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| Syd |
 Posted: Fri Apr 10, 2009 8:43 pm |
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Site Admin
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12921
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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Regarding the spoiler for Let the Right One In
Apparently in the book, Eli really isn't a girl, but a boy that was castrated centuries ago by a sadist. In the movie, Eli does seem to be a girl, but retains the scar to hint that she was a victim of sexual sadism. I can see why no explanation was given; it would add another layer of weirdness to a film that is already delicately balanced. |
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I had a love and my love was true but I lost my love to the yabba dabba doo, --The Flintstone Lament |
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| mo_flixx |
| Posted: Sat Apr 11, 2009 1:37 am |
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Joined: 30 May 2004
Posts: 12533
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| Wow. Thank you, Syd, for that amazing spoiler. It certainly does add a whole new dimension to the film. |
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| Ghulam |
| Posted: Sat Apr 11, 2009 2:26 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 4742
Location: Upstate NY
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mo_flixx wrote: "Let the Right One In" stayed with me for days. IMO it was a completely original take on the vampire genre. A remarkable film.
And suburban Sweden was just the right setting for such a story.
That was my take too,
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| Ghulam |
| Posted: Sat Apr 11, 2009 2:31 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 4742
Location: Upstate NY
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Elegy, based on Philip Roth's "The Dying Animal" is about an affair between an aging professor and a young student which proceeds in all unexpected directions. Ben Kingsley and Penelope Cruz are good. Somewhat contrived but watchable.
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| whiskeypriest |
| Posted: Sat Apr 11, 2009 11:28 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 6916
Location: "It's a Dry Heat."
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So I went to confession last week, for the yearly Lenten confession. Found myself so torn between wanting to confess "Murder, father" and "Being bad at maths" that I just went with my own paltry and uninteresting sins.
My wife hated the few minutes of In Bruges I got her to watch, which was disappointing if not surprising. |
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| mo_flixx |
| Posted: Sat Apr 11, 2009 12:17 pm |
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Joined: 30 May 2004
Posts: 12533
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In 1972 Michelangelo Antonioni shot a documentary for Italian television on China. This 3-hour plus film is a superb examination of a period in China’s history that is now long gone. Chinese on the street stare straight into the camera as most had never seen a westerner before.
The film begins in Beijing and explores China by topic. It is an exhaustive analysis which takes the viewer to Hunan (pt. 2) and finally to Shanghai (pt. 3). Many times during shooting Antonioni was told he couldn’t go places or shoot certain subjects. He did so anyway. I noticed especially the soundtrack which is a masterful recording of street sounds, music, bicycle bells, and other background noise. |
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| ehle64 |
| Posted: Sat Apr 11, 2009 6:02 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 7149
Location: NYC; US&A
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Ghulam wrote: Elegy, based on Philip Roth's "The Dying Animal" is about an affair between an aging professor and a young student which proceeds in all unexpected directions. Ben Kingsley and Penelope Cruz are good. Somewhat contrived but watchable.
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I found it quite moving and sad -- excellent performances all around. |
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| ehle64 |
| Posted: Sat Apr 11, 2009 6:09 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 7149
Location: NYC; US&A
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| I also have to add that as a SPOILER == i have a great friend that dealt with what penelope crux goes through and asked me to photograph her --it was so enormous, one of the greatest achievements in my artistic life. |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Sat Apr 11, 2009 6:13 pm |
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| Marta, her daughter Adriana and her two month old granddaughter Isabella (all wonderful and lovely) are here at our place in Winnipeg. I picked up three movies for us to watch, hoping that they hadn't seen them. The Year My Parents Went On Vacation (Brazilian so the language will be easy for them), 400 Blows and Sideways. Happily they have not seen them. Looking forward to how they like them, though I think Isabella might miss soon of the qualities of these films. |
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| mo_flixx |
| Posted: Sat Apr 11, 2009 7:05 pm |
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Joined: 30 May 2004
Posts: 12533
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Luis Bunuel’s Mexican “Abismos de Pasion” (a loose adaptation of _Wuthering Heights_) is a film so over-the-top, it makes Douglas Sirk look like a documentarian. Bunuel’s 1950’s Mexican period has always fascinated me. Mexican productions tend to be melodramatic, so when combined with Bunuel’s surreal vision; something very special happens.
Bunuel’s images of death (especially animal death) and religion coupled with the passions of the film’s characters make for some very intense cinema. Undoubtedly one of Bunuel’s best movies. |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Sat Apr 11, 2009 11:14 pm |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9010
Location: Shanghai
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Interesting. I've barely even heard of that film (along with Susana and Daughters of Deceit, some of the more obscure Bunuel films). I also like Bunuel's rich Mexican period. Love Ascent to Heaven ... enough to even write an IMDb review of it. And La Joven is great too. I also liked Nazarin and El Bruto.
I even watched Streetcar of Illusions and El Rio y la Muerte in Spanish without English subs (Japanese dvd editions were all I could find). The former was pretty easy to follow, as it is a fairly simple story.
So where did you find Abismos?
Is it out on Dvd?
I'd love to see Robinson Crusoe, but think that's only on videotape. And Los Olvidados is apparently tied up in some rights dispute. Fortunately I was able to see that screened as part of the Shanghai Film Festival a few years back. Would love to get it on Dvd.
Bunuel covered a lot of ground in his career. Another unusual entry is The Great Madcap, his comeback film from 1949, when he was trying for a commercial hit in order to get funding for his films. So Madcap is basically a Mexican Lubitsch farce. It's quite well done.
I still have a few Bunuel titles I haven't watched yet -- Exterminating Angel, Love of A Woman y Tristana. |
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| mo_flixx |
| Posted: Sun Apr 12, 2009 2:31 am |
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Joined: 30 May 2004
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gromit --
I saw a restored copy of Bunuel's "Robinson Crusoe" theatrically a few years ago.
Over the years I've seen a number of the Mexican films but they are rare. I saw "La Muerte en este Jardin" many years ago. That one is interesting because it is in color.
I see that there is another early Mexican film, "Gran Casino" ("Tampico") from 1947.
There is another restored Bunuel from this period. I saw it theatrically recently and the restoration included _both_ endings. Now I'm not sure which film it was when I check the imdb.com . You probably know which one. It was a story about a young boy who lived on the streets.
P.S. gromit, I'm pretty sure the restored film I mentioned must be "Los Olvidados." Do some checking. You may find it.
Bunuel's Mexican films seem extremely influential in light of the current Mexican cinema. |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Sun Apr 12, 2009 4:45 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 14498
Location: Houston
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| Somewhat embarrassed to admit this: I've never seen a Buneuel film. |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Sun Apr 12, 2009 9:51 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9010
Location: Shanghai
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Joe Vitus wrote: Somewhat embarrassed to admit this: I've never seen a Buneuel film.
Wow. And you also spelled his name wrong.
Someone oughta punch you in the groin.
You probably have seen Andalusian Dog, the 1929 surrealist short film Bunuel made with Dali. (Does a man pulling two pianos filled with donkey carcasses across a room sound familiar?) Or perhaps you've seen L'âge d'or (1930), a feature length surrealist film.
What I like best is how Bunuel shows both a good and bad side of most characters, and allows us to see their POV, understand their motivations, and thus sympathize somewhat with almost every character. In other words he takes all of his characters seriously. He also takes religion seriously even though he's a pretty strong critic of organized religion.
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Mo, definitely sounds like Los Olvidados, which was touring theatrically 3 years ago. Do you happen to remember any logo/distributor for Robinson Crusoe?
I tried to watch La Muerte en este Jardin in Spanish, but I couldn't manage with my ultra-rusty high school Spanish. Think I gave up halfway thru. |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Sun Apr 12, 2009 10:15 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9010
Location: Shanghai
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Joe, after you get your wind back, you might want to figure out a way to see:
- Ascent to Heaven (aka Mexican Bus Ride)
- El (1953) aka This Strange Passion
- Los Olvidados (hard to find)
Here's some incentive from IMDB:
Bunuel was "praised by Alfred Hitchcock as the best director ever."
The Young One (La Joven) (1960) is one of two English language Bunuel films (the other being Crusoe), and is very accessible.
Basically a melodramatic potboiler, with stark racial issues and a young girl trapped on an island with a racist lecher. Highly recommended. I always think of it as a companion piece to Renoir's The Southerner (1945). Both star Zachary Scott, which I think is no coincidence.
Since you had a Catholic upbringing (IIRC), you might be interested in Nazarin, The Milky Way, and Simon of the Desert (a quirky odd film, I wouldn't recommend early in getting to know Bunuel) which deal with Christ and prophets directly. El and Viridiana have distinct religious undercurrents as well. |
Last edited by gromit on Sun Apr 12, 2009 11:24 pm; edited 2 times in total
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