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12-20-2003, 09:04 PM
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#1291 of 3734 
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Join Date: Dec 2000
Local Time: 03:47 PM
Local Date: 11-18-2008
Posts: 12,549
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George, won't you at least admit that Short Cuts had its moments? 
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12-20-2003, 11:17 PM
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#1292 of 3734
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Join Date: Mar 2001
Local Time: 02:47 PM
Local Date: 11-18-2008
Posts: 14,313
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Could you be more specific?
I don't think it's the worst movie I've ever seen, and there were some clever ideas, but overall it was a lot of soap opera topics (half the connections were people cheating on/with each other, the other half all seemed to do with death). And while there were some good characters, there were too many of the weird types that turn me off in these films (e.g., the doctor's wife).
"Movies should be like amusement parks. People should go to them to have fun." - Billy Wilder
"Subtitles good. Hollywood bad." - Tarzan, Sight & Sound 2012 voter.
"My films are not slices of life, they are pieces of cake." - Alfred Hitchcock
"My great humility is just one of the many reasons that I am vastly superior to everyone else." - Ramrod Clerk
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12-21-2003, 12:47 AM
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#1293 of 3734
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Member
Join Date: Dec 2000
Local Time: 03:47 PM
Local Date: 11-18-2008
Posts: 12,549
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Well, I liked the movie better than you did, but I was simply referring to the um, nude scenes of Julianne Moore and Madeleine Stowe. 
BTW, I just watched a pretty good little comedy/fantasy entitled It Happened Tomorrow, directed by Rene Clair. You might enjoy it (I'll do a write-up on it for the Expanding Horizons thread). 
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12-21-2003, 12:57 AM
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#1294 of 3734
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Member
Join Date: Mar 2001
Local Time: 02:47 PM
Local Date: 11-18-2008
Posts: 14,313
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Unfortunately I saw this on Bravo. It was uncut, but they blurred out the nudity. 
"Movies should be like amusement parks. People should go to them to have fun." - Billy Wilder
"Subtitles good. Hollywood bad." - Tarzan, Sight & Sound 2012 voter.
"My films are not slices of life, they are pieces of cake." - Alfred Hitchcock
"My great humility is just one of the many reasons that I am vastly superior to everyone else." - Ramrod Clerk
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12-22-2003, 12:48 AM
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#1295 of 3734
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Member
Location: St. Louis, MO
Join Date: Feb 2000
Local Time: 08:47 PM
Local Date: 11-18-2008
Posts: 10,460
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Watched my first Robert Bresson film tonight with Les Dames Du Bois De Boulogne a melancholy film about a jilted lover seeking vengeance on the man she feels wronged her by feigning friendship and manipulating the man into a new relationship with some former friends whose poor financial circumstances has left them easy marks.
I understand this film is not really representative of his later work, but I thought it was a fine film with some excellent camera work and a very fine effects sequence for the time, involving a windblown letter in the rain. However, I would agree with others here that the movie doesn't really belong on the list. Keeping things French, there are multiple films by Eric Rohmer, Rene Clair, or Agnes Varda that I'd rather see appear.
Martin, I'm happy you're interested in seeing more Fassbinder, but wish you'd like Bitter Tears more. Going by what you seem to like, I think there are many you won't care for, but I hope you find at least a few that you like or even love.
Yes, Captain Hammer's here, hair blowing in the breeze. The day needs my saving expertise! - Captain Hammer, Corporate Tool
2002 Sight & Sound Challenge: 314 Last Watched: An Autumn Afternoon
Last 10 Films Watched:
Mon Oncle Antoine - B / Late Autumn - A-
Paranoid Park - B / An Autumn Afternoon - A
Forgetting Sarah Marshall - B / Run, Fatboy, Run - B
Get Smart - C- / Rendition - B-
Springtime in a Small Town - B+ / Evan Almighty - C
DVD BEAVER My Collection
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12-22-2003, 11:03 AM
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#1296 of 3734
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Join Date: Feb 2002
Local Time: 12:47 PM
Local Date: 11-18-2008
Posts: 1,791
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| Martin, I'm happy you're interested in seeing more Fassbinder, but wish you'd like Bitter Tears more. Going by what you seem to like, I think there are many you won't care for, but I hope you find at least a few that you like or even love. |
I think there will be.
Los Olvidados is light on the Bunuel weirdness that I'm so fond of (though there is a marvelous dream sequence and a few other nice touches) but that doesn't stop it from being an incredibly good movie, as revelant and disturbing today as it must have been 50 years ago.
It's been a year of discovery for me (partly due to this thread). I've seen my first:
Powell & Pressberger
Kiarostami
Wong Kar-Wai
Ming-liang Tsai
Miyazaki
Miike
Bunuel
Tarkovsky
Maddin
Ang Hung Tran
Brakhage
Wenders
Keaton
Eisenstein
Noe
Truffaut
Sturges
Peckinpah
Kazan
Renoir
Leone
Vertov
Mizoguchi
Fellini (not counting the hour of 8 1/2 I watched last year)
Vigo
Godard
Ophuls
Suzuki
Becker
Cocteau
Ichikawa
Lubitsch
Bresson
Ray
Fassbinder
And also the first time I saw several landmark classics like Metropolis, Gone With the Wind, Lawrence of Arabia and Singin' in the Rain. I'm looking forward to broadening my cinematic experience more in the upcoming year. |
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12-22-2003, 11:09 AM
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#1297 of 3734
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Member
Location: Ajijic, Jalisco, Mexíco
Join Date: May 2002
Local Time: 02:47 PM
Local Date: 11-18-2008
Posts: 11,429
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My right hand hasn't seen my left hand in years.
A comment made by J.J. Hunsecker (Burt Lancaster) on his own morality, in Sweet Smell of Success, as he rejects an offer of Sidney Falco’s (Tony Curtis). Playwright Clifford Odets has crafted a bleak picture of human greed and motivation, including some barely repressed feelings of incest, as Hunsecker attempts to protect his daughter from a straight-arrow, jazz musician.
Some said at the time, that this is a portrayal of then columnist Walter Winchell, but by now, no one cares. We are left with a strong, though I think not often-viewed, must-see film.
¡Time is not my master!
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12-22-2003, 11:11 AM
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#1298 of 3734
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Member
Location: Ajijic, Jalisco, Mexíco
Join Date: May 2002
Local Time: 02:47 PM
Local Date: 11-18-2008
Posts: 11,429
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That is one great list Martin. What fun you must be having.
¡Time is not my master!
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12-22-2003, 11:32 AM
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#1299 of 3734
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Member
Location: St. Louis, MO
Join Date: Feb 2000
Local Time: 08:47 PM
Local Date: 11-18-2008
Posts: 10,460
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I agree Lew. Martin even has a few on there I've yet to experience:
Ang Hung Tran (on Netflix for awhile just haven't gotten to)
Brakhage (Netflix doesn't carry)
Wenders (Amazing given my love of Fassbinder and Herzog that I haven't seen a Wenders film yet. I am about to see my first Schlondorff)
Ophuls (Dying to see Letter after the incredible looking sequence included in Scorsese's "Personal Journey" but unless I order the French DVD, I don't have a way to)
Looking forward to more Bresson, Ozu, Fuller, Sturges, Bergman, Bunuel, Godard, Fassbinder, and many more in the new year.
I've gotten carried away on renting Criterions and have failed to pick up the pace on the list. I'll probably take another month of slow going and then try and see at least one a week starting in February.
Yes, Captain Hammer's here, hair blowing in the breeze. The day needs my saving expertise! - Captain Hammer, Corporate Tool
2002 Sight & Sound Challenge: 314 Last Watched: An Autumn Afternoon
Last 10 Films Watched:
Mon Oncle Antoine - B / Late Autumn - A-
Paranoid Park - B / An Autumn Afternoon - A
Forgetting Sarah Marshall - B / Run, Fatboy, Run - B
Get Smart - C- / Rendition - B-
Springtime in a Small Town - B+ / Evan Almighty - C
DVD BEAVER My Collection
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12-22-2003, 07:18 PM
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#1300 of 3734
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Member
Join Date: Mar 2001
Local Time: 02:47 PM
Local Date: 11-18-2008
Posts: 14,313
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The Age of Innocence
Scorsese does a costume drama. Well, it’s better than Ivory/Merchant, but not by much. Still, if you like costume dramas, then I suspect you’d love this one. For myself, let’s just say that costume dramas fit onto my dvd shelf about as well as I fit into the snobbish society they portray. But I guess they fit well into a snobbish list like the S&S better than I fit into this thread.
163 watched
177 left
"Movies should be like amusement parks. People should go to them to have fun." - Billy Wilder
"Subtitles good. Hollywood bad." - Tarzan, Sight & Sound 2012 voter.
"My films are not slices of life, they are pieces of cake." - Alfred Hitchcock
"My great humility is just one of the many reasons that I am vastly superior to everyone else." - Ramrod Clerk
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12-23-2003, 09:59 AM
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#1301 of 3734
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Member
Location: Ajijic, Jalisco, Mexíco
Join Date: May 2002
Local Time: 02:47 PM
Local Date: 11-18-2008
Posts: 11,429
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Metropolis, the 1926/7 masterwork by Fritz Lang is generally considered to be the first great Science Fiction movie. Its basic plot, is by now hackneyed—the citizens of privilege above, living on the sweat of the industrial-age slaves below and parts of the film is quoted by everyone from Chaplin to Kubrick. Lang gives us marvelous sets and designs and is as masterful as Griffith in managing crowd scenes.
But for me the weakness in this film, is that the story and the way in which it is told, is more suited to a talkie than it is as a silent film. Just as some of Chaplin’s sound- | |
