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Damn that's too bad Sean, i watched it recently and loved it.

Aw, i loved the performances and dialogue. Ali was an immigrant trying to adapt to a foreign culture and language, he was also very depressed and lonely i don't think any strong showing of emotion would have fit his character personally. I imagine this performance was exactly what Fassbinder was looking for. Understandable that you didn't warm to it though.

I understand what you are saying, let me throw one question out there for you guys. What's up with the third person talk from Ali? I never have found that to be a characteristic of broken language. Seanc wants to know.

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Letterboxd

I really didn't know so i looked it up to see if it had any meaning. I didn't even think twice about it, just took it as a characteristic of broken language. Found this:


http://brightlightsfilm.com/all-that.../#.V69R1_krLIU

Sorry for being boring and looking it up but i was curious myself after you mentioned it.

Very interesting. Glad you looked it up.

O Brother, Where Art Thou? (Joel Coen, 2000) - +
The Maltese Falcon (John Huston, 1941) -
The Cameraman (Buster Keaton/Edward Sedgwick, 1928) -

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"Gentlemen, you can't fight in here. This is the war room."

I really enjoyed this. One of those films that just kept getting buried in my never ending watchlist. I decided it was time after seeing a few Mofos talking about it the last couple weeks. It is true when people have described it as a film with not a lot going on. What is great about it though, is everything is going on. It creates tension so simply. These families don't know if they will have water tomorrow. They have no idea where they are, and are being lead by men who they don't entirely trust. Stakes and tension simply are there, they don't have to be fabricated by music or false character moments. They permeate the whole story naturally. That is what makes this movie really great, and one of the best Westerns of the last...ever. The ending is absolutely perfect for this story. It also doesn't hurt that Michelle Williams is one of the starts and I would marry her tomorrow based just on the characters she has played in movies. Good stuff all around here.

Great movie. Slightly preferred the directors Night Moves though.

I just saw Ali last week and I was disappointed by it too. I didn't find the film particularly deep. I understood it all, even related to a lot of it, but every scene just felt like a variation of the same idea.

Completely enjoyable watching experience but nothing more. Funny in a subtle, recognizable sort of way. Not in a laugh out loud Judd Apatow flick way. Actually, the exact same way I feel about Dazed And Confused. Enjoy them for what they are, but they will never be special to me.




I enjoyed this a lot, but after leaving the hotel the movie lost half a point from me. I just thought there was more to glean from the first 2/3 of the movie. Totally getting a Wes Anderson vibe through those first 2/3. Very dry, and sometimes sadistic sense of humor. The matter of fact characters. Even the aesthetic. Farrel is great in this. I love the themes and how the film just moves. I like this loads better than Dogtooth, but I am so intrigued by how Lanthimos handles violence and sexuality in such a matter of fact manner. I think it completely mirrors how we talk about those subjects in today's society. We have a total disregard for the serious, in different ways obviously, nature of those subjects. We have the same matter of fact attitude about them as his characters, though I don't think we see it that way. I don't know if that is what Lanthimos is trying to convey, but that is how it hits home for me. I am so glad this was better than for me than Dogtooth because the themes really resonate in both and I want to get excited for this director. I am now, and will probably check this out once more before the end of the year because I really think the humor will hit me harder the second viewing. Much like a Wes Anderson flick.

Rio Bravo (1959) -



This is the kind of movie that does not blow me away, but does not let me rate it any lower neither. I don't have much to say about it and I don't want to force myself to, but at times some frames looked like freakin' paintings and I liked the buddy aspect of the movie, the nice subplots/backstories and the final shootout. A great classic western, although I can't say it's my favourite.

Ben-Hur (1959) -



This is one of the biggest surprises lately. I never expected Wyler to pull it off so gracefully, with great artistry and beauty. It's incredible that in such an epic movie of grandiose scale it is the details that count the most. Heston gluing to the rock so that his mother and sister can't see him looks like a tormented soul made one with stone. Such a saddening moment. Then there's that chariot race with incredible montage, pace and tension. Panavision makes it one spectacle to behold. Then there are some of the most beautiful moments of cinema I've ever witnessed. First, an hour or so in, a stranger waters Ben-Hur, his hand on his hair. We can't see stranger's face (we never see his face ever in this film - a wise choice), but Heston can and we can see by his face expression that he can. A wonderful moment, something Bresson might've pulled off if he made a film like this. That's weird that all these hipsters who give all Bresson films 5/5, seem to hate this film as Hollywood drone crap, unable to see this kind of beauty hidden under the layouts of Hollywood epic (which is not bad in any way, just a different approach). But then, there's a reprise of this scene, but this time the roles reversed. Ben-Hur dramatically tries to get to the stranger, but is pushed away by others. Then he manages to get a ladle full of water and tries to give the water to the stranger, but doesn't succeed in doing so. However, the sheer fact he tried is so incredibly powerful that it raises the movie to the level of Red Beard, or something. It's the best moment of the film, a lot better than the latter miracles and whatnots, because it's so both humane and human and not godly. Of course, there's bunch of other great scenes, Sword and Sandal epicness, etc., but it's moments like these that escalate this film to the rank of masterpiece.

Shoulder Arms (1918) -



A rather typical Chaplin short. As always up to date, Chaplin makes fun of the grand events of his time. This time it's about WWI and although this little tramp never makes me laugh, I always enjoy the time spent with him and his quirky gags.

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Look, I'm not judging you - after all, I'm posting here myself, but maybe, just maybe, if you spent less time here and more time watching films, maybe, and I stress, maybe your taste would be of some value. Just a thought, ya know.

Where's your Oklahoma! review?

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I said I will watch 'em all, but never said when. In case of Oklahoma!, not too soon.

I know, I'm just giving you crap.

I like how you said you hoped Ben-Hur doesn't show up because you don't want to watch a 3.5 hour movie, yet you watched it anyway before it even showed up.

... and he loved it.

I'm always one step ahead.

lobster? i hardly know her!!!

Fighting Elegy (Seijun Suzuki, 1966)



Borderline-insane, black-and-white Suzuki satire set in 1935 Okayama where Japanese male teenagers spend their final two years of high school in a military school setting where Kiroku (Hideki Takahashi) learns from older student Turtle (Yûsuke Kawazu) to break as many school rules as possible and get into as many fights and riots as he can start. It's only in this way can he learn to be a true Japanese man. Kiroku boards with a Catholic family and is in love with their daughter Michiko (Junko Asana), but he has to repress all his sexuality in order to gear 100% of his physical and emotional efforts towards fighting. As time goes on, Kiroku becomes more-and-more unruly and has to change schools where he gets some good beatings of his own, but eventually Kiroku's thirst for blood and violence grows to seemingly-unhealthy extremes as he threatens to kill half the school's student body and staff.



I honestly believe that this is Suzuki's most-outrageous film, at least of those I've seen. It almost makes Tokyo Drifter seem like a documentary, but it packs a lot of entertainment into its brief running time. First of all, the dialogue is full of outrageous lines about sex and violence, the kind of things nobody would share with even some of their closest friends, let alone people they barely know or want to beat up. Then there's the actual fights and rumbles themselves, which are quite over-the-top violent, and of course, it's here, maybe about an hour into the movie, where it becomes clear that Suzuki is actually making a serious point about how Japanese Imperialism develops and is taught to its youth. The strange thing about this film though is that it implies that Imperialism rose from NOT following orders but by being as anarchic and violent as possible, especially concerning your superiors, so it's up to you to decide whether this film is more of a satire or a farce.

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It's what you learn after you know it all that counts. - John Wooden
My IMDb page

Gate of Flesh (Seijun Suzuki, 1964) +



Set in Tokyo in the Summer of 1945, just after the end of WWII, Suzuki shoots this film in impressionistic color imagery to make up for the fact that he had a claustrophobic setting and almost no budget. The film was one of the first Japanese flicks which had nudity, and probably the most-striking scene in the flick is when the pimpless group of sweaty prostitutes seems to take almost sexual-pleasure in whipping and torturing their newest member Maya (Yumiko Nogawa) for violating one of their major rules by falling in love with petty thief Shintaro (Joe Shishido) who's hiding out from the American M.P.s and gradually taking control of the women and their way of life. The film was made with the intentions of it being a Japanese Adult film, but even so, there were numerous censorship issues Suzuki had to get around, and he does a good job of making a film which presents some extreme situations in a way which could still somehow be shown in 1964 while definitely pushing the envelope in some sexual and violent ways.



Besides the above-depicted whipping scene, there are a few other directorial flourishes which Suzuki provides. Three or four different times he superimposes a character reacting to the scene shown on screen. In other words, instead of editing, he'll keep his intense scene going, but show a slightly-diluted scene of another character reacting to the scene. It's actually a very strong cinematic style which I would use myself if given the chance. It's sorta reminiscent of what was popular in the '60s American films of John Frankenheimer, used especially effectively in The Manchurian Candidate, The Birdman of Alcatraz and The Train: the pan and slow fade-out to the fade-in of the next scene where you could see both images emotionally contrasting with each other. In Gate of Flesh it's very impressively used and I don't recall Suzuki using it in any of his other films I've seen. Another standout scene is the bizarre one where a steer enters the bombed-out residence of the women, and the hedonistic Shintaro decides to kill it then and there so he can cook and eat it.

Up (Pete Docter & Bob Peterson, 2009)



Most people already know about and/or have seen Up, so I'm not going to spend too much time discussing the plot any more than I'd like to mention that it covers about 70 years and involves friendship, love, marriage, family, adventure, dreams, trust, flying, children, pets, doing the right thing, believing in yourself, growing up, inner strength, fearlessness, and teaching old dogs new tricks, amongst many other great subjects.



Another thing I love about Up (and this can be said about most Pixar flicks just with different details) is that they love movies just as much as we film buffs do because after all who are these filmmakers? They're just film buffs like you and me who are lucky enough to make their own dreams come true by creating films which pay homage to those that we all grew up with and love. Up seems to pay homage to The Lost World (1925), Hell's Angels, King Kong (1933), The Wizard of Oz, Buck Rogers, The Red Balloon, Sleeper, A Boy and His Dog, Star Wars (I was laughing my butt off at that one!), Raiders of the Lost Ark, Fitzcarraldo, The Witches, The Rocketeer, Jurassic Park, The Incredibles and several more.



Michael Giacchino, the composer of Up's beautiful score and haunting theme, is quickly becoming one of my fave current musical score composers. He now has done The Incredibles, Ratatouille, Star Trek and Up in the last five years. As far as a few other personal comments I have to make, irrelevant of whether others have shared them, Up has got to be one of the best titles of any movie ever made. Not only does it describe how the film transports itself from one setting to another, but it also describes how it transports most of its characters and hopefully all its viewers from beginning of the film to its conclusion. Up is a definite "feel-good" movie which should make people feel happy to be alive, so I hope you find it an "Up" because although I know there are millions of people out there who actually prefer "downer" movies because you see them as more realistic and a maturing of the cinematic ethos to rise above "fairy tales" and just tell it like it is... you know, you're going to die, get used to it; what matter does it make if you have a chance to be happy now and then? Movies need to tell the truth, and the truth is a downer! Sorry, but I don't think that a movie which has a happy ending (LIES?) is good and one that has an "unhappy" ending is bad. I just think that you should allow movies to work their magic on you no matter what they seem to represent, and perhaps more importantly, no matter how you feel about what constitutes a "real" movie and a "fake" movie. Up is just about as real as movies get, and there's no allegedly "real" person ever seen on the screen. HA!

Revolutionary Road (Sam Mendes, 2008)



Richard Yates' 1961 novel is turned into a well-crafted, well-acted commentary about married people living out their lives basically apart. The young couple, Frank Wheeler (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his wife April (Kate Winslet) have been married for 10 years and have two children. Frank has a job working in an office building, but he doesn't feel fulfilled with his career. After April fails miserably at the center of a local play, she and Frank decide they should go for personal and married happiness and move to Paris, no matter how implausible the idea seems.

Revolutionary Road seems like it's some revisionist look back at the 1950s, but since the source material is almost 50 years old, this is not the case. Personally, I related to the themes of the movie, which I took to be (1) Very few people get a chance to do what they want in this life, at least to the point where they can support themselves and their family while doing it; (2) Marriages are often on autopilot, and the two parties often seem to be leading two completely separate lives where it's difficult to communicate openly with each other based on the fact that their concepts of emotional intimacy are different. Now, Brenda and I've been married a wonderful 21 years, and I believe that we have a strong marriage, but both of those topics have affected us at times. What separates this film from other similarly-themed films of recent years is that the dialogue is much stronger and more believable between the couple. True, I told my daughter Sarah that all you really need to do is watch five minutes of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and you'll get the gist of this film, but then you get the Greek Chorus of Michael Shannon, playing a truly unique character, who also offers up some sharp dialogue about the Wheelers' lives and dreams, how "crazy" they may be, and how they relate to the "Real World".