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| Marj |
 Posted: Thu Sep 24, 2009 8:16 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 10497
Location: Manhattan
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| Lissa, I know it would be up your alley. Seriously. |
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| lissa |
| Posted: Thu Sep 24, 2009 9:38 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 2148
Location: my computer
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| Okay, that's enough for me...certainly need something to occupy my mind these days. It's off to Blockbuster for The Illusionist AND Keeping Mum! Thanks guys! |
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Statistically, 6 out of 7 dwarfs aren't happy. |
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| Earl |
| Posted: Thu Sep 24, 2009 10:14 pm |
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Joined: 09 Jun 2004
Posts: 2621
Location: Houston
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lady wakasa wrote: Syd wrote: In a totally different vein:
In the Mood for Love is a film of romantic sexual frustration set in Hong Kong in the mid-1960s. The Chans and Chows rent parts of apartment suites next to each other, moving in on the same day to memorable confusion. Mr. Chan and Mrs. Chow both are gone on business trips a lot, and come home late when they're not and Mr. Chow (Tony Leung) and Mrs. Chan (Maggie Cheung) gradually start putting the pieces together, noticing things like the two husbands have identical ties and the two wives identical handbags, all of them bought on business trips and not sold in Hong Kong. What a coincidence?
Mr. Chow and Mrs. Chan have already independently figured out what is going on, and finally air things out, but can't figure out how it happened, so they start pretending to be Mr. Chan and Mrs. Chow. Unfortunately, they start understanding too well, which is a bit of a problem because they both think they are above adultery (or at least think the other one is).
This all sounds like a farce, but it's generally (but not always) played straight, with lots of mood music, and I found it moved pretty slowly. It's interesting to try to figure out whether the couple is playing their cheating spouses, being real, or both. It was nice to see Mrs. Chan dolled up in tight-fitting dresses for work, but showing up in the same outfit for noodles because she couldn't bother changing. She obviously has a good clothing budget.
Really, for my taste, it moves too slowly and is too moody, and I rather wished the couple would take the playacting to the logical conclusion and have a torrid love affair, preferably starting about halfway through the movie.
There is a sequel, 2046, which stars Leung as Mr. Chow trying to pick himself up after this film, and it's even more moody but less focused and less pleasant, but I actually like it a bit better, and it has what I consider Ziyi Zhang's best performance (and Li Gong and Connie Cheung in supporting roles).
I love the high level of stylization in In the Mood for Love - there's so much more going on than whether they're having a physical affair. I never got to see 2046, though.
I should go watch this again.
I saw 2046 and couldn't quite get into it. I had no idea that it was a sequel. Perhaps if I had seen the first movie I would have enjoyed 2046 better. |
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"I have a suspicion that you are all mad," said Dr. Renard, smiling sociably; "but God forbid that madness should in any way interrupt friendship." |
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| Marc |
| Posted: Fri Sep 25, 2009 2:53 am |
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Joined: 19 May 2004
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Lady,
Watched In The Mood For Love tonight. My third viewing, my lady friend's first.
We both agreed it is an hypnotic experience. I don't find it slow moving at all. Every frame is rich with detail. One of my all time favorite movies. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Fri Sep 25, 2009 6:34 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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Marc wrote: Lady,
Watched In The Mood For Love tonight. My third viewing, my lady friend's first.
We both agreed it is an hypnotic experience. I don't find it slow moving at all. Every frame is rich with detail. One of my all time favorite movies.
What Marc finds hypnotizing I find narcotizing--although, yes, visually the film is lush with detail. I tend to agree with Syd--almost every word of Syd's post, in fact. I kept wishing these zombies would get it on already. |
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| Ghulam |
| Posted: Tue Sep 29, 2009 12:57 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 4742
Location: Upstate NY
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| I saw the same problem with both "In the Mood for Love" and "2046": Style over substance. |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Tue Sep 29, 2009 10:29 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9016
Location: Shanghai
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Enjoyed Hal Hartley's Trust (1990), his second film. It's an indie quirkfest about suburban family dysfunction. What makes the film work is the focus on its two central characters: Adrienne Shelley as a ditzy yet tough pregnant high school student, and a near-30 year old, well-read misanthrope, played by Martin Donovan. Shelley is eminently watchable as a resourceful chick who has to grow up fast. Mostly she has a fairly blank expression, hinting at layers below. This contrasts with Donovan's routine as a tough talking noir type character.
Shelley starts off as a brash character and then turns to pathetic. This early part reminded me a good deal of Rosanna Arquette in Desperately Seeking Susan. Then when Shelley's character has to take care of her family and Donovan, she becomes mousy and maternal, looking very much like Mia Farrow.
The focus on the characters and the clever writing make the film. When Shelley's character starts reading Donovan's books, he realizes that she's near-sighted. She says that she doesn't like to wear her glasses because they make her look stupid. In what way, he asks. And she replies that they make her look brainy, like a librarian.
It's easy to spot some of the influences, particularly Jarmusch's early films. And Donovan's father seems to very much a Dennis Hopper type role, probably influenced by Blue Velvet. It also seems very likely that Kevin Smith was taken with the wordy, artificial dialogue Hartley employs. Some of the dialogue sounds like clever writing more than actual speech, but is presented in a knowing hipster/ironic fashion, which allows it to work. Smith also seems to have borrowed some of the low-budget indie techniques from this film and Jarmusch (especially that if you keep the frame tight on the faces, you don't have to worry about background).
The only other Hartley I've seen was Fay Grimm (2006), which was an intermittently successful spy film featuring Parker Posey. The storyline is a continuation of sorts of Henry Fool (1996), a Hartley film I'd like to see. |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Tue Sep 29, 2009 11:31 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 14498
Location: Houston
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I really liked Trust, but my favorite Hartley was The Unbelievable Truth.
Adrienne Shelley. It's too sad. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Tue Sep 29, 2009 8:16 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12944
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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lady wakasa wrote: (ftom August 17) Syd wrote: Faust (1926) was F. W. Murnau's last German film before he came to the United States. His next film was the classic Sunrise. Faust is also considered a classic, but I'm more lukewarm about it. I suspect it would work better on a big screen and certainly with a better print.
People go on about Faust, but I think it's Murnau's Tartuffe that has one of the best opening sequences I've ever seen. Period. (I even made Lorne sit through a description of it when I met him. %^D)
I just watched Tartuffe, and I agree with you about the opening, although there's a lot of other good things in it, including Orgon's frustrating arrival to his wife.
This film has a structure like The Taming of the Shrew, where you have a framing story surrounding a film of Moliere's play Tartuffe. The framing story is about a housekeeper who is seemingly devotedly attending an old man while poisoning his mind about his grandson, who, scandalously, an ACTOR! (Shudder in horror.) The grandson decides to expose her hypocrisy by disguising himself and showing the film of Tartuffe, a scaled-down version of Moliere's famous play about a con man who poses as a devout religious man, and convinces Orgon to renounce such frivolity as kissing his wife (which can lead to sin), excess luxury, and devotion to anything but Tartuffe. Orgon's wife isn't fooled and conspires with her maid to expose Tartuffe. (The play is apparently much more involved.) Emil Janning is Tartuffe, the model of religious hypocrisy, a nice parallel to the hypocritical housekeeper.
Not one of Murnau's greatest films, but I liked it a lot. It's a pleasure to look at, and all the performances are good, and I can see, even in this abbreviated version, why Moliere's satire is so well-regarded. It's nice to see a Murnau that's simply fun to watch. |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Tue Sep 29, 2009 8:39 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: Houston
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I've never seen any of these movies.  |
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You've got a great brain. You should keep it in your head.
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| Syd |
| Posted: Tue Sep 29, 2009 8:48 pm |
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Site Admin
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12944
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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| Netflix has about a dozen Murnaus, includingNosferatu, Faust, Tartuffe, Sunrise and Tabu, which I've seen, and The Last Laugh, which I haven't. I actually enjoyed Tartuffe more than Faust or Nosferatu. |
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Rocky Laocoon foretold of Troy's doom, only to find snaky water. They pulled him in and Rocky can't swim. Now Rocky wishes he were an otter! |
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| lady wakasa |
| Posted: Tue Sep 29, 2009 8:49 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 5911
Location: Beyond the Blue Horizon
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Joe Vitus wrote: I've never seen any of these movies.
Get thee to the library, then. (Or I can lend them if you're really stuck. But not right now.) |
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| lady wakasa |
| Posted: Tue Sep 29, 2009 8:50 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 5911
Location: Beyond the Blue Horizon
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| Ghulam |
| Posted: Wed Sep 30, 2009 12:14 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 4742
Location: Upstate NY
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The Last Laugh is indeed memorable.
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| Syd |
| Posted: Wed Sep 30, 2009 4:05 pm |
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Site Admin
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12944
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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| Bottle Shock is a film about the famous 1976 wine tasting contest organized by Steven Spurrier which was won by a wine from Napa Valley. The film itself is most notable for having Alan Rickman in superb form as Spurrier, Dennis Farina as his friend, and Freddy Rodriguez as Gustavo Gambrila, a hired hand at Montelena but also making his own superb wines as a sideline. However, the California segments include Chris Pine as the hippie son of the owner of Montelena and Rachael Taylor as his hippiesh intern, and they get rather much to take. All this amounts to is a pretty ordinary film with three fine performances, and lots of shots of California wine country. |
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Rocky Laocoon foretold of Troy's doom, only to find snaky water. They pulled him in and Rocky can't swim. Now Rocky wishes he were an otter! |
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