saw a talkie at the picture show: new film thread

[G.C.R]

Yeah, ADF, Lagaan is just so utterly boss. Please enjoy! Please let us know what you think! I couldn't give a care about cricket, but it has THE most tense sporting event in narrative film ever. And fun songs and dances.

That new Bela Tarr is... frustrating, if you're talking about The Turin Horse. Good, though!

[nonotyet]

So I want to see 50/50 this weekend but there's something that makes me think I'm going to be horribly disappointed by it.  Either that or I am going to hate myself for continuing to consume media where people have cancer when I know it is a thing that makes me lose my shit. I am seeing it anyway because I have access to dollar passes and I'm quite curious, but dot dot dot. 

Also this is one of my favorite things I have read all week. There are MASSIVE Drive spoilers in the article so don't click it if you don't want to know.

■The first basic fact: this movie was two hours of someone jerking off to Ryan Gosling. Sure, there’s a plot, so, congratulations filmmakers! But you forgot stuff like character development and realistic emotions. But whatever. Ryan Gosling is soooooo hot, right? Did you see the way he pulls off denim-on-denim? There wasn’t a dry crotch in the house! Well, except for mine: I think Ryan Gosling looks like he was created by Pixar in order to produce erections, and while I would certainly throw one in him, he’s not at the top on my list.

   

[G.C.R]

I watched Rio this morning, and here are the important lessons it imparted:
- the darker the skin of any given Brazilian person, the more likely that they are to be a bad bad bird smuggler, unless of course they are also an adorable orphan.
- There is a large team of animators out there who have been watching one of my alltime favourite short films!

[Bernard]

Lagaan features a hero who looks exactly like one of the stupidest (but hottest) people I ever dated, plus one of my favorites from the L Word, and is a crowd-pleaser. Order in some tasty food, invite pals, have fun.

[edison]

- the darker the skin of any given Brazilian person, the more likely that they are to be a bad bad bird smuggler, unless of course they are also an adorable orphan.

This has been demonstrated to apply to every kind of crime by a large number of media and artworks, too. Pretty convenient, right?

I haven't been able to watch any movies in weeks, but tomorrow I am hoping to catch the last screening of this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Departure_(film) Skolimowski + Léaud has to be a "win" combination.
and it's making me very excited! Then I should catch up on the new stuff (L'Apollonide, Drive, maybe The Artist)

[auto-da-fey]

I really regret to say that after all the enthusiasm you guys built up in me over Lagaan, I ... had the day wrong, and missed it. GR%#$@#!323TUY!!%&. But once I have a little more time in my life for things like 200-minute Bollywood epics, I vow to check it out (and then, in usual fashion, probably get all obsessive and devote my life to gulping down the history of Indian cinema in 4-hour chunks).

[auto-da-fey]

after quite some time away, however, I have returned to Stephen Thrower's staggeringly great Nightmare USA, the gigantic history of 1970s regional exploitation films. I think I put it on ice over a year ago because I didn't want to read ahead of what I'd seen, but I realized I had some Fredric Hobbs movies sitting around and so took on Godmonster of Indian Flats (about a giant mutant sheep) and Alabama's Ghost (about...well, I'm still not sure), two prime slabs of grade-Z sociopolitical early-70s junk. Neither of them resonated terribly deeply with me, being a little too cleancut for my tastes, but Thrower's chapter on Hobbs is fascinating as all hell and justified the viewings retroactively.

[G.C.R]

I finally saw my son my son what have ye done, and I thought it was the best thing Herzog's done in years.

[hannah]

I watched Rio this morning, and here are the important lessons it imparted:
- the darker the skin of any given Brazilian person, the more likely that they are to be a bad bad bird smuggler, unless of course they are also an adorable orphan.
- There is a large team of animators out there who have been watching one of my alltime favourite short films!

While in Russia this summer I watched Rio dubbed into Russian. Here is a trivia nugget for you: one of the Russian words for blue, goluboi, is the one slang word I know—it means, more or less derogatorily, "gay." And, seeing how the main character's name is Blue, this would seem to pose a problem for the Russian-language version. The solution: they call him not Goluboi but Golubchik, which literally means "little pigeon" or "little dove" but also is a term of endearment along the lines of "darling" or "my pet."

I was so proud of myself that I figured out the thought process that went into that, btw. My biggest "I sorta know Russian"-moment of the summer.

[jm]

Yesterday I watched two movies I'm usually expected to have seen by now:

The Naked City: this was awesome (despite some serious plot goofiness) because:

1) it was paced in a way that a person like myself can keep up with
2) it's hella shot in NYC usually under not-telling-the-public circumstances and I find joy in watching movies that involves spaces with which I am intimately familiar (see also: The Thomas Crown Affair, most notably the Mount Auburn Cemetery parts)
3) everybody has an accent like a character in a Warner Bros. cartoon.

Der Golem, und wie er blah blah etc.: aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

[peacocks]

saw The Thing. Super!

[peacocks]

and now I'm watching paranormal activity 2 on netflix before going to see paranormal activity 3 in like an hour. I'm not going to sleep tonight. Why do I do this to myself????????????

[davy]

I've found that series to be pretty entertaining. L & I are going to see PA3 at the theater this week.

[dieblucasdie]

Zah?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/24/joss-whedons-much-ado-about-nothing_n_1028070.html

[Nick Ink]

- There is a large team of animators out there who have been watching one of my alltime favourite short films!

This is great - thanks!

Can't wait to show it to the girls.

[davy]

Watched this yesterday:



Wes Craven's debut. Disturbing for all the wrong -- and some of the right -- reasons. This was not a good movie by any stretch of the imagination, but it did contain some truly disturbing scenes* (many of which were made significantly more disturbing by the absolutely mindboggling slapstick hippie-folk soundtrack).

And the fact that it was released in 1972 is rather amazing.

*http://www.internalbleeding.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/last-house-on-the-left-5.jpg (nsfw)

[lastclearchance]

I'm screening Southland Tales for some folks from the English department tonight. Got a projector from the libary and everythin.

Debating whether or not to subject them to the Cannes cut with the 20min of additional footage, since I haven't seen it before and I'm kind of curious. Three hours might be a little cruel.

http://www.youtube.com/user/southlandcannes

[milly balgeary]

Watched this yesterday:



Wes Craven's debut. Disturbing for all the wrong -- and some of the right -- reasons. This was not a good movie by any stretch of the imagination, but it did contain some truly disturbing scenes* (many of which were made significantly more disturbing by the absolutely mindboggling slapstick hippie-folk soundtrack).

And the fact that it was released in 1972 is rather amazing.

*http://www.internalbleeding.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/last-house-on-the-left-5.jpg (nsfw)

What? That's a quality film dawg. That's a fucking pioneering work of horror cinema. You are just a baby-man.

[elpollodiablo]

There's finally a rip of Meek's Cutoff in the wild. I'm itching to watch it but gotta wait for D to come home in November.

[davy]

You are just a baby-man.

I guess I'm in no position to disagree.

[G.C.R]

Pioneering work of horror cinema definitely! Quality film, very aguably! Something I'd ever want to sit through again, pretty definitely not!
One of the stars was a man with an undeniably fascinating career though:
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0381450/

[jebreject]

There's finally a rip of Meek's Cutoff in the wild. I'm itching to watch it but gotta wait for D to come home in November.

Oh shit. I'm still kicking myself for missing this in the theater.

[Little Sixes Little Nines]

tonight, catching-up-on-films-i-should-have-seen-by-now part 1: Terrence Malick's Badlands.

film was really, consistently enthralling. i loved how stark and dreamlike it was, and it was totally not what i had expected. i'd heard it was based on charles starkweather, the story of whom i know quite a lot about, so it was refreshing to find it wasn't at all a biopic, but was only partly inspired by him. would recommend.

part 2: Eraserhead. will keep you posted.

[Trousers and Pat]

okay, I have resisted Twentynine Palms ever since it came out and looked obnoxious. and yet, somehow the previews on this disc have convinced me to give it a shot, along with Humanite, which I also dodged. in fact, I've never seen anything by Bruno Dumont.

thoughts?

I've been in the same boat as far as 29palms, and still am to some extent, but I saw the new Dumont Hors Satan in the theater last night and was stunned. It was like a staggering out of the theater, not able to talk afterwards kind of situation.

I really liked it. It reminded me of living in the country...

(sorry to drag up the old quote, I did a search for dumont...)

[edison]

Never seen any Dumont either and was wondering whether I should go check this out. I think you might have tilted the balance here...

(went to the premiere of The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye on Monday, though, and that was lovely)