What is the last movie you saw? and rate it.

[qimissung]

Patrice Leconte's Girl On a Bridge.

Filmed in an almost sulphurous black and white, with a haunting score, Girl On a Bridge is unapologetically romantic, it is erotic without nudity, its humour is droll, its voice alternates between uplifting and bleak. Daniel Auteil is incredible as the knife-thrower Gabor, there's a subtle brutality to him that is caged deep inside, and his mysterious world-weary eyes speak volumes. Vanessa Paradis brilliantly portrays the delicately sensual, naive, tragic Adele, his target, who falls in love with any man who is nice to her, even though she seems to understand the joke is on her... They belong to the caste of those discarded by society, from their near suicidal meeting on the bridge, through their erotic (in an uncomfortably delightful way) knife-throwing act, their parting, and to their near suicidal reunion. But together they overcome this alienation. 9/10

That looks really good. Thank you, islandclimber.

Dancer in the Dark (2000; Lars Von Trier) - 9.5/10

I'm one of Trier's biggest critics, but this was a brilliant, emotionally gut-wrenching film--easily his best since Breaking the Waves. Say what you want about Trier's troll-like tendencies, but he is undeniably a ballsy filmmaker, and one of the very few that can so originally and audaciously experiment with form and genre. Who but him could think of combining a plot straight out of a 20s, silent melodrama (a poor girl is going blind and working in a factory to save money for her son's operation so he won't go blind--eat your heart out, Charlie Chaplin and Lilian Gish!), a musical, and the "style" of Dogme 95? It could've been disastrous--and many critics have claimed such (Peter Bradshaw humorously said: "one of the worst films, one of the worst artworks and perhaps one of the worst things in the history of the world.")--but it's held together by Bjork's stunning, unbearably poignant performance, and the utterly original and haunting musical numbers. I know that this is a film I'll be thinking about for months and probably years to come.

Jackie Brown (1997; Quentin Tarantino) - 7/10

This was rewatch on blu-ray, and I thought perhaps this film would've grown on me over the years, but it still feels bizarrely subdued for a Tarantino film. Where's the sense of fun and cinematic adventurism? There are some fine moments, and nobody an orchestrate more original and surprising murders than Tarantino, but it runs way too long and is far too dull for too much of that runtime to be considered great.

Both great films. Bergman is part of my "holy trinity" of filmmakers along with Hitchcock and Kurosawa.

Great reviews, Morpheus. I've wanted to see Breaking the Waves for awhile.


Rust and Bone 10/10 Oh, the French. Are they capable of making a bad movie? This is beautifully done, and the lead actors give unflinching and practically flawless performances.

[islandclimber]

That looks really good. Thank you, islandclimber.



Great reviews, Morpheus. I've wanted to see Breaking the Waves for awhile.


Rust and Bone 10/10 Oh, the French. Are they capable of making a bad movie? This is beautifully done, and the lead actors give unflinching and practically flawless performances.

Breaking the Waves is such a fantastic film. I've always positively adored Emily Watson and this was likely her most stirring performance. Simply beautiful in that tragic way.

Rust and Bone was quite brilliant. Cotillard and Schoenaerts have a wonderful on-screen chemistry.

Here's a link to a scene from Girl On the Bridge. Accompanied, and heightened by the stunning Marianne Faithfull song Who Will Take my Dreams Away (a song that has that savagely eloquent taste of smoke and leather one finds subtly in amazing bottles of red wine alongside seductive fruits), this scene is quite possibly the most dangerously romantic scene in all of film. When Auteil closes those desperate eyes to throw the last few knives, and Paradis positively writhes, gasping for some kind of air that cannot be grasped, that is beyond love. Ahhhh.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OaamZLKRul0

[MorpheusSandman]

Great reviews, Morpheus. I've wanted to see Breaking the Waves for awhile.

Thanks. Do let me know what you think about Breaking the Waves if/when you see it. Von Trier has a habit of getting great performances out of his (often amateur) actresses, and Emily Watson is as superb in Waves as Bjork is in Dancer.

[Calidore]

Von Trier has a habit of getting great performances out of his (often amateur) actresses

Although his methods can drive them away from ever acting again, as with Bjork.

[MorpheusSandman]

True, and that's a real shame. I listened to the commentary today and it did sound like they clashed a lot and it was a tough shoot. It reminds me of the old days of Hollywood when many of the directors were dickish taskmasters, but, whatever he did, it sure worked.

[Calidore]

True, and that's a real shame. I listened to the commentary today and it did sound like they clashed a lot and it was a tough shoot. It reminds me of the old days of Hollywood when many of the directors were dickish taskmasters, but, whatever he did, it sure worked.

Some directors see their movies as theirs rather than team efforts, and feel that whatever is necessary to get the "correct" response from the actor is therefore justified. Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick, and David Fincher are all notorious for their treatment of their actors.

[MorpheusSandman]

Don't forget John Ford. Hitchcock may have said actors should be treated like cattle, but I've never heard any real complaints about how he treated those he worked with.

Angels With Dirty Faces (1938; Michael Curtiz) - 8.5/10

One of infamous 30s gangster films with Cagney and a young Bogart. Cagney is top-form throughout in what maybe his best performance and best role as perhaps the most charismatic and personable gangster ever in Rocky Sullivan. In fact, he's so good he makes everyone else, including Bogart, Pat O'Brien, and Ann Sheridan pale in comparison, which makes all of the scenes without him come off as rather listless. One wonders if the Sheridan love-interest plotline didn't get heavily hacked, because it seems really incomplete and directionless. Pat O'Brien's priest character (Rocky's best friend since childhood) is so shallow and dull in comparison, though I wonder if that wasn't part of the point being made about the attractiveness of the gangster lifestyle. Luckily, it's held together with some fine, tasteful direction by Michael Curtiz, perhaps the most underrated of the old Hollywood masters. Direction at that time was supposed to be muted, utilitarian, and unostentatious, and while Curtiz can do that, he also finds spots for stylistic flairs in terms of framing, angles, lighting, and editing. The final execution scene may be the best of its kind to come out of classic Hollywood.

[Pierre Menard]

Both great films. Bergman is part of my "holy trinity" of filmmakers along with Hitchcock and Kurosawa.

I'm a little ashamed to say I've only seen Ikiru and Rashomon of Kurosawa's. Both excellent films but I've been lazy getting around to the rest of his work. I have Ran and Throne of Blood sitting here, really need to get around to watching them.

Hitchcock is of course brilliant.

Bergman and Kubrick are my dynamic duo, though.

[Emil Miller]

The Keys to the Kingdom (1944)

This adaptation of A. J.Cronin's best selling novel about an English missionary's life in China is very well acted by Gregory Peck in the lead role and has solid support from Vincent Price and Edmund Gwenn among others. The American accents are too obvious in a film that concerns people from the Tyneside region of England where there is a very strong localised accent. The film is over two hours long but the story, which follows the book reasonably well, holds the interest and covers the internal politics of the Catholic religion that is a feature of the novel. There are some genuinely touching scenes which the director, John M. Stahl, handles well and if Alfred Newman's music score is over the top, the intelligent script by Joseph L Mankiewicz and Nunally Johnson holds the film together. 7/10

[MorpheusSandman]

Barton Fink (1991; Coen Brothers) - 9.0/10

Probably my second favorite Coen film now behind only No Country for Old Men. It's impeccably directed with their typically detached cynical humor combined with a morbid curiosity. John Turturo is outstanding as the playwright suffering writer's block after coming to Hollywood, and John Goodman is his usual, amiable self, but with subtle, darker underpinnings. The film's nosedive into surreality was a real surprise; the Coen's have flirted with that kind of thing in many of their films (the dream that ends No Country, or the whirlwind in A Simple Man), but none of them have gone for it this fully. The ending on the beach is quite provocative, almost Blade Runner-esque in how mysterious and hypnotic it is. The unopened box seems like an allusion to a similar device in Bunuel's Belle de jour. Altogether a superb film.

I'm a little ashamed to say I've only seen Ikiru and Rashomon of Kurosawa's... Bergman and Kubrick are my dynamic duo, though.

If that's all you've seen from Kurosawa then you've got a lot of masterpieces waiting for you: Seven Samurai, Throne of Blood, Ran, Kagemusha, Dersu Uzala, Yojimbo, Red Beard... When I was in my teens I definitely would've included Kubrick, but over the years my enthusiasm has waned a bit. I still consider 2001, Dr. Strangelove, and Barry Lyndon transcendental masterpieces, but I'm more ambivalent about the rest of his work.

[YesNo]

My daughter and I were reciting lines from Scary Movie 3 last night. Since we had some discrepancy about what the lines were exactly we decided to watch it again.

Score 10/10

[Emil Miller]

Brandy for the Parson (1951).

The title comes from a poem by Rudyard Kipling about smuggling as this very English comedy details how a diverse group of people try smuggling barrels of French brandy across country by using ponies when their van breaks down. Although in B/W the English country side is shown to great advantage and the whimsicality of the story underlines the eccentricity of some of the characters that make their appearance along the way. Not a film that could be appreciated outside of the UK as its gentility would be unknown elsewhere but it's a pleasant enough tale and quite satisfying in its own way. 7/10

[Calidore]

If that's all you've seen from Kurosawa then you've got a lot of masterpieces waiting for you: Seven Samurai, Throne of Blood, Ran, Kagemusha, Dersu Uzala, Yojimbo, Red Beard...

I just started watching The Hidden Fortress last night, but was too tired to get more than about 20 minutes in.

I think the only other Kurosawa I've seen are Yojimbo and Seven Samurai. I watched Yojimbo a few years back as a prologue to a Sergio Leone marathon, since Fistful of Dollars was a remake. I enjoy doing original/remake double features (if they're both good), so what I want to do sometime is watch Seven Samurai again along with Magnificent Seven, which I've still never seen, Ran with King Lear, and Throne of Blood with Macbeth.

[qimissung]

The Keys to the Kingdom (1944)

This adaptation of A. J.Cronin's best selling novel about an English missionary's life in China is very well acted by Gregory Peck in the lead role and has solid support from Vincent Price and Edmund Gwenn among others. The American accents are too obvious in a film that concerns people from the Tyneside region of England where there is a very strong localised accent. The film is over two hours long but the story, which follows the book reasonably well, holds the interest and covers the internal politics of the Catholic religion that is a feature of the novel. There are some genuinely touching scenes which the director, John M. Stahl, handles well and if Alfred Newman's music score is over the top, the intelligent script by Joseph L Mankiewicz and Nunally Johnson holds the film together. 7/10

That sounds kind of interesting, Emil, and I see it's from a book by A. J. Cronin.

You know, Morpheus, I've only seen "The Seven Samurai," myself, by Kurosawa. I see why it's a classic. I would like to see "Ran," too, but first, "Breaking the Waves"

I went to see "Flight" last night. Excellent movie, with another good performance by Denzel Washington. I had to venture out in the dark and the cold late at night no less, but it was worth it. 9/10

[MorpheusSandman]

Dogtooth (2009; Yorgos Lanthimos) - 5/10

Perhaps the most radical, original film ever nominated for an Oscar, but I'm afraid I must disagree with vast majority of critics who have almost universally praised it. This is one of those films that feels provocative only for the sake of provocation. It's drawn a lot of comparisons to Lars von Trier and Michael Haneke, both of which I can see, however, Trier's and Haneke's provocations always have something else more to anchor them. In Trier it may be the poignant characterizations and performances, or in Haneke it may be the philosophical inquiries into violence in cinema. I don't see any such thing here. The film seems set in an almost alternate universe where families (at least, this one) are so insulated from the rest of reality they regress to a primitive state where they have to reshape the language (hence the aphoria), create their own mythology (the evilness of cats), invent their own games (a bizarre variation on Marco Polo), and naively discover sexuality.

Really, more than Trier or Haneke, the film reminds me of the cinema of Tsai Ming-liang. Like Tsai, Lanthimos primarily utilizes static frames and wide lenses with a one-scene, one-take rule (though Lanthimos does break this pattern more than Tsai). He then pairs these frames with an eerie minimalism that can then be used to shock, or even for surprising humor (I admit, I did laugh at the oldest sister performing the dance from Flashdance). However, the palpable loneliness and poignancy that pervades Tsai is nowhere to be found here, nor are the painterly, painstakingly composed frames. Lanthimos's approach is more like a ten year old boy who has stumbled onto his sister's Barbie dolls and is only interested in how much perverse fun he can have with them by pulling their heads off, stripping them, and making them have sex with each other.

I can't help but think this film's praise has been predicated more on the fact that it's one of those that's quite fun to discuss, because whether it provokes praise or disgust, there's something to chat with one's fellow critics/cinephiles with. That's fine and all, but I do wish the film itself was good enough to warrant it.

Swing Time! (1936; George Stevens) - 7/10

One of the middle and more middling films to come out of the Astaire/Rogers pairing. It's still quite effervescent and charming, but not at the level of Top Hat.

I just started watching The Hidden Fortress last night, but was too tired to get more than about 20 minutes in.

I think the only other Kurosawa I've seen are Yojimbo and Seven Samurai. I watched Yojimbo a few years back as a prologue to a Sergio Leone marathon, since Fistful of Dollars was a remake. I enjoy doing original/remake double features (if they're both good), so what I want to do sometime is watch Seven Samurai again along with Magnificent Seven, which I've still never seen, Ran with King Lear, and Throne of Blood with Macbeth.

I also like doing the whole original/remake double feature. I actually did that with Seven Samurai and The Magnificent Seven. Both fine films, but the latter certainly isn't a masterpiece on the level as the former.

You know, Morpheus, I've only seen "The Seven Samurai," myself, by Kurosawa. I see why it's a classic. I would like to see "Ran," too, but first, "Breaking the Waves"

Sure thing.