the LAST FILM YOU'VE SEEN thread

Friday night, I too watched the Devil's Rejects. I hadn't seen House of a Thousand Corpses, due to across the board bad reviews (except for one friend who's opinion doesn't count). This film certainly stands on it's own, and I wasn't even remotely lost watching it, even without the backstory.

I do think Zombie is coming into his own as a director. He's a fan of the wipe, which is not a very common scene transition, and never really was aside from some Kurosawa. The freeze frames work to a point, but after awhile they should have been done away with.

The film has it's humor, and that's to be appreciated. There are also a host of cameos most of which I couldn't really recognize, let's just say PJ Soles really let herself go. I still would have appreciated a nice surreal animated sequence, but I guess I'll just watch his part of Beavis and Butthead Do America for that.

In the comfort of my own home I finally finished Ken Burns Baseball (1994), all 18 hours of peole reminiscing on America's pasttime. The film was thoroughly fascinating, and makes me long for sping and another fresh season of baseball, especially considering the White Sox are actually defending champions for the first time in several lifetimes. I'll admit plenty was left out, and I got the feeling that Burns wasn't much of a Chicago fan. He described at great length the failures of the Boston Red Sox, but the Cubs have choked just as admirably, and the team wasn't even mentioned after the 1932 World Series when Ruth apparently called his home run.

The film is a must for any baseball fan, and I think like his Civil War doc, that it'll carry interest to the casual admirer and even someone who could care less about the game. Granted I think the more you're into baseball the better the film will probably be.

In theaters, I saw Derailed , and it was lousy. No chemistry, weak story, and no interest whatsoever. The best part of the film was RZA, but even he was really supporting, so I would definitely not recommend the film. Clive Owen has no business as a romantic lead, he seems way too self absorbed for me. He worked in Closer, but that's because he was self absorbed in that. Jennifer Anniston did well for Jennifer Anniston, but she lacked any seductiveness that could have made her roll work.

Thanks again, Chris. I enjoyed your brief and to-the-point comments.

It's disappointing to hear that Morel's succumbed to "gratuitous homoeroticism" because I'm a fan of a couple of his films. Can't say that too many non-NYFF selections excite me other than the ones I already mentioned.

Johann never fails to amaze me with his posts. I wish I could write like him.

It's true. Johann has the flow of passion in him, and his English doesn't falter.

True, there aren't too many non-NYFF films I saw that stood out. But thosewere really full of depth. Sokurov's The Sun will always haunt me.

I've seen so many films this year, I don't know if I can keep track of them. I have to go over my log of what I've seen to sort out which ones really matter.

Others I liked a lot or that seemed important:

2046
Last Days
L'Enfant
Bubble
The Death of Mr. Lazarescu
The Beat My Heart Skipped
Caché
Grizzly Man
Good Night, and Good Luck
Lords of Dogtown
Mysterious Skin
Mondovino
Nobody Knows
Thumbsucker
The Passenger (best revival)

I saw Jarhead, and last night I saw The Weather Man. Both are better than they say, and I want to write reviews of them to explain why.

There are many in the B+ range, but it's hard to see which are really A's or A-'s.

The Sun still doesn't have a U.S. distributor. Hopefully that'll change.

I don't like L'Enfant, Nobody Knows, The Beat That My Heart Skipped, and Grizzly Man as much as you do, but I guess they're important in their own ways. 2046 is good, but certainly not as accomplished as WKW's other efforts (still have to cover this one). I saw The Passenger last week; it's a masterpiece at any length. We agreed on Lords of Dogtown, which was surprisingly effective. Will watch Mysterious Skin, Last Days and Mondovino soon.

I'd be interested in your reviews of Jarhead and Weather Man. I've read some encouraging comments on the latter.

Coming.

Jarhead

The Weather Man

The small Italian film series called N.I.C.E. is on this week in San Francisco. I plan on seeing a few of the showings. I think it will be presented in New York at Quad Cinema.

We have the annual Spanish Cinema Now series at the Walter Reade from Dec 8th. A few interesting selections to say the least. Film Comment Selects is also coming up shortly.

Netflix over the weekend:

Water Falls on Burning Rocks/Gouttes d'eau sur pierres brûlantes François Ozon. 2000. Brilliantly done, a blend of Fassbinder and Ozon. A bit odd, French people with German names talking about being in German places. The more I see of Ozon the more I see his neatness and skill -- but also his superficiality and lack of progression. There is little depth to this, which would work better as a play, and might have been done with more complexity by Pinter. The actors are great, especially the two men. Delicious--but brittle.

Et Dieu....créa la femme/And God Created Woman Roger Vadim. 1955. This made a strong impression on me when I saw as a teenager on my first trip to Europe -- the scene where a man pushes aside a sheet hanging out to dry and reveals Brigitte Bardot lying on the grass nude was a stunner in those days. Times change and what I enjoyed on this viewing was the abstract widescreen framings. The restored print in the Criterion DVD has all the original's terrific color and light. Fifties cinematographers at times played with composition using widescreen much as noir ones did with angle and light earlier. There aren't many closeups. The shots are often panoramic and offbeat, with a large object in the middle, separating two figures. It's not true that the movie is about nothing; it's simply that the story of the three brothers competing for the wild girl (Bardot) is wasted and lost in the meandering editing of a director more interested in Bardot mamboing or nude than in plot. I would compare this with Vadim's No Sun in Venice/Sait-on jamais, made two years later, again with Curt Jurgens as an urbane bad guy and Marie Laforet as the babe this time, and, a really pointless plot but wonderfully moody settings enhanced by the Modern Jazz Quartet's nifty, atmospheric score, and visually atmospheric elegant widescreen compositions. I saw that one back then too, but it isn't on DVD or tape, though you can get the timeless soundtrack on CD.

Crimson Rivers/Les Rivières pourpres Matthieu Kassovitz. 2000. With Vincent Cassell and Jean Reno as warring, then partnering, investigators in a police procedural about a Nazi-inspired community and grisly serial killings in the French Alps. This is presumably American-influenced (though based on a French novel) but however hokey the mystery is, sometimes the French do things better, avoiding over-obvious exposition or excessive cop sequences and crafting mutilated corpses Hollywood could drool over. The two actors play off each other well and Nadia Farès makes a sexy villainess. Special effects are good and the actors do most of their own physical stuff; Cassell broke his nose in a capoeira fight sequence. The DVD comes with an informative and down-to-earth commentary by the director and the two actors. Done before Gothika, and way better, this is a well-crafted entertainment; still, what has happened to the promise of social significance Kassovitz offered in La Haine?

Tim Burton's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005)

Atom Egoyan's Where the Truth Lies (TIFF/2005)

Thanks for the words of encouragement Arsaib & Chris!

I try.


The "making of" Devil's Rejects is incredible.
Film school? It's right here baby.

I have great respect now for Rob Zombie.
Watch the making of- he's very efficient and a pretty cool guy.

I assume everyone caught the references to 2001: A Space Odyssey in Burton's Chocolate Factory?

I remember seeing "Somersault" really early this year, excellent performance from Abbie Cornish and quite a unique feel to the film. I've been too busy to catch it on DVD but it's one of those films that I want to see again simply because it is such an individual piece of work. The best Australian film I can remember for quite a while.

Cheers Trev.

The Ice Harvest


Excellent holiday entertainment.


I could fit in with the characters of this Harold Ramis "orderve" easily.

John Cusack robs his boss of 2 mil, and Billy Bob Thornton is his co-conspirator.

Things go really, really bad.
It's based on the book "The Ice Harvest", which is supposed to be awesome.

If the movie is any indication, it is.

This was an advance screening (it opens next week) and they gave away prize packs with Sling Blade DVD's and the book in them.

Nuditah, violence (Billy Bob pulls a Jack Nicholson with a golf club in a hilarious scene), it's one of the strangest Christmas movies you'll ever see. (It would be a good double feature with Zwigoff's
Bad Santa).

Some great plot twists and unexpected scenes made for a really enjoyable night out.

Reincarnation of Golden Lotus (1989) - Clara Law

Well hard to believe there is a look and feel to such a remote genre, but this definitely feels and looks like a Hong Kong film from the late 80's. The music has that synthesized hybrid of Easternized Western music, the colors aren't sharp, and even the editing has a pace that makes it work on a John Woo level.

This was the first feature from Clara Law, and by most accounts it is her best work. The film certainly has promise. It begins with the dead Lotus about to be reincarnated, all she has to do is drink three cups of tea to erase her past, but she only drinks two, determined to go back and get revenge. She is warned that it will ruin her life, and well let's just say that's pretty obvious foreboding.

The story takes us to modern Chinese history, first in the sixties where Lotus is an orphaned child ballerina, and then her eventual exile, finall winding up in present (or at least present at the time the film was made) Hong Kong. There is certainly a contrast from the China of the beginning to the later Hong Kong. Everyone appears to be mindless slaves in China, and the ideology is shown as extreme, so not surprising the film wasn't produced there. According to the legend, Lotus was known as the "slut of all time" and her original story took place in the 10th Century. Law periodically cuts back and forth to reveal the life previously lived.

In all a pretty good film, things seem to get a little more hectic and confusing at the end, but over all I think it's a pretty compact film. It could have been longer to perhaps flesh out the different affairs carried out, but that might have made for a completely different film.

Grade B+

Claude Chabrol, La demoiselle d'honneur (2004) dvd (non-US).

This came out in Paris exactly one year ago yesterday. Laura Smet, the daughter of Johnny Halliday, and Benoît Magimel, star, with Aurore Clément and Bernard le Coq. Impeccable. A sexy mismatched couple. The ending is like The Cement Garden, the cops are just arriving at the door. Adapted from a novel by Ruth Rendell, whose La Céremonie Chabrol adapted ten years ago. An English writer, spiritual sister of Patricia Highsmith. For me not much not to like here. The first of the DVD's I just got in France.

Quote:

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Originally posted by trevor826
I remember seeing "Somersault" really early this year, excellent performance from Abbie Cornish and quite a unique feel to the film. I've been too busy to catch it on DVD but it's one of those films that I want to see again simply because it is such an individual piece of work. The best Australian film I can remember for quite a while.

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An individual piece of work, indeed. (I had a feeling that you knew about it.) Lynch should get a hold of Cornish for Mulholland Drive 2. ;)

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The Ice Harvest looks interesting.

Btw, check out Romero's Land of the Dead. Political fodder abound!