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Nov-27-08
 | | Open Defence: Hi < Fusilli > going by the posts you might find us an odd bunch but they haven't locked us away yet :) |
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Nov-27-08
 | | Domdaniel: Hi, Fusilli. I would certainly have agreed with you about The Belly of an Architect a few years ago, but now I'm not so sure. It has a strangely paradoxical quality: the 'big performance' from Brian Dennehy as the architect - which is admittedly a great piece of acting - sort of runs counter to Greenaway's formalisms and aesthetic concerns. He even told me so himself once, saying that the film tended to get praised for those aspects that interested him least. This year I watched most of Greenaway's films again on DVD. I like his early feature The Falls and a recent one, Tulse Luper: The Moab Story ... but 'Architect' also stands out. In addition to Dennehy's 'Hollywood' performance, it's got Roman scenery, giving it a quality that no other Greenaway film has. |
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Nov-27-08
| | Domdaniel: <Deffi> They'll never lock us away ... I hope. Anyhow, there are *real* bad guys out there, like the ones attacking civilization in Mumbai. |
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| Nov-28-08 | | mack: <Dom> Check yer emails for that long-promised Jstor access... |
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Nov-28-08
 | | jessicafischerqueen: Hi <Fusilli>!
I've enjoyed eating you many times, often with a nice <pesto sauce>. |
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Nov-28-08
| | Open Defence: and cherry tomatoes |
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Nov-28-08
| | jessicafischerqueen: You <Dom>!
Stop Making Sense! |
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Nov-28-08
 | | Stonehenge: <The sketch:
(ANIMATION: a beautiful and not zany introduction, perhaps with photos of famous historical characters, finishing with the words: 'The World of History '. Cut to man at desk. Caption on screen: 'PROFESSOR R. J. CANNING')>Canning: 1348. The Black Death, typhus, cholera, consumption, bubonic plague. (Cut to five undertakers sitting on a coffin in a country road.) First Undertaker: Ah, those were the days...
(Back to Canning at his desk.)
Canning: Now I'm... I'm... Now I'm not prepared to go on with this, unless these interruptions cease. All right? Right. The devastating effect of these, em... (Cut to film of hearses racing. Crashing out of shot. Sign: 'Accident Black Spot', and the undertakers picnicking.) Canning: (he is packing up his papers and putting on his mac as he walks away from desk, camera pans with him) No, don't follow me and ... (camera zooms in) And don't zoom in on me, no I'm off, I'm off. That's it. That's all. I'm off. (He walks out of shot. Empty flame. A short pause. An undertaker comes into frame.) Second Undertaker: (to camera) Are you nervy, irritable, depressed, tired of life. (winks) Keep it up. Mrs. Titbottom
Ministry of Things that do not make sense at all
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Nov-28-08
| | jessicafischerqueen: Heh..
"Well, I suppose I could throw up in the grave..."
(crowd boos, begins throwing objects at the stage) |
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Nov-28-08
| | Domdaniel: You <Jess>. Kindly refrain from eating the visitors, at least in public. These quaint Korean customs can go too far ... or do I mean Italian? |
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Nov-28-08
| | Domdaniel: <mack> Ta. Funnily enough, my geurgle-related 'researches' have led me to several Jstor-restricted sites recently. Now I may actually be able to break in. |
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Nov-28-08
| | Domdaniel: "The grave's a fine and private place
But none, I think, do there embrace."
How wrong can you be? Poets are pervs.
Please tick one. |
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Nov-29-08
| | jessicafischerqueen: ooh <Dom> it's been ages-- maybe since <In Bruges>... since I saw a movie worth mentioning. (and I watch as many as 300 movies a week)...
Jennifer Lynch, the daughter of David Lynch, has just written and directed a film--- <Survelliance>.... That scared the living crap out of me.
It is truly shocking-- and extremely well made.
Not one false note in the acting, screenplay, or direction. Plus it has those things people used to put into movies before the era when all movies became adaptations of comic books or video games-- symbol, allusion-- threshold guardians etc... none of them obvious or ham-handed, either... everything blended seamlessly into the film's realist <DIAGESIS>... heh
Anyhoo I recommend it highly.
You know a day will come when all movies are just cartoons and bad CGI. With any luck I'll be dead by then.
Batchimeg at the Movies |
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Nov-29-08
| | jessicafischerqueen: <Dom> er...
I don't know if you've noticed, but only chicks are posting in <Frogspawn>. Perhaps you should change the name of your forum to <Ms. Magazine>? Or possibly, <Dom: I'm Handy With the Babes> Just a few suggestions. |
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Nov-29-08
| | jessicafischerqueen: <Dom>
Re: <Jennifer Lynch> One of the most astonishing aspects of <Surveillance> is that it appears a full 15 years after Jennifer's first writing directing effort, <Boxing Helena>, which was also HORRIFYING-- Horrfyingly bad, that is.
It was so truly awful that even the cheesy horror fanzines said it was the worst horror movie ever made. And now 15 years later and she has produced a masterpiece IMO-- Shocking- fresh- in the same sense as <Tarentino's> early work.... I think artistic genius is scattershot and fearless-- it can be mawkish and sublime, in turn. One is reminded of <Altman> and Jennifer's own father-- Or <Greenaway> They took chances with every film-- and the failures were very, very, very bad. Ok think of this lists of films, _ by <Altman, David Lynch, Tarentino, Greenaway>, respectively-- then think of the second list by the same directors... <McCabe and Mrs. Miller>, <Blue Velvet>, <Resevoir Dogs>, <Zed and Two Noughts>.... Contrast them to <Popeye>, <Dune>, <Dusk Till Dawn>.< Prospero's Books> The second list of films is absolute rubbish.
But the first list of films puts all else who dare to call themselves film artists to shame. That's how bad, and good these directors and their films are. Now we can add <Jennifer Lynch> to this list, with <Boxing Helena> (execrable) and <Surveillance> (brilliant). As Pauline Kael put it, with regard to <Altman>-- great artists take great chances == and frequently fail-- because they follow a vision that others can't see... and they have no fear. One is also reminded of <Vincent Gallo>-- how astonishingly good his <Buffalo 66> was-- a film that made you not only identify with a sociopath, but weep for him with real emotion--- and how astonishingly terrible his follow up film <The Brown Bunny> was-- A lugubrious, self-indulgent faux-porno film.
At any rate, I just watched the last half of <Surveillance> again because I am literally stunned-- I don't remember having this visceral a reaction to a film since <Resevoir Dogs>... Once in a blue bloody moon does a film this good come along. Truly shocking-- and great cinematic art.
Batchimeg at the movies
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| Nov-29-08 | | Ziggurat: <Batchimeg> Yeah, good observations. For me, the most extreme pair of films is Thomas Vinterberg's movies <Festen> ("The Celebration"), which is superb in every way, and <It's all about love>, which is indescribably bad. So I won't even try to. I feel a bit queasy even mentioning that movie. |
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Nov-30-08
| | Domdaniel: <Batchimeg> Ah yes, Boxing Helena was indeed indescribably awful. And now I keep humming a Bonzos song, Bad Blood, to myself: "A one-eyed half-breed amputee sat thinking of the way/ to settle the score with the running sore who had left him the way he is ... 'The man I'm looking for has two eyes and he's a one-breed dirty dog' ..." and so on. I've seen worse, though. Horror movies so badly made they had hardened movie critics giggling in the aisles. And comedies where they whimpered in fear. Not with a bang. |
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Nov-30-08
| | Domdaniel: How about Lars Von Trier's early films - The Element of Crime and Europa (both excellent) - vs everything he's done since then (on a scale from dubious to execrable)? Prospero's Books wasn't *that* bad. It admittedly fails as cinema, but the stuff round the edges - like the digitally-generated eponymous books - is more interesting. I think the most overrated PG film is The Cook, The Thief, His Armpit and its Bacteria. |
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Nov-30-08
| | jessicafischerqueen: <Trieste- the Killing Ground> Oh sorry I thought you were referring to the Italian campaign there, Great War and all that. Ok <Lars Von Trietszchke>: I actually enjoyed his version of Van Morrison's <Down at the Kingdom Hall>, mainly due to the gruff Scandinavian doctor=detective figure. <The Element of Crime> Quel Coincidence~! I just watched that on the Net last week. It was ok- but if you've seen <Dario
Argento's> "Suspiria" you may be wondering, "Ok, so he's hired Argento's cinematographer and artistic director, so why didn't he hire the band as well?" It's just that the oppressive red/black shooting scheme is so reminiscent of Suspiria that it becomes distracting. The Drowning Mules as symbol is hammered home again, and again, and again== Cutting with a scalpel is not <Von Trietszchke's> strong point. <Properly Not a Movie>= Ok, sure== but again, the presence of <Sir John FeelGood> carries too much unfortunate visual-audio baggage from his "weighty career." This is arguably true of the whole set of these <sirs> of whom he is that last, and <Sir Kenneth Spitsalot> is not up to the legacy, although I like him- <Sir>= Ralph Richardson, Larry Olivier, Alec Pint of Guinness, John Feelgood-- poor Richard Harris never got to join the club although Richard Burton did. BTW did you know that a <different> Sir Richard Burton "discovered" the source of the Nile? Interesting story-- he went looking for it and the indigenous folk said "Hey yah, it's just over there man. Can't you see it?" Hence, the "discovery".
Long story short, Feelgood has too much presence and too much film-historical exposure to do anything in <Properly not a Movie> except to elicit laughter from the audience. BTW, you MUST see <surveillance>... It has the feel of a very good <Cronenberg> film as well.... Plus a tour de force performance by the <VASTLY UNDERRATED> Bill Pullman. YOU BETTER WATCH IT DOM.
Batchimeg of the just got fired from <Fangoria> magazine. Seems they've gone digital |
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| Dec-01-08 | | Ziggurat: <Dom> Have you seen Trier's <Direktøren for det hele>? It's pretty recent, and I thought it was very funny indeed. Of course I also love <Riket>/<The Kingdom>, although I don't know who <Jess> refers to when she talks about the Scandinavian doctor - they are all Scandinavian doctors! <Jess> - do you mean the guy who screams <Danish bastards!> over the rooftops? |
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Dec-01-08
| | Domdaniel: I should of course have made it clear that Riget/ The Kingdom -- first series, anyway -- was brilliant. Plus, my nephew was born in the same hospital around the same time. I tried to mould him as a chess prodigy but it seems Scandinavia already has one. So he became a fencing champion instead. <Zig> Yeah, I'm sure she means the Swede ... staring across to Malmo and civilization, yelling about Abba and Volvo. That was before his trip to Haiti, of course. |
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Dec-01-08
| | Domdaniel: Speaking of birth, I see that Bob Wade has died. I do hope that the vicious beatings he got in the Staunton tournament weren't a factor. |
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Dec-01-08
| | jessicafischerqueen: Yes...
STHT...
FYI, TBH, IMHO GTG.
TTYL. |
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| Dec-02-08 | | mack: Bin a while since anyone accused Mondo of murder. |
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Dec-02-08
| | Domdaniel: TTYL? Today, Tomorrow, Yesterday ... Lars? |
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