Sight and Sound (2002) Greatest Films Club

Re: Sight and Sound (2002) Greatest Films Club

One, Two, Three made my top 10 (maybe top 5, I forget) 2008 1st time viewings list. The script/dialogue is terrific and it's a laugh out loud comedy, but it is Cagney's show. He makes the whole thing sing. Nobody's ever delivered dialogue like Cagney. It's nothing short of amazing to watch him just command the screen and let 'er rip!

I occasionally kid myself into thinking I'll come back and review the 10 or so movies I've watched from the list since I quit posting reviews, but I never find the time. I am 2 hours into Visconti's Ludwig, but still have almost 2 more to go so I'm not sure I'll finish it up tonight since I have a fantasy baseball draft. My interest hasn't waned yet, but I'm wondering if I can make it through 2 more hours of neurosis and Helmut Berger pouting. Visconti makes it all beautiful to look at though.

Re: Sight and Sound (2002) Greatest Films Club

Rewatching the Apartment is always a rewarding experience. Like a very good book, this is a film that improves each time you return to it. I noticed so much more about Fran Kubelik this time around, and Shirley Maclaine's performance, than I ever had before. Most prior viewings I focused on Baxter, but this time around, for whatever reason (maybe it was the big screen?) I felt myself drawn to her character. I'd never had any problem interpreting Baxter as an everyman, but this is the first time I really understood Kubelik as an everywoman as well, and I think that's partially why the film works as well as it does and feels like a romance despite the fact that so little of the story has elements of a romance. In particular, I seemed to see a recent girlfriend (two actually) in Kubelik, and I'd not seen this film since before I was dating either of them, and the broken/resilient-fragility of the one, and the clinging to a bad situation of the other seemed to inform my perceptions of Fran this time around. The more life I learn, the more wise this film seems than ever--and it's been a favorite since I was sixteen.

And something else that stood out, watching this on film. Fran's LBD she wears to the apartment at christmas is one of the sexiest things I've seen in a movie. DAMN. The terrycloth robe at the spaghetti supper was pretty smokin too, but not comparable to the secretary in her negligee and a trench coat in One Two Three.

speaking of One Two Three, that's long been a favorite wilder of mine, but now that I've seen it on film, like Apartment, Some Like it Hot, Double Indemnity, Sunset Blvd, and Witness for the Prosecution I realized it doesn't quite reach the level of perfection of those films, as a series of individual scenes the film is nonstop genius. but they don't harmonize together quite as perfectly as Wilder's best films, it's got a few clanks it. and I think that's because there's just a teensy bit of imbalance in the film, which is that James Cagney completely outclasses every other major role in the film. A lot of the supporting cast is perfect, but the film cried out for one more ounce of star power to bring things aright, imo. for instance, Marilyn Monroe as the secretary, or Liz Taylor as Scarlett, Or Brando, Mineo, Dean, or Beatty as Otto. Actually I think it'd have been perfect if you just had Myrna Loy playing Cagney's wife, though Arlene Phyllis is easily my favorite of the other major roles.

Re: Sight and Sound (2002) Greatest Films Club

I Netflixed this on blu-ray. First, I don't think hi-def matters a bit for this film, with the very grainy long shots and fuzzy ultra-close-ups I think anyone can watch this on SD and be quite happy with it.

As for the film ... truly wonderful. Some random thoughts:

I like films that have eclectic elements and English words intermixed with Chinese dialog and Mexican beer, pizza mixed in with traditional Chinese food along with old time Western music mixed in with Indian really really resonates with me. It is also truly reflective of the mashing of multi-cultural elements of big cities and certainly Hong Kong is a prime example of that.

The repeated use of songs was an interesting element. One that I both liked and I thought worked well with the story.

I want to study the opening chase scene, it is a thing of beauty.

I'm getting that the Chungking Express is a combo of Chung King Mansion and the Midnight Express but felt they were getting a little too cute for their own good.

Faye Wong, what a great job she did with that role. Terrific.

Did anyone else notice the Blade Runner references in the first story? They 'borrowed' a music cue and also the scene with the hot flight attendant and the cop borrowed elements from Deckard and Rachael's love scene.

Also agree that the cinematography was interesting, effective. I don't know if I needed to see a ultra-closeup flyover of a bunch of ugly guys huddled up and eating their chow - but overall it was wonderful.

Overall, for me, a home run of a film

Re: Sight and Sound (2002) Greatest Films Club

Looking forward to reading your reviews if you get them written up Brook. Did you ever watch Make Way for Tomorrow?

I last tried to watch Salo when I was seventeen. I watched up until the first marraige, was a bit titalated by the nudity early on, but got increasingly disturbed by the film. I never came back to watch the rest of it, partially because I would have to watch it in a library, and it was embarassing enough checking out the dvd from the smirking student librarian. I know myself well enough to know that I'd probably never be able to sit still if I were to try to watch it at home. Watching it on film was likely the only way I was going to see it, and it's certainly an endurance test to sit through the film. I sort of feel like one of Pasolini's victims by choosing to watch all of it, that I'm not all that different from the 16 of 18 that choose to continue participating until their much more drawn out and brutal deaths rather than nip it in the bud at the beginning, so to speak. While I'm reasonably sure there are some in the audience tonight who viewed all the walkouts with a sense of superiority, "hah, I can sit through all this, I'm better than you who can't handle it" I left the theatre quite literally shaken and sort of thinking that the people who left at various points throughout the film (in what seemed a fairly steady stream) were the smart ones.

I certainly was able to get Pasolini's political points as well as his dissection of human naature this time around, and the recent history of such travesties as Abu Ghraib prove that the end of Salo, with the victims now participating jackbooted, uniformed and armed like the soldiers who once enforced their captivity and torment is all too searing and accurate an assessment of humanity.

One thing that did strike me, which was not apparent in cutting off the film when I did nine years ago, was that an onscreen rape only occurs once, and it is quickly undermined by the actions of the president of the four. The scene is disturbing because the rape is unforgiving and impactful but it could also be perversely erotic, and I think that the way Pasolini plays the film out, with the transition into consensual homosexual sex, and even the president's prancing about before that undercuts people's ability to misuse that scene for mere personal gratification. And after that, until the end montage of rape, torture and execution, rape happens off screen. we got the impact, and the degradations and abuses after that point are of a different, and increasingly apallilng variety. Immensely unpleasant, I'm not pleased at all I watched the rest of it, and I'll never watch it again. The film is powerful and speaks clearly, imo, but it's completely not worth it either.

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On the other hand, though I hated Salo, I loved the Decameron, which is probably my favorite Pasolini, it's joyous, irreverent, naughty, crude and full of life and energy, like mixing Ovid's Metamorphoses (or the Orlando Furioso) with Monty Python. naturally it's not on the list.

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I looked up who voted for Salo, naturally it's Michael Haneke and Catherine Breillet. hah. one critic voted for it, Joel David.

Re: Sight and Sound (2002) Greatest Films Club

I've always considered myself one of those who could sit through anything because I grew up watching some rather extreme stuff. I know some people can't watch the blood and gore in horror films but I had no problem eating food while watching it. I've seen some extreme cannibal movies from Italy, various Euro films and even more rape/revenge films from the exploitation field.

I watched SALO right before the first Criterion disc went out of print and I actually had to stop the movie about an hour in and then finish the rest a few hours later. I thought the film was a masterpiece and that the points were brilliantly made but I've yet to go back and visit the film. I really want to and at some point will but I can certainly see why some would walk out or not even bother with the film at all.

Re: DON'T LOOK NOW

I'm starting to think I'm the only person who doesn't like this film. Outside the performances and cinematography I found it to be quite boring, dull and just pointless. I gave this one a second viewing to see if it would work better and it didn't. I'm still somewhat shocked I didn't like it but I'm even more shocked at how many people really love it.

Re: Sight and Sound (2002) Greatest Films Club

Faith, honor, integrity—do these words have no meaning?


A question posed by the husband of Charulata after he discovers that a confident and relative has absconded with some of his money. And as he considers the betrayel in the company of another relative, Amal who has fallen in love with his wife, the moment is poignant to be sure. Satyajit Ray’s movie is set in Victorian India, so the affair never becomes physical and Amal leaves for Madras before the metaphysical becomes real.

As always Ray’s characters are absolutely believable, as are their actions and motivations—even when (as in this movie) nothing much really happens.

A must-see.

Re: Sight and Sound (2002) Greatest Films Club

I really think that Bernard's Les Miserables is likely to make the top fifty of the next Sight and Sound poll, a must see. A bit belated comment since I last saw it a year and half ago, but I finally bought the eclipse set this week and plan on watching it again. so I figured I'd give it a shout out.

Re: Sight and Sound (2002) Greatest Films Club

I'm still processing In the Realm of the Senses, but what a breathtaking and intense film it was.

Partially at issue for me is that my first girlfriend, who is Japanese, had a body like the lead of this film, so the unrequited part of our own relationship (I was young so was she and we didn't do the deed) makes it difficult for me to process anything but the most primal levels of the film's content. I'm quite aware of the layers of metaphor in the film and the larger themes (the final dream when she wakes up in the theatre is quite telling), but I can't articulate them for you, at least, not just after seeing it for the first time.

I think what I am most surprised by is that for a film that features actual sex (and doesn't shy away from showing it), the sex is essential to making the points Oshima is addressing, not only about obsession, but also about how we view and how we look as well. I feel he is critiquing the audience with this film as much as he is examining their relationship. Shortbus featured actual sex and failed, mostly apart from that, it was overwhelmed for the most part by the sexual content, this isn't true of this film, where the and sexual content is wrapped up together beautifully. In a way I'm reminded of reading Lolita or The Cement Garden in how the taboo sexual aspects are essential and intertwined into the novel and can't be separated without losing the artistic impact and expression of the work.

Re: Sight and Sound (2002) Greatest Films Club

Interesting take on Realm. It's been many years since I saw it, but certainly the intensity of the experience remains. I disagree with you on Shortbus though. I found the sexual content fit the film's themes about human connection, self-worth, respect, etc. No matter our strange behaviour and quirks, everyone is worthy of love. It's absence is what leads to so many self-inflicted problems. At least that's what I got out of the film.

I did watch Make Way for Tomorrow, Adam, unfortunately, the disc cut off the last 5 minutes or so of the movie so I didn't include it in my count.

Charulata, unforunately the quality of the disc I watched was so bad I don't feel like I really saw the film. (though I did count it.) I felt like there were large sections of dialogue that didn't get translated in the subtitles. It did have certain melodramatic qualities I appreciated and the performances are quite good, it just didn't impress me like The Music Room.

Re: Sight and Sound (2002) Greatest Films Club

Regarding Shortbus, the opening masturbation scene was simply gratuitous sex with no discernible point other than shock value. That said, I do think the film succeeds, in fact, terrifically so.

Re: Sight and Sound (2002) Greatest Films Club

I’m of two minds as to the transfer quality of Charulata and several other classic Indian DVDs. On the one hand, the transfers are often very poor—on the other this is about the only way I can see these films (at least where I live now).

To be sure the subtitle translations are very bad (as far as I can tell).

Re: Sight and Sound (2002) Greatest Films Club

You don’t make up for your sins in church. You do that in the streets. You do it home.


Martin Scorsese is the voice-over for Charlie (Harvey Keitel) in the opening of Scorsese’s breakthrough movie of the early 70’s, Mean Streets. Charlie’s best friend, Johnny Boy (Robert De Niro) is the not too bright, out of control loser who ultimately drags Charlie down with him (assuming that Charlie would ever manage to overcome his Catholic sense of guilt).

A brilliant portrayal of New York’s Little Italy and a landmark for Scorsese, Keitel and De Niro. An absolute must-see.

Re: Sight and Sound (2002) Greatest Films Club

Agreed Lew, it took 2-3 viewings for me to really "get it" and appreciate the work. There is a great deal going on beneath the surface, that being neither Catholic nor an urban city-dwellar, I could only pick up on through reading and interviews.

Rich, I thought so too at first, but I think the opening scene fits with the rest of the film - 1. one could see a lonely person performing an act they wish someone else would do for them/they had another person(s) to share such experiences with 2. No one needs to apologize for their sexual proclivities and needs (as long as no one is unwillingly hurt in the process)

Certainly there is a shock value to the usage to "hook" the viewer into the film in the same way that a slasher movie often features a killing right off the bat that one could argue is unnecessary in a serious-minded film. I haven't really read much about the film, so it could also be meant as a joke and of course it also plays on the "audience as voyeur" that directors have toyed with forever.

Re: Sight and Sound (2002) Greatest Films Club

I’m a normal guy.


A claim and protest made by Chas (James Fox) to Turner (Mick Jagger) in Performance that is unbelievable on the surface and ironic on several levels—and not just because Chas is a small-time gangster and full time pschopath. Since co-director Nicholas Roeg is also the DP, this movie is worth watching for his craft alone. Too bad that the other director, Donald Cammell did not provide a screenplay that went past stereotypical 60s sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll.

Still the movie was no doubt somewhat on the forefront in its era.

Re: Sight and Sound (2002) Greatest Films Club

You cannot carry one chicken and expect two to crow.


One of many Chinese aphorisms in Hou Hsiao Hsien’s The Puppetmaster spoken by the film’s narrator and main character, Li Tien-lu, who spent most of his life in Taiwan during the time it was a part of Japan.

That Li is a puppet master is almost incidental to much of the movie as it spends a great deal of time showing us the everyday life of Li and his family, friends, co-workers and lovers. Still, the movie comes to live when stage performances are shown—the few times that Hou breaks out of the earth-tone palette of the movie and allows crimsons, vermilions, bright yellows and emerald greens to express the narrative.

As often with Hou, much is filmed in long and medium shots, with little camera movement. Perhaps a comment on the place of individuals in the scheme of nature and as components of the great play.

Re: Sight and Sound (2002) Greatest Films Club

I've seen a lot of these movies and a lot of AFI movies on the big screen. I make a special effort to try to catch whatever ones I can whenever I hear of a screening.

There are a very few films that are really transformed into a completely different degree of cinematic experience on the big screen, that take a film to the next level for me. There are not a lot, I've not seen very many that really became almost a different film on the big screen they were so much more effective. Sometimes it makes me love a movie more than I already loved it. Sometimes it makes me realize how wrong I was about a movie not to love it. Sometimes it makes me really understand and accept the greatness of the movie in a way I hadn't got before. Sometimes, as in the case of PlayTime, even seeing it on the big screen doesn't help.

The top of the list of those movies really made into different experiences for me is Lawrence of Arabia, but it's also accompanied by 2001, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, A Streetcar Named Desire, Jaws, and Rear Window. I didn't say there were a lot of them, jus that these particular films are astoundingly better on the big screen than they are on TV or in a home theatre. Rear Window and Jaws will never feel as tense and impressive as they did in the theatre and these are films I'd watched half a dozen times before getting that theatre experience and been thrilled each time before. Home viewing just does not compare on a quantitative or qualitative level for some movies.

I saw another one of those movies tonight, one I'd seen before and complained about before and while I respected it I didn't really care for it.

Gone with the Wind

Holy shit, what a masterpiece, mesmerizing and magical the film is a true piece of work. The first half flies by, Hattie McDaniel deserved that oscar more than anyone in the cast. The humorous moments are spot on, and the epic moments really astounding on the big screen. The famous hospital crane shot, which I've seen many times, but never on film, really possesses a powerful impact on film. The handful of shots (with just stunt doubles but who cares) of the burning of Atlanta (the King Kong an King of Kings sets) are phenomenal to see. The overall look of the film is equally magnificent, deep heavy colors that aren't bright but have a kind of nostalgic realism to them. And damn that script, with all those amazing lines, Gable, in particular, is far more impressive in this role than I ever realized. Vivien Leigh is more than tolerable, she's tremendously impressive in this performance. It's a role I hate, because of how short sighted and stupid she is regarding Ashley, but I can dislike the character but still love the performance. And I found Scarlett to be much moe sympathetic this time. I still think she's getting what she deserves in the end, but I no longer actively root against her every step of the way. I even quite like the Scarlet that is capable and awesome at the beginning of the second half. Right up until she steals her sister's fiancee, then I go back to happily hating her.

A tremendous movie on pretty much every level, one that really has to be seen on the big screen, imo.

The Wages of Fear is a perfect and intense thriller right up until the final minute or so.  Then the film decides to sucker punch you.  Is that decision thematically important?  yes it is, so it has a point other than the 'downer ending=art' cliche (which is one of the laziest and most common aspects of 'art' cinema), but its also a giant "fuck you, suckers!" to the audience. An incredibly potent ending that I absolutely hate. 

Still it's a masterpiece.

it never fails to astonish me that Manhattan is not on this list.  I saw it on a brand new print last night in the best theatre in LA and just, DAMN.  More self-consciously beautiful than an Antonioni film, but with a spirit of Truffaut or Wilder to the relationships, story and plot.  Like Jules and Jim meets Last Year at Marienbad.  I want a blu-ray.

also Brook has mentioned else where he has seen some more S&S films but not commented on them and this thread needed a bump.