Directors Why Does George Kaplan Hate This Movie Tournament? (1 Viewer)

[Lew Crippen]

The zombies finally die, 4–2 and the English abroad shut out the insular (and insulated) American,

Les enfants du paradis and A Room with a View advance.


Today’s matches:

Round 2: Bracket 1:

Blue Velvet Frank Booth may have dominated the movie, but we already knew about Dennis Hopper. Isabella Rossellini as the captive who learns to love (or loved all along) masochism (and as it turns out, sadism as well) was a revalation. This movie is rightly praised for its camera work, but the acting too, is of a very high order


David Lynch has had to best both Gone with the Wind and Cries and Whispers to advance. Will Stanley Kubrick be too tough?

vs.

Barry Lyndon a man who is down and up and down and up and down but never (or rather, rarely) shown any real emotion at what happens around (and to) him. There has been some criticism (inaccurate to my mind) that Lyndon and the other characters are too cold, but for me this only accentuates what is happening beneath each individuals surface.

Belle du jour went down to this movie in the first round.


Round 2: Bracket 8:

Andrei Rublev is a Russian movie much like some Russian novels—not the grand sweeping ones with multiple characters like War and Peace, but rather one that examines the innermost conflicts of a few men (or in this case a single man). And like a difficult Russian novel, it needs repeated viewings to really get everything that is being presented. Fortunately Tarkovsky’s skill is so great, that this is no hardship, but rewarding.

It took a heartbreaking tie-breaker for the Russian to advance over The Conformist in the first round.

vs.

Do the Right Thing one hot summer day on one block in the city. Gradually director Spike Lee introduces us to the inhabitants: Sal (Danny Aiello) the pizza parlor owner, his two sons representing both sides of Sal, the volatile ‘Buggin’ Out’ (Giancarlo Esposito), the innocent Radio Raheem (Bill Nunn), Mookie (Spike Lee), his sister and the chorus (Senor Love Daddy (Samuel L. Jackson), ‘Da Mayor and Mother Sister (Ozie Davis and Ruby Dee). As the day gets hotter and conflicts escalate, Spike Lee leads us to an inevitable, but shocking conclusion.

This movie had to beat The Red Shoes to advance.

 

[SteveGon]

Blue Velvet
Do the Right Thing

 

[george kaplan]

The usual "lesser of two evils votes"

Blue Velvet

Andrei Rublev

 

[Brook K]

Barry Lyndon
Do The Right Thing

 

[Rob Tomlin]

Barry Lyndon

Do The Right Thing

 

[Bill McA]

abstain - I just can't vote against either of these two magnificent masterpieces...shame on George for even considering them unworthy!

Andrei Rublev

 

[Agee Bassett]

Barry Lyndon
Andrei Rublev

 

[george kaplan]

No Bill, shame on Lynch for messing Blue Velvet up! And shame on Kubrick for making a film that doesn't even belong in the same canon as masterpieces like 2001 and Dr. Strangelove.

 

[Rain]

Barry Lyndon

Abstain

 

[Elizabeth S]

Barry Lyndon

 

[Lew Crippen]

Barry Lyndon has an easy time (5-2) with Blue Velvet but Andrei Rublev can only tie Do the Right Thing. I’ll break the tie for Andrei Rublev.

Barry Lyndon and Andrei Rublev advance. This completes the next bracket. On to the quarterfinals.


Today’s matches:

Round 3: Bracket 2:

All That Heaven Allows: I don’t apologize for wanting you, says Cary (Jane Wyman) to her gardener (Rock Hudson). Regardless of her feelings, no one in her circle understands (or cares to), but it is her children who protest the most effectively. And like all children, as soon as they have her back in their world, they immediately leave her to live their own lives (with a Christmas TV as a nice substitute). Naturally a TV has no chance against Rock, and things end predictably. A sopa opera story, told with bite and since the director is Douglas Sirk, panache.

This movie shut out Withnail & I, but had a harder time against Blow-Up.


vs.

Les enfants du paradis: You’re much too lovely to be loved is just one of the many great lines in this great movie. At over three hours, it seems perhaps not quite long enough as we are drawn into post-Napoleonic France, the theater and reality. As fine a job of linking those disparate worlds as exists on film.


Round 3: Bracket 3:

A Room with a View: Women like looking at a view. Men don’t. A somewhat heavy-handed approach by director James Ivory, encourages us to judge the characters, just as they judge each other. Not too many likable characters, but they are softened by the cinematography.

The expatriates had no trouble with Thelma and Louise, narrowly edged Titanic and shut out Safe. Is this movie peaking at the right time?

vs.

The Searchers: I’ve still got my saber. Didn’t beat it into no plowshare neither. We know that Ethan Edwards (John Wayne) is a hard, unforgiving man, but it takes the whole picture for us to see that he is more destructive to his own self, than to others, as he spends the best years of his life in a relentless, but ultimately unfulfilling quest.

The Searchers knocked off Broken Blossoms and just squeaked by Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? on the way to the quarterfinals.

 

[george kaplan]

All That Heaven Allows

A Room with a View

 

[SteveGon]

Abstain

 

[JohnRice]

Children

Room

 

[Bill McA]

All That Heaven Allows

A Room with a View

 

[Brook K]

All That Heaven Allows

 

[JohnRice]

Looks like I'll be giving AtHA another spin before the next round.

 

[Lew Crippen]

All That Heaven Allows (3–1) and A Room with a View (3–0) both have an easy time and advance to the semifinals.


Today’s matches:

Round 3: Bracket 1:

Barry Lyndon: Fate had determined that he should leave none of his race behind him, and that he should finish his life poor, lonely and childless. The story is well known now, that director Stanley Kubrick had special lenses made in order to shoot many of the scenes, using only natural light. The success that DP John Alcott had is seen in set piece after set piece (many of the opening shots of scenes are reminiscent of the Dutch Masters (on purpose, of course, as some are the same as we have seen in major museums.

Barry Lyndon made it to the quarterfinals by beating Belle du jour and Blue Velvet.

vs.

Once Upon a Time in America: You see, I have a story too, Mr. Bailey. I had a friend once. A dear friend. I turned him in to save his life. He died. But he wanted it that way. Things went bad for my friend, and they went bad for me too. Things do indeed go bad for Noodles (Robert De Niro) as this movie moves backward and forward through time and place. Egnimatic? Perhaps, but only in the sense that director Sergio Leone does not spell out every last detail, leaving the viewer with much to consider.

This movie made it by beating Dancer in the Dark and Taxi Driver.


Round 3: Bracket 4:

Alphaville: Sometimes reality is too complex for oral communication. But legend embodies it in a form which enables it to spread all over the world. : What is a movie by Jean-Luc Godard without some philosophical discourse? This moive is no different in that regard and also no different than many of Godard’s best in that it is fun, something strangely missed by many who dislike Godard.

Alphaville beat both The Piano and Shock Corridor to advance.

vs.

Andrei Rublev: Russians of the same blood, of the same land. Evil is everywhere. Someone will always sell you for thirty pieces of silver. Stunning from a flying sequence to the ending with all color, a release after a considerable buildup.

Andrei Rublev had to beat The Conformist and Do the Right Thing to arrive at the quarterfinals.

 

[JohnRice]

Once Upon a Time in America

 

[Brook K]

Barry Lyndon

Andrei Rublev