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Sunday, January 14th, 2007
Last night I watched "Vagabond" (originally "Sans Toit ni Loi") by Agnès Varda, who directed "Cléo de 5 à 7" -- I had watched "Cléo" back in November and been utterly fascinated by it. "Vagabond" is very nearly as powerful a movie. The two movies have a lot in common -- are recognizably the work of the same hand -- and are completely different from one another. Where "Cléo" is whimsical and madcap, "Vagabond" is bleak. There is a deterministic thread running through both movies that would be worth puzzling out. I need to watch "Vagabond" a few more times to get past being totally in thrall to the beautiful camera work. Also I need to rent "Le Bonheur" and "Jacquot de Nantes". It seems to me like Varda is in the same league as Hitchcock in terms of her command of the visual composition of the movie.
posted morning of January 14th, 2007: Respond
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Sunday, November 12th, 2006
This movie "Cleo from 5 to 7" is making me think about subtitles (and wish, wish I understood French better than the very minimal amount I do, so I could understand the cross-talk and the background noise). It is subtitled very well, actually -- I seem to sense a certain self-consciousness on the part of whoever did the translation, about the limitations they faced. Two elements of filmmaking that I don't think are recognized as art forms in themselves, are subtitling and colorizing. At one point Angèle asks Cléo something like "But I thought he adored you?" and she replies, "Il m'adore!" which is translated as "He does!" -- I picked up on this and was wondering why the translation isn't "He adores me!" and then I realized French doesn't have a verb which could be used in a reply like English "does", so the translation is probably correct idiomatically.
posted afternoon of November 12th, 2006: Respond
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Saturday, November 11th, 2006
I watched it again tonight, and I am hoping to do so tomorrow as well. So many little bits are catching my attention! I want to make observations about it here but i fear they would mostly just be on the order of, "and then that scene, the one where the Cléo broke her mirror and AngèleDorothée was trying to reassure her [or whatever the content is of the scene that I am talking about], wasn't that just amazing?" and not have much to say about it that would help if you haven't already seen the movie. So see it, then we'll talk.
posted evening of November 11th, 2006: Respond
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Friday, November 10th, 2006
I am watching this movie right now and it is just stunningly good. Check out this lyric: With all doors open wide
With the wind rushing through
I'm like an empty house
Without you
Without you
Like a derserted isle
Invaded by seas
My sands slip away
Without you
Without you
With beauty unseen
Exposed to cruel winter
My soul cannot dream
Without you
Without you
Gnawed away by despair
My body decays
In an open bier
Without you
Without you
If you wait too long
I'll have been laid to rest
Ashen, pale and alone
Without you
Without you
Without you (This sort of reminded me of Syd Barrett's performance of "Golden Hair" by Joyce -- I'm not sure why though.) There is a sort of interesting thing going on too, with a sort of hedonistic or romantic refusal to engage reality, I'm not sure if it is exactly a criticism of that tendency, it might be a self-criticism or a derogatory description of an other, or something else. Also: Pee-wee Herman's inspiration must be the character in the film shown during the "Projectionist's Booth" sequence. (Wow -- just looked at IMDB and realized that the actor I am saying is Pee-wee's inspiration, is Jean-Luc Godard.) (Here is a pretty interesting post about this film.)
posted evening of November 10th, 2006: Respond
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Saturday, October 21st, 2006
We watched Porco Rosso tonight -- I liked it way better than any other Miyazaki movie I've seen to date, and I have loved every one of them. For one thing the ending is really haunting, where all of the others have finished up pretty tidily. And I just love that sort of inter-war jazz aesthetic, which wasn't in the others -- it had a similar feel to Casablanca, which worked in a really surreal way with the anime/little girl nature of Miyazaki's work.
posted evening of October 21st, 2006: Respond
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Sunday, August 27th, 2006
A couple of weeks ago we watched Kiki's Delivery Service, which Belle Waring had recommended a while back -- and this weekend we watched Spirited Away. Wow -- two great films. I think on balance I like Kiki a little better, though Spirited Away is far more ambitious and more intense of an experience, and utterly gorgeous. Kiki is more a story with characters, Spirited Away a parable with archetypes. Both are masterful examples of their respective genres -- Spirited Away however has some niggling plot holes and characters playing against type, that stuck in my craw a little.
posted evening of August 27th, 2006: Respond
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Saturday, April first, 2006
I just got back from watching Inside Man with Ellen. (Sylvia is away at her first sleep-over! Yay!) It was a good movie -- I thought so anyways, Ellen was not as happy with it. Which is funny in a way, because I went there prepared not to like it and Ellen was predisposed to enjoy it, I think -- it was her choice of movie, and she likes Spike -- whereas I have never (before tonight) watched a Spike Lee joint that I enjoyed without reservation. I think the crux of our difference in opinion, was the plausibility of the story. Neither of us found the plot to be very believable; for Ellen this interfered with her focussing on the movie, but not for me. I was able just to open up and let the movie pour into me unfiltered, and I loved it. Will it stay with me? Not sure. But it was an excellent movie viewing experience.
posted afternoon of April first, 2006: Respond
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Sunday, December 18th, 2005
This afternoon I'm going to watch "Brokeback Mountain" -- I've been really looking forward to this movie ever since I saw the trailer, when we went to watch "Capote" 2 months ago or so. I am thinking that this movie coming out could signify a new moment in mainstream acceptance of male homosexuality; for at least half a century the homoerotic subtext of the American Old West mythology has been made explicit by people like Burroughs and Pynchon -- lots of really intelligent authors with big names and small readership. But it seems to me like this is the first time it is crossing over into mass culture. Frank Rich's op-ed piece today, on the movie and what it signifies for the culture, is well worth reading -- unfortunately it is "Times Select" so you will have to spring for a newspaper if you want to read it.
posted morning of December 18th, 2005: Respond
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Sunday, December 4th, 2005
...I'm sick in bed with a cold. Hoping it clears up tonight because I've gotta go to work tomorrow -- I was out all last week sitting on a jury. That was a trying experience, which I would like to write up; but I am not going to until I can get to something more than "I went here, I did that, then this happened, and I had another thought" kind of stuff. I watched "The Squid and the Whale" last week and liked it a lot, and started reading Unamuno's "Abel Sanchez". Three fun dates coming up: on Thursday I have my final exam in Operating Systems; next Sunday the Pynchon-l folks are meeting up to watch a puppet theater production of Gogol's "The Nose"; the following Tuesday many commenters from Unfogged are meeting for drinks. All of this seems like stuff I could write about but the creative impulse does not seem to be there.
posted evening of December 4th, 2005: Respond
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Wednesday, July 27th, 2005
We watched Tim Burton's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory on Friday night and it left me flat. Now "it left me flat" is certainly not a recommendation; but it took until last night, when I was talking about the movie with Mark, for me to realize how much I actively disliked the movie. I had been too distracted by the pretty colors and animation, and the fabulous acting of two of the leads, to really get how lame it was. Let's think about three things: the book; the old Wilder movie; and the new movie. These are three quite distinct things with not all that much really in common, besides the skeleton of the plot and some similarities in characterization. The book is masterful. The Wilder movie is fun and superficial. The Burton movie stinks. Both the Wilder movie and the Burton movie have one major deviation from the book's plot plus many little ones. The Wilder movie has the part with Charlie and his Grandpa drinking the soda that makes you float, and Mr. Wonka getting mad at them for it; made up from whole cloth, nothing like it in the book; and whatever -- it's kind of funny though it does not really add much to the story. (Well actually I really like Grandpa Joe's speech after Wonka gets mad. But as I said whatever.) You can fit it in reasonably with the characters as they're presented. The Burton movie deviates hugely from the plot of the book at the end of the movie; I am not going to go into detail about how because that would be a spoiler, but it's about the lamest ending I can imagine. Seriously -- I was relating it to Mark last night (who is not planning to see the movie) -- and with each clause of my summary he was gasping with incredulity at the total cheesiness/kitschiness of it. And also, there is the little matter of Johnny Depp's performance -- it seemed to me like he was in a totally separate movie from the rest of the actors. And this is not at all true to the book -- Wonka is eccentric, but he is extremely connected to what is going on around him. So there you have it -- a pan from Jeremy, who is usually quite easy to please when it comes to movies. Update: A similar reaction to the new movie from Timothy Burke, who expresses himself better than I.
posted evening of July 27th, 2005: Respond
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