the LAST FILM YOU'VE SEEN thread

Damn haven't updated this in a while.

1. Ulysses Gaze (1995) - Theo Angelopoulus

A masterpiece as I've come to expect from this director. One of his more complex films, simply because it changes times all the time and of course Mr. Kietel doesn't change ages. Shots are great, and very similar in many respects to his previous Travelling Players.

2. The Pillow Book (1996) - Peter Greenaway

Well only my third film from this highly structured filmmaker. This one was as exciting and inventive as I would have expected, and a film that will probably only fully make sense if I watch it 15 more times.

3. Do You Remember Dolly Bell? (1981) - Emir Kusturica

The weakest of the three, I saw this well for the same reason most people did, because Kusturica directed it. More of that coming of age nonsense, which as I'm sure I've already explained, I can't stand. Done slightly differently of course, but well modified garbage is still essentially garbage. Don't mean to bash the film, but I'm bashing the subject matter.

Man of the West (1958) - Anthony Mann

Interesting flick, about all I can say, got more to read about it, before I start making any interpretations.

A Thousand Clowns (1965) - Fred Coe

Enjoyable film nominated for a best picture Oscar (hence the reason I watched it). Lots of fast talking and confusion, very obviously made for the stage. The directing however does have a Richard Lester feel towards it, perhaps showing an early influence.

A Thousand Clowns -- I saw the original production with Sandy Dennis and Jason Robards at the Eugene O'Neill Theater on Broadway in 1962. It was very effective but rather sentimental. Mind you it was great stuff and both author Herb Gardner and Robards where in their early primes. Gardner was then famous for his comic strip The Nebbishes.

Just saw Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Pulse at the Japan Society last night. Kurosawa was on hand for a Q&A. The film was introduced by Jim O'Rourke. Pulse affected me deeply. Kurosawa grapples with questions of our mortality and a human impulse to understand our lives relative to certain demise. We're all dead in the end...chillingly beautiful. I would describe this as a cinematic environment rather than simply a film. The particular environment lingers long after the film is over...

Suicide and Japan are interesting topics. I wonder what it is culturally that compels people to take their own lives. Somehow, Americans (Western cultures?) find enough reasons to keep on living...Japanese youth seem to find enough reasons to cease living. I don't think its simply a question of a defeated culture either...

pmw I'm extremly jealous, I saw "Pulse" aka "Kairo" quite recently, unfortunately only on a pretty low quality VCD. I would love to have been able to talk to the director about the film which unfortunately is always pushed purely as a horror, personally I took it as a statement of the loneliness, the lack of human communication and unhappiness of urban life which affects a lot of the world but South East Asia and youth in particular. It is a very sad film which uses some conventions generic to horror films to give the story momentum.

I'll have to try and write a full review although I'd rather see it again either like you on the big screen or at least on DVD.

Cheers Trev.

Thanks for the word on Pulse, P and Trev; will have to check it out. I wasn't used to be a K. Kurosawa fan but he's matured in the last couple of years, certainly more than his fellow cult filmmaker, Takashi Miike. I liked Doppelgänger and last year's Bright Future, which also dealt with some pertinent topics.

Kore-eda's Distance is still the best Japanese film I've seen on the issues you brought up, P, including group suicide. Iwai's All About Lily Chou-Chou is also a worthy effort.

I still see Miike as a jobbing director, he hasn't done anything that is truly his own, Kitano's "Kids Return" also shows another side of youth in Japan.

Cheers Trev.

Well Trev, it looks like Magnolia Pictures will do a theatrical release of the Japanese version of Pulse sometime in the near future. They bought the rights from Miramax who will do a re-make of Kurosawa's film (not too excited about that).

Pulse must be seen on the big screen - the textures, the sound, the scale are all so important...Agreed, there is not much "Horror" to this film. Kurosawa himself said that he was surprised that the genre would accomodate a film as strangely undefineable as Pulse. In other words, thank god there is some marketable angle to what would otherwise have to be pushed as a very sad film about death and loneliness...

A statement of lonliness- no doubt...its soul-wrenchingly honest. He pulls no punches...
P

Couple of links indicate that Pulse was to be released in August but it was recently pushed back to November. Here's the American site.

Ice Cube was in the house tonight.

He's the new triple X, and he's got more one-liners than Clint Eastwood.

Fine, fine action flick.

I hesitated to see it but it's XXX without Vin Diesel, an actor who annoys me.

Samuel L. Jackson is Gibbons, Ice cube is Darius. They need to work together to thwart some terrible bad guys in the Nation's Capital, and they just happen to have toys that would put Bond to shame.

The President is willing to "turn enemies into allies", and Willem Dafoe wants to assassinate him.

This film is pure testosterone, all-black, all-street, all PIMP MY RIDE. Xzibit is in it, and he hotwires a tank.
(You heard right- LOAD. FIRE.)

Cube busts out of prison like fuckin' Steve McQueen on Methodone. He leaps from the roof onto a stolen helicopter.
The stunts and action sequences are very over-the-top yet oddly eye-grabbing. I didn't look away from the screen much. You got lots o' booty, a bass-thumping soundtrack (I love the track "I only play games that I never lose at" and the updated Fight the Power. They even managed to squeeze in a mug shot of Easy-E.


Great action movie.
Forget Vin Diesel.
He Dead, boy.

I will forget Vin Diesel. I've been wanting to. It won't be hard.

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Cube busts out of prison like fuckin' Steve McQueen on Methodone.

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This made me laugh but then I thought maybe you really meant on crystal meth. Wouldn't that be better?

I've had a soft spot for Ice Cube ever since David O. Russell's Three Kings, one of the best movies about the Gulf War. Are there any others? Samuel L. Jackson and Willem Dafoe make a good group.

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This film is pure testosterone, all-black, all-street, all PIMP MY RIDE. Xzibit is in it, and he hotwires a tank.

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Johann, you haven't lost your touch.

Methodone, Crystal Meth- doesn't matter homie.

This film is outrageous. It was a good time-killer.
Great supporting cast, with Dafoe stealing the show.
The ending is excellent.

You could do much worse for action movies. Ice Cube is great, considering how he's not really an A-list star. He does his job well, a la Three Kings, but I like xXx way better.

He seemed a little fat to pull off a special agent role, say what you will about Vin Diesel, but he actually looks like he could kick some ass.

Before passing judgement on Vin Diesel I would recommend seeing Multifacial. It was a short film that he starred in and *gasp* wrote and directed as well. Didn't think he had it in him, but damn good work from the man, and it let me know that he actually is capable of some acting, granted perhaps he's the only person who can write a good role for himself.

The last film I had seen was The World (2004).

A damn good movie, and one that I was afraid I was gonna miss. Recommended for all, but who knows to what capacity it is playing. Led me to check out more films from it's director, and I'm always interested in discovering new talent. Jia Zhang-Ke is only 35 so there should be a hell of a lot more from him in the future.

Fellini...XXX...it's all good baby!

The World should not be missed. Glad you saw it on the big screen. Li Yuk Wai's camera-work is phenomenal. My review, the thread was just archived.

As you already know, Platform is releasing soon on DVD from New Yorker. I see that you've already bought Unknown Pleasures. The only other feature he's made is Xiao Wu (1997), his debut film which is only available with subs in the U.K. as part of a 2 DVD-set with Unknown Pleasures (Artificial-Eye).

Luna (1979) - Bernardo Bertolucci

Another muddled mess. Sometimes films from key directors go unreleased in this country, and when you finally get to see them, you no longer wonder why. This film is Bertolucci after the chaotic 1900. Although this film in no way attempts to reach the grand scope of 1900, it does however serve to continue Bertolucci's exploration of rather silly subject matter.

There is an underlying pretext of incest throughout the film, and as it progresses, well it is no longer pretext. The acting isn't exactly stellar, although Jill Clayburgh does well enough under the circumstances. The film has an irritating male lead, in the child actor Mathew Barry, and his whole role seems misguided. Bertolucci clearly needed to be roped in, and by this point who knew if he ever would be again. The Dreamers returned to similar themes of incest and inappropriate subject matter, but at least did it with better acting, and a slightly more enjoyable cast. Bash that film as much as you want, but I'd take it over Luna any day.

I might just watch the Conformist again today to be reminded of what a good Bertolucci film is like.