Last Watched

[Monsieur Arkadin]

Truffaut suffers a lot in comparison with almost any other New Waver. But I do think his films are quite beautiful when taken on their own terms instead of with the aesthetic/ideological values that sort of come with the territory of the movement as a whole.

I see a lot of Hong Sang Soo in the Antoine Doinel series. I saw Tsai Ming-Liang talk about Truffaut in Taipei years ago. My Chinese sucked, and my friend was trying to translate quietly without appearing rude to the rest of the room. At one point he said "The beauty of Truffaut, for me... well, that's kind of impossible to explain".
I'm still not sure if that was my friend referring to his ability to translate, or something Tsai actually said. But it feels right to me either way.

[pabs]

I watched Malle's Murmur of the Heart again a few days ago and loved it more than ever. I used to have a big problem with what happens near the end of it, but now I've finally come around to seeing it in a more wholesome, loving and caring light - the way it was always intended. A friend argued with me and managed to win me over to his more benign interpretation.

I decided to find other films with Lea Massari and the poster for From a Roman Balcony/ La giornata balorda (aka Pickup in Rome and The Crazy Day) by Bolognini (1960) jumped out at me, so I chose that one. It was good, though the version I saw was the highly censored 1960 official cinema version: only 77 minutes long versus the 1h and 40min version that's now available for all to see. (Some scenes were deemed too sexually explicit at the time.) It follows a day in the life of a 20 year old unemployed youth from a housing estate in Rome, and his struggle to find a job for the day. He's recently fathered a child with a girl who lives with her mother and siblings across the courtyard, and her mother takes care of it. While he tries to find work, he also chases and harrasses an ex-girlfriend through the city for a while in a manner that would easily get a man in serious trouble nowadays. He has time to have sex with two women, including the girl he was chasing and pestering so much, and also with Massari's character in a little coastal thicket. She's a woman he meets earlier, lounging on the sand at the seaside. They flirt and frolick in the water for a time. She's several years older than him (and obviously kept by some sugar daddy), a more mature and knowing woman who likes a little fun on the side. Unlike him, she's been around longer. She's more sophisticated, wiser and obviously has many tricks up her sleeve. She can drive a truck, no problems.

The film's based on a few stories by Alberto Moravia, but Pasolini and others also contributed to the screenplay. It's basically a slice of life/morality tale showing a completely irresponsible guy and potential deadbeat father who comes good in the end. The severely truncated version I saw actually worked quite well, I thought, though I hope to see the proper version someday. There's obviously a bit of fleshing-out of characters and plot that's missing in this one, but it all ends sweetly.

I also tend to enjoy films like this where the entire plot happens in a single day. Are there other "everything happens in one day" films anyone can recommend? Thanks in advance.

[Umbugbene]

I also tend to enjoy films like this where the entire plot happens in a single day. Are there other "everything happens in one day" films anyone can recommend? Thanks in advance.

These are actually extremely common. I could easily recommend a couple dozen, but you've probably seen most of them already. There's a recent list on this topic that's trending on Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/filmholli/list/w ... ur-rating/. But I don't think the owner's screening suggestions too carefully... Rear Window for example doesn't belong on it.

[greennui]

Model Shop!!!

[wba]

I decided to find other films with Lea Massari

Lea Massari is wonderful! I have also been trying to watch more of her films, but apart from downloading some, haven't yet succeded in actually seeing them.

I can recommend the following, though:

Lo voglio morto (Paolo Bianchini, 1968)
Il colosso di Rodi (Sergio leone, 1961)
Auferstehung (Rolf Hansen, 1958)

Her role in "Auferstehung" is small, but it's my favorite of her performances (and characters) so far.

[pabs]

Thanks guys. I didn't realise The Wizard of Oz happens all in one day, but of course it must and it also makes sense that it does.

I'll check those out, wba. Much appreciated.

[Roscoe]

THE SEA HAWK -- Frank Lloyd's 1924 adaptation of the Sabatini novel. Interesting enough, mainly now for being a rare Hollywood film where the hero specifically renounces Christianity and embraces Islam. I had a good enough time watching it, but it only made me appreciate the genius of Fairbanks all the more for taking this kind of material and making it sing. Still, some cool stuff with the Big Ships, and a jaw-dropping scene where a wedding is, shall we say, interrupted.

[pabs]

These matters are best disposed of from a great height. Over water.

This always reminds me of one of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet's execution methods, so your featured quote (from North by Northwest, I know) never fails to send chills up my spine.

[Joks Trois]

Yeah, the dubbing in SHIP is a real distraction mainly when the great god Freddie Jones is onscreen. No mere dubber can do justice to Jones' way with a line of dialogue. I fell into the flow of the movie this time, and got a lot more out of it than I had in my vanished youth

Because it's a film about the passing of time. The older I get, the more appreciation I have for Fellini's late works. They all seem to be dealing on some level with questions of time and death, especially Intervista.

[Roscoe]

Yes, INTERVISTA has been on my radar for a revisit for precisely that reason.

[Roscoe]

Since I can't be in San Francisco watching the Silent Film Festival, I decided to bring the Silent Film Festival to me -- and today's attraction was Douglas Fairbanks in THE GAUCHO, a grand adventure of of action romance smoking and redemption. The film's religious content never curdles into Bogus Piety in the De Mille Style. I was helpless in its grip.

[Roscoe]

John Gilbert and Greta Garbo in LOVE -- an 80-odd minute ANNA KARENINA, with silent MGM production values and William Daniels behind the camera and Garbo and Gilbert in front of the camera, and hell yeah. Tolstoy it ain't, whatever. There's plenty of interest going on all over the place, including a remarkable scene near film's beginning where Gilbert's Vronsky attempts to force himself on Garbo's Anna, prompting one of the most chilling staredowns in movies, as she turns to stone before our eyes and glares him into utter shame. Gilbert and Garbo have their usual insane chemistry, and I was really impressed with both of them. Odd things include Anna's weirdly physical devotion to her son, which rather mirrors her devotion to Vronsky, and the Oedipal overtones are hard to miss. The ending is what it is, sanitized sure, whatever. The version I saw included the more faithful tragic ending apparently filmed for European release as an extra, running a few moments after the film ends.

The version of the film currently available features a score recorded live during a screening, and unfortunately there's a lot of audience reaction, lots of inappropriate laughs at inopportune moments.

[greennui]

The Mission (Johnnie To, 1999) - I finally broke my To duck with this one. It was a good entry point as well cuz I got a good feel of his style and a desire to watch more. That score though, couldn't believe what I was hearing at first, sounded like something a teenager had scrabbled together in music class, but I sort of got into it's groove as the film went on.

[MrCarmady]

The Mission (Johnnie To, 1999) - I finally broke my To duck with this one. It was a good entry point as well cuz I got a good feel of his style and a desire to watch more. That score though, couldn't believe what I was hearing at first, sounded like something a teenager had scrabbled together in music class, but I sort of got into it's groove as the film went on.

I remember the cheesiness of the score actually working really well for me. Check out Breaking News, that's my favourite of his.

[Roscoe]

THE LIGHTHOUSE 7/10

Handsomely produced and acted, certainly. Gorgeous black and white, marvelous sound design, admirable performances from the leads. What can I say, I bought it. Profound it ain't, but it kept my attention for its entire running time. I'll cop to a certain feeling of letdown at film's end, there needed to be something a little more interesting there, but on the whole I thought

Spoiler!

it was far superior to another film about a character's mental dissolution, Aronofsky's idiotic BLACK SWAN, and I'm glad that Eggers managed to keep me uncertain as to where his film was going to go, as opposed to Aronofsky's typically idiotic decision to dump his main character's Sheer Barking Fucking Madness into my lap with a good hour and 45 minutes still to endure.

[Joks Trois]

Eggers is definitely a director to watch.

Color Out of Space: Not part of the cult of Stanley, and this film, while more cohesive than his other works, works best in fits and starts, but when it yells it almost roars. Shame those moments aren't sustained. Cage gives another bonkers, if slightly self conscious, performance, and Stanley builds the tension from frame one before unleashing bloody mayhem. Quite good, but with a bigger budget and tighter editing it could have been better. Not sure about a rating yet. Maybe a 6 or 6.5.

Having said that, I'm glad he is back in the saddle after a 20+ year absence from features. There are far less talented directors than him working on a regular basis.

[rischka]

The Mission (Johnnie To, 1999) - I finally broke my To duck with this one. It was a good entry point as well cuz I got a good feel of his style and a desire to watch more. That score though, couldn't believe what I was hearing at first, sounded like something a teenager had scrabbled together in music class, but I sort of got into it's groove as the film went on.

I remember the cheesiness of the score actually working really well for me. Check out Breaking News, that's my favourite of his.

nope now you gotta watch exiled

[MrCarmady]

The Mission (Johnnie To, 1999) - I finally broke my To duck with this one. It was a good entry point as well cuz I got a good feel of his style and a desire to watch more. That score though, couldn't believe what I was hearing at first, sounded like something a teenager had scrabbled together in music class, but I sort of got into it's groove as the film went on.

I remember the cheesiness of the score actually working really well for me. Check out Breaking News, that's my favourite of his.

nope now you gotta watch exiled

I haven't seen it but have been meaning to for a while, is the whole thing this yellow?

[rischka]

no this part is a sort of leone homage i think. also exiled is the sequel to the mission

[greennui]

I figured I'd watch one film from the 2000's and then one from the 2010's. So maybe PTU and then Drug War. On Exiled, the sequel to The Mission part sounds tempting, though less so the Leone homage part.

[MrCarmady]

PTU is a step-down from The Mission, imo. Though Leone is amongst my all-time favourite directors so maybe we're getting different things out of his work.

[rischka]

PTU is one of my faves! lam suet the GOAT



w/u on leone greennui

[rischka]

back to my roots -- watched le doulos which i haven't seen in at least a dozen years -- maybe melville's best gangster film not featuring lino ventura



serge reggiani, belmondo and michel piccoli is good compensation. i'd forgotten the casual misogyny of that world and wonder why i was so attracted to it once

[Roscoe]

SHAMPOO 4/10 -- Hal Ashby's drab little flick about some idiots in Los Angeles on the night Nixon was elected fucking each other and their lives, and the only thing missing is the slightest reason to give them even a single 24th of a second of my time.

[pabs]

Hal Ashby's drab little flick ...

I really like Shampoo for its time capsule/period piece quality. A long, slow look at Beverly Hills exactly as it was in 1974.

I've seen it twice in the last 10 years and enjoyed it both times. Last saw it about two years ago. I'm always surprised to see Carrie Fisher so young, but now I forgot if the hairdresser beds her too. Can you please confirm/deny? Thanks.

Interesting, too, that Fisher here might as well be playing herself, because the film depicts the very same milieu in which she was actually raised and where she grew up.

[MrCarmady]

Hal Ashby's drab little flick ...

I really like Shampoo for its time capsule/period piece quality. A long, slow look at Beverly Hills exactly as it was in 1974.

I've seen it twice in the last 10 years and enjoyed it both times. Last saw it about two years ago. I'm always surprised to see Carrie Fisher so young, but now I forgot if the hairdresser beds her too. Can you please confirm/deny? Thanks.

Interesting, too, that Fisher here might as well be playing herself, because the film depicts the very same milieu in which she was actually raised and where she grew up.

I've also seen it twice in the last 10 years and I can confirm that he does sleep with her, I definitely remember that because the DVD box mentioned Beatty's character sleeping with the guy's wife, daughter, and mistress. I think it's a great, sad look at 1968, reminds me somewhat of Mazursky's Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice...

[Roscoe]

Saw it last night, and there's no way to be sure what actually happens between George and Fisher's character. She says to him, "wanna fuck?" and there's a cut away to something else. The next time we see Fisher's character she's sitting on a bed, an entirely made and apparently unrumpled bed, and her mother enters the room, and George is in the bathroom and is shown emerging from the bathroom fully dressed buttoning his tighter than tight jeans -- it's impossible to be entirely sure what happened, maybe they did maybe they didn't.

[pabs]

Thanks both of you. Well, I'm still as unsure about it as I was when I last saw it. But I reckon there's a better than even chance that they did.

[Roscoe]

It's annoyingly obscure -- if they did it, why not say so? If not, why not say so? I guess it's in keeping with the "who is this George idiot anyway?" vibe, but the decision to avoid any info at all just comes off as coy and even cowardly.

[Monsieur Arkadin]

Man, late 60s LA is a really fascinating time period. Tarantino definitely got that right at very least. That's the most interesting component of Shampoo. But I also think there's an interesting attempt from Beatty himself to come to terms with his real life flaws through this character. Beatty's character is absolutely difficult to empathize with in any way, but I found the film's approach to Hawn, Christie, and even Jack Warden's character interesting.

Also.. people giving DeNiro a bunch of credit for stumbling and stuttering on the phone to Hoffa's wife in the Irishman... but in one month I watched Beatty do it better in this, and Harrelson do it better in Kingpin.