The cinema thread

[todestrieb]

Samurai marathon

certainly a film that could be used to prove the demise of theater.

Not in the hands of Greenaway it won't.

[snafu]

Hiroshima Mon Amour, 1959

[galia]

saw peter greenaway's - the belly of an architect last night though. the way it was filmed as a dramatic play taking place in these amazing sets made it feel really grand. certainly a film that could be used to prove the demise of theater.

I have yet to see an Greenway film that I like. I appreciate the intent, but the execution always puts me to sleep. I know there are some fans here so any recommendations? The last 2 I saw were Belly of an Architect and Nightwatching. I did manage to see them in their entirety, because I was intellectually amused, but as movies they totally failed me. maybe I'm just expecting things that can't be there, it's possible

[Fade to Black]

maybe I'm just expecting things that can't be there, it's possible

I checked out a film theory book on Greenaway and apparently this is the point (and appeal?) of his postmodern cinematic experiments.

[Nostromo]

I somehow liked The Pillow Book though. Then again I don't know if i really like the movie or rather appreciate the idea behind it.
I guess that puts me into the same boat as galia.

[MASUGNEN]

So a Tuesday two weeks ago A Time to Live, a Time to Die (1985) by Hou Hsiao-hsien. I haven't seen him before.

East Asian movies bare a mark of buddhism. They depict life differently than Western art: the slow pace in a apsychological, eventless everyday life.

It's interesting for me to compare Hou Hsiao-hsien with two other and favourite East Asian directors: Hirokazu Koreeda and Yasujiro Ozu.

I find that Hsiao-hsien lacks the emotional teleology of Koreeda, who always in his films (greatly) seems to elaborate a deepened insight of or shapened feeling for life.

Ozu is somewhat of an ideas' director, contrasting generations, questioning urbanization and modernity mirrored in the breakdown of the family.

In Hsiao-hsien I find nothing of this existential aim or intellectual pictorialization. To me he seems completely neutral. Perhaps some would say he thus lacks edge (some would of course say he's boring) – I would say he's honest, and genuine. I'd like to see more. So on Saturday: Good Men, Good Women (1995).

[MASUGNEN]

Fave Greenaway list:

Drowning By Numbers (1988)
The Belly of an Architect (1987)
The Draughtman's Contract (1982)
The Pillow Book (1996)
The Baby of Mâcon (1993)
Vertical Features Remake (1978)
Prospero's Books (1991)
The Cook the Thief His Wife & Her Lover (1989)
Water Wrackets (1975)
H is for House (1973)
Dear Phone (1976)


Boring efforts:

The Tulse Luper Suitcases 1 The Moab Story (2003)
Nightwatching (2007)
Z00 – A Zed & Two Noughts (1985)
The Falls (1980)


Greenaway's movies are well-composed, intellectual and rather charmed. In person, he's in wit masked dry, presumptuous, somewhat arrogant. He takes himself and his task all too seriously. He meant Tulse Luper Suitcases to be the first postphotographic masterpiece, the origo of a new digital era. It totally collapsed on me. The Rembrandt outputs are also narratologically dissatisfactory.

[galia]

saw it a few days ago. I thought it was funny

[Fade to Black]

just saw Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me having had no experience with the TV series, thought it was brilliant on its own. Mostly thanks to Lynch's signature penchant for the unexplainable, the whole thing works, although I can see how it plays out more frustratingly than even some of his other works.

[MASUGNEN]

Good Men, Good Women no good film. Boring. But beautiful somber pictorials.

Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me should never have been made, allthough I enjoy it every time. Gaaaaaarmonboziaaa!

[Enaml]

[Diego]

Yesterday we checked Aftermath by Nacho Cerda at the office, needed reference for a new project, and we just finished watching "El dia de la bestia", Santi Segura's character (Jose Mari) rules!

[mesko]

wim wenders, paris texas

The Ry Cooder soundtrack is absolutely astonishing! One of my main inspirations as a (fingerstyle) guitarist. Great film, too.

[maldoror]

^ really looking forward to this. hopefully it can make good on the blahxford murders.

tonight:



anyone in toronto catch 22nd of May?

[Fade to Black]

that looks incredible mal...i wish we had access to movies like that here.