Category: classic

Alan Clarke may well be the anti-Leigh. They made movies at the same time, both primarily for British TV, and they covered a lot of the same bases; that is the lower, and working classes of Great Britain. Clarke seems to focus more on big problems, and characters that typify those problems, while Mike Leigh creates characters that are less intertwined with those problems, and instead just live their lives depite them.

Clarke, who is dead, was a much more action-oriented filmmaker, and, like Leigh’s TV work, the scenes are very well composed and blocked, though they’re not showy or flashy. Reynolds will therefore call them bland. A new box set of Clarke’s work is out in the US and this marks the first time most of these have been seen here.

Continue reading 3 by Alan Clarke: Elephant, Made in Britain, The Firm

This documentary from Steve James came out a few years ago, and I remembered seeing the trailer, but missing the film. Finally saw it last night, and it’s an outstanding piece of personal filmmaking that addresses the nature of documentary and objectivism. It also closely examines justice, faith, love, family, personal responsibility and the failings that come with being human. (A character in the film laments that she might have been able to help more, if she just wan’t so human.)

Steve James directed Hoop Dreams, and of course I thought that was a great film, even though I couldn’t relate too much to basketball playing prodigies in a big city. Stevie on the other hand was nearly filmed in my backyard. Continue reading Stevie

NOT the bowling flick, nor another terrible adaptation of Alan Moore’s comics. Instead, a very fine sort-of-sketchy, sort-of-Sherwood-Andersony comedy from Britain. Like other great sketch groups, a trio of performers enact every recurring character; unlike those shows, there is a loose plot (a man stranded in forlorn Royston Vasey, a rural town somewhere in the wilds of England) and the fun is all character-/setting-driven. There’s an undercurrent of dread and horror to the comedy that is peculiarly, brilliantly evoked.

Mark first cued me into these guys, and I saw the first series from a dvd at my library. I write simply to advise that the next two seasons come out on dvd in the next few weeks. Very much recommended.

In honor of Derby Day, I thought I might ask everyone what their favorite horse racing films are (and Michael, I’m not referring to replays of yesterday’s races at Saratoga). Kubrick’s The Killing (1956), The Marx Bros.’ A Day at the Races are obvious choices. I may be a sucker for long-shot, “triumph of the human spirit” race films like Seabiscuit (which I’m not including here), but The Black Stallion (1979) is an absolutely gorgeous film–it was shot by Caleb Deschanel, who also shot The Right Stuff. The director lets the images do the storytelling–I don’t remember there being much dialogue (Mickey Rooney gives a thankfully restrained performance). The early scenes when the boy discovers the stallion in the ship’s stables are very simple, very poetic.

Here are some obscure racing films I’m interested in:
Continue reading Pony pics

Crikey.

First of all, I should have gone to see this in a theater. No excuse. I’ve made a decision not to spend $11 on whatever Nicolas Cage craps out anymore, but I should go see and support independent films and documentaries in theaters when I can, and I’m sorry I missed this one.

I am not even a fan of surfing; it’s not a great spectator sport to be honest, and I don’t do it myself, so this should have been just marginally interesting. But this film is SO GOOD. The history, the interviews, the fantastic old home movies that Stacy Peralta tracked down are wonderful.

His story arc tracing this bohemian post-war lifestyle to the jet-ski aided extreme sport it is today seems to happen gradually, and Peralta doesn’t dwell on whether this is a good or bad thing – it just is.

It’s not deep. It’s just very sweet. Peralta’s respect for the sport and its pioneers comes through all the time. And it is completely captivating. We started watching this movie late at night, and I didn’t glance at a clock once, or even get up.

I can’t say enough for the quality of this film. I honestly can’t think of another film I’ve seen in the past year or two that was as enjoyable and transporting as this one.

watched the criterion disks of these in the last week. i’d seen “m” a long, long time ago and if you can believe it i’d never seen “metropolis”.

“m” first: i can’t remember what my original response to “m” had been–i wasn’t a very engaged film-viewer then and in any case was probably too aware of its status to register a genuine response. watching it now i was struck by all the things that make it such a landmark film–the use of voiceover, the use of music as narrative device, the camera-angles, all the noir devices that would soon become mainstays of the genre etc. etc.. but i was most struck by the fact that exactly because it has been such an influential film these things don’t really have an effect anymore (not on me anyway). now that every crap film and television show uses all these devices it seems, to me anyway, hard to register “m” as anything but a historically significant film–it didn’t surprise me the way “the testament of dr. mabuse” did. i’m interested to hear your takes on this both in relation to this specific film and in general. (by the way, i can see what welles took from lang for “citizen kane”, but again i have to say that while i recognize “kane” as a historically significant film the welles that remains fresh for me is “touch of evil”.)
Continue reading fritz lang–“m”, “metropolis”

I’ve been on a Japanese bender recently, especially after reading Peter Carey’s memoir Wrong About Japan: A Father’s Journey with His Son. I’ve read two novels by Haruki Murakami: Kafka on the Shore and The Chronicle of the Wind-Up Bird (while critics seem to favor the latter I found his most recent novel, despite its flaws, the more entertaining and thought-provoking read) and watched a number of films: Yasujiro Ozu’s Floating Weeds, Isao Takahatu’s Grave of the Fireflies, Ryosuke Hashiguchi’s Like Grains of Sand, Hirokazu Kore-eda’s After Life and Nobody Knows. I also watched Shunji Iwai’s All About Lily Chou Chou for a second time. I can’t say I have come any closer to an understanding of Japanese culture—if anything these works seem to reflect a country that is more radiant chimera than coherent nation. Continue reading Japan

Just watched The Wicker Man and Spirited Away by Miyazaki

Several here would have a field day using Wicker Man as text: Comparative religion, worker exploitation through religion, cultural imperialism, and as a great example of the post-hippie New Age rise in paganism and anti-authority to which the time period (early 70s) gave rise.

One of my favorite scenes in the film shows the police officer, a devout Christian, watching in horror as a teacher instructs a group of children about pagan rites. This fascinates me in light of the current Darwinism / creationism debate going on in red states school boards across the country. I would imagine either side could identify with both the teacher and the officer; the pure outrage of teaching young people something so clearly erroneous and idiotic as creationism…or Darwinism.
Continue reading The Wicker Man / Spirited Away