by ·Comments Off on Gershwin (1992, Alain Resnais)

Since I’ve watched nearly all of Alain Resnais’s movies, and loved nearly all the ones I’ve watched, I had the completist urge to watch his hour-long entry in a series of TV episodes about creative types: Kafka, Vivaldi, Einstein among others in an optimistically-titled, short-lived series called The Audio-Visual Encyclopedia. Didn’t expect much, but it’s pretty remarkable.

Bertrand Tavernier digs through the archives:

Opens with a player piano, seen but not heard, then people talking about Gershwin in different languages, unsubbed. The film’s writer Edward Jablonski is on screen talking about Gershwin when a narrator starts talking over him. Photos fade in and out, people vanish like in Not on the Lips. Resnais makes much of Gershwin’s erratic behavior shortly before dying of a brain tumor, uses this to justify interruptions and strangeness in the movie. And Resnais’s recent interest in graphics – see (or preferably don’t see) his comic-book movie I Want To Go Home – comes alive with illustrations.

One speaker is put on hold in a corner of the frame while the movie lets another person talk:

by ·Comments Off on ¡Cuba Sí­! (1961, Chris Marker)

As soon as Castro took over after the communist revolution, Marker went to document the experience, producing a jubilant propaganda film in the style of his recent travel essay films. Not sure if he met and interviewed Castro directly, or is using stock footage – my trusty Catherine Lupton book would tell me, if I had it here.

“Castro has betrayed the revolution,” said the U.S. State Dept. And we know how the State Dept. jealously protects the purity of the revolution. We hesitate to believe this is the main concern of the USA’s avatars of democracy in Cuba. There must be something else.

The same week, I read Susan Howe’s book Sorting Facts, or Nineteen Ways of Looking at Chris Marker, an unusually well-informed (mentions of Tarkovsky and Cuba) poetic examination of Marker’s works.

by ·Comments Off on 5th Ave Girl (1939, Gregory La Cava)

One of those Great Depression movies where a poor girl is inexplicably taken in by a millionaire family (see also: Easy Living). Mopey millionaire Walter Connolly (Twentieth Century) has home problems. His wife (Verree Teasdale, queen of the amazons in A Midsummer Night’s Dream) goes out with her playboy friends and forgets his birthday. His son (future Western star, played one of Wyatt Earp’s brothers in My Darling Clementine) plays around, neglecting his role in the family business. And his daughter is hot for communist chauffeur Mike (not the first classic movie we’ve seen featuring plot points stolen by Downton Abbey).

Out for a walk, Walter runs into down-on-her-luck Ginger Rogers and invites her to celebrate his birthday. After he invites her to stay at the house, he realizes her presence has an electrifying effect on the family, who think he has blatantly taken a mistress. Ginger is glad to not have money problems for a little while, but the family drama gets to her and she finally runs off until rescued by son Tim Holt.

Maybe the best Ginger movie we’ve seen yet. Features the great Franklin Pangborn in a small role. Katy also recognized Jack Carson as a ukelele-playing sailor. We’ve lately seen him as Cagney’s frenemy in The Strawberry Blonde and Myrna Loy’s hot neighbor in Love Crazy.

by ·Comments Off on Soul Kitchen (2009, Fatih Akin)

More slight than I would’ve thought possible from Akin after seeing his The Edge of Heaven. Injured chef Zinos runs a simple restaurant for locals, hires his fuckup paroled brother (Moritz Bleibtreu, Lola’s boyfriend in Run Lola Run) and a fancypants chef from the city (Birol Unel, star of Head-On), has a troubled long-distance relationship with his girl. Can they save the restaurant from the idiot brother, a scheming realty developer, health inspectors, their customers and themselves? Kind of. Loosely inspired by the life of lead actor Adam Bousdoukos, who ran a restaurant during the making of Head-On.

by ·Comments Off on The World’s End (2013, Edgar Wright)

Peter (Eddie Marsan), Oliver (Martin Freeman), Steven (Paddy Considine), and Andy (Nick Frost) reluctantly join Gary King (Simon Pegg) in reliving his youth and ignoring adult realities. Then they fight aliens. It’s all kind of amazing.

Jan. 2015:
Watched again. Katy didn’t like it much.

by ·Comments Off on Apichatpong Weerasethakul shorts

After some new ones appeared online, I watched a handful of A.W.’s available shorts. These seem more experimental than the features, and generally not as fun to watch, but still interesting.

M Hotel (2011)

Two guys on a hotel windowsill.
Dialogue is low, muffled and underwater.
I wanted this to connect to Mekong Hotel because of the title, but I guess not.

Ashes (2012)

Low frame rate, some repeated shots with different audio.
Gunshots in both movies so far.
A man talks about dreams and colors.
Hypnotic – I liked it.

Vampire (2008)

Had to watch twice, put me to sleep the first time.
Men are searching for a rare noctural bird for louis vuitton. They rip strips of cloth, douse in blood and strew carefully around on trees while making awful sounds. A man is painted in blood and set out to sit quietly in the cold. In the end nothing happens, or something does, it’s hard to tell.

Haiku (2009)

Sound of outdoors: crickets, owl? Handheld walk into red-filtered tent, men sleeping. Unfiltered shot or someone outside in distance under spotlight. Back to red, two guys awake now, smiling. Credits, quick shot of boom operator. Part of a series of Haiku shorts, with others by Naomi Kawase, Alain Cavalier and Frederick Wiseman.

Luminous People (2007)

Bunch of people on a long boat ride. Possibly a ritual thing, since there’s a monk, and ashes are tossed into the water. River roar on the soundtrack and a man sings a dream song. From the State of the World anthology – I didn’t watch the rest of it.

Phantoms of Nabua (2009)

Lightning strikes the ground, causing puffs of smoke with muted sound.
This is projected on a screen, before which guys kick a flaming football.
Football gets too close, screen burns down.
This made me very sleepy.

Empire (2010)

Very neat ad/intro for the 2010 Viennale, featuring cave photography, a scuba diver and a strobe light (not in that order).

The Anthem (2006)

First half is a static shot of three woman on a canal-side patio. Second half is a busy circular dolly shot around a gymnasium showing a workout routine, lighting crew and central badminton exhibition. Weird.

Third World (1997)

Grainy b/w photography, mostly of buildings, as a man narrates his dreams to a friend on the soundtrack. Then a bunch of nothing much, as a woman berates a kid who couldn’t manage to buy some eggs and bring them home without smashing them all. Then all is dark, and nothing much becomes even less. Dullsville.

Other A.W. shorts: I watched A Letter to Uncle Boonmee a while ago. He’s got a new one as part of the Venice 70 project. World Desires is from the 2005 Jeonju project. I just found a copy of Cactus River but haven’t watched yet. Mobile Men is from the 2008 Stories on Human Rights anthology. And there are lots more on IMDB that I’ve never seen anywhere, like Boys at Noon, Masumi is a PC Operator, the recent Sakda, and Ghost of Asia.

by ·Comments Off on Million Dollar Mermaid (1952, Mervyn LeRoy)

Finally, a decent Esther Williams movie. True-ish story of record-breaking swimming star Annette Kellerman who controversially wore one-piece bathing suits (an arrestable offense in 1907) and somehow less-controversially appeared nude in major films. Kellerman also pioneered synchronized swimming, which Esther re-enacts with Busby Berkeley rather than doing the nude scenes, unfortunately. It’s the second movie (after Sherlock Jr.) I’ve seen in which the star breaks his/her neck onscreen during a water stunt.

Victor Mature (Doc Holiday in My Darling Clementine) plays Esther’s manager/love-interest. From the writer of The Glass Bottom Boat and director of Random Harvest, nominated for best color cinematography but lost to The Quiet Man.

by ·Comments Off on Tales from the Crypt (1972, Freddie Francis)

Anthology horror with a lousy framing story, exactly like Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors. This is actually based on the comics, didn’t just steal the title. Buncha pricks on a tourist romp in some ancient crypts get lost, run into evil cryptkeeper Ralph Richardson (bad parson of The Holly and the Ivy), leading to series of flashbacks before revealing that they’ve all been dead all along.

First, TV star Joan Collins kills her husband (for the insurance) on Christmas, then she’s stalked by a psycho killer santa.

Next, Ian Hendry (Repulsion) leaves his wife to run off with a girl, but he dies in a car crash then comes back a zombie.

Robin Phillips wants to do some realty scheme, but friendly old Peter Cushing refuses to step aside, so Robin destroys the old man, who comes back a zombie and kills him.

Richard Greene (Hound of the Baskervilles) dies in a car crash after his financial advisor (Roy Dotrice, Mozart’s dad in Amadeus) wishes on the monkey’s paw, then he and Greene’s wife have second thoughts and wish him alive again, but he lives in zombie-agony. Three zombie stories in a row!

Mustache businessman Nigel Patrick (The League of Gentlemen) becomes new head of a home for the blind and slashes budgets for everything to the despair of Patrick Magee (Alex’s tormentee/tormentor in A Clockwork Orange), who plots elaborate revenge.

by ·Comments Off on The World of Apu (1959, Satyajit Ray)

The further, depressing adventures of doomed Apu (now played by newcomer Soumitra Chatterjee) in an uncaring, godless world. Apu now lives alone, trying to write a book while dodging the landlord. When he finally attempts to find a proper job, he claims to be less educated and take a manual labor position, but then decides that won’t be any fun. Still with no ideas or direction, he accepts an invitation to the country and accidentally gets married.

Well it’s a weird situation – he’s going to his friend Pulu’s cousin’s wedding, but the groom appears to be insane. The girl’s dad is convinced that there’s an “auspicious hour” during which she must marry to avoid curse, so they ask Apu. “Is this a play or a novel? What do you take me for?” But he does it, returning to his city apartment with his bride Aparna (Sharmila Tagore, star of Devi the following year).

Aparna makes the best of the situation, seems to be a caring and hard working wife. Things are going well for Apu, so we know this can’t last. She goes home to her parents’ after getting pregnant, dies in childbirth, then he wanders away to finish his novel, leaving his son with the in-laws.

Pulu tracks him down five years later. Apu has abandoned the novel and is working odd jobs from town to town. He’s more of a fuckup than I thought he’d end up. He comes to see his son, convinces the boy to leave the disapproving grandpa and come a-roaming, in an apparently happy ending.

Film Quarterly called it “the most important single film made since the introduction of sound” and I’m not even kidding, while Rosenbaum calls it “the final and weakest part” of the trilogy. At least we can say it’s authentic Indian cinema, the same year Fritz Lang released his “Indian Epic”