Month: May 2006

Violence

I have had a couple days at home alone, after taking Kris and Max to Omaha. I’d scurry about during the day to do all this end-of-year crap I need to get done, then come home and see stuff I normally wouldn’t have the time or space to see–maybe things a bit more violent than Kris would ever want to watch (and by “bit more” I of course mean “excessively, ridiculously, extravagantly more”). I can turn up the volume, go nuts.

What follows are a couple of strong recommendations and others just to be recorded. There’s a loose running issue in my responses about the ways they depict violence. But mostly it’s just a quick set of recs: Continue reading Violence

British New Wave

The Cinematheque recently ran a 2 week program of films called Angry Young Cinema: The Original British New Wave. The full list of the films can be seen here. I managed to see none of the films, despite working literally across the street from ther excellent Hollywood theater, The Egyptian.

I won’t list all of the film that played – the link above will let you see that – but I hope some here will check out the films that played and recommend a few in comments. They sound interesting, and I plan to rent a batch of them, though several have not been released on DVD. Continue reading British New Wave

Crimen Ferpecto…

…or Ferpect Crime is a low-rent blast, starting out as a sleek sort-of-obvious satire about a department-store Lothario but slowly creeping toward Grand Guignol black comedy and finally ending in a garish burst of surrealist comedy. This ain’t for everybody. But it looks grand (director Alex de la Iglesia got an initial boost from Almodovar, and they share an eye and taste for the cartoonish taken seriously–or vice versa). Its meanness is slowly sapped away by an obvious love for those “freaks” and “uglies” it mocks.

I’m having trouble nailing it down, but it was fun. Imagine if Daffy Duck and Bugs Bunny got caught up in a bleak noirish erotic thriller, and then had it out for one another. I’m rushing to my queue to line up some more of his stuff.

code red

i have neither read nor seen the da vinci code. until i saw, and, for a change, paid attention to a trailer of the film earlier this week (i space out during trailers), i had no idea what the big brouhaha about DVC was. one more conspiracy film about the vatican? big deal. you must by now know what the heresy of DVC is. if you don’t [SPOILER], here it is: jesus and mary magdalene got married and had children; this fact was concealed by the church through systematic erasure of evidenciary documentation. i think it’s pretty much it, though i’m not sure. as i said, i haven’t read the book. Continue reading code red

girl power

in the last six months, i started to write this post some twenty times, nineteen of them in my head. today the pony and i went to see stick it and the post finally materialized in my mind. this is not the kind of movie i would normally see, but i am happy i went, though it is a far from perfect movie, or even a good movie. it is, however, a very interesting movie, especially if you like daring aesthetics and girl power movies. there are three genres of movies i’m an all-round sucker for: heist, con, and girl power. Continue reading girl power

Dario

So, this is a hole in an ostensible horror fan’s c.v., but: I’d never seen a Dario Argento film, at least not all the way through, ’til last night. I watched Suspiria, a gothic potboiler Argento calls a “fairy tale for adults.” I had fun imagining my own silly taglines: Imagine if Vincente Minnelli and Henry James had a kid, and he directed films.

This was absolutely silly, if taken as plot, and only when you could make any sense of it at all. In other words, close to incoherent in terms of narrative. There are a few things that catch us viewers up–oh yes, the dour sinister headmistress! the strange help at the boarding school!–but mostly I stopped caring or paying any attention to the occasional moments when Argento stopped to try and explain things.

Instead, revel in–relish–the absurdly lush compositions and colors. The film’s brighter, its colors deeper, its production design more baroquely detailed and intricate than almost any film I’ve ever seen. You could pause any shot and just sink in. And the compositions and editing are equally beautiful. Take the film as a kind of rich, strange dream–and it’s dazzling. Even the “brutal” deaths are depicted in such florid composed fashions, it’s more like the gory Renaissance paintings of saints than a typical slasher flick.

I’m going to see more of this guy’s stuff. Note to the interested: It stars Jessica Harper, whose weird little-girl head and huge eyes seemed to intrigue many a strange director. Udo Kier pops up, looking way younger and not quite as inhuman.

I almost posted this under Gio’s post on The Leopard… simply to get some conversation going about Italian film. G named a number of big name filmmakers–in the context of a very interesting reading of Italy’s impact on film. I’m curious where Argento’s movies, or any of the gialli, fit into the cultural context….

two questions

1) why did curtis hanson make an unspeakably bad movie like in her shoes?

2) how does toni collette position herself in hollywood, being both not-beautiful and much in demand (she is always working)? or, to make the question more general, what is the place of non-beautiful women in mainstream american cinema, where beauty is constantly and explicitly presented as central?

ringo lam

my recent mike-inspired johnnie to festival has spurred me to make my way more methodically through the films of other major hong kong directors. and so full contact last night. the only other films by lam that i’ve seen are prison on fire and city on fire. i think i liked both of those–though all i remember of the prison one is a rare scene of the protagonist of a film taking a noisy dump. i was expecting to like full contact a lot (i’ve heard a lot about it) but ended up mostly unmoved. yes, it has a lot of great action scenes, and chow yun-fat is as magnetic as ever (bad haircut and all) but the action and violence are of an almost decadent variety. there is a more realistic and cynical edge to it than in most of woo, and there’s something to be said for that. but the film tries in the end to have it both ways–chow is apparently a more chivalrous thief/killer than simon yam’s villain–and it just doesn’t work. i think i prefer both woo’s over-the-top, operatic explorations of codes of masculinity and to’s more off-kilter explorations of genre. and the portrayal of women in this film, and of the queer psychopathic villain are really quite deplorable.

are there other films by lam that you would recommend? or is anyone interested in defending this one?