Oscar's Cinema Journal 2005

[oscar jubis]

Yours is clearly a minority opinion. Notre Musique is #6 in both the Film Comment Critics Poll and The Village Voice Critics Poll. The Dreamers is absent from the former and #76 in the latter. I have no opinion since Godard's film hasn't opened here. Quite frustrating for me. Same goes for the universally hailed Moolade.

Wed. February 2nd

Two more films coming to the festival:
Voces Inocentes (Mexico/USA, 2004)
Innocent Voices is a Spanish-language film from Luis Mandoki (Angel Eyes, Message in a Bottle). One wishes a movie dramatizing the use of minors in warfare were a knockout. Not close.

A Way of Life (UK,2004)
Writer/director Amma Asante is the new Ken Loach. I predict she'll win a British Academy award for Best Newcomer thanks to this wrong-side-of the-South-Wales-tracks film. Newcomer Stephanie James shoulda been nominated for her performance. No US distributor yet.

[Chris Knipp]

I am in a minority, yes. I expect to watch Notre Musique again to see if missed a lot the first time, and it is coming to a theater in San Francisco. I did catch Moolaade--in the same theater. I am sure you will enjoy it. It is so full of color and life and so different from anything else one sees, I think that and the important political meaning are the two reasons why it has been rated so highly. Perhaps you will find more artistic value in it than I did.

[oscar jubis]

Thursday Feb. 3rd

Friday Night Lights on dvd.
My son and I are rabid Hurricane football fans so this was an obvious rental. I don't rate Mr. Berg's film as high as Newsweek's David Ansen (#7 in his Top 10) but this is as good as sports flicks get. It's about a high school football team from Texas (of course) during the 1988 season. The game scenes are superb, it's well acted, and presents a balanced view of both the benefitial and detrimental aspects of organized team sports.

The Woodsman at the Sunrise Gateway
http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/show...=8741#post8741

[Chris Knipp]

Did you see Gavin O'Connor's Miracle? http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0349825/ I found this unfashionable sports movie and triumph for Kurt Russell had a lot to like in it, (http://www.chrisknipp.com/writing/viewtopic.php?t=256) and yet the time factor worked against me ( it came out in February) and I forgot it when list-making time came around.

[oscar jubis]

Didn't see Miracle. Thanks for the tip. This time Dylan won't be heartbroken when it's over. It's hockey though...but if it's Russell at his best it'll be worth it. There's no way I'll forget to list any movie for 2005, because of this journal.

[Chris Knipp]

So you're keeping this journal the whole year? It will be the all time magnum opus of FilmWurld! See my review of Miracle--it has real hockey players playing the team members. It's simple and standard but it's very well done. I liked it a lot. My college roommate was the hockey goalie and one of my best remaining college friends was also on the team, so I have that motivation to watch it. But if you like team sports movies, do rent it. I used to be heavily into running as you may remember, so I liked the Steve Prefontaine movie, Without Limits (1998), starring Billy Crudup, and there's another about "Pre," Prefontaine (1997), with Jared Leto (I guess the two coming so close together -- bad planning -- cancelled each other out). A really good running movie is Personal Best (1982), with Mariel Hemingway--have you seen it? It's very authentic in its handling of running, and it's an original story. There has never been a movie made of the rip-snortin' good read gay runner novel, The Front Runner by Patricia Nell Warren (1976?), which was optioned by Paul Newman, but never filmed. I was deep into running when it appered, and I could almost say it changed my life.

I just looked The Front Runner up on IMDb and it's listed as currently (2005!) being in production, but with no director listed, only the author http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0338047/. Well, it's never too late, I guess, but 29 years is a long time to get around filming something that really was in the spirit of the Seventies. If it's done well, it could be the all-time great running movie.

[oscar jubis]

Chris, I read your review of Miracle, that why I wrote "if it's Russell at his best..." Actually, I changed my mind about Friday Night Lights being "as good as sports flicks get". The two films you mentioned directed by Robert Towne, Personal Best and Without Limits, are better than FNL, in my opinion of course. Thanks for the reminder.

Friday Feb. 4th

Second viewing of Before Sunset, this time at home. I'll probably list it below Eternal Sunshine (more original) and The Corporation (more important) but this Linklater/Hawke/Delpy collaboration is the English-language film that gave me the most joy in 2004. Regrettably, the disc has absolutely no extras.

Son Frere, directed by Patrice Chereau (Those Who Love Me Can Take the Train, Intimacy) is the anti disease-of-the-week flick. Two brothers who've been distant in their adult years come (much) closer when the oldest is diagnosed with a rare blood disorder and asks the younger, gay one for help. Absolutely no noble suffering, triumph over adversity, or tension-deflecting humor allowed here. Lots of male nudity in non-erotic context, no grim detailed hidden for middlebrow consumption, Chereau and his talented actors (Bruno Todeschini and Eric Caravaca) keep it real. NOT your everyday, tell-your-friends-about-it, date-movie kind of film, but quite an achievement.

[Chris Knipp]

Good--great....I'll have to see Son frère. You have seen L'Homme blessé, no doubt? I thought Anglade was extraordinary in it; I'm not sure he's ever lived up to that promise, but I can see there are a lot of his films that I haven't seen, many of them not having made their way over here. Something like Gary Oldman? who was so brilliant in early films like Sid and Nancy, Prick Up Your Ears, Criminal Law, and Chatahoochee, but then , though he was in some cool movies like Henry and June and True Romance (one of my favorite cameos), got into playing stock villains. The risk-taking Anglade seems to have become a stock middle class guy. Or am I wrong? ( A complete digression).

[oscar jubis]

I haven't seen Anglade since Queen Margot and Nelly and Monsieur Arnaud, almost a decade ago. He played a small role in Taking Lives. Like you say, he's starred in a couple of films which have not made their way over here. These include Mortal Transfer directed by Beinex (Diva, Betty Blue) and Elective Affinities from the Taviani brothers.

Saturday February 5th

JEAN ROUCH: A Celebration of Life and Film

Tourou and Bitti (France/Niger, 12 min, 1971)
Funeral at Bongo:The Death of Old Anai(France/Mali,1972)
Moi, un Noir (France/Ivory Coast, 1959)
Chronicle of a Summer (France, 1960)
Gare du Nord (France, 16 min, 1966)

Brief Essay on Rouch and films mentioned above at the MIFF thread later today.

[Chris Knipp]

I beg to differ with you on Elective Affinities; that was shown here. Thanks for the reminder that Beineix directed Diva as well as Betty Blue -- the two worlds apart -- Diva a wonderfully playful, charming film, Betty Blue a challenging, absorbing one.

You did not see Anglade in Roger Avary's Killing Zoe(1994)? Perhaps just as well, but it is one of his extreme roles, as opposed to the workmanlike, uninteresting ones like in Taking Lives.

Did you tell me a while ago you'd seen Chéreau's L'Homme Blessé? I can't remember.

[Chris Knipp]

You mean you just got around to watching The Virgin Suicides?

[oscar jubis]

*Chris, I saw Killing Zoe, which predates Nelly, but not Elective Affinities (You recommend?) whose limited release did not include Miami. I watched Anglade's debut L'Homme Blesse on video.

*Chelsea, I guess I didn't include The Virgin Suicides (which I've watched many times) on this journal because I didn't watch it from beginning to end in one sitting this time. You must've seen it at least 4 times! but I was often busy while you were watching it. I practically know it by heart. Maybe there's something to genes, and maybe 2000 wasn't a great year for English-language cinema, but I love it as much as you_I don't think there was a better film in English released that year. Maybe I didn't include it because I'm tired of defending Ms. Coppola at this website. I think she's more talented than Anderson, Payne and others currently in vogue. Virgin Suicides evokes MY 70s and the awe and sense of mystery certaing girls inspire on impressionable boys better than any film in memory. Perhaps the best use of popular music on a film since Goodfellas.

Sunday February 6th

Jaguar (France/Niger/Ghana)
Directed by the great Jean Rouch. An exhilarating film, at once fiction, documentary and allegory about three rural Nigerians who travel to the city of Accra in Ghana seeking wealth and adventure. I posted an essay on Rouch on the MIFF thread today.

[Chris Knipp]

Considering h ow exhaustive you are in your watching, and that Elective Affinities is Goethe + the Taviani Brothers and has Isabelle Huppert as well as Anglade, you may want to watch it for its historical and cultural interest, but it isn't a great film. Did L'Homme blessé have any impact on you?

[oscar jubis]

Thanks for your comments on Elective Affinities. Anglade's performance is superb and Chereau knows how to depict erotic obsession, yet I was dissatisfied with L'Homme Blesse for reasons that I can't quite elucidate at the moment. Will rewatch now that it's out on disc.

Monday Feb. 7th

Nobody Knows at the Gusman
Hirokazu Koreeda's latest film, Japan's submission to our Academy for Oscar consideration, was released by IFC Films in big US markets last friday. It's based on a real event involving gross child neglect that is more tragic and harrowing than the resulting film. Look for my review on the MIFF thread soon.

[Chris Knipp]

To me L'Homme blessé had a deep significance because it captured the restlessness and anxiety of sexual desire in an adolescent boy who's discovering he's gay in a way that struck a very personal chord. I found Anglade's performance absolutely powerful and true. The mood of the movie is absurdly grim and operatic, but that seems right for a naive, self-important youth whose needs define his whole world. I wouldn't expect you or for that matter anybody else to react as strongly to L'Homme blessé as I did. I went to the theater to see it six or seven times. I've never done that for any other movie. I'm sorry my sense of gay experience is so negative, but apparently at the deepest level it is. Another gay story that I found true in the same fatalistic way is "Brokeback Mountain" by E. Annie Proulx (in The New Yorker six years or so ago), which is being made into a movie by Ang Lee starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger--a promising project, I'd say.