The cinema thread

[laughed]

Thanks everyone for the recommendations. Regarding Wiseman - I agree - he is a fantastic filmmaker. I have a handful of his films on dvd, if anyone would like a rip just let me know. I'll be checking out everyone's recommendations and reporting back! thanks again.
Just saw Chris Marker's AK - fantastic.

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Revisited an old favorite of mine, Five Easy Pieces (1970). No other film I've seen more effectively articulates the meaning of the word languish.

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Wings of Desire, Wim Wenders

I've never seen this film. The only Wenders I've seen is Paris, Texas, a film full of images dear to my heart. Watching that, it's not surprising that Wenders would later come to find Yohji as a kindred soul, since to me that film contains everything Yohji Yamamoto was/is ever about.

[MASUGNEN]

I've never seen this film. The only Wenders I've seen is Paris, Texas, a film full of images dear to my heart. Watching that, it's not surprising that Wenders would later come to find Yohji as a kindred soul, since to me that film contains everything Yohji Yamamoto was/is ever about.

This impression will probably deepen while viewing Wings of Desire (a lousy translation: original Der Himmel über Berlin much better captures wanting, warmth, wisdom, the narrative neutrality, the serene course of events, life – what Yamamoto could also be about).

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Hmm...it's a movie that I've had on my to-watch list for a long time. But perhaps it's different interpretations; out of the things you listed, the only aspect I'd agree with about YY is 'wanting'.

[Jorge Hache]

Criterion Collection just reissued both Wender's films (Wings of Desire and Paris, Texas) in a pristine transfer with immaculate sound and full of extras, totally recommend them, specially in blu-ray.

[Faust]

cool. makes want to watch it all the more. the blu-ray has been sitting on my desk for a few days now.

[Fuuma]

Thanks everyone for the recommendations. Regarding Wiseman - I agree - he is a fantastic filmmaker. I have a handful of his films on dvd, if anyone would like a rip just let me know. I'll be checking out everyone's recommendations and reporting back! thanks again.
Just saw Chris Marker's AK - fantastic.

Marker is fantastic, period. Watch every film he'smade you can get your hands on. I recommend this one if you speak french (don't think there's subs, I could check but I doubt it):

http://www.amazon.fr/fond-lair-est-rouge-bonus/dp/B0014GIZTM/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1267035654&sr=8-1

[Jorge Hache]

Audiard's De battre mon coeur s'est arrêté (2005) is one of the most stupid films I've seen. But this new one is, according to one IMDb opinion, "Best. Movie. Ever." Such comments don't encourage me.

The success of Audiard et al. vindicates the impression of declination in French cinema. Which is not all that peculiar since the nouvelle vague generation surely was the strongest collective in the history of the art.

Sometimes the reorientation gives fruit. Fred Cavayé proves in Pour elle (2008) that modern, pure "American" police thrillers are possibile in French, that this reconnection still is possible within French cinema (given that the qualitative thriller as we now know it has developed within a French-American dynamics: film noir–Melville–Costa-Gavras–Chabrol–Coppola–Scorsese–Jarmuch–Besson–Tar antino–now Cavayé with of course a great many more names).

But as for the pure artistic film I'm pessimistic towards France's future. Look at how a genius like Leos Carax is consistently mistreated within the industry. To me the only remaining hope is Arnaud Desplechin.

We do have the angry Frenchmen: Gaspar Noé, Philippe Grandrieux, Mathieu Kassovitz. They're all interesting but could, with spirit intact, never be schooling. Have anyone yet seen Enter the Void or Un lac?

I run a film blog (unfortunately in spanish). One of the last posts was about the current state of French cinema (which curiously relates with Masugnen post), by making a classification based (a la Sergio Leone) in the good, the bad and the ugly contemporary french filmmakers, the results are as follows:

The goods (those who avoiding obvious provocations or complicated and experimental narratives, have made films that appeals both to the fierce critics as the commercial audiences): Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Arnaud Desplechin and Jaques Audiard.

The bads (once "enfants terribles", those directors with a taste for the controversial and polemic storytelling, bad enough to leave no one indifferent but also cautious enough to not scare the commercial audience): Olivier Assayas, François Ozon and Bruno Dumont.

The uglies (the misunderstood, the experimental, the "autres", those often ignored even by critics and audiences, sometimes, even, lacking commercial distribution): Leos Carax, Philippe Grandrieux and Gaspar Noé (thanx to Enter the Void).

And least but not last the ladies: Claire Denis and Catherine Breillat

In my blog i dedicate some lines to the work of each one

[rocknrollnigger]

Yeah I watched the Blue-ray version, I love the Criterion Collection. I wanted to get the Akira Kurosawa 25 film collection but its $ 320.00 : ( I guess its a better investment than a Rick Owens tee

[rocknrollnigger]

To add another Criterion Collection DVD that I just watched...

8 1/2


...and Shutter Island but not worth posting a picture. I hope Alice and Wonderland will be decent in 3D, cause I got tickets today for the midnight showing

[wearejuststardust]

To add another Criterion Collection DVD that I just watched...

8 1/2

great film

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pls excuse the interjection into this discussion with more commercial fare...but i just saw Up in the Air, a breezy enjoyable watch with nice pitch and pacing. Somehow I get the tingling feeling that this is also Clooney's most autobiographical picture to date.

[rocknrollnigger]

pls excuse the interjection into this discussion with more commercial fare...but i just saw Up in the Air, a breezy enjoyable watch with nice pitch and pacing. Somehow I get the tingling feeling that this is also Clooney's most autobiographical picture to date.

If I was too put Up In the Air Vs The Informant! I would have chosen The Informant! for this years Oscars. Or at the very least over District 9.

[maldoror]