Category: Movie

The Exterminating Angel (1962, Luis Bunuel)

March 17, 2007 by Brandon·Comments Off

Part of Bunuel’s really good stretch, this came between Viridiana and Simon of the Desert. Glad I finally watched it… probably one of my favorite Bunuel movies now.

After a dinner party, about twenty ridiculous upper-class people (and one waiter) are mysteriously unable to leave the room. And nobody outside can enter the house. They do get out, over a week (and three deaths) later, by recreating the moment when it first happened, standing in the same position they were at 3am the first night. Then they all go to church together and it happens again.

In between, we’ve got chicken feet in a woman’s purse, mountain vistas in the bathroom, dreams and voiceovers, sheep and bears running through the house, morphine, lovers dying mysteriously, and the total breakdown of high society.

Hard to keep track of who’s who most of the time, except for the gay guy who complains a lot. I occasionally recognized Silvia Pinal (the hostess, Tristana). The steward Julio is Simon of the Desert, and a few other actors from this one were in Simon (incl. Silvia as the devil). A couple of these guys were in Bunuel’s early Mexican movies, one woman was in Brainiac, and two people were in Samson vs. The Vampire Women, released the same year!

A Brazillian movie won the Golden Palm at Cannes that year, beating Exterminating Angel, Cleo from 5 to 7, L’Eclisse and The Innocents. The IMDB is probably stretching when it says this movie was referenced in both A Nightmare On Elm Street and The Blair Witch Project.

Muriel, or The Time of Return (1963, Alain Resnais)

March 17, 2007 by Brandon·Comments Off

Resnais at the Venice Film Festival described the movie as “recording the anger of a so-called happy civilization. A new world is shaping. My characters are scared of it and can’t deal with it. We witness a real impregnation of the world. Muriel invites us. The movie grows like a plant. The characters start to live away from us. Imagine a letter on a piece of blotting paper. The movie is this blotting paper. The audience is that mirror that allows the image to be seen. Muriel appeared in the middle of the ink stains.”

Helene to Alphonse: “Well, did we love each other or not?”

Bernard is the nephew, Marie-do is his girlfriend, Robert is his war buddy.

Italian movie Hands Over The City beat this one at Venice, along with Marker’s Le Joli Mai, Kurosawa’s High & Low, a Louis Malle, Billy Liar and Hud.

Old Joy (2006, Kelly Reichardt)

March 16, 2007 by Brandon·Comments Off

A female-directed movie where both the male leads get naked, heh. Of course I saw this cuz Bonnie Will Oldham plays Kurt. Vaguely adrian-brody-like guy named Daniel London plays Mark… was apparently in Minority Report and Patch Adams.

The title comes from the line “sorrow is nothing but worn-out joy”. One of the few lines in a very quiet movie. Peaceful, especially once they get to the hot springs. Supposedly it’s “about” two old friends trying in vain to reconnect their dying friendship. I did not have this feeling of regret and woe hanging over my head, found it to be a profoundly happy movie.

Little Miss Sunshine (2006, Dayton & Faris)

March 13, 2007 by Brandon·Comments Off

Among the top 200 movies ever made, according to the IMDB!

Failed motivational speaker Greg Kinnear hops aboard the family’s busted VW bus along with goodwife Toni Collette, heroin-sniffin’ grandpa Alan Arkin, silent sullen teen Paul Dano (the kid from L.I.E.), suicidal gay Proust scholar brother Steve Carrell, and little miss sunshine candidate Abigail Breslin to get from Albequerque NM to somewhere in California in a day or two.

Grandpa dies, Dano finds out he can’t fly jets cuz he’s colorblind, Kinnear goes bankrupt when his buddy can’t sell his program at a big conference, Carrell runs into his crush at a gas station, and mom ties it all together and doesn’t get any quirks of her own. The little miss sunshine pageant is a disaster, and after Abigail does a striptease dance her grandpa taught her, the whole family dances on stage and is thrown out.

Not really a plot-strong movie, but funny, especially in the first half. Alan Arkin won an oscar for delivering the funniest lines and swearing a lot, narrowly beating out Marky Mark for doing the same thing in The Departed… that’s all it takes these days. I’m just glad he beat Eddie Murphy, who dared to expect an Oscar for his work the same week he released Norbit.

Movie has caught some flack for being depressingly negative with its hopeless characters, but it’s not like I took any of them seriously, so I didn’t think so. Grandpa’s death wasn’t even sad (or funny, really… I would’ve preferred to see him laughing at the strip dance at the end). Wasn’t painting a dark, downward-spiralling portrait of the american family, just showing a bunch of silly weirdos on a road trip. Don’t think the movie had any higher purpose than that, which makes you wonder why it got a Best Picture nomination I guess. Nowadays you’ve just gotta hand it to any halfway-funny comedy that doesn’t die in the second half.

Katy liked it too.

The Host (2006, Joon-ho Bong)

March 13, 2007 by Brandon·Comments Off

Nice monster movie, funny most of the time, a few good scares, good effects and everything. Full of death and serious situations, but never feels heavy or grim.

GUY is a dim slacker with a young daughter, a drunk college-grad brother, a champion archer sister, and a dad who owns a food stand on the beach, where guy and his daughter also live. One day a legged, tail-swinging fish monster attacks the beach and steals the daughter. After they find out she’s still alive via a cellphone call, they set out to rescue her. Of course the archery will play a part in this, along with a homeless man with a tank of gasoline. The girl actually dies at the end (so does grandpa), but she helps an even younger homeless boy, who ends up living with our guy after the almost-successful rescue attempt.

Americans are implicated everywhere! First a belligerent US lab guy orders his assistant to dump a whole lot of used formaldehyde down the drains into the river. Then the US forces (which have laughably low security throughout the movie) take charge of hunting down the monster and quarantining the area. Then they apparently lie about the monster being “the host” of a crazy killer virus that never really exists, capturing our guy and extracting tissue samples from his brain! Finally they try to destroy the monster with “agent yellow”, a gas that causes all the cops and student protesters and our family members to cough and bleed from their mouths and ears, but of course doesn’t hurt the monster one bit. One particular American military doctor just looks so ludicrous in close-up that the whole theater was laughing at him. Not such a pro-US film, then… but they take us down in entertaining ways.

A good movie, worth waiting to see in theaters (video has been out for a while). A dysfunctional family teams up to fight a giant monster… sort of Little Miss Sunshine vs. Godzilla.

The lead guy and his sister starred in Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance, and the men of the family were all in Memories of Murder, Joon-ho Bong’s popular 2003 movie.

Iraq In Fragments (2006, James Longley)

March 10, 2007 by Brandon·Comments Off

Maybe it’s because the Tara never properly focused the projector, but we didn’t like this so much. Thought it had its moments, and was an interesting idea for a documentary, done in a unique way, but with the unfocused images and the erratic editing (“kinetic” if you ask the imdb reviewers), I felt like I did at Mondovino… wanted to look away from the screen or close my eyes, and just rent it later.

The director says: “Iraq in Fragments illuminates post-war Iraq in three acts, building a picture of a country pulled in different directions by religion and ethnicity. Filmed in verité style with no scripted narration, the film explores the lives of ordinary Iraqis to illustrate and give background to larger trends in Iraqi society.”

First section follows a Sunni kid in Bagdhad with narration by the kid himself, getting beaten and tossed around and trying to hold down a job. Second section has more of a wandering focus, with a religious Shiite group planning strategies in a smaller city. Third section is in a rural area, with Kurdish farmers and brick-makers, again focused on a boy with his narration.

Katy didn’t like the way parts one and three had a personal focus and part two wasn’t about one person. I did like the variety, would’ve maybe preferred a third approach for the third section instead of bookending with two young kids talking about their dim futures.

Would have to see again, either on video or in focus.

Wuthering Heights [Hurlevent] (1985, Jacques Rivette)

March 10, 2007 by Brandon·Comments Off

I think the title Hurlevent means something about the wind.

Well-bred Catherine loves Roch, an orphan her family has raised from a young kid with the help of servant Helene. Catherine’s brother William has taken over their estate and wants to get rid of Roch. Cat meets Olivier by chance and stays at his estate, gets to know him and his sister Isabelle, he eventually proposes. Roch disappears after overhearing a conversation about his being below Cat’s social class, comes back rich three years later, Cat and Olivier are now engaged and William is a drunken gambling addict. Roch wins the estate from William and hangs around until Catherine dies from illness.

Movie opens with a great looking dream scene of Catherine and Roch on a rocky hill while William watches, hidden. Has a few interesting parts like that, but mostly just a good-looking literary adaptation of a dreary story. Rivette’s not especially proud of it either… I think we can mostly ignore this one.

Interesting soundtrack, only used in a few scenes. Valérie Hazette in her Senses of Cinema article says: “The only concession to lyricism can be found in the magical accents of Le mystère des voix bulgares, a Bulgarian choir’s album.”

Rivette says about the adaptation: “I had decided not to re-read it: I asked Pascal to summarise it for me. I only wanted to have the outline of the story and of the characters, that’s all. And from the start, I told him: “Only the first part”, because I knew about the second part. I had a very strong memory of the Wyler movie – because I hate it – and of the Buñuel movie because, as you know, I find it very beautiful. The characters are 40, but still, the movie remains very, very powerful.”

Francois Truffaut died a few days after the shoot. “For the whole length of the shoot, every single day, we were expecting to receive the phone call that would tell us ‘François has diedâ€¦’ it was a truly harrowing situation.”

“Since it was necessary to condense quite a lot, by force of circumstance, I believe that it is indeed the most elliptical of all my movies. Otherwise I might have made a three or three-and-a-half hour movie, like I usually do. But there, we were obliged to simplify, to keep to the essentials. It might have given a more vigorous and energetic feel to it â€¦”

Out 1: plot, day 1

March 6, 2007 by Brandon·4 Comments

More Out 1: intro, actors/characters, story day 2

Episode 1 – From Lili to Thomas

Opening titles, very specific. Ignore the Italian subtitles and TV station logo.

We open on Lili’s group doing warmup exercises and trying some things out.

Meanwhile, deaf/dumb Colin is harassing diners and Frederique is robbing them.

Thomas’s Prometheus group totally improvs around a red dressing manneqin for a very long time, getting messy and having some fun.

Lili’s group has screaming practice.

Colin stamps more beggar cards, and Fred dreams of death.

——————–
Episode 2 – From Thomas to Frederique

Prometheus group discusses their options, looks for visual inspiration.

Beatrice meets the ethnologist and I forget what they say to each other, but Wikipedia says they were in a relationship. Fred introduces us to Honey Moon.

MARIE gives the first (or second?) note to Colin! Marie!!

Lili and Elaine have a chat. Nicolas is acting up.

Colin gets a third note at his apartment and sets to work analyzing them.

Fred fails to scam money off a couple pornographers. The Prometheus group has a beat-up-on-Bergamotte session.

We meet Lucie, Lili’s old friend, and talk about Georges, Pierre and/or Igor for the first time. No sign of a secret society yet.

——————–
Episode 3 – From Frederique to Sarah

Colin talks to a Balzac professor and gets obsessed on the book “History of the Thirteen”… works to decode his secret messages.

Fred pickpockets another diner, Lili’s group practices singing some more.

Colin’s clues lead to Pauline’s shop.

Thomas’s group is still trying to figure out Prometheus. First Thomas plays him, then Faune does.

Fred tries to rob the wrong guy, gets beaten up by Marlon. Colin speaks!

Thomas snuggles with Beatrice, calls Sarah up at the beach house.

Fred ponders death some more and Thomas goes to the beach…

——————–
Episode 4 – From Sarah to Colin

Thomas convinces Sarah to come back to Paris, takes one last walk on the beach.

Colin sees Lili’s gang at the diner, recognizes Marie.

Fred robs a horny young man, and Colin gets thrown out of the Paris Jour repeatedly.

The groups do their thing.

Fred experiments with death some more, and Colin introduces himself as a Paris Jour reporter to Pauline’s group.

Renaud shows up and tries out with Lili’s group. Nicolas tries to pick up Fred.

Colin gets close to Pauline, Thomas’s group tries another bizarre exercise.

Fred meets a chess player… and steals some letters from his desk.

Thomas visits Pauline at home, with her two kids and housekeeper Iris. I never figured this part out while watching the movie.

Fred ponders her letters and Colin ponders his.

Out 1: plot, day 2

March 6, 2007 by Brandon·1 Comment

More Out 1: intro, actors/characters, story day 1

Episode 5 – From Colin to Pauline

Frederique calls the chess player (Etienne) and offers his letters back at a price. He politely declines. Colin gets comfortable at Pauline’s place and eats all her jam.

Business at usual with Thomas’s group, but Quentin’s new acquaintance Renaud is starting to take over the other group, makikng Lili uncomfortable.

Fred can’t unload the letters on Lucie either, but Pauline is very interested.

Quentin wins the lottery or a horse race or something, and Renaud steals the money minutes later. The celebration party goes on anyway.

Sarah’s doing just fine at the Prometheus group. Lili’s group divides up the city to begin searching for Renaud.

Pauline buys two of Fred’s letters.

Warok and Iris are not impressed.

Colin meets Sarah, who has business with Pauline… and follows Sarah to the theater.

——————–
Episode 6 – From Pauline to Emilie

The search for Renaud is on.

Colin plays a newspaper man again and interviews Thomas, while Sarah looks on amused. Then he hangs around and bothers Beatrice.

Fred finds Warok, and Colin brings a young lady home.

Thomas likes Sarah AND Beatrice. Wikipedia says they “engage in a threesome” but I think they’re reading too much into it.

“Lorenzo’s envoy” comes calling at Pauline’s place. She knocks him out, stashes him in the basement and flees. I don’t get this part. Talks to Colin first… it’s the last time he’ll see her in the course of the movie.

David Ehrenstein, from the (now hidden) comments:

The part you “don’t get” has to do with the massive revelation that “L’Angle du Hasard” is a cover for a sinister underground. Up until this point “Les 13” is simply an idea that several of the characters toyed with at some point in the past. But what Sarah and Pauline/Emily are up to is very much in earnest, as are Renaud’s dealings which lead to Frederique’s death (a sequence not included in any form in “Out 1: Spectre.”)

Thomas talks to Etienne about these letters and the group. Fred checks out the guy Honey Moon has a crush on… it’s Renaud!

Lili has gone missing, so Quentin joins Thomas’s group.

Colin nearly breaks down over his letters… finally hits upon the coded word: WAROK.

——————–
Episode 7 – From Emilie to Lucie

Colin finds Warok, who gives him no clues. Fred didn’t actually cut & dye her hair, but was only wearing her Intrigue Wig.

What of our two theater groups? Thomas’s group is doing jolly well, but Lili is wandering the beach on her own.

Elaine alerts Lucie that Lili is gone… Lucie is standoffish. Beatrice meets her guy for the last time, I believe.

Iris and Sarah confront Emilie (formerly Pauline) when she tries to send her purchased letters to the papers, trying to implicate Pierre in her boyfriend Igor’s disappearance.

Fred and Renaud make a cute couple.

Colin can’t find Emilie… because she’s gone to the beach house and met up with Lili.

Thomas talks with his co-conspirators about the Emilie Letters Affair… then goes off to the beach house with Achille and Faune.

Fred and Renaud get comfy. Colin gets no answers from Sarah.

——————–
Episode 8 – From Lucie to Marie

The beach house group has some tea. Emilie goes over things with a semi-hostile Sarah.

Colin gathers his thoughts. Fred dreams of death some more.

Either the beach house is turning into a Celine & Julie creep-fest, or everyone’s messing with Emilie’s mind. Thomas reconnects with his old flame Lili.

Colin revisits Warok, sees Lucie, gets frustrated with the whole thing.

This shot has been recurring in the last few episodes. At first I thought it was a wide shot of Quentin’s oddball search for Renaud, but I never did see Quentin in the frame. Now Q is off doing theater I suppose and this shot comes back in episode 8. Can’t explain.

I don’t know what she’s thinking, but Frederique goes all Feuillade and starts stalking Renaud while he has a secret rooftop meeting with some guys.

She surprises him and he kills her by accident.

Emilie gets a phone call from her beloved Igor. He’s waiting for her at Warok’s house. She and Lili leave straight away for Paris.

Colin is back at work in the cafes with his harmonica.

Thomas breaks down out on the beach. Maybe something to do with losing Beatrice, Sarah and now Lili? The theater group? The group of 13? The letters? Igor’s return? Not really worried about it, because it seems a fitting ending.

Final shot, Marie, still looking for Renaud?

Brandon's movie memory

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