Golgot's Reviews
 

Thought it was time i proved i really do post in the movie forums occasionally ;)


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EDIT: 5 star ratings added for new Mofo review system - but i never do know how much popcorn a movie's worth... :)
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EDITEDIT: Added titles to all the ones that lacked em (might even fix the format n pics again one day ;))
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Buffalo Soldiers
 

Buffalo Soldiers


Lots of the snappy stylings that appeared in Two Hands are in evidence here. Joaquin Phoenix does a good job as the anti-hero (a sort of amoral crim who's been given the choice of conscription or prison). I found some elements of the love story in the centre between him and a barrack-child (daughter of a ex 'nam vet) better than some critics would have it. A few bits were kind of endearing in a two-screwed-up-kids-meet-up kind of way. They are accepting of their differences and probs etc.

This film suggests all kinds of shenanigans go on amongst peace-time soldiers (in this case, ones based in germany as the berlin wall was falling). They also cover some of the survivalistic visciousness amongst these defenders-of-civilisation. Some of the things that happen reflect real events (i.e. tanks wandering around and trashing things/bits of villages by mistake etc). The drug use seems reasonable to assume to some extents, and has precedents too i believe. They take it further of course, into lala land, to make it all interesting. And they certainly don't glamourise drug-abuse overall (tho the smacked-up guys in charge of a tank did make me laugh a fair bit - just the idea of that. Classy)

So over-all: Good fun hard knocks. Won't knock your socks off but should tickle your feet some.

In the Mood for Love
 

In the Mood for Love



Oh my god what a beautiful film.

This is an unrequited love story set in Hong Kong in the sixties, and everything about it aches. It aches in an expanding, loving, all embracing way. It slumbers and peaks painfully. It's god damn beautiful.
The two main characters live next door to each other in a slightly delapidated building. Married in traditional Hong Kong society, the woman's clothes may be striking sixties, the man's work-clothes a sharp shirt and tie, but the values are back-room whispers, the norms that clasp any society to their brest, no matter how progressive it all might seem. A friendship of sorts strikes up between them. They both share a love of films and script-writing, though you wouldn't know it at first from their oriental evasion and conceits. Their partners unseen for different reasons, the two strike up a shy kinship. They write together, but nothing is happening of course - yet they take every step to hide their meetings.

But this is no self-referential film about film-making. It's a sumptuosly filmed story, yes. The editing echoes actions, the characters are self-conscious, the translations seem to fit perfectly with mood and context, and the wording is exquisitly balanced. But this isn't about what you write on the page. It's about the spaces inbetween. And these two actors draw round those spaces beautifully, draw through them and dissect them, and so have no need to spell it out. This is an exquisitely acted film.

And for that reason, and others, I can't tell you more. The reason for their meetings is a subplot barely worth mentioning. Their reticence an expression of their time. The music sings "perhaps perhaps perhaps", in spanish, with taunting cosmopolitan-ness. And at one point the man shares a thought with a stranger - he talks of the old tradition of carrying a secret into the mountains, carving a hole in a tree, whispering your secret into it, and then covering it with mud. It comes across better the way he says it. And to see what regrets and feelings might be buried in such a place, you'll have to watch it and find out now won't you ;).

I really really recommend it. (i must admit that i missed the very beginning of it, but there's something about the elongated tone of this movie that, despite the twists and turns that rise up from its yearning, that you can't help but feel you knew it all along)

Captives
 

Captives


Tim Roth and Julia Ormond are people on either side of a divide. Ormand has lost her marriage, and launches into a new life, taking up work in a prison. Roth has lost his freedom, and is trapped amongst the crazed inmates of that same stark dominion. Both actors provide the perfect faces for the prison mentality, because as Roth says, what you spend your time doing inside is "reading each-other". Ormond is frightened, hurt and yet searching. Roth is fearful, contained and yet asserting.

As a tentative and then passionate relationship evolves, Ormond's fears revolve around more than the price of their meeting, and Roth's controlled nature belies what sent him reeling. They are caught in a fraught piece of life forcing through the cracks. An involving dance of compliance and retraction follows, as they size each-other up, and judge how much they're normal lives will put up with this.

There are gangsters and empathies, dangers and vagueries, and all of it makes for some claustrophobic exposure amongst the prison's sterility.

I recommend this piece of long-drawn forlorness, and love-shoot exploringness.

A good, stark, rich, short piece of "life".

(sorry for the rhyming - but alcohol's been rife tonight ;))

Copland
 

Copland


A washed-up sheriff watches a bag change hands amongst tales of outlandish contraband in a smokey bar. He sees nothing amiss, as he knocks a pinball aimlessly around it's glittering cage. Because this is the town were New York's finest come to live, and all the faces are familiar protectors of the peace.

But underneath the sleepy safety which the sheriff would happily perceive, there's a whole den of thieves and murderers running around without reprieve.

On this particular night most of the cops are off celebrating a stag do, and it's only when a young nephew of an important cop drives off drunkenly that things start to go awry. After an unlawful killing the cover up begins, which by the end will have whole struts of certainty caving in.

A swathe of familiar swarthy faces crowd round this homely NYPD town. As Sylvester Stallone casts his droopy eyes over the smokey bar, Harvey Keitel runs the whole house of cards, with Robert Patrick and Ray Liotta playing structural parts. Robert Deniro is the fierce Internal Affairs officer doggedly on Keitel's case, and fresh-faced Michael Rapaport the nephew who causes complacency to be displaced.

The sheriff lumbers to the conclusion that all is not well in a way not dissimilar to Stallone's over-weight on-screen wanderings. And in this sense, what the plot somehow lacks in acceleration, it makes up for with a type of muffled anticipation. His partial deafness, from a past act of kindness, is used to good effect to both remind him of what he's lost and to mimick the blindness he's shown in his life.

That said though, i would have liked something a bit stronger to kick through the sophoriphic sheen that was cast over both town and screen. I felt this was a good movie, well told, but the overall effect didn't inject a steely light of recognition into its well-filmed folds.

Perhaps it's all a fair representation of the ponderous fights which the sheriff's life evolves through. "Being right isn't a bullet proof jacket" he gets told, but that innocence is the gold in his heart we have to respect.

It wasn't deep, but it was kind of replete in it's own "small-town" way.

I give it: one shotgun, two bushy frowns, and a big okay.

The Man Without a Past
 

Man Without a Past


Ahhh, dark serendipidous Finnish life-comedy. Where would we be without it eh?

This is the story of a man who gets off a train in a strange city, suitcase in hand, only to get promptly beaten up and left for dead. In fact, he seems to die, having been taken to a hospital. But once the doctor's have left he recovers, and sets about "re-arranging" himself in a grimly comic moment.

Despite the slightly cartoonish handling of these opening scenes, a new form of dark-tied-to-light interactions starts from now on. The first thing that happens is that he falls asleep on a rocky river-bank, and a tramp promptly exchanges shoes with him (plimpsoles for good leather boots). Now all that the nameless man has left is the clothes he lies down in, and the hospital bandages covering his head and face. When two kids run off on seeing he's not dead, it's a pleasant surprise that they return with their father, whose determined wife then nurses him back to health.

The family live in a large metallic container, as do all the people on this rubbled wasteland by the city limits. The nameless man now strikes up a curt Finnish-friendship with the family, admitting that he can't remember who he is, having not spoken throughout his recovery. The whole film is punctuated with a mixture of straight-talking and poetic pondering as conversations swing from merciless to motivating reflections on a cruel world.

Many enjoyable twists and turns follow the name-less man's motivated attempts to get on with his life. This is a wonderfully quirky tale, and feels all the more realistic for it, steeped as it is in cold hard realities as well.

I won't tell you how he proceeds from here. I won't tell you about the jibes at the state, the interjections of faith, the love and the hate. I wont tell you about the security guard called "The Whip of God", the Salvation Army band, the nameless man's potato harvest, or the effects when a company disbands. But I will tell you to watch it. It's very very good.

Shaun of the Dead
 

Shaun of the Dead

A little bit of fun from some sitcom comedians...welcome to the first "romcomzom" movie...

Shaun's life is going nowhere, and his girlfriend is getting more than a little agrieved about it. He spends all his time down the pub with his best mate, and forgets even the simplest things, like their let's-start-again dinner-date. When a zombie plague visits their well-worn bit of suburbia Shaun has just realised he needs to snap out of his own stupour if he's to win back his girl. And survive.
Once it gets going, the first section of the film is spot on. The jokes revolve around the zombie-like aspects of modern life, and how a sudden plague of undeadness might be hard to spot if it happened. From the agonizing "schwip" of Shaun's regulation salesman's tie, to his gormlessness on the early-morning commute to work, the mundaneness of his unambitious life is laid out for us with farcical frivolity. When zombies turn up, and Shaun barely notices, it's the playful bits of social commentary, and the absurdity of it all, that pull out the biggest laughs.

Unfortunately, the sitcom roots seem to show through a bit, as the comic premises lose some of their strength as the film progresses. There are still plenty of nice little jokes dotted around, but after a while it's the references and the horror-aspects itself which have to carry the film. And to be fair, they achieve a couple of good scares, and even have some truly effective and involving scenes. But overall the mix of comedy and horror does feel a bit clunky in places. The classic ending brings the comedy surging back to life though, with an absolutely quality assessment of the aftermath.


Rating:
Some Gremlin titters, one exploding belly laugh, several chunks of nostalgia cut into neat brain pieces, and a brimming pint glass.

Man with a Movie Camera
 

Man With a Movie Camera


Ok, i cheated and watched a musically-supplemented version of this silent, story-less Russian film from 1929 (the Ninja Tunes label added a good, if not always suitable, jazz-funk-"orchestra" soundtrack - which at least keeps the A.D.D. generation happy eh? ;))

Basically, this film contains marvellous naturalism of subject matter combined with "state-of-the-art" 30s camera trickery. It's a bizarre mixture. One minute the filmmakers are transporting you with their finely crafted shots, the next they're showing you a cameraman amongst the scene. One minute they're creating a hypnotic tempo with their editing, the next they're showing you the editor at work, splicing the shots.

And the playfulness and contrasts continue....We are reminded of the "magical" abilities of the camera (by slowing events down to single shots, playing with time, entrancing the viewer in various ways)...only for this miraculous output to be used to extol the magical abilities/effects of modern tools around us, as the editor is compared to a woman using an industrial sewing set-up etc.

From dancing stop-motion cameras to crowd montages, the ingenuity brings to mind the experimental masterpiece Metropolis. Altho these guys are trying to tell a different tale. They're mainly observing. Couples getting married. Babies being born. A bruised and broken man being put into an ambulance. There's something refreshing about seeing real scenes amongst their sheeny mastery of the filmmakers tools. And indeed, they remind us, with the reflection/transposition of an eye onto a camera's lense, hungrily staring at all the scenes, that as much as the camera can disect, it can also bend and distend.

I think they really just wanted to extol Russia and Russian filmmaking. I think they did a good job of that, and ended up exploring the nature of people, perception and film in general too.

Hey Golgot, nice to meet you for once.

I read a few of your reviews and i think i must check out

Buffalo Soldiers, In the Mood for Love and The Man Without a Past and i've already saw Shaun of the Dead and loved it.

I've been meaning to rent The Man Without a Past ever since Sam did a review on it.

Well, i have something to rent tomorrow when i go to the Video Store. Im usually don't know what to get.

Great reviews by the way.

White Chicks
 

White Chicks

Woah, i had a real problem with this one. Not something i would've chosen to see, but seeing as i have...

Here's a brief plot summary:

Two black FBI agents keep messing missions up by trying to do everything themselves. When they crash a car while transporting two spoilt rich white girls who are targeted for kidnapping, they decide to take the places of their bruised charges at a high-profile gathering. Cue pisstakes of priviliged society, racial stereotypes and other easy targets.

And here's my reactions:

-The general generic comedy is pure ****e. Animal stunts. Fart jokes. Slipping on spilt beads. Animal infatuation. Laughing at unfunny jokes in the hope that they become funny. The Wayans brothers's stuff at its worst.

-Some of the all-purpose parodies of race and 'class' are kind of amusing. Whether it's the white airhead heiresses or the black football 'turncoat', there are some good performances and occasional spot-on jokes.

-And now the big problem....

i came away with the feeling that they'd mashed too many ideas/cinema-cliches together, and whether through accident or design, conscious intent or unconscious belief, one of the results was that the idea of White was aligned too closely with the closer-to-reality idea of white-dominated-wealth-and-power.

What i'm saying is: the imaginary, unifying, perception of a skin-tone/broad group (Whiteness - as in the Blackness that was parodied in Bamboozled) was aligned too closely with realities that are only true for a minority.

I got a feeling that, beneath the shallowness and simplicty of much of the presentation and humour, there was an assumption that it's ok to lump all whites in with the white-dominated power-structures of many multi-'cultural' countries like the US and UK.

That, to me, came close to racism. Damn close.

I feel, as distance from this mainly derivative and only-occasionally-creative comedy-lite takes hold, that i may just be reacting to the novel situation of my skin-tone being the main focus of broad-stereotypes (the black characters were much more diverse and potentially-intelligent in nature than all the other characters). But i still question whether there isn't a negative trend going on here, that reinforces stereotypes that cut deep, under the broad fluffy fleece which was presented to us.

Thoughts?

Is it ok to lump an idea of what 'Whiteness' is in with the fact that white races still hold majority priviliged positions in the biggest english-speaking societies - and have been responsible for great oppresion of black races?

Is that ok? Or is that damaging?

This was a throw-away comedy. But i think that that particular issue pulsing beneath it's skin can do more long-term harm than good. Especially when it's blurred amongst easy-access/rough-and-ready comedy veneers.

(it gets that for making me experience what it's like to have my whole 'race' sweepingly belittled)

Cheers man :)

They're all quite distinct. I'm really looking forward to 2046, the next one by Kar Wai Wong, the maker of In the Mood for Love (using the same cinematographer again, Christopher Doyle, who did such good things on Hero too) . His work just seems to get better and better.

If you like Buffalo Soldiers you'll probably like Two Hands as well.

Dancer in the Dark
 

Dancer in the Dark


Selma is a Czechoslovakian immigrant who claims a musical star for a father, and holds a stern but passionate love for her only son Gene. Despite her failing eyesight, and the troubles it causes her in her monotonous factory job, Selma almost always has a smile playing about her lips, and a positive take on events. Even when being strict with the disatisfied Gene, she has trouble not letting her fondness shine through. And the rest of the time, Selma brings joy to backwater 50's community she lives in. From her anti-Communist boss to her bashful admirer Jeff, everyone melts in the face of her determined dreaminess. Even the brisk and forthright Kathy can't help but smile and support her clumsy friend, despite refusing to answer to Selma's playful Czech nickname for her (which means "big and happy", on the inside).

When we first see Selma she is rehersing her starring role in a local production of The Sound of Music. Music and dance are what keep her steps so light even amongst her heavy workload and life. Living almost like a pet dog in her modest shack on the land of a local police officer, she takes the patronising treatment of his wife, and the privations of her poverty, with positive equanimity.

One day her friend the policeman shares a secret with her, and she returns the favour. He has squandered his inheritence and is unhappy in his marriage. She has been squirriling away a large amount of money, not sending it to her father as she'd claimed. The story is now set for trials and tests, driven by the rhythm of life's constant quirky steps.

The film starts with dark and brooding music and flower-like images, which finally lift into a spritely music and a brightly lit, almost childishly scrawled, image. During the story the style makes occasional dramatic shifts, from Von Trier's wandering camera tracking the grind of daily life, to the smoothly sheened technicolour world of Selma's daydreams. In real life Selma needs people like Kathy to be her "eyes", interpreting her beloved musicals now they are just a blur on the screen. In her dreamworld we glimpse the self-sufficency and strength that endear her to others. Her ability to leap into a world song and sunshine at the darkest moments will be tested as her life changes for the worse. But this kernal of her being comes from the music of the world around her, and it is not just the escapism it might seem.

I thought this was a great film. I had reservations, and they were won over. I didn't think it was perfect, but i think a flawless version might have killed it.

Even the well-worn sources of Selma's inspiration were well used. The use of factory and train rhythms might have made me groan, if they weren't used so well, showing the different tones and tenors of Selma's dreamscape. And even more so by the end.

Previously i've been annoyed by Bjork's apparently limited style, and at first i was thinking her london-influenced accent was going to ruin the film for me. By the end she'd taken me fully in escapism, and back again, grounding it in something real. By the end she'd shown a voice that could be startling on its own - ferocious, powerful yet clear. She did herself exceptionally proud, and made this film come alive.

Beyond those criticisms, that turned into compliments, i thought this was beautiful sadness, made joyful, made real. There was criticism and celebration. Castigation of greed, and a planting of seeds. Von Triers dancing camera still steered me to where he wanted me to be. Which is in the wide-open space of interpretation, but aware you can't really roam free.

Kitchen Stories
 

Kitchen Stories


Objective Sixties science meets fabulously flawed humans in this sly slice of Scandanevian humour

Plotty bit:
A set of Swedish scientists have been examining the movements of housewives going through their average routines, with the aim of organising kitchens more efficiently. All has gone smoothly with the first stage of their clinical plans, but things are about to go awry.

A small entourage of objective observors pack up their clipboards and sliderules and observational high-chairs (which allow them to watch the kitchen scurryings of their subjects from a God-like distance), and head off to Norway to monitor some willing male kitchen-users.

The investigations are immediately left in the hands of a dour deputy when the project's leaders disappears to lead the academic high-life (which involves a private plane and some non-kitchen-bound female groupies). Isolated by a desolate and wintery Norweigan landscape, the project grumbles into life. An observor named Folke is given a difficult charge named Isak, and it takes him a long time to even gain admission to the house. By the time he has established himself he finds the wayward old man so exasperating that he's constantly longing to head out to his one-man caravan and disappear into his own world of music, food and solitude. The old man is equally affected, changing his routine because of this peculiar presence in his house. It's not long, however, before constant contact between the gruff resident and the distracted observor leads to them interacting. As the flustered project-deputy struggles to stop other observors engaging in human contact with their hosts, Folke and Isak strike up a shy friendship which brings their apparently disparate lives into line.

Review-ish bit:
This movie is beautifully poised, maintaining a gentle but quirky feel throughout. The slow strikes of the directors brush paint with such an aptly-judged rhythm that it's a joy to watch the resulting picture form. You shouldn't have any trouble watching this particular canvas dry.

There's a slightly ambiguous homoerotic undertone to it (or at least i thought there was. But then again, i thought Isak might've been romantically involved with his horse before Folke came along). It would've been nice to see the same themes explored (isolation, companionship, inter-connectedness, the impossibility of true objectivity, modern-vs-rustic, crossing boundaries etc), but with a strong female presence too. But that's the only criticism i could level at this clockwork fruitcake of a film (if criticism it be).

I give it: A caravan's worth of Sixties silliness, four golden silences, and a big jar of ice-melting roll-mop herrings

How did I miss this?

Someone has been hard at work it seems...

Clever stuff, these reviews. :yup:

Hey, these are great, Gg! :up:
Nice writing and I'm enjoying your observations.
Agreed, every word, on In The Mood For Love. That is such a beautiful film.

Cheers guys :)

They were all sort of hanging around the place (from back when i had more time ;)). Fortunately, i found some compressed time in a small box under my desk, and used it to string 'em all together and add pictorial delights (and then felt fully justified in going off and mauling the miscellaneous forum again ;))

Holy ****! I had no idea...the next half hour of my life is planned out. Bask in the glory of the man named...Golgot?

What kind of friggin' name is that anyway? ;D

I rarely see you around, my friend. I'm glad you gave these to us.

Comandante
 

Comandante





Step through the looking-glass and enter Fidel's 'Wonderland'


The Pitch:
Oliver Stone wants to give Fidel Castro the chance to express himself emotionally, politically and philosophically in front of an eager camera. His ideal is to watch Castro going through his daily life. His pitch is that Fidel gets to be both an actor and a documentary subject - but there-in lies the catch. Fidel can both expound and emote, he can justify his life's work for the camera, but he must also be at Stone's beck and call - he must answer the wide-ranging questions put before him.


Review-ish bit:
Fidel proves adept at doing all of these things. He has one other power granted too him though, beyond his existing ability to intimidate Stone with his physical presence, and to entrance him with his renowned charisma. Fidel can call cut at any time, just as Stone can. But he never chooses to.
If nothing else, this is an intriguing insight into Fidel the man. See him as dictator or see him as patriarch, as misguided or astute (and personally, i see him as all of these things ;)), it's fascinating just to watch the wiley old octagenarian operate.
No one could accuse Oliver Stone of being the most accute of political commentators, and his questions prove that, but his unfettered pursuit of understanding, his appreciation of the dynamics of conflict, and his respect for strength amongst uncertainty all combine to make this an effective documentary. His questions are sometimes wayward, but they do prompt an intriguing bredth of responses from Fidel, and manage to discomfort him and catch him off guard, without ever losing his consistant participation.
Stone filmed for three days. During that time he overcame his feelings of intimidation, asked the questions he wished to ask, and got part of his wish fulfilled to see the ageing idealist-authoritarian in action.
All of this becomes clear on Stone's expansive commentary contained on the DVD version of this semi-supressed gem. You get some sterling insights into some forgotten aspects of Cuban history and progression, and further insights into Stone's nature as well. From the fact that he went out and partied some nights (and was in a right state during the 'spontaneous' tours the next morning) you gather that he's not the most rigorous or dispassionate of men or documentarians. From his human connection with Fidel, you see why he's also brought out genuine responses from actors, audiences and dictators, and will most likely do so again.

It's frustrating that Stone doesn't really push Fidel on certain points, but instead launches into tangental lines of pursuit just when things look promising. He assures us on the commentary that he takes a harder line in a later documentary, Looking for Fidel, which focused much more rigorously on recent incidents and political history. Stone's obvious regret at having offended Fidel during this later meeting shows that he has become emotionally involved with his subject, but his overall appraisals of Cuba's past and present show he's not an apologist for the regime.
If anything, Stone is an anti-apologist for the US, and for other nations who he sees as overly aggressive in the pursuit of profit over the national-spirit and social-care that he does seem to hold in high esteem in Cuba.
He provides plenty of welcome refreshers in both the film and commentary on intriguing events like: the embargoes which pushed them into alliance with Communist USSR; the Cuban's non-profit defence of Angola against South African invasion; and recent Bush-admin attempts to paint Cuba with the WMD brush. Make what you will of these and other examples of what drives and forms Cuba to this day.

Fidel is a prolific and unremitting publicist for 'The Revolution', but it's fascinating to see him 'embody' it, striving to justify, or at least explain, every action, all apparently in the name of ensuring its legacy (in the eyes of Stone, the camera, and posterity). Stone may have an agenda too, but it's fascinating to see him letting it evolve.

My Verdict: Who wouldn't pay to see two bulls in a pen - if they've paid their own admission, and are discussing life and politics as well ;).

Is it just me, or does Fidel Castro bear a striking resemblance to Don Quixote (as played by Jean Rochefort in the film Lost in La Mancha)? Check it out:

http://www.cinemazone.dk/images/image7240.JPG http://us.ent4.yimg.com/movies.yahoo...t/lamancha.jpg

The old boy certainly does tilt, my dear Djangles, ;) (i think he's bounced off the odd giant along the way though too)

Hey, i missed this n'all. And you too, you big lug ;).

And i think Golgot might be some sort of French hacking tool. Or possibly a prophelactic ;) (i'm not sure, it just seems to crop up on odd french forums). I just made it up one angsty 19-year-old day. I think it's sort of a mix between robot-golgotha-goals-gots and other such things (and probably goats too ;)).

The talking variety no less.

I'll be back on later tonight to make more worthy comments on these wonderful reviews.

Glad to see you posting reviews again GG… Great job… :)

Cheers Caity-lyn. I can't compete with the other review-gurus here, but it's nice to dip my toes back in to the reviewing-for-fun thing once in a while ;).

Ah, promises, promises - I'll take the 'wonderful' bit for now ;) (and besides, i jammed up your thread with some rhyming rhetoric 'bout Clockwork Orange. You probably need some time to unwind after that ;)).

The Saddest Music in the World
 

The Saddest Music in the World




Sweet sadness. Have a sip


The Score
A Canadian beer mogul capitalises on the imminent demise of 30's alcohol-prohibition by launching a competition to discover 'The Saddest Music in the World'. Her plan is savagely simple - to feed and to feed off the sadness of those sucking deeply on beer's salvation during these toughest of years.

The Notes
The style is pseudo-1930's, and the style is carried well. From the delivery of the accomplished actors (even if the wild-eyed hero doesn’t quite cut it as the maddened-swain), to the snowy-realm they all inhabit, the film rejoices in the sweeping movements of silent melodrama and the snap of 'talkies' living up to their name. But, despite the aptness of the silvery and skittery visual tricks, it’s the soulful sounds unfurling between the participants that reach out of the screen and manage to bewitch.

The story is built on a triumvirate of flawed men and the two damaged women they wronged and so lost to detachment and dismay. The well-meaning father maimed his beloved beer-mogul in a drunken display. His materialistic son -her sometime lover- treats her and all others with Machiavellian disdain. The morose other brother returns home to find his partially-deranged wife has become this cad-of-a-sibling’s latest emotional toy.

In short, tragedy has found a welcome home with this extended family of extremes.

Amongst the warring men, emotions are hoisted up flagpoles when the competition brings nationalities into play. The father is Canadian and proud, the nefarious son is gilded with American dreams, and the jilted-one is absorbed in the suffering of Serbian war-extremes. The women are also deeply embroiled with the musical head-to-heads that take place between nationalised teams, one as the embittered architect, the other as the daydreaming lead-singer of the US's snazzy themes.

The emotional forays the protagonists make into each others' territory form the main battle on display, while the musical mayhem and State-berating form the landscape on which they act out their evolving play.

It's a bizarre but welcome concoction of light-hearted survivalism and weighty desires, a mixture of mellifluousness and morbidity that sings as it sighs. A dead son’s heart preserved in tears, some hilarious social commentary on this battle of the bands, a tapeworm that likes to talk through the years, and some fantastical cinematic journeys through a landscape of love and fear make this a classically modern adventure - and a marvellous piece of music-magic realism to boot.
Rating: Two leg-fulls of beer, a beautiful sneer, some bruised eyes seeing clear - all dancing to life-music as it freezes and frees some well-formed tears.

Hey, I meant what I said...kind of. I didn't get to it the same night like I promised, but I've been kept up late by my kitty wailing and wailing...it's a sweet wailing though. Kinda' like, "Mrow-rowr." I'm quite attached. :D BTW: I replied to you in my thread, I believe. "Come back, Shane!"

Anyway…on with the show………………


Buffalo Soldiers (2001, Gregor Jordan)
I keep telling myself to get my hands on this one, but I always forget. Now that I’ve read your review, and taken a good look on IMDb…so I could see the cast, I know now that I really want to see this film. Thanks for the review. It’s a good one.

Fa yeung nin wa (In the Mood for Love) (2000, Kar Wai Wong)
I really love how you wrote this review. This is one classy movie. It looks sumptuous, the music haunting, and the actor’s reach right into the viewer’s souls. I like the wording you use throughout your review to describe everything about this film: yearning. It fits it to the tee. I also like how the two central characters never have their partners shown to us. Their story is completely needless and irrelevant. It’s not about them. Knowing anything about them at all would only soil the mood of the movie, making it not about unrequited love, but something foul. I love this film, and this is my favorite of all your reviews.


Captives (1994, Angela Pope)
I was going to go to IMDb to take a peek at what it had to say about this film, but after reading your perfect review, I don’t feel the need to. I’m going to try and see this one very soon. I like that most of your reviews are for movies that many (me) have missed while they flew under the radar.

Cop Land (1997, James Mangold)
:laugh: If you only rhyme when you’re drinking, then you must have been up to 3 straight shots and a couple of beer chasers when you wrote this one. I like this film more than you, it seems. It doesn’t sound like you disliked it, but you weren’t overly satisfied either…such is the life with the cinephile, eh? I’m glad you reviewed this under appreciated gem, though. I think it’s one of Stallone’s best films.

Mies vailla menneisyyttä (The Man Without a Past) (2002, Aki Kaurismäki)
Thanks for telling me to watch it…I think I will. I love these types of quirky and original story ideas. It sounds like a hoot!

Shaun of the Dead (2004, Edgar Wright)
I still haven’t seen this one. What the hell’s stopping me? I gotta’ hand it to ya’, Gol’s…you write the most original reviews here at MoFo.

Chelovek s kinoapparatom (The Man with a Movie Camera) (1929, Dziga Vertov)
Wow. I don’t know if I’ll ever be in a hurry to see this, but if I happen upon it…Thanks for reviewing it for us, though. :)

White Chicks (2004, Keenen Ivory Wayans)
First: I hate the fact that you actually saw this piece of crap, but I’m glad that it didn’t make you stupid. :)
Second: I think you make some valid points with your assessment of the films character and overall design. I don’t really think that a film like this one can do any real harm promoting an already existing racism, though. In America, black comedians and black films can make fun of the white race all they want, but it’s considered too risqué for the white comedians and the like to return the favor.
Yes, the white race, specifically in America, has a lot to answer to when it comes to ages of terrible abuse to our fellow human beings, and there is also the problem of the power structure that you mentioned in your review. But isn’t there a dangerous edge to allow any race carte-blanche when it concerns ridiculing other races? Why do we, as a modern society, think that it is okay for an African American to stand up on stage and make extremely disparaging remarks about another race, while we froth at the mouth in rage when a white person even attempts to return the favor? It doesn’t make sense to me that we actually PROMOTE this double standard in our country.
Anyway…this movie not only looked bad to me because of who was in it, the double standard I just spoke of, the sophomoric humor, and the absolute ridiculous storyline…but because they looked so, so, so…gross. Those eyes they got in their heads really freak me out. They look like cross dressing vampires who’ve been out in the sun too long. :sick:
I will NEVER see this stupid, stupid, brain-rotting film.

Dancer in the Dark (2000, Lars von Trier)
That was a beautiful review, Gol’s. I love this film so much, and you captured its transcendent beauty perfectly. I really like the way Von Trier switched between dogma film making to elaborate 100 camera film making when Selma would delve into her fantasy world where music and color are the core of her existence. He also made a highly improbable outcome probable without making me think, “What the hell…that would never happen in real life.” Von Trier is one of my favorite living directors, and Björk did an amazing job playing the wistfully lovable turned heartbreakingly tragic character. I would much enjoy a review for Breaking the Waves, if you ever have a mind for it. That has to be my ultimate favorite Von Trier film, even though I love this one and Dogville so damn much. Oh yeah, here’s my review for Dancer in the Dark. <- Shameless plug, even though I concede yours as being written much better. :)

Salmer fra kjøkkenet (Kitchen Stories) (2003, Bent Hamer)
I remember when this hit the States a while back. I watched the trailer, and thought it might be neat to see, but forgot about it. The voice you use in some of your reviews really hits home with me, because now I’m kicking myself in the keester for not seeing this when I had the chance. I’m sure I can find it now…but damnit! Great review…I really want to see this. I love interpersonal relationship/character study type films, and this one sounds like exactly that. Thanks again. :)

Comandante (2003, Oliver Stone)
See the above reply and attribute most of it to this one. I’m getting tired. I do want to see this though.

The Saddest Music in the World (2003, Guy Maddin)
I went to see this when it hit Portland and was enchanted by it. I believe it to be one of the best works by any cinematographer in recent years…plus, like you said, the music…
Another great review, Mr. Golgot, sir. You have picked apart the loose strands of your rambling and made it a fine cashmere. I hope you keep regaling us with your wit and charm for some time more. I really enjoy reading your reviews.

Heheheh. I was only needling your lordship - i would've settled for the 'wonderful' too ;). This is far better tho... (cheers for all your kind praise, and for summoning up such a gargantuan reply in the first place :))

(incidently, i was just gearing up for another net-headed nightshift t'other night when i learnt that my parents' old cat had the opposite problem to your wee mite. She stopped over at my place for a bit, and she hasn't made a noise since :eek: . Woke my parents up checking to see how she was :rolleyes: )

Buffalo Soldiers (2001, Gregor Jordan)

Yeah, it's a broad-brush piece this, but still finds a little niche for some humanity amongst its expansive plot explosions. Gonna get round to listening to the director's stuff on the DVD one day, coz from the little i've heard, hes got a few things to say.

Fa yeung nin wa (In the Mood for Love) (2000, Kar Wai Wong)

Gotta love how this rich little portrait of trapped time came out dontcha :). I've got a feeling the 'follow-up' 2046 won't quite blow me away in the same way, but still looking forward to seeing it.

Captives (1994, Angela Pope)

I can understand why this one didn't make a huge blip (it's a low-budget brit-flick whose prison-and-gangster elements have been done better in other films), but i found the central relationship really tense and effective (to the extent that it fleshed out and supported the more 'cardboardy'-aspects of the scenario it found itself in).

It might have been the drink tho - did i rhyme much in that review? ;)

Cop Land (1997, James Mangold)
I think my slight dissatisfaction with this is pretty much unjustified. On one hand i was expecting octane explosion instead of slow-burning heat. Plus i had this bizarre feeling that the film had been wrapped around Sly's ability to play a ponderous has-been (even tho both he and the film brought this off exceptionally well). I've no idea if the role had been designed for Sly, and the story tailored to his new facet of playing it slow - i just felt obscurely robbed somehow.

In retrospect tho, and at the time, i was actually pretty damn satisfied.

Mies vailla menneisyyttä (The Man Without a Past) (2002, Aki Kaurismäki)

This one's just got an alternative national-beat running through it that you've just gotta love. Me Pidz and SammyD have pondered over whether the dead-pan nature of the characters is a clumsy charicature of Finnish ways, or a sly but respectful exaggeration of how they live their days (i go for the latter ;)).

Shaun of the Dead (2004, Edgar Wright)

Would you believe that, when i heard senyor Pegg had a pub-orientated comedy work in the offing, i thought the dear man might be ripping of a paltry idea from a sketch script i once shoved into his hand in a pub near me? Man am i embarrassed i raised that one with his 'people' ;) :rolleyes: (but i'm happy to report his gentlemanly response, through them, suggests he's far from having his head stuck up his rear end). Good film - good lad :).

Chelovek s kinoapparatom (The Man with a Movie Camera) (1929, Dziga Vertov)

I've gotta admit i've found this, along with Metropolis, to be the most eye-opening combined voyages into film-history, other nations, and other times. (More so than things like Battleship Potemkin, but i'm a philistine ;) - i think it's just the overt directorial and narrative 'radicalness' of both those films that grabbed me the most).

White Chicks (2004, Keenen Ivory Wayans)
I'm still kind of fascinated by this film, and by my reaction to it. My current feelings are that the 'reverse-discrimination' it uses is more likely to be a step backwards than a step forwards for our strained race relations. But that said, two things still occur...
1) It does give 'Whites' a chance to learn/sample how it feels to be discriminated against and stereotyped in outrageous ways (rather than just understanding it intellectually). That's the big plus i carry away from this film.
2) The problem is that, unless this deliberate discrimination is used to promote a constructive agenda, it still does at least as much bad as good, to my mind.

This film was just a fart in the cinematic bath (as so many people have guessed without having to see it ;)). It toys with some valid underlying themes, but just mishmashes too many together, and is too ultimately lightweight, to advance our understanding or attitudes to any of these realities so cartoonishly portrayed.

I'd still hold up Lee's Bamboozled as the head-and-shoulders winner when it comes to using race discrimination/portrayal to make us recognize where we've been, and where we're at, in a constructive and progressive way.

Dancer in the Dark (2000, Lars von Trier)
Argh, i still haven't seen either of those. I've been so rubbish on catching up with Triers. (and his contemporaries too - i've only ever seen sections of Festen too - oh the shame :rolleyes: ). Dogville was top of my list, but i might well swap it for Breaking the Waves :).

Salmer fra kjøkkenet (Kitchen Stories) (2003, Bent Hamer)

Maybe it's coz i've got some Scandanevian blood lingering about the place, but i love the humour and pace of this little gem.

Comandante (2003, Oliver Stone)
****, i've just got to Stone's stuff about the Northwoods plans in the commentary. Check that business out if you knew nowt about it, like me. It's shockingly believable-yet-bizarre.

The Saddest Music in the World (2003, Guy Maddin)
:laugh:. Yay, i'm glad my wooly meanderings didn't lose all their shape :)

No problem, man. I want you to keep writing them.

Fa yeung nin wa (In the Mood for Love) (2000, Kar Wai Wong)
I am too. This film will really have a lasting power I think. Regardless of the time and place that this story is centered; it is a universal theme.

Captives (1994, Angela Pope)
I can too, but that sure doesn’t mean that it isn’t something I wouldn’t appreciate. I like a good love story, I just don’t care for the Hollywood rom-com…most of them are cliché ridden and insulting to the audience’s intelligence. I think that genre has virtually died in Hollywood, because they refuse to make many that have any real depth to them. But maybe I’m just jaded.

As far as rhyming…I think you usually let some slip, so it’s kind of hard to tell…unless you go crazy. :laugh: I like whatever you write (as long as I can understand it), so it’s okay by me.

Cop Land (1997, James Mangold)
I believe it was tailored for him, but I’m not sure. I just think it’s one of the best jobs he’s ever done with his acting. I like Sly, but I don’t like a whole lot of his films. But when he’s good, he’s damn good. And it didn’t hurt that he had some excellent back-up with this one. I’ve always been partial to Liotta as well; so having him play the role he did was pretty fine.

Mies vailla menneisyyttä (The Man Without a Past) (2002, Aki Kaurismäki)
I feel bummed that I missed out on the chance to be involved in that. This site hasn’t had much discussion involving a number of posters in ages…that I’ve seen anyway. That would have been a blast for me. I also miss Piddy. :(

Shaun of the Dead (2004, Edgar Wright)
Cool. Did you know the creator of this film well? Do you still know him? Do tell. :)

Chelovek s kinoapparatom (The Man with a Movie Camera) (1929, Dziga Vertov)
Okay…because you compared it to one of my all time favorite films…I’ll try to be sure and see it. I’ll reply in this thread when I have.

White Chicks (2004, Keenen Ivory Wayans)
I don’t know what the target audience for this film would take away after viewing this film. Yet, even if it were only more ignorance, I can see your point.

I haven’t (and won’t) see it, so I can’t comment on this.

Of course it does. It just creates a wider divide. That’s why I loathe it when black stand-ups center their entire routine on ridiculing my race. But it’s not just them. There seems to be a lot of getting even mentality with all the races. Can’t say that I blame them, and I can only really intellectualize it since I’ve been on the side with most the breaks, but I hate, hate, hate the double standard. Everyone is allowed to be offended and touchy about everything, except the white people who are usually at the butt end of most the jokes. Oh well…maybe I just don’t get it.

I haven’t seen that one either. I’ll have to see if my friend with the thousands of movies has this one in his inventory.

Dancer in the Dark (2000, Lars von Trier)
They’re both really good. If I had to choose which one was superior, I’d choose Dogville, but it doesn’t nearly have the effect on me that Breaking the Waves does. I’ll let you in on something…no other movie that I have ever seen in my life, has made me sob so uncontrollably as Breaking the Waves did. It also stars Stellan Skarsgård, who is one of my favorite actors, and Emily Watson, who I literally adore. Very heady, very moody, and very good. I hope you see it soon and tell me what you think. I’ll make a deal with you…you review Breaking the Waves, and I’ll review Bamboozled. :)

Salmer fra kjøkkenet (Kitchen Stories) (2003, Bent Hamer)
I know that I’ll love it. I can just tell. You know how some trailers and synopsis’ just ‘reach’ you?

The Saddest Music in the World (2003, Guy Maddin)
:laugh: You are good at taking compliments in stride.

Ah, it was only a brief bit of breeze shooting. I haven't noticed any rollicking to-and-fros for a while either.

Nah, i know none of them. Just pestered Peggy in a polite way ;) (coz he'd always been knocking around in a pub not too far away since before he made good. Trivia fact for you: the landlords in Shaun of the Dead [who i don't think you ever see] are named after the ones in that pub - John and Bernie)

It's more of a documentary of sorts, but it still manages to be pretty dramatic.

I'm not sure if any of us do. So much of it is gut reaction from all of us, i think. The frustration us 'Whites' feel at the double standard is a type of insight into what it is to be discriminated against, but i really hope we can all move beyond this type of 'reverse-discrimination' as a tool for addressing things.

Would that be Holden? I imagine he sleeps on celluloid ;)

Well, if that's the deal, then count me in - i'd love to hear your take on Bamboozled. (tho i might sneakily watch Dogville in a double-sitting with Breaking the Waves. I've been straining at the bit to sit through that one for ages ;))

Ach, that's mainly coz i don't look where i'm going ;)

Before Sunset
 

Before Sunrise


Hitting thirty - feeling pretty, dazed and maybe dirty


Short-n-sweet synopsis
There's not much you can say about this film that the protagonists don't say in their arch verbal sparring. They pontificate philosophically, reminisce both airily and warily, and exchange emotions gleefully and sparingly.
Coz you see (if you've seen Before Sunset - which I haven't - yet), they've met before - one carefree day nine years ago in Vienna. And their paths have swept them off down distinct but passion-linked routes throughout the intervening years. That's to say - they've lived seperate lives, but they're still in each others' sway.

Short-n-sweet summary
It's all in the synopsis. Linklater finds some life-glue in this. It sticks to you. He found some top class collaborators too. Vive la diference - then live through it.

Short-n-sweet-review (if I have to ;))
Despite the evidently cerebral and procedural nature of a film based on one long conversation, this self assured, yet self-doubting, creation glides along so well that you just don't want to analyse it. Yes, Linklater uses lingering yet non-interfering shots that allow his actors to schmooze and persuse. Yes, the actors were in on the script, so this multi-rhythmic waterfall of dialogue we hear was prescribed by previous ears - but damn the whole thing flows so well you don't want to dip a bucket into that well just to take a sample. You don't want to dam the swell just to trap its sparkle. At the risk of being (more) pretentious, i'd say that, even if you don't like the sentiments expressed, or the emotional and philosophical mess the protagonists get enmeshed in, you've still got to respect the way they recreate one 'meaningful' day, saturated with natural subtexts but still left with enough breathing room to glide on its way.

It's not alienating like some 'heavy' French foreplay flicks - It's not 'light' like a Hollywood romcom full of emotional glitches. It's a streamlined set of tragi-comic stitches that circumscribes some marvellously fleshy life bits. It's more than just a fun light shower to weather, I'd say.

My verdict: One day with someone you love, and maybe the rest of your life with them too. What that's worth is up to you.

And hey Slay, I may have recorded The Idiots recently, and i may still have a huge hankering to see Dogville, but i'll hold true to my promise... a review of Breaking the Waves will swim this way at some point... (erm, i'd be a liar if i said 'really soon' ;))

Well shucks yes - if i can be forgiven for hardly ever posting in the movie forums ;)

:yup:

OK Gol. All your stuff has been assimilated. Thanks for writing!

Woman of the Dunes
 

Woman of the Dunes


A wandering insect-collector, whose only dream is to see his name immortalised by making a rare discovery, is offered sanctuary during a brief hike through a desert region of Japan...

The Hole That They've Dug
On descending a rope-ladder into a sandy chasm, the self-belittling city-dweller is welcomed into a curious home by a traditionally self-effacing young hostess. With charming ease they clash ideas and misconceptions, until the ever-encroaching night closes in.
The next day the man finds the rope-ladder has been withdrawn, and his free-roaming self-indulgence is replaced by imprisonment and toil - for you see, to keep this dell of semi-comfort alive, they must fight back the sand that threatens to swallow them whole.


The Wind That Blows Through It
One of those films about everything and nothing, Woman of the Dunes is beautifully filmed, full of contradictions (that make sense), and treacherously hard to define.

As a bizarre horizon-wide allegory of life trapped in a bowl, it's hard to touch. (And if that doesn't grab you, then the slow-burning plot also works as a 'great escape' thriller - all be it one where the tunnels have to be carved out of sand)

The erotic dependancy that evolves between the land-locked duo doesn't always favour the status-quo-aligned woman, but neither of the sexes come out on top in this world of complementary and competing forces. The overwhelming feeling is of a life led by 'exterior' whims, but one which you contribute to with both your goodness and your sins.

In this obscure oasis of emotion you never see the sand fall - it just accumulates. Yet despite its oppresive omnipresence, the camera catches it moving fluidly - suggesting that, even though the sand-trapped lovers may be fighting to stand still, they're making temporary paths that others can follow if they will.

Thanks for the review Gollygosh, sounds like an interesting movie. :yup:

agreed.

The Wild Blue Yonder
 

The Wild Blue Yonder


Werner Herzog takes us into the heart of blueness


The Journey
Brad Dourif turns his pained and angry eyes on the camera, and begins to narrate the tale of how his alien race became stranded on Earth. His surroundings are the dust-blown and junk-strewn remanants of their attempt to build a capital city. With a mixture of weasly bitterness and embracing empathy, he then turns to the adventures of another expedition - a human journey to a brand new planet. His planet.



The Destination
There is a lot of archive footage in Herzog's Sci-Fi 'documentary', and much of it is forced awkwardly into the narrative's theme. The scenes of floating astronauts become beguiling after a while, with the help of a Sardinian chorus singing wistful-mournfully in the background, but the reflective tone is regularly broken by the gap between story and scene.
What redeems the picture, beyond the hypnotic music and the well-meaning theme, is the 'purpose-shot' footage of Blue Yonder, the alien's world. Filmed beneath some icy-shelf of this broad planet, these scenes personify what Herzog's seems to really care about - the wonder and preciousness of the world we live on. Although it becomes more of a nature documentary for this phase, the residual viewpoint we carry into it - as observors of an alien place - helps to accentuate the experience, and the narrative finally comes into its own.
Those scenes are the highpoint, but the hotchpotch of other aspects thrown into the mix aren't without interest. The 'talking head' scientists who pop up from time to time are amusingly handled, but their ideas are still heard out, while the space footage frequently speaks for itself. Dourif also provides a believably strung-out presence as the story's face. It's just a shame that the film's overall presentation and logic aren't as powerful as the place they takes us to.

Verdict: Sporadic poetry hits home when it finds its tone

Sounds :cool: Thanks Gollygosh :D

The Seventh Seal
 

The Seventh Seal


Bergman's batty and brooding take on his favourite brow-furrowing topics...

The Journey
A knight returns from the Crusades to discover his homeland being dragged to damnation by the plague. To make matters worse, the first person to welcome him home is Death. Fortunately, he has some questions he wants to ask that particular hooded 'clown'. In a hard-nosed gambit, he staves off the reaper with the challenge of a game of chess, and spends his borrowed time in a continued search for God and sense.

http://img146.imageshack.us/img146/2666/80037692.jpg

The Crusade
Bergman performs an admirable balancing act between his childhood dedication to a God-guided world and his emerging beliefs in a one-strike-and-you're-out reality. The seeds for everthing that's doubting and life-affirming about his work seem to lie here.
The cast is quality, with Sydow leading the way as the conflicted knight, complemented admirably by Bjornstrand's sardonic and life-sharpened squire, not to mention the fuzzy acrobatic family. Some of the dialogue has a real bittersweet kick to it too - notably the church-painter and strawberry speeches - and just about every contrasting conceit that comes from the not-entirely-detached squire and the not-entirely-all-there frolicking family.
If you can get passed the white-faced incarnation of death stumbling on the beach, and the odd 'stagey' comedy nod to camera, this is a wonderfully crazed, involving and heartfelt journey into the preoccupations of a 14th Century land - and the terrifying moral mazes that are still at hand.

2046
 

2046



Wong Kar-Wai has done me wrong...

The Trip
A love-lorn writer, who has turned lothario, recounts how his money-spinning Sci-Fi books draw on the people who have passed him by in the night. And how no-one returns from the destination towards which his narrative unceasingly flies.



The Fare
Set in the familiar care-worn '60s Hong Kong of In the Mood for Love, this sequel-of-sorts extends the theme of unrequited love - and doesn't really take it anywhere new. In fact, it runs into a disappointing dead end.
Despite the expected rhapsodies of sensuous cinematography and finely portrayed frailty, it's a shame that Kar-Wai felt the need to run the same theme into the ground. Whereas Mood could be seen as a 'carpe diem' warning, this repitition becomes a fatalistic, backward-looking insistence on love being a one-shot thing.
The central relationship between Tony Leung and Ziyi Zhang is still engaging (despite her adoration for him being a touch perplexing), - as are all of the backstories - and the futuristic explorations too. What doesn't work is layering on the 'love'-conquests of a lothario who insists that his life stopped a long time before - and who infers that all he wants is to turn time on its head. Hey - don't we all - but there's no need to make a film about lying languidly in the bed that you've made.

- coz it does still have a classy click of recognition going on.

Cheers Nebulous :). I'm in semi-panning mood as far as reviews go - but it's fun to spank those flick that just won't behave ;).

Thanks for the great reviews Gollygosh :D

Thanks for the great reviews Gollygosh :D

Hotel (2001)
 

Hotel


Mike Figgis sinks his teeth into the movie business

The Location
An infighting host of luvvies swarm over a Venitian hotel while filming an ill-thought-out Dogme movie.

The Troublesome Residents
Want a movie that uses the antithesis of the Hollywood-style formula-story? Then this is a concoction that will get your blood fizzing merrily. Ironically enough though, it seems to draw much of its inspiration from the veins of the Hollywood beast. It's not an antidote to formulaic filmmaking - more of a catalyst thrown into the broth to see what froths over.

Want some sense? Ok, then this might not be the right film for you. It starts with John Malkovich arriving at the hotel, and then sharing platitudes with the hotel staff over a meal - from his side of a small prison cell. With amusing little asides, we realise the staff are cannibals. [Indeed, they might even be vampires. This isn't cleared up. Not much is, but that's part of the fun].

Fortunately, if you want a filmic film, the movie crew soon turn up and we get to see numerous extracts from their version of 'The Duchess of Malfi' as they make it - in all its cheating, backstabbing and brazenly bizarre glory.

If you want structure, well, the film is split into two parts: the half where Rhys Ifans's wonderfully deranged director is in charge - and the second half where he's been paralysed by an assassination attempt (and observes things via some form of astral projection).

The first section is pretty tight, considering all the split-screen compositions and constant changes in camera style. The second lulls for a while, but soon starts to provide some curvaceous hooks that draw you in again. If nothing else, the emerging prevelance of strange sexual antics and self-centred speeches start to lend a consistancy of their own. And a hotel does seem the perfect place to examine the oddities of a film 'family' at work. [Altho i don't think they normally get dismembered with this much frequency].

To cut a long hotel visit short, I'll repeat that i think this film is mainly about the blood-sucking meat-market nature of the movie world. But you could find lots of sense in its scattershot stylings, or none at all. I came out suspecting that the flamenco music was used to suggest the pride and difficulty involved in unifying timing, image and song while directing a movie. But maybe i'd been infected by the madness by that point ;).

Whatever the case, Figgis seems to be thoroughly enjoying himself. His array of digital techniques more often add than detract from this banquet of biting satire, sibilant sensuality, experimental Elizabethan drama and frequent dog and catfights. Like much of it, the improvised scenes are hit and miss, but they also add to the freeflowing and enjoyable carnage. The music, and the sense of ferocious experimental certainty, are quality throughout.

It's not perfect, but what is? The perfect, omnipetently-controlled, film would be, as the director seems to suggest, 'a trick'.


Verdict: See the film world cut into bits - then sung a little bit better again.

That sounds interesting Gollygosh. Thanks for the review :yup:

Tampopo
 

Tampopo

The 'noodle western'



The Meat
Amongst the incongruous modern setting of monorails and neon-lit bars, a weathered trucker in a cowboy hat helps a widow become the best noodle-soup cook in the East.


The Flavour
This sweet and lovingly-made creation could only have been cooked up by someone who understands the chemistry of cuisine. The central story of a group of food-aesthetes helping out the timid widow Tampopo is just an excuse to exercise the director's worship of all things mouth-watering.

The cowboy-esque narrative is garnished with numerous flights of fancy, including an old lady who delights in squeezing food, a man who would die for the noodles he loves, and the sweet and sour food-sex of a gangster and his moll. This last pair of characters provide the only really disturbing scene - when the gangster swaps saliva with a teenage girl having tasted her bloodied oyster. Yes. That bit's not pretty.

Everything else is particularly lighthearted. The bar-room scuffles that occur take place mainly off camera. Unless you find the sight of a loving couple passing an egg yoke from mouth to mouth shocking, there's nothing else here that should upset your stomach.

(Oh, except the decapitation of a tortoise in the name of satiation ;)).


For the rest, the focus is on being light and fluffy. Tramps are secret cuisine experts who sing in perfect harmony. Millionaire's chauffeur-chefs will help you root through bins to discover the perfect noodle recipe. Even the violent death of the gangster, and his description of hunting the perfect yam-intestine sausage in the snow - is described as an act of love and beauty. It's food as sex, life and pain. And it's scatty fun all the way :).




Verdict: The editing maybe choppy, the film-stock slightly sloppy, and the comedy occasionally floppy, but there are some lingering moments of delight in this celebration of down-to-earth gourmet respites

(Incidently, the final scene is also one of the most apt i've ever seen)

Cheers Nebbles. I've got some free time on my hands ;).

Europa (Zentropa)
 

Europa


Dark days in post-war Germany


The Journey...

A naive young American arrives in Germany to help the ruined country with its struggle to return to normality. He finds a shattered nation, riven with terrorism, poverty and dark secrets. In a world like this, even his role as train conductor marks him out as privileged, and draws danger to his side...

The Fare...

Trier's film is awash with a surprising amount of visual trickery, considering his later appreciation for sparse techniques, but this isn't a lavish affair by any means. The playful use of back-projection and overlays, and the insiduous use of colour-washes and hypnotic and disturbing soundscapes, combine to create a chaotic and jumbled world. In this environment even order brings no comfort, while the blanket of exhausted-disorder merely obscures the ever-lurking threat of a sharp and sudden death.

With the help of the visual artifice, the film opens a window onto a tumultuous time - and one which we are liable to overlook. Thankfully, it also allows us to spy moments of peace and comedy through gaps in the wreckage as well - from the sublime scenes of snow filling a fractured church, to the screen-stealing turns of the American's irrascible guardian, played with marvellous malevolance by Ernst-Hugo Järegård. And that's without mentioning the love that slowly gains the strongest hold over our young adventurer's heart.

Verdict: Although the film overplays the historical significane of the 'Werewolf' terrorists, and the ending is a poorly-handled hash, the jarring-yet-hypnotic journey which it takes you on is well worth the trip into its tunnel with no end in sight.

I'm kind of embarrassed not to have replied to your thread before now.

'Cos it's great. :)

Sly's character is loosely based on a composite of Van Heflin's characters in 3:10 To Yuma and Shane, hence the name. Fitting, as Cop Land is a pretty fine modern Western... :)

:blush: Cheers man :)

(Truth be told i rarely post in here meself ;))

Ay, that it is :)

But i haven't seen either of those flicks - you've extended my 'too see' list yet further! Nooooooo ;)

I know the feeling. My own review thread is looking a bit, pardon the pun, tatty... :)

Thanks for the great review, the pictures are interesting. :D

I'm trying to catch-up… great reviews Gol… thanks for sharing... and I am now on a crusade in search of The Seventh Seal … :D

Tis great :). Kind of Shakespearean in the way it cleverly expresses conceits but in a totally human and affecting way.

I just watched Wild Strawberries the other day, and that's a keeper too - although it treads a different line while exploring humanity and doubts, and ends up in some different 'mythical lands' as a result. Might try and do a write up on it, but so much that's good about it is tied to the performances that it'd be hard to do it justice.

Reckon i might go for The Rite next on the Bergman front, one of his made-for-TV ones.

Cheers for reading guys :)

A Cock and Bull Story
 

A Cock and Bull Story


The Cartoon & The Finished Piece

So many films never see the light of day, but Winterbottom’s latest has reached full term in rambunctious style, bearing its deformities proudly and making comic light of its difficult birth. And that’s what makes this raking exercise in flea-scratching such a pleasing version of the shaggy dog tale Tristram Shandy.
You don’t need to have read the book to enjoy this ‘post-pre-post-modern’ journey into the tribulations of filmmaking and life’s eternal mysteries. Thankfully though, a literary expert pops up anyway to give us an apt definition of the book’s intentions. Sterne’s 18th Century ‘soap opera’ demonstrated, at luxurious length, how impossible it is to pin life down. Nobody can enclose life in a single book – and even an army of individuals can’t encircle it’s elusive bads-and-goods.
For this reason, Winterbottom has focused on the reality he knows best – the heavy-footed eggshell-dance of filmmaking, with all the strange vapours and distinct flavours that that collaborative effort brings.

Our ‘hero’ (Steve Coogan) spends more time primping his lead-man’s ego, and negotiating tabloid journos, than partaking in the film. His ample partner-in-crime (Rob Brydon) helps the absurder moments grow with his finely-pitched performance, as troublesome production meetings and problematic plastic wombs make sure the pre-planned story must find new ways to flow.
Art will always fail to imitate life, says the literary expert, and to that we could add science too. The science of filmmaking gets put under the 18th Century microscope here, and its minutae form - would you believe - a very expressive tapestry.
Where the films fails (and not in the failing-funnily sense) is that Coogan simply can't sum up the digressive and impressive audacity of the original author/protagonist - and the film as whole has gone for a far simpler goal. Seeing the film industry put through the reflective wringer of some old-school dissembling is all well and good (and fun too), but it just can't present the joyous, undaunted and expansive exploits of the original book.

Thankfully, Tristram's tale is explained mainly through the actions of others - so as much as Coogan is limited by the self-parodying lead-actor role he's stuck with, and as much the scope is narrowed down to the world of film and precious little else, there's an array of delights swinging round the small but weighty premise on show. From the self-assured intro to the conjured chaos that ensues, Winterbottom's latest is well worth a view (And frankly, i was crying tears of laughter despite myself at the Brydon-Coogan improv with which the curtain closes).

Thanks Golly, nice review :yup:

Black Cat, White Cat
 

Black Cat, White Cat


Yay! Brassy music and irrepresible Gypsies

The Deal:

A skinny clan of eccentric gypsies ride their luck in inimitable fashion as they follow their hearts, flee their debtors, and get into endless scrapes.

The Dance of the Cards:

A besotted son, a failure of a father, and an iconic grandfather form the family at the heart of this off-beat project - but families are amorphous things in the world of the Balkan gypsies - especially when the local thugs are looking to marry off their kin...

To keep body and soul together our rangy heroes must placate the colourful clans that abound around them, recoup their loses (frequently via outlandish plans), and avoid arranged marriages if they wish to follow their dreams.

Although the film’s main drive comes from the merry-go-round of anarchic exuberance which pervades most of the plot, there is a strong strand of familial loyalty tying the action together. When your dead relatives are watching you from above, all scheming must be undertaken with dutiful pride. Even a coke-fuelled criminal addicted to Western power-ballads makes sure that family traditions are fulfilled – although on cloudy days, when the in-laws can't look down (according to him), he’s liable to bend the rules.

Overall, Kusturika’s gold-toothed feel-good flick is full of rampant fun, larger-than-life characters and frivolous excesses. It slides into a fair amount of slapstick by the end, but even the sloppiest of jokes are delivered with elan, and so become easily absorbed into the free-flowing whole. The warm cinematography lends a vibrancy to all the rustic shenanigans, and the mix of carefree hedonism and seat-of-your-pants shiftiness is clearly meant as a loving salute to the ‘glamorised’ gypsy life portrayed.

Verdict: Love, honour, guns, and action-filled sunny days make for a refreshing freewheeling farce.

+ http://img70.imageshack.us/img70/4386/brass0gx.gif (random brassiness)

Thanks Golly, sounds like a fun movie :D

It's a good laugh, ay ;)

It turns out my sis's mate is in a band that plays similar music to the film's. Gotta love that energy.

Cheers for reading Nebs :) (I think i may have gone a bit over-the-top with my reviewing style ;))

Last Year in Marienbad
 

Last Year at Marienbad


An affair of timeless tragedy plots its own surreal demise


The symmetrical groundwork

At a luxurious health spa a man detaches himself from the baroque banalities of his surroundings and approaches a distant woman. They seem to hit it off. They should. They met one year before - or so he claims. She is amused, but non-commital. He is persistant, but adroitly so. And so they dance their way discretely amongst the ominous displays of power and wealth that lie on all sides. But only they seem to be playing a game which is in any way alive.


I could as easily wax lyrical about this film as spit on it from a great height for its pretention. But, given that it's concocted so well, i'll let this review fall under it's spell. I certainly did while I was watching it, after all...

The entangled maze

Suffocating and beguiling poetry, spliced with silence, greet us as we enter this film, only to be replaced by a stream a curiously consistant non-sequiters, both verbal and visual, as we are drawn further into its thrawl. It's an immediately dreamlike way to begin.

The tone never entirely sits still tho - even as the central players draw the world towards them, intriguing the viewer with their familiar yet obscure exchanges. The haughty realm of the health spa revolves around them in a wilful ballet of symbolism, lined with idle aristocratic sophistry, reeling ever more haphazardly as time throbs and fades with increasing subjectivity. You feel for the two would-be lovers at the centre. You feel you'd like to know which combination of reality you're presented with is real too.

It doesn't actually matter where they end up crawling through this marble-jungle though. What matters is that in this airless arena, they seem to be able to live off each other's breath, although rarely do they have the courage or foolishness to abandon the statuesque poise this stage requires of them.

To watch this is to be caught in a dream world that can be dazzlingly abstract - only occasionally alluding to matters which are bruisingly real. It's ultimately ludicruous by the end, but structurally ingenious none-the-less, and its outlandish pretentions don't dismantle the illusuory magic that has been spun. In fact, they sit at the heart of the curious conditions constructed here - and explore, mainly splendidly, and particularly stylishly, a very human conundrum.

Even though time and place are weaved to and fro, everything is suffused with a feeling of immediacy, and continuity. Resnais really has made reality dance to his tune.



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http://www.moviemail-online.co.uk/im.../Marienbad.jpg

Thanks for the great review Golly :D

Mother Night
 

Mother Night


An American by birth, a Nazi by reputation

The Plot

Having emigrated to Germany as a child, a now-successful playwright feels little concern at the rise of the Nazis. His world is the theatre, his only commitment is to the 'nation of two' he has formed with his actress wife.

But when the idea is put to him that he could use his way with words to counteract the Nazis, should their influence increase, he's intrigued. And that inner white-hatted-cowboy gets to gallop once the conflict really begins. He constructs compelling propaganda broadcasts for his Nazi masters, while also including coded messages at the behest of an US agent he rarely sees.

Heroism doesn't always get to shout its achievements from the rooftops though. His mission is lost in the fog of war, and he never did know what secrets he was transmitting anyway. With the back of the conflict broken, he limps home to an anonymous New York, but finds that repercussions will never be far away...


The Downfall
Nolte lays on a performance of continent-straddling excellence at the heart of this film. Whether talking in smoky assured tones of the Nazi's ultimate victory, or withering on the vine of a life separated from his beloved wife, he creates a character that makes the milieus explored sit up and live.

And that's key, because it seems bringing a Vonnegut book to the screen is no easy task. The ideas that shoot through this narrative and give it its final kick are all represented to good effect, but the budget really tells at points & the comedy sections seemed to be too clown-footed to really tap into his acerbic wit. (I would have loved to see the 'Nazi religion' flounderings portrayed with a straight face, underlining the menacing-if-ludicrous nature of the fringe tastes they represent.)


The solid supporting cast struggle to bring the story home in the face of all this grey face paint and wayward spotlights (plus a certain plot twist that stretches credulity a bit), but the overall journey is rewarding despite these intermittent dips.

Ain't no winners in war, but loving-and-losing leaves a mark that tells all the more.

Re: Golgot's Reviews
 

At last you are back you old goat ;D great review :yup:

Re: Golgot's Reviews
 

Hey Nebs :)

Paying money to see Transformers made me so angry I just had to write about something i actually liked ;). Cheers for reading darl :)

A Canterbury Tale
 

A Canterbury Tale


A Very British 'Seventh Seal'?

The Furrow & The Brow

In darkest rural Britain a WWII villain is daubing innocent young girls with glue, leaving their hair quite unmanegeable, and a trio of plucky visitors intrigued about what to do.

Before the cad is caught there will be much smoking of honest pipes, devil-may-care displays of pep, and thoughtful overtures to a world where everything moves to a moderate but rhythmically-beautiful step...


The Rumination & The Holy Cow

This is definitely one of the quirkiest WWII propoganda flicks I've ever seen (axe-wielding dames in Went the Day Well included).

Our protagonists are first 'revealed' to us while in the thrawl of 'blackout' Britain's embrace - We get to know them via their perky voices, and next to nothing else. It's a brave approach by 'The Archers' crew in charge of this gig - and not the only playful approach they take to illuminating their pastoral whirligig.

When further light is shed on the plot, we find ourselves in the delightful dell of a parochial village - one that's frequently animated and sublimated with artful and loving skill.

You can forget the 'glue' mystery now if you like. Or enjoy it to the full. The plot curves like a country road rather than twisting out of control - it's the pastoral lifestyle that you're most meant to feel, not the retort of unsuspected blows.

War, worship & cinema 'discernship' get bundled up into a neat little travelling sack as events progress, but the reduction of rural 'sprawl' to tall propoganda tale still leaves the feeling that you've breathed in more fresh air than hot.

Not quite A Matter of Life and Death, but stands up well, and follows its own path as a wholesome holy tale

Re: Golgot's Reviews
 

Great reviews GG... thanks for sharing.... 'tis nice to see you hanging out again.... :)

Re: Golgot's Reviews
 

Hiya Tom! Good to see you reviewing again! How goes things across the pond?

Re: Golgot's Reviews
 

Hey guys :)

All's good. Just floating about the place ;). Glad you're liking the reviews :)

Mainly been lolling around watching a series of 'British Cinema' nights that have been running here. Finally managed to get it together enough to write one up (with the aid of film-relevant traditional ales ;) - I wonder what the 'right' thing to accompany Blade Runner would be? Snake-substitute & absinthe maybe? ;) Hmmm, might start a thread...)

Re: Golgot's Reviews
 

Keep them coming :yup: Thanks Gollygosh :kiss:

Flash, Aaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh
 

Just stumbled on this review an thought I might as well link it here as well. I'm so tidy :D

Gordon's Alive!

http://www.wetcircuit.com/wp-content...hGordon_01.jpg

Re: Golgot's Reviews
 

I used to be able to do the falsetto bit from the Queen title song perfectly. Probably have to violently cross my legs beforehand, now...

/Cupid Stunt :D

Re: Golgot's Reviews
 

Just found your review thread and love your style!

Egotism a la Carte
 

In a further act of online anal retention, i thought i might scoop up some of my Movie Tab quickies and slap em here too. Lord only knows why ;)

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Ten Canoes - Loved every last honey-drop of humour and humanity. A heady-playful journey into an alternative time, culture and cinema-story. Plus it's fun :) (You can even forgive the *****y subtitles - and the preponderance of ****-references too, if those things are liable to offend you ;))


London (1994) - A thoughtful and floating 'poetry documentary' on London circa '94. Rambling, 'sketchy', yet sure-footed (both visually and 'narrationally'), it turns over a lot of stones. I never knew that some of the Jamaican 'Windrush' arrivals were stashed under Clapham Common, or that the familiar iron railings seen around town are actually recycled WWII stretchers. All good - and you don't have to be a Londoner to dig the tone.


Blow - rewatched it with great ease. Depp's a good anchor for any shipwreck.


Sunshine - Watched it on a small screen, so can't judge the visuals properly (altho they did look reet swish). Story line was a scattered mess for me tho.


Pan's Labyrinth - Yas, a good'un. Bit weird centring a 15-rated film round a child's narrative and that, and the Fascist boss was a bit of a stock 'demon' in some ways. But good. Yas.


Borat (ect etec iksetyra) - Funniest horse tumble ever. (Was that spontaneous? It's all ruined if that weren't spontaneous ;))


A Mighty Wind - Only turned up to 5-n-a-half. Improvised beige. (Liked the colostomy-sales-song at the end tho)


Tadpole - Sex and Voltaire eh? With added dufflecoats? Hmm.
Presented with the clunky pretentiousness of teen espousing philosophy (deliberately? not sure), this short tale of a 15-year-old's love/lust for his step mum is still a fine watch. The faffing around in French and the facile quotes are annoying, but everything else is handled with an accessible lightness of touch. Bebe Neuwirth, Weaver and Ritter are all class, and the book-bruised kid-lead does well n'all.


The People vs Larry Flint - The details are involving, the characters are large, the direction is suitably pulpy for the most part, and hey, Courtney Love plays a good junkie to round it all off ;)



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The Long Goodbye - Almost dreamlike mystery somehow composed of violence and realism. Liked it. Might get round to seeing some of Altman's later stuff eventually. (But hey, i've seen Popeye, so i'm kinda 'replete' on that score ;))


Man on the Moon - Carrey wasn't quite as good as i remembered him in this, but that's just coz Andy Kaufman seems to be such an inimitable loon. Great tale of another big personality tho - and i've been bingeing on YouTube clips of the real deal ever since :)


Unknown White Male - Meandering amateurish doc, but suitably so. It follows a 30-something ex-stock-broker who's mysteriously suffered complete 'retrograde' amnesia - and has become something of a 'man-child' hippy instead.

Made by a friend, the film's best moments touch on the confusion and emotional wrenches suffered by the subject, during his initial adjustment, and by his loved ones during their tougher journey towards accepting this new individual. It's slow, and not exactly the Sartre-on-cinefilm it sometimes wants to be, but intriguing none-the-less. (Some say the film's a fake, but i'm not so sure. At the end of the day tho, the phenomenon exists, and i dare say it probably pans out this way a lot. Except without the ex-stock-broker's bankroll to finance a new lifestyle :indifferent: )


The Grifters - Low-key slinky number that smoulders plenty but never completely hits the spot. The leads are all pretty classy tho, and there's some decent suspended sentences, and pithy paybacks, along the way.


Cop land - Still the well-delivered slow-punch to the guts that i remembered. Bit cheesy in places but pretty unflinching in others. Shame Liotta goes into an over-acting spasm tho.


Night Watch - ultimately a daft horror/fantasy outing, but lovingly executed, and on a 'sub-Hollywood' budget too. Has enough little kinks and twists in the mix to keep it mainly intriguing-enough throughout. The playstation bits and the afterburn bus were firmly in the 'daft' category tho. Might go somewhere interesting in the trilogy as a whole, but more likely to be a Matrix burn-out all told.


Alien Resurrection - Revisited this a few times over the last few years, and haven't been disappointed. Not sure whether it's Weaver's alien-love-affair insistences, or some of the other devilish little twists in it, but i love nigh-on all the conceits. And it's good to see Jeunet applying his heartfelt brand of warm-dark-stylishness to this kind of realm.

Couple of chinks in the armour, and the occasional clanking sticking point, but it's still a pretty streamlined beast of a sci-fi flick overall.

(And dammit i got drawn into the first hour of Infernal Affairs after that. They're evil, these revisitable films ;))


Habla con Ella - My first Almodovar. Wasn't disappointed. Bizarre but grounded plot, high camp, strong female characters (even tho the main two spent most of their time in a coma). The 'hermitic' natures of the two male leads, and some curious motivations, might have made the plot a bit too disconnected, but there was a consistancy throughout somehow. Endearing despite the creepier aspects of the central plot.


A Letter to Three Wives (1949) - Well-handled ensemble piece with some verbal spark and pleasing performances. A fun little jaunt into small-town 'married strife'.



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Me and You and Everyone We Know - A strange little doggy bag of 'art installation' nervous breakdowns and child voyages into the adult world.

In other words: it's quirky. And overall i enjoyed it - which sort of surprised me, as some of it was quite shrill, and other bits fairly trite. Perhaps it helped that there was some danger and groundedness lurking amongst its wandering clouds of fluff?


Ping Pong - A friendship. Ping pong. And - somewhere in the middle - a collaborative rivalry which may just bring out the best in everyone. (Will it? Well, you'll just have to watch and see ;))

(NB - includes the standard chorus of embittered coaches and unstoppable nemesises - but still conjures a fresh and breezey take on the well-worn sporting genre :))


Enigma - Staid and a bit choppy in places, but in a thoroughly suitable way. A slow-burner overall, but a pretty decent one. And it almost manages to make mathmaticians sexy. Heavens.


Cypher - Reasonable slice of paranoid sci-fi twistiness that never unlocks any real magic. Worth a watch none-the-less.


Heat - Like a slick yet inept thief, this one always seems to grab my attention only to lose it. Repeatedly. For hours. That becomes very annoying. The finale works as a perfect summary of the film for me: It has tension and a nice little twist, but is also beset with lulls and ludicrous moments.


Ghost Dog - Erm 35%. A couple of nice conceits swamped by a flood of duff ones, and some made-for-tv standard execution. Waving a Rashomon novelette around does not a good film make.


Cutting Edge: The Magic of Movie Editing - Silly title, standard doc, but with some some earnest opinions and insights on display. The better talking-heads blew most of the fluff away.



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The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean - Fun shaggy bear story from the Wild West. Stands on its hindlegs, and scratches a few fleas. Revels in its absurdities.

Tis good.


Copenhagen - Yay, a TV dramatisation of a play about two physicists. Having quantum crisises. During WW2.

Excruciatingly badly done in places, and excruciatingly ambitious in others, but really interesting subject matter. If you want to know something about how the first nuclear arms race was won, and how it twisted up some of the individuals involved, then it's an involving peek through the looking glass.

On all other fronts, it's like being hit in the face with a manuscript.



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Only Human - I'm no big fan of farce, but this one was a tour-de-force. I guess the Israeli-Palestinian conflict sitting in its Spanish heart helped a lot. Loved the political sparks in the final bathroom clash, but everything from the gun-toting Grandad to the multi-coloured relationship doubts and redemptive bouts was good.

As was the accusation of duck murder.

Re: Golgot's Reviews
 

That'd be some stage show ;)

Why thanking you very much :)

More recipes for anal-retention...
 

That last list was so stoopidly long i couldn't put enough pwetty pictures in it. I have split it into two stoopidly long posts instead...

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My Name is Joe - Haven't been exposed to much Loachian emoto-realism, but this stuff cut good. Class performances and story all told. I was carried along by almost every battering wave.

*Note: Beware, all who wonder near, tho. The dialect can be like molasses eating beer ;)*


Ghost World - Lah. That's some well 'framed' perky angst. I identified with most of the themes far too much - despite not being a rebellious girl or a 40-year-old nerd.

(I'm now slightly worried that i might be something in between ;))



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Chopper
Very Aussie. Brash, jovial, violent, inventive. Liked it a lot. Grim in places of course, but in an utterly fitting way. The director seems to have 'reinvented' the story well - if perhaps 'glamourising' a touch too much in certain ways. Bana nails the role completely. (And the extras with 'Chopper' himself, and his commentary, are class additions incidently).


Glengarry Glen Ross
Powerful acting all the way. Some nice little twists n turns keep it interesting - altho its the stars doing their thing that really makes it work (not that it isn't surprising in the first place that a story about salesmen could be engaging). Translates the close-n-personal theatre-derived story to the screen in a very effective way.



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The Grapes of Wrath
Despite a slightly 'folksy' start, it was much more knotty and up-for-a-scrap than i'd expected. Shame some of the more extreme examples from the original book (which i've read about) couldn't have made it past the censors of the day to give it an even real-er feel - and to increase its parable potential too.



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The Roaring Twenties - Oh yes, fiesty fun indeed. Wonderful range of styles, and feeling of context, for such a fast-paced gangster-flick. Loved the Lang-with-bells-on montage which ushered in the final act. Great performances all round and barely a moment wasted in this high octane tale of an everyman taken down by tumultuous circumstances. (My only real gripe would be that Cagney's character slides a bit too easily into his role as a hood, but his sparky and crafted performance makes it all good). What can i say - highly recommended.


A Cottage on Dartmoor (1930) - I can see why Asquith (son of the PM dontcha know) had a rep for being overly-dramatic - but this slice of silent UK cinema has got a couple of things going for it. The assured handling of light and shadow in certain locations helps generate both believably prosaic and engagingly theatrical scenes. Very suitable application of burgeoning techniques like close-ups and narrative flashbacks give the film a pretty dynamic feel for the time - and all these elements complement the decent tale of jealousy-gone-wrong. Heavy on the simplisitic symbolism in places, but fully capable of being both tense and touching, it's worth a watch.

As an added bonus, you also get to see a crowd taking in a new 'talkie' (and even tho it's still 'silent' for the viewer, you get an idea of the shift that was taking place in the medium at that time)


Zulu - damn, why can i never resist watching this? Such a cannily conveyed piece tho - hammy mutton-chops sections and all ;). Love the way it isn't <EDITED> entirely a 'propoganda' piece - actually managing to be fairly even-handed to both sides at times, despite viewing events almost entirely from the Brit perspective etc (and only casting occasional caustic comments at the politics behind the situation). It shows both shamefullness and bravery in war, without (overly) glorifying the process.

And it's got some great lines...

'More spit man!'

(May have misheard that bit ;))



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The 400 Blows - Ay, very decent, believeable tale. Thought for a while the basically flawless storytelling-n-acting was gonna be ruined by a pet hate of mine - the 'misunderstood-director-as-star' phenomenon. I was glad when the daydreaming, Balzac-reading, film-loving tearaway fleshed out his background to the psychologist [cementing the kid's presence in the role at the same time]. It made the character seem to stand up more in his own right, made his actions more understandable, and made him more of an 'everyman' too in some ways. Strong slice-of-life stuff overall.



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Duel to the Death - Ahh, you know that when a film opens with ninjas leaping into a library with superfluous synchronicity - and then speed-reading the scrolls within - you're in for a silly ride. Just what i wanted :)

This early 80s wire-work fest laid the groundwork for the likes of Hero, with its accomplished fantasy action and well-filmed locations. But its big budget isn't exactly accompanied by a 'big' script. The strands of warrior-honour, political intrigue and thwarted love just about keep the fight->exposition->fight storytelling ticking over tho. There's even a little bit of pathos in there, but it's mainly swamped by the ludicrousness of it all.

And let's face it - this film is about the giant exploding ninjas, expensive false side-burns, comically bad music, and tree-hopping masters. And it's got those in spades ;)


The Edukators - Bit contrite in places, and long-winded in others, but charming too at times. More life-journey than political pondering-session - which does unbalance the film slightly, in that it doesn't really settle on its slant until about halfway in. Well acted throughout tho, and well handled by the director on the whole. The 'available light' hand-held camerawork suits the film n'all.


The Rutles - Fun pre-Spinal-Tap parody-homage for the Fab Four. I found it floundered a bit in the middle tho (the songs seemed a bit overspun by that point, altho perhaps i just wasn't getting the references). Eric Idle's docu Pythonisms are a plus (and it's good to see the SNL crew of the time). After the 'tragical mystery tour' the jokes came thick and fast again. Loved Nasty's sit-in in the shower etc, and the 'missing trousers being an Italian sign for death' :D



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Rififi - Definitely deserves its classic status. All three acts (the planning, famed 'silent' heist, and messy revenge aftermath) have some classy moments and periods of sustained tension.

The Arrow R2 DVD has some decent chatter with Dassin n'all. His insights into how the McCarthy blacklisting affected him, others, and even the Rififi script are well worth catching.


High Fidelity - Liked it better this time. I'm so definitely hitting 30's headspace ;)



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Confessions of a Dangerous Mind - Lots to enjoy. Kind of like Man on the Moon meets Leon. Kaufman seems to have got off to a good start with this kooky take on a gen-uine showbiz 'assassin'. Clooney does a pretty impressive job all told on his directing debut (altho i love how the cinematographer lets Georgey take full credit for the weirdly posterised/over-exposed flashback scenes ;))

Yeah, fun, without being a feel-good fix-up. Nicely handled too :)


A Moment of Innocence - An Iranian director meets the policeman he stabbed 20 years ago during revolutionary turmoil. They make a film together, each taking a camera and filming a version of their younger selves.
It's a dramatisation. It's a revisitation. It's an exploration. It's all of those things and more. Yet, as one iMDB reviewer put it, everything is presented with a surreally accesible lightness of touch - a daily familiarity which belies the serious undercurrents.
It's both a youthful and a mature film in many ways. The sweetly-wrapped resolution is wonderful, but it does still leave you wondering exactly how this film-meets-fact journey was 'exposed'...

(What i mean by that is, i'd love to see some solid behind-the-scenes chat on how much of this was planned and 'real', on behalf of the old combatants - who also star in the film)


The 13th Warrior - I've got a soft spot for this film - coz i weathered a stranded night by sleeping through several sittings of it ;). It's strong points are still strong tho - the recreation of a Viking outpost works well - and the myth-weaving and imminant-horror-squeezing provide a fair few highlights. The rest is, well, just about passable, and only periodically laughable. The tone dips and flips, but when it works, it's involving.


Miller's Crossing - Nice ambiguousness to Byrne's central character. It's well shot and paced, with a decent switch-back plot to boot. There is a bit of scenery-chewing going on, but at least Finney and Turturro do it well ;)


Gambit (1966) - fun daft romcom heist-ishness. Definitely worth a slump-in-front-of. MacLaine, Caine and Lom skip through the dappiness with aplomb and the plot has got a few tricks up its neat little sleeves

Re: Golgot's Reviews
 

Love your short reviews Golly :)

Re: Golgot's Reviews
 

Cheers Nebs :)

Have you seen Ten Canoes btw? (I should really be down at the Oz film fest that's going on at the mo here... but what can i say... London's expensive ;))

Re: Golgot's Reviews
 

It's #8 on her favorite movie list above. :)

Re: Golgot's Reviews
 

Only 8th? Racist!

;)

Re: Golgot's Reviews
 

They are in no order :yup:

I think it is a great movie :yup:

Re: Golgot's Reviews
 

Libertarian

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Our Daily Bread
 

Our Daily Bread
The food chain has some curious links





















More than one man went to mow

Most of the food that passes our lips is prepared using a mixture of daunting technology and repetitive acts. This film documents some of those 'hidden' processes. Simple as that.


You are what you reap

This is documentary in a very 'pure' form - the director has specifically set out to observe, not to judge. There's no emotive soundtrack, intrusive editorialising or driving narrative. What you get instead is the hypnotic banality of field & factory work, combined with the hypnotic peculiarity of the 'robots' churning away behind the scenes. And it's frequently fascinating.

The reliance on ambient-sound alone proves particularly effective - even familiar scenes such as patiently-advancing combine harvesters gain some gravitas when their sheer size reverberates noisily towards the screen. But beyond the rush and swoop of even the more surprising machinery, lies the strange juxtaposition of the natural and the artificial. From the genteel greenhouse that is clearly alongside a (muffled) urban station, to the reams of robotic arms mimicking the timely sweeps of trance-limbed farmhands, an intriguing blend of dissonance and symmetry is brought to the table.

Despite the director's unblinking gaze the camera does still shy from some of the less palatable facts. You'll see few lives being ended, but a great abundance of strangely-distant acts. Chickens starting and ending their lives in drawers, cows puzzlingly blasted with straw, and pig carcasses circling a carbolic-sprinkled vision of hell. Thankfully humour and humanity still regularly swim to the fore, from convivial communal meals to the strangest window view you'll ever see. (Which I don't want to give away. Just like I'll stay quiet about the strange conjunction of a stick and a giant metal hand). One thing I will say though is something I never thought I would: salt mining has to be seen to be believed. There's always a bit of wonder around the corner in this film.

Without a Baraka-style soundtrack to forge you forcefully down a wild-urban stream you're left with the cumulative steady pulse of industrial dominion over animals, workforces & plants.
But whether settled on a cart inching between dewy vines, or swooping on a 'Bond-villain' monorail through uber-sized barns, the camera catches it all very well indeed.

Doesn't always overturn as much earth as you'd like, and intermittently like watching radishes ripen, it still blows some plastic cobwebs off our easily-satiated view of food's role in our lives.

Re: Golgot's Reviews
 

Thanks for the review Gollygosh :)

Re: Golgot's Reviews
 

Buncha things i've seen recently...





The Spy in Black


Another Powell & Pressburger WWII propaganda flick that is charmingly composed and pleasingly off-kilter. It's biggest selling point is the daring humanisation of a German U-boat captain, who comports himself with both pride and honour during the ensuing espionage games. Despite almost silent-era visual characterisation later on, and some general melodrama, the pursuit of glorified-realism over stereotypical-perfidy stays at the fore, and meshes with the sleek-but-‘homely’ production style very well indeed.







The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada
































Tommy Lee Jones’s gruff role & performance sits in the centre of his nuanced, ‘location loving’ direction like some weathered stone of truth. Which is great. And I’m particularly grateful to him for the naturalistic, blended picture he paints of the Texan/Mexican region and cultures. That’s the good, and it’s all good.

The bad is that the periphery characters suffer – with the women seemingly dispensable, and the wanton, racist border-guard he pitches himself against seeming too stereotypical to ever be fleshed out by the lacerating ‘journey of discovery’ they put themselves through.




The Consequences of Love




Poised but rarely posturing, this sedate and somewhat sedated Italian crime drama slides ever so gently through the normally nerve-jangling ripostes of power clashing with greed. And love. There is definitely some love bundled up in this silk handkerchief of film, delivered with crisp pragmatism, but lingering over the contours of its scenes.

What should you expect? A quiet man, in a quiet hotel. Being quiet, observing, being observed. For quite some time. But it does grow into a crime drama, so there are some moments of nerve-shredding duplicity and flashbacks of gunplay along the way.

The flashes and the bangs are a distraction from our protagonists seemingly crystallised preoccupations though. Is the nature of love to risk, to step out of the stereotype you may have made for yourself, to keep your honour while all about you are losing theirs? That and other introverted concerns, that might otherwise stay locked behind closed doors, get aired in and around the impersonal hotel. The overall effect is darkly comic, ironic, suavely turned out, fairly disheartened and jaded, but carrying some lingering clout.









Little Otik

























Much to my chagrin, I only caught this half way in (!) but feel I can say something about it, having read reviews (& complaints) of some of the repetitious conceits with which it brims… (sorry, I’ll stop rhyming now ;))

I joined it as a troubled couple struggled to nurture their newborn – a child hewn from a tree root (in tune with an old Czech myth). My impressions of what I saw were pretty favourable – with only one reservation - the voluble distaste seemingly shown for pregnancy, kids, & maybe even the concept of ‘rejuvenation/rebirth’.

Only knowing Svankmajer from Youtube’d shorts, I loved how his idiosyncratic close-ups, dystopic adverts, food fetishism and trademark stop-motion all fared well when fused into a feature-length film. The actors bore up well too in the face of his camera’s fixated gaze, and the general fecundity of the world he generated was a freaky delight – despite the stop-motion ‘horror’ not delivering traditional frights.

The feeling I was left to ponder, especially thanks to the thoroughly apt ending, was that oral stories have been replaced by visual myths – and maybe there’s a new daily bread being baked from that grist.

(PS, I lied about the rhyming ;))







Three Days of the Condor

Snarky 70s espionage shenanigans that see Redford in classically sky-blue-eyed form, counterbalancing the brashness of his bookish-spook-on-the-run, while Faye Dunaway is very hip to the demands of her kidnapee role. Crafted and crafty, with more than ample support from the likes of Max von Sydow as an ice-cold killer, its decade-defining paranoia and plucky defeatism still manages to feel somehow naïve to current eyes. Can’t fault the adroit direction, skittering script and crisp-yet-seductive cinematography though, as they conspiratorially refuse to assuage your doubts about ‘The Man’ and his spies.





Casino


Great production, great performances (well, not sure how big a stretch it is for Sharon Stone to play a beautiful-but-deranged woman, having heard some of her press conference contributions for Catwoman ;)). But…

Somehow, it didn’t make that big a mark. Maybe it’s just well-trodden ground. The only memories it really conjures up now relate to the gruesome retribution scenes – and an overall feel of grit soiling Nevada skies. The period was well evoked, everything was paced and balanced beautifully, but it just felt like Goodfellas-revisited. Not a bad thing. Just not a new thing either – despite the Vegas setting.






Master & Commander

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David-vs-Goliath in marvellously recreated boats. I don’t know if that’s how they sold it to the studios, but that’s its core pull for me. Crowe is effective as the self-important Captain (again tho, not sure if he’s pulling a ‘Sharon’ on that score ;)). Bettany is suitably ‘passive aggressive’ as the Darwinist-surgeon taken along for the ride. But the sub-plot of their friendship inexplicably becomes a side-plot that takes up half the film. If the makers wanted the duo’s divide to have greater resonance they needed to do more than just take various meandering pit-stops through the Galapagos and invoke more of the historical conflict – or create a greater one between the two people involved. As it is, it’s hard to care about this period-feature, or Bettany’s character all-told.

Overall the direction handles the panoramic far better than the claustrophobic, leaving much of the personal drama perfunctory, which isn’t helped by the dialogue being fairly wooden (with the exception of one neat little pun). More boot-in-mouth than Das Boot this one.

Re: Golgot's Reviews
 

Thanks for the reviews Gollygosh :kiss: nice to see you are still watching movies and not just talking about football ;D

Re: Golgot's Reviews
 

"More boot-in-mouth than Das Boot this one."

I'm gonna drop that line in during polite conversation to try and appear more intelligent. ;)

Re: Golgot's Reviews
 

Dear lord no! Isn't one person pseudo-rhyming enough? :D ;)

Cheers Nebs :) My team is bottom of the league, and about to take on the top of the Italian league. That'd be why ;) (Altho I'm expecting the Gods of Comedy, who have dogged my beloved Spurs most thoroughly, to taunt us by throwing us a win ;))

Re: Golgot's Reviews
 

Interesting thread, I like your reviews. I have a question for you whenever you get a minute good sir. Would it be possible for you to go back to the first 2 or 3 pages and edit in the titles to the flicks you're reviewing? I don't know what happened as I'm sure they were there at some point but they're not there now. I was able to suss out what several of the flicks were but not all of them. If you ever have the time that is. I'll shoot you some pozzi's for the effort. :D

Re: Golgot's Reviews
 

Howdy Powdy, cheers :)

Damn yep, been meaning to do that for an age. Will get on it now...

-EDIT- I am a rep whore, it is done ;)

Re: Golgot's Reviews
 

The Happiness of the Katakuris

Forget your troubles, come on, get eaten by a harpy...


Happiness is hard work

A bereft shoesalesman plunges his hopes into a last-ditch rural hotel, semi-unifying his semi-functional family along the way. Luckily his chirpy wife is genuinely full of chirp. Grandfather likes to knock out crows in midflight with chunks of wood. And could do worse. Semi-honourable daughter falls in love at the drop of anyone's hat. Her bolshy 'criminal' brother has picked up too much already, and doesn't intend to do more than that. Occasionally the youngest child narrates. Whenever reality isn't piling their collective plate with an inconvenient mound of corpses, that is...


Is it hard work being happy?

Every guest that turns up dies. That's more than bad karma, it's downright inconsiderate. The only solution seems to be to resort to song. And that's what the Katukaris do - and it's frequently hilarious. How much more fitting to resort to high emotion in the face of death, than when confronted by the Greasy prepubescent preoccupations that so many musicals fixate upon? Not that love doesn't rear it's coiffeured head - but when it does the pastiche involves beautifully littered wastegrounds, genuine flights of fancy, and dreams that drape themselves unconsciously over coffehouse steps.

There's a thrifty static nature to Miike's camera in most of these scenes, but his gonzo nature in pushing through the concepts involved makes the whole thing breathe. (That and the infectious 'amateurish' abandon that some of the actors throw in).

You're looking at a mad mix of influences and causes here though, and I'm not sure they all work. This Korean-based, apparently-culturally-revisionist, zombied-unromcom-family-flick only truly grabs friction if you buy into Miike's jadedly-garish take on mortality & the social 'nuclear-unity' trick. I can't fathom all the references, i can't dot all the 'I's, but i did feel the soap-opera WWII soldiers circling karaoke disco-balls were doing some good. Mutating plasticine matinee cliffhangers started to have a feeling of dead wood though - or at least, some form of woodworm eating through whatever Ark carries Miike through his own personal storms.









I'm torn on a rating. I'll give it this:

Healthily robust & pretty thoroughly deranged


http://img205.imageshack.us/img205/7...akuris3ae6.jpg

Re: Golgot's Reviews
 

My God... that just looks fantastic! I will definitely pick this bad boy up if I ever see it somewhere.

Re: Golgot's Reviews
 

I actually give it the same rating you do, but I'm guessing my is higher than yours. I watched it with my brother, who owns it and told me it was really crazy, and while I agree with him up to a point, it just didn't seem quite as crazy as I expected, even if it's still worth a look.

How many people think Golgot's first image above reminds them of The Sound of Music? Bingo.

Re: Golgot's Reviews
 

That's a roger there big daddy. And then I started reading and I was like... This sounds interesting. I want to see it.

Re: Golgot's Reviews
 

One of the most supremely bonkers films ever made. Nice one GG. ;)

If Takashi Miike didn't exist we'd have to invent him...

Re: Golgot's Reviews
 

You do seem to be a stricter task master than me (and most) on ratings ;). I've 'flip-flopped' into upping it to a 3_5 now, but i'm still undecided. I've nudged it up just for the exuberance & abandon on show - combined with signs of a tight grip actually being held at the helm (on some themes). I just think it then loses points because i don't fully agree with some of the misanthropy i perceived - and felt he was actually too heavy-handed/repetitious in the way he 'hit' on 'the family' (and a bit tiresome on the popular culture front).

It wasn't as dark or twisted as i was expecting. It could have ratcheted things up more on that score, but i felt the balance between (fairly generic) disturbing themes & comic release was nicely pitched a lot of the time. I don't know if any more hilarity and/or social-commentary-clarity would have emerged if it had ploughed a darker trail. (Altho i hear Visitor Q swings that way). And it was rarely 'wacky', thank god :)

Can't comment on the Sound of Music similarities, as i've never seen it. But for all i know there might have been a dash of phlegmatic racial stereotyping thrown into the mix ;)

It's not as pretty as those screen grabs look, and it's not as dirty as most of what I hear Miike is capable of ;)

I think he may actually be a claymation creation that fell into a volcano :)

Re: Golgot's Reviews
 

Nice review, apart from showing the opening claymation scene, don't think i've watched it since it was my very first review on here all those years ago lol. As a more objective rating i would probably wouldn't even push it to a but do admire the sheer inventiveness Miike throws and the utterly unique take on cinema he has, as the other caption says "cinema was never meant to be like"

Mark, does the R1 DVD also have caption on the front "The hills are alive with the sound of screaming" ? Thought that made the Sound of Music allusion pretty apparent.

Re: Golgot's Reviews
 

I prefer to think of him as a cross between a Clanger, a magpie and Woody Allen. ;)

Have you seen Izo, GG? I think it makes HOTK seem positively sane...

Re: Golgot's Reviews
 

As does Visitor Q