The cinema thread

[MASUGNEN]

First yesterday I saw Man on Wire. What a magic! Against civilisation – and the materialized human hope – that little vertical line, what could be just a little heap of dust on the lens! It was absolutely beautiful.

And Philippe Petit, the line dance performer, certainly strikes a point when reacting to the eager asking of "why?".

[swami]

I echo most of my peers opinions on INGLORIOUS BASTERDS
Excellent scene setups, great dialogue, good filming , gratuitous violence makes for an entertaining 2 hrs but in the end it equates to reading a mind numbing action comic book reminiscent of your adolescence!

Revisited LANTANA (2001) Loved it all over agin , Excellent story telling

[polishmike]

I just watched Kurosawa's High and Low at a sold out theater in ny and it felt great.

[klangspiel]

I've only seen one flick of Chantal Akerman, Jour et nuit.

not too big on akerman's more conventional narrative films like nuit et jour (but wouldn't mind them). they simply strike me as fertile ground, nay, wet-dreams, waiting to be exploited, if not already, by every goddamn cultural studies / gender studies / fem theory / film theory / identity theory intoxicated grad student unworthy of his / her ma or phd thesis. i kid, i kid.

but seriously, i feel the core of her genius lies in her earlier michael snow-inspired "structuralist" films like jeanne dielman or hotel monterey (see my previous post above) and a bunch of film essays (sometimes commonly classified as "documentaries") dating back to the one on pina bausch (early 80s). her film-essays produced more recently are particularly strong like south or from the other side. la-bas was the most recent and that quietly blew me away with enough glee to write home about.

[stereophobic]

Anyone caught the teaser for the Wall Street sequel yet? http://bit.ly/bViaGi

[MASUGNEN]

Shall I really bring back upon attention already lauded and loathed Avatar?

I saw it a week ago and did not like it. I did understand beforehand that the narrative was a nullity. And so it was. However, not even the antecipated technological sensations met my demands. The 3D effect struck me quite hard in the commercials and the trailers. I wanted to touch things, shouted out loud etc. Through the movie, I ducked and did everything that was planned for me. But my interest for these sensations was drained fifteen minutes into the film.

I also found the technique imperfect. There is a lot of definition work to be done here. As a man stood just one step behind the focus, he got blurred. And movement was not beautifully arranged. At times the excess of colour confused me. I found the 3D effects best in a somewhat monochromatic environment, e.g. in the grey-green lab.

I have higher expectations on Tim Burton's take on Alice in Wonderland. He is a far more visual artist than James Cameron. I believe him to work harder on picture depth rather than somewhat cheap standard extroverted effect surprises.

[klangspiel]

[laughed]

but seriously, i feel the core of her genius lies in her earlier michael snow-inspired "structuralist" films like jeanne dielman or hotel monterey (see my previous post above) and a bunch of film essays (sometimes commonly classified as "documentaries") dating back to the one on pina bausch (early 80s). her film-essays produced more recently are particularly strong like south or from the other side. la-bas was the most recent and that quietly blew me away with enough glee to write home about.

Michael Snow and Pina Bausch mentioned in the same post! That's why I love Stylezeitgeist!

[MASUGNEN]

Šarunas Bartas yet to be seen, I have two of his movies: Trys dienos and Koridious. Half a year ago, I invited my Lithuanian neighbour to watch them with me, but that never happened. The early idiom of Chantal Akerman definately interests me, but I have to wait, so much has to be seen, yesterday Precious – a great pic.

Satyajit Ray was recently bestowed a retrospective here in Lund, Sweden. I hadn't seen anything from him before, hadn't even heard of him. More familiar than the director's name, the Apu trilogy but prejudiced towards Indian cinema, I identified it with Bollywood trifling. However, really seen, Ray touched and impressed me.

Apu's life is an intelligently depicted and heart-felt story about abandonment and strife, familiy and rural values vis-à-vis urbanization, in toto modernity versus tradition.

Ray is – in the 50's – completely à par with the nouvelle vague development of European cinema. In later efforts, the dependency perhaps binds him too hard. Charulata is, both for narrative and aesthetics, his Jules et Jim. And Aranyer Din Ratri has obviously borrowed negative inversion from Alphaville, also beach feel from Fellini.

But who am I to demand complete originality? Invigorating, Ray metabolises European influences and relates a country in change. His storys about poverty, individual aspirations, family traditions, female liberation is still acute accurate.

He may be my gate to India.

[laughed]

Anyone caught the Steve McQueen movie Hunger?

[thehouseofdis]

Anyone caught the Steve McQueen movie Hunger?

The only film I've seen that makes feces look beautiful.

[laughed]

okay, started going backwards checking out film suggestions, made it to page 82. I have to say that there are a lot of great films suggested. I am a huge fan of Bartus...I know Wong Kar-Wai and Christopher Doyle may be considered mainstream but the opening scene in Fallen Angels (the elevator) is still one of my favorite filmed sequences ever. Doyle has ventured into Hollywood territory but I still love his work.
If any of you on KG want to download some Fred Kelemen and upload it somewhere that'd be nice! can't find any of his films on dvd.

[stereophobic]

^ loved Fallen Angels, Takeshi Kaneshiro never managed to top that performance imho. Also had crushes on Michelle Reis + Charlie Young + Karen Mok growing up

[MASUGNEN]

Last week I saw Le premier jour du reste de ta vie by Rémi Bezançon. However lauded and well acted, it was piss-poor. It had all the standard melodrama ingredients blended together in a mediocre fashion. It wasn't inspired. It even lacked the typical French charm. French cinema has declined.

Dubbed as a French American Beauty, my God!

[swami]

Watched the moon , One of the more interesting science fiction movies I have seen in a while. Considering Sam Rockwell is the lone human in the film he carried it pretty well.
harvesting the Suns energy from the moon sounds good to me ...