by ·Comments Off on Cabaret (1972, Bob Fosse)

Oscar for best actress, obviously, and also seven more (director, cinematography, supporting for Joel Grey) but picture went to The Godfather. I don’t know Liza Minnelli from much – just this and Arrested Development – but she’s perfect in both. The movie though, eh, not my favorite nazi musical. Could’ve stood to be more musical, blurrier and more insane a la All That Jazz (I guess Fosse hadn’t had his drug-addled breakdown yet).

Brash dancer Minnelli gets a new roommate, closeted scholar Michael York. Both roomies have affairs with wealthy Max (Helmut Griem of The Damned and Les rendez-vous d’Anna) and help to hook up two of York’s English students (Fritz Wepper of The Bridge and Marisa Berenson, wife of Barry Lyndon). The nazi stuff is less foregrounded than I would’ve thought – they’re slowly going from a violent street cult to the dominant political party in the background of a story full of sympathetic gays and Jews. Fun times while they lasted, though. Interesting to watch this right before Phoenix, eliding the whole war in between.

by ·Comments Off on American Graffiti (1973, George Lucas)

I was pleasantly surprised by this – not the hyper-masculine grimy 1970’s picture I’d imagined (since it gets lumped in with Deer Hunter and Godfather and Saturday Night Fever and Deliverance in the “New Hollywood” category), but the Dazed and Confused of its time, an early-1960’s-set ensemble drama following a group of boys (and grudgingly some girls, but they don’t get prominence in the storylines or credits) between high school and college.

Wikipedia says all the guys are based on Lucas, in personality fragments, so people who knew him well must’ve seen this as a sort of George Lucas Multiplicity. Cowriters Huyck and Katz made Messiah of Evil around the same time, later worked with Lucas on Temple of Doom and Radioland Murders. Lucas was a producer on the mid-60’s-set sequel with the same cast minus Dreyfuss.

Curt = Richard Dreyfuss just two years before Jaws but looking ten years younger (based on my admittedly fuzzy memory of Jaws and the admittedly fuzzy picture of this movie on the Railyard screen). He’s got a scholarship but is thinking he’ll skip college. After a wild night getting roped into a local gang and trying to track down his dream girl, he changes his mind and heads off to school.

John = tough-guy racer Paul Le Mat (Melvin and Howard, Handle With Care, Puppet Master), who gets stuck with a young girl (Carol: TV’s Mackenzie Phillips) in his car, and is being hunted by street-race enthusiast Harrison Ford.

Steve = college-bound Ron Howard, who spends all night breaking up with his girlfriend Laurie (Cindy Williams of Laverne & Shirley), then reconsiders both college and the breakup.

Terry = nerdy Charles Smith (De Palma’s Untouchables, director of Air Bud), who somehow picks up an out-of-his-league blonde named Debbie (Candy Clark of Q: The Winged Serpent, The Blob) and keeps trying to impress her.

IMDB trivia: Harrison Ford is driving the Two-Lane Blacktop car!

by ·Comments Off on Master of the House (1925, Carl Theodor Dreyer)

No finches were hurt (but it was a close call).

Watched with Katy after episode 2 of The Story of Film (and after Chaplin’s The Circus, since I didn’t want to limit silent cinema viewing to the famous comedians). Pretty straightforward: husband (Johannes Meyer of Dreyer’s Leaves From Satan’s Book) has become a tyrant, mistreating his kids, disrespecting his nana (Mathilde Nielsen of The Parson’s Widow), and driving his wife (Astrid Holm, dying woman in The Phantom Carriage) away to her mother’s to recuperate. Now he has to run the house without his wife’s help, learning to appreciate all that she regularly does for the family.

Katy and I haven’t extensively studied the cinema of 1925 so we had little to say, style-wise, and I saw little in common with the later Dreyer films I’ve watched. Mostly it seemed a well-assembled showcase for great performances by the husband and nana. I’d have some nice screenshots of the close-ups if we hadn’t watched it on Hulu… oh wait, here are a couple stolen from the great DVD Beaver site:

by ·Comments Off on 36th Chamber of Shaolin (1978, Liu Chia-Liang)

A good rebellion story with some serious kung fu at the end, but most of the movie consists of training montages. Student Liu Yu-de escapes after his rebel-taught school is destroyed and family is killed by the occupying Tartars. None of the rebels were decent fighters, so wounded Yu-de flees to the Shaolin temple, rumored to have the best kung fu in town, gets sanctuary there, is renamed San Ta and starts training from the very bottom, working his way to total mastery in just a few years. The Shaolin monks’ official stance is that they ignore the politics of the outside world, but it’s San Ta’s drive to defeat the Tartars that fuels his rapid advancement. With no support or defined plan, he goes out and immediately challenges and slays the Tartar leadership, is then allowed to open his “36th chamber” to train civilians in martial arts.

Doomed Chia Yung Liu:

I find the kung fu sound effects to be distracting – a given weapon always uses the same effect at the same volume regardless of what it’s hitting. The audio in general was strangely echoey, as if a fake surround effect had been added to dialogue. And though this is supposed to be a mighty classic of the genre, I wasn’t too thrilled by the action either – maybe 1970’s kung fu films aren’t for me, because I prefer the floaty fantasy of House of Flying Daggers, the dreamy camera-play of Ashes of Time, and the inventive, flailing fights of Jackie Chan.

This movie was a huge influence on the Wu-Tang Clan, as seen below in a shot of San Ta’s head between two massive joints:

Chia-Liang Liu was a star director for Shaw Brothers studio, also made The 8 Diagram Pole Fighter and Drunken Master II, and worked on Tsui Hark’s Seven Swords. His brother Chia-Hui Liu stars as San Ta. Chia-Hui was later in Kill Bill and Man With The Iron Fists – of course, I’d be amazed if nobody from this film had been in Man With The Iron Fists. San Ta’s early inspiration, a rebel leader killed in a trap by the Tartars, is their other brother Chia Yung Liu (Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires). Lieh Lo, “the first kung fu superstar” played evil mustache general Tien Ta, defeated in the picturesque final fight by San Ta wielding the triple-staff he created. Before this, San Ta rounds up a few “hot-blooded youths” to help invade the Tartars: rebel leader Hung Hsi-kuan, suspicious and combative Lu Ah-cai (Norman Chu of Zu Warriors and We’re Going To Eat You), and social outcast Miller Six (Yue Wong, title star of Dirty Ho). One woman appears (Szu-Chia Chen of Rendezvous With Death and The Magic Blade) for about a minute. Two sequels would follow from the same director and star.

by ·Comments Off on Inside Out (2015, Pete Docter)

Whew. Pixar is back in a big way. Happy Amy Poehler leads a Herman’s Head of emotions inside a girl’s brain, and when the girl’s family moves across the country, shaking up her life (see also: Coraline, Totoro) and crumbling the “islands” that represent her core personalities, Sad Phyllis Smith (of Butter) slowly gains influence. And weirdly, that’s the “happy” ending, that it’s okay to be sad. Maybe too much frantic running around through the long-term memories department in the second half, but mostly it’s brilliant.

Jen Chaney:

Eventually, in another moment that will cause 3-D lenses to get misty, Joy sees that in many of the supposedly purely happy Riley memories, melancholy and disappointment were present, too. Light can’t exist without dark: It’s something most grown-ups know, but when Joy finally understands this, it feels as though we olds are really getting it for the first time, too.

Tasha Robinson:

The script makes the stakes bigger than whether one 11-year-old can learn to be happy again. Joy and her fellow emotions conflict on how to react to Riley’s circumstances, but they all care deeply about her, and worry about where she’s headed. And through their passionate concern, Docter builds the audience’s deep engagement with how Riley feels, how she expresses it, whether she can make herself understood to other people around her, and where her feelings take her. … Pixar vets will remember the profound emotions brought up by the opening sequences of Up, the final scenes of Toy Story 3 and Monsters, Inc., and so many other watershed moments in the company’s library of films. Inside Out not only evokes that profundity of emotion, it does it with emotions capable of examining their own response.

And I quote heavily from The Dissolve, my favorite film site, because I had these articles bookmarked to read after I saw Inside Out, and by the time I saw it, the site had shut down, causing Sadness to start touching all my film-criticism memory balls.

Lava (2014, James Murphy)

Two volcanoes sing each other a song of longing, looking for somebody to love-a (lava). Tasha: “The story doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. But hey, at least those sad volcanos get to date each other, right?” And at least Katy liked it.

–
EDIT: Watched Inside Out again on New Year’s Eve 2017/18

by ·Comments Off on The Hundred-Foot Journey (2014, Lasse Hallström)

Remember thrice-oscar-nominated Lasse Hallström? I liked his Gilbert Grape, thought his Cider House was alright, then gave up after Chocolat, but he continues to turn out handsomely-shot romances about people realizing their true calling. Here you’ve got an expat Indian family run by Om Puri opening a restaurant across the street from a fancy/traditional French place run by snooty Helen Mirren. The family’s secret weapon is son Hassan (Manish Dayal of 90210 Remake), who takes a job across the street and becomes Mirren’s secret weapon, offending love interest Marguerite (Charlotte Le Bon of Mood Indigo) since he becomes a chef before she does. Everyone is very concerned with getting star ratings from a travel guide (no mention of yelp reviews), and after Hassan earns a second star for Mirren he immediately moves to an ultra-cool place (ignoring the rule we learned from Ratatouille that if a head chef leaves a place it automatically loses a star), but loses his will to live in the cold city. Happy ending: Hassan returns to the countryside to open a French/Indian fusion place with Marguerite.

by ·Comments Off on Film Socialism (2010, Jean-Luc Godard)

Slogan on cover of the press book: “Ideas separate us, dreams bring us together.”

An essay film without the essay? At least he’s removed the parts of his argument that would allow a simpleton like me to follow along. So far my experiences with Late Godard: I loved Nouvelle Vague even if I rarely understood it. Repetition, layering, stolen quotes as dialogue, showy editing of picture and stereo sound. Also, traditionally gorgeous cinematography and a somewhat decipherable story – both of which disappeared for Histoire(s) du Cinema and Éloge de l’amour, where the layering is increased and I’m less able to follow what he’s on about. Couldn’t make head nor tail of Notre Musique, which I saw in theaters with no preparation.

So now Film Socialism(e) seems like an Éloge de Histoire(s), the onscreen text and stuttery editing and quoting, rambling scenes and an (apparent) essay film with an (apparent) narrative short dropped in between them, all to mysterious purposes. A mix of cameras: wind noise and low-res picture, then sleek HD with the colors enhanced. Apparently full of wordplay that makes no sense in translation, hence the poetically incomplete English subs in the premiere (not the version I watched). Hard stereo panning, as I discovered re-listening to the movie in headphones while searching for articles online.

“It’s impossible to propose an off-the-cuff interpretation of an object we wouldn’t know how to describe” – the Film Socialisme Annotated article found on Moving Image Source.

Film Socialisme in the news: an economist in the first section was killed in the Charlie Hebdo attack and the boat on which it was filmed sank.

Focus of the third section:

“The day will come when language will turn itself against those who speak it,” presumably related to his next feature Adieu au langage, but I prefer to think of Pontypool.

Played in Cannes alongside I Wish I Knew, Aurora and The Strange Case of Angelica.

“Let’s bring back duration.”

Excerpts from A. Picard’s article for Cinema Scope:

The first section of Film Socialisme, or “movement” (as this film, also, is about notre musique, our harmonies and disharmonies), takes place on a cruise ship touring the Mediterranean; the second follows the French family Martin who run a garage and are hounded by a camera crew after one of its members announces a candidacy for the local elections; and the third is a coda collage … Editing images so that they emerge as the visual equivalent to his infamous aphorisms, Godard has increasingly become “interested not only in thought, but in the traces of thought.” … French philosopher Alain Badiou delivers a speech on Husserl to a large, empty room filmed in a long shot emphasizing the space and weight of absence. Godard says an announcement was made over the loudspeaker inviting all passengers to attend and not a single soul showed up.

Patti Smith and Lenny Kaye:

from Godard’s interview in Telerama:

“Palestine is like the cinema: it’s searching for independence.”

“[People] have the courage to live their life, but they don’t have the courage to imagine it.”

by ·Comments Off on X-Men: First Class (2011, Matthew Vaughn)

Major prequelitis, all about its digi-effects and massive Henry “Hugh” Jackman score. X and Magneto are buddies, meeting a bunch more friendly mutants and trying to defeat Kevin Bacon, who starts the Cuban Missile Crisis and killed Magneto’s mom. At least Oliver Platt and Michael Fassbender were good. And at least, since it’s a male-driven comic movie, all the girls get sexy and half-naked.

Sexy J-Jones:

Sexy J-Lawrence:

Mutant Round-Up: Magneto (Fassbender), X (James McAvoy), energy-consuming, anti-psychic-helmet-creating Shaw (Bacon). Shaw’s crew: disappearing devil Azazel (Jason Flemyng, chasin’ women), diamond-fleshed psychic Frost (January Jones of Mad Men), tornado-chuckin’ Riptide (Alex Gonzalez), fire-breathing dragonfly Angel (Zoe Kravitz). X’s crew: Beast (Nicholas Hoult, Firth-stalker in A Single Man), scream/flying Banshee (Caleb Jones of Antiviral), energy-whip-shooting Havoc (Lucas Till), easily killed gill-man Darwin (Edi Gathegi of Gone Baby Gone), shapeshiftin’ Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence), and their no-powers CIA contact Rose Byrne (Sunshine, Insidious).

Sexy Byrne:

Sexy Kravitz:

IMDB says Azazel and Mystique are Nightcrawler’s parents, and that Bryan Singer couldn’t be arsed to direct since he was devoting four years of his life to Jack The Giant Slayer. Vaughn later made Kingsman: The Secret Service, which I didn’t watch on the plane since they had a lousy looking, censored version.

Mighty Morphin’ Bacon in nuclear mirror room:

by ·Comments Off on Our Hospitality (1923, Buster Keaton)

We managed to watch this despite obstacles (DVD gone missing, Amazon’s lies about runtime). Keaton’s second feature, a vast improvement over his first. Keaton takes a train to brutal, rural America to claim his family estate, which turns out to be a crumbling shack. So instead he focuses on the hot girl who rode the train out west with him (played by Keaton’s wife), but her dad (familiar heavy Joe Roberts) and two brothers are out to kill him because of a century-old family feud.

After a flashback open where Keaton’s dad and Joe Roberts’ brother kill each other, the first half of the movie is mostly the ride out west on a ridiculous wood-fired train said to be based on an actual vehicle. Second half is Keaton, having been invited over by the girl, unable to leave since the men won’t shoot him while he’s a guest in their home. He finally escapes dressed as a woman, then after a mountaintop chase culminating in one of the best stunts in movie history – Keaton swinging on a rope to catch the girl coming over a waterfall – they marry, ending the feud. Watched with Katy as history lesson after the first Story of Film episode, though we mostly forgot to analyze editing and obsess over the 180 degree rule.