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Syd

Posted: Sun Dec 13, 2015 2:24 pm

Site Admin Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 12944 Location: Norman, Oklahoma

I'm watching My Winnipeg, which is hell on earth, occupied by somnabulists and wandering herds of buffalo trudging through the summer snow. Railroads travel through the city bearing no one because once you're in Winnipeg you can never leave. The film is a testament to Guy Maddin's being driven mad by his situation, and is a plea for help which is not forthcoming for all around is a frozen wasteland.

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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!

yambu

Posted: Sun Dec 13, 2015 3:57 pm

Joined: 23 May 2004 Posts: 6441 Location: SF Bay Area

From beginning to end, it is the most consistently boring movie I have ever seen. Or would have been had I watched the whole thing.

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That was great for you. How was it for me?

marantzo

Posted: Sun Dec 13, 2015 4:35 pm

Joined: 30 Oct 2014 Posts: 278 Location: Winnipeg: It's a dry cold.

Some don't seem to like My Winnipeg. It's a very funny and very strange movie. Great film!

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Big bang, shmig bang; still doesn't explain how anything starts.

Syd

Posted: Sun Dec 13, 2015 5:54 pm

Site Admin Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 12944 Location: Norman, Oklahoma

I liked parts of it, like the family reenactments, the Bolshevik revolution and the girl's school, and the young couples falling in love on a frozen river among the frozen horses heads caught in mid-scream. The real problem is the first twenty minutes, where all the directoral tricks made it really hard to get into the movie. I almost bailed myself, until the first family reenactment, where the mother (actually an actress) plays herself, and, since the father is dead, they dig him up and rebury him in the middle of the living room.

_________________
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!

gromit

Posted: Sun Dec 13, 2015 6:27 pm

Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 9016 Location: Shanghai

The actress playing Mom is Ann Savage who made a ton of noirs in the post-war period. Best known for Detour (1945) she was a tough talking blonde back in the day.

I think My Winnipeg borders on genius. I think Maddin called it a docu-fantasy. There are some inspired moments, such as the indecision whether to include the deceased father, so he's there in the living room, rolled up in the rug, dead.

I actually liked it better on second viewing, where it seemed to cohere more and was easier to piece together. I'm sure I have a write-up or two about it on here some years back.

I'm a pretty big Maddin fan. think he's had a great career.

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

Syd

Posted: Sun Dec 13, 2015 6:58 pm

Site Admin Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 12944 Location: Norman, Oklahoma

I would have seen Ann Savage in The More the Merrier, where she had an uncredited part. I liked her in My Winnipeg. She's gone now, alas.

_________________
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!

bartist

Posted: Mon Dec 14, 2015 11:29 am

Joined: 27 Apr 2010 Posts: 6967 Location: Black Hills

Seems almost digressive to mention a so recently current film, but I saw Inside Out, the Disney neurology primer and psychodrama of displaced Minnesotans. I liked the use of glowing marbles as memory storage - much prettier than neurons, and enlivens the classic expression "lost her marbles." The animation was superb, the voiceovers perfect, and the whole thing went to 11 on the Imagination Dial. I made a similar move with my family at the same age as the girl (11), from Kansas to Boston, so I can confirm some of the psychological hurdles shown. However, I didn't have an imaginary friend in early childhood who wept candy. That's just twisted. Imagine the searing pain your lachrymal ducts would experience, forcing out chunks of flavored corn syrup.

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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days.

inlareviewer

Posted: Tue Dec 15, 2015 1:44 pm

Joined: 05 Jul 2004 Posts: 1949 Location: Lawrence, KS

Found our long-lost download of Brief Encounter last night. Hadn't watched it in ages. Devoured it before going to bed, and will surely watch it again today. To say it holds up is akin to saying that the Sistine Chapel has decent ceiling murals. Certainly, both The Original Master Coward and Mr. Lean did many other things that the world is grateful for, but this particular romance has been a staple of the cinematic oeuvre and a significant part of our personal development since 1945 and 1970, respectively, and so it proved anew. If either Celia Johnson (whose neon-sign eyes express volumes of subtext, heartbreaking at the climax) or Trevor Howard (his relative normalcy half the reason for his genuine appeal) ever did anything better, cannot say what it was. The sideline characters, particularly Stanley Holloway and Joyce Carey as the comic secondary couple in the refreshment room and Cyril Raymond as the heroine's not-necessarily-clueless husband, are wonderfully drawn, genuine human beings within their situational compression; the black and white cinematography by Robert Krasker and use of Rachmaninov's 2nd Piano Concerto (beautifully played by Eileen Joyce) are utterly gorgeous; and finally one must agree with The Agee's famous summation that it isn't realism, but rather, a skillful packaging of realism, so the ingredients fit easily into a lady's handbag.

Alec: You're not angry with me are you?

Laura: No, I'm not angry. I don't think I'm anything really. I just feel tired.

Alec: Forgive me.

Laura: Forgive you for what?

Alec: For everything. For meeting you in the first place. For taking a piece of grit out of your eye. For loving you. For bringing you so much misery.

Laura: I'll forgive you if you'll forgive me.

Alec: Thursday.

Timeless, intelligent, profoundly affecting, and absolutely one of our favorite anythings, ever.

Edited for misspelled cinematographer....

Last edited by inlareviewer on Tue Dec 15, 2015 7:11 pm; edited 1 time in total
_________________
"And take extra care with strangers/Even flowers have their dangers/And though scary is exciting/Nice is different than good." --Stephen Sondheim

billyweeds

Posted: Tue Dec 15, 2015 5:06 pm

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

Wow, do I ever have to see this one again. When I first saw it (the only time) I was too young and callow to appreciate it. Thanks!

carrobin

Posted: Tue Dec 15, 2015 5:18 pm

Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 7795 Location: NYC

"Brief Encounter" is one of those movies I've caught bits of now and then on TV, but I've never seen it from beginning to end. I'll have to make the effort.

Last night I caught "Old Acquaintance" on TCM, which I'd never seen even partially. It was a bit irritating at the beginning but there wasn't anything else worth watching, and it did get better as it went along, though pretty predictable in general. But of course Davis was worth watching, and I loved her line when the rebellious young woman asked how she knew she was in the apartment: "My dear, I was hiding behind screens before you were born." And I liked the ending--it's rare, especially in those days, for a movie to end with two women facing the future cheerfully without a man for either one.

inlareviewer

Posted: Tue Dec 15, 2015 6:44 pm

Joined: 05 Jul 2004 Posts: 1949 Location: Lawrence, KS

willybeeds: Indeed. It's only dated in the strictures and behavior of the era/milieu (which actually rather makes it ever-relevant, specificity and all that). From where we sit, it's a masterwork and Film for the Ages. Seriously.

carrobin: Yes, the Lean/Coward really needs to be seen from start to finish (it's under 90 minutes, such economy fillums once had), and couldn't agree with you more about Old Acquaintance. Her Bettetude may have not liked working with La Hopkins, but here, as in The Old Maid, their antipathy and opposite approach is what makes it tick. Also dig this classic moment:

Kit Marlowe: I'd better get out of here, Millie, before I do something I'll be very sorry for.

Millie Drake: Yes, go! And if you think I want you to come back ever you're wrong! Well? why don't you go?

Kit Marlowe: In just a minute.

[She puts down her parcels, crosses the room, grabs Millie by the shoulders and shakes her violently, then shoves her so she falls on the sofa]

Kit Marlowe: Sorry.

[She picks up her things and exits, leaving Millie throwing a tantrum]

That never fails to make me chortle.

_________________
"And take extra care with strangers/Even flowers have their dangers/And though scary is exciting/Nice is different than good." --Stephen Sondheim

carrobin

Posted: Tue Dec 15, 2015 7:14 pm

Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 7795 Location: NYC

Yes, that was an outstanding moment. And she looked like she really meant it.

inlareviewer

Posted: Tue Dec 15, 2015 7:34 pm

Joined: 05 Jul 2004 Posts: 1949 Location: Lawrence, KS

Am willing to bet she did, tee-hee.

_________________
"And take extra care with strangers/Even flowers have their dangers/And though scary is exciting/Nice is different than good." --Stephen Sondheim

carrobin

Posted: Tue Dec 15, 2015 11:18 pm

Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 7795 Location: NYC

If only one could morph Donald Trump's face on Miriam Hopkins's.

gromit

Posted: Wed Dec 16, 2015 5:30 am

Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 9016 Location: Shanghai

The Extraordinary Adventures of Mr. West in the Land of the Bolsheviks is a 1924 Russian film by Lev Kuleshev. Great title and bizarre film. For whatever reason, reputable boob, Mr. West travels to the Soviet Union. Before he leaves he's given magazines with American propaganda depicting the Bolsheviks as wild savages, with huge bushy whiskers, buggy eyes, and one even has a nappy hairdo with a sickle lining the top of his hair. For whatever reason, Mr. West brings these magazines to the USSR with him, perhaps to help him recognize Bolsheviks. But since he's afraid of these wild men, he brings along his assistant, who happens to be a cowboy with a 6-shooter and odd Russian approximation of a cowboy hat, as his bodyguard. Mr. West also brings along a giant fur coat, Harold Lloyd glasses and a small American flag he's prone to waving, so he looks like he's a wealthy alum at a 1920's college football game.

Mr. West has a series of mishaps, losing his briefcase, losing his bodyguard who proceeds to shoot up everything around him, and falling in with criminals who scam him by pretending to be the savage Bolshies he's been dreading. There's a lot of highly energetic fighting, with people doing flips when punched, lots of highly exaggerated emotive acting, and the criminals are a bunch of grotesques, though not like the whiskery Bolsheviks in the US mags. It's amusing and daring that most of the Russians we meet are criminals, but this is explained away since they are czarist types -- the female crook, who hams it up like Carol Burnett in the 70's -- is always referred to as a countess.

Kuleshev has fun mimicking US films, with zany chases, wild fight scenes, and a bit of a cowboy film tossed into the mix -- all in the streets and suburbs of Moscow.

After prolonged harassment/scamming of Mr. West, the handsome and honest Soviet police barge in at the end, rescue West, reunite him with his cowboy assistant, and show him what a great place the Soviet Union is, changing Mr. West's views. We even get a brief clip of Trotsky speechifying (this before Stalin's consolidates control -- Lenin died in Jan '24). It's kind of amusing how this pro-Soviet stuff is all tacked on at the very end, maybe lasting for 5 minutes. It's clearly not what Kuleshov is interested in. He wants to throw together a pastiche of American styles and make a comedy about stereotypes and criminal mischief.

The film also features a number of future directors in acting roles -- Pudovkin as the lead crook, the cowboy is another future director Boris Barnet. They were part of Kuleshov's early '20's film workshop. The extreme stereotypes and the energetic fights which break out frequently, were amusing.

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

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