Archive for June, 2008

Minor Mishaps (2002)

June 28, 2008 at 8:42 pm · Filed under Tedious

Kind of like a Dogme film with Mike Leigh undertones.

Which means: improvisational comedy moments and observational misery.

Over-reacting (slightly) becomes (slightly) over-acting and a tendency to go for quirky “tendencies” of characterisation: i.e. telegraphed tics and traits.

To give one example: the recently widowed father gets to sticking on comic relief red noses to cheer up sad situations with his “childish” prankish humour. I thought to myself: don’t do that again. He does it again. Twice.

I’m not laughing. Or even slightly smiling.

Minor mishaps, minor melodrama, minor melancholy, minor movie.

I don’t know why i bought this film.

Dir: Annette Olesen, Denmark

5/10

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Shoot the Pianist (1960)

June 26, 2008 at 1:55 pm · Filed under Good ·Tagged

I was charmed by this film when i saw it about 15 years ago.

A gangster movie with Charles Aznavour that isn’t really a gangster movie.

It still had the charm.

There’s the funny plinkety-plunk song at the beginning, “Quelle avanie… Ah! Ah! Ah!…” sung by a bloke bobbing up and down like a loony.

A cuddly Dudley (Moore) is Charlie. All the girls like Charlie. Cus he plays the piano so beautifully. Cus he’s tiny. A sad little boy.

Apparently Truffuat realised about half way thro making this film that he didn’t like gangsters much – so he softened them up.

He threw bits of everything into the mix. Which kind of makes it an odd hybrid.

Self-consciously stylised.

“You can’t help (fat pig) Plyne or anyone, you’re not concerned with anything” says Charlie in one of his internal voice-overs.

Which gets at the sadly comic detachment that seems to run underneath this film. Arrange those tears. Fluff up those smiles.

Just rinky dink that plinky plunk piano.

Dir: Francois Truffuat, France

7/10

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Goodfellas (1990)

June 23, 2008 at 9:02 pm · Filed under Tedious ·Tagged , , ,

“Give him his money”……”Gimme the money”….. “Gimme the fuckin money”

You fucking mutt.

Hey, Scorsese – whats the fuckin maddawidyou?

Bustin my balls.

With these Gangster fucks.

(Ray) Liotta as a sycophantic pretty boy. (Robert) De Niro as De Niro. (Joe) Pesci as whacked out weasil.

Liotta is flashily shallow. Even the way he laughs look phony. Pesci a sicko psycho. De Niro doing his usual.

A guy gets whacked. Or avoids getting whacked. Or whacks other guys (rats)

You won’t see it coming when you get whacked. Your face shot off. Brains spurted out everywhere. It’ll be messy.

This film is why i don’t watch films – like this. Usually.

Compels but contaminates you with gratuitous toxic violence.

Goodfellas are “wise guys” supposedly. No – not wise. Just nasty bastards.

Dir: Martin Scorsese, U S

5/10

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Shadows in Paradise (1986)

June 19, 2008 at 4:13 pm · Filed under Good ·Tagged

Lonely bin man meets disaffected supermarket assistant.

Takes her on first date to bingo. Bad move. “I don’t think it will work out” she says. “What won’t?” he says. “Anything“.

Anything doesn’t work out often. Or only dismally. And mostly not in the way you expected or hoped. Not in Kaurismaki’s world.

She gets sacked. “Why? “

“Just because“. Right. “Oh shit“.

She nicks the cash box. “Now what?“

“I don’t know“.

And so it goes on. An anti-romantic loser-love affair.

That’s what you get in Kaurismaki films. The same no-hope hoping. The same lost souls losing, then finding, then losing one another. Then – against all hope, and odds, and logic – they find one another again.

Just because. Cus you may as well do something. Despite everything. To fail better (to pinch from Beckett) Or maybe it’s just to fail different – go elsewhere, and fail there. May as well. So – in the end – they off it on the ferry out of Finland.

Escape the down-at-heel, deadpan, dour, non-smiling Finns.

(that they inescapably are)

Kaurismaki would rather his characters were smoking than talking; drinking rather than thinking. Smiling is not to be allowed; laughing out loud is too noisy. You can grin, silently, occasionally – through taciturnly tightly shut lips.

At how addictively painful life is always going to be.

And how absurd the addiction (and the pain)

Dir: Aki Kaurismaki, Finland

8/10

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Tokyo Story (1953)

June 18, 2008 at 11:34 am · Filed under Good ·Tagged

This seems to be on a lot of 10 Best Films of All Time lists.

I was expecting it to be worthy, but dull.

It was worthy, but not dull.

Mildly disappointing you could say. And yet the point seems to be about being disappointing, and therefore to show disappointment up in all it’s sad quiet little ways; and the non-complaining acceptance of disappointment becomes then – in itself – quietly, inconspicuously, a redeeming virtue.

“Isn’t life disappointing?” says younger sister to older sister Noriko.

“Yes it is. A lot of disappointments” says Noriko.

No point to wish life to be otherwise. Life is “Ah so”. Is as it is – whether you like it or not. It’s soaked with “so-ness”, and such-ness”, and you live to mop up all the so and so stuff of life, and let its sadness soak right through you without getting in the way with your selfishly self-centred Ego.

Soaking through and mopping up what is “so” disappointing; it’s what the wiser, older, generation do. It’s what the grandparents Mama and Papa do. They sit there in quietness, uncomplaining. They accept whatever is with benign equanimity. They passively soak and mop up the small life around them. Grandpa smiles and goes “Well” (his “hmmm” sounds like the calm contentment of a ruminating cow) Grandma submissively smiles and nods.

They aren’t getting in the way of the family life around them. But the family life around them acts like they are getting in the way, that they are a “nuisance” to be got rid of. Busy life has to be busied on with. More work has to be worked. More wanting has to be wanted. (and more disappointment has to be disappointed).

Ozu’s camera is about 2 foot off the ground and never moves. It doesn’t spin around or track or switch POV. It stays still, sitting there. It means you can sit there too – and get quiet with how you watch, and get off of what you expect (in terms of plot and drama, and moving on towards something else)

After about an hour my head was nodding, “hmmm”….”well”….”hmmm”….

It’s relaxing. In an understimulating kind of way. And safe.

“Days of calm and quiet passing,” says Noriko (of the small life she is). Which neatly sums up this film (and the experience of watching it)

If you could watch “The Archers” – on dope – this would be it.

Dir: Yasujiro Ozu, Japan

7/10

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The Limey (1999)

June 17, 2008 at 9:56 am · Filed under Tedious ·Tagged ,

The Limey has “bin in prison half me life“. The Limey is from Cockney. The Limey is a wide boy. The Limey is an “ard geeza. The Limey is wearin white socks.

Nobody understands what The Limey is sayin. Cus he’s a “stoopid English fucko“. Only he’ll ave the larst larf see. E’s radio rental (mental) E’ll stick it right in yer cakehole. E’ll shoot all you ‘eavy mob wivaht a blink. E’s afta ya. Afta “im.

“Tell im i’m comin!” shahts The Limey frew clenched teef. Blimey! Guv.

The Limey is good at looks; the meaner the moodier. Looks at ya wiv those intense mince pies.

It’s all a right bleedin larf mate. An ar Terry is larfable; unintentionable but larfable.

Only i wooden bovver wiv ‘im if i woz you. The Limey ain’t very adam and eve-able (believable). E’s a bit too Terence Stamp (camp?) (wank?)

The Limey is – to tell the truff – paffetick.

Dir: Steven Soderbergh, U. S

4/10

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The Woman Next Door (1981)

June 15, 2008 at 3:17 pm · Filed under Tedious ·Tagged ,

You might be having one of those fantasies about watching a cosy French film on a rainy Sunday. You want to shut your door on the world, get the fire going, lie on the sofa eating kettle crisps with your favourite slipper socks on.

This is probably that French film you’re fantasizing about.

It’s got passionate but doomed romance; it’s got Mathilde, “One of those women that complicate life”, beautifully, neurotically. It’s got “O la-la, la-la”. It’s got Gerard Depardieu being intensely cuddly. It’s got French ladies in short tennis skirts.

An obsessive Gallic love story with beginning, middle, and – suitably tragic – melodramatic end.

It hasn’t got any French bonking. Thank God.

You’re in a safe pair of French hands with Truffaut. You’re in a safe pair of big arms with Depardieu too. Everything I’ve seen him in he’s been woodenly mainstream. So i tend to stay away from anything with him in it usually.

As soon as the kettle crisps are eaten, the need to watch this film will be over. But i watched on. It was slipping down easily enough. I was all cosy dozy.

I’m not really getting what makes Truffaut such a “great” director.

He’s predictably “O, la-la, la-la”.

Although his conk isn’t as big as Gerard’s.

Dir: Francois Truffaut, France

5.5/10

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The Cave of the Yellow Dog (2005)

June 14, 2008 at 7:13 am · Filed under Good

I bought this Dvd after watching – and liking – the directors other film “The Story of the Weeping Camel“.

It’s as nice as that film. Maybe even nicer. A nice slice of Mongolian life living in a yurt.

With cute kids. Sweet, fresh, rosy-cheeked cuteness. And their gentle childlike life with mom in and around the yurt; as she makes yak cheese and quietly sews; patiently nurturing, tenderly tendering the sweetening life around her.

Dad is off to market on his motorbike to sell the fleeces he’s stripped.

He doesn’t want that dog around when he gets back because he thinks it might be running with wolves. But look at it! It’s even cuter than the kids. It’s more like a cuddly pet than a wild animal. It won’t be ripping up goats and yaks – it’ll be licking them to death!

So the dog doesn’t have any wolf cred. And there’s a bit of contrived dramatic tension at the end involving a lost toddler, baddie vultures – and hero dog running to the rescue; that didn’t have much credibility either.

The director is claiming to have found the story within the family themselves; they aren’t actors, they’re being who they are, as they would do – she’s not getting them to do anything “extra”, not manipulating “more” out of them.

I don’t quite buy that. It seems authentically given – but nice dog, nasty vultures, cute kids, lullaby loving mom -all seemed slightly too twee to be totally true.

But ok, true enough. I don’t want to be too doubting.

Cus scepticism would sour the sweet spirit that the film has so conscientiously portrayed.

Dir: Byambasuren Davaa, Mongolia

7.5/10

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Skin of Man, Heart of Beast (1999)

June 12, 2008 at 4:16 pm · Filed under It stinks

Great title. And that’s about it.

One thing i’ve noticed is: the more memorable the title of a film, book, drama is the duller it usually is.

This wasn’t dull exactly. Just awful.

Lots of slapping, shouting, and punching going on.

Brother Frankie punches long lost brother Coco in the mush. Then kisses him. Bruvver Coco punches mother in head, knocks her clean out. While big bruv Frankie is out “making women bleed”. Then Coco punches his childhood sweetheart in the head. Then he nuts her to make sure. Then he kills her. Then younger brother Alex gets his pistol out and shoots Coco.

Coco’s last words to younger bruv are, “All that counts… (pause) …is love“… The cheek! Two seconds later, it’s Bam!, Bam!, Bam!, you’re dead mate (or bruv)

A family where all the bruvs have devils in them. The Beastly Hearts of devils in their blood. Probably their dad’s blood.

It’s great watching films on vids and dvd’s. Cus you can stop or fast forward thro what you’re not liking, not willing, to watch.

I fast forwarded a lot thro this.

If i’d seen it at the cinema I’d have got up – about half an hour in – and walked out.

Dir: Helene Angel, France

2/10

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Paris, Texas (1984)

June 11, 2008 at 2:08 pm · Filed under It's ok ·Tagged

Harry Dean Stanton. On walkabout (for 4 years)

Haggard and disheveled. Which is ok while he’s being the mysterious (possibly mad) mute in the first 20 minutes.

But i don’t think he cuts it as Nastasia Kinsky’s tragic hubby. He doesn’t look the part. Just a bit too stringy and, well – old.

He sounds the part ok. I had a tape of the Ry Cooder soundtrack and his voice is almost beautiful on that. But he looks too much of a dawg really. He becomes less interestingly mysterious as the film goes on.

And the film does go on. Far too long. (Nearly two and a half hours) I definitely wanted it to end sooner than it did (in contrast to Alice in the Cities, which i didn’t want to end)

Unfortunately I was comparing it a lot with Alice in the Cities. They’re similar sorts of films. Both road movies in which a solitary bloke takes off with a young kid in search of a maternal female.

But this doesn’t have the guileless charm of Alice. It does feel like it’s being pushed purposefully into its aimlessness. The alienation looks too pretty, the estrangement too obvious.

I’ve seen these cowboy landscapes far too often. I’m bored with how familiar they – and the U.S.A – are.

And the Ry Cooder soundtrack sounds too familiar now also. I got sick of listening to it eventually. So it was getting in the way (like too many soundtracks tend to do)

I’m puzzled. Wim Wenders has this love/hate relationship with America. He moans about how commercialism has robbed it of it’s soul. And yet he can’t help but be in thrall to some nostalgia kick he has about the way it used to be (in the times when Henry Fonda was Abe Lincoln)

He indoctrinates his films with Americanisms. Well, contaminates them – thats how i see it. When he sticks to what he knows (Europe) and where his heart is (Germany) his films always seem more authentic.

I’m looking forward to seeing his other road movie (set in Germany) “Kings of the Road”. And I’m expecting to like it as much as i did Alice in the Cities.

His fixation with American culture makes me go cold with feelings of estrangement. Which i suppose is what he wants you/me to feel.

This film has been called a “masterpiece”. It won the Golden Palm in Cannes.

But give me Alice in the Cities any day.

Dir: Wim Wenders, U.S/Germany

6/10

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