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Post by AD on Mar 1, 2011 0:25:36 GMT -5
Believe it or not, this marks the sixth month we've been doing this. The last couple months have seen an increase in participation, and I’m hoping to build on that this month. Let's get to it: Watch any film in the Criterion Collection and review it by the end of the month.Obviously you don’t actually have to watch the Criterion DVD/Blu-ray specifically, just any movie that happens to have been released under the Criterion banner at some point. I also want to stress that Criterion definitely DOES NOT deal exclusively in esoteric foreign cinema and pretentious art films. Follow the links below and you’ll find that exciting action films like John Woo’s Hard Boiled and The Killer, B movie cult classics like The Blob, digestible Hollywood classics like Young Mr. Lincoln, and even super-mainstream titles like Robocop and Ghostbusters have all been released by Criterion at one point or another. So, to figure out exactly which movies are a part of the collection you can check out their official website or consult Wikipedia for a list of DVD and Blu-ray releases and a list of Laserdisc releases, which also include the out of print titles. One last thing: I’m really starting to run low on ideas for each new month. I’m trying to choose criteria with mass appeal to make this thing as inclusive to all tastes as possible. That’s turning out to be much harder than I imagined. I’d like to remind you all that you are free to suggest ideas on what we should focus on in future months. Send me a PM if you want to keep it a secret, or just shout out ideas in this thread.
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Post by RyanGoslingFan99 on Mar 1, 2011 1:17:55 GMT -5
I haven't seen Hard Boiled in ages and should really go and revisit it. The Killer is also another movie on that has been in the que for about 3 years.
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Post by AD on Mar 1, 2011 2:52:02 GMT -5
You should definitely check out The Killer, man! Given what I perceive to be your taste in movies I can't imagine you wouldn't like it. For added fun, you can try to spot all the modern action movie cliches that were started by that movie.
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Post by Rishlicious on Mar 1, 2011 14:46:02 GMT -5
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Post by AD on Mar 6, 2011 2:14:22 GMT -5
ACE IN THE HOLE (Billy Wilder, 1951) Netflix description The more I see of Billy Wilder’s oeuvre, the more I believe him to be the best Hollywood director of his era. Granted, I’m not the least bit qualified to make that assertion, but I just did, and you can’t do anything about it. You might be wondering why I rank him so highly among his peers. Well, I could list his credits, but to save some time I’ll just say that, quite simply, he was ahead of his time. Take Ace in the Hole for instance. Like Sidney Lumet’s Network, this is a movie that has only become more and more relevant as time has gone by. While Lumet’s film took on the television industry and anticipated the grotesque spectacles of reality TV and the 24 hour news channels, Wilder’s film reminds us that these things have been around forever, in one form or another. People are just less clever about disguising them these days. The fact that Ace in the Hole deals with the now all-but-obsolete newspaper industry is not a hindrance. And, the fact that it predates Network by some twenty five years makes it all the more remarkable. It’s more than just ahead of it’s time, though. It’s actually just a great movie, entertaining and thought-provoking in equal measure, no matter what year in which you watch it. It’s got a great script, full of delicious hardboiled dialogue. Here’s a good line: “I'm in the boat, you're in the water, now let's see how you can swim.” And another: “I can handle big news and little news, and if there's no news, I'll go out and bite a dog.” They just don’t write scripts like this anymore. In the lead performance we’re treated to the pleasure of watching Kirk Douglas at his most despicable. He always made a great hero (he was Spartacus, damn it), but when he wanted to he could chill you to the bone with the best of them. One of the things I find most interesting about watching classic films is the ability to view them through the lens of history. Remember, The Grapes of Wrath was once considered the greatest film of it’s time. Today, while it is still a beloved classic, you’d have to do a lot of reading to find somebody who ranks it above the likes of Casablanca or Citizen Kane. This past year critics and audiences alike sung the praises of The Social Network, many describing it as “the movie of the moment.” That’s a fair assessment, but where does that leave the movie once the moment has passed? In 20 years will we look back at it as a curiously nostalgic trinket from our collective past? Or, will it maintain it’s appeal, perhaps even becoming more timely in the future? I can’t say, and neither can you. I apologize if it seemed like I got a little off subject there, but I did have a point.
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Post by Her 69 Eyes on Mar 7, 2011 2:31:33 GMT -5
MVZ MMC: March 2011Black Narcissus (dir. Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger, 1947) I revisited Black Narcissus two years after my first viewing, and what a difference those two years have made. Not only would I consider myself significantly more well-rounded when it comes to cinema history in general, my love of Powell & Pressburger has grown tremendously. I'd go as far as to say that they're among my top five favorite filmmakers. Not that I ever had anything bad to say about the film prior to this revisit, but it's especially satisfying to see the ways in which it fits within their eclectic oeuvre. It would be absurd to not start off by heaping praise towards the cinematography by Jack Cardiff, one of the most cherished of cameramen in arguably one of his finest works. What appeals to me about this particular film's look is that the visual aesthetic seems to be largely concerned with the extravagant set designs throughout the majority of the picture, however only after repeat viewings do you notice just what the camera and lighting are doing in the scenes with Sister Ruth, for example. Ruth's transformation is much more methodically accomplished than I had first realized, and a lot of that has to do with the expressive way in which Cardiff subtly shows signs of unease before the final act and his magnum opus in color. The film's central conceit is one that i'm still morally struggling with, and i'm not sure whether or not to read the film as being merely xenophobic and classist. A convent of nuns takes residence in a remote location and, in failing to "civilize" the local villagers and by consequence becoming more isolated themselves, enormous tensions arise and, in the case of Sister Ruth, a boiling point is reached. This relationship between the purity of the upper class and the perversions of the lower class is also demonstrated by the character played in brown-face by Jean Simmons. While she is the center of a mostly tender romantic subplot, her sexuality is enhanced throughout all of her scenes and it enforces the stereotype of the highly eroticized foreign woman (the difference between Jasmine and Cinderella, to give an example of such a case). In comparison, take the Val Lewton produced I Walked With a Zombie - in that film, the natives exemplify what Americans would proclaim to be uncivilized behavior, however in the end it appears that they have an other-worldly knowledge that the whites don't possess and, in that way, are more empowered and romanticized than the upper class. Interesting to note about this film is that, upon it's initial release in the United States, several flashback sequences were cut that feature Sister Clodagh's life before becoming a nun. Even excluding those sequences, it's surprising that a film about nuns becoming susceptible to carnal temptations was released given how instrumental the Catholics were in regards to all forms of cinematic censorship. My MMC History:
03/07: Black Narcissus (Powell & Pressburger, 1947: 4/5 02/25: A Damsel in Distress (Stevens, 1937): 3/5 02/25: Alien (Scott, 1979): 4.5/5 02/22: Manhattan Melodrama (Van Dyke, 1934): 4/5 02/11: The Matrix (Andy & Lana Wachowski, 1999): 3/5 01/12: My Dog Tulip (Paul & Sandra Fierlinger, 2009): 4.5/5 12/31: Easy Rider (Hopper, 1969): 2.5/5 12/31: Head (Rafelson, 1968): 3.5/5 12/31: Le bonheur (Varda, 1965): 5/5 12/31: Au Hasard Balthazar (Bresson, 1966): 4.5/5 12/31: Alphaville (Godard, 1965): 2.5/5 12/16: Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte (Aldrich, 1963): 3/5 12/14: The Birds (Hitchcock, 1963): 3.5/5 10/30: Blood for Dracula (Morrissey & Margheriti, 1974): 4/5 10/30: Flesh for Frankenstein (Morrissey & Margheriti, 1973): 3/5 10/30: Eyes Without a Face (Franju, 1960): 3.5/5 10/30: Peeping Tom (Powell, 1960): 5/5 10/29: Onibaba (Shindô, 1964): 4/5 10/14: Near Dark (Bigelow, 1987): 3.5/5[/url] 10/13: Vampyr (Dreyer, 1932): 5/5[/url] 10/06: Daughters of Darkness (Kümel, 1971): 3.5/5[/url] [/size]
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Post by Her 69 Eyes on Mar 7, 2011 17:14:23 GMT -5
MVZ MMC: March 2011Jigoku (dir. Nobuo Nakagawa, 1960) As Jigoku begins, it appears to be a close relative of Empire of Passion or Onibaba, examples of the standard Japanese ghost pictures of the time. Our lead character commits a sin and is then haunted by a series of escalating evils that seek vengeance. These moralizing ghost dramas seem unique to Japanese horror cinema in the 50s and 60s, whereas American horror films of the time were moreso associated with nuclear paranoia and the Hammer reinventions of classic horror novels. But then our main character is killed about two thirds of the way in. His suffering - psychological and seemingly largely linked to external forces beyond his control - is now visibly materialized as he must navigate through the underworld. The presentation of hell is quite spectacularly accomplished. There are a number of lasting images - my favorite being the white beach that serves as a sort of crossover point into the abyss. Then, for nearly 45 minutes, the audience is bombarded with hallucinatory images of demons clubbing men in the teeth, bodies cast into hellfire, and, in the most startling of all images, a body being flayed. The gore is shocking through today's eyes, and it's difficult to imagine just how significant it was at the period. One of America's first cult gore pictures was Night of the Living Dead eight years later, and that material is child's play next to this level of violence. Though a tremendous visual achievement and certainly a landmark in tracking the chronology of gore pictures, I don't have much of a stomach for a lot of this material. While some of the torments of hell are disturbing without flaunting excess brutality - dozens of thirsty souls are deprived of water and then allowed admission into a pool of their own pus and filth - the more visceral severings and flayings seem to be nothing more than tasteless, mindless exploitation. I watched Jigoku back-to-back with an earlier Nakagawa film, The Ghost Story of Yotsuya, which I preferred, and as a samurai period picture it's even more comparable to Empire of Passion or Onibaba. Interesting about the director is that his horrors seem to be directly related with sex. In Jigoku, much of the lead character's torment has to do with his relationship with his dead fiancée and another woman who looks exactly like her. In The Ghost Story of Yotsuya, the film involves a man killing his wife in order to free himself for another woman. These films pervert eroticism - one psychologically, the other quite literally as a resurrected ex-wife returns from beyond the grave to seek her vengeance. My MMC History:03/07: Jigoku (Nakagawa, 1960): 3.5/5 03/07: Black Narcissus (Powell & Pressburger, 1947: 4/502/25: A Damsel in Distress (Stevens, 1937): 3/502/25: Alien (Scott, 1979): 4.5/502/22: Manhattan Melodrama (Van Dyke, 1934): 4/502/11: The Matrix (Andy & Lana Wachowski, 1999): 3/501/12: My Dog Tulip (Paul & Sandra Fierlinger, 2009): 4.5/512/31: Easy Rider (Hopper, 1969): 2.5/512/31: Head (Rafelson, 1968): 3.5/512/31: Le bonheur (Varda, 1965): 5/512/31: Au Hasard Balthazar (Bresson, 1966): 4.5/512/31: Alphaville (Godard, 1965): 2.5/512/16: Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte (Aldrich, 1963): 3/512/14: The Birds (Hitchcock, 1963): 3.5/510/30: Blood for Dracula (Morrissey & Margheriti, 1974): 4/510/30: Flesh for Frankenstein (Morrissey & Margheriti, 1973): 3/510/30: Eyes Without a Face (Franju, 1960): 3.5/510/30: Peeping Tom (Powell, 1960): 5/510/29: Onibaba (Shindô, 1964): 4/510/14: Near Dark (Bigelow, 1987): 3.5/5 [/url] 10/13: Vampyr (Dreyer, 1932): 5/5[/url] 10/06: Daughters of Darkness (Kümel, 1971): 3.5/5[/url][/spoiler] --- Here's an idea for a monthly topic: Everyone picks their own focus point. We could, for example, say "Watch the films of one director" (or actor, decade, country, etc.). Ideally, the topic would have a broader appeal as the boundaries are set on an individual basis.
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Post by AD on Mar 10, 2011 23:25:54 GMT -5
SWORD OF THE BEAST (Hideo Gosha, 1965) Netflix description If the samurai film is the Japanese equivalent to the American western, then Hideo Gosha’s Sword of the Beast could be seen as the Japanese equivalent to Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch. Both films consciously destroy the mythologies of their respective genres while also working as social commentary for contemporary issues. Peckinpah’s film was partly an allegory for America’s involvement in the Vietnam war, while Gosha’s film is praised for capturing Japan’s disillusionment with authority during America’s post-WWII occupation of that country. One key difference between the two films, however, is that Peckinpah’s film is decidedly amoral as a reaction to the moralizing characteristic of it’s genre, while Gosha’s film simply offers an alternate take on the morality of the samurai’s bushido code. Such traditional samurai ideals as a blind loyalty to one’s master are tossed out the window and exposed as hypocritical. Instead we get a “hero,” disillusioned by the corruption he has witnessed in his own clan, who is forced to form his own ideas about how to live his life as an individual. The film opens with a samurai named Gennosuke being chased by a band of angry swordsmen. At first he seems cowardly. When challenged to stand and fight he says “to hell with pride. I’ll run and keep running.” His pursuers are shocked by this refusal. Only through a series of flashbacks later in the film are the true reasons for this conflict gradually revealed. Gennosuke has been tricked by a high ranking official into assassinating his immediate superior. He’s not a coward, just a man who has chosen to abandon the code that has made him a slave for his whole life. The casting of Mikijiro Hira as Gennosuke is an important part of the film. He lacks the charisma and archetypal stature of a Toshiro Mifune (who doesn’t?), and the supernatural intensity of a Tetsuya Nakadai, but these are actually good things in this case. Gennosuke isn’t your typical hero, and he couldn’t be portrayed by such dominant screen presences. Deconstructions of traditional samurai legends were not unpopular among the directors of the Japanese New Wave. Masaki Kobayashi’s legendary Harakiri and Samurai Rebellion are the two that come to my mind first. But, Gosha presents his ideas in such an aggressive manner that his film stands out, even in a crowd of such distinguished titles. I believe it might be the ideal place for a newcomer to get introduced to this remarkable movement of filmmakers.
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Post by AD on Mar 10, 2011 23:57:40 GMT -5
Here's an idea for a monthly topic: Everyone picks their own focus point. We could, for example, say "Watch the films of one director" (or actor, decade, country, etc.). Ideally, the topic would have a broader appeal as the boundaries are set on an individual basis. Forgot to mention that I like this idea. It opens up new possibilities for this thing. People could write reviews of the individual films they watch or just a short essay on their chosen director/actor/etc. Good thinking! Also, in response to your review of Jigoku (which I have seen), you got me thinking about just how many significant horror films were released in 1960. Psycho, Peeping Tom, Eyes Without a Face, Black Sunday, and Jigoku, all broke new ground in the genre in one way or another. Pretty remarkable when you consider the state of the genre today.
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Post by Harry on Mar 12, 2011 19:58:21 GMT -5
Fish Tank (2009)
IMDB Synopsis:
Mia, a foul-mouthed, stroppy fifteen-year-old, lives on an Essex estate with her tarty mother, Joanne, and precocious little sister Tyler. She has been excluded from school and is awaiting admission to a referrals unit and spends her days aimlessly. She begins an uneasy friendship with Joanne's handsome, extrovert Irish boyfriend, Connor, who encourages her one interest, dancing. What could go wrong?
I had never heard of the movie before watching it, so I went in with an open mind. In a lot of ways, it reminded me of 8 Mile. A troubled youth in the streets trying to use a creative outlet to find the promise land.
SPOILERS
There were many moments in the film where I expected the cliche twists (and was pleasantly surprised when they didn't happen), however, I could see Connor's secret coming a mile away. That actually made the movie hard to watch at times, knowing something that would break Mia's heart and having to sit back and watch it unfold. When she nearly killed his daughter, my jaw dropped. This movie came inches away from veering into Requiem for a Dream territory.
Otherwise it was well-made, and I would recommend it.
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Post by AD on Mar 16, 2011 16:59:58 GMT -5
THE ‘SAMURAI’ TRILOGY (Hiroshi Inagaki, 1954-56) Criterion.com description One thing that stands out about Hiroshi Inagaki’s epic Samurai trilogy is the color cinematography. Not only are all three films gorgeous to look at, but I can’t think of another samurai film from that era that wasn’t shot in black-and-white. It gives the proceedings more of a Hollywood feel than even something like The Seven Samurai, which was heavily influenced by Hollywood westerns. In fact, if the name David O. Selznick had appeared in the opening credits I wouldn’t have been too surprised. Of course, Selznick would have released it all as one film -- five hours wasn’t too long for one of his productions -- and that‘s really the best way to enjoy the material. Samurai I: Musashi Miyamoto won the Academy Award for best foreign film, which seems odd in retrospect, since it’s basically all exposition for the rest of the series. In it we meet a young man named Takezo who is destined to become the great samurai Musashi Miyamoto. The movie basically sets up a number of relationships that will play themselves out over the course of the next two pictures. One thing that’s interesting is how most of the violence takes place in the first half of the film. The climax is actually a conversation, not a fight, which is pretty unique to this genre. Samurai II: Duel at Ichijoji Temple is the most action packed installment of the series. It details the newly titled Musashi Miyamoto’s maturation from brutal swordfighter to true samurai warrior. While it stands out as the weakest of the three movies, with the violence sometimes distracting from the journey of personal realization at it’s center, it is still essential to the overall arc of the story. And it looks better in hindsight after viewing the third film. Samurai III: Duel at Ganryu Island, as it should be, is the best and most thoughtful installment of the trilogy. Musashi’s journey comes full circle as the young, ruthless samurai Kojiro Sasaki seeks to defeat him and become known as the land’s greatest swordsman. The conflict between these two isn’t personal. It’s all about ambition, which is a key theme that runs throughout the series. The climactic duel on the beach of Ganryu Island, beautifully photographed against the backdrop of a rising sun, is one of the great one-on-one confrontations in the history of film. What’s most interesting to me about the series as a whole is that, despite the epic scope, sweeping romance, rousing swordplay, and all around bigness of the saga, it always remains grounded in the character at it’s center. It might be the only movie trilogy that one can describe as a multi-part character study. Of course, any character study is only as good as it’s lead actor, so therefore the performance of Toshiro Mifune is probably the biggest reason for the success of the trilogy. The character ages more than a decade over the three films, and Mifune portrays this with minimal makeup. The youthful energy he brings to the first film is every bit as convincing as the reflective wisdom he displays in the third. It’s really a pretty remarkable performance. On the other hand, the women in the films, through no fault of their own, are notably less interesting. Clearly this material was conceived long before women’s lib hit the shores of Japan. The female characters are all either love struck little girls who spend years chasing men who show little interest in them, or devious she-devils plotting doom for whatever man has spurned them. Even the most complex female character, the beautiful and tragic Akemi, is not much more than a victim of her own emotional fragility. One doesn’t expect to encounter full on equality of the sexes in this type of material, but a couple three dimensional women wouldn’t hurt. Perhaps the most historically significant aspect of the trilogy, at least to western audiences, is how closely the journey of Musashi is mirrored by that of Luke Skywalker in the first Star Wars trilogy. You don’t have to be an expert on Japanese culture to recognize that a jedi is just a samurai in space with magic powers, but the similarities between the two characters are still pretty striking. From restless orphan to reckless fighter to brave hero to great swordsman to legendary master and philosopher. Not exactly unique to these two characters, but the fact that they both play out over three feature films is significant, I think.
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Post by AD on Mar 20, 2011 15:45:52 GMT -5
KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS (Robert Hamer, 1949 ) Netflix description: Kind Hearts and Coronets is most fondly remembered for Alec Guinness’s performances as eight different characters, of varying ages and genders, from the same family. But it isn’t just the film where the future Obi Wan Kenobi dressed in drag. (And don’t you even dare to compare it to The Nutty Professor.) It’s also one of the most delightful movies ever made about murder. A gleefully dark comedy in which the absurdity of nobility is hilariously satirized, conventional morality is openly questioned, and conservative family values are viciously attacked. The literate script, co-written by director Robert Hamer and Jon Dighton is perhaps the film’s greatest strength. Among other things, it displays how voice-over narration -- the reason for many a good script’s failure -- can become an invaluable tool in the right hands. Not only does the narration deliver most of the funniest lines in the film, but it lends to the film the detachment from the violence that allows it to be funny, and not just a bunch of murder scenes. Louis Mazzini is an interesting character, to say the least. Today he would almost certainly be diagnosed as a sociopath. He has no conscious whatsoever. Clearly thinks of no one but himself. The audience isn’t expected to sympathize with him or like him, but I don‘t think we‘re supposed to hate him, either. We do come to like a couple of his victims before they meet their untimely ends, but even so, I never found myself rooting for him the get his comeuppance. For obvious reasons I can’t reveal his final fate, but I can revel in the fact that, live or die, this character has learned no lessons whatsoever. Who needs to be reminded that murder is bad, anyway?
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Post by Maf on Mar 20, 2011 21:44:50 GMT -5
I probably won't be reviewing any films this month but I thought of some ideas for future months.
Watch any movie rated 4 stars or higher by a famous critic or rewatch any movie you saw last year.
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Post by Her 69 Eyes on Mar 31, 2011 17:55:20 GMT -5
I had intended to play catch-up during my break in between classes, but unfortunately a class paper took longer than I had anticipated. Here are the two other eligible titles that I watched...
THE LOVERS (dir. Louis Malle, 1958)
The Lovers is an extraordinarily important film in the history of American censorship in that it led to a significant court case in which the United States Supreme Court ruled that the controversial material was not to be considered obscene. It is also a painfully tepid experience to sit through – what one could imagine to be the filmic adaptation of whatever sleazy romance novel a sexually frustrated middle-aged woman has on her bookshelf. Jeanne Moreau, who famously has an orgasm in the film which partially led to the obscenity case, plays an unfulfilled bourgeois housewife who is swept away into a lustful affair with a young student. The material is erotic insofar as the camera often glides across the naked skin of two beautiful people, however the film ultimately serves as dreadfully boring wish-fulfillment – the characters aren’t interesting, and it certainly isn’t interesting to watch them exchange numbing dialogue with unconvincing passion inbetween flurries of sex.
SOLARIS (dir. Andrei Tarkovsky, 1972)
My second viewing of the film only solidified its position on my all-time top ten. This is a perfect movie. I'm not intelligent enough to continue a truncated analysis due to time constraints... but frankly I couldn't adequately articulate its pleasures given a week.
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