saw a talkie at the picture show: new film thread

[Greg Nog]

Oh damn, someone made a to-be-soon-released documentary about Ulillillia!

Trailer for The Platform Master

EDIT: and as additional context for those unfamiliar with him, the overview of the game he plays in his mind.

[coldforge]

I have never heard of that guy, but watching a trailer with goofy chiptunes music being played over a clip of a dude nearly weeping while talking about his devastated hometown doesn't fill me with good cheer or nothing.

[Greg Nog]

I can't imagine good cheer is the intention of the filmmakers?

[Greg Nog]

Also in the realm of stuff coming out that I am excited about: Prometheus, the prequel to Alien!

[coldforge]

I can't imagine good cheer is the intention of the filmmakers?

I guess, to be more specific, it makes think that whoever made that movie is a dick.

[Greg Nog]

I'm really curious about how the movie turns out!  I could see there being a really dickish movie made about the dude, or a really sympathetic one, or one that's intentionally difficult to put any kind of emotional read onto; I'm hoping for the last one, myself.

[auto-da-fey]

I went to see a matinee of The Skin I Live In today, abdicating my various responsibilities on the grounds that its run is probably over and it seems like a film to see on the big screen.

That, it is. Like most Almodovar films of the past two decades, I did not love it, but I did enjoy its lushness and come to sink in and admire it. There's not much non-spoilery one can say about it, but

1. I read its gender discourse as tantamount to a mid-70s radical feminist argument that terror and coercion are the key ingredients in the social production of womanhood. I keep thinking I must be wrong, but then reflecting and deciding I'm not.

2. I'm not generally impressed by clever placement of songs, but there is an Elliott Smith cover that is just perfectly, beautifully used. Nice, that.

Anyway, it'll probably be on my top ten list. Most things I saw will.

[clare]

I'm really curious about how the movie turns out!  I could see there being a really dickish movie made about the dude, or a really sympathetic one, or one that's intentionally difficult to put any kind of emotional read onto; I'm hoping for the last one, myself.

Yeah, I'm with Greg on this one. I'm really interested in the idea of this movie. His art and his output in general reminds me of a guy that a friend of mine works with. http://drpossumart.tumblr.com/ I'm pretty sure that the Ulilllia guy doesn't have a formal diagnosis on the AS though...

[Babar]

Saw



followed by



tonight. Triangle is very interesting but the plot isn't able to transcend from a gimmick to a real story. But it's a really fun gimmick and makes it worth watching. There's one scene in particular that I will never forget. And hey, if you manage to put an unforgettable scene in your movie then you must be doing something right.

Martyrs on the other hand was fantastic and so wonderfully unpredictable. A roller coaster ride. Mmmmm..... blissful graphic violence.....

adf agrees

I think Martyrs is [...] a rollercoaster

[auto-da-fey]

I think I saw it on milly's rec. I was actually thinking of it at times during The Skin I Live In--in addition to his highbrow nods to various films, Almodovar had to have seen Martyrs beforehand.

the dude included a brief flash of a Jess Franco film in Matador, so you know he's down with the trash-cinema.

[Nick Ink]

I just watched an Australian film called 'Animal Kingdom' about the chaos and violence surrounding a small criminal family. Guy Pearce was in it. There were lots of things about it that were good, and the acting/characters were strong, but, I don't know, those kind of films just leave me feeling tense and unhappy these days. I don't know why. I used to love films like that. There was a time, in my late twenties when something like Pulp Fiction would have been my favourite film. I'm not completely sure when I lost my taste for violent films, but I do remember a mate bringing me some DVDs as a get well gift after I had my first major op in Korea, and the very thought of watching them (nothing too bad either - Killing Zoe, things like that) just seemed unthinkable, so fragile was I feeling. I also remember that in hospital I hadn't been able to bear watching 'Tomb Raider'! I know that sounds hilarious, but there was a scene where a bloke was trapped underwater and couldn't breathe and I had 3-inch long wads of cotton rammed up my nostrils and, well, it made me uneasy to say the least. Maybe I never quite recovered from that period.

Yeah, well, sorry - didn't mean to bum out the film thread!

Going to watch 'Herbie Goes To Monte Carlo' and 'Polar Express' with the girls tomorrow :-)

[G.C.R]

Nick if you have a very strong constitution the Australian crime film to see is Snowtown, I liked that heaps better than Animal Kingdom. It is one of the most brutal films I've seen in a long while though.

[clare]

Nick, I know what you mean. I'm not sure if it's about getting older, or having kids, (or in your case, having been really ill) but yeah...I don't want to be wrung out in that way by a movie anymore...I avoided Animal Kingdom and Snowtown in a "nope, I'm definitely busy that day" way when they came out. Especially Snowtown - we all knew the story so well, why did we need to go and get terrified by a movie of it? HAving said that though, Wake in Fright was about the right pace for me, and I reckon at some point I'll be watching Pulp Fiction again, as it's pretty good really...

[coldforge]

I'm watching the allegedly charming 2011 romantic comedy Friends With Benefits. It's fascinating. It's a picture-perfect encapsulation of the mainstream's conception of hip, edgy, current cool: the country's two comic actors most celebrated by people who don't particularly enjoy comedy play two anti-hipsters, who exist in a world where the coolest people on the planet do things like art direct for corporate blogs and never, ever go to Brooklyn, and know celebrities like snowboarding legend Shaun White, where the final salvo in the real, non-touristy, au courant display of authentic underexposed NYness is a flash mob. In Times Square. To a Big Beat version of 'New York, New York'. It is, to paraphrase, a Hallmark card to New York City.

[coldforge]

This is what edgy young people do: play Playstation 3 (not Wii), draw cat faces on each other when they pass out at parties, make fun of romantic comedies (by pointing out that they have cheesy music). This is fascinating. I think my mom wrote this, but only after she was asked to really tone it down.

[coldforge]

Remember the 90s? Friends With Benefits does. That's why its stars make funny, relatable references to songs like 'Closing Time' and 'Jump' by Kris Kross. Just like real young people do. It works even better when you say, 'Remember them?' before you sing the lyrics. Just like real people.

[coldforge]

Ah! But our attractive young friends are bicoastal. Friends With Benefits has its finger on the pulse of two deep-running Yuppie cultures: New York and LA. We bring you now to Justin Timberlake's Los Angeles—where our tapped-in protagonists find themselves at, you guessed it, the Hollywood sign. What When Harry Met Sally did for Katz's this will surely do for literally the most recognizable and well-established iconic landmark in the city of LA.

[coldforge]

And boy, is Richard Jenkins too damn good for this movie.

[elpollodiablo]

u... u mad bro?

[hannah]

I saw Friends With Benefits in Russian in Russia. I understood none of it.

[Greg Nog]

Holy shit I want to be watching that now

[milly balgeary]

I watched The Kill List yesterday

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqkqF--v1tg

That's a pretty good flick, there.

[fishjim]

Had the house to myself this afternoon, so I finally got around to watching HOWL - The Movie.

I started sobbing at around 20 min, and was still sobbing at the end. Greatest freaking poetry reading I've ever seen/heard. Absolutely the only one I've sobbed through.

Anyone still feeling guilty about not reading enough poetry in 2011: Watch this in 2012, and you're shriven.  

[elpollodiablo]

If there's one thing I've never ever felt guilty about.

[G.C.R]

The first two films I've watched of 2012 have been fucking amazing. Firstly

which was one of those docos where it feels so far removed in time and space from the world I know it may as well be from Mars, even though the landscape in that part of North Carolina looks a lot like the Taranaki King Country. And there is clogging in it! Very, very cool christmas present from my father, there.
Second,

Which I haven't watched all of, but the first film on it, a 40 minute or so short called Tales of a Streetcorner was incredible. Stunning animation, funny, strange... it goes along being a fractured little narrative about a girl and a teddy bear, some mice, a moth, a tree, a streetlight and some posters in a little lane, and its constantly captivating, but then it goes off in a different direction towards the end that surprised and moved me. Look at the lovely texture in the images!

Wow. I love discovering things like this that I had no idea about.