's unlikely I would ever watch Yes on a theatre screen again_ today was the 7th and last day of its theatrical run here.
I wouldn't want to give you the impression that I believe Yes must be uniformly regarded as an instant classic or a masterpiece, although it's the one English-language movie of 2005 that perhaps merits such accolades (of course, only my humble opinion after a first viewing). It's just that Yes is the type of film that conjures up the sarcastic, jaded and Philistinic out of reviewers, particularly those employed by mainstream dailies: an adulterous affair between a White She (Joan Allen) and an Arab He (Ararat's Simon Abkarian), written in iambic verse, and featuring philosophical soliloquies by a cleaning lady. Moreover, although Yes is clearly Potter's response to the state of global politics, I can't remember any other recent film that distills class issues with such earnestness (taboo subject, at least in the land of opportunity). A final affront: the final poem takes place in Cuba, viewed here as a land that facilitates moral cleansing and renewal, if only because of its isolation.
It's apparent that Potter spent a great deal of time and effort in rehearsals aimed at removing any trace of mannerism from the actors' delivery of the dialogue. The script would seem particularly challenging to Allen and Abkarian, as their characters go through a wide range of emotions, from flowery romantic passion to abject scorn. I am perhaps most impressed by Potter's display of technique in order to render some of the most awesome images I've seen this year: her use of slurred action, "security-camera" angles, freeze frames, expressionistic use of color, and a variety of framing devices_most memorably, a tree trunk from which we gaze at the couple strolling during their first rendezvous. Sally Potter has delivered a film in which the visuals never play second fiddle to the attention-grabbing text. There is a poetry of images that complements the verses. The eclectic score incorporates Chopin, the Kronos Quartet, BB King and Rachmaninoff, but it's a melody by Phillip Glass that reappears quite effectively at key moments.
Yes is that rare film that looks directly at the dirty mess that seems part and parcel of human existence, perhaps as much now as ever, and manages to provide an affirmation, a rebuke to nihilism and despair.

[oscar jubis]

My practice of periodically taking a chance on relatively obscure, "under the radar" titles disappoints sometimes (Camel(s) and Rear Entrance the most recent). Below two instances of the practice yielding good results. Head in the Clouds received a limited release in 2004 and received generally poor reviews. The Russian The Wedding was undistributed in the US. The dvd version released in Brazil is the only one I know that has English subs.

Friday August 5th

Head in the Clouds (Canada/UK, 2004) dvd
This winner of 4 Canadian Academy awards (cinematography, editing, costume design, music score) was directed by John Duigan (Flirting, Lawn Dogs) and stars Oscar-winner Charlize Theron as Gilda, a hedonist dilettante. The film opens at Cambridge in 1933, where Gilda meets Guy, an inexperienced and affable young student. The course of their relationship is charted over the next, eventful dozen years. A third major character is introduced when Gilda moves to Paris in 1936: Mia (Penelope Cruz), a Spanish nursing student who shares Guy's passion for Gilda and commitment to political causes. Head in the Clouds is a handsome, eye-catching movie with an over-familiar romance-in-wartime plot and a great performance from the perfectly cast Theron. Ultimately, what makes it worth watching is the focus on her Gilda's interior struggle between selfish convenience and moral sacrifice.

Svadba The Wedding (Russia/France 2000) import dvd
Tanya returns to the small mining town where she grew up after 5 years in Moscow pursuing a modeling career. Childhood sweetheart Mishka, a miner, is still smitten and available. They decide to marry. Of course, the remainder of the film concerns the preparations and the wedding. A chaotic, music-filled affair involving eccentric relatives, petty gangsters, politicos, cops, and a lot of vodka. A tragicomic blend of Jiri Menzel's My Sweet Little Village and Kusturica's bawdy and raucous Black Cat, White Cat. The Wedding was co-written and directed by Pavel Lungin (Taxi Blues, Luna Park).

[oscar jubis]

Sat August 6th

Letter to Jane (France, 1972) dvd
A 52-min long analysis of the "Hanoi Jane" photograph of Jane Fonda, which appeared in L'Express and countless publications following her visit to North Vietnam. Gorin and Godard take turns discussing in accented but comprehensible English every aspect of the photograph, its dissemination, interpretation and public reaction to it. Some of the material is instructive, some thought-provoking; some of it is risibly tendentious and boorish_such as their ascribing all kinds of substance to the expression of an out-of-focus Vietnamese while considering Fonda's concerned gaze utterly meaningless.

Thieves Like Us (USA, 1974) import dvd
Three guys (Keith Carradine, John Schuck and Bert Remsen) escape from a Mississippi jail during the depression, reunite with friends and relatives and rob a series of banks while being pursued. Carradine and Shelley Duvall fall hard for each other and become a young-couple-on-the-lam. These are common elements of a string of outstanding American movies. Thieves Like Us is based on the novel of the same title by Edward Anderson, which was first adapted by Nicholas Ray with the title They Live by Night. What's special about Robert Altman's film is his uncanny ability to convey a very specific sense of place and time. He opens the film with a masterful long shot of a prairie as the trio escapes. Altman was a consummate artist by the time he shot Thieves Like Us, every frame provides ample evidence of his skills. The use of radio programming (news, serials, music, ads, etc.) to provide a sense of the world-at-large is carefully blended into the complex sound design, which includes Altman's trademark overlapping dialogue. Available only on vhs in the USA.

[Chris Knipp]

Thieves Like Us -- this makes me want to see it. I don't believe I ever have.

[oscar jubis]

Pauline Kael never praised anything more enthusiastically.

"Robert Altman finds a sureness of tone and never loses it; Thieves Like Us has the pensive, delicate romanticism of McCabe but it isn't hesitant or precarious. It has perfect clarity. I wouldn't say I respond to it more than to McCabe or that I enjoy it more than the loony The Long Goodbye, but Thieves Like Us seems to achieve beauty without artifice. It's the closest to flawless of Altman's films_a masterpiece".

"Thieves Like Us is so sensuous and lucid that it is as if William Faulkner and the young Jean Renoir had collaborated. Altman uses the novel as his base, but he finds the story through the actors, and, as Renoir did, through accidents of weather and discoveries along the way."

"Thieves Like Us come closer to the vision and sensibility of Faulkner's novels than any of the movie adaptations of them do".

[Chris Knipp]

Though I loved reading Pauline Kael's writing, I didn't go out and follow her advice, and I often disagreed when I did. Nevertheless, as I said, this sounds like I might like it.

[oscar jubis]

I probably disagreed with Kael more often than you did, but I feel she wrote some valid things about Thieves I didn't bring up.

Sunday August 7th

Babes on Broadway (USA, 1941) on TCM
It ain't Meet Me in St. Louis, but it stars Judy Garland and the talented Mickey Rooney, who had good chemistry together. Also in the cast: Virginia Wiedler (Hepburn's sister in The Philadelphia Story), who's always a pleasure to watch. Director Busby Berkeley's characteristic crane shots are here, but so is a blackface number that made me squirm.

[oscar jubis]

Monday August 8th

Devils on the Doorstep (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=12227#post12227) (China, 2000) dvd

The Night of the Hunter (USA, 1955) on TCM

"LOVE and HATE tatooed acroos the knuckes of his hands
The hands that slap the kids around 'cos they don't understand
how death or glory becomes just another story"
(The Clash, 1979)

A repeat viewing of my favorite American movie of 1955, despised by critics and ignored by audiences upon release, then hailed as a masterpiece of iconic power less than a decade later. Actor Charles Laughton had never directed a film before and never directed a film again. Robert Mitchum played many unforgettable characters, but his Harry Powell is the most enmeshed in the cultural fabric of America. A vulnerable psychopath with delusions of grandeur, a hypocritical preacher obsessed with locating the $10,000 his cellmate gave to his kids before being executed. The Night of the Hunter is by no means realistic. It's a moral parable/fairly tale/horror story with a mix of German expressionism and film-noir stylings. A queer, self-conscious object d'art in which even the stiff performances by the child actors have a very welcome "nightmarish" quality_several sources agree that Laughton hated the kids and that it was Mitchum who "directed" them. The script is based on David Grubb's Depression-era novel and credited to Pulitzer-winner James Agee, but apparently Laughton changed a substantial portion of it. Anyway this is a story told with striking images, lensed by the great Stanley Cortez (The Magnificent Ambersons).

[oscar jubis]

Tuesday August 9th

These current releases earn only a mild recommendation from me largely because of indistinctive and unremarkable debut scripts by Amy Fox (Heights) and Sabina Murray (The Beautiful Country).

Heights (USA, 2005) at Regal SoBe
The first feature by director Chris Terrio is an ensembler about the problems of the heart of art-world Manhattan residents. Glenn Close is an actress rehearsing Macbeth who can no longer feign indifference to her husband's infidelities. Her daughter Isabel is a photographer about to discover her fiancee's secret life. Interlocking stories involve a large cast that includes Eric Bogosian, George Segal, and musician Rufus Wainwright. They're all fine; not surprisingly, Glenn Close is magnificent. Lamentably, the sense that you've seen it all before, and you know exactly where it's going, becomes increasingly pronounced. Alternative title: "Two Degrees of Separation", which highlights how inferior Heights is to John Guare's play and Fred Schepisi's film adaptation.

The Beautiful Country (USA/Norway, 2005)
Norwegian director Hans Petter Moland has a good track record (The Last Lieutenant, Zero Kelvin, Aberdeen, all on dvd). A substantial portion of The Beautiful Country does for SE Asians what El Norte did for Central Americans: dramatize the difficult journey of those who immigrate to the USA. Despite its honorable intentions and the skillful filmmaking, the film is hampered by a facile if serviceable script that takes the "easy way out" too often. The protagonist is Bihn, a young Vietnamese man who is extremely meek and deferential_probably the result of a lifetime of humiliation because his father is a white American. (Warning: Spoilers Below). Binh reunites with his mom who's working for some very bad rich people in Saigon. The ineffectual man is not the type who abandons his loving mom (thus becoming less sympathetic) or embarks on a perilous transoceanic journey. So there's an unlikely, elaborate accident scene in which Bihn simultaneously breaks an expensive statue AND kills the nasty, rich lady. Now, he has to leave, with mom's toddler son in tow. By the way, unlike the vast majority of American soldiers who fathered kids in Vietnam, Dad (Nick Nolte) married Binh's mother, and played no part in decision to leave Vietnam without her. The Beautiful Country is too careful not to lose the audience's sympathy for any of its major characters. Granted, the immigrant's struggle to come to America and to carve a niche here is given proper exposition, and the encounter between father and son is brilliantly understated.

[Chris Knipp]

I reviewed (http://www.cinescene.com/knipp/heights.htm) Heights, also referring to Guare's play and the Fred Schepisi film.

I also thought of El Norte after seeing The Big Country. I loved Nick Nolte. I may write a review--and your criticisms of the screenplay will help me; I have some others, but you see different things.

[oscar jubis]

Thanks for the link to your CineScene review. My only disagreement therein has nothing to do with Heights_ I thought Le Divorce was far from a "disaster". While at the site, I checked their 2004 Top 10 poll of contributors and was surprised that none of the top 10 are foreign-language films. It seems more of a "mainstream" site than I had anticipated, with The Incredibles and Shaun of the Dead as #2 and #3 films of the year.
Watching and thinking about Heights led me to thoughts regarding critic and audience (For the purpose of this discussion let's regard ourselves as "critics"). I don't think presumptuous to state that you and I have watched many more films than the average moviegoer, particularly young ones. Heights, for instance, suffers in comparison to films like Short Cuts and Six Degrees of Separation. But many in its potential audience have not seen those. And, isn't it better than others currently at theatres? Isn't it a lot better than hits like Dukes, Bewitched, Longest Yard, etc? Yes, we can only write what we see, think and feel from our unique perspectives. But perhaps we need to moderate our comments about a film that may "work well" and be a good choice for a certain audience making a choice today at the multiplex. After all, there are lots of places where 2046 and The Beat that my Heart Skipped ain't playing.
I'm only thinking out-loud here, riffing on to what extent an experienced-moviewatcher-turned-amateur-crit need to consider the casual filmgoer's p.o.v.

[Chris Knipp]

I can't compare Heights with The Longest Yard, The Dukes of Hazard, and Bewitched, since I haven't seen those. I think though the general public would find those more entertaining. In fact I'm sure of it. How could someone who's looking for what The Dukes of Hazard has to offer possibly be interested in spending their time watching Heights? But my concern is to be honest about my evaluations of movies, not to educate the "mainstream" audience. You seem disappointed to learn that Cinescene isn't Senses of Cinema, yet you want us to be nudging fans of The Dukes of Hazard toward Heights. How's that work? How can we want to write for elitist offbeat sites, and influence the mainstream? Cinescene's year-end lists are a vote that includes a lot of people whose writing rarely appeared on the site, so it doesn't very accurately reflect the views of the most frequent reviewers, which might be less "mainstream." I'm more elitist than you are, I've found. I only want to recommend the movies I really like, and I wouldn't pretend to like Me and You or The Beautiful Country or Heights or even Machuca because they are admirable or come from a more sophisticated place than The Dukes of Hazard. But I'm hesitant to recommend a movie to anybody. I'm evaluating them, not recommending that people see them. There's little use urging somebody to see a movie that they won't like.

[oscar jubis]

I don't know who's more or less elitist, and I don't want to be nudging anyone. Actually, like I wrote, I'm JUST thinking out loud and all I want is what I got: some sense as to whether you write with an audience in mind. Published crits either do or are forced to think of the readership by editors, publicists, etc. It's a luxury not to have to consider anybody. Friends and acquaintances who know of my passion ask me if I'd like to write for the daily: "Interviewing Mel Gibson or having to watch The Longest Yard AND write 600 words about it sure ain't my idea of a fun job. I'd rather deal with neurotics and schizos all day than do that".

[Chris Knipp]

I can't find anything in my last post about not writing for anybody. I did suggest I don't write to nudge the mainstream audience to change its moviegoing habits. I do write primarily to please myself; I'd assume that's the most honest thing and also what the best "published crits" do. I don't see them as going through a process of being tamed and modified by editors pointing to a dissatisfied audience. If they've been well chosen, then the editor can trust them to please him and the audience. A good editor is a dream come true for any writer. Being a reviewer for the local "daily" isn't what I dream of, but it's a job that has its benefits. You don't have to interview Mel and crank out 600 words on Longest Yard every day; with the job comes other interviews and other films to write about, and a good sized readership. You're scorning the job that would give you the best opportunity to lead the "mainstream" audience away from Dukes of Hazard toward Heights (and best of luck to you).

[Chris Knipp]

I can't find anything in my preceding post that suggests I write I without an audience in mind. I may have implied that I write without the mainstream audience's needs in mind. Certainly not without the editor's interest in mind, when there is one, as with Cinescene. "It's a luxury not to have to consider anybody." Is it? You misconstrue the idea of writing primarily for oneself. I don't think it's a luxury but a necessity. If one isn't one's own most stringent critic, but also one's own most ardent fan, how can one produce anything good? So one hasn't the luxury of writing with nobody in mind; one writes with oneself in mind. And if one seeks to inform and to entertain, one writes with the civilized and well informed reader in mind too. I would like to have an editor who was stringent, congenial, and diplomatic (I think the best ones are). Unfortunately, I can't say I have the editor of my dreams. Critics with good jobs don't have to be constantly altering what they say to accomodate either the audience or the editor. They please both, or they wouldn't have been hired. But then their job is to do what they do best: exercise their own taste. As for writing for the "daily," that isn't the job you have assigned yourself, but interviewing Mel Gibson and reviewing The Longest Yard would also give one permission to interview other people and review other films, for a decent salary. Not such a bad job if you can get it.

[oscar jubis]

I seem to be doing a shitty job of expressing my thoughts on this issue. I was speaking only of myself when I wrote "it's a luxury not to have to consider anybody" (it's probably an exageration because when I write journal entries, I'm hoping to hear from you and other members with whom I've had constructive exchanges), so you couldn't be more right when you state "I can't find anything that suggests I write without an audience in mind". I was thinking in the context of what I learned from reviewers I met during press screenings, what I learned from reading Rosenbaum's "Movie Wars: How Hollywood and the Media..." and my decision not to pursue a modest opportunity that presented itself thanks to the MIFF's publicist, who's become a friend.

Wednesday August 10th

Manji (Japan, 1964) on dvd
So much talk in the West about the Nouvelle Vague and the German New Wave while something just as exciting and ground-breaking went unacknowledged in Japan. Only recently have some of the key directors of this movement got their films released in the West, thanks to the dvd format. One of "my discoveries" of 2005 is Matsumoto's amazing Funeral Parade of Roses, but it's Seijun Suzuki and Yasuzo Masumura who are getting the most attention. When it comes to Suzuki, Oshima, Matsumoto, Masumura, Mishima and their contemporaries, I am speaking from a position of ignorance. I've probably seen less Japanese New Wave film than films directed by Truffaut or any single French New Wave director. I recently watched Suzuki's Fighting Elegy, maybe his best because it transcends genre more than rest of his filmography. Suzuki is a great stylist, but perhaps I prefer Masumura (who directed Manji and, among others, the consumer satire Giants and Toys) because he seems more interested in characters than Suzuki. Masumura (1924-1986) fell in love with European Cinema as a child, earned degrees in law and philosophy in Japan, studied film in Italy from Antonioni and Visconti, and returned to Japan to become an assistant to Mizoguchi and Ichikawa. He started directing in the late 50s. Masumura was highly prolific and subversive throughout his career.
Manji is a widescreen color film about a married woman's sexual obsession with a younger one enrolled in the same art class. A feverish and stylish film in which the women have control over the men in their lives. Like most of Masumura's films (from what I've read), Manji is decidedly Japanese, particularly with regards to content (based on a novel by Junichiro Tanizaki) yet the filmmaking bears an unmistakably European sensibility. I look forward to watching more films from this generation of Japanese filmmakers.

Cabin in the Sky (USA,1941) on TCM
Vincent Minelli directed an all-black cast featuring Ethel Waters and Lena Horne (her breakthrough preformance). Angels from heaven and hell do battle for Joe's soul in this musical with a plot that recalls Heaven Can Wait. One number features the great Duke Ellington and his band. Quite entertaining.

[Chris Knipp]

To renew our discussion, if I may.
Actually, like I wrote, I'm JUST thinking out loud and all I want is what I got: some sense as to whether you write with an audience in mind. Published crits either do or are forced to think of the readership by editors, publicists, etc. It's a luxury not to have to consider anybody. Initially you addressed yourself to my review of the movie, Heights, which you thought went astray because I seemed to neglect the fact that there were worse movies being shown in theaters, such as The Longest Yard. Later you said (here) you wanted to find out who I was writing for ("whether you write with an audience in mind"). What you decided about that question -- do I write with an audience in mind, in your view? -- is still not clear to me. I became confused, understandably, I think, by the above passage because you suddenly shifted from talking about me to talking about yourself -- "It's a luxury not to have to consider anybody." Again I ask, Is it? And does it even make sense? This pleasure in not writing for a print audience as reviewers for a "daily do" appears to be because you, no doubt understandably, got a negative picture of the reviewer's job from talking to people who work for dailies and from reading Rosenbaum's "Movie Wars." But the fact reamains that if you post even on a small website, you're in that sense writing for others, and if you think you're not writing for anybody that merely means you're forgetting that you do, or, perhaps, as I was saying, because you're focusing primarily on your own requirements -- quite wisely so, if those requirements are good ones. Understandably here and elsewhere there's some confusion about whom one's wriring for. I think I try to model my movie comments on good writing about film and other subjects. That's writing that meets the requirements of critical readers. I likewise have done the best work I could as an artist, regardless of how many people saw my work or how much people paid for it. There are good movie critics. When I try to write like them (but still be original, if possible), I'm seeking to please myself. That's why I don't present my movie comments as a log, but rather as much as possible in the form of finished reviews. To some extent my aims and principles are more at odds with posting on a website like this than yours are.

But I still won't recommend Heights to "mainstream" readers or any other readers.

[oscar jubis]

From where I sit, this discussion is still bearing fruit. I'll proceed
by quoting the sentence from your post that calls for clarification on my part.

Originally posted by Chris Knipp
my review of the movie, Heights, which you thought went astray because I seemed to neglect the fact that there were worse movies being shown in theaters

What I wrote about your review is: "my only disagreement therein has nothing to do with Heights_I thought Le Divorce was far from a disaster".
Of course, we can both split-hairs over each other's choice of words here and there, revealing too much or too little of the plot, etc. Any two could. As far as the three last films I watched in theatres, it seems to me our opinions are not that far apart. You disliked Heights and The Beautiful Country a bit more than I did, and liked Hustle and Flow a bit more than I did. All three had enough going to make me glad I saw them; all three have flaws and limitations I've mentioned in my reviews. These are films I can only recommend with reservations, or recommend mildly.
My main issue with Heights has more to do with lack of
originality and distinctiveness. It's not a very ambitious film by any measure. But these aspects are related to a viewer's experience with the older and better titles that came to mind while watching it. I thought that, basically and within its limitations, Heights "works" well enough. And that it would probably seem a better movie to one who hasn't seen the "older and better titles" than it seemed to me. To regard the film from the perspective of that sentence amounts to an attempt to step off my skin, so to speak.
I could also adopt another's perspective by thinking about the current crop of releases from the p.o.v. of moviegoers who live in smaller markets, say Albuquerque, NM or Jacksonville, FLA (where I traveled last spring for my daughter's choral competition). Not that Miami is a cultural mecca like Frisco or NYC, but sophisticated enough to have a German silent playing at one museum this weekend, a leftist doc from Brasil in another, and several foreigns and indies at theatres. There are millions of people in North America, who may find themselves wanting to watch a movie this friday night, and couldn't do better than to choose one of these barely recommendable (my opinion) titles.
I agree that these considerations shouldn't impinge on one's reaction to a movie and our writing about them. I am just sharing my musings with you and everybody who visits this thread, as far as they continue to ellicit fruitful discussion.

[oscar jubis]

Thursday August 11th

Michelangelo Antonioni: The Eye That Changed Cinema
(Italy, 2001) dvd
Hour-long doc directed by Sandro Lai comprised mostly of excerpts from interviews of Antonioni himself conducted over a thirty year span. Additional footage of Antonioni at awards presentations at Cannes and Venice and in the set of major films are priceless to a fan of Antonioni like myself. As the title of the doc implies, Antonioni was first and foremost an innovator, a ground-breaker who kept challenging himself in myriad ways. He kept abreast of the new technologies, he went to England, America and China to films from different perspectives, he switched to color in '64 and manipulated its expressive use like no one had before. Antonioni often explored the less dynamic yet no less significant aspects of human reality, and did so suggestively, always allowing the viewer room to make his/her own discoveries.

Hustle and Flow (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=12289#post12289) (USA, 2005) at SoBe Regal

[Chris Knipp]

Don't call it Frisco (that used to be the name of a restaurant, but San Franciscans so dislike the word "Frisco" that the restaurant failed; it probably wasn't that good a restaurant anyway). You can call it a cultural mecca if you want to.

Except for Hustle and Flow, the filmgoers in what you call "smaller markets" (adopting a mercantile terminology I'm not fluent in), I would suggest they go to Wedding Crashers instead. As I think I've said recently on these insatiable pages, I don't really go in for "recommending" movies. If I were to "recommend" a movie, I have to see who in particular I'm supposed to be "recommending" to. If it's a soft hearted sucker or a patient old lady I might "recommend" The Beautiful Country if she had to spend a couple hours in a theater. If she or he was a naive pseudo-sophisticate who imagines herself or himself too delicate for the strong humor of Wedding Crashers I might give a nod to Heights. But my heart wouldn't be in it. On the other hand -- the difference in our opinions that you think are "not far apart" are enormous, as far as I'm concerned -- and Le Divorce is much closer to a disaster than you are willing to allow -- I would "recommend" Hustle and Flow to a lot of people, depending on what they were looking for in the way of entertainment. But it is hard for me to stomach the idea of telling or even suggesting to people how they should spend their time. Apropos of Hustle and Flow, you sometimes seem so concerned that a movie be properly uplifting and moral that you fail to notice that it is the only one we're talking about that has a pulse.

To all those who say they have no choice at the movie house I say one word: Netflix.

As for your question as to why I might think Netflix possibly not a good idea for me, I'll answer that at another time. But in general I can see its virtues and benefits for the vast majority of geographically disadvantaged or homebound movie fans.

[oscar jubis]

^From now on it'll be: the cultural mecca of San Francisco and the Bay Area :)
^Watched the first hour of Crashers with Chelsea and her friend while waiting for the Penguins doc to start; found it uninspired, inoffensive, not very funny. Chelsea says the movie got "sweeter" and less funny after I left to watch the doc. Le Divorce was witty, sophisticated, and poked fun at the state of Franco-American relations without crassness, or condescension to either side. It's good, not great.
^I understand it's not your intention but I bet I'm not the only one influenced by your opinions. I should probably thank you for saving me from Ma Mere and the Brazilian flick you hated at the SFFF.
^I posted on the Hustle and Flow thread. I found it worth-watching and "uplifting" to an extent. It'd be a better movie if the female characters were less stereotypical, and if the script was wiser than the pimp protagonist.

[Chris Knipp]

What's with the little pyramids?

Now don't blatantly give away prejudging a film that way as you do on Wedding Crashers. To give the illusion of having approached a movie with an open mind, you have to watch the whole thing. It's a hilarious movie. It's good entertainment. But if you don't like it -- and you certainly don't have to -- you also certainly don't have to condemn it morally to justify your dislike. Comedy offends, and absolute comedy offends absolutely. I can't wait for Pretty Persuasion, which promises to be much more offensive and more pointed. I hope your daughter likes it. I actually found some of the early wedding mélange sequence tiresome, though most people who like the movie don't. It's really better later on, as far as I'm concerned. But to leave after a solid hour shows that the man, Oscar Jubis, was suffering.

I have read and pondered your remarks about Hustle and Flow and I continue to ponder them. Since we have constant exchanges it's my responsibility to try to understand your personality.

Have you commented on 29 Palms? I just watched it on DVD and am looking for where to post comments. You started .a thread on Bruno Dumont (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=1008&goto=nextnewest) , but it never went on to his latest film.

This is where "The last film you watched" becomes invaluable. It seems ridiculous to me that I'm the person on this site who has most often mentioned the name of Bruno Dumont.

[oscar jubis]

*I want to clarify that I didn't walk-out on Crashers and that, what I watched of it, I watched with an open mind. Chelsea and her friend needed a ride to the plex to watch it, I decided to stay and watch March of the Penguins, which showed one hour later. So I sat with them until Penguins started. I watched enough of Crashers to know I'm not interested in watching the rest, but it's neither insufferable nor condemnable. Of course, I didn't list it on my journal.
*29 Palms has risen to #8 on my Netflix queue. I will post on the Dumont thread after I watch it.

Friday August 12th

L'Eclisse (Italy, 1962) on dvd
We meet Vittoria (Monica Vitti) the morning after she decides to break her relationship with live-in boyfriend Riccardo (Francisco Rabal). She goes to the Borsa (Roma's Stock Exchange), where she knows she can find her petite-bourgeoise mother. It's a chaotic day at the Borsa, with many investors losing money. Vittoria meets Piero (Alain Delon), her mother's stockbroker. The film then alternates between their points of view: Vittoria visits a friend, a white Kenyan who has recently moved to Rome; Piero deals with despondent clients, cancels a date with a call girl. L'Eclisse then focuses on Piero's conquest of Vittoria and her ambivalent response_ a chilling poem of absence and desire.
The brilliant mise-en-scene of the Borsa sequences evidence Antonioni's background as a documentarian. The outdoors scenes_filmed in a new Roman suburb_effectively dramatize the influence of environment or milieu on characters, a specialty of Antonioni. The highly suggestive, wordless, final scene, included in Scorsese's brilliant My Voyage to Italy, represents the pinnacle of Italian cinema. It begs to be seen repeatedly. L'Eclisse is a masterpiece.

[Chris Knipp]

One would think it was obvious that watching a film "with an open mind" would require watching the whole thing. Oh, well, I give up.

Which Antonioni film do you think is best and how do you think L'Eclisse relates to the rest of his whole œuvre?

[oscar jubis]

Saturday August 13th

Cronicas (Ecuador/Mexico, 2004) at SoBe Regal
I approached the second film written and directed by Sebastian Cordero with trepidation. Cordero's debut, Ratas, Ratones, Rateros, was yet another movie that exploits the seedy side of urban Latin America for cheap genre thrills. This time the Ecuadorian filmmaker leaves Quito for Babahoyo, a small, impoverished town where the corpses of several children have been dug out bearing signs of torture and rape. The murders have been linked to others in nearby towns. The sorrow and anxiety are palpable in Babahoyo, as police conduct a frantic search for "el monstruo". Except for the opening scene (which assertively identifies a possible suspect), these events are shown from the perspective of a three-person TV crew from Miami; most specifically, from the point of view of TV personality Manolo Bonilla (John Leguizamo).Manolo, who switches between Spanish and English like the prototypical Miamian, witnesses Vinicio (Damian Alcazar) accidentally run-over a kid and saves him from a lynching mob. Subsequently, there are several conversations between Manolo and Vinicio, set in the town's jail, which revolve around Manolo advocating for Vinicio in exchange for information that may lead to "el monstruo". These exchanges crackle with an intensity reminiscent of similar scenes from Giuseppe Tornatore's A Pure Formality.
Both Alcazar and Leguizamo give very good performances. Alcazar is becoming increasingly recognizable to American viewers, who've seen him in Herod's Law and The Crime of Padre Amaro. Mr. Alcazar has won five Mexican Academy awards and has been nominated three other times. I've enjoyed his acting in Mexican films Bajo California and Arturo Ripstein's La Mujer del Puerto and a new Spanish film titled Hector. But the protagonist here is Leguizamo's Manolo and Cronicas is less about whodunit than about his decision to withhold information from the cops and the ensuingconsequences.
Cronicas breaks no new ground artistically and thematically, and a romantic subplot involving Manolo and his producer(Leonor Watling) feels like an afterthought. But there's plenty of reasons to recommend Cronicas: the masterfully staged lynching sequence, outstanding use of location shooting, the performances of Leguizamo and Alcazar, the sustained rhythm and pacing of the plot, and the realistic consideration of journalistic ethics.

[oscar jubis]

Sunday August 14th

Such a Gorgeous Kid Like Me (France, 1972) import dvd
The gorgeous kid is Camille Bliss (Bernadette Lafont), who is in jail for murder and tells her life story to Stanislas, a timid sociologist working on a thesis titled "Criminal Women". Such a Gorgeous Kid Like Me is a fast-paced farce from Francoise Truffaut, the only one of his films not available on video in the USA and the only one I hadn't seen. Roger Ebert called it "the first Truffaut film I haven't liked" when it premiered in 1973, because of it being "predictable" and its heroine "shallow". Ebert has a point, this film feels like a trifle. But seen in the context of Truffaut's filmography, Such a Gorgeous Kid Like Me acquires some resonance. This is the third of his films about a woman admired by five males. In fact, Ms. Lafont was the first of Truffaut's objects of male desire_in the short Les Mistons (1958), in which she was the subject of adoration and contempt for five prepubescent boys.Such a Gorgeous Kid Like Me is her comic revenge on five males, adults only in appearance. Camille Bliss may also be the most sexually liberated of all Truffaut's heroines, and the one most in control of her destiny and the men buzzing around her.

36 Quai des Orfevres (France, 2004) import dvd
"Policier" by cop-turned-director Olivier Marchal, inspired by real life events. The retiring police chief (Andre Dussolier) challenges the heads of two police departments to break the case of a gang that specializes in armored truck robberies. The rivalry between Vrinks (Daniel Auteil) and Klein (Gerard Depardieu), which goes beyond the professional into the personal realm, becomes the focus of the film. A plot contrivance or two fail to derail this solid genre flick. 36 Quai pays homage to the tradition of French crime movies, for instance, by naming a key character after Belmondo's protagonist in Melville's Le Doulos. Besides that, 36 Quai could've been made in Hollywood or Hong Kong which, given the genre, is a compliment.

[Johann]

Huge thanks for the info on "Such a Kid". I've been trying to track it down for quite a while. Curious how you found it. Import from?


Truffaut is a director who has immortal status. I discovered him in 1997 with The 400 Blows, a film that Jim Morrison worshipped. (Jim Morrison is responsible for my vast cinema knowledge. If it wasn't for my religious devotion to the Lizard King I would still be watching Rambo and Batman ad nauseum)


He's just as personal as Godard.
I love the fact that Truffaut & Godard were film critics who felt that the medium needed new voices, new directions. They realized that "doing it yourself" was the only way to ensure that quality cinema still existed. They were brave, in a way, because if you've never made a film and you proclaim to be a critic with "the right perspective", then you run a very high risk of failing miserably. Godard & Truffaut had the balls to be fearless and true to their visions. And cinema history shows how perfect that was, how the efforts were definitely needed. Without Breathless we wouldn't have the types of films we have today. Sorry but anyone who doesn't realize Godard is like Thomas Edison in terms of technique doesn't know anything about movies.

Truffaut's filmography is towering. I don't know who I love more- Him, Varda or Godard. Fahrenheit 451 is so evocative to me- like a hypnotic dream.

The Wild Child, Jules and Jim and Shoot The Piano Player are undeniable classics.

I'm waiting for the annoucement of a Truffaut retro at the PC.

[oscar jubis]

Nice post! The 400 Blows and Shoot the Piano Player are universally beloved. I also happen to be a fan of The Wild Child, Story of Adele H. and the morbid The Green Room. Jules et Jim IS an undeniable classic, yet I only enjoy some of its scenes. As a whole I found it a bit repetitive. Just my subjective reaction to the film.
Here's the info on the disc: Such a Gorgeous Kid Like Me (http://www.nicheflix.com/movie_details.aspx?movieID=6876)

[Chris Knipp]

Perhaps you are a bit too young to have appreciated the magic of Jules et Jim when it first appeared. It's whole method seemed wholly original at the time, the story was original, and Jeanne Moreau (who'd been in stodgy solemn or conventional stuff before this) suddenly burst from the screen with her embodiment of a free spirited woman. "I only enjoy some of its scenes" is sad to read. But it just shows what I think, which is that movies date rapidly. Shoot the Piano Player is, to me now years later, perhaps the more remarkable, but still Jules et Jim was more thrilling when it was new.

[oscar jubis]

Only those who watched Jules et Jim and Breathless when they came out can fully experience how they changed cinema, just like none of us can fully understand how Eisenstein's Strike and Potemkin did the same thing. But I'm not convinced any of them has "dated". I would argue that none of these classics has dated any more than Joyce's "Ulysses" or a Chopin composition. Then again, at a personal, subjective level, I cannot deny that, ever since my first viewing of Jules in the late 70s, I experience a loss of interest in the characters and their game of romantic musical chairs somewhere past the one hour mark. The film's first hour is extremely "magical" and yes, thrilling. This is where you'll find the cigarrette trick performed by Jules' girlfriend filmed in a 360-degree pan, the cuts and pans that link Catherine to a statue the men love, the race sequence along a bridge; the irises and wipes Truffaut uses to recall the cinema of the period in which Jules et Jim is set, and other wonderful moments. Later the camera becomes more static, and the behaviors of the trio repeat patterns that became tiresome to me.

[Johann]

I agree totally on the "dating" thing.

After seeing Jules et Jim as many times as I have, you do lose some interest in the trio for sure. But it's spirit will always live on.

The sense of freedom, the carefree air of life, that song, the beauty of it is just perfect.
Jules and Jim is even more free-spirited than Breathless.
(Breathless is much more edgy).


I still can't believe Truffaut starred in Spielberg's Close Encounters. My guess is that Francois liked Jaws?

[Chris Knipp]

Good comments, to which I can add nothing. I think the reason why film does date more than music or fiction is the photographic images, which contain a time capsule of fashion, etc. -- such that the "period" flavor itself dates, i.e., the men's haircuts of a Seventies movie supposed to be set in the 1890's suddenly begin to look 1976, etc. But if it's a great movie of course that hopefully doesn't date. However when you're talking about Joyce or Chopin you're talking about great genius and unique style.

[oscar jubis]

Originally posted by Johann
I still can't believe Truffaut starred in Spielberg's Close Encounters.

The key to his casting on Spielberg's movie rests on another film you brought into the discussion: The Wild Child. Truffaut's performance as Dr. Itard in that film, his first substantial role, concerns Itard's efforts to communicate with Victor, a child alienated from civilization. This theme of communication is of special interest to Truffaut. His Lacombe, in Close Encounters, is a scientist who directs an international effort to communicate with extraterrestrials. He is a very likable, heroic character.The irony is that Lacombe finds a way to communicate directly to the aliens whereas he often needs a translator to communicate with fellow humans.

[Johann]

This is why you are so vital to this site oscar.

[Chris Knipp]

I'm surprised you didn't comment on the use of the name Lacombe.

[oscar jubis]

+ Gracias por the kind words Johann.
+ My sole cinematic reference is the titular character of a Louis Malle movie. I think "la combe" means "the valley". You tell us, CK.

Monday August 15th

Swing Time (USA,1936) on TCM
Nice score by Jerome Kern, including great songs like Oscar-winner "The Way You Look Tonight". Absolutely awesome dancing numbers featuring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. But the story is utterly lame, which becomes immediately obvious because there's no dancing or singing during the interminable first 25 minutes of the picture. Go ahead, shoot me.

The Mad Songs of Fernanda Hussein (USA, 2001) dvd
A classic example of true independent, regional filmmaking. Just under 3 hours long, John Giavito's labour of love combines documentary segments with three fictional stories set in New Mexico during the Gulf War. The titular character is a Mexican-American whose kids become victims of anti-Arab hatred while her husband has returned to his native Egypt because no one wants to hire him. The second story concerns a pacifist teenage boy who's angry at his dad's politics and frustrated about the failure of his activism to change people's attitudes. The third story concerns a veteran who returns from Iraq with physical and psychological scars. These stories make ample use of footage of actual pro and anti-war demonstrations, welcome parades, and TV coverage of the war. The documentary segments include several melodious songs by Iraqi activist Naseer Shamma, performed on a string instrument called "oud", information and footage of the effects of the US bombing campaign on Iraqi women and children, and a montage of unbelievably sadistic pro-war paraphernilia (a substantial portion aimed at children). The fictional segments are careful to depict in detail typical New Mexican environments, particular desert landscapes not unlike those found in theatre-of-war locations in the Middle East. The Mad Songs of Fernanda Hussein uses non-actors which is, at times, apparent. Moreover, the film leaves no doubt as to its stance regarding US intervention outside our borders. You'd have to look elsewhere for contrasting points of view. The Mad Songs of Fernanda Hussein is an inspired denunciation of racial hatred, nationalism, and militarism in the USA; I love it for that.
Production Notes:THE MAD SONGS OF FERNANDA HUSSEIN (http://villagevoice.com/news/o222,film,35190,1.html)

[Chris Knipp]

The Mad Songs of Fernanda Hussein

Is this available via Netflix? (I tried to check, but they're once again down--which seems to happen a bit too often.)

Lacombe I thought it would be a reference to Malle's Lacombe, Lucien. Just shown at the Pacific Film Archive.

[oscar jubis]

Yes, Fernanda is available via Netflix.
No relation bet. Malle's film and Truffaut's Claude Lacombe.

[Chris Knipp]

I had my dates confused. Claude came before Lucien.

[oscar jubis]

Tuesday August 16

Memories of Murder (South Korea, 2003) DVD
The second film from director Joon-ho Bong (Barking Dogs Never Bite) was a commercial and critical success, earning awards for Best Film, Best Director and Best Actor from the prolific Korean film industry. Memories of Murder is based on a series of bizarre and brutal murders of women which took place in a semi-rural burg in 1986, while South Korea was governed by the Chun dictatorship. The film centers on the investigation from the point of view of local cops and one that comes from Seoul to volunteer his services. The scope of the film can be illustrated by the FIPRESCI award it received at the San Sebastian Film Festival for "giving new insight into the roots of political repression in a dictatorship under the guise of the hunt for a serial killer". Mind you, Memories of Murder is full of suspense and comedic asides, but still manages, at the edges, to provide a type of state-of-the-nation commentary. Memories of Murder had a limited release in the US on June 24th but it's already available on dvd. I wish I could refer to the plot, in order to make some critical observations, without spoiling your enjoyment. The film boasts excellent production values. It has also received very good reviews in North America and I guarantee you'll agree that it's at least worth a rental. Enough said.

[Chris Knipp]

A year or so ago you sent me a list of Korean movies you recommended. They were very hard to find, and only on video. Are more of them now available on DVD, and do you have any new recommendations. So far as I've seen, Korean movies seem to be more remarkable for their violence and extremism than for anything else. The more unconventional ones, like Oldboy, are fun though. The war stories are a bit of a bore.

[trevor826]

Chris, would you like the names of some good/interesting Korean films? I can't vouch for their general availability, certainly not in the US but ones that you might want to keep a look out for.

Cheers Trev.

[oscar jubis]

Originally posted by Chris Knipp
A year or so ago you sent me a list of Korean movies you recommended. Are more of them now available on DVD

Suddenly many recent Korean movies have come out on dvd in the US, but not necessarily the best.
The biggest beneficiary is Mr. Ki-duk Kim. The Isle, Bad Guy, Spring, Summer, Fall... and Samaritan Girl are all available now. He has a unique vision or "world-view", problem is there's something truly fucked-up about it. Dude can be simultaneously exploitative and priggish, like a voyeur with an exaggerated sense of guilt. It's hard to explain because I'm still trying to figure it out, but it seems to stem from his take on female sexuality. Thing is that I've enjoyed, to some extent, everyone of his films.
Others recently out on dvd: the political thriller Joint Security Area, the black comedy The Quiet Family, and Untold Scandal, a retelling of "Dangerous Liasons" I liked a lot.

do you have any new recommendations.
Lamentably I haven't seen a great Korean film since I sent you that list. (Untold Scandal and Memories of Murder would be the two I recommend. I also liked Oasis but I think you've seen it already.)
Tale of Two Sisters was more confused than anything else.
Camel(s) was undernourished.
Avoid a movie titled Eunjangdo.
Save the Green Planet, Happy End, and This Charming Girl are the next Koreans on my "To Watch" list. I've been been planning another viewing of the wonderful romance One Fine Spring Day, a personal fave.

So far as I've seen, Korean movies seem to be more remarkable for their violence and extremism. The more unconventional ones, like Oldboy, are fun though.

Perhaps, you'd also enjoy the previous film from the director of Oldboy. It's titled Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance and even though it's on dvd everywhere, it will finally get a theatrical release (limited) in America tomorrow from Tartan USA. I assume they will release it on dvd real soon.

[Chris Knipp]

I will take note of all these, and trevor, please do give any additional recommendations you have besides those already mentioned here. I have got to see Kim Ki-duk's other stuff, no doubt about it, but I have to tell you all, that I've got a Netflix queue a mile long now and it's 95% French films.

The fact is that a lot of the more interesting films of the past remain only on tape and will remain so.

[trevor826]

I'd certainly go along with Untold Scandal and Memories of Murder, I can also recommend Happy End, excellent underplayed film making, same goes for Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, in my opinion a far superior film compared to Oldboy.

Save the Green Planet is truly out-there, it's one of those oddities you'll love or hate and This Charming Girl and Failan are on my must see list.

Other recommendations:

The Surrogate Womb aka The Surrogate Woman.
Virgin Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors
Woman Is the Future of Man
Take Care of My Cat
3-Iron
Samaritan Girl
Birdcage Inn
Holiday in Seoul (even though it's a rip of "Chungking Express")
Tears - Hard hitting teen drama.
Spider Forest

+ others already listed by Oscar.

Christmas in August and Harmonium in my Memory are said to be very good as well but I won't know for sure till next week.


For something light:

Love Wind Love Song
Ditto
The Way Home
My Beautiful Girl, Mari - animated
Oseam - animated

I did have a lot of reviews that disappeared when foreignfilms.com was virtually wiped out.

There are a hell of a lot of fair to average horror films as well as some truly awful ones but I have no idea if you watch these.

I personally like a lot of Kim ki-duk's films but I can certainly understand why they would upset a lot of people, I had very mixed emotions after seeing The Isle.

Anyway I'm sure that's enough for now, it would be just as easy to list the films to avoid simply because they are awful but it's always more pleasurable to recommend the good.

Cheers Trev.

[Chris Knipp]

Thank you I'll print these lists out for future reference. Sorry your reviews were lost. Don't you keep backups on your computer? I'd do that if I were you.

[trevor826]

Thanks Chris. I learned too late but I do save all my reviews and more detailed comments now.

Cheers Trev.

[oscar jubis]

*I am very interested in Trevor's review of Jin-ho Hur's Christmas in August(will you post it exclusively at foreignfilms?). I've just learned it has finally become available on dvd here! Both Christmas and Hur's A Fine Spring Day are character-rich, melancholic romances of the highest quality.
*On the other hand, none of Sang-soo Hong's films are available in N.America. Another director with a unique take on relationships. I reviewed Turning Gate (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=2650#post2650). Other titles include two recommended by Trevor:Virgin Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors and Woman is the Future... (not as good as the other two IMO).
*Here's an older post on South Korean Cinema (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=1758#post1758).
*Huge fan of My Beautiful Girl Mari but it's animated CK. Looks like a double recommendation for Memories and Scandal, both at netflix.

[trevor826]

I'll copy some of my comments on Korean films over from foreignfilms.com and post future reviews on both sites. I'm looking forward to seeing Christmas in August but am more concerned about Harmonium in my Memory as this is the third or fourth release date it's had.

Cheers Trev.

[hengcs]

Originally posted by oscar jubis

Memories of Murder (South Korea, 2003) DVD


I HIGHLY recommend the film ...

-- Throughout the investigation, it also challenged the scientific vs intuition approach ... which is still contentious even in today's world ...
-- The ending, while based on real life ending, was also thought provoking ...

[hengcs]

Originally posted by oscar jubis

... and Untold Scandal, a retelling of "Dangerous Liasons" I liked a lot.
... I also liked Oasis but I think you've seen it already....

oh no ...

But I really do not like UNTOLD SCANDAL (except for the costumes), somehow I like the Hollywood 1988 version better ...

I HIGHLY recommend OASIS ...

[hengcs]

Originally posted by trevor826
My Beautiful Girl, Mari - animated
Oseam - animated


Hey trevor,
did you finally watch these 2 animations?
I thought no one else watched OSEAM ...
(I kept recommending in foreignfilms.com last time)
I knew some would watch My Beautiful Girl, Mari

Anyway, for those who did not know,
-- My Beautiful Girl, Mari received Cristal d'Annecy at Annecy International Animation Festival 2002 .
-- OSEAM received Cristal d'Annecy at Annecy International Animation Festival 2004.
;)

[Chris Knipp]

But I really do not like UNTOLD SCANDAL (except for the costumes), somehow I like the Hollywood 1988 version better ... That "Hollywood" version (I'd not speak of it that way, with the English director working from an English play using French locations) may be the best one of the Choderlos de Laclos epistolary novel Les Liaisons dangereuses (in my opinion it almost is), but you have to see the other ones too, including the 1959 French one (Roger Vadim) with Jeanne Moreau; Milos Forman's 1989 Valmont; the witty 1999 teenager version Cruel Intentions with Ryan Philippe and Reese Witherspoon; and even the somewhat kitsch recent glossy TV miniseries (Josee Dayan, 2003) with Ruppert Everett and Catherine Deneuve. Reading the thorough Wikipedia rundown on the book and its adaptations (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Liaisons_dangereuses), I see there was a 1980 (Claude Barma) French TV version too. There may be others... In fact, this is an excellent opportunity to study the art of adaptation. I'll have to see the new Korean version some time. But I'll still probably agree with hengcs's preference of Stephen Frears's very happy 1988 adaptation of Christopher Hampton's play. Of all the Korean stuff you've all mentioned, in fact, this is the one that most appeals to me to check out, apart from Kim Ki-duk's and Park Chan-wook's other movies besides the ones I've seen.

[oscar jubis]

I planned to watch the first three films directed by Bela Tarr (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=6346#post6346) in chronological order but I started with his second.

Wed. August 17th

The Outsider (Hungary, 1981) dvd
Andras is a man in his 20s who was raised in an institution after his father emigrated to Canada (no mention is made of his mother). He has a brother, and a baby son from his ex-girlfriend. Andras trained as violinist at a Conservatory but never graduated. He enjoys playing at the pub and at social functions. He gets fired from his job as an attendant at a psychiatric clinic but quickly finds employment at a factory. He meets a pretty girl at the pub and eventually marries her. Even though she also works, they experience financial difficulties that threaten their relationship. Andras' wife is especially upset at his "lack of ambition" and his insistence on paying full child support. The life experiences of Andras are seen as representative of the struggles of the common worker in Hungary. Through him, Tarr introduces many of the residents of a small town during the communist era. Tarr also takes pleasure in depicting the town's culture through pub conversations and musical performances. This is Tarr's first color film; the style is characterized by long takes and closeups, with the camera relatively static (particularly when compared to the slow panning that would later become characteristic). At this stage of his career, Tarr's aim was to focus exclusively on "social problems" through careful observation and attention to character and environment.

[oscar jubis]

Thursday August 18th

Francesco, Guillare de Dio aka The Flowers of St. Francis (Italy, 1950) import dvd

"Things are there. Why manipulate them?"
Robert Rossellini

Rossellini practically invented Italian neorealism with his war trilogy (Rome Open City, Paisa, Germania Anno Zero). As a matter of fact, Rome, Open City is as much of a landmark film as Eisenstein's Strike, Bunuel's Un Chien Andalou, Rouch's Moi, un Noir and Godard's Breathless, all highly influential films that showed a revolutionarily new way of making movies. Francesco is Rossellini's first period film (medieval times) but it's as simple, austere and naturalistic as possible, well within the school of neorealism. It concerns several episodes in the life of St. Francis of Assisi and his followers. Rossellini cast real monks, who don't get credited individually in the titles. The only actor in the cast is Aldo Fabrizi as Nicolaio, the Tyrant. Francesco gradually gains resonance through acute observation of the daily routines of Francis and the monks and their encounters with a variety of individuals. The film culminates in a poignant scene in which they decide to separate to spread their message. The excellent script is a collaboration between the director, Federico Fellini, and two priests.
I watched Francesco on a dvd released by Masters of Cinema in the UK. The Criterion edition being released tuesday will feature the same restored print.

Family Nest (Hungary, 1979) dvd
Bela Tarr's early filmography has been compared to the work of John Cassavetes, but for me the strongest association is with Ken Loach's films like Cathy Come Home and Ladybird, Ladybird. It's gritty, social realism about family dysfunction and how it is exacerbated by socio-political forces (in this case, primarily but not exclusively, shortage of housing). Family Nest focuses on a young family. Laci returns from two years of military service to the extremely tense atmosphere of the small apartment where his parents, brother, sister, wife Iren and daughter are forced to cohabitate. Laci's lecherous, alcoholic father is relentlessly critical and abusive towards Iren. He accuses her of adultery. Laci, who also has a drinking problem, is caught in the middle. He's careful not to contradict his father because they depend on him economically. After a heated argument, Iren is practically forced to leave even though it's made apparent she and Laci still love each other. A heartbreaking, engaging debut.

[oscar jubis]

Friday August 19th

Alexandria...Why? (Egypt/Algeria, 1978) dvd

Youssef Chahine had almost 30 years of experience as a writer/actor/director when he started working on his autobiographical Alexandria Trilogy. This is the first of the three films, a winner of a Special Jury Prize at Berlin, set during the World War II. The protagonist is Yehia, who goes to a British high school and loves Shakespeare and Hollywood musicals. He comes from A Christian middle-class family experiencing economic problems. His father is a Paris-educated lawyer with communist leanings who wants him to be an engineer. Unlike his friends, Yehia shows no interest in women, devoting most of his time to watch movies, put on theatrical shows, and experiment with a rudimentary camera. He dreams of coming to California to study filmmaking but has to accept a job as a bank teller out of necessity. Yehia is Chahine's alter ego and the center of a film that somehow juggles a multiplicity of narrative threads. There's a rich young uncle who belongs to a nationalist group and carries acts of violence against foreigners. Once, he kidnaps a naive British soldier and ends up falling in love with him. There's a love story involving a Muslim and a Jewish girl whose family is forced to emigrate because of fear of a Nazi takeover. There's a subplot involving a war profiteer, the father of Yehia's best friend. And much more.
Alexandria...Why? is a fast paced film that jumps from one subplot to another breathlessly, and changes tone at the drop of a hat. There are parts that incorporate theatrical conventions and others that utilize documentary footage, and often these are juxtaposed. It's an exhilarating, taboo-breaking, exuberant and sometimes sloppy film. And I will never forget the visual gag that closes the film with a bang, a stunt which may or may not have symbolic significance.

[Chris Knipp]

Thanks for the reminder about this which I should probably have myself. Did you buy or rent? Ditto on the Bela Tarr?

[oscar jubis]

*I am watching the first three films from Bela Tarr. I will watch the third tomorrow. I rented all three from Netflix.
*I am watching Chahine's Alexandria trilogy. I'll watch the next two soon. I own all three on dvd.

[Chris Knipp]

Thanks. I am ordering the Alexandria Trilogy for myself.

[oscar jubis]

The three dvds together sell for $41.99 at deepdiscountdvd. Shipping included.

[oscar jubis]

Sat August 20th

James Stewart marathon on Turner Classic Movies. It's just as important to point out that three films below, not including the Capra film, were lensed by one of the greatest of Hollywood cinematographers: William Daniels. Greed was the first of a long list of distinguished films in which he worked.

Thunder Bay (USA, 1953)
Anthony Mann and James Stewart was one of the great partnerships in film history, but Thunder Bay is not great, not at the level of the five Westerns they made. The main reason is the story. Stewart and Dan Duryea play oilmen who manage to get an investor to finance the construction of an oil rig off the coast of a gulf town. The locals make a living fishing shrimp. The film minimizes environmental concerns in risible, dishonest fashion. I expected a happy ending, but this is too much, a joyously ecstatic ending in which every character's dream comes true. It's still Mann-Stewart-Daniels though, and it's fun to watch.

Night Passage (USA, 1957)
This was supposed to be the 6th Mann-Stewart western, after Winchester '73, Bend of the River, The Naked Spur, The Far Country and The Man from Laramie, but Mann bailed out at the last minute reportedly because he didn't like the script. Thankfully, the excellent cast and crew stayed because the script is not bad. It just lacks the moral ambiguities and behavioral ambivalence that characterize those awesome five Mann-Stewart-Daniels westerns. Shot in Colorado in Widescreen Technicolor.

You Can't Take it With You (USA, 1938)
This film resulted in Frank Capra's third Oscar for Best Director. It also won Best Picture. It's another anti-elitist, big business vs. the common man plot that Capra favored. It is also more sentimental and conformist than the source Pulitzer-winning play by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart. It's funny and entertaining enough to recommend and the cast is uniformly good, but definitely not the best film of 1938.

The Shop Around the Corner (USA, 1940)
Ernst Lubitsch purchased the rights to a Hungarian stage play named Parfumerie about the relationships between the employees of a Budapest store. MGM agreed to finance it if Lubitsch'd agree to direct Ninotchka first, because Cukor had withdrawn from that film just as shooting was scheduled to commence. Lubitsch turned both films into gold. The Shop Around the Corner is a witty and visually splendid ensembler devoid of contrivance and cheap sentimentality. The arc of the relationship between the characters played by Jimmy Stewart and Margaret Sullivan is depicted with great attention to detail. The obvious chemistry between them certainly didn't hurt the picture. A Must See. Perhaps a masterpiece among witty, urbane, Hollywood romances.

[Chris Knipp]

The three dvds together sell for $41.99 at deepdiscountdvd. Shipping included What a good deal!

[oscar jubis]

Ain't it? Reliable too, but don't expect fast shipping for free. There's a shipping surcharge if you want that.

Sunday August 23rd

The Prefab People (Hungary, 1982) dvd
Unlike the miserable young couples in Tarr's first two films, the couple in his third feature cannot blame the state or society for their misery. The husband has a good job while the wife stays atheir (relatively) nice apartment with their two sons. They have psychological and relationship problems, not unlike couples in capitalist societies.
That's all I feel comfortable saying about The Prefab People. The reason is that the film is 102 minutes long but the dvd version released by Facets Video is advertised at a mere 80 minutes. In actuality, the timer on my dvd player marked 76 minutes and 16 seconds by the film's end. Conclusion: there are 22-26 minutes of the Prefab People missing from the version made available on dvd by Facets.

The Gang of Four (France, 1988) dvd
Perhaps the best, and decidedly the most challenging, of the five Jacques Rivette films I've seen in 2005 (Histoire de Marie et Julien (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=11035#post11035), Va Savoir (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=11565#post11565), Secret Defense (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=10794#post10794), the short Le Coup du Berger).
Cecile, one of the four 20-something women sharing in a suburban home, is moving out, ostensibly to live with her boyfriend. Lucia, a girl from Portugal whose parents think she's studying science, will take Cecile's room. All five are students in Constance's theatre acting class. Rivette sets most of Gang of Four at the suburban home and the theatre, including long takes of the women rehearsing scenes by Marivaux and Euripedes. There's a mystery man who engineers to meet each woman separately using different aliases to extract information regarding Cecile and something she hid in the house. We become increasingly aware of something criminal and sinister involving Cecile's never-seen boyfriend but the details are purposefully obscured to implicate the viewer in the unease-verging-on-paranoia experienced by the gang. The film paints detailed, nuanced pictures of the four women, depicts the process of acquiring acting skills and how reality bleeds into performance, and sketches a vague, creepy mystery with some surprising turns. I'd have to re-watch Gang of Four to draw parallels between the scenes on stage and the rest, assuming they exist. Cast includes Bernadette Giraud, Laurence Cote, Fejria Deliba, Bulle Ogier, Ines de Medeiros, and Nathalie Richard. Like most Rivette films, Gang of Four is over 2 1/2 hours long and not meant for cut-to-the-chase types.

[Chris Knipp]

Conclusion: there are 22-26 minutes of the Prefab People missing from the version made available on dvd by Facets.
Why do you think that would be?
including long takes of the women rehearsing scenes by Marivaux and Euripedes. Sounds reminiscent of Va Savoir in varous ways.

[oscar jubis]

*My guess is that the folks at Facets didn't realize that the source print of The Prefab People they transferred to dvd was "mutilated". It's also possible they made some type of a technical mistake. I know from three different sources that the original film length is 102 minutes.

*Although Va Savoir is significantly less daring and challenging than Gang of Four, there are strong similarities. Notice how both focus on a character obsessively searching for a lost object. In Va Savoir, it's spelled out from the beginning that the object is a lost text by 18th century playwright Goldini. It takes much longer for the viewer of Gang of Four to realize Thomas is looking for a key to a safe.
Va Savoir is also reminiscent of Gang of Four because of scenes in which characters are rehearsing or performing theatrical scenes. Often we learn something about the film's character from his/her performing a scene from a play. Moreover, it appears that the content of the play or the specific scene being rehearsed has a relation to the plot of the film itself. (How exactly the play-within-the-film and the film itself are related is never obvious or explicit).
Like I wrote, the "gang" is rehearsing Marivaux and Euripedes and Va Savoir's Camille and Ugo are rehearsing Pirandello's "As You Desire Me" . This is a trademark of Jacques Rivette that harks back to his first feature, Paris nous appartient, in which a lit student joins a troupe rehearsing Shakespeare's "Pericles" to investigate a mysterious death. In Spectre, there are two different groups performing plays by Aeschylus: "Prometheus Bound" and "Seven Against Thebes". In Celine and Julie Go Boating, there's a Victorian melodrama being performed inside the haunted house the titular characters visit separately. This inter-textuality, typical of Rivette and not limited to theatrical references, would be an interesting thesis subject.

[Chris Knipp]

This inter-textuality, typical of Rivette and not limited to theatrical references, would be an interesting thesis subject.Almost too obvious, perhaps, but certainly something we as Rivette-watchers need to be aware of. As unfortunately happens quite often, my knowledge of this director doesn't include his entire œuvre or I'd probably have considered this point too obvious to note. The first paragraph of www.frenchculture.org's page on Rivette is as follows:
Jacques Rivette is the first of the Cahiers du Cinéma critics to direct a feature, and at age 73 he is still making films that challenge our perception of cinema and life, and the intersection of the two. Rivette frequently uses a work of theatre at the heart of his films (from Shakespeare's Pericles in Paris Belongs to Us to Pirandello's As You Desire Me in Va Savoir, and a continuing theme in his work is the conflict between "fictional" theatre and "real" life. The subject matter is often the process of creation itself-often rehearsal or artmaking (as in La Belle noiseuse). Rivette's style is marked by his willingness to make use of improvisation and to experiment with structure. The result is films that are intelligent, unpredictable, and, as Dave Kehr wrote, "animated by a sense of play---of fantasy, freedom, and wonder." .


The French Culture.com page on Rivette is here (http://www.frenchculture.org/cinema/festival/rivette/) .

[oscar jubis]

Good summary of Rivette's career and major themes.
What I had in mind was a detailed attempt to answer the question of the rationale behind the selection of the plays (and the specific scenes from those plays) in relation to the films' plots and characters. This would require a great deal of thought and analysis of both films and plays.
My study of Rivette continues with his version of Wuthering Heigths, probably Saturday or Sunday, along with more Chahine.

[Chris Knipp]

What I had in mind was a detailed attempt to answer the question of the rationale behind the selection of the plays (and the specific scenes from those plays) in relation to the films' plots and characters. This would require a great deal of thought and analysis of both films and plays. It would, and that would be an obvious academic approach. That was all I meant, not that it was to be avoided -- though in general I'm not too fond of academic writing -- but that it was inevitable that this should be done and I'd be surprised if it hasn't begun already.

I'd rather hear you talk about it in your film class than read about it in some dry thesis.

[oscar jubis]

Fair enough :)
Monday Aug. 24th

Mysterious Skin (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=12536#post12536) (USA, 2004)

[Chris Knipp]

I saw that, but have not thought of anything to say.

[oscar jubis]

Tuesday August 25th

Intolerance (USA, 1916) dvd
It has been called "greatest of all time" and "still ahead of its time today" decades after it flopped at the box office. Intolerance, at 2 million 1916 dollars, it would be considered the most expensive film ever made, with its thousands of extras and its mamoth sets. No doubt, it's quite spectacular. Yet, what makes Intolerance one of the most ambitious movies ever made is D.W. Griffith daring to tell four thematically linked stories simultaneously, in parallel action: 1) the enmity between Belshazzar of Babylon and Cyrus the Persian with culminates with the fall of Babylon (the most awesome set ever built for a motion picture bar none), 2) A biblical story of the betrayal and crucifixion of Jesus, 3) a story of the massacre of Protestants engineered by Catherine de Medici in 16th century France, and 4) a contemporary story based on the Ludlow Massacre of striking workers at a factory owned by John D. Rockefeller and the hanging of an innocent man.The film's subtitle is "Love's Struggle Through the Ages" and is linked by shots of a woman (Lillian Gish) rocking the cradle of civilization. As Intolerance progresses, Griffith cut more rapidly from story to story to emphasize the common elements between the stories. The final scenes evidence extremely fluid editing_from Cyrus' chariots racing to destroy Babylon to Catherine's troops about to massacre the Huguenots, to the condemned man walking to the gallows, long shot to long shot, closeup to closeup in a pounding rhythm. One of the most thrilling and devastating endings in the history of cinema.

[Chris Knipp]

But what does it all mean?

[oscar jubis]

*Back after three days without electricity due to Katrina. Three most uncomfortable days, especially at night. Despite 9 deaths in South Florida, we were lucky she was a category 1-2 Hurricane when she passed by my neighborhood. My thoughts are with folks from the city of New Orleans. Good Luck.

*Back to cinema. The answer to Chris' question is the simple, obvious one. All Intolerance means is that human being lack of tolerance for others (their views, their rights, etc.) has been a constant cause of pain and suffering throughout history. No matter how much knowledge we gather, no matter how advanced our technology, we can't seem to learn how to reduce the pain and suffering we inflict on ourselves because of intolerance and greed. It's a simple idea but it's spectacularly and elaborately dramatized.

*I 'd like to highlight two wonderful performances by female actors I didn't mention: Mae Marsh, as a young woman whose husband is framed, jailed, and sentenced to death while her baby son is removed from her custody. An amazingly varied effective performance from an actress I had failed to recognize before. A totally different type of performance was delivered by Constance Talmadge in the Babylon episode as "The Mountain Girl", a buoyant, physical performance that would please fans of Errol Flynn. Talmadge was still in her teens when she appeared in Intolerance and had a prolific career until the end of the silent era.

[oscar jubis]

Wed. August 26th

Leaves from Satan's Book (Denmark, 1921) dvd
Carl Theodor Dreyer was inspired to create this anthology film after watching Intolerance. He obviously didn't have a $2 million budget to build huge, monumentals sets. Dreyer opted not to attempt to revolutionize narrative structure so, unlike Griffith's film, each of his four stories comes to a conclusion before the start of the next one. As the title implies, what binds them is the fallen angel himself, as a doomed character that takes many guises in order to influence human behavior at four different historical stages. Satan adopts the guise of a pharisee who tempts Judas to betray Jesus in the first story. Then he is the Great Inquisitor in 16th century Seville pressuring a monk to oversee the horrific fate of the woman he secretly loves and her virtuous father. The third story takes us to 1793 Paris and revolves around a servant who is inducted into the Jacobins and breaks a promise he made to Marie Antoinette. The final story takes place during the Russo-Finnish war of 1918 and concerns the machinations of a Russian monk to condemn a rural family to death because of alleged collaboration with the White counter-revolutionaries. The film anticipates both the thematic concerns and stylistic idiosyncracies of Carl Theodor Dreyer (Ordet, Vampyr, Gertrude). The centrality of female victims within the narrative and the power of religious hypocrites to do evil in the name of God are highlighted. Dreyer's masterful use of closeups and impressionistic lighting were already quite evident in this picture.

[Chris Knipp]

Thanks for the further detail about how the theme plays out in Griffith's Intolerance.

[Johann]

Stay safe oscar.

Katrina is comin' in something fierce in Louisiana

[oscar jubis]

You're welcome Chris.
Thanks Johann. The danger has passed. It was scary to hear the giant but shallow-rooted ficus trees characteristic of my neighborhood being toppled by Katrina's winds.

Friday August 26th

The Brothers Grimm (USA, 2005) at SoBe Regal
It's a Terry Gilliam film so don't expect character development or historical accuracy. It's hard to imagine any of these characters outside the confines of this movie's universe. You wouldn't be satisfied either if you're thirsty for a movie with social commentary or emotional impact (you'd be likely to find The Brothers Grimm either inconsequential or uninvolving). What Gilliam and screenwriter Ehren Krueger have created is a rollicking, inventive, comedic, period adventure jam-packed with arresting images, grotesque characters and horrible creatures, whimsical interludes, slapstick moments, and fantastic oddities. It's not unlike Gilliam's The Adventures of Baron Munchausen although I prefer Grimm for the clever way it reimagines the origins of a dozen or so of Grimms' fairy tales, and the manner in which the plot links them in the film's final act. The controversial casting of Lena Headey, as mandated by the Weinstein Brothers, is The Brothers Grimm's obvious flaw. She seems to have wandered off both from a more conventional movie and from a more modern time period. Gilliam was right to complain. I wonder what his chosen Samantha Morton would have done with the role.

[Chris Knipp]

Samantha Morton is always interesting and has great presence. She surely would have added something substantial, possibly anchored things well. I'd thought of seeing this this past weekend but went to the forgettable Red Eye and the unforgettable Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance instead. I tend to like plot-driven well organized stuff and found Munchausen a bit too disorgaized, but Gilliam is always worth watching, I'm quite sure. Damon and Ledger would be a draw for me, and though you neglect even to mention them(!) (aren't they the "stars"?) they're cute guys, but both have some acting cred, Ledger's somewhat newly coming on.

[oscar jubis]

Damon and Ledger are fine in non-challenging roles, often playing "straight men" to characters played with broad gusto by Peter Stormare and Jonathan Price. Damon and Ledger are the definite box office magnets but the film is not performance-driven. The clever, not-immediately-apparent plot, the mise-en-scene, and the busy art direction are more prominent aspects. I grant you it's possible you'd find The Brothers Grimm a "bit disorganized", yet more fun than movies like Red Eye.

[Chris Knipp]

When I said Red Eye was "forgettable" I was not lying. I literally couldn't remember what it was. Two days later it had disappeared from my mind, even though I was thinking about it yesterday. I had to stop and think a while. Needless to say Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance is not hard to bring to mind; one might like to forget some parts of it, but they're embedded there in the brain, like an icepick or a knife.

Let us not forget that Heath Ledger was involved in another period romp (actually Ned Kelly was not bad), I mean the playful and silly but entertaining A Knight's Tale, which also had an actor who has acquired considerable credibility since, Paul Bettany. But Ledger's character acting bent was best realized in Lords of Dogtown. I am very eager to see him in Brokeback Mountain, based on a powerful little E. Annie Proulx story published eight years ago in The New Yorker; this could be a stunner, with its succinctly bitter tale and somebody as good in the young man acting line as Jake Gyllanhaal to partner with, and as able a helmsmen as Ang Lee -- not to mention Larry McMurty doing the screenplay. But I don't know when it's coming out.

[oscar jubis]

*Looking forward to Brokeback Mountain scheduled for wide release on Dec. 9th.
*I'm not a huge fan of movies like Sympathy but I was able to have a bit of fun with Oldboy and Takeshi Miike movies, however sick and disposable, so I'll probably end up watching Sympathy on disc.

Sat August 27th

Broken Flowers (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=12667#post12667) (USA, 2005) at SoBe Regal

I also watched the second half of The Skeleton Key which seemed less over-the-top and feeble-brained that typical for the genre. Hey, beats being home without A/C.

[Chris Knipp]

I don't want people to think that I am a "huge fan of movies like Sympathy" either, but the problem is your use of the phrase, "films like Sympathy," because the whole reason for watching Park Chan-wook is that there are not "films like" his -- he is quite original. You may link what he does to a genre, and in fact that's the natural approach and I wouldn't oppose it, I'd be a fool to, but there aren't other films like this revenge trilogy as far as I can tell after seeing 2/3 of it. So, what I'm saying is that this is why I want to watch Oldboy and Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (remember there are two Park Sympathies so you may need to type out the whole title): not because I am a "fan" of "films like" this, but because of the talent and originality displayed here. I frankly think your considering these " sick and disposable" shows a lack of perspective considering that within a western context murder-revenge tragedies go back to the Elizabethans. You might call them "sick and disposable" too, but they would include names like Shakespeare and Marlowe, and you'd be linking yourself not with sophisticated writers but religious nuts. To think they're some new kitsch invention to make money and harvest dollars strikes me as short-sighted. But I am not a fan of this genre, I am not watching Miike and I do not particularly go for Asian horror flicks. However Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Cure is superb; one must realize that genres are made to be transcended as all traditions are, and they must be, and they are, so long as talent exists.

[trevor826]

The one thing I didn't expect to see on a site with such astute critics was to see all a directors work tarred with the same brush on the basis of one film.

Sympathy for Mr.Vengeance is nothing like Oldboy and even Miike has films of subtlety unlike say Ichi the Killer. Indeed the one thing that surprises people who've been hyped up for Audition is the incredibly subtle (in some peoples eyes boring) build up.

Please don't use this form of judgement or you may as well wear blinkers.

Cheers Trev.

[oscar jubis]

Originally posted by trevor826
The one thing I didn't expect to see on a site with such astute critics was to see all a directors work tarred with the same brush on the basis of one film.

If you used to think of me as an "astute critic" on the basis of my posts or simply because I post frequently on this site, I appreciate the back-handed compliment. But I certainly don't introduce myself or think of myself as such. Just a guy who fell in love with cinema in the 60s and has turned watching films and learning about cinema into an obsession. It's only human to base expectations regarding Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance on the Park Chan-wook film I've seen (Oldboy (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=8894#post8894)). Perhaps it is unfair, as you suggest. But I'd like to clarify that it's my expectations re: Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance that I've "tarred with the same brush...", not my opinion of it since I couldn't possibly have an opinion of a film I haven't watched.
Oldboy, which I did enjoy to an extent, evidenced an appreciation on the part of the director for "shock for its own sake". This is not something I value highly, although it's certainly not enough to "ruin" a film for me. It's entirely possible this tendency and others I detected in Oldboy have been toned down or excised, as you suggest when you write "Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance is nothing like Oldboy".

[Chris Knipp]

I would agree that Park's "revenge trilogy " films are extremely violent, so he obviously enjoys working with violent material. Or is he just adept with such material, and energeticallly carrying a genre to its limits? Could it be you're just taking him too seriously? Anyway, "sake"=purpose=intention, so you can't say Park Chan-wook uses "shock for its own sake" unless you actually know his intentions. In the absence of that information applying the phrase to Park is subjective -- and pejorative - and putting it in quotation marks doesn't justify using it on him or any other director whose intentions you don't know. You can say he likes to work with violent material, you can't say that's his sole intention, to use such material to shock.. Violence is everywhere in real life and the movies and comes in many colors and in a movie or a book it has different meanings. I'd agree that the two Park revenge films I've seen are shockingly violent and sometimes disgusting, but that doesn't link them with shabby B-pictures because they're too well done, inventive, and technically accomplished to be looked on as schlock.

Trevor is right that the two, Oldboy and Mr. Vengeance, are quite different in their plot and general feeling, though you can feel Park's style and energy equally strongly in both. Obviously he was on some kind of a roll and that's why expectations for Sympathy for Lady Vengeance is dangerously high. Mr Vengeance was actually made before Oldboy. With its infamous "torture chamber" sequence Mr Vengeance is arguably gorier than Oldboy, not less. Whether the trilogy is a celebration of revenge or a demonstration of its ultimate futility remains to be seen -- and discussed. But you can forget about the idea that the "tendency" and the ominously unspecified "others" that you dislike in Park's Oldboy "have been toned down or excised," in Mr. Vengeance, especially since your phrasing implies a progression toward Mr. Vengeance, while in fact Oldboy was made later.

Otherwise I can only reiterate my previous post on why I have found interest in Park's movies but you can't say I'm a "h uge fan" of his. I was implying I pursue directors and not genres, and it's pretty obvious that Park is hugely talented, skillful, and quite original, but I didn't mean to imply I am avoiding Miike's films, just stating the fact that I'm not pursuing them.

[trevor826]

Personally I'm far more concerned at how Sympathy for Lady Vengeance and indeed any following films from Park will suffer because of the world wide success of Oldboy.

Oldboy was a comic (manga) adaptation given the live action treatment just like many other films particularly in Japan and the US, Spiderman, Ichi the Killer, The Hulk, Fudoh, Sin City, Battle Royale etc etc.

The point is the previous films I have seen from Park, although commercial have covered topics that affect Korea, the North/South split - JSA and organ theft - Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance. I think he's more likely now to just try and imitate the success of Oldboy and if you have seen his contribution to "Three Extremes" that looks exactly where he's heading.

The defining of yourselves as astute critics was meant as a compliment and certainly wasn't meant to be taken in any other way.

Cheers Trev.

[oscar jubis]

*I was right to take it as a compliment then, however back-handed, and to have expressed my appreciation. Perhaps this is an appropriate time to reiterate my gratitude for your interest in Korean cinema and for making your related commentary available on this site (You seem to be the only member who's seen films by my favorite Korean director: Jin-ho Hur).

*Whether or not Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance is similar to Oldboy or "nothing like" Oldboy I've decided to watch it and consequently post a comment, as I'm committed to do for every film I watch this year. Chris, of course applying the phrase "shock for its own sake" to Oldboy is subjective. It's an opinion and I stand by it. It's based on both presentation and content, not exclusive of a little scene involving an octopus ;)

[oscar jubis]

Sunday August 28th

Stage Door (USA, 1937) dvd
Along with My Man Godfrey, this is the best-known film directed by Gregory La Cava (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=12120#post12120). Stage Door received four Oscar nominations, including one for Best Picture. It's based on a play by Edna Ferber and George S. Kaufman, about aspiring actresses living in a midtown boarding house. It's full of quotable dialogue delivered by a wonderful cast that includes Katherine Hepburn, Ann Miller, Lucille Ball, Adolph Menjou and La Cava regular Ginger Rogers. Mordantly funny during its first hour with a rich collection of snappy wisecracks, then it becomes a heartfelt tribute to the acting profession. Its finale had an emotional impact on me I didn't expect, because the film is never predictable or manipulative. This is my favorite film from 1937's crop of Best Picture nominees. It's resolutely superior than eventual winner The Life of Emile Zola.

Hitch (USA, 2005) dvd
Sister's pick (she's staying with us until she gets electricity back in her house) but it turned out ok. Hollywood romantic comedy formula, predictable, but totally devoid of crassness and only mildly contrived. It's even somewhat wise about dating and relationships. Since I don't watch tv, the performance given by Kevin James (TV's The King of Queens) amounts to a revelation. It ain't easy to steal the spotlight from Will Smith in this genre.

[trevor826]

Oscar, having just checked on the search I notice you passed on seeing Vibrator by Ryuichi Hiroki. This is a shame as with your background I would like to have seen your analysis of the film, I think this would have been (as they say) right up your street.

Cheers Trev.

[Chris Knipp]

[trevor]
Personally I'm far more concerned at how Sympathy for Lady Vengeance and indeed any following films from Park will suffer because of the world wide success of Oldboy. That's always a danger that people will be prejudiced or have skewed expectations, but as long as Park does strikingly original and technically impressive work, he will maintain a positive reputation.

[Oscar]
Chris, of course applying the phrase "shock for its own sake" to Oldboy is subjective. It's an opinion and I stand by it. It's based on both presentation and content, not exclusive of a little scene involving an octopus.Taste is taste, but not all criticism is subjective. The more criticism is built up out of logical and factual statements the more it commands attention and respect. You yourself always try to make your remarks fair and judicious, as you well know, and your statements about violence and shock value in Park's Oldboy could be made in a more supportable, less subjective manner.

[oscar jubis]

Trevor:
I've decided to watch Vibrator based on your recommendation. Like you say, it would be interesting to form an opinion about a film that has a protagonist that seems, based on my reading of its premise, to experience auditory hallucinations. Having worked extensively with people diagnosed with schizophrenia gives me a unique angle to approach the picture. It's a shame the film did not receive theatrical distribution or home video release here. Moreover, the dvd is "currently unavailable" at my import-disc rental outfit (nicheflix). It seems to have been stolen or damaged. I hope they buy a replacement copy so I can rent it.

Chris:
You know that it's my belief that by and large what we do here is attempt to present evidence to support inherently subjective opinions, and that one's response to a film is largely dependent on personality, experience, predilections, etc. I do strive to be fair and judicious, and I think I have a tendency to be moderate_if I rated films by stars I'd give the vast majority of theatrical releases two to three stars. Then again, I haven't begun to offer evidence that Oldboy practices "shock for its own sake". I'm sorry to say I arrived at that opinion after watching the film seven months ago and it'd be hard to recall the evidence I would need to present here. You've called "the two Park revenge films" you've seen "shockingly violent", which to me means you've qualified either the content or the presentation of that violence as "shocking". Have you concluded that there are important reasons why the violence or its presentation is "shocking"?

[oscar jubis]

Monday Aug. 29th

Twentynine Palms (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=12704#post12704) (France, 2004) dvd

[Chris Knipp]

Oscar Jubis:
Have you concluded that there are important reasons why the violence or its presentation is "shocking"?There are many answers to that. One of them is because it's very well done, fresh and original. If you're asking again about the director's intention which you think is "shock for its own sake," the answer is neither you nor I knows, but I simply think Park's on the evidence too accomplished a director to have no other purpose than that. Do you think if asked what his purpose is, he would say "shock for its own sake"? To know more, we need to look at interviews. Or maybe ask him in person. This may be possible when I'm at the NYFF and his Sympathy for Lady Vengeance is presented.

Here is an excerpt from one interview -- the best one I've found online -- by the =http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr/interviews/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000552276]Hollywood Reporter :
THR: The theme of vengeance recurs in your films. Any particular reason?
Park: With the development of civilization and the rise in education levels, people have had to hide their rage, hate and grudges deep within them. But this does not mean that these emotions go away. As relationships become more and more intricate, the rage only grows more and more. While modern society is burdening the individual with a growing sense of rage, the outlets through which people can release their rage are becoming narrower. This is an unhealthy situation, and it's probably why art exists. In reality, however, the vengeances represented in my movies are not actual vengeances. They are merely the transferring of a guilty conscience. My films are stories of people who place the blame for their actions on others because they refuse to take on the blame themselves. Therefore, rather than movies purporting to be of revenge, it would be more accurate to see my films as ones stressing morality, with guilty consciences as the core subject matter. The constantly recurring theme is the guilty conscience. Because they are always conscious of and obsessed with their wrongdoings, which are committed because they are inherently unavoidable in life, my characters are fundamentally good people. The fact that people have to resort to another type of violence in order to subjugate their initial guilty consciences is the most basic quality of tragedy characteristic in my movies thus far. One might also comment that Park may be, or his films may be whatever his intention, presenting violence in a shocking way to cut through our numbness to violence created by the daily news and films and our own stunning indifference to the suffering of our fellow human beings. Because a director has serous intentions (and Park began as a philosophy student and someone passionate about aesthetics who was inspired by HItchcock to decide he must make films) doesn't mean you have to like his work, but it is a mistake to attribute base intentions to him or her because you respond negatively to what he or she does. It may be that the reprehensible parties are some members of Park's audience, not the filmmakers. You raise the issue everyone faces in considering the Park revenge movies: are they just designed to shock? And if so, are they reprehensible for that reason? But again, since the statement is framed with an implication of the director's intention ("designed to shock"--he is the designer, so it must be his intention), the answer must be, no, that isn't fair to him, he doesn't have that in mind. But you don't have to like what he's done. I am still asking myself. I was shocked, yes, but I was taken on an amazing ride and I felt like I was in very good hands, cinematically. So I came away from Oldboy not so much offended as amazed. I was more ground down by Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, but still aware of being in the presence of a consistent style and vision. We'll see how Sympathy for Lady Vengeance affects me.

P.s. In your Twentynine Palms entry you overlooked the new thread (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=12346#post12346) for that specific film.

[oscar jubis]

It's hard to discuss a film I remember so little about, so I have to stand by what I wrote after watching it last February. I know I liked it, I had fun watching it. But I seem to like it less than you, the Cannes jury, and most Imdb voters. The material you provide is valuable as clues to help interpret the film . We have to judge the film itself though, not the content or lucidity of the director's statements about it.

*I was aware of the new thread re Twentynine Palms. I chose to post in the older thread in which his whole career is discussed. My comments re Palms were written within the context of Dumont's filmography and his attempt to express philosophical views via cinema_ the topic of the opening post of "The Philosopher and the Genital Closeup". I'll go to the new thread and provide a link to my Palms review.

Tue. August 30th

Springtime in the Rockies (USA, 1942) on TCM
Betty Grable breaks up with dancing partner John Payne and goes to Canada to put on a show with an old admirer. Payne attempts to woo her back to him and Broadway. This Fox musical in Technicolor is good, but not exceptional. Cesar Romero and the amazing Carmen Miranda move it up a notch.

[Chris Knipp]

Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance appears to have rapidly vanished from Bay Area theaters. Despite opinions which I partly share that it has (as Brad Wescott of IndieWire put it) "richer commitment to character development and thematic complexity" than Oldboy, it hasn't appeared to possess the simple audience-grabbing qualities of the latter.

[oscar jubis]

Trevor would also likely agree with that statement regarding Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance. The manager at the Regal in South Beach told me it's scheduled to open there in the fall. I have it on my queue at Nicheflix but it's a popular title and they don't have many copies of anything (which is getting on my nerves but, to my knowledge, there's no alternative import-dvd rental outfit).

Wed. August 31st

The Same River Twice (USA, 2003) dvd
Documentary by director/producer/cinematographer/Harvard prof Rob Moss. It incorporates his 1978 short Riverdogs, about the last summer he spent as part of a commune of river guides in the Colorado (near the Grand Canyon), with footage of five of the "river dogs" taken between 1998 and 2002. The content concerns who they were then, and who are they now. The short was shot with 16 mm cameras and the new footage on DV. The "river dogs" spent most 70s summers living outdoors, in constant contact with nature, in a type of idyllic, democratic utopia until their late 20s-early 30s. Then and now is constantly juxtaposed. The most hardcore "riverdog", Jim, still maintains the same type of lifestyle while the other four started families and more conventional careers. Two became small town mayors, one is a novelist/radio host. All seem to have maintained a core set of progressive political values, particularly with regards to environmental protection. Moss films their lives and lets them speak to the camera but doesn't interview them. At 78 minutes, The Same River Twice is remarkably compact, and insightful regarding the passage from youth to middle age. Moss excells at a form of commentary that grows naturally out of the way scenes have been ordered and juxtaposed. The director commentary included on the dvd as an extra goes deep into this process and issues that arise when a filmmaker's subjects are his friends.

[Chris Knipp]

The content concerns who they were then, and who are they now. Not in much detail at either end and hence less real "content" than your hype implies. Seeing this when it came out, I was far less enthusiastic. Same River Twice has its virtues; it is an excellent idea to begin with. But it comes off as being spotty in its followups and random in its methods. One of the main problems is that the material used as a basis is mostly nostalgia for bronzed naked bodies of young people. When the novelty of that wears off, you notice there's not much "covered" otherwise either: i.e., River Run footage has little dialogue, less information about the people and the followup itself is spotty -- only on some of the people, and without real investigatory process. Relying on the sporadic responses of the participants while watching the old footage is too passive and random a method to make for anything consistent and searching. Compare Michael Apted where you have real depth of followups on people through the use of quite simple but patient and systematic methods. The current onscreen presence of a towering documentary of investigatory work based on earlier nature footage -- Grizzly Man -- makes this river feel pretty shallow -- and another version of the kind of Disneyfied benign natural world Herzog has blasted apart forever. Michael Atkinson in his September 2003 review of the movie (http://www.villagevoice.com/film/0337,atkinson,46864,20.html) :
[The Same River Twice] is a generous document of cultural passage, and not incidentally, the sexiest naturally nudist American movie since Murnau's Tabu. Moss, however, keeps himself out of the picture and neglects massive amounts of context that might've made Same River a stunner. How did they all meet? How long did their endless summer last? Who was Moss to these people? What were their relationships off the river? Moss barely interviews his friends, opting instead to simply observe them parent, work, and bashfully view the 20-year-old movie clips of themselves cavorting without a worry in the world. The film settles for the heartbreaking contrast between youthful vibrance and the remorseless, disappointed side of 40, remaining too polite to dig deeper. . Maybe Moss should redo the film with his DVD commentary -- which has made the film itself seem to you more thorough than it actually was -- edited into the 2003 doc itself along with additional footage where he tracks down more of the people and asks some more questions of the ones he had at hand -- and answers the ones Atkinson gives, which I'm surprised didn't seem to bother you (they did me, and that's why I quote him, in the absence of a review of my own). "Remarkably compact" is one way of putting it. I would say remarkably lightweight. Which is all good for camping, but not so great for a documentary which is chiefly valuable for how much information it provides.

[hengcs]

Originally posted by oscar jubis
Sunday August 14th
36 Quai des Orfevres (France, 2004) import dvd
"Policier" by cop-turned-director Olivier Marchal, inspired by real life events. The retiring police chief (Andre Dussolier) challenges the heads of two police departments to break the case of a gang that specializes in armored truck robberies. The rivalry between Vrinks (Daniel Auteil) and Klein (Gerard Depardieu), which goes beyond the professional into the personal realm, becomes the focus of the film. A plot contrivance or two fail to derail this solid genre flick. 36 Quai pays homage to the tradition of French crime movies, for instance, by naming a key character after Belmondo's protagonist in Melville's Le Doulos. Besides that, 36 Quai could've been made in Hollywood or Hong Kong which, given the genre, is a compliment.


Hey, I actually find the show very excellent!
Go watch for the well paced "thriller" and "violence". Although it is rather plot driven, the ENTIRE cast carried their roles very well. The show is rather mainstream, but worth my time ...

[oscar jubis]

*hengcs, I agree that this "policier" is mainstream, plot-driven and well-acted (not that any role except Auteil's is challenging). Not "excellent" for me, but a solid entry into the genre.

Originally posted by Chris Knipp
Not in much detail at either end and hence less real "content" than your hype implies.

My "hype" is my OPINION and it's as valid as yours or anybody else's opinion.

it comes off as being spotty in its followups and random in its methods.

The method is closer to cinema-verite, certainly investigative journalism. It's the approach championed in America by the great Frederick Wiseman (Titicut Follies (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=10163#post10163), Welfare, Public Housing). Like Wiseman, Moss doesn't ask questions, he simply follows the subject and shoots. The director's personality and point of view is expressed entirely through the organizational structure/editing of the material. It's a less directive approach that allows the viewer the freedom to make connections and interpretations.

Compare Michael Apted where you have real depth of followups on people through the use of quite simple but patient and systematic methods.

Apted's approach is different, with a voice-over practically dictating what to think and feel (it has a definite opinion about the material presented, although not an agenda like something by Michael Moore). I do appreciate how Apted's approach makes it possible to provide socio-political context to the material. Perhaps Apted's longer time range calls for a more directive methodology.

Maybe Moss should redo the film with his DVD commentary edited into the 2003 doc itself along with additional footage where he tracks down more of the people and asks some more questions of the ones he had at hand

Moss, like Wiseman and other "cinema verite" directors, is not interested in asking any questions. He structured the material and edited it in order to make the passage from youth to middle age the topic of his film. The key to the work is what one concludes about a scene as influenced by the scene that precedes it and the scene that follows it. It's in the juxtaposition of the material. There's no doubt that Moss could have adopted other issues as his focus but this "passage" is a valid, compelling subject. I was moved and inspired by The Same River Twice. I am very impressed with the results, yet I wouldn't go as far as calling it "a stunner" or a masterpiece.
I'll grant you this much, to end on a positive note. I agree with you that (parts of) the dvd commentary would enrich the film itself. I do wish Moss had incorporated himself as part of the doc's subject because of his closeness to the "riverdogs"_he was one of them after all. What I have in mind is the way Ross McElwee incorporates his feelings and thoughts into documentaries like Bright Leaves and Sherman's March.

[Chris Knipp]

Oscar, I'm sorry to have used the word "hype". I see now that that sounds provocative. I only meant that in your words you were seeking to recommend the film. But, a poor choice of words, indeed! My apologies. I'm glad that you agree that the very ho-hum Same River Twice at least is not "a stunner" or "a masterpiece"! It certainly is not! I'm surprised that it "moved" and "inspired" you -- but now doubt there are ways that you relate to it that I do not! That is always possible. To call it "cinéma vérité" seems a bit of a stretch, but I see your point. Nonetheless I think Moss could have provided more information, without intruding, since, as you also admit, he was a part of the group, so the detachment was rather arificial, and perhaps not even the right approach. -- and I suspect that you are coming around to this point of view just a bit. Contrast the material at hand, the powerful Grizzly Man: Herzog certainly was not one of Treadwell's entourage, and yet he injects himself into the film. Why? To be honest about what he is doing, and because he can provide more information that way. And he does---provide more information that way, that is.

[oscar jubis]

Chris, from my own subjective perspective, it seems practically impossible NOT to be moved by: Barry choosing to tell us he hasn't been able to tell his wife and his mother about his cancer diagnosis, and by his wife choosing to tell us he'll vote against him in the mayoral election so he'll have more time to spend with his family, by the passage of time expressed in a shot of Barry's 28 y.o. body followed by a shot of his 50 y.o. body as he prepares for radiation, and by the older Jim's parental attitude towards the land that surrounds him (his goals for the future are to plant some perennials here and some seasonals there), and the wisp of regret in his voice when discussing his ex-girlfriend Danny's late motherhood. Too many such moments to ignore. I also consider The Same River Twice as serving as a corrective against the widely-adopted hippie-turned-yuppie cliche, which is most definitely only half the truth. Watching these "riverdogs" reminded me of the many wonderful, bright, caring people of their generation I had the pleasure of knowing in my 20 years of work for non-profit social agencies. Not every doc needs to turn into a polemic or a controversy. And yes, I'd recommend The Same River Twice (not to be confused with Same River Twice, also on dvd).

Huge fan of Herzog, with several of his films as personal faves, including docs Fata Morgana and Lessons of Darkness (a masterpiece IMO). His latest opens Friday but I won't get to it until the following week.

[oscar jubis]

Thu. Sep 1st

ENDweekendWEEK. Jean Luc Godard.
A FILM LOST IN THE COSMOS
A FILM FOUND IN THE SCRAP HEAP
Bourgeois flat. Marrieds Roland and Corinne plan to drive to Oinville and kill her mom to inherit l'argent. Secretly, each intends to kill the other afterwards.
ANAL ISE.
Corinne sits on doc's desk wearing white bra and panties as she describes orgy, from bedroom to kitchen_raw eggs over naked bodies.
From terrace in long shot marrieds watch a slight fender-bender turn into brutal beating. Roland and Corinne pull out and hit a parked car, argue with kid wearing indian costume, mom comes out, slapstick fight ensues.
On the road.Traffic jam. Long, slow pan past various types of stalled vehicles and motorists killing time. Shell Oil Truckcheap renaultluxury sedan. Roland drives on opposite side of the road rather than wait in line. Other drivers mad. Dissonant claxon symphony, then back to ominous score. Jam caused by horrid accident: bloody corpses litter road. R+L speed past unconcerned.
THE EXTERMINATING ANGEL.
Bunuel homage, but also a reference to a red clad, queer dude hitchhiking with a woman. Angel pulls gun, forces their way into R+L's car, presents himself as "the son of God and Alexander Dumas", pulls rabbit out of glove compartment, offers to grant wishes.Roland wants a Mercedes and a WEEKEND with James Bond. Corinne wants naturally blonde hair and a Dior dress. Exterminating angel declines, disgusted.
More cars stalled, totalled, burning.Quick flash-forwards to a 3-car collision. Is it Roland's car? Yes. Our couple emerges unscathed, except for Corinne's Hermes purse. She's devastated.
They walk. Sit by the side of the road. A stranger asks Roland for a cig. He turns him down.-"Is she your femme? Oui.Stranger rapes Corinne off-screen. Roland sits unmoved by her cries for help.
R+C hitchhike. First-Car passenger asks Roland:"Who'd you let screw you, Mao or Johnson".-"Johnson".-"Fascist". 2nd car driver asks:"Who attacked first, Egypt or Israel?". -"Egypt". -"Wrong!".R+C walk, get lost.They run into Emily Bronte reciting poetry and Tom Thumb quoting Brecht. Emily can't give them directions to Oinville so they set her on fire.
They encounter JP Leaud wearing 18th century costume. Leaud gives an impassioned reading from a French Revolution text (St. Louis?).R+L keep walking, past a herd of sheep, and meet Leaud again, in modern clothes this time, crooning to his girlfriend inside a phone booth. Roland gets pissed, tries to steal Leaud's car, they fight, Roland bashes Leaud's car.
M*U*S*I*C*A*L INTERLUDE.
Pianist plays Mozart in a dusty rural town center while the camera does a 360 degree slow pan past peasants and laborers listening. R+L are there too, stranded, looking bored and tired. Camera goes around again, music continues but pianist also lectures about Mozart's life,his influence on modern music,etc.
A small tractor and a convertible crash, the farmer and yuppie engage in class-related tirades but, when Roland walks by, they stop their bickering, somehow figure R is Jewish and, arm in arm, hurl anti-semitic insults at him.
R+C encounter garbagemen having lunch: immigrants, One is Algerian, the other African. R asks for a bite. The African gives him a crumb, stating that's the % of the US budget invested in Africa.The Algerian demands a kiss from Corinne in exchange.Both immigrant faces the camera and give political speeches regarding colonialism and slavery.They do give our couple a ride to Oinville.
As Roland strangles his mom-in-law, Corinne stabs her Psycho-style. Rare closeup of a skinned rabbit bathed in mum's blood.
Days later. Cut to a small plane crash (R+C's?).They walk again. Scenes of chaos and mayhem.Roland and Corinne walk the countryside again.Family on a picnic attacked by hippie guerillas. Explosions heard.Armed guerrilas assaulting. They communicate with walkie-talkies using movie titles as code words."Battleship Potemkin calling The Searchers over". Capitalism overthrown and replaced by anarchy. Paint-thin blood everywhere.Guerilla camp, cook wields saw, bloody apron. Pig disemboweled (mm that's not fake blood). Goose decapitated.Parisians on holiday and Brit tourist captured along with Roland and Corinne. Eggs broken on bodies again. Corinne gets a fish stuffed on her vagina but manages gets spared.Not Roland, who's chopped off in pieces (off screen) along with others and roasted. Corinne has changed sides apparently.Corinne devours (parts of) Roland.
END
OF STORY
OF CINEMA

[Chris Knipp]

Thank for your very interesting and impassioned comments on The Same River Twice. You make some points that cannot be challenged. Certainly a documentary does not need to be a polemic. And a person unable to tell his wife about his cancer is a touching moment. It's sad, I guess, though I live with this myself so it's not news, to see that men's bodies age and people who were once young, vigorous, and beautiful become diseased and frail. It's poignant that a lady will vote against her husband in an election because she wants him to spend more time at home. Wistfulness about a relationship that might have been for life is touching. And so on. This scattering of moments does not however add up to a great movie. Your listing of them points up the criticism I have: that a coherent picture doesn't emerge. An authorial voice or a questioning structuring directorial voice is not a necessary element in a documentary film. But clarity and focus and a strong theme help. The most interesting point you make is that this is a corrective to the hippie-to-yuppie myth. But that doesn't really emerge as a forceful theme. I don't think there really is a forceful theme. And you may go on to argue that that isn't a necessary part of a documentary either. What is necessary to a documentary? I guess that it be original and powerful in its content. I might give as a not at all random example Etre et avoir, To Be and to Have, the French film about a rural schoolteacher. No polemic there, no authorial voice, no heavy thematic organization, but a powerful abd deeply moving documentary due to the intensity of focus and detail of information.

[oscar jubis]

Like I stated originally, aging or, more specifically, the passage from youth to middle age is the central theme, and the doc is clearly focused on this subject. I found the content of The Same River Twice as original and powerful as that of To Be and to Have.

Friday Sep. 2nd

Morlang (Netherlands, 2001) at Cosford Cinema
Film Movement saved this English-language Dutch film from oblivion with a simultaneous theatrical/dvd release last year. I'm happy to have watched it at the theatre because the visuals are nifty and the photography very stylish. It's a mystery-drama and I was glad not to know anything about it beforehand. The structure is decidedly non-linear with repeated flashbacks to two years ago, when the titular middle-aged artist was married and his paintings more "in vogue". In the present, he lives with a younger Irish woman and starts receiving sarcastic phone messages and postcards that read:"Don't feel guilty. It's not your fault". This somber and sober film is constructed by providing small bits of data that first pile on complexities and just as gradually provide clues leading to a logical and completely satisfying denoument. The insularity and caginess of the titular character and the fractured timeline work against Morlang having strong dramatic impact and psychological depth. But Morlang looks fantastic and it's an involving, perfectly-crafted mystery.

[oscar jubis]

Sat. Sep 3rd

Caterina in the Big City (Italy, 2003) Cosford Cinema
Caterina is the only child of Agata and Giancarlo who, after waiting for years, gets a teaching job in his native Rome. The aspiring novelist hopes to get published thanks to improved access to the right people, including the parents of Caterina's 8th grade classmates. For Caterina, born and raised in a small town 97 kilometers from Rome, the move to "the big city" signifies quite an adaptation.
I've been taking my kids and often friends to foreign/indie movies for years, mostly because the films are good and offer different perspectives/points of view than commercial American movies. Chelsea, just shy of 15, decided to invite Joe (15) so the three of us went to my beloved cinema on the campus of my alma mater. Can't remember the last time the kids were this disappointed by a foreign-language film, and I can't say I disagree with them, although Caterina has a few inspired and/or funny bits.
Their major complaint has to do with the blank at the core of the film, meaning Caterina's lack of a defined personality, like "a page with nothing written on it except: likes music". The other kids in the film are divided between the "fascist capitalists" and "intellectual leftists", both of which are, as written, nothing but spokespersons for their parents' politics. The "capitalist girls" are meaner than the American Mean Girls. They even sing a fascist song Daddy taught them when babies! The film is populated by walking sterotypes, both kids and adults. Caterina in the Big City is one anxious mess, rushing breathlessly to cover all the bases. The result: a shrill and shallow coming-of-age/political satire/family drama. The film implies that the alternative to the extremes right and left that dominate Italian politics is disengagement, matched by the cop-out ending, when Caterina's Dad abandons his family and flees Rome in a motorcycle.

[oscar jubis]

I've a lot of catching up to do on this thread. Some entries will be rather short. Willing, as always, to get more specific. I'm surprised the long Weekend post got no replies.

Sun Sep 4th

An Amazing Couple aka Trilogy:Two (France/Belgium, 2003) dvd
Lucas Belvaux (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=11943#post11943) has come across a novel, cost-effective way of making movies: shooting a long, multi-layered story and cutting it into three films, each a different genre depending on which characters are principals and which are secondary. This is the "comedy of errors" film within a trilogy. Alain's secretive behavior causes wife Cecile (Ornella Muti, still hot at 48) to suspect infidelity. She hires a cop, her friend's husbanmd, to investigate. Alain's secretary and doctor figure prominently. Belvaux, an experienced actor recently turned director, shows extreme versatility in crafting this trilogy according to the genre requirements of the thriller, drama, and the comedy of errors. Each film can be thoroughly enjoyed without having seen the others. Quite a feat.

[Johann]

Originally posted by oscar jubis
I'm surprised the long Weekend post got no replies.

It will. Love it!

It's film-mania right now for me, so I'll have to respond when I get time.

[oscar jubis]

Thanks. You read it. That's all I need. Sorry to be begging for a reply, but it took a lot of time and effort to describe, rather than review, what may be Godard's most rebellious and best movie.

Monday September 5th

Shake Hands with the Devil: The Journey of Romeo Dallaire (Canada, 2004) at Cosford Cinema

Romeo Dallaire is the Canadian who served as Commander of the United Nations' peacekeeping force in Rwanda, and this doc directed by Peter Raymont is based on his autobiographical book. It's one of the best docs I've seen in recent years. It shouldn't surprise you that a doc provides more information than a film like Hotel Rwanda but, what's remarkable and unusual, is that Shake Hands also provides more drama and emotional impact than the Hollywood pic. Romeo Dallaire is an obvious film subject because of his being "the world's rep" at the site of the most horrible recent holocaust, the man who alerted the world powers about the horror to come. Romeo Dallaire is a wonderful film subject because he is extremely candid, frank, vulnerable, and principled.
Shake Hands with the Devil provides analysis of the roots of the animosity between Hutus and Tutsis, particularly the malevolent contribution of the Belgian colonialists in fomenting and stoking tribal divisions. It goes on to point a finger at the French government for sanctioning the Rwandan government's benign attitude towards extremist Hutus, and consequently the world's superpowers and the UN. The divergent reaction to similar events in Yugoslavia is highlighted.
At the personal level, the film features Dallaire's biography, with a focus on the months he spent in Rwanda in 1994, when 800,000 were massacred by extremist Hutus, and his 2004 return to participate in conferences and commemorations at the 10-year anniversary of the event. This return trip also serves as part of the therapeutic rehabilitation of Dellaire who became suicidal and alcoholic after returning to Canada, and continues to experience symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Shake Hands with the Devil is the time of film that will engage your thoughts and your feelings from the first frame and won't let go for days after you've seen it.

[Johann]

No worries- you've honored the French Pest, oscar.

I just gotta find a sweet color printer.
Nice work- I'm actually jealous of that. Wish I wrote it.

Best description of Weekend I've come across.
Find JLG's office in Paris and send it off, in an embossed folder.

He'd love that I think.

[oscar jubis]

Godard was certainly a pest around the time he made Weekend. Raoul Coutard, the DP, recalls how Godard was openly antagonistic to the producer and his leading actress, for no good reason. Godard was calling himself a "marxist-leninist" at the time and had decided to stop accepting commercial funding sources. Weekend is a brilliant summation of his "60s commercial" period and an introduction to what was to come. You know Johann, anger is a positive emotion if one knows how to channel it. One can sense Godard's anger and passion in every scene of this film.

Tuesday Sep 6th

Ray (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=8247#post8247) (USA, 2004) on HBO
Dylan (12) wanted to see it. Issues of drug abuse, infidelity, betrayal, racism (segregation included),etc. came up spontaneously in conversation after the film.

Baby Doll (USA, 1956) on TCM
Baby Doll (Carroll Baker) will turn 20 in two days. Her middle-aged husband Archie (Karl Malden) has kept a death-bed promise he made to her Dad to wait until she turned 20 to consummate the marriage. When they married, Archie was wealthy but now he's lost the cotton gin trade to the Syndicate Gin owned by the Sicilian Vaccaro (Eli Wallach's debut). After his furniture is repossesed for failing to make the payments, Archie gets drunk and burns down Syndicate Gin. Vaccaro suspects Archie but has no proof, until a conversation with Baby Doll yields some clues. Vaccaro vows to get revenge.
Baby Doll was directed by Elia Kazan from a screenplay by the great Tennessee Williams_based on two of his one-act plays. Kazan hired cinematographer Boris Kaufman, who was born in Poland but worked as a DP in France for two decades prior to WWII, including lensing all of Jean Vigo's films. Kazan and Williams had collaborated before in A Streetcar Named Desire and had worked with Kaufman in On the Waterfront. I like Baby Doll just as much as those two better-known, more famous films. Baby Doll was filmed on location in Benoit, Mississippi and features town's residents in several small speaking parts. It's a brilliant tragi-comedy that received four Oscar nominations despite wide condemnation from several groups including the League of Decency, the Catholic Church, etc. A future dvd release is a given.

[oscar jubis]

Wed September 7th

Junebug (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=12841#post12841) (USA, 2005) at SoBe Regal

[oscar jubis]

Thursday September 8th

Asylum (UK, 2005) at SoBe Regal
The asylum is for criminally insane inmates and it's located in the outskirts of London. It's 1959 when a doctor and his wife Stella (Natasha Richardson) move into a house on the grounds. Their marriage is clearly strained, and Stella develops a passionate attraction towards a handsome inmate. Stella learns from Doctor Cleave (Ian McKellen) that the inmate is a sculptor who suffers from "morbid jealousy" and that he killed and disfigured his wife.
Director David Mackenzie and cinematographer Giles Nuttgens collaborated in last year's excellent Young Adam. Both films have common thematic and formal elements_the same shallow-focus photography, slightly saturated colors, and precise placement and movement of the camera. The setup or premise will be familiar to many but the narrative takes some unexpected, not always entirely believable, turns. Asylum is based on a novel by Patrick McGrath, and adapted by Patrick Marber (Closer). I don't know, not having read the novel, who to credit for the excellent dialogue, particularly the lines written for the enigmatic character played by Mr. McKellen, who figures prominently in ways that are never obvious. A couple of scenes are poorly staged, and Asylum is not what you'd call original, but Richardson and McKellen are great to watch and Asylum is engaging, and visually nimble.

[Chris Knipp]

(I too liked Young Adam--see below.) I haven't seen Asylum and it hasn't sounded promising, though of course I can well understand why you as one in the field of psychotherapy would want to see it. Anthony Lane in The New Yorker had fun with it. You have covered your bases and hedged your bets so well that it's hard to tease a solid rating our of your remarks, but I guess what they add up to is a B-. Sounds like a disappointment after the quite innteresting and beautifully focused Young Adam which I reviewed (http://www.cinescene.com/reviews/youngadam.htm) McGrath wrote the book on which Cronenberg's Spider was based. The director seems to be unpredictable. Now I realize I should see this.

[oscar jubis]

Nice review of Young Adam, a better film than Asylum, which I'm glad I watched during its last theatrical screening here. We seem to be communicating well because a "B-" would accurately reflect my opinion of the film. I remember you experimented with letter grades for a period. If I ever decide to grade films I would definitely describe specifically what each grade means to me. Asylum is a flawed film with enough of merit to be worth-watching yet far from a must-see.

[oscar jubis]

Friday September 9th

Blind Beast (Japan, 1969) dvd
"What interests me is a conflict between expressions of naked desires which cannot be mitigated by environment. I want to create a mad person who expresses his or her desire without shame" (Yasuzu Masumura)
A blind sculptor and his mother kidnap a beautiful young model (Mako Midori) and take her to his studio, a converted warehouse on the city's outskirts. The sculptor is fascinated with the female body. His studio features walls lined with sculptures of body parts, with two giant naked female forms in the middle, one facing down and the other facing up. After several days of captivity and failed attempts to flee, the model starts to succumb to the sculptor's constant attention and touch and he discovers sex for the first time. Sculptor and model embark on a search for pleasure and sensation that knows no limits and leads to madness, murder and suicide. Watching Masumura deploy his camera around this set is worth the price of admission. This is one stylish, mature work from the prolific Japanese director Masumura (Manji (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=12276#post12276)), a favorite of Michelangelo Antonioni. The film is based on a story by Rampo Edogawa, whose life story became the subject of the film The Mystery of Rampo.

The Chicken (France, 1962) Cosford Cinema
A short written and directed by Claude Berri, which won an Oscar for Best Short Film. It's 15 minutes long and concerns a young boy trying to keep his parents from killing a chicken. Very funny and well-observed. It anticipates Berri's first feature, which was shown consequently.

The Two of Us aka The Old Man and the Boy (France, 1967) Cosford Cinema
Claude Berri's debut feature is largely autobiographical. The protagonist, an 8 year old boy, is named Claude Langmann, Berri's birth name. In 1942 Paris, the son of a Jewish tailor is sent to live in the country with the parents of a family friend. The old man, played by the great Michel Simon (Boudu Saved From Drowning, L'Atalante, La Chienne), is a fun-loving, affectionate old rascal who happens to be anti-semitic and a supporter of the Vichy government. The boy has been diligently coached on how to pass for Catholic until he can reunite with his parents. A black-and-white film about country life during wartime and the relationship that develops between the old man and the boy. Moving and inmensely entertaining. The Two of Us has been recently restored and was shown in a brand new 35 mm print. I predict a dvd release in the near future. A sure crowd-pleaser.

[oscar jubis]

Saturday Sep. 10th

El Inmortal (Nicaragua, 2005) at Cosford Cinema
Documentary directed by Mercedes Moncada Rodriguez and shown as part of the LatinBeat Film Festival. Ms. Moncada chose the extended Rivera family among several families interviewed for the purpose of illustrating how the civil war in Nicaragua divided families. El Inmortal deals with the conflict only as far as its impact on the Riveras, who live in the hill town of Waslala in Northern Nicaragua. The doc offers no informative intertitles, no archival material and no narration. Only interviews conducted in late 2003 and early 2004. Several teenage members of the Rivera family became war combatants in 1983, when their modest home was located in the crossfire of a battle between Sandinistas and Contras. The husband of the eldest and 15 year-old Emilio died during warfare but both the twins, who fought for different sides, and another sister survived.
The interviews are arranged so that a chronological story of their experiences from 1983 to 1990 emerges. El Inmortal is named after a Mack truck used to spread Evangelical Christianity to nearby towns. The doc most definitely does not take sides between Sandinistas and Contras, but it's extremely tendentious and agenda-driven with regards to Christianity. The repeated use of religious imagery and sermons in voice-over go way beyond the need to convey the importance of religion to three of the family members. Arty, "show-offy" breaks between interview segments, scored to loud, ponderous sounds and music by avant-garde songstress Diamanda Galas are superfluous and out-of-place. Some viewers may become frustrated by the lack of background information about the war, and many questions about the Riveras are left unanswered (Is Reina mentally ill, superstitious, or "divinely influenced"?). Almost incidentally, the film provides a rare glimpse into the life conditions and belief systems of the poor who live in rural areas of Latin America.

El Perro aka Bombon, the Dog (Argentina, 2005) at Cosford Cinema
All five of director Carlos Sorin's features are set in the desolate plains of Patagonia, even the one titled Eversmile, New Jersey. Only one of his films, Historias Minimas (2002) has been distributed in the USA. His latest is being shown around the country as part of a traveling series called LatinBeat Film Festival. It is, in my opinion, a better film than Historias Minimas, perhaps because of the thematic unity facilitated by the focus on a protagonist, a wonderful character played by the naturally expressive first-time actor Juan Villegas (also the name of the character). When the film opens, the affable, 50-something Juan has been let go by the new owners of the service station where he worked for 20 years. While looking for a permanent position, he drives around in his beaten van providing help to stranded motorists and trying to sell the artesanal knives he makes as a hobby. He visits his stressed-out daughter and goes to an employment agency where the sarcastic clerk offers little hope. He comes across a disabled Mercedes. He tows it 150 Kms. to "La Chienne", a farm whose widowed owner offers a white dogo (a highly sought out breed) as payment. The dog is a sort of people-magnet who puts Juan in contact with various individuals, including one who wants to train the dog for competition and hire him for breeding. Many new experiences await Juan, including a romantic interest. It's all handled deftly, with a light touch, with sensitivity and attention to character detail. Bombon the Dog is an emotional movie that avoids treacly sentimentality. The rare "crowd-pleaser" whose narrative turns never feel forced.I hope its commercial potential will be recognized by someone in a position to distribute it widely in this country.

[oscar jubis]

Sunday September 11th

Hurlevent aka Wuthering Heights (France, 1985) dvd
The great Jacques Rivette adapted the first part of Emily Bronte's Victorian-era classic by setting it in rural France in the 30s. Rivette's, like previous adaptations by Wyler and Bunuel, does not follow the novel's conceit of telling the story from the point of view of two outsiders. The result is a conventional yet effective melodrama. Good performances by Lucas Belvaux and Fabienne Babe in the principal roles.

Brief Encounter (UK, 1945) dvd
David Lean is most familiar to contemporary film buffs for expensive epics like Bridge on the River Kwai, Doctor Zhivago and Lawrence of Arabia, but in the 1940s, when Lean turned from editing to directing films, he was best known for his collaborations with playwright Noel Coward. Brief Encounter is perhaps the best from an impressive group that includes Blithe Spirit, This Happy Breed and In Which We Serve. It's an expansion of Coward's one-act play "Still Life", about the unconsumated love affair between a housewife (Celia Johnson) and a married doctor (Trevor Howard) who meet at a train station not far from London. The film was lensed by Robert Crasker, the cinematographer responsible for the wonderful The Third Man and Visconti's Senso. In fact, every aspect of this production is top quality, from the writing to the editing, to the sound design and the unique use of music (Rachmaninov's Second Piano Concerto figures prominently), to the excellent performances from Johnson and Howard. The film provides a glimpse into middle-class British mores of the period between the world wars. Brief Encounter has a similar emotional impact on the viewer as Kar Wai's In The Mood For Love.

[oscar jubis]

Monday September 12th

Anna Christie (USA, 1931) on TCM
Garbo Talks! screamed the headlines and marquees, referring to the English version of this adaptation of a Eugene O'Neill play. Greta Garbo preferred the German-language version so it's the one I watched. It features the same sets as the English one and of course, Garbo, but a different cast and crew. She plays a girl raised by her mother in rural Minnesota who, at age 20, comes to NY to reunite with her alcoholic, sailor father. They haven't seen each other for 15 years. Good but not essential, despite Garbo's "Presence".

Kwik Stop (USA, 2001) dvd
Having recently watched The Mad Songs of Fernanda Hussein and this low-budget indie, films that were rarely screened outside of film festivals, I'm beginning to question the wisdom of distributors regarding which Amerindies to distribute widely. Kwik Stop was made by a Chicago-based group headed by writer/director/actor Michael Gilio and featuring an outstanding performance by Lara Phillips. It has received a couple of festival awards. Roger Ebert gave it 3 1/2 stars and chose to screen it as part of his Overlooked Film Festival. Jonathan Rosenbaum listed Kwik Stop as a runner-up on his 10 Best Films of 2001 essay. A third of IMdb voters who've seen it rate it a "10". Yet the film was not distributed theatrically. At least it's out on dvd now, and the less you know about its surprising plot the better. I won't spoil it by saying that it's about a teen girl named Didi who meets a guy driving to Hollywood outside a convenience store and decides to tag along. It starts as a road movie/ romantic comedy but the film will soon confound and challenge expectations. Two others become prominent characters: the guy's ex-girlfriend and a bitter middle-aged widower. Kwik Stop is a movie full of magical coincidences, tone shifts, rhyming effects, well-written dialogue, satiric passages, stylistic flourishes and unpredictable twists. It seems to me that the indie films that get wide distribution are a more polished and calculated type of film that often don't differ substantially from Hollywood films. They may be quirky and offbeat on the surface but deep down they're safe as milk. Kwik Stop takes chances at every turn.

[oscar jubis]

Tuesday September 13th

Today I watched disc 1 of the The PAL dvd "The Complete Jean Vigo", which includes the three shorts ond one feature he completed before dying at age 29. It was enough to certify Vigo as one of the best filmmakers ever. I watched the two documentaries (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=11608#post11608) that comprise disc 2 of the set earlier this year. L'Atalante has been available on dvd in North America for years. It's only a matter of time until the masterful three shorts that preceded it also become available. All are absolutely essential viewing.

A Propos de Nice (France, 1930) 22 minutes
Overhead shots of the coastal resort city open the film, a portrait of the city in all its splendor, catching the rich at rest and play at casinos, hotels, cafes and beaches. But most importantly, Jean Vigo pays homage to the residents who make all the leisure and luxury possible: the waiters, the laundresses, the entertainers, the street cleaners, the vendors, the shoeshiners, etc. A Propos de Nice evidences documentary, surrealist, and avant-garde influences. The juxtaposition of shots creates comedic, dramatic and satiric effects throughout.

Swimming by Jean Taris (France, 1931) 10 minutes
A Master Class on swimming given by the great French, and Olympic, champion. Wonderful underwater photography and use of reverse and slowed time.

Zero in Conduct (France, 1933) 42 minutes
An anarchic masterpiece based on Jean Vigo's experiences at boarding school. The tyrants that run the school, including a dwarf with fake beard who is the principal, attempt to intimate the sensitive new kid. But he resists and joins three other pranksters in sabotaging the school's Commemoration festivities. The riotous pillow fight scene possibly the most representative of Jean Vigo's sensibility.

L'Atalante (France, 1934)
One of the best films ever made. The story of Juliette, a provincial girl who marries Jean, a barge skipper. Aboard, a cabin boy and the old sailor Pere Jules (an absolutely awesome performance by Michel Simon). The conflicts arise almost as soon as Juliette boards the barge and needs to get used to a new lifestyle and surroundings. Jean becomes irritated by her fast friendship with the wild and unpredictable old sailor. But when they dock in Paris, its the allure of the city to a first-time visitor and Jean's jealousy of a charming street peddler that causes their separation.
L'Atalante is as fresh and inventive today as 70 years ago. It's hilarious, whimsical, romantic, erotic, and quite moving. It's useless to talk about genres or categories to discuss L'Atalante because Vigo's vision is so seamless and organic. One could argue that several scenes are simultaneously realistic and magical or surrealist. This was my 4th or 5th viewing and there'll be many more.

[oscar jubis]

Wed Sep 14th

The Holy Girl (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=12944#post12944) (Argentina, 2004) A Must-See, now out on dvd.

[oscar jubis]

Thursday September 15th

2046 (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=8467#post8467) (China/Germany/France, 2004) at Regal SoBe
My favorite undistributed film of 2004 provides the most pleasurable theatrical experience of 2005.

The Wayward Cloud (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=12938#post12938) (Taiwan/France, 2005) import dvd

[oscar jubis]

Friday Sep 16th

Tokyo Twilight (Japan, 1957) Import dvd
Yasujiro Ozu was one of the most consistently excellent film directors. This rarely screened gem, was his last black & white film. It's another superb family drama focusing on relationships between parents and their adult children. What makes Tokyo Twilight unique is the uncharacteristically "heavy" or "dark" themes. Chishu Ryu and Setsuko Hara are featured again as father and daughter. (Spoilers) He is a banker whose wife abandoned him and their three young children 20 years ago. The oldest daughter has moved back home with her 2 year old daughter because her husband is alcoholic and abusive. The youngest daughter won't tell anyone that she's pregnant and that her boyfriend fails to take responsibility. Their mother is rumored to have returned to Tokyo to renew family ties. Subtle yet emotionally poweful drama with excellent performances by Ryu, Hara, and newcomer Ineko Arima as the rebellious and conflicted young daughter.

The Old Dark House (USA, 1932) dvd
Outstanding horror/comedy/romance from British director James Whale (Bride of Frankenstein, The Invisible Man) featuring Charles Laughton, in his American debut, and Boris Karloff. The Old Dark House was lensed by Arthur Edison, whose credits include Casablanca, The Maltese Falcon and other classics of the Golden Era. The Old Dark House is characterized by carefully planned static compositions and fluid editing, with less camera movement than subsequent Whale films. Somehow this old film manages to be creepier AND funnier than the many "haunted house" movies that followed. Marred by a single plot development at the conclusion, meant to satisfy perceived audience expectations.

[oscar jubis]

Saturday September 17th

Moon of Avellaneda (Argentina, 2004) at Cosford Cinema
The title refers to a sports and social club, a meaningful and important place for a whole community which is, like Argentina, experiencing economic woes. The club is a metaphor for the country in director Juan Jose Campanella's follow up to the well-received Son of the Bride. Moon of Avellaneda is the third collaboration by Campanella, screenwriter Fernando Castets and actors Ricardo Darin and Daniel Fanego. This team has managed again to make a film that strikes a perfect balance between comedy and drama, between personal and social problems, between nostalgia and realism. Darin and Fanego play modern quijotes with inner demons and relationship problems who fight to reject a generous proposal to turn the decaying club into a casino. Here's hoping a distributor will recognize the quality and obvious commercial potential of Moon of Avellaneda.

*The following shorts are part of a dvd released by Film Movement titled: "Art of the Short Film". It's worth renting mostly because of the two animated Oscar-nominees.

Death Dealer: A Documentary (USA, 2004) 16 min
A death angel (Henry Rollins) allows a film crew to document his morbid, daily routine. Darkly funny mockumentary.
The First Three Lives of Stuart Hornsley (USA, 2004) 30 min
A science teacher uses his time machine to travel to the past and change his destiny. Poorly paced and inconsequential.
Das Rad (Germany, 2003) 9 min
Hew and Kew are two animated rocks who witness, over centuries, the development of human civilization. Poignant ending implies Earth will outlive humans. Oscar-nominee.
Mt. Head (Japan, 2003) 10 min
A stingy man eats cherry pits only to find a tree growing in his head. Wildly inventive animation. Oscar-nominee.
Sangam (India/USA, 2004) 24 min
A nostalgic, new immigrant from Calcutta befriends an Indian-American in a NYC subway car. Visually attractive, well acted, but ruined by a poorly conceived script.
Inja aka Dog (S. Africa/Australia, 2003) 17 min
Contrived drama involving a black youth, his dog, and a white landowner. Oscar-nominee.

[oscar jubis]

Sunday Sep 18th

My Best Enemy (Chile/Argentina, 2005) at Cosford Cinema
In 1978, Chile and Argentina were on the verge of war over three disputed Beagle Channel islands. Alex Bowen's film concerns a Chilean patrol unit that gets lost in the poorly defined border between the two countries, in the flat and desolate Patagonia region. They encounter an Argentine unit sent to patrol the same area. Since war has not been declared, they manage to negotiate a tentative, fragile accomodation based on need and mutual survival. Friendship blossoms under the most extreme circumstances. But how long can it last?
My Best Enemy was filmed on actual locations, and sides with the common men imposed upon by the military dictatorships that ruled both Chile and Argentina. Governments that exploit nationalistic sentiments for purposes of greed and vainglory. My Best Enemy is thus quite commendable, besides being engaging and nicely photographed. Yet the message lacks the impact of films like Fuller's The Steel Helmet or Malick's The Thin Red Line, for instance. Moreover, the characters are archetypes, not unlike those from John Ford's The Lost Patrol. My Best Enemy is not great, but it's a good movie that will not get the distribution it deserves.

[Chris Knipp]

Oscar, it's too bad you aren't here because while everything else is going on at Lincoln Center in the films, there is a Latin series. Of course I can't cover it.

[oscar jubis]

Do you mean the Latin Beat festival that just concluded at the Walter Reade? This festival was also presented here, at the Cosford. I watched and reviewed 5 of the films including Moon of Avellaneda from the director of The Son of the Bride, and El Perro from the director of Historias Minimas. I liked the new films more than the earlier ones from both directors, but they have not been picked up for distribution. Not yet. Next month I'll be posting on a Chilean series. If you haven't seen it, rent The Holy Girl by Lucrecia Martel when you return home.

Monday Sep 19

Sometimes in April (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=12979#post12979) (USA/Fra/Rwanda, 2005) dvd

[oscar jubis]

Tuesday Sep 20th

The Constant Gardener (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=12997#post12997) (USA, 2005) at AMC CocoWalk

Wed. September 21st

Born to be Bad (USA, 1950) TCM
Nicholas Ray (Bitter Victory, In a Lonely Place (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=11834#post11834), King of Kings (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=11849#post11849)) was one of the best American directors of the Golden Era. Between 1947 and 1962, he made several masterpieces. Many others came close. Born to Be Bad is merely good. Joan Fontaine, who played helpless victims in films like Rebecca and Suspicion, is cast against type as Chistabel, the small town girl of modest means bent on getting rich at any cost. She sets her sights on millionaire Curtis (Zachary Scott), who's engaged to Donna (the very beautiful Joan Leslie), but lusts after stud Nick (Robert Ryan). Ray's direction is quite dynamic and the cast is excellent, but the characters need more shading and the resolution is Hollywood-predictable.

[oscar jubis]

Thur. September 22st

I Heart Huckabees (USA, 2004) dvd

"A Zen monk once told me: if you're not laughing you're not getting it"
(David O. Russell)

I couldn't totally grasp this film from director David O. Russell after watching it at the theatre last year. I listed it under "honorable mention" at year's end because of its boundless ambition and originality. But I needed a second viewing to form a solid opinion: I Heart Huckabees is one of the best films of 2004.

Huckabees is teeming with incident and bursting with ideas. Moreover, like previous Russell films (Spanking the Monkey, Three Kings), it finds humor where others fear to thread. This one's a bitch to review. I have yet to find a single critic who comes close to addressing what's in store for the viewer. Every review seems to focus on a few of its conceits, characters, incidents and ideas because it seems almost impossible to digest it all in a single viewing. It's basically a farce about the political activism of characters undergoing existential crises, characters wrestling with the big issues of identity, consciousness, and one's place in the large scheme of things. But somehow, it's funny and moving. There's Albert (Jason Schwartzman) who thinks public readings of his awful poems are the best strategy to combat suburban sprawl. Albert's nemesis is Brad (Jude Law), the golden boy of the Huckabees chain, whose involvement in Albert's Open Spaces Coalition is calculated to boost his employer's public image. Dawn (Naomi Watts), Brad's girl and Huckabees' spokesmodel, rebels against being Brad's status object and the store's marketing tool. But perhaps I Heart Huckabees' most memorable character is Tommy (Mark Wahlberg), a firefighter full of pentup aggression, pained by the government's response to 9/11 and our dependence on oil.

How do you make a humorous film about philosophical and political issues? Russell's brilliant conceit is having these characters consult a duo of "existential detectives" (a hybrid of psychotherapist and guru) played with gusto by Dustin Hoffman and Lily Tomlin. They emphasize an idealistic, universal interconnectedness, "focus on the big picture" existential view. Their opposite, a sultry French nihilist played by the ultra-talented Isabelle Huppert, has a business card that promises "cruelty, manipulation, meaninglessness". The two opposing camps battle for the souls and minds of Albert, Brad, Dawn and Tommy most amusingly. Oh, and there's a Sudanese refugee and his adoptive, SUV riding, Bush-loving, Christian family; and Shania Twain as herself, and a lot more.

I Heart Huckabees is not squarely an issues-and-ideas film, Russell provides quite a bit of backstory to Albert and Brad, who emerge as more dimensional than characters commonly found in farcical comedies. Both are exposed as people whose behavior is dictated by motives beyond their immediate awareness. As a matter of fact, all four of the major characters undergo significant development. Their transformations are the substance of a film that goes full-blast with eyes wide open into uncharted territory.

[JustaFied]

Originally posted by oscar jubis
But I needed a second viewing to form a solid opinion: I Heart Huckabees is one of the best films of 2004.


I'm glad you've formed a more positive opinion of this film now. It seems to be a film about which people have strong reactions either way. On another thread here, Johann tears it apart. My opinion of the film: lukewarm. I want to see it again (I've seen it twice so far) to betermine determine if I can put myself more firmly into the "pro" or "con" camp.

My feeling on this film is that it's brilliant at times but flat at others. And the times it's flat are frustrating because of the potential to be better. The basic philosophical battle in the film (Hoffman vs. Huppert) is, dare I say it, rather flaky and irrelevent to the overall story. Maybe because I'm a pragmatist, or maybe because so few films dare to venture into such territory, but I found the sharpest scenes to be those that directly took on issues faced in our society today. The dinner scene with the wholesome All-American family (with the African orphan) is ingenious. It's a perfect incapsulation of the "blue state" frustration with "red state" mentality - hard working, good intentioned people with hopeless ignorance and naivete about the realities of the world.

Again, what I've said before on these threads is that Russell manages to create an absurdist tale reflecting the absurdities of the society we live in today. The remaining question is whether all the pieces in the film's puzzle fit together in such a way to make it a "brilliant" film. I'm dying for a filmmaker today to take head-on the subject matter of American society and life (ala Altman's brilliant and still relevent masterpiece Nashville from 30 years ago), and in my mind Russell hasn't quite made it there yet.

[oscar jubis]

Originally posted by JustaFied
On another thread here, Johann tears it apart.
Yep. Too much pinot noir? Too much late Fellini? Perhaps. Is it wishful thinking on my part to predict he'd see the light after a second viewing? I was glad to find it at #8 on the Village Voice's Critics Poll.

The basic philosophical battle in the film (Hoffman vs. Huppert) is, dare I say it, rather flaky and irrelevent to the overall story.
A dialogue late in the film between Albert and Tommy indicates they found a way to accomodate both viewpoints, to strike a balance between them. Yet, as you imply, the script doesn't really allow for the exposition and confrontation of the tenets of either philosophical approach. My suggestion is not to regard the philosophical battle abstractly but to see it only as it relates to Albert and Tommy. Their dissatisfaction with the state of things creates polar tendencies within them: narcissism (Tommy's violence, Albert's inflated self-regard) and disengagement vs. altruism and engagement. In my opinion, the "existential dicks" and Huppert's nihilist are primarily plot devices and conduits. They make it possible for the film to dig into Albert and Brad's pasts, serve as a way to get Tommy and Albert together, and facilitate getting inside their heads (not unlike the portal in Kaufman's Being John Malkovich).

I found the sharpest scenes to be those that directly took on issues faced in our society today. The dinner scene with the wholesome All-American family (with the African orphan) is ingenious. It's a perfect incapsulation of the "blue state" frustration with "red state" mentality

Russell gets my respect merely for attempting to articulate "the deep divide". I found the scene quite effective, but not more so than many others, including the scene in which Tommy's wife leaves him and takes the kids.

The remaining question is whether all the pieces in the film's puzzle fit together in such a way to make it a "brilliant" film. I'm dying for a filmmaker today to take head-on the subject matter of American society and life (ala Altman's brilliant and still relevent masterpiece Nashville from 30 years ago), and in my mind Russell hasn't quite made it there yet.

I Heart Huckabees is no Nashville. We might have to wait a while for another film like it. It's not a perfect movie like Before Sunset. It's not neat and its puzzle doesn't fit together the way Eternal Sunshine does. But it's more daring and ambitious than anything made in the USA in 2004. Even though not completely successful, even if Russell hasn't quite made his masterpiece, I Heart Huckabees achieves enough to merit inclusion into a list of best films of 2004. At the minimum, Russell deserves credit for creating a narrative full of good-natured humor that asks the right questions. Of course, this is only my subjective opinion.

[oscar jubis]

Friday Sep 23rd

Torremolinos '73 (Spain, 2003) at Cosford Cinema
This period comedy was an audience favorite when it had its American premiere at the 2004 Miami International FF. Writer/director Pablo Berger milks the wide differences between open-minded Scandinavia and the repressed, behind-the-times Spain of the early 70s. A Spanish publishing company agrees to produce amateur porn to be sold exclusively in Scandinavia. On the verge of being fired because of low sales of encyclopedias, a traveling salesman (Talk to Her's Javier Camara[/i]) agrees to film himself having sex with his wife (Candela Pena from Take My Eyes). She becomes a porn star in Scandinavia and complications ensue. Ms. Pena won Best Actress at the MIFF and the film received four Goya noms. The funny Torremolinos '73 celebrates sex and pays homage to Ingmar Bergman, then ends on a poignant note. Worth seeing.

[oscar jubis]

Sat Sep 24th

Curse of the Cat People (USA, 1944) on TCM
Not a great movie like many others produced by Val Newton in the 40s, but a good, sort-of sequel to the excellent Cat People (1942). Builds a creepy narrative around a father's disapproval of her lonely daughter creating imaginary friends and her obsession with daddy's dead ex-wife. Psychologically sound characterization of a child's inner world.

Oseam (South Korea, 2003) dvd
Animated, loose adaptation of buddhist fable based on a novel by Chae-bong Jeong. A sentimental tale about an orphan "Dennis-the-Menace-type" and his blind sister who take shelter in a monastery. A plot contrivance or two result in the boy ending up alone on a mountain-top retreat where he attains nirvana. Animation is fine but not spectacular.

[oscar jubis]

Sunday Sep 24

La Chinoise (France, 1967) PAL dvd
Godard was quite prescient about the events of May 1968 with this film about a summer in the lives of college students who've formed a Maoist group. They debate, discuss, and plan a leftist revolution in a series of episodes, most set in a bourgeois apartment. Godard may have agreed with half of what they say, but he depicts them as naive, confused, out-of-touch with reality, and deserving ridicule. This is topical cinema and the political specifics are dated. It's Godard and it's only 90 minutes long, but this fan was bored during the middle third. Watch Weekend instead.

The Miracle of Morgan's Creek (USA, 1944) on Turner C.M.
My favorite movie by my favorite writer/director of comedies, Mr. Preston Sturges (Sullivan's Travels, The Lady Eve). I've lost count how many times I've seen it, and I've posted about it before (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=12642#post12642). The Miracle of Morgan's Creek is deliriously inventive and wildly unpredictable. William Demarest, Eddie Bracken and Betty Hutton are excellent. It's a miracle Sturges got this one past the censors.

[Johann]

I forgot to say thanks for the Vigo posts oscar.
I printed it off.

I am the biggest fan of this journal, even if I haven't laced it with my warped comments.

[oscar jubis]

Gracias! I'm glad YOU like it. Johann, d'you think Vigo had any inkling as he was dying at age 29 that guys born many decades later would love his films so? I mean, he was dead when L'Atalante premiered officially, and few thought much of it and the shorts until years later. There will be film buffs born in this century who'll understand his early death was a calamity. I had never seen his first film, the short A Propos de Nice, until this year. It's an amazing piece of work, but L'Atalante remains my favorite.

Monday Sep 26

The term "art movie" and "art house" are misused these days to refer to commercial films outside the mainstream, often American independents or films in which a language other than English is spoken. When I've used these terms I put them under quotations because I believe the "art" designation should be used to refer to films made for entirely artistic purposes. What I consider true art movies are usually called "experimental" or "avant garde" nowadays, even though they may utilize technics and approaches that date back to the silent era.
Today I watched Vol I of a dvd set called AVANT GARDE: EXPERIMENTAL CINEMA of the 1920s and 30s. Most are the property of Raymond Rohauer, a film collector from Los Angeles. These shorts range from entirely abstract to elliptically or obliquely narrative. Several are either based on poems or advertise themselves as poetic_the made-in-Paris films of the American Man Ray and the Russian Dimitri Kirsanoff achieve a high degree of lyricism. Most of the films in the collection reflect the movements in the fine arts in vogue during the 20s and 30s: Surrealism, Cubism, Dadaism, and representational painting. The dvd set is a region 1 release and it's available at Netflix and other rental outfits.

MAN RAY: The Return to Reason, Emak-Bakia, L'Etoile de Mer, Les Mysteres du Chateau du De
DIMITRI KIRSANOF: Mists of Autumn, Menilmontant.
ORSON WELLES: The Hearts of Age
MARCEL DUCHAMP: Anemic Cinema
HANS RICHTER: Rhythmus 21, Ghosts before Breakfast.
WATSON/WEBBER: Lot in Sodom
VORKAPICH/FLOREY: The Death of a Hollywood Extra.
VIKING EGGELING: Symphomie Diagonale
JEAN PAINLEVE: Le Vampire
FERNAND LEGER: Ballet Mechanique

[oscar jubis]

Tue Sep 27th

No Direction Home: Bob Dylan (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=13038#post13038) (USA, 2005) on PBS

[oscar jubis]

Wed Sep 28th

The Memory of a Killer aka The Alzheimer Case (Belgium/Netherlands, 2004) at Regal SoBe
Stylish film directed by Erik Van Looy based on a novel by Jef Geeraerts. Solid "policier" involving corruption, cover-ups, multiple murders and illegal sex is brought up a notch by its attention to character detail and the award-winning perf by veteran Belgian actor Jan Decleir (Character).

[oscar jubis]

Thu Sep 29th

Lord of War (USA, 2005) at AMC CocoWalk
The rise and fall of an Ukrainian-American arms dealer (Nicholas Cage) spanning two decades. This film, written and directed by Andrew Niccol but made possible by producer/star Cage, is built around his jocular voice-over. An action-adventure with a political agenda and a consistently satiric tone. Lord of War is earnest and entertaining, as long as it's not concerned with the protagonist's dream wife: Cage's obsession with her, the elaborate courting, the scenes of domestic life, her being "in the dark" about his arms dealing and the moral outrage that follows; it all rings false, feels borrowed, or both. When it concentrates on the globetrotting Cage and his attempts at rationalizing what he does for a living, Lord of War soars high.

The Spiral Staircase (USA, 1946) on PAL dvd
Chiller directed by Robert Siodmark (The Killers (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=11276#post11276), Criss Cross (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=11780#post11780)), based on a novel by Ethel White about a killer targeting women with disabilities and afflictions. The film takes the point of view of a young woman who's been unable to speak since she witnessed her parents accidentally burn to death. I suspect the source novel is not very good. What makes The Spiral Staircase required viewing is the delicious cinematography by Nicholas Musuraca and the way Siodmark uses set, lighting, music and sound effects to make a very scary flick out of a mediocre script.

[JustaFied]

Further discussion on Huckabees:


Originally posted by oscar jubis
My suggestion is not to regard the philosophical battle abstractly but to see it only as it relates to Albert and Tommy. Their dissatisfaction with the state of things creates polar tendencies within them: narcissism (Tommy's violence, Albert's inflated self-regard) and disengagement vs. altruism and engagement. In my opinion, the "existential dicks" and Huppert's nihilist are primarily plot devices and conduits. They make it possible for the film to dig into Albert and Brad's pasts, serve as a way to get Tommy and Albert together, and facilitate getting inside their heads (not unlike the portal in Kaufman's Being John Malkovich).

I watched the film again this weekend, and I do appreciate it more every time I see it. I think my approach now is to stop analyzing the philosophical underpinnings of the story at some point...for instance, I could argue that an "existentialist" self-analysis by Brad and his girlfriend would only lead them to reinforce their own self images and approach to life. But that wouldn't be nearly as fun for the filmmakers, so I'll stop there. I do like the overall philosophical message though, which seems to be that yes, everything is interconnected, but yes, there also is much pain and suffering that forms a large part of human existence. So, an approach to life should acknowledge both aspects (life=interconnectedness + nihilism), but American society at this point seems to be in full disregard of this. Is that the point of the film? Whew, I'm tired...


I Heart Huckabees is no Nashville. We might have to wait a while for another film like it. It's not a perfect movie like Before Sunset. It's not neat and its puzzle doesn't fit together the way Eternal Sunshine does. But it's more daring and ambitious than anything made in the USA in 2004. Even though not completely successful, even if Russell hasn't quite made his masterpiece, I Heart Huckabees achieves enough to merit inclusion into a list of best films of 2004. At the minimum, Russell deserves credit for creating a narrative full of good-natured humor that asks the right questions. Of course, this is only my subjective opinion.

I agree that it's more daring (and ambitious, yes) than almost anything else made in the USA in 2004, but unfortunately that doesn't say much anymore. My point in bringing up Nashville is that it is, in my mind, the most effective film I've seen to view through a microscope, so to speak, America, its society and its people. At the same time, it remains a beautifully poetic film in its structure and storyline. Before Sunrise and Eternal Sunshine, while perhaps "perfect" films, are more personal in nature and don't take on subject matters of such wide scope.

[oscar jubis]

Originally posted by JustaFied
I watched the film again this weekend, and I do appreciate it more every time I see it.
Because of the novel premise and dense plot, it seems to require more than one viewing to appreciate in full. I wish the crits who didn't like it would watch it and review it again.

the overall philosophical message though, which seems to be that yes, everything is interconnected, but yes, there also is much pain and suffering that forms a large part of human existence. So, an approach to life should acknowledge both aspects (life=interconnectedness + nihilism), but American society at this point seems to be in full disregard of this. Is that the point of the film?
Yes, that's the overall philosophical message. And there are lots of other kinds of messages or ideas "underneath". Stuff about the hipocrisy of corporate environmentalism, how we can be our own worst enemies (betraying oneself), the ulterior motives behing the altruism of activists, etc.

My point in bringing up Nashville is that it is, in my mind, the most effective film I've seen to view through a microscope, so to speak, America, its society and its people.
Any other films that do or attempt to do that? How about Magnolia and American Beauty? I guess Dogville doesn't count because it's a period film.

[oscar jubis]

Friday Sep. 30th

For a Fistful of Dollars (Italy, 1964) at Florida Intern. U.
Plenty of new releases but I couldn't pass on a public screening of the first collaboration between director Sergio Leone and composer Ernio Morricone. It brought fame to Clint Eastwood, Leone's fourth choice for principal role. Not the first spaghetti western, just the first to receive international distribution. For a Fistful of Dollars represents a giant leap in the realistic depiction of violence in movies. It's unbelievably sadistic compared to anything released up to that point, with three torture scenes and gleeful laughter accompanying every kill, except for Eastwood, who's implacably cool throghout. The plot was lifted off Kurosawa's Yojimbo. Leone was taking the first steps towards a very personal style that gained him a large following, particularly among the young.

[oscar jubis]

3rd Quarter Report

During the months of July, August and September, I watched a total of 162 films, more than the 144 of the first quarter and 134 of the second. The reason is that 35 of them are shorts. I've been making a point to dedicate more time to short films which I've always neglected. I've seen some amazing ones this year, including Vigo's A Propos de Nice, Man Ray's L' Etoile de Mer, the Iranian The House is Black, and others recently released as compilations on dvd.
Of the 127 features I watched, 38 were theatrical screenings, 22 were broadcast on TV (most on Turner Classics Movies) and the rest on video.
I'm looking forward to the last quarter. There's are several events of interest in the city including a Chilean series, an Italian series, a traveling Third World festival (I think it's called Global Initiative), and the Fort Lauderdale Film Festival (not a great fest but there's always something to discover that's not likely to get distribution).

[oscar jubis]

Sat October 1st

Tim Burton's Corpse Bride (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=13092#post13092) at AMC CocoWalk

Magnificent Obsession (USA, 1954) on TCM
Lamentable how the term melodrama has become synonymous with "mawkish tearjerker" because the genre has produced a ton of outstanding pictures. Douglas Sirk (All That Heaven Allows, Tarnished Angels) became a master director of melodramas during the 1950s.
Magnificent Obsession concerns the transformation of a callous rich man (Rock Hudson) into a person of high moral values through the magic of true love and the desire to make amends. If this sounds corny to you, do stay away. Sirk's attention to color, composition, production design and the nuances of performance are readily apparent.

[oscar jubis]

Sun October 2nd

Viridiana (Spain, 1961) on TCM
Luis Bunuel returned to his native Spain after many years working in Mexico and brought along Silvia Pinal. He cast the blonde Mexican as the titular would-be nun. Before taking her final vows, Viridiana is encouraged by her superiors to visit the uncle who's financed her education since her parents died. They've never actually met. Her uncle Don Jaime (Fernando Rey) is struck by how much she resembles her aunt, who died in her wedding dress on honeymoon night 30 years ago. His obsession with the corpse bride is beyond belief. At his insistence, our heroine agrees hesitantly to wear the white dress. Don Jaime, aided by his complaint maid, drugs her. The next morning, to keep her from returning to the convent as scheduled, he tells Viridiana that he raped her. Don Jaime reconsiders and tells her the truth, that he was able to resist temptation. Upon arriving at the convent, Viridiana receives the news that Don Jaime hung himself in despair. She returns to live in her uncle's large estate, turning it into a shelter for the homeless, against the wishes of her machista cousin Jorge who's come to visit with a lover in tow. The second part of the film concerns Jorge's attempts to seduce both the maid and Viridiana, and the latter's futile efforts to civilize the whores, beggars, drunks, thiefs and tramps who now live in the decaying estate.
Viridiana is a great movie. A harrowing, comedic, grotesque, and yes, surrealist yarn hiding a powerful political allegory. Immediately upon release, the dictatorial Spanish government caught on, burning any prints they could find, but not before a couple had made their way to Paris.

[oscar jubis]

Mon Oct 3rd
Grizzly Man (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=13126#post13126) (2005) at Regal SoBe

[oscar jubis]

Tue Oct 4th

The Village (USA, 2004) dvd
I would not complain about the ponderous, humorless, shopworn horror-flick cliches if there was more substance to the social parable behind the whole project. Mr. Shyamalan is a victim of his own commercial success. Who is going to tell him to stop wasting his filmmaking skills on his own subpar scripts? Nobody! Not as long as the films make money. This one gets real silly towards the end, when I could no longer give Shyamalan the benefit of the doubt, and I could no longer suspend disbelief. The Village took two hours to accomplish what any episode of "The Twilight Zone" achieved in less than 30 minutes.

[oscar jubis]

Wed Oct 5th

Oliver! (UK, 1968) vhs
I was 7 years old when I watched Oliver! for the first time. Other than animated films like Dumbo and Pinocchio, it was the first movie to totally blow me away. It received 11 Oscar noms and won five: Best Film, Best Director for Carol Reed (The third Man, Odd Man Out), Best Art Direction, Best Music and Best Sound. Oliver! is the screen adaptation of a musical by Lionel Bart, who penned amazing songs like "You've Got To Pick a Pocket or Two" and "Reviewing the Situation". The cast is uniformly excellent: Ron Moody (Fagin), Mark Lester (Oliver), Jack Wild (The Artful Dodger), and Oliver Reed (Bill Sikes).
My kids also love Oliver!, especially Dylan (12), who wanted to watch it again before taking on Polanski's new version. Polanski has to contend with the memories many filmgoers have of Carol Reed's Oscar winning version. How can I not be prejudiced against the actors in Polanski's film when the cast of Oliver! inhabited their roles with such verve and aplomb. Who'd want to play Bill Sikes after watching Oliver Reed's performance?
Oliver! is not everything Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist can be, but it's genuinely sad, joyous, tragic, romantic and scary. I wonder if Polanski can find an angle not covered by David Lean's earnest version and Reed's wonderful musical version of the great novel.

[oscar jubis]

Thu. October 6th

Tomorrow We Move (France, 2004) dvd
The latest from writer/director Chantal Ackerman (La Captive, Jeanne Dielman, Night and Day) went straight to video. Perhaps a so-called "critic's film", given that the ratings from IMdb users are very low and all reviews from critics I found on the web are decidedly positive. Charlotte (Sylvie Testud) is a writer of erotic pulp. When her father dies, her ditzy mom (Aurore Clement), a piano teacher, moves into her apartment. Soon thereafter, they decide they need a bigger place and put the apartment for sale while looking for a suitable replacement. In the process, they come into contact with a variety of people who seem to develop instant familiarity, even intimacy with the efervescent duo. The film is full of music, witty farce, and screwball situations. The tone is reminiscent of Resnais operetta-like Not on the Lips. Maybe there's not enough appreciation out there for this type of inspired goofiness but I couldn't resist its good-natured charm. Cast includes Natacha Regnier, Lucas Belvaux and Elsa Zilberstein (who was absolutely breathtaking in the otherwise forgettable Modigliani).

[oscar jubis]

Friday Oct 7th

The Global Film Initiative is an organization which "promotes cross-cultural understanding through cinema by supporting and presenting acclaimed films from Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Middle East". Every year, as many as 10 films overlooked by distributors in the US are compiled into a traveling film series titled GLOBAL LENS. At the end of each touring year, the films are made available commercially through a partnership with First Run Features, either theatrically or for home video release. Basically, it's very likely you'll have a chance to watch these films I'll be reviewing even if GLOBAL LENS doesn't come to your city in 2005.
The film I watched today is called:

Buffalo Boy (Vietnam, 2004) at Tower Theatre

The debut film of director Minh Nguyen-Vo, who was in attendance and happens to have a Ph. D. in Physics from UCLA. Buffalo Boy is set in 1940 in a rural area of South Vietnam that's heavily flooded for half the year. This is where 15 year old Kim lives with his parents, and a pair of water buffaloes that make farming possible. During rainy season, the animals need to taken to higher ground for pasture. It's Kim first expedition alone, because his aged father is sick. It's a perilous ordeal. Kim will run into a herdsman who knows things about his father's past he never imagined; there are conflicts with rival herdsmen, friendships forged on the trail, and the allure of the different lifestyle found inland. The film comes to include a variety of well-sketched characters but Buffalo Boy remains focused on Kim's trials and tribulations.
Minh Nguyen-Vo successfully tackles the multiple challenges presented by shooting a period film under such environmental conditions, using non-actors, and with a limited budget. The production had to be interrupted several times due to illness and equipment failure, he explained. Buffalo Boy is an excellent coming-of-age film that transports the viewer to a remote corner of the world and provides access to a distinct, vanishing culture and people. Buffalo Boy won the top prize in the New Director's competition at the Chicago International Film Festival.

Eros (Hong Kong/USA/Italy, 2004) on import dvd
The Hand: The first of three shorts that comprise this omnibus film was written and directed by Wong Kar Wai and it's the reason why Eros is essential viewing. It's set in 1960s Hong Kong, during the waning years of what was known as "courtesan culture". It tracks with amazing economy several years in the relationship between a "courtesan" (Gong Li) and the young tailor's apprentice who falls in love with her. The cinematographer is WKW's frequent collaborator Christopher Doyle, so the visuals are splendid and evocative. But it's the powerful story of how the relationship between the principals mutates over the course of time what will have you salivating for WKW's next film_apparently, either a sequel to The Hand or a rethinking of it.
Equilibrium, written and directed by Steven Soderbergh, is the second part of Eros. It's set in the US in the 1950s. Equilibrium concerns a publicity man who seeks help from a psychoanalyst to interpret a recurring dream. (Spoilers) It's clever how it turns out the session with the shrink is a dream itself, just don't ask me what the point is because I don't have an answer.
The Dangerous Thread of Things was directed by the master Michelangelo Antonioni. Beautiful shots of gorgeous people and architecture, but it's as shallow as softcore porn.

[oscar jubis]

Sat Oct 8th

Today and Tomorrow (Argentina, 2004) Global Lens Festival
Besides the USA and France, obviously, perhaps no country in the world is producing as many quality films right now as Argentina. The reason talented Argentine directors, actors and film crews have been able to make films is the financing from Europe, most coming from Spain. It's a wonderful partnership. I'll be making a list of the films from Argentina I've liked this year, with links to reviews, in an upcoming post.
Today and Tomorrow is the debut feature from writer/director Alejandro Chomski. It boils down to 24 hours in the life of a Paula, a 25 year old waitress and theatrical actress who's having financial problems. As the film opens, she's leaving her modest apartment to work at the cafeteria when she notices an employee from the gas company cutting her service. She hops on her scooter and we witness her frantic effforts to get the 40 pesos to pay the bill. She gets to work late and gets fired for repeated tardiness. Chomski and DP Bill Nieto (El Bonaerense, Rolling Family) deploy the camera in the style used by the Dardenne Brothers. Paula is also behind in her rent payments. She attempts to borrow money from friends and from her father, who tries to get her to commit to a "sensible" plan to secure her future, one that doesn't include acting in experimental theatre productions. Paula storms out, thinking she has other options. but things don't work out and the manager threatens eviction. The desperate Carla descends into prostitution with the help of a friend from high school. She aims to approach it as an actress playing a part, a role she can quickly abandon without it affecting the person she is underneath the disguise. Easier said than done.
Today and Tomorrow is entirely dependent on the acting skills of Antonella Costa and she is magnificent in a performance reminiscent of Emilie Duquene's tour-de-force in Rosetta. Ms. Costa never falters during the 90 minutes the camera follows Carla. Her nuanced portrayal is what holds the film together during brief patches that are perhaps overly familiar and predictable. I look forward with great interest to new films from Antonella Costa and director Alejandro Chomski.

[oscar jubis]

Sat Oct 8th (cont.)

The Lusty Men (USA, 1952)
Three decades of home video releases and there are still excellent movies that have never been released on any format. I'm not referring to foreign films or independents, I'm talking about great Hollywood films from major directors, such as The Lusty Men from director Nicholas Ray (In a Lonely Place, Bitter Victory (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=11834#post11834), King of Kings (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=11849#post11849), Born to be Bad (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=12999#post12999)).
The Lusty Men is a gripping drama that takes place in the world of rodeo competitions. Robert Mitchum plays a veteran rodeo man who's broken one too many ribs to continue on the circuit. He retires and returns to the farm in the Texas panhandle where he grew up. He befriends Wes and Louise Merritt (Arthur Kennedy and Susan Hayward) and gets a farm job. Unbeknown to Louise, Wes dreams of fame and fortune as a rodeo man. Mitchum shows him the ropes and Wes has some success in a local meet. The once steady and stable Wes becomes blinded by ambition and the thrills of competition, as Mitchum and Louise draw closer emotionally. There are many subplots involving other death-defying rodeo men and their wives but The Lusty Men remains focused on the triangle established from the beginning. Magnificent cinematography by Lee Garmes, the Oscar-winning DP for Joseph von Sternberg and other notable directors. My gratitude to Turner Classic Movies for making it possible to watch this movie and many others not otherwise available.

[oscar jubis]

Sunday October 9th

Uniform (China, 2003) Global Lens at Tower Theatre
This low-budget, independent feature was awarded prizes at the Rotterdam and Vancouver film festivals. It's the directing debut of writer Diao Yinan, who co-authored the hit film Shower. Uniform takes place in his native city of Xi'an. Wang, recently laid off from factory work, helps at her mother's small laundry shop. He attempts to deliver a policeman's uniform but learns the cop has left town. There's a sudden downpour and his clothes are soaked, so he puts on the cop's shirt. Gradually he realizes he gets respect from others and recognizes the potential benefits of impersonating a police officer. He gains enough confidence to woo a pretty girl who works at a music shop. Wang extorts bribes from motorists to take the girl out and pay for his ailing father's hospital bills. A motorist makes a complaint and an actual officer launches a search. Meanwhile, we learn that his girl also has a secret of her own.
Uniform was shot in Digital Video and has the immediacy and freshness of other DV films without the typical jittery, wobbly camera movements. It provides a look into Chinese daily life few films have offered, and the performances are naturalistic and unaffected. It's unusual given Diao Yinan's background that the film is better shot and directed than written. There are poblems with narrative clarity involving a subplot as Wang visits the factory where he used to work. There's labor unrest, a theft, and some thugs roughing Wang up because they think he is someone else, but it's all muddled into incomprehension. Moreover, the girl's character seems underwritten, particularly regarding what motivates her behaviors. These flaws do not detract from my overall positive impression of a film that offers a unique perspective and a window into a China rarely seen in commercial films.

[oscar jubis]

Sun Oct 9th (cont.)

The Unknown (USA, 1927) on TCM
Tod Browning made many silents before his two sound masterpieces: Freaks and The Devil Doll, and his very good Dracula. The Unknown is one of a couple of his silents that's still available for our viewing pleasure, albeit not in complete form. A few minutes of the original have been lost, which accounts for narrative ellisions during the first reel. What remains (about 50 minutes) is a powerful, and weird story. A very young Joan Crawford is Nanon, the daughter of the owner of a Spanish one-ring circus. Nanon has an innate aversion to being touched by men. She's coveted by a strong man and Alonzo (Lon Chaney), an armless knife thrower willing to go to bizarre extremes to get her. Alonzo is assisted by a dwarf named Cojo, who faithfully guards Alonzo's secrets. Browning uses a technique called "gauze" that renders images as if viewed through a mesh, to great pictorial effect. I liked The Unknown more than I expected. Now I wish I had rented the dvd to watch it again while listening to the commentary track. Chaney is excellent, as usual.

[oscar jubis]

Mon Oct 10th

Nada+ aka Nothing More (Cuba, 2001) dvd

A hodgepodge of a movie, mixing multiple disparate styles and tones, anchored by a clear protagonist: Carla. She's a postal worker ambivalently awaiting a visa to join her parents in Miami. Meanwhile, she entertains herself by opening and reading letters. One day, Carla spills coffee on one, then rewrites it mimicking the sender's handwriting. The amateur poet can't help to embellish the text. It turns into a routine, with good outcomes for sender and recipient, for Carla is a most talented scribe. But there's a new postmaster who hates her and suspects foul play, and someone willing to spy for her. There's also a cute letter carrier who warms up to Carla and tries to help her.

Co-writer/director Juan Carlos Cremata filmed in B&W, adding bright color to selected objects. Several characters here, like the evil postmaster, her cross-eyed spy, and Carla's pesky neighbor are vaudevillian caricatures. This is most definitely as planned, as there are scenes that are pure slapstick, even some that bear unmistakable comic-book influences.This material is interspersed with lyrical, even sublime moments of intense beauty involving the beneficiaries of Carla's poetic prose. Cremata brings forth a variety of devices_slow-motion, slurred time, unusual camera movements, time-lapsed photography, eye-of-God and upside-down shooting angles... you name it, anything goes.To say the tone is inconsistent and uneven is quite an understatement, but you'll never be bored and Carla is a likable, three-dimensional character who grounds the film and helps sustain one's interest.

[oscar jubis]

Monday Oct 10th (cont.)

Hollow City (Angola, 2004) Global Lens at Tower Theatre
The simple fact that Hollow City was written and directed by an African woman (Maria Joao Ganga) is, by itself, reason to rejoice. Her film won a Special Jury Prize at the Paris Film Festival and continues to tour the festival circuit. N'Dala is one of several orphaned children transported to the capital city of Luanda from provinces ravaged by the Civil War. Upon arrival, the 11 year old runs away and journeys through the city. N'Dala meets an old fisherman who feeds him and gives him shelter. The next day he meets Ze, a 13 year old school boy rehearsing the role of a wandering boy, not unlike N'Dala, for a school play. Ze is good to N'Dala and means well, but he introduces the boy to the world of vice and crime that surrounds him. Meanwhile, a Portuguese nun who brought N'Dala to the city searches frantically for him. Hollow City chronicles N'Dala's voyage of discovery while providing a snapshot of daily life in Angola immediately after the war. This nicely observed film takes a low-key approach to narrative until, during the final 5 to 10 minutes, it succumbs to the perception that film audiences demand a dramatic climax.

[oscar jubis]

Tuesday Oct 11th

Amo Tu Cama Rica (Spain, 1992) Import dvd
This romantic comedy co-written and directed by Emilio Martinez Lazaro (The Worst Years of Our Lives) played with its Spanish title at the '92 Miami Film Festival. It means "I Love Your Delicious Bed", which implies something more raunchy than what it is. It became a cult hit among Spanish youth because it's an accurate depiction of 20-somethings in Madrid circa 1990. Amo Tu Cama Rica was a breakout film for Ariadna Gil, who'd soon become known worldwide thanks to Belle Epoque. Here she plays a young veterinarian whose beauty, charm, and lack of inhibitions make her quite the boy-magnet. Gil is cast opposite Pere Ponce, as a not too handsome or successful guy who's smitten at first sight. Amo Tu Cama Rica traces the on and off relationship between them and effortlessly finds the humor in realistic situations. Cast includes a young Javier Bardem and other recognizable faces, but it's Ariadna Gil who carries this movie. Thumbs up to the Spanish company who put this out on dvd for including English subs. Thumbs down for "formatting" the film rather than using the original aspect ratio.

[oscar jubis]

Tuesday Oct 11th (cont.)

The Seventh Day (Spain, 2004) Import dvd

His third film, The Hunt, was voted best Spanish film of all time by the Spanish Critics Association. He's won more awards at Cannes and Berlin than compatriots Luis Bunuel and Pedro Almodovar. He is Carlos Saura (Cria, Goya in Bordeaux), arguably Spain's greatest director. The Seventh Day is the 36th feature from the highly prolific Saura, whose filmography receives scant distribution stateside. It's based on a real event, the Sunday massacre at the village of Puerto Hurraco in 1992. What brought it on was a provincial feud between the Jimenez and Fuentes families, whose farms had common, poorly defined borders. As fictionalized in The Seventh Day, land was a minor factor in their mutual hatred. It all started with Luciana Jimenez being seduced then spurned by her Fuentes fiancee, who payed by being stabbed to death by Jeronimo Jimenez. Jeronimo was sentenced to 30 years and Luciana slowly descends into madness, and violence begets violence.

Most of the action is set in the early 90s, from the perspective of 15 year old Isabel Fuentes, as she tries, with the help of her boyfriend, to dig into three decades of family history kept secret by her parents. The excellent cast includes veterans Juan Diego, Victoria Abril, Jose Luis Gomez and Eulalia Ramon, and newcomer Yohana Cobo as Isabel. The Seventh Day exhibits high production values under the command of a filmmaker of prodigious gifts. However, as in the incident at Columbine High School, the explosion of violence is directed at a whole community. Consequently, it's a pity that the script by Ray Loriga (Almodovar's Live Flesh) fails to clarify and explore how the whole town came to ostracize one family and embrace the other.

[oscar jubis]

Wed Oct 12th

Thumbsucker (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=13201#post13201) (USA, 2005) at AMC CocoWalk

Bring Me The Head of Alfredo Garcia (Mexico/USA, 1974) dvd
Director Sam Peckinpah earned the nickname "Bloody Sam" for his graphic use of violence, but it limits and distorts his legacy. For starters, Peckinpah made some very "gentle" movies, including Ride the High Country, Junior Bonner and Ballad of Cable Hogue. Most importantly, the fascination with the violence in his films obscures the fact that even his bloodiest pictures include significant moments that can only be characterized as lyrical or poetic. Bring Me The Head of Alfredo Garcia is most definitely one of his violent ones (The Wild Bunch, Straw Dogs) and it's my favorite Peckinpah film.
Warren Oates plays Benny, a small time piano player making a living in a seedy club in a small town in Mexico. Benny decides to try to improve his fortunes when he learns that a tyrannical millionaire is offering a million for physical proof of the death of the man responsible for his daughter's pregnancy. He happens to be a former lover of his soulful girlfriend (Isela Vega), a cabaret singer he intends to marry. Oates and Vega are sensational. The oddyssey takes them around remote areas of Northern Mexico. Peckinpah captures the country with great fidelity and attention to detail, but the movie is centered on the characters, in their dreams, regrets and fears. It's a brutal and lovely film.

[hengcs]

Originally posted by oscar jubis
Sat Sep 24th
Oseam (South Korea, 2003) dvd
Animated, loose adaptation of buddhist fable based on a novel by Chae-bong Jeong. A sentimental tale about an orphan "Dennis-the-Menace-type" and his blind sister who take shelter in a monastery. A plot contrivance or two result in the boy ending up alone on a mountain-top retreat where he attains nirvana. Animation is fine but not spectacular.

But the art direction and choreography is great!
;)

[hengcs]

Originally posted by oscar jubis
Friday Oct 7th

Eros (Hong Kong/USA/Italy, 2004) on import dvd
Equilibrium, written and directed by Steven Soderbergh, is the second part of Eros. It's set in the US in the 1950s. Equilibrium concerns a publicity man who seeks help from a psychoanalyst to interpret a recurring dream. (Spoilers) It's clever how it turns out the session with the shrink is a dream itself, just don't ask me what the point is because I don't have an answer.


ha ha ha ... i agree ...
read my review here
http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1269&highlight=eros

so, i am eager to know why some well known critics in United States like this segment instead of WKW's ... a surf of the web would indicate so ...

[oscar jubis]

Thanks for your replies, hengcs.

*Oseam is not a bad movie but it most definitely suffers in the comparison with the best animated films of the decade. These are, in my opinion:
Spirited Away (Miyazaki)
Millennium Actress (Satoshi Kon)
My Beautiful Girl, Mari (Seong-Kang Lee)
Howl's Moving Castle (Miyazaki)
Innocence: Ghost in the Shell 2 (Mamoru Oshii)
The Triplets of Belleville (Sylvain Chomet)

*I actually found that most "well-known critics in the USA" agree with you and I: Wong's segment is the best. These include Ebert, Rosenbaum (he actually likes Soderbergh's the least), and critics from The Village Voice, Washington Post, SF Chronicle, Boston Phoenix, Seattle Post and others. I only found one notable critic who prefers Soderbergh's and that is Christian Science Monitor's David Sterrit.

[hengcs]

Originally posted by oscar jubis
*I actually found that most "well-known critics in the USA" agree with you and I: Wong's segment is the best. These include Ebert, Rosenbaum (he actually likes Soderbergh's the least), and critics from The Village Voice, Washington Post, SF Chronicle, Boston Phoenix, Seattle Post and others. I only found one notable critic who prefers Soderbergh's and that is Christian Science Monitor's David Sterrit.

I can't recall now,
but Roeper was one of them ...

If only he could elaborate more
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/click/movie-1144520/reviews.php?critic=columns&sortby=source&page=3&rid=1379243

[oscar jubis]

It's Roeper anyway so it doesn't matter.

Thu Oct 13th

A History of Violence (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=13218#post13218) (USA, 2005) at Regal SoBe

El Delantal de Lili aka Lili's Apron (Argentina, 2004) Tower Theatre
Ramon gets laid off from his job as a restaurant chef, and can't seem to find anything that would allow him to make mortgage payments. His attractive, loving wife Lili tries to sell containers and other articles with little success. It becomes increasingly obvious she's mentally ill and deteriorating, so she agrees to spend some time with relatives in the provinces. The desperate Ramon ends up pretending to be Lili, and applying for a job as a live-in maid. He gets the job thanks to his cooking. The transformation is reasonably believable.
It's to Galperin's credit that for over one hour his film works to perfection, wild premise included. I can't forget to mention the absolutely stunning performances by Paula Ituriza and Luis Ziembrowski in the principal roles. Lili's Apron falls apart in the final 10 or 15 minutes when Galperin piles up the overwrought and fanciful plot twists. In Q&A after the screening, Galperin gave evidence he knows this by anticipating the audience's reactions and questions. It's a love story he stated, and as long as you believe the depth of feeling between Ramon and Lili, then I'm satisfied. I would ask, then why burden the love-story-in-time-of-crisis with incongruous, cheap-thriller elements? It would be an over-reaction to say the resolution ruins the film, but it does bring it down a couple of notches.

[oscar jubis]

Fri Oct 14th

Fuse (Bosnia-Herzegovina, 2003) Global Lens at Tower Theater.
With the possible exception of Whisky (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=8753#post8753), this film directed by Pjer Zalica was the best shown at the 2005 Global Lens. Fuse is set in Tesanj, a Bosnian town close to the Serbian border, two years after the civil war officially ended. Corruption and hatred are palpable and most townfolk are engaged in one type of illegal activity or another. Somehow, Tesanj becomes part of President Clinton's itinerary through the region; the town stands to benefit in the form of infrastructure improvements and investment opportunities. This would require hiding the vice and corruption from a visiting international team, and cooperation among enemies to organize activities. Fuse is a drama with strong satiric tones. Among the principals: Zaim, the former police chief who spends his days talking to the ghost of his deceased son and drinking; Zaim's other son is a firefighter whose girlfriend returned from exile in Germany and stepped on a mine; there's Velija, a smuggler/pimp/dealer of illegal substances, and his sensitive and sweet accomplice Pic. They are in cahoots with police chief Mugdin, whose border connections come in handy. The encounters between these characters and uptight international overseers are hilarious but there's plenty of pathos and poignance amid the laughs.
As the visit approaches, a children's choir learns "House of the Rising Sun", whores try on uniforms and learn show tunes, American flags are made, Bosnian and Serbian fire departments merge temporarily, and an artist paints a portrait of Clinton. But, will it be possible to hide entrenched traditions of crime, corruption and ethnic conflict?

[oscar jubis]

Sat Oct 15th

Beyond the Rocks (USA, 1922) at Cosford Cinema
This film directed by Sam Wood is being billed as a "long-lost classic". Well, it certainly qualifies as long-lost. Lost for about 80 years as a matter of fact. It's been found and restored by the Nederlands Filmmuseum, shown in April in Holland, and given its American premiere at the NYFF ten days ago. A classic it is not, if you think of classic as synonymous with masterpiece. Beyond the Rocks is an entertaining romance/adventure, a globe-trotting narrative shot in Hollywood that unites for the first and last time the two most glamorous silent-movie stars: Rudolph Valentino (The "Latin Lover" who came from Italy and died at age 31) and Gloria Swanson (modern buffs are familiar with her Norma Desmond in Sunset Blvd.). Swanson plays a Dorset girl who marries an old millionaire to help her broke papa and Valentino is the young baron she truly loves. The new music score by Dutch composer Henny Vrienten is outstanding. The traditionalist in me is forced to admit that the ambient sounds added to the soundtrack are an enhancement. Did I just say that? Beyond the Rocks will play a few American festivals and museum screenings before a dvd release in 2006.

Vampyr (France, 1932) on TCM
Now, this is a classic, a masterpiece I've seen before and will see again.Vampyr was shot at an abandoned, decaying castle in the outskirts of Paris by Dutch master Carl Theodor Dreyer. The prevailing mood is one of dread and obsession, conjured via Rudolph Mate's avant-garde photography, understated performances by Julian West and Henriette Gerard (as the vampire), and Dreyer's slow but insistent pans. One of my favorite scenes in the history of cinema is shot from the point of view of a corpse inside a coffin with a window, during a funereal procession. Few films of the time utilized sound in such expressionistic, purposeful manner. Vampyr is of of those special films that affect me at a subconscious level.

[Chris Knipp]

This was shown as part of the NYFilm Festival and I mentioned it in my opening roundup (http://www.filmwurld.com/articles/features/nyff05/nyff05.htm) :


Wood's previously lost silent Beyond the Rocks isn't a great movie, but it's amazing to see Valentino and Swanson together in a big budget Hollywood production of the silent era.

I compltely agree with you, that it's not a "masterpiece" in any way shape or form.

[oscar jubis]

Reportedly, neither Swanson nor Valentino, who were friends, liked the film very much. Yet Swanson, in her "Swanson on Swanson" memoirs, lamented the fact that Beyond the Rock was irretrievably lost.

Sun Oct 16th

The Ninth Day (Germany, 2004) at Cosford Theatre

Werner Herzog's recent Grizzly Man and this latest film from Volker Schlondorff speaks well for the vitality and longevity of the directors that, almost 40 years ago, originated the German New Wave_one wonders what Fassbinder would be releasing if he were alive, I have yet to catch Wim Wenders' Land of Plenty.
The Ninth Day also belongs to a category of films about the Holocaust; the grave subject has inspired a large number of remarkable films by European, Israeli and American directors, both documentary and fictionalized narratives. Like Costa Gavras' Amen, Schlondorff's film examines the role of the Catholic Church during the war years, when Jews were subjected to extreme discrimination and persecution, and eventually, mass annihilation.

The Ninth Day is based on the diary of Jean Bernard, the priest from Luxembourg who was interned at Dachau and became Bishop years after the war ended. There are many brief, powerful scenes of Henri Kremer (as Bernard is called here) at a special barracks in Dachau that are totally factual. Yet, the focus of the film is based largely on conjecture, on what could have happened to the priest during a period of nine days in which there are no diary entries. These imagined events are totally realistic though, and they create a most engaging, lucid moral and religious debate. Briefly, Kremer is given a 9 day leave because the Nazis think he can influence the Bishop to be more accomodating towards the Nazis. It's Kremer's long history of impeccable morals and courageous resistance to Nazi "racial laws" that make him potentially influential. Kremer refuses, but they increase the pressure by threatening to kill all Luxembourg priests at Dachau and members of his family. Significant characters include Kremer's pregnant sister, the Bishop's secretary (who believes appeasement is the best policy) and most importantly, Gebhardt, an SS officer trying to reconcile Catholic and Nazi doctrine. Gebhardt, who once attended seminary and hated a brief assignment at a concentration camp, is threatened with permanent assignment to such a place if he can't get the Kremer to cooperate and the Bishop to stop active resistance.

Kremer is played by Ulrich Matthes, the unusual-looking actor who impersonated Joseph Goebbels in the 2005 release Downfall. It's a bravura performance I won't soon forget. The Ninth Day is a Must-See.

[Chris Knipp]

NOt sure I'd consider it a must-see, since I've largely forgotten it, perhaps because the material, the milieu, the period, is so much worked over. There was a good review of this in The New Yorker by David Denby (http://www.newyorker.com/critics/cinema/articles/050530crci_cinema) quite some time ago and then was when I saw it when it was briefly in the Bay Area. "Matthes may be predestined to play the same kind of role over and over—in his case, a fanatic burning with anguish and intellectual fire." I do think it is good, a commendable effort, and the actor Ulrich Matthes is indeed excellent and striking looking. The New Yorker had a drawing of him. I take your point about Schlondorff continuing to be a contender. But why shouldn't he be? He's younger than I am. I liked his Death of a Salesman, and his Un amour de Swann. Eric Rohmer is 85, and still making movies all the time, and scoring with them consistently too.

[oscar jubis]

*What's easier said than done is not "being a contender" at 60-something, but doing so consistently for four decades. My favorite Schlondoff films are probably Young Torless, Lost Honor of Katarina Blum and The Tin Drum. I haven't seen them for years though. Maybe I like The Ninth Day just as much. The two you mention are good films also, indeed I don't know any Schlondorff film that wasn't worth-watching.

*Denby writes: "Some of his movies have been didactic and heavy-footed, but not The Ninth Day. This film is powerful, concise, fully sustained. In movies, the concentration camps have been dramatized so often that further representation of them threatens to becor kitsch, but Schlondorff, rapidly sets up the world of labor, brutality and death without resorting to cliche. He has a new subject: the sufferings of anti-Nazi Catholic clergy."

What Denby fails to mention is that besides the suffering of Catholic clergy, the film also delves deeply into the collaboration and appeasement of the clergy towards the Nazis, and explores a topic of special interest to me: to render explicit the delusional thinking and rationalization that goes on in the minds of people who consider themselves deeply religious while participating in horrific acts against other human beings. This is certainly NOT "worked over" material.

[oscar jubis]

Mon Oct 17th

Wise Girl (USA, 1937) on TCM
Pleasant trifle about a heiress who goes undercover in bohemian Greenwich Village to "dig dirt" on her brother-in-law, a simpatico painter who has custody of her dead sister's precocious daughters. Of course they fall in love. It's Ray Milland and Miriam Hopkins in roles commonly assigned, in better films, to Jimmy Stewart and Kate Hepburn. Personally I didn't miss Stewart, which speaks volumes about Milland's range (you've probably seen him in Dial M for Murder). As for Hopkins, maybe this is not the right role for her. In case it needs to be said, director Leigh Jason is no Capra or LaCava.

[oscar jubis]

Tuesday Oct 18th

Tan De Repente aka Suddenly (Argentina, 2002) dvd

Debut feature from young Diego Lerman, a reworking of his short La Prueba (Proof), partly based on the novel of the same title by Cesar Aira.Tan de Repente is almost impossible to discuss without mentioning Jim Jarmusch's Stranger Than Paradise. Both are b&w road movies involving a trio of characters who visit the old aunt of one of them.

Marcia is a lonely and fat 20-something. She commutes to the small lingerie shop where she works. Her co-worker reads a horoscope that promises "the road unknown". Marcia goes to yoga class, dials a number then hangs up, strolls down Buenos Aires streets. Two short-haired girls appear to spy on Marcia, then accost her. They introduce themselves as Lenin and Mao, who wants to fuck Marcia but objects to being called a lesbian. Mao is insistent but Marcia resists. Until Lenin pulls out a switchblade. Marcia becomes increasingly compliant and genuinely curious. Mao offers proof of her "love" by hijacking a taxi and driving it to the sea. It'd be Marcia's first view of the ocean. No force or coercion is required any longer for Marcia to tag along. They eventually end up in Rosario, where Lenin has an aunt. They track her down and end up spending a couple of days there. The aunt's two boarders, a severe teacher and a shy biology student, develop sudden familiarity, even intimacy, with the three girls. Breakups and new alliances ensue. And someone will pass on, oh so suddenly.

What I found remarkable about the film was the impression that's being put together on the fly, without chart or blueprint. And given that, how its characters' transformations and realignments, over the course of a long weekend, manage to seem natural and organic. There are a few missteps, moments that register as false. One in particular I found jarring: Under false pretenses (a blowjob that never materializes), the girls get a ride from a trucker. As they ride in the middle of the night, the truck runs over a man who dies in Marcia's arms.Not a word is exchanged about this. The man seems to have inexplicably parachuted onto the highway! Seems I say because it's hard to tell with complete certainty given the available light, which brings up the film's significant technical problem. Perhaps because of the very low budget, Tan de Repente was shot exclusively using existing sources of light. It is consistently dark and murky, not like the purposeful, high-contrast lighting of classic noir and Val Newton horror. The film is simply and consistently dim and underlit.

Overall, Tan De Repente is an auspicious debut from a young director with obvious skills. It's finally available on dvd, almost two years after its USA theatrical release in 2003.

[oscar jubis]

Wed Oct 19th

Proof (USA, 2005) at AMC CocoWalk

British director John Madden reunites with Gwyneth Paltrow, the star of his Shakespeare in Love, to bring to the screen David Auburn's Pulitzer and Tony award winner. Madden directed the West End production of "Proof", with Paltrow in the lead role. This adaptation is, according to critics who've seen the play, quite faithful yet slightly softened around the edges, in typical Miramax fashion.

Film opens a day after the death of Robert, a brilliant but mentally-ill mathematician (Anthony Hopkins). His daughter Catherine (Paltrow), who interrupted her college career to care for her father, is going over her father's things. The content of his notebooks might include something of scientific value, as it's established via flashbacks that his psychotic fog lifted during lucid periods. Hal (Jake Gyllenhaal), an assistant and math professor with a crush on Catherine, promises to help. Catherine's sister Claire (Hope Davis) arrives from NYC. This currency analyst is a shrill, hyper-normal woman whose smothering of Catherine belies condescension and a sense of superiority. Plot revolves around whether a notebook found contains a viable mathematical proof, and who is its author. Just how much of her father's genius and madness has Catherine inherited?

Proof is a good movie with outstanding performances from everyone. Paltrow and Davis particularly deserve some type of recognition for their work here.

[oscar jubis]

Thu. Oct 20th

Cinema is a collaborative art, but when we single out a person as the author of a film, we usually think of its director. The french term "auteur" has been popular since Andre Bazin and others introduced it in the pages of Cahiers du Cinema in the 1950s. It's rare for somebody other than the director to receive credit as an auteur. Val Newton (1904-1951) was certainly a major creative force in the films he produced at RKO. Newton, who'd once been David O. Selznick's story editor, created a new kind of horror film during the 1940s. Nine excellent films that constitute a poetic brand of horror conjured out of minimal sets and literary ambience. The studio gave Newton total creative freedom with three conditions: budget shall not exceed $150,000, duration shall not exceed 75 minutes, and title shall be the result of the studio's test-marketing (invariably something lurid and not entirely appropriate to the content and style of the picture).

These movies are impeccably shot, and photographed in a style that anticipates film noir, with particular attention to texture (lots of shadows) and contrast. The content is characterized by the development of a sense of everyday reality before the creepy possibilities are introduced. Besides their obvious quality and the care that went into every aspect of production, a major reason Val Newton horror films have not dated is their reliance on suggestion and mood, rather than special effects that invariably become obsolete as new technologies are developed. Newton worked on all the scripts of the films he produced but refused to take any credit (the exceptions are Bedlam and The Body Snatcher, in which he was credited under the name Carlos Keith).

The Seventh Victim (USA, 1943) on TCM

Val Newton practically wrote the script of this masterpiece which appears to have been a major influence on Polanski's Rosemary's Baby. It was directed by Mark Robson, who had co-edited Citizen Kane with Robert Wise. It's about a teenage girl (Kim Hunter) who has to leave her boarding school because her older sister has failed to send tuition payments and can't be located. The girl travels to Greenwich Village to search for the mysterious missing woman. Before we get to a highly unconventional ending, The Seventh Victim broaches a character's death wish, familial and romantic love, the allure of art and anonymity, the sustaining power of friendship, and the influence of a cult. The Seventh Victim opens and closes with a fitting quote from John Donne's first "Holy Sonnet".

The Leopard Man (USA, 1943) on TCM

This classic was directed by a true auteur, Jacques Tourneur, and inspired by Cornell Woolrich's novel "Black Alibi". Extremely beautiful to regard, full of melancholia and dread, and remarkably evocative of a small town New Mexico although it was shot in the studio. After an escaped leopard is found dead, the nightime killings of women continue.

[oscar jubis]

Fri Oct 21th

The series of films from Chile playing in town this weekend prompted my desire to compile a brief filmography of Chilean cinema, focused on the most recent movies to arrive from this South American country. Unlike Mexico and Argentina, Chile never had a strong tradition of quality filmmaking and it still lags behind them. The reasons are cultural, geopolitical and economic but I won't go into detail.
The two greatest narrative directors from Chile, Raul Ruiz and Alejandro Jorodowsky, left Chile in the late 60s/early 70s and became established abroad. The highly prolific, globe-trotting Ruiz, became so comfortable with his Parisian base he adopted the French spelling of his name (Raoul). Perhaps his best recent film is the Proust adaptation Time Regained. Jorodowsky has lived in Mexico since the late 60s where he created some amazing surrealist films including Fando y Lis (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=8918#post8918).

So we've narrowed it down from Chilean directors to "films from Chile".
Patricio Guzman. A great director that has specialized in making political documentaries. Among his major works: The Battle of Chile, Chile: Obstinate Memory, The Pinochet Case and his recent Salvador Allende (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=8853#post8853).
Valeria Sarmiento. Ruiz's editor and wife has returned to Chile to make Amanda Lopez O'Neill (outstanding film shown at the Miami Fest, would love to see it again) and Rosa La China.
Ricardo Llarain. Veteran director of the best Chilean fiction film in recent memory: The Frontier, a Berlin winner released on vhs in the UK but not here. Also Enthusiasm (1998).
Silvio Caiozzi. Veteran director has specialized in adaptations of novels by Chilean author Jose Donoso. Films include The Moon in the Mirror, Coronation (on dvd), and Cachimba (review upcoming).

Four promising younger directors:
Andres Wood (Loco Fever, Football Stories, Machuca)
Ricardo Carrasco (Negocio Redondo aka A Sure Deal).
Orlando Lubbert (Taxi para 3 aka A Cab for Three)
Alex Bowen ( My Best Enemy (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=12972#post12972))

Promedio Rojo aka Below Average (Chile, 2005) Cosford Cinema

Debut feature from director Nicolas Lopez, a huge fan of Robert Rodriguez and Kevin Smith who's directed rock-en-Espanol videos and programs for MTV Latino. The film is additionally titled:"Chronicles of Scholastic Survival". It's about a comics-drawing, high school nerd named Roberto Rodriguez (Ariel Levy) who falls in love with a girl who's just arrived from Spain. She only has eyes for the suave, "hot" jerk with a car. Lopez describes his flick as a "black romantic teen comedy with superpowers". What I saw was: Pretty in Pink meets Porky's with brief homages to Star Wars and superhero comics. The English title is fitting (below average). Crude, tiresome juvenilia.

[oscar jubis]

For the first time after Hurricane Wilma devastated South Florida 9 days ago someone in my family has electricity. I'm posting from my brother's home, with a baby crying in the background, about the films I watched before the storm.

Saturday Oct 22

Cachimba (Chile, 2004) at Cosford Theatre

This is the fourth film that director Silvio Caiozzi (Coronation) has adapted from novels by Jose Donoso. Marcos (Pablo Schwarz) is a bank employee who convinces his old fashioned, full-figure girl to spend a weekend in the coastal town of Cartagena. During a casual stroll, they stumble upon a dilapidated house with a makeshift sign: Museo Larco. They discover that the caretaker, a drunk slob named Felipe (Julio Jung), inherited the paintings of a forgotten mid- 20th century artist of great renown. Marcos shares his discovery with arts organizations and the media in order to finance the restoration of the house and exhibit the paintings properly. Through deception and manipulation, commercial interests manage to appropriate the artist's legacy and toss Marcos and Felipe aside. Plot provides commentary regarding corporate power over individuals and the difficulties encountered by artists in Chile. It's a shame Cadiozzi wastes so much time in the ridiculous, trite aspects of the relationship between Felipe and his insecure, jealous girlfriend.

[oscar jubis]

Saturday Oct 22 (cont.)

Ana and the Others (Argentina, 2003) dvd
Debut feature from yet another young and talented Argentine, writer/director Camila Murga.
A 20-something woman living in Buenos Aires returns to her riverfront hometown to sell her deceased parents' home and search for an old flame. The latter takes up most of the film's duration, although it's a leisurely search, as Ana renews old friendships and becomes reacquainted with once familiar surroundings. Comparisons to present-set Rohmer films are unavoidable_Summer comes to mind particularly_but gradually, in her interactions with a boy that serves as her guide, Murga channels Kiarostami. Whether or not this synthesis of influences results in a uniquely personal vision is debatable. Murga's debut is accomplished and recommended but, unlike first features by Lisandro Alonso and Lucrecia Martel, Ana and the Others feels like the work of a filmmaker yet to find her own style. It's greatest asset is its naturalness, betrayed only once, in a forced reference to the banking crisis affecting Argentina at the time. Camila Toker (Saturday) is quite good in the title role.

[oscar jubis]

Sun October 23rd

The Eyes of the Mummy (Germany, 1918) on TCM

A young English painter sojourns to Egypt. He learns about a curse and an ancient site and becomes intrigued. There he discovers a beautiful damsel (Pola Negri) kept hostage by evil sorcerer Radu (Emil Jannings). He rescues her and leaves Radu injured. Radu survives and vows to get her back at any cost. I think this is the earliest film available from director Ernst Lubitsch, who like the legendary Emil Jannings, evolved into a supreme film artist both in Germany and the USA.

[oscar jubis]

Thursday Oct 27

Hurricane Wilma likely caused me to miss two films on current release I wanted to watch: Serenity, and especially, Separate Lives. The theaters where these films were showing prior to the storm sustained significant damage; they're nowhere close to reopening. Separate Lives seems to have been largely ignored by audiences. One theatre opened today, on a limited basis. Suffice to say, going without movies for 4 days was unprecedented and painful.

Capote (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=13318#post13318) (USA, 2005) at Regal SoBe

[oscar jubis]

Friday October 28th

MirrorMask (UK/USA, 2005) at Regal SoBe

A fantasy about the dreamlife of a young teen played by Stephanie Leonidas (Yes) whose parents own a small circus in Britain. First-time director Dave McKean and co-writer Neil Gaiman's combine computer-generated imagery, live action, drawings, photographic effects, puppetry (Jim Henson Co.) and imaginative costuming and set design to serve up a visual feast. MirrorMask is an otherworldly riff on a teen dealing with identity issues, her mother's illness and romantic longing. It's a PG-rated fairy tale in a style Peter Greenaway would approve. The gorgeous orchestrated score by one Iain Ballamy is critical to the overall effect.

[oscar jubis]

Saturday October 29th

North Country (USA, 2005) at Regal SoBe

Well, if you go when the snowflakes storm,
When the rivers freeze and summer ends,
Please see if she's wearing a coat so warm
to keep her from the howlin' winds.

"Girl of the North Country" by Bob Dylan

Josey is a single mom who flees an abusive relationship and moves with her parents in Northern Minnesota. Encouraged by childhood friend Glory (Frances McDormand), Josey takes a job at the local iron mine despite Dad's disapproval. By court order the mine is forced to hire a few women but, as Josey soon learns, the women there are subjected to relentless abuse and hazing. Her good looks and decision to complain make Josey even more of a target.
North Country, directed by Niki Caro (Whale Rider), is loosely based on the nonfiction book "Class Action: The Landmark Case That Changed Sexual Harrassment Law". Courtroom scenes? Of course, but sprinkled in discrete, powerful bits throughout the film's duration. The bulk of North Country provides a detailed sketch of a working-class heartland community through the plight of the young mother's struggle for self-dependence and dignity. Theron is superb, but so is everyone else. The whole production earns the "prestige" label of a fall release meant to be remembered at awards-time. Yet the film suffers from one major flaw: thematic overkill. (Spoilers) Poor Josey is burdened not only with a violently abusive boyfriend, insensitive and distant father, and exclusively misogynist co-workers and superiors, but also a history of rape-by-highschool-teacher that comes to light during the court proceedings. It renders not a film about women subjected to sexual harrasment but a compendium of male hatred of women. North Country is engaging and affecting but too emphatic and tendentious to suit me.

[Johann]

I saw Mirrormask and was very impressed.

It was made by Dave McKean, an astounding visual graphic artist who did artwork for Batman: Arkham Asylum and the Hellraiser comix.

The visuals make it a must-see. For his first film Dave can be very proud.

Neil Gaiman wrote the story and I think I'll need to see it again in order to really get a handle on it.

You're right oscar- the soundtrack adds a lot to the experience.
My kind of movie.

[oscar jubis]

I thought to myself during the screening: "Johann would definitely appreciate this". No kidding, although content-wise MirrorMask is aimed at smart, arty teens not adults. On the other hand, the way its coming-of-age themes are submerged is very "grown-up". I'm gonna HAVE to search for the soundtrack on CD. It's that good! There's a making-of book out called "The Alchemy of MirrorMask", if you're interested.

[Johann]

As always I learn a lot from you oscar.

MirrorMask has so many elements that resonate.

Almost 3-D, it shows even more possibilities with computer effects. The story wasn't all-emcompassing by any stretch- it was a surreal Lewis Carroll-type adventure that could've had slightly better acting from the girl.

Dave McKean has joined the elite ranks of filmmakers like The Brothers Quay, Derek Jarman, Chris Marker, Greenaway, Brakhage, Julie Taymor, Fellini and Terry Gilliam. (among others).

Loved it. If this is the beginnning of McKean's directing career then I'll be keeping close tabs on his future output.

His visual style (which is an amalgam of Dali, DaVinci and Darwin) has tons of bright colors and seamless CGI effects.

Dances dangerously close to Clive Barker.

[oscar jubis]

Sunday Oct 30th

The Friend (Germany, 2004) at Cosford Cinema

Excellent film from young director Elmar Fischer about Yunes, a student from Yemen from the point of view of his German roommate Chris. The Friend is a response to the news that the 9/11 tragedy was perpetrated partly by Arabic students who led otherwise normal lives in Germany. The film opens with Chris and his girlfriend puzzled over the disappearance of Yunes on Sep. 6th, 2001. Then, the action flashes back to 18 months earlier to detail how they became close friends and how Yunes underwent a gradual transformation. Yunes' romance with a blonde cutie, attempts to help another Arab student deal with drug addiction, and growing Islamic fundamentalism are viewed entirely from the point of view of Chris. As a consequence, the plot takes the form of a mystery with the open-minded, party-boy Chris as the likable protagonist. The Friend encompasses the 9/11 events, and Chris and his girlfriend's fear about the possible complicity of Yunes and guilt over suspecting him. The Friend is extremely powerful, even-handed, thoughtful filmmaking. Perhaps my favorite of the good crop of German films available at US screens this year (The Ninth Day, Head On, Downfall, etc.).

[Chris Knipp]

It's not clear form your summary exactly why you rate this so highly, but I will certainly watch for it. What are the prospects of seeing it -- the distribution?

[oscar jubis]

*Johann, your allusions are quite apt. McKean himself states he recently watched Casanova and found several common elements.
*Chris: Fremder Freund was quietly released by small distributor Films Philos at the Village East in NYC on 4/8/05. To my knowledge, the film has only played briefly in Chicago and at the Cosford in Miami. The film dramatizes with uncommon power and sensitivity the mixed feelings of a well-meaning, liberal westerner whose close friend becomes attracted to Islamic fundamentalism.

Monday October 31st

Good Night and Good Luck (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=13359#post13359) (USA, 2005) at Regal SoBe

[oscar jubis]

Tuesday November 1st

Elizabethtown (USA, 2005) at Regal SoBe

Suicidal sneaker designer Drew (Orlando Bloom) is saved by a flight attendant (Kirsten Dunst) and recently deceased Dad's wacky relatives. Elizabethtown is possibly Cameron Crowe's most personal film_inspired by his own trip to a small Kentucky town to attend his father's funeral and meet his side of the family in 1989. Regrettably, Elizabethtown is also Crowe's worst film. Almost every attempt at comedy, through caricature and exaggeration, fails. The titular town's natives are uniformly one-note. Bloom is insufferably bland, except when playing opposite Dunst. As written, her Claire is larger-than-life, more good fairy than recognizable human. The luminous Dunst, tapping into reservoirs of wit and charm, more than meets the challenge. She almost makes the damn thing worth seeing.

[oscar jubis]

Wed. Nov 2nd

Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=13376#post13376) (UK, 2005) at AMC CocoWalk

[oscar jubis]

Thursday Nov 3rd

Paperboys (USA, 2001) dvd
Mike Mills' doc profiles six Stillwater, Minnesota paperboys ages 11 to 15. Don't remember what got me to include it on my Netflix queue. Watch as a corrective to Larry Clark's kids-are-lost fictions, if at all.

[oscar jubis]

Friday November 4th

Separate Lies (UK, 2005) at AMC CocoWalk

A housekeeper's husband is killed by a hit-and-run driver in the British countryside. Among the possible suspects are her employers: Anne and James, a respected solicitor, and local playboy Bill. Nothing to perk up one's interest, not really. Except the script was adapted by the author of the Oscar-winning screenplay of Gosford Park, Julian Fellowes, who debuts here as director. Moreover, Anne and James are played by the talented (and Oscar nominated) Tom Wilkinson (In The Bedroom) and Emily Watson (Breaking the Waves, Hillary and Jackie). Fellowes, Wilkinson and Watson have never been better. This is outstanding mystery/drama of considerable depth and psychological complexity. Issues of complicity, personal guilt, redemption, and forgiveness surface from totally believable situations. There's a subtext that comments on issues of class and gender (perhaps even race) with perceptive acuity. No concessions to the youth-market to be found anywhere. No cheap thrills, forced humor, titillation, cardboard characters, none of that. This is a thoroughly engaging, mature movie for adults of all ages. Separate Lies is one of the best movies of the year.

[Chris Knipp]

Nothing to perk up one's interest, not really.

Meant ironically I take it in view of what you follow up with. This was so badly reviewed that I avoided it.

[oscar jubis]

The metacritic score is 71. And even the less-than-positive reviews I found acknowledge that the performances are brilliant. Julian Fellowes is an excellent writer and here he proves he can be a dynamic director. The material does not break new ground, I'll admit that (it's certainly not a strikingly original film like this year's Yes (Sally Potter) or Weerasethakul's Tropical Malady). But the execution of this engrossing mystery is flawless. Avoid at your own peril.

[oscar jubis]

Saturday Nov 5th

Night Passage (USA, 2004) at Miami Art Central
Trinh T. Minh-ha came to the US from Vietnam at age 17. She's a Berkeley prof and a recipient of the American Film Institute's Maya Deren Award. She's been honored for her experimental documentaries with political and feminist content (Surname Viet Given Name Nam, Reassemblage). Her latest (a collaboration with husband Jean Paul Boudier) is a departure into metaphorical fiction. A Vietnamese-American carpenter falls asleep on a pier and dreams she embarks on a fantastic train ride accompanied by her Korean friend. Guiding spirits appear in the train car and direct the women as they disembark onto mysterious stations meant to represent rites of passage and confrontations with the unknown. Most of the episodes are staged in highly theatrical manner and the acting is uniformly subpar. Even the UM prof who introduced the film admitted the writing is amateurish. Some sequences of slowed-down and speeded-up modern dance performances are highly cinematic and lyrical. Otherwise, Night Passage is a failure. Perhaps Ms. Trinh-ha should stick to political docs in the future.

[oscar jubis]

Sunday Nov 6th

Epidemic (Denmark, 1987) dvd
Lars von Trier's second feature, a precursor to his The Kingdom (Riget). Lars, co-writer Niels Vorsel and producer Claes Hansen play (a version of) themselves. A mysterious computer glitch results in the script for "The Cop and the Whore" getting irretrievably lost. Claes will return from vacation in Arizona in five days and he expects a completed script. Lars and Niels work over the next five days on the script of a film to be called "Epidemic", about a modern-day plague. Whereas the "real" scenes are shot in 16 mm, scenes from "Epidemic" are shot in 35 mm and involve weird imagery, a defrocked priest and a doctor who ventures outside a quarantined zone and unwittingly spreads the plague. There is a fiction-meets-reality twist at the horrific climax that will make you glad you sat through the slack passages.

FreeDogme (Denmark, 2001) DVD
The Dutch dvd of Epidemic includes this experimental doc. Lars, Jean-Marc Barr, Wim Wenders, and Lone Scherfig (Italian For Beginners) are given DV cameras and connected via telephone so that we can see what each is filming and hear their conversation about Dogme '95, use of new technologies in cinema, etc. Interesting but never compelling.

[oscar jubis]

Monday November 7th

Drifting Clouds (Finland, 1996) import dvd
Earthy pathos, self-deprecating humor, deadpan performances and exotic music (Finnish tango!) combine with delightful results in this film from Aki Kaurismaki (Man Without a Pst, Take Care of Your Scarf, Tatiana). Ilona (Kati Outinen), a hard-working head waiter, loses her job when the restaurant goes bankrupt. Her husband Lauri has been unemployed for days before he tells Ilona about the downsizing at the streetcar company. Their earnest attemps to get jobs and hold on to a TV and sofa bought on installment plans are serially frustrated. Drifting Clouds is consciously understated, with minimal dialogue and maximum use of the smallest gesture and detail. A mixture of social realism, pathos and comedy Chaplin would have embraced with enthusiasm. I hope it gets released on dvd stateside.

[oscar jubis]

Tue Nov 8th

My favorite dvd release of 2005 is "Avant Garde: Experimental Cinema of the 1920s and 1930s." A few weeks ago I watched Disc One (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=13035#post13035). Today I watched Disc 2. The complete set comprises 25 films with a total duration of over 6 hours of breathtaking pure cinema. Watching these treasures one comes to the realization that most of the innovations found in commercial movies had its origins in purely experimental shorts that pushed the envelope when it came to narrative, conceptual and photographic advancements. Disc 2 highlights include two masterpieces by Jean Epstein, two outstanding city poems_Manhattan and Regen (Amsterdam during a rainstorm), a short Eisenstein shot in France, and an American parody of Surrealism. Lineup as follows:
ASSAULT (Metzner, Germany)
LA TEMPESTAIRE (Epstein, France)
LA GLACE A TROIS FACES (Epstein)
ROMANCE SENTIMENTALE (Eisenstein, France)
LA COQUILLE ET LE CLERGYMAN (Dulac, France)
REGEN (Joris Ivens, Netherlands)
H2O (Steiner, USA)
EVEN-AS YOU AND I (Barlow/Hay/Robbins, USA)
MANHATTAN (Strand, USA)
AUTUMN FIRE (Weinberg, USA)

[oscar jubis]

Wed Nov 9th

NOAM CHOMSKY: Rebel Without a Pause (Canada, 2004) on dvd

The most recent of the four feature docs made about the MIT Prof/intellectual/political crusader. Title refers to a reference by U2's Bono regarding Chomsky's tireless activism. Editor and director Will Pascoe is content to interview Chomsky's wife and manager while capturing Chomsky during a tour of Canadian universities. Most of the material deals with the US war on terrorism, the invasion of Iraq and the manipulation of media by the power elites. Chomsky for President!

[oscar jubis]

Wed Nov 9th (cont)

Mother India (India, 1957) on TCM
This Technicolor rural family saga is the indisputable national epic of India and the first Indian film to be nominated for an Oscar (won deservedly by Fellini's Nights of Cabiria). Mother India was directed by Mehboob Khan and stars the legendary Nargis as the embodiment of the Indian soil. The broadcast introduced the film as the Indian Gone With The Wind, but plotwise this is closer to Stella Dallas in its story of maternal sacrifice. Mother India is a mixture of Hollywood musical, neorealism, Soviet tractor opera, slapstick comedy and pop Hinduism (although the director is Muslim). Every aspect of the production is grand and so are the emotions it generates.

[oscar jubis]

Thursday Nov 10th

Radio Bikini (USA, 1987) on TCM

Oscar nominee for Best Documentary directed by Richard Stone. It concerns the 1947 nuclear tests held by the US military in Bikini, one of the Marshall Islands in the south Pacific. Bikini happened to be inhabited and all its natives had to be permanently relocated. The biggest tragedy though was that the military exposed thousands of servicemen to high levels of radiation. They were kept ignorant of the risks involved. Radio Bikini consists of news footage plus two new interviews: a Bikini native, and a soldier framed from the waist up until the last interview segment. Then we witness his legs have been amputated and one of his hands is monstruously swollen.

[oscar jubis]

Thursday Nov 10th (cont)

Where The Truth Lies (Canada/UK/USA, 2005) Regal SoBe

Atom Egoyan is one of my favorite directors. There isn't another working in English who has placed more often in my year end's Top 10s over the past 15 years than Egoyan (four times: Calendar, Exotica, The Sweet Hereafter, and Ararat). I met Egoyan in the 1980s, when his first two features (Speaking Parts, Family Viewing) came straight from Toronto for their American premieres at the Miami Film Festival. So that's my bias; this is an avowed fan's opinion of Where The Truth Lies. I consider Egoyan's genre move a lesser effort but you can count me among the film's defenders.

Colin Firth and Kevin Bacon play Vince and Lanny, a show biz duo modeled after Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. It's 1972 and they've been apart since 1957, when they were linked but not charged with the death of a young woman. Their last performance was a telethon in Miami Beach. Karen O'Connor, who survived polio and gave a testimony at that telethon, has now been hired by a major magazine to write a celebrity profile. Karen crosses the line, in several ways, while investigating the connection between the girl's death and the breakup between Vince and Lanny.

It's a period mystery with a psychosexual twist, based on a novel by Rupert Holmes. There are two voice-over narrators and an ever shifting point of view of events that apparently has not been to everyone's liking, with some critics referring to the narrative as muddled or incoherent. I found that it's precisely this emphasis on the subjectivity of truth that interested Egoyan and that's what his script emphasizes until everything comes into focus at the finale. Admittedly, a lurid one, with sexual content that gained the film an NC-17 rating by the Board and may turn off certain people.

Another popular criticism is the casting of Alison Lohman (Matchstick Men) as Karen. The 26 year old is finally cast as an adult after years of playing teenage characters, and many have found her less than believable. I found her breathy half-lisp and cute looks perfect for the role of an ingenue, a rookie hired because of her girlish obsession with his subjects and their presumed vulnerability to her attractiveness. Lohman is not playing a noirish femme fatale, or a seasoned, hard-nosed journalist as one could deduct from the comments of her critics.

Where the Truth Lies is undoubtedly less resonant than previous Egoyan films, the script includes a contrived element or two, and Firth sometimes forgets he's playing an American character. But it's a lush mystery that's fun to unravel, with a superb performance by Kevin Bacon. Kudos to Egoyan regular Mychael Danna for the Herrmann-esque music score.

[oscar jubis]

Friday November 11th

Time of Favor (Israel, 2001) dvd

This debut feature by Joseph Cedar (Checkpoint (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=11956#post11956)) won 5 Israeli Academy awards. Both films by Cedar are set in West Bank Jewish settlements in which the existence of Palestinians goes entirely unacknowledged. Settlement policy is not an issue explicitly, but both films are critical of far-right Israelis and feature young women who find settlement life entirely unsatisfactory. Although marketed as a thriller, Time of Favor's first hour is a drama involving a Rabbi who runs a yeshiva and creates a rift between orthodox army soldiers and others who advocate more separation between religion and State. The Rabbi wants his rebellious daughter to marry his best Torah student, the nerdish Pini, but its hunky Menachen she wants. During the second hour, Pini concocts a ploy to exact revenge that involves the detonation of stolen explosives. Although the narrative is a bit muddled and the film requires a degree of knowledge of Israeli politics and geography to register with maximum impact, Time of Favor is well-acted and sufficiently engrossing to recommend.

[oscar jubis]

Friday Nov 11 (cont.)

Del Olvido al No Me Acuerdo (Mexico, 1999) Cosford Cinema

The literal translation of the title is: From oblivion to "I don't remember". This free-form doc is the debut of Juan Carlos Rulfo, the son of famous poet and novelist Juan Rulfo. It received four Mexican Academy awards, Best First Film at Montreal, and Best Doc at San Francisco. One gets the impression that initially the director's aim was to make a film about his father by interviewing his contemporaries, now 70 and older. He ended up with a film about how the passage of time and senility erases memories once held dear. I understand how you may find the subject less than compelling, but the film's sound design and cinematography are so accomplished a meditative state of patient contemplation took over me. Translation in cinema is so mediocre I no longer bother to point it out, so it gives me great pleasure to report that the subs here evidence a superb translation of challenging material (poems, songs and dialogue).

[oscar jubis]

Sat Nov 12th

The Wizard of Oz (USA, 1939) on TBS

The iconic second film based on the fantasy by L. Frank Baum (there was a silent version) was credited to director Victor Fleming but it was King Vidor who directed the Kansas scenes as well as other notables. Everything about it has already been said so I'll get personal. This 66 year old film is the one my 12 year old son has seen the most times. I am partly responsible for his love of certain movies (The Adventures of Robin Hood, Guys and Dolls, The Grave of the Fireflies, Bicycle Thief, etc). He discovered Oz on his own and he asked me to watch it with him.

[oscar jubis]

Sat Nov 12th (cont.)

The Lady Eve (USA, 1941) dvd

For my money, Preston Sturges is the best writer of comedies in the history of cinema. This is one of his most popular films and its popularity is well-deserved. This story of the romance between a sophisticated con artist (Barbara Stanwyck) and a naive millionaire (Henry Fonda) seems inexhaustible in its ability to delight and amuse over repeated viewings. It's a work of tremendous complexity and resonance that can also be enjoyed at the most basic, surface level. The dvd features one of my favorite commentaries ever to be recorded, by film scholar Marian Keane, who deconstructs the film with fresh insight into its multiplicity of meanings. I've seen The Lady Eve thrice and will enjoy it many times hence.

[oscar jubis]

Still no internet access at home because of H. Wilma, thus six days and about 10 films behind in my journal posting. Trying to catch up from my brother's home.

Sunday Nov 13th

The Assassination of Richard Nixon (USA, 2004) dvd

This film co-written and directed by Niels Muller opened in NY and L.A. on 12/29/04 in the hopes that Sean Penn would get an Oscar nom. When it opened here in early Feb. I was busy with daily MIFF press screenings, so I missed it. Otherwise I wouldn't miss a film starring the talented Mr. Penn. He didn't get that nomination but he is excellent, as usual. The film is a period character study and not more than that. It's based on one Sam Byck, who concocted a harebrained ploy to kill Nixon. Loosely based that is, with the name changed here to Bicke. He shares some traits with Taxi Driver's Travis Bickle, including his strict morality, social ineptness, and descent into madness. But Bicke is significantly less competent as a moral-crusader-turned-violent and he is never shown in a heroic light. Bicke's valid points about the ills of society are shortshifted by "the director's inability to invest his film with significance" (Dargis,NY Times). The Assassination of Richard Nixon is well-directed and shot, and there's Penn's fabulous acting, but its ambition is limited to portraiture.

[oscar jubis]

Sunday Nov 13th (cont)

Nine Lives (USA, 2005) at Regal SoBe

This film written and directed by Colombian Rodrigo Garcia (Things You Can Tell Just By Looking At Her) won the Golden Leopard and Best Actress at Locarno (Tsai and Storaro in the jury). It consists of nine vignettes, shot as continuous long takes, each named after an L.A. woman. Secondary characters in some vignettes appear as protagonists in others. It's done casually and organically unless the forced, overly coincidental connections between characters in Crash, the other 2005 L.A.-ensemble film. Nine Lives is less agenda-driven, more expansive in its preoccupations, and infinitely less manipulative. The vignettes accrue significance and impact, to some extent. I wouldn't go as far in praising the film as the NY Times' Stephen Holden_who stated these scenes are "the cinematic equivalent of a collection of Chekhov short stories", but Nine Lives is very good. I took particular pleasure in the performances, with those by Elpidia Carrillo, Kathy Baker, and Robin Wright Penn as personal faves.

[oscar jubis]

Mon Nov 14th

Two or Three Things I Know About Her (France, 1967) import dvd

Supposedly inspired by The Big Sleep, but you couldn't glean that from watching this film about life in the new suburbs being built in the Parisian outskirts and the women who live there. Like many if not all Godard films, it becomes mostly about his state of mind. Two experimental features: the intermittent, semi-audible voice-over by Godard, and the fact that he was shooting it simultaneously with Made in USA "as if a musician were to conduct two orchestras at once, each playing a different symphony" (JLG).
Marina Vlady plays a housewife who does a little hooking on the side to maintain a certain standard of living. The message is that EVERYONE in modern, capitalist society has to prostitute oneself to survive. Visually the point is repeatedly made that advertisements and slogans have taken over culture, and that the suburban environment is ugly and anti-human. The "her" of the title applies more to Paris, as suggested by Godard in his voice-over, than to Miss Vlady.

[oscar jubis]

Tuesday Nov 15th

It's Not You, It's Me (Argentina, 2004) Beach Cinematheque

Screening sponsored by the Fort Lauderdale Film Festival of this debut by young director Juan Taratuto, co-written by Taratuto and his wife Cecilia Dopazo. It's a comedy of break-up and healing. Maria and Javier get married to facilitate their move to Miami, after living together for 2 years. She travels first while he stays behind to sell their apartment and finish his job. He's ready to join Maria when she calls to break it up. The rest of the film concerns his getting over it and, eventually, his search for a new love.The film is quite dependent on the actorly skills of Diego Peretti and he is exceptional, particularly in his ability to modulate the performance to create laughs without histrionics while conveying the pain and disorientation Javier experiences. This is genre-filmmaking with a familiar plot, yet it's fun to sit through because the comedic situations are reasonably realistic and the protagonist is charming and likable.

[Chris Knipp]

There was a thread on The Assassination of Richard Nixon that I started long ago

http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1190&highlight=assassination+of+richard+nixon

but I guess you just keep this thread for your own personal entertainment. It's beginning to look increasingly solipcistic, though it gets attention, it gets hits.

[Johann]

Check your spelling on solipcistic, Chris. :)