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billyweeds

Posted: Sat Feb 22, 2014 5:30 pm

Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 20618 Location: New York City

gromit--The "blonde" was the very well known sister of Maximilian Schell, Maria, and the "psychiatrist" was the Oscarwinning (for In the Heat of the Night) Rod Steiger.

Syd

Posted: Mon Feb 24, 2014 12:50 am

Site Admin Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 12921 Location: Norman, Oklahoma

I'm watching Cavalcade, the 1933 Best Picture winner, and, though it's certainly dated, I don't understand why it took so long to be released on DVD. It takes two families, an upper-crust family, the Maryotts, and their (initially) servants, the Bridges, and takes them through major events from 1899 (the Boer war) through the (1931) present. It's often very effective. Diana Wynyard got a Best Actress nomination, but she's overtly stagey (she was a famous stage actress of the time) and looks straight into the camera to deliver Meaningful Lines. I prefer Una O'Connor as Mrs. Bridges.

This largely forgotten film has a famous scene, where Edward Maryott and Edith Harris, childhood friends who have gradually fallen in love, have decided to marry, and spend their honeymoon on a steamship, and after a frankly brilliant conversation, walk away and we see a life buoy reading "Titanic Southampton."

It has a very strong antiwar message, which, considering it encompasses the Boer War and World War I, is not surprising.

_________________
I had a love and my love was true but I lost my love to the yabba dabba doo, --The Flintstone Lament

Syd

Posted: Mon Feb 24, 2014 1:04 am

Site Admin Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 12921 Location: Norman, Oklahoma

To me, the obvious sequel to Cavalcade is Mrs. Miniver, which takes us into World War II. I like Mrs. Miniver better as a movie, but I appreciate Cavalcade's cynicism toward war as a theme.

_________________
I had a love and my love was true but I lost my love to the yabba dabba doo, --The Flintstone Lament

Syd

Posted: Mon Feb 24, 2014 1:55 pm

Site Admin Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 12921 Location: Norman, Oklahoma

Children who Chase Lost Voices: Makoto Shinkai , Japan (The Place Promised in Our Early Days and 5 Centimeters per Second) tackles fantasy in very much a Miyazaki mode, but, as in all his movies, there is a feeling of melancholy and longing. In this one, a lonely schoolgirl befriends a boy from the underworld who promptly dies. She then encounters the boy's brother and they are forced to enter his homeland. But they are followed by a man who wants to enter the underworld to find the Gate of Love and Death, where he hopes to resurrect his dead wife. Resemblances to Orpheus and Eurydice and other stories in which mortal men enter the underworld is intentional, as are resemblances to the work of Miyazaki. Note though the underworld realm here is not the realm of dead souls; you have to go beyond the Gate to bring back the dead. Not as successful as Shinkai's previous two films, but worth seeing.

_________________
I had a love and my love was true but I lost my love to the yabba dabba doo, --The Flintstone Lament

Syd

Posted: Mon Feb 24, 2014 1:57 pm

Site Admin Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 12921 Location: Norman, Oklahoma

The Way I Spent the End of the World, Catalin Mitulescu, Romania. This movie centers around the life of a 17-year old girl during the summer and fall of 1989. Everyone is unhappy with Ceauescu's regime, which has been growing more and more oppressive over the years, and our girl sees the possiblilty of escape by swimming with her neighbor across the Danube to freedom (well, Bulgaria or Yugoslavia, anyway). But the country is conspiring to free her anyway; we are approaching Christmas.

Not as powerful as 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days and not funny like 1208: East of Bucharest, and the director has story-telling problems, not to mention that we watch the climax on television, but I liked the girl (played by Dorotheea Petra, who was actually around 23) and the small acts of defiance by family and friends.

_________________
I had a love and my love was true but I lost my love to the yabba dabba doo, --The Flintstone Lament

gromit

Posted: Mon Feb 24, 2014 3:37 pm

Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 9010 Location: Shanghai

Assuming you have the Film Movement disc of The Way I Spent the End of the World -- make sure to watch the short film included, The Last Man In Brooklyn, starring a certain 3rd Eyer. I have no idea how such things work with Netflix ...

_________________
Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number.

billyweeds

Posted: Mon Feb 24, 2014 4:53 pm

Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 20618 Location: New York City

gromit wrote:

Forgot about that. Yeah, look out!

gromit

Posted: Mon Feb 24, 2014 5:11 pm

Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 9010 Location: Shanghai

Syd wrote:

The Way I Spent the End of the World ...
Not as powerful as 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days and not funny like 1208: East of Bucharest

I liked End of the World.
Didn't think 12:08 was funny. I liked it though it was rather stilted.
4, 3, 2 was excellent.

What I've seen from the Romanian New Wave:

Best
1. 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days taut abortion drama
2. The Paper Will Be Blue was very good -- depicting chaos and uncertainty during the Ceausescu overthrow. A fog of war drama.

Good
3. California Dreamin' was good and lighter than most.
Soldiers stop at a small town and flirt up the locals.
4. 12:08 East of Bucharest

Good, but flawed
5. The Way I Spent the End of the World
6. The Happiest Girl in the World -- good, but slight. Sullen girl makes a television commercial.
7. Boogie -- not bad, kind of a basic and familiar slacker drama. Young man has trouble coping with new family obligations.
8. Beyond the Hills -- convent drama. Two orphans come to a convent, one willingly and the other out of desperate need. One accepts, while the other resist. Some good interesting stuff, but seriously overlong (I would have edited out about an hour), and some of it didn't work

Okay
9. If I Want to Whistle, I Whistle -- prison/escape drama. Good set-up, then it fizzles out
10. Tuesday, After Christmas -- okay, didn't do anything for me.

Disliked
11. Police, Adjective -- dull and plodding, numbing. Police and undercover work, some patsy busted for hash, bureaucracy, tedium.
12. The Death of Mr. Lazarescu which first brought Romanian film to a big outside audience. Dull, ugly, stultifying hospital/illness drama

I color-coded the films by director, to help make connections.
(the ones in black are all single films by different directors)
Those are the ones I've seen, and most of the major RNW films.
I'd encourage folks to seek out The Paper Will Be Blue

I keep forgetting to pick up Child's Pose (2013) and not sure it is still around anymore.

Last edited by gromit on Sun Mar 02, 2014 5:29 am; edited 1 time in total
_________________
Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number.

gromit

Posted: Fri Feb 28, 2014 3:40 am

Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 9010 Location: Shanghai

I saw without a doubt the best Chadian film I've ever seen.
The only problem I had was that during the first 30 minutes I thought it was a Sudanese film and kept wondering why everyone spoke French. Obviously, that was my fault.

Daratt (aka Dry Season, 2006) is rather simple revenge tale told very well. When a general amnesty is announced, an elderly blind man instructs his 16 year old grandson to hunt down and kill his father's killer. The teen finds the man all right, but has to decide when and where to do the deed. The man is tough from years of fighting and whatnot, but now is married, attends mosque regularly and even gives out free bread from his small bakery to local poor children every day. Our youth scowls a lot and acts tough, and agrees to work in the bakery to get a good opportunity. But it's a lot harder to kill a man after you meet his pregnant wife and he teaches you a skill (bread-making) and you get to know him, and he is trying to help you.

The baker/killer also has been a victim, only able to speak with the aid of a device pressed against his vocals chords, the result of having had his throat slashed. There's been decades of civil war and marginal governance in Chad and it seems no one was left unscathed. There's an interesting dynamic between the teen and the older man -- both say very little, both are prone to anger, and a tense relationship forms. The film also does a very good job with location and sense of place and even makes work believable, as we see most of the breadmaking process. I liked the close ups of machinery and of sweaty torsos, and later some of the camera swirls around characters.

I thought this was a really terrific film, and now need to dig out the director's 2002 debut feature Abouna (Our Father). I'd also like to find A Screaming Man (2010), which was released on dvd by Film Movement. Give Daratt a chance if Netflix has it. An intriguing film.

_________________
Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number.

billyweeds

Posted: Fri Feb 28, 2014 6:29 am

Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 20618 Location: New York City

Fast-forwarded through Picnic (1955) last night, appalled at how bad some of the acting was. William Holden must have known how totally miscast he was at the age of 37 (and looking it, albeit illegally handsome) playing someone everybody calls "kid" and "young man" and addressing men around his age as "sir." In any case, he hammed it up like crazy. (Turns out he was also doing this film as a final fulfillment of an old contract with Columbia that caused him to be wildly underpaid.)

Rosalind Russell maintained her streak of outrageously overacted latter-day miscastings, and Kim Novak (though she looked pretty great) was unready for the complexities of her role. In the "big" scene, dancing with Holden at the picnic, she seemed less like a Kansas 20-year-old than a hooker from Manhattan.

Susan Strasberg (looking waaaay too pretty for the role) and Arthur O'Connell acquitted themselves well and some of the set-pieces were pretty well done, however. On the whole, it's probably Joshua Logan's best movie, but that's not saying much of anything, considering the blahness of Sayonara and Fanny and the utter ineptitude of South Pacific, Paint Your Wagon, and Camelot.

gromit

Posted: Sat Mar 01, 2014 1:41 am

Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 9010 Location: Shanghai

Watched Woody Allen's Shadows and Fog for the first time.
For some reason I missed his output right around 1990.
Husbands and Wives 1992; Shadows and Fog; 1991 Alice 1990.
Not sure why, I suspect the very bad Manhattan Murder Mystery 1993 has something to do with it.

In any case S&F is good but with weak elements. I liked the atmosphere and the set design, clearly borrowing from some classic films. And the premise of a killer on the loose, splintering vigilante groups providing another menace, and our protagonist wandering around unsure what his role is in all of this.

The thing I disliked was ... Woody Allen, who stammers and wisecracks and turns it into a horror/thriller-comedy. Most of the jokes are curiously flaccid and I would have preferred a straight treatment, either existential or surreal, with our anti-hero wandering around clueless seemingly doomed by all sides -- the police, the church, the killer and the vigilante groups all seem to have him on or near their hit lists.

The film looks great and has some real mood and tension and it's too bad it's wasted on Woody Allen's usual schtick. Also, the John Malkovich character is fairly weak and boring. Really most of the circus elements just seem a way of padding out the script/film. The ending is rather weak and silly, but at least fairly swift. Overall, okay, minor Woody.

What's notable is the all-star cast, with even bit parts filled with well-known name actors. Jody Foster plays a secondary prostitute, Madonna tries to seduce Malkovich while her strongman husband sleeps, and late in the film Wallace Shawn cameos as the guy who gets the promotion over Woody, and repeats the boss' disparagement of Woody. Is this the first film where Woody really flaunts/takes advantage of his connections and reputation and fills nearly every role with a big name? Hannah And Her Sisters (1986) was the first Allen film I recall with a loaded cast, but that was more an ensemble piece where it seemed more natural. I don't really have any problem with such a cast, though it is a slight distraction when you play spot-the-famous-actor-in-a-bit-part throughout the film.

_________________
Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number.

Syd

Posted: Sun Mar 02, 2014 12:55 am

Site Admin Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 12921 Location: Norman, Oklahoma

Watching Mother, a terrific South Korean film which Marc recommended and which I've not seen much of on this forum. Directed by Bong Joon-ho, which means it goes off on unexpected tangents with unexpected humor among harrowing events. Now I'm learning about pervert phones (i.e., how to photograph people by cell phone without that tell-tale click). I'm half-expecting the obviously innocent son really is the murderer.

_________________
I had a love and my love was true but I lost my love to the yabba dabba doo, --The Flintstone Lament

jeremy

Posted: Sun Mar 02, 2014 3:24 am

Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 6794 Location: Derby, England and Hamilton, New Zealand (yes they are about 12,000 miles apart)

Kudos Gromit; it's a rare contributor who can name more than a handful of Romanian films (I'd wouldn't have made it past the count of three) let alone give such a rigorous run down.

_________________
I am angry, I am ill, and I'm as ugly as sin.
My irritability keeps me alive and kicking.
I know the meaning of life, it doesn't help me a bit.
I know beauty and I know a good thing when I see it.

gromit

Posted: Sun Mar 02, 2014 5:18 am

Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 9010 Location: Shanghai

There's also the documentary The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceausescu (2010) which Yamguy and I were discussing a few months back. A bit of a slog at 3 hours, but there was a good 45 min segment after the first 30 minutes or so.

Unfortunately, the main directors in the Romanian New Wave haven't been consistent, imo. And the director of California Dreamin' was killed in a car crash during post-production -- the taxi he was in rammed at high speed by a Brit in a sportscar.

I guess all of it is somewhat obscure, so maybe I should go back to my list post and add in one-sentence descrip of the basic plot.
I really would highly rec 4, 3, 2 and The Paper Will be Blue and the sweet California Dreamin'

What I mostly took away from those films is that Romanians really don't trust authority, find the bureaucracy tedious and unavoidable, and try to get at truth and capture reality through long static takes in their films.

_________________
Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number.

Syd

Posted: Sun Mar 02, 2014 11:44 am

Site Admin Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 12921 Location: Norman, Oklahoma

I've seen Tales from the Golden Age, which is a film consisting of short stories written by Cristian Mungiu, the writer/director of 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, with each story directed by a different person. Mungiu's the only one of the directors I've seen anything else by. 12:08 East of Bucharest and The Way I Spent the End of the World are the only other Romanian films I've seen.

_________________
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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