Golgot's Reviews

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there's a frog in my snake oil
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.



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.

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there's a frog in my snake oil
2046


1

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.



2
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.



there's a frog in my snake oil
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 .



there's a frog in my snake oil
Hotel


1
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].

2
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 .

2
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.



there's a frog in my snake oil
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.

2
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 ).

3

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)



there's a frog in my snake oil
Cheers Nebbles. I've got some free time on my hands .



there's a frog in my snake oil
Europa


1
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.

2
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.



The People's Republic of Clogher
I'm kind of embarrassed not to have replied to your thread before now.

'Cos it's great.

Originally Posted by Golgot
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.
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...
__________________
"Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how the Tatty 100 is done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves." - Brendan Behan



there's a frog in my snake oil
Originally Posted by Tacitus
I'm kind of embarrassed not to have replied to your thread before now.

'Cos it's great.
Cheers man

(Truth be told i rarely post in here meself )

Originally Posted by Tacitus
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...
Ay, that it is

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



The People's Republic of Clogher
Originally Posted by Golgot
(Truth be told i rarely post in here meself )
I know the feeling. My own review thread is looking a bit, pardon the pun, tatty...



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
__________________
You never know what is enough, until you know what is more than enough.
~William Blake ~

AiSv Nv wa do hi ya do...
(Walk in Peace)




there's a frog in my snake oil
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



there's a frog in my snake oil
A Cock and Bull Story


1
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.

2
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.

3
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).




there's a frog in my snake oil
Black Cat, White Cat


1
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.

2
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.
3


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.

+ (random brassiness)