Page 7 of 7 FirstFirst ... 567
Results 91 to 97 of 97

Thread: Nyff 2009

  1. #91
    Join Date
    Jul 2002
    Location
    SF Bay Area
    Posts
    15,840
    This largely belongs in the Hitchcock/Truffaut thread. So I'll post that part over there.

    I get it now about Korean filmmaking to have surged in the late Fifties. I'm sure I've heard that maybe even from you but needed to be reminded; I don't know much of anything about that time in Korean movies though. Have I seen any from then? I don't think so. You may be right on Hong Sang-soo, and hence there are not as many major directors produced by Korea as by Hong Kong or China, which is not too surprising.
    Last edited by Chris Knipp; 06-13-2010 at 07:53 PM.

  2. #92
    Join Date
    Jul 2002
    Location
    SF Bay Area
    Posts
    15,840
    August 17 post from Oscar about WILD GRASS on another newer thread:

    I have yet to write anything about WILD GRASS, which I watched on Sunday.

    For me, it's clearly one of my favorite movies of 2010. Perhaps my favorite even though it had less emotional impact on me than GREENBERG. I simply had a smile from ear to ear watching this delicious movie-movie. I just can't get over how a Master approaching 90 years of age keeps experimenting with the medium rather than attempting to repeat old successes. WILD GRASS may well be Resnais' most surrealist and playful film even though it is not his best. I love Dussolier and Azema together. I love their neurotic and erotic mania and how it contrasts with the passive enabling of the sedate secondary characters. This is so much fun to watch. I love the fake ending which uses the Warner Brothers fanfare, the non-sequitur real ending, the scene-within-a-scene device, the occasional use of an unreliable narrator,...I could keep going. I hope I find the time to rewatch it before it leaves town.

  3. #93
    Join Date
    Oct 2002
    Posts
    4,843
    I had the distinct pleasure of viewing two more films from NYFF '09.
    I think period films and adaptations really suit Catherine Breillat. Her take on Perrault's fairytale BLUEBEARD gives you plenty to contemplate and reflect in a small 80 min. package. It is interesting to ponder the autobiographical aspects in the sibling relationship in both the tale itself and the framing story (sisters who are reading it themselves in the attic sometime in the 1950s). Great performances from four young girls with minimal or no acting experience as a consequence, I presume, of Breillat's brilliant casting and direction. I look forward to her new film, THE SLEEPING BEAUTY, also a Perrault adaptation that takes a similar approach to the material. Howard's review of it is quite favorable.

    I think SWEETGRASS is a masterpiece. An experiential film about the vanishing art of sheep-farming and herding. Absolutely impeccable lensing and sound design. Had to see it twice in a row and burn copies for my professors.
    I will try to continue posting here at filmleaf once a week. I will be extremely busy with my film studies until about Dec. 10th; this includes a trip to Milwaukee to present an illustrated conference essay on the great Kenji Mizoguchi.
    Last edited by oscar jubis; 10-08-2010 at 03:22 PM.

  4. #94
    Join Date
    Jul 2002
    Location
    SF Bay Area
    Posts
    15,840
    Thanks for your comments. I hope you will get to this year's NYFF sooner or later. I prefer Breillat's LAST MISTRESS to BLUEBEARD, though it has its points, nice little film. SWEET GRASS I guess is memorable, thought I would not want to watch it twice in a row even if I were tied to a chair.
    I hope your Milwaukee Mizoguchi paper is a hit.

    By the way I saw André Dusollier on the rue du Bac (7ième) in Paris in April. I walked right by him. He had two shopping bags beside him and was talking on his cell phone.

    Speaking of old directors, we had some in the NYFF 2010. De Oliveira's STRANG CASE OF ANGELICA was excellent. He gets the reward for age. Then of course Godard's FILM SOCIALISME. He'll be 80 in two months.

    Clint Eastwood is 80 I guess now and I saw his new film HEREAFTER today, the last film of the NYFF, and I liked it.

  5. #95
    Join Date
    Jul 2002
    Location
    SF Bay Area
    Posts
    15,840
    Update on the Portuguese gay film from NYFF 2009, Rodrigues' TO DIE LIKE A MAN: In October 2010 Strand Releasing announced that it will open in spring 2011 in US theaters.

    Strand also says the film is Portugal’s Official Selection for Best Foreign Language Film in the Academy Awards, 2010 (83rd).

  6. #96
    Join Date
    Jul 2002
    Location
    SF Bay Area
    Posts
    15,840

    New Solondz we can't see yet

    Todd Soldondz: DARK HORSE


    Jordan Gelber and Donna Murphy in Dark Horse.

    Shot in 2010, shown at Venice and Toronto in 2011, Solondz's sixth feature will be released June 8, 2012. But I will not see it or review it, because I am not in New York :(

    It releases in Ireland and the UK June 29, 2012.

    There are already reviews, and its Metacritic rating has gone up from 44 to 52. Armond White has reviewed it here. "Solondz abhors irony in Dark Horse" his title is. Is that true? Or is the irony so deep it becomes something else? Anyway White is more sympathetic than most.

    [DARK HORSE is] a film about Abe (Jordan Gelber), a 35-year-old Jewish man—overweight, living with his parents, employed in his father’s real estate business yet still playing with toys, desperate to begin his life and enjoy the culture’s empty cheer.

    Abe’s not a frontrunner, the sports metaphor used by his father (Christopher Walken). His dim prospects reflect Everyman pessimism through a lower middle-class experience that’s more authentic than Death of a Salesman, yet rarely acknowledged. Solondz, almost alone among Jewish-American filmmakers, presents ethnic uniqueness frankly, with unsmiling mockery. His tough, deadpan compassion is more humane than fashionable cynicism.
    White calls LIFE DURING WARTIME "almost masterly." It certailnly is -- I reviewed it as part of the NYFF 2009 (cued on page 4 of this thread), and I hope more people get to see it, because I think Solondz's mastery grows from film to film. Antagonistic critics (of which there are always plenty) say he says nothing in DARK HORSE he has not said effectively in HAPPINESS, etc., but the same message plus greater mastery = a must-see. "At bottom, I am always making the same film" -- Fellini.

    White mentions the Coens' A SERIOUS MAN, whose deadpan also most reviewers didn't get, but he did, and I sense a link between the two films, a "tough, deadpan compassion" that "presents ethnic uniqueness frankly" and that viewers don't get because they see an irony that isn't really there, and find it cruel. White also mentions Apatow comedies and so has Solondz himself in an interview; he proposes Abe in DARK HORSE as a humane and civilized take on the Jewish schlubs of the Apatow stable. I'm going to follow Mike D'Angelo's practice and avoid viewing trailers or videos.

  7. #97
    Join Date
    Jul 2002
    Location
    SF Bay Area
    Posts
    15,840

    New Solondz we can't see yet

    Todd Soldondz: DARK HORSE


    Jordan Gelber and Donna Murphy in Dark Horse.

    Shot in 2010, shown at Venice and Toronto in 2011, Solondz's sixth feature will be released June 8, 2012. But I will not see it or review it, because I am not in New York :(

    It releases in Ireland and the UK June 29, 2012.

    There are already reviews, and its Metacritic rating has gone up from 44 to 52. Armond White has reviewed it here. "Solondz abhors irony in Dark Horse" his title is. Is that true? Or is the irony so deep it becomes something else? Anyway White is more sympathetic than most.

    [DARK HORSE is] a film about Abe (Jordan Gelber), a 35-year-old Jewish man—overweight, living with his parents, employed in his father’s real estate business yet still playing with toys, desperate to begin his life and enjoy the culture’s empty cheer.

    Abe’s not a frontrunner, the sports metaphor used by his father (Christopher Walken). His dim prospects reflect Everyman pessimism through a lower middle-class experience that’s more authentic than Death of a Salesman, yet rarely acknowledged. Solondz, almost alone among Jewish-American filmmakers, presents ethnic uniqueness frankly, with unsmiling mockery. His tough, deadpan compassion is more humane than fashionable cynicism.
    White calls LIFE DURING WARTIME "almost masterly." It certailnly is -- I reviewed it as part of the NYFF 2009 (cued on page 4 of this thread), and I hope more people get to see it, because I think Solondz's mastery grows from film to film. Antagonistic critics (of which there are always plenty) say he says nothing in DARK HORSE he has not said effectively in HAPPINESS, etc., but the same message plus greater mastery = a must-see. "At bottom, I am always making the same film" -- Fellini. LIFE DURING WARTIME was one of the delights and surprises of the 2009 NYFF for me. I am eager to see DARK HORSE and disappointed that it may be some time before I can.

    White mentions the Coens' A SERIOUS MAN, whose deadpan also most reviewers didn't get, but he did, and I sense a link between the two films, a "tough, deadpan compassion" that "presents ethnic uniqueness frankly" and that viewers don't get because they see an irony that isn't really there, and find it cruel. White also mentions Apatow comedies and so has Solondz himself in an interview; he proposes Abe in DARK HORSE as a humane and civilized take on the Jewish schlubs of the Apatow stable. I'm going to follow Mike D'Angelo's practice and avoid viewing trailers or videos.

Page 7 of 7 FirstFirst ... 567

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •