okay, so i had some time on my hands and mucked around a little–it is possible that i have fixed the password retrieval thingy. does someone want to help me test it? to do so, log out (you’ll have to click login first to see the “logout” button). then click “login” again and initiate the retrieval process. wait for the email, try that password. if it doesn’t work email me. if it does work, go into your profile and reset it to something you’d prefer.
Author: arnab
funny games
mike mentioned this in the “time of the wolf” discussion–an earlier film by the same director–and it recently washed to the top of my netflix queue (i keep finding excuses for not watching “hidalgo” but i can’t bring myself to remove it from the queue). we watched it tonight. i liked it but don’t quite know why. i’m guessing this film is trying to make audiences question (acknowledge?) their relationship to cinematic violence. of course it is trapped in being exactly what it critiques and its pleasures finally are those of the genre it seems to want to make the viewer feel bad about enjoying. i am too tired to think of anything smarter to say about it–mike, please tell me why i liked it.
over the top french action movies
now there’s a genre for you. i began this as a response to the michaels in the “garden state” discussion but decided it needed a place all to itself.
while being right generally about luc besson you’re all wrong about “the fifth element”. that film kicks ass– even though there is a lot deeply, politically wrong with it. but the rest of the luc besson catalog is all crap. however, i am a connoisseur of the scenery-chewing performance and besson has enabled some of the greatest of this kind in screen history. oldman’s performance in “the professional” may never be topped–though daniel day lewis does make a strong case in “gangs of new york”, but i digress. aesthetic problems with his movies aside, besson’s penchant for putting the female body in pain is somewhat disturbing. i think he may have issues.
Continue reading over the top french action movies
russian ark
we watched this last night. that is to say, i watched it all, while sunhee fell asleep at about the 50 minute mark. i don’t really know what to make of this. i found the opening 20 minutes or so to be very absorbing but then it sort of fizzled out. perhaps one needs to be much more familiar with russian history to get what the film is doing with it. but in the absence of that knowledge it felt more and more like a celebration of pomp and circumstance for its own sake. doing it one take was apparently the director’s attempt at a filmic version of doing something in “one breath”. i suppose, but i don’t know if a colder approach a la kubrick in “barry lyndon” might not have suited his purposes better. then again maybe it works really well on a large screen. anyone else seen this? amy, if you’re still reading, i think you’d recommended this–what am i missing?
horror conventions and culture
in a comment over in the “the wicker man/spirited away” thread mark posted some interesting stuff about more “amoral” japanese horror vs. the christian ethic of the average american horror film. i think this might deserve its own thread and so am cutting and pasting the relevant portion of mark’s comments here.
What I did discover that interested me was the lack of morals of the spirits and whom they choose to reward and punish. This didn’t come up much in Spirited Away – for example the girl’s parents are turned into pigs not out of some god’s whim, but b/c they dared to eat food that belonged to someone else. They “sinned.†In the Japanese ghost story books I read, it seemed punishments were meted out for no good reason; that the spirits were simply mischievous, weren’t judging based on sin, and in some cases couldn’t even be classified as “thinking†(which reminded me of the Cthuhlu mythos, where the malevolence is pure, and the monsters aren’t even really capable of rational thought.)
Continue reading horror conventions and culture
hollywood shuffle
not much high art of late i’m afraid. we watched “shrek 2” a few nights ago and last night we watched “friday night lights”. “shrek 2” is entertaining enough–jennifer saunders and rupert everett are great, as are eddie murphy (of course) and antonio banderas. i find it funny that even in animation voiceover the black guy still plays the sidekick. but there’s not much else to say about this. don’t do what i did and watch “faraway idol” with simon cowell on the dvd extras.
we thought “friday night lights” was really quite good. it is a genre film through and through, and towards the end the conventions take over to a large extent but it is fairly affecting stuff–much closer to “hoop dreams” than to something like “varsity blues”. there’s some weird stuff with race towards the end and in general the film skips over dealing with the question of race in a small texas town in the late 80s but still worth a watch. the dvd extra interviews with the actual now grown-up players (this is very closely based on real events, or rather a non-fiction book about real events) are quite moving in parts, as you see what became of the guy who when the movie starts out seems destined for nfl stardom.
wes anderson
i started writing this as a response to mike in the “i heart huckabees” conversation but decided it merited its own thread:
anderson’s best movie is “bottle rocket”–the ne plus ultra of uncloaked, goofy sincerity. i love all his movies but none of them (or any of the later characters) move me the way anthony and dignan did. he needs to get out of his rut and write a new movie–everything since has been a new take on “bottle rocket” with the pleasures of a repertory company and a higher art direction budget taking the place of growth as a writer. though i must admit that he’s gotten better at writing women: inez in “bottle rocket” barely spoke, and olivia williams’ character in “rushmore” pretty much just raised her eyebrows–then again maybe its just angelica huston.
what does scorcese have to do?
at our oscar gathering the consensus was that his best shot will be to make a holocaust movie about a black paraplegic who survives the camps and then single-handedly de-segregates alabama (jamie foxx wins best supporting actor as martin luther king). that or maybe a mussolini biopic.
not that any of us (at the gathering) have actually seen “the aviator”.
and oh, in your face, rwanda!
i like huckabees
just finished watching. why did this get savaged by so many people? i thought it was pretty good. in fact until the 1 hour 10 minute mark i thought it was really, really good. then it got stupid for a while, but the last 10 minutes were pretty good again. it is a genuinely quirky film, one that comes by its quirks honestly, through asking questions it sincerely means (even if the answers don’t end up being very interesting)–unlike, say, via formal whiz-bangery like so much charlie kaufman. (actually this film reminded me of my favorite kaufman written film, “human nature”.) and some really good performances too: jason schwartzmann (looking like someone shrank luke wilson) and mark wahlberg in particular.
anyone else seen it? i recommend it.
kikujiro
watched this a couple of nights ago on mike’s recommendation. a strange little film. i liked it (i think sunhee did too) but i’m not entirely sure why. in many ways it is deeply conventional but it seems to also tweak those conventions (kikujiro pretty much remains an abusive cipher till the end, no one is really transformed). i would recommend it to people but i am simultaneously bemused by its winning the golden lion or hyaena or whatever at the berlin film festival, or whichever major festival it won the top award at–surely there must have been better movies that year.
mike, you should add this film to your onoging “irresponsibility” thesis.