Printable View
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.
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.
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.
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.).
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?
*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 (USA, 2005) at Regal SoBe
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.
Wed. Nov 2nd
Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (UK, 2005) at AMC CocoWalk
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.
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.
Meant ironically I take it in view of what you follow up with. This was so badly reviewed that I avoided it.Quote:
Nothing to perk up one's interest, not really.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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. 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)
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!
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.
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.
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.
Friday November 11th
Time of Favor (Israel, 2001) dvd
This debut feature by Joseph Cedar (Checkpoint) 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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
There was a thread on The Assassination of Richard Nixon that I started long ago
http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/show...+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.
Check your spelling on solipcistic, Chris. :)
Thanks. Solipsism. Why don't the Filmwurld forum pages have spellcheck? My spelling system is solipsistic.
Just buggin' ya.
You said my English doesn't falter so I had to say it.
Spelling doesn't really matter. It's what's said that does.
No your English doesn't falter. Spelling isn't everything but it does matter.
And since I'm a former English teacher, I ought to know better. But boys don't spell as well as girls and we take that to the grave, I guess.Quote:
Mend your speech a little,
Lest it may mar your fortunes.
--Shakespeare, King Lear
Originally posted by Chris Knipp
I guess you just keep this thread for your own personal entertainment.
I understand how my not checking if there was a thread for the film gave you that impression, but YOU should know better. I've repeatedly stated I'd rather watch more film than post but I do in the hope of exchanging opinions about the films I watch. I'm trying to post on every film I watch as promised on January 1st. I haven't had internet access at home for almost one month. I'm trying to post from relatives' homes in less than desirable circumstances and with limited time to do it. I'm sorry I failed to search for your thread on The Assassination of Richard Nixon.
Wed Nov 16th
Gun Fury (USA, 1953) dvd
Solid western shot in Arizona, directed by Raoul Walsh, who made excellent films in just about every genre. Rock Hudson is ready to settle down in California with new wife Donna Reed. The Civil War is over and he vows to mind his own business and stay away from any kind of violence. In route to the west coast, he is left for dead and his wife kidnapped during a robbery. Like the hero of High Noon, Rock has difficulty finding men willing to help him get her back. Good film, but not as memorable a western as Walsh's own Pursued.
Thu Nov 17th
Down By Law (USA/Germany, 1986) dvd
Jim Jarmusch wanted to make a film starring his friends John Lurie and Tom Waits because he liked the chemistry between them. During a visit to Italy, a friend introduced him to Roberto Benigni and they hit it off immediately (mostly in French). Jarmusch altered the script to create a character for Benigni. Down by Law alternates between the pimp Lurie and the unemployed dj Waits in the poor parishes of New Orleans and how they come to be incarcerated. They share a cell with Benigni, whose anglophilia and attempts to master English idioms provides plenty of laughs. The three manage to escape through bayou swamps.
When I crave early Jarmusch, it's Mystery Train and Stranger Than Paradise I go for, over and over. But I'm glad I watched Down by Law a second time. I enjoyed it very much. This is quite an introduction to the US market to the talents of Mr. Benigni. This is also the first collaboration between Jarmusch and DP Robby Muller; his lensing and lighting here is every bit as awesome as that of Dead Man (thanks Criterion for the excellent transfer). John Lurie wrote the music score and Waits penned two songs prominently featured.
So you're saying that's what the DVD was, eh? I wouldn't have known that the lighting was great in Down by Law. I've seen a number of Benigni's movies, not all of them, and my impression, corroborated by Italian friends, is that he is best in improvised performances, not so good in cooked-up film stories like his latest movie about Iraq, La vita è bella, etc. I think he's hilarious in Down by Law, though even funnier in NIght on Earth. That sequence of the taxi driver is one of the single drollest passages in recent films. But he has some moments in Down by Law that rival it. I would probably agree that Down by Law isn't quite up to Stranger Than Paradise and Mystery Train, but they're all of a piece, too.Quote:
(thanks Criterion for the excellent transfer)
Well, it's an obscure thread, though it took me only seconds to find it. On the other hand, I'm very very sorry you've had so much hardship, including lack of electricity. It would be churlish to criticize you for that. But I hope you can add your comments to the appropriate threads when you have the time. Otherwise this becomes a personal website within a collective website, doesn't it, really? If we all had our personal threads on this website, that would be kind of weird, to say the least. Alternately if the site's going to be all reviews and no talk, then it needs an edotor.Quote:
I'm sorry I failed to search for your thread on The Assassination of Richard Nixon.
Originally posted by Chris Knipp
I wouldn't have known that the lighting was great in Down by Law. I would probably agree that Down by Law isn't quite up to Stranger Than Paradise and Mystery Train, but they're all of a piece, too.
I'm probably not the only one who often takes the use of lights in films for granted, until one watches a film in which inept lighting detracts significantly from an otherwise good film. Last case in point, Diego Lerman's Suddenly. Certain outdoor night scenes in Down by Law provide challenges to the DP in terms of lighting: long pans of New Orleans streets and especially, those involving the trio escaping through woods and bayou swamps. Boy, this picture looks fantastic! Muller is reportedly a pain in the ass but I'd put up with him to get my picture to look like this.
Yes, the Criterion transfer is beyond reproach. Among the extras, a press conference at Cannes '86 in which, as I remarked to Cristi, Jarmusch behaves like an arrogant asshole. Also included, a recent taped phone conversation between Jarmusch and Lurie in which the now mature auteur tells Lurie that he wonders why he behaved like a jerk at that conference.
Thursday Nov 17th (cont)
Play (Chile, 2005) at Beach Cinematheque
Cristina, a live-in nursemaid from the sticks, performs household chores and reads National Geographic to an ailing Hungarian. She takes out the trash and finds a briefcase. Flashback to how architect Tristan's briefcase got there. Back to Cristina, learning to smoke Tristan's cigs, listening to his music on his I-Pod, and investigating his life via objects found inside. Cristina calls his cell but no one answers. She finds him and follows him around the streets of her beloved Santiago. The inquisitive, naturally curious Cristina also becomes interested in Irene, Tristan's high-maintenance wife. Tristan has recently lost Irene to a long-haired Russian and finds himself with a lot of free-time when construction workers go on strike. He visits his blind mother, an stylishly exotic woman having a torrid affair with a younger man, a rude magician from Argentina. Play alternates between these characters from different social strata as they ambulate through the capital city. Tristan and Cristina eventually meet in rather unpredictable fashion.
The debut of writer/director Alicia Scherson (who studied film in Cuba and Chicago) had its world premiere at the 2005 Tribeca Film Festival where Scherson was named best "new narrative filmmaker". The Voice and the Times both recommended it. I knew this before the screening yet I was still surprised at how Play didn't bring forth any associations with other films. It seems to have been made by someone who's been paying close attention to the minutae of life, to small behavioral differences, to what makes Santiago different from other world capitals, rather than made by someone who's been watching too many movies. Play is character-based rather than plot-fueled, with unforced bits of magical realism here and a touch of the absurd there. I was still sitting after the final credits wishing I could spend more time with Tristan and Cristina, and wondering what happened to them when Ms. Scherson stopped pointing her High-Def SteadyCam at them. Know what I mean?