While greg nibbled on an unhealthy snack/tim roth what films have you watched?

[hannah]

I've pretty much no interest whatsoever in seeing the other forty minutes that exist, though I suspect they serve to make the film even more sprawling and less coherent, considering critical reaction to the Cannes showing. This thing is a complete and total clusterfuck of a movie, but it's a magical, sublime clusterfuck, that's for sure.

From what I've read the only difference is that some of the minor characters have larger plotlines, which, meh, but if nothing else it would probably be worth it to see the Sarah Michelle Gellar "Teen Horniness is Not a Crime" musical number.

More Wood Harris/Amy Poehler??? Maybe? I want in!

[edison]

I just saw La Strada di Levi, a mostly well-done and really interesting documentary retracing Primo Levi's journey back to Italy after he was released from Auschwitz. Being in the middle of 50 openly disinterested high school kids was a fucking nightmare, though, and I found myself having murderous ideas.

[hannah]

What were they doing? Were they texting one another? Or getting up to get popcorn a ton? That blows.

[edison]

Texting, loudly talking between themselves and making fun of Polish, Ukrainian, Moldavian (etc. you get the idea) people in the film, in one case listening to music, eating, switching places - the whole teenage brattishness program!

edit: I forgot the "best" part - two of them actually tried to sneak out unnoticed!

[Greg Nog]

So I just bought Southland Tales yesterday, and my roommate and I have a date for a Sunday night viewing.  Having not seen it since my first viewing when it was in the theatres, I was thinking that watching it on DVD would allow for more critical distance, and I might be able to evaluate it more logically.

However, the more I think the movie, the less I think that logical evaluation makes sense as a viewing strategy.  Given the apparent toolishness of Richard Kelly in his explanations of his own work (and my own disinclination to accord the author's interpretation of a work much more respect than anyone else's), I'm starting to think of Kelly as a sort of blind genius.  His mind, I'm thinking, isn't constructing any grand new ideas or even neat small ideas -- it's just very, very good at synthesizing big stuff that surrounds him.  He's like a crucible that all of Hollywood's cultural output is melting in, allowing all manner of interesting reactions to take place; the crucible itself isn't aware of what it's doing, but that doesn't make it unimportant.

Anyway, the long and short of this is that I'm going to forego critical distance on this film entirely, at least for this second viewing.  I'm instead going to absorb it in the same spirit that I feel gave birth to it, opting for an approach that leans more towards the meditative than the deconstructive.

What I'm saying is jeb do you have a good recipe for honeyslides?

[jebreject]

http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=944 

[jebreject]

use more weed than that, though, and be sure to not use too much butter. too much butter will make it the most disgusting thing ever

[Greg Nog]

Sweet!  Thanks!

[Andrew_TSKS]

His interpretation is invalid because it's stupid.  It doesn't matter whether he's the "artist" or not.  It's stupid.  I can't state it more plainly than than.  "Blah blah blah private symbols blah blah blah" who cares the point of a work of art is that it out there for interpretation and criticism.

Okay, if your interpretation is so much better, let's hear it.

i personally don't have one concrete interpretation of "donnie darko", but rather, several, and as i've already said, one of the things i liked about it the most was that, at the end, you could interpret what you'd just seen in several different ways. the big problem i have with richard kelly's later revisionism is that he railed against this multiplicity of interpretations. i guess maybe he thought that the movie was clear enough the way he first put it out (which again says something about his own obliviousness), and was then bothered that so many different interpretations of it were drawn, when he'd intended for one in particular to be drawn. the very fact that he recut it so one interpretation becomes much more obvious is already a disservice to the work, considering that it's multiplicity of interpretations were a lot of what made it awesome. furthermore, of all the different interpretations i came up with for what actually happened, the one kelly picked was the least interesting, and furthermore he elaborated on it by beating the viewers over the head with hackneyed christian symbolism that made the plot direction he took even more trite than it already was by itself. basically, if you ask me, he took a movie that was really good and really fucking weird, and made it much clearer and more mediocre. it goes a good distance towards proving greg and others' point that he has no idea of wehre his talent lies, and it sounds like "southland tales" proves that to an even greater extent.

so, therefore, i choose to toss out the author's explanation of "donnie darko", to insist on the original cut as the definitive version, and to continue to see it as a movie with a vague plot that can be interpreted in multiple ways. because that version of "donnie darko" was really good, and the redone version is far less so. it's the same reason that a lot of people think george lucas is an idiot for tampering with the original "star wars" trilogy, or francis ford coppola was an idiot for doing the expanded version of "apocalypse now".

[Andrew_TSKS]

oh man, and i got too involved in the richard kelly discussion and forgot to post about the movie i saw last night: "mr. warmth: the don rickles project". this movie is a documentary about don rickles, the famous insult comedian and character actor. it started out kind of slow, mixing other famous people talking about their impressions of rickles with long silent shots of rickles preparing to take the stage at a vegas casino. i was afraid at first that it might be slow and uninteresting, but i didn't think that john landis would make a boring movie, considering that he's done "the blues brothers", "animal house", and "coming to america", among others. sure enough, once the movie got about 5 minutes in and don rickles hit the stage, it got awesome. most of the movie switched back and forth between present-day performances in vegas and stories from over the course of rickles' life, told both by himself and other friends and famous comedians. tons of famous comedians, too--everyone from chris rock to bob newhart, plus non-comic actors like clint eastwood and harry dean stanton. there were a lot of really hilarious stories, including one about rickles and johnny carson that had me nearly falling off my couch laughing (i won't spoil it for anyone, but it involves carson's cigarette box). also, even though it was only in passing, there were several fascinating stories of (and footage of) vegas back in the day when it was run by the mafia. i loved all that stuff.

so anyway, yeah, if you think don rickles is funny (and if you don't, i feel sorry for you), you can't go wrong with this movie.

[Maaik]

Did they go into the story of the first time he performed in front of Sinatra?  That story is kinda awesome.

[Andrew_TSKS]

not to that extent, but they talked about it. one thing that the movie said that that story doesn't say--apparently sinatra's mom and rickles's mom were friends, and rickles's mom got sinatra's mom to put pressure on him to go to one of rickles's shows. so sinatra was probably at least somewhat prepared for what he'd get when he showed up.

[Wally]

The only thing stopping me putting Southland Tales onto my list of films to watch next is the Pynchon comparison. But I may well have to get over that and watch it anyway.

In other news, I'm feeling bad about the thread title.

[Maaik]

not to that extent, but they talked about it. one thing that the movie said that that story doesn't say--apparently sinatra's mom and rickles's mom were friends, and rickles's mom got sinatra's mom to put pressure on him to go to one of rickles's shows. so sinatra was probably at least somewhat prepared for what he'd get when he showed up.

Huh, that's interesting.  But I think the best thing about that story isn't Sinatra's reaction or even that Rickles had the balls to riff on Frank to his face, but the obvious tension in the air from the audience, the bouncers, the band--basically everyone else in the theater.  The whole event could have been staged and it still would have been hilarious just for that aspect.

[jebreject]

The only thing stopping me putting Southland Tales onto my list of films to watch next is the Pynchon comparison. But I may well have to get over that and watch it anyway.

I don't really get the impression that this is the type of film you'd much care for, Dom. Not that you shouldn't watch it, though. You should. 'Cause it's fucking amazing (in some inexplicable way)

[girl]

I put on Rashomon, but then I picked up the computer, so I have absolutely no idea what's going on. It's still sort of awesome to have Toshiro Mifune's voice as background noise. I guess I'll have to watch it for real tomorrow.

[diesel_powered]

His interpretation is invalid because it's stupid.  It doesn't matter whether he's the "artist" or not.  It's stupid.  I can't state it more plainly than than.  "Blah blah blah private symbols blah blah blah" who cares the point of a work of art is that it out there for interpretation and criticism.

Okay, if your interpretation is so much better, let's hear it.

Stuff above

IAWTC. I'll probably have more to say about it later. When I'm less drunk.

In other news, I had a showing of Lost Highway followed by Revolver this evening. Lost Highway was what it was and doesn't require commentary, but I was once again shocked by just how badly the critics panned Revolver. Despite the fact that Richie practically spoon feeds you the story, the majority of the criticism I've read about it has been essentially "I DON'T GET IT!" Are viewers really that lazy that they can't put the pieces together? Even when the second to last scene feeds it to them?? Yikes.

[dieblucasdie]

I like how the bb formatting makes that look like TSKS was drunk.

[diesel_powered]

Jesus. Yeah... I'll fix that. Damn nested quotes.

[dieblucasdie]

awww, I was content thinking that Kelly's undermining of his own work had finally driven TSKS to drink.

[Andrew_TSKS]

oh my goodness. hahaha.

anyway, tonight i went over to eric and jojo's house and they'd gotten "swimming pool" from netflix, so we all watched it. i really liked it. it's hard to say what exactly was going on with it, especially since the last scene leaves considerable doubt as to whether anything that's happened prior to it has been the way it seemed, or even real at all. but what it was, regardless of how it's interpreted, was awesome. it was slowly unfolding, strangely suspenseful, and a fascinating exploration of two very different female characters. one of which was a nubile young french girl who ran around topless a lot. that was cool too, but don't get me wrong, the movie would have been completely awesome even with no exposed breasts at all.

and it even has a funny parallel to "donnie darko", in that, at the end, i had multiple different interpretations i could apply to what i'd just seen, and no real indication of which was the correct one. i liked that, and i think i liked it a good bit better than i would have liked it if there was some big scene at the end that made the whole thing clear. in fact, the final scene did just the opposite, and in a quite subtle manner. i may be belaboring the point, but it was awesome. ok i'm done now.

[jebreject]

I watched Southland Tales again.

It's not as awe-inspiring the second time round, but I did pick up a lot of little details I missed upon first viewing.

[Wally]

The only thing stopping me putting Southland Tales onto my list of films to watch next is the Pynchon comparison. But I may well have to get over that and watch it anyway.

I don't really get the impression that this is the type of film you'd much care for, Dom. Not that you shouldn't watch it, though. You should. 'Cause it's fucking amazing (in some inexplicable way)

Yeah, I'll watch it with very low expectations and maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised.

[ddillaman]

I just got back from an overnight movie marathon of 8 films, 7 1/2 of which I'd never seen before. I should go to sleep, but just have some Starburst chewies. Whoops.

In order, IIRC:
1. HOWARD THE DUCK. Apparently, it's a requirement for all aliens to make bad puns. I'm not sure if Lea Thompson's character is supposed to be stupider than banana pudding or not. Can't believe they quoted CASABLANCA and ON THE WATERFRONT in the space of a minute. Poor Tim Robbins. This ain't going on the lifetime Oscar reel. All in all, worth seeing once if you're that kind of masochist, if only to see just how wrong a few of the plot twists are.
2. STACY. Japanese school girl zombies. Veering wildly between saccharine love, consumerism satire, loving genre in-jokes, and balls-out gore, so kind of brilliant, though the DV aesthetic (well, its visual approach in general) is particularly suckass and a lot of the special effects are, um, 'special'. Regardless, if you were sold with "Japanese school girl zombies", you'll love it. If you're not sure, check the trailer here
3. KILLING ZOE. I'd only ever seen the first half of it (started it late one night at a friend's house while travelling, fell asleep, never caught up with it). After seeing two poorly made films I really appreciated Avary's craft here, and the second half certainly brings it all together. Not the sort of movie that would ever be my favorite, but clearly has a strong sensibility that many of its imitators lacked. Incidentally, Ebert's reviewEbert's review is an interesting read, particularly the last paragraph.
4. UPTOWN SATURDAY NIGHT. Blaxploitation starring Sidney Poitier, Bill Cosby, Harry Belafonte, Flip Wilson, and a special guest appearance by a clearly-coked-out-of-his-gills Richard Pryor? Hells yes, I say. Man, I wish Cosby had done more roles like this.
5. SLEEPAWAY CAMP. OH MY FUCKING GOD. I was scared of the idea of this movie as a kid. Now that I've seen it, it's not particularly gory (certainly after fucking STACY) but it is severely messed up, that last image will fuck with you. Unfortunately I read the spoiler at some site long ago, thinking I'd never get around to seeing it. Whoops, but the reveal is still pretty impactful. (Not the reveal of the killer. If you can't guess it after, like, forty-five minutes, you've never seen a horror movie in your life.) Desiree Gould as Aunt Martha = HOLY FUCKING SHIT NOW THAT'S AN INSPIRED PERFORMANCE IF YOU'RE ON STAGE AND ON CRACK. Apparently she's only been in two other movies. Surprised it was that many, but her scenes are never not spellbinding in a car-crash kind of way.
6. THE TALE OF THE DEAN'S WIFE. Something like 10 minutes of story and 65 minutes of soft-core sex. Thankfully, most of the parties involved are attractive - the Dean's wife can come visit me anytime, particularly if she wears that green blouse - but when you reach a point where you're like, geez, not aNOTHER sex scene, something's not quite working. I suspect every single usable frame of sex was used. Some several times. Pre-credit student riot footage with somber voice-over attempting greater claims for significance laughable in retrospect, late-breaking plot twist severely out of town and blithely discarded by the students and wife in such a manner that it almost seems like a conservative's stereotype of the love generation.
7. THE MANIPULATOR. Watching this movie at 6 AM on no sleep will FUCK YOU up. It's seriously 90 minutes of Mickey Rooney playing a deranged director with a woman he's kidnapped to be his actress, doing deranged epic readings from classic plays, wearing makeup, hallucinating a crew, putting on a fake Cyrano nose, et cetera, all filmed in a go-for-broke fashion by a guy who watched EASY RIDER and THE TRIP and said, "I can top that any day".
8. THEY LIVE. HOLY SHIT how have I not seen this before? Again, Carpenter's craft shines, particularly in the face of the crap that preceded it, but also it's just basically brilliant on every level. If this came out today, it'd be hugely hyped for its trenchant and topical satire (particularly in terms of its treatment of "terrorist organizations").

All in all a really good way to spend a night.

[hannah]

Taxi to the Dark Side. I feel ill.