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TM2YC's 1001 Movies (Chronological up to page 25/post 481)

TM2YC

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Shutter Island is for Scorsese what Inside Man is for Lee. Discuss.

So a film that is nothing like his others but it's his best?

Interesting thoughts on this. I'm not one of these cinephiles who maintains that film peaked in the '70s and it's been mostly downhill since then. That said, AN is such a one-of-a-kind film that it's hard to think of a good comparison in other decades. We'll probably never get another like it.

I think cinema mostly went uphill from the 70s but AP represents a certain type of big-budget/experimental film-making that will likely never return and surely won't return with the same "everything is done for real" attitude.



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Barry Lyndon (1975)
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Country: United Kingdom / United States
Length: 187 minutes
Type: Period, Epic, Drama

By some strange coincidence, a lot of the things I loved most as a kid seemed to involve Sir Michael Hordern and his warm and reassuring voice. He was the definitive Gandalf in the 1981 BBC radio version of 'Lord of the Rings', the spy-master in 'Where Eagles Dare', the narrator and voice of the rabbit-god Frith in 1978's 'Watership Down', Badger in the 1980s 'Wind in the Willows', the narrator of 1985's 'Young Sherlock Holmes', the lord in the 1985 Roald Dahl 'Danny the Champion of the World' TV Movie and was the narrator of the original 'Paddington Bear' 1970s TV series. So later in my teens, when I was first getting into Stanley Kubrick (I'm sure like many teenage film-fans beginning to study the essential "curriculum" of film), I was pretty excited to realise that Kubrick had got that same beautiful voice to narrate 'Barry Lyndon'. Hordern's lovely grandfatherly voice, narrating the film gives it the same sort of atmosphere as Peter Falk's voice does in 1987's 'The Princess Bride'. Despite 'Barry Lyndon's tragic content and real-world setting, the narration lends it a nostalgic, fairytale, dreamlike feel. Watching it yet again, it's surprising how little dialogue there is overall, many scenes are silent, apart from the narration and Baroque score, as we slowly observe the melancholic faces of the characters. I also love the way Hordern's script is full of colourful words and phrasing particular to the 18th Century setting e.g. "Thus Barry fell into the very worst of courses and company and was soon very far advanced in the science of every kind of misconduct." so it doesn't sound like a film from 1975, it's like a person of the period is describing recent vents.

I definitely used to consider 'Barry Lyndon' to be my favourite Kubrick film but it's increasingly been surpassed in my estimation by 'Paths of Glory' and perhaps the longer US cut of 'The Shining' might be above it now but it's still a terrific way to spend 3-hours. If I had to nitpick, Ryan O'Neal looks far too old to play the young naive Barry in the early sections and there are a few moments where it feels like material was chopped out to move the story along (for example, Barry's mother just re-appears in a scene late in the story without explanation). I also hadn't appreciated how definitive the intermission break is, it divides the rise, then the fall, before it, Barry is a lovable rogue who we want to win, the first shot afterwards he's blowing smoke in the face of his new wife's face, he's now a cruel brute somewhat deserving of the impending downfall. For want of a little love, or at least outward affection toward his new wealthy bride, his tragedy could be averted. His fortunes are often won, by accident, or design, through unexpected love and fealty to several people on his adventure, it's lack of love and fealty when it should be most expected that dooms him. Barry finally redeems himself in the eyes of the viewer, by an act of charity and magnanimous honour but it's to late to save him.

This was the first time I've rewatched 'Barry Lyndon' since the 2017 documentary 'Filmworker'. Which was about how actor Leon Vitali (who played the central nemesis in the last hour of 'Barry Lyndon') gave up his promising acting career, to quietly become Kubrick's personal assistant for the rest of SK's life. He delivers a brilliant performance, hateful, yet still sympathetic and could surely have done more great roles.



 

mnkykungfu

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So a film that is nothing like his others but it's his best?
I like Shutter Island more than some people, (and like his most-famous films less than others) but even I wouldn't call it Scorsese's best. However, I think that if you just saw it without knowing who made it, like Inside Man, the actual director would probably be one of the last people you'd suspect. And both are I think probably the most straightforward entries in their catalogues, sticking pretty well within their genres, the directors reigning in their impulses to challenge and confront audiences and instead using their creativity in other ways.

A related experiment: think of a list of directors that are quite particular and maybe don't necessarily have mass-market appeal. (Like, how many women go ga-ga over Scorsese films?) Recommend one film from their catalogue that would reel in an unsuspecting viewer and make them curious to give a chance to the rest of their catalogue.
Lee: Inside Man
Scorsese: Shutter Island
Allen: Midnight in Paris
and so on...
 

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Delicatessen (1991)
Director: Jean-Pierre Jeunet & Marc Caro
Country: France
Length: 99 minutes
Type: Post-Apocalyptic, Sci-Fi, Comedy, Romance, Horror

Jean-Pierre Jeunet & Marc Caro create a highly unusual, non-industrial, vision of Post-Apocalypse France. Instead of ragged bikers and jagged concrete ruins, it's more like a retrograde, steampunk society, with analogue technology and mouldering, crumbling architecture. The residents of a small apartment block subsist by eating ensnared strangers that their in-house butcher periodically carves up. 'Delicatessen' revels in showing the eccentric and ingenious ways in which the inhabitants sustain their meagre lives, including an old man who lives in a flooded green cellar, crawling with edible snails and frogs. Although the sequences about one of the tenants coming up with elaborate methods of suicide were the funniest parts for me. Some of it comes across as less like outlandish and inventive science-fiction and more like just oddness for oddness sake. Plus the film descends into cacophonous chaos by the end but this is offset by a gentle romance. I thought there was a definite Jacques Tati flavour to the dish, with just a hint of 'The Texas Chain Saw Massacre'.

 

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I love Jean-Pierre Jeunet. The only movie of his I didn't really enjoy that much was Alien: Resurrection, because it's not really much of an Alien movie and it's also not much of a Jeunet movie.
 

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The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964)
Director: Jacques Demy
Country: France
Length: 91 minutes
Type: Musical, Romance, Drama

I was really looking forward to 'The Umbrellas of Cherbourg' and was certain I'd absolutely love it but I only liked it... a lot. Unlike most musicals, all the dialogue is sung "recitative", so I felt that things like a tragic lost romance, played at much the same tonal level as other things, like a car engine not working. The visuals are exquisitely beautiful, from the first overhead shot of umbrellas moving vertically and horizontally through the frame, to the snowy night-time finale, but again it's all at the same level of romantic colourful artifice. I was thinking that Michel Legrand's continuos score was a bit wallpaper-ish but then I was humming his gorgeous, angelic (and clearly infectious) love theme the whole of the next day. It's interesting the way Jacques Demy contrasts the sad and cynically realistic story, with such a fairytale aesthetic. I suspect this is one of those movies that hits you much harder on the 2nd viewing.



 

mnkykungfu

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I often hear La La Land cited as a spiritual successor and at-times deliberate homage to Umbrellas... If someone kinda sorta hated La La Land and isn't a huge fan of musicals as a whole, would you still recommend Umbrellas to them? I often see this held up as an absolute Must-See...
 

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I often hear La La Land cited as a spiritual successor and at-times deliberate homage to Umbrellas... If someone kinda sorta hated La La Land and isn't a huge fan of musicals as a whole, would you still recommend Umbrellas to them? I often see this held up as an absolute Must-See...

I LOVED 'La La Land' and while I'm not a musicals nut, I do enjoy the genre and there are a few that are some of my all-time favourite things (e.g. 'Hedwig and the Angry Inch', 'Les Miserables', 'Evita', the 'South Park' movie, 'Hamilton', 90s Disney animated musicals, 'Muppet Christmas Carol', 'Singin' in the Rain', 'Enchanted' etc) so maybe I'm not the guy to ask. However, although you can see the influence on the visual style on La La Land, I didn't see many other similarities. I hear some people who don't like musicals giving the reason as "people suddenly breaking into song and dance is just weird". If that's the case, then UoC might be the one for you because there's no spontaneous, unpromted dancing, and every single word is sung and it doesn't rhyme or anything, they are just singing stuff like "could you get some bread and milk while you're at the shops" :LOL: . It's as naturalistic as a musical can be, aside from the fantastical visuals of course.
 

mnkykungfu

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Hmmm...I'd be hard-pressed to say why so many musicals don't work for me other than to just call them "cheesy" and unbelievable. Like, I don't mind a whimsical song breakout, but they have to earn it. That's so highly subjective though... like, I love Hedwig, but I also loved the new West Side Story. I will say that for sure you seem to be a much bigger fan of musicals than me though, so probably Umbrellas is still a dicey proposition...
 

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Satantango (1994)
Director: Bela Tarr
Country: Hungary
Length: 439 minutes (7.5 hours)
Type: Drama, Comedy

I was fervently praying that this over-7-hour Hungarian film about a moribund post-Soviet Collective-farm would be tolerable but the opening 8-minute, unbroken, wordless shot of some cows traipsing around a muddy courtyard killed all hope of that. It's only during the 4th shot in the film, which occurs 18-minutes in, that we abruptly see the first person and it's only 31-minutes in, that we see the first close-up of a human face. When you're used to the normal rhythm of editing (even of a very slow film), you instinctively expect when an edit might happen, or when a scene should end and cut to something else. Not so with Bela Tarr's 'Satantango'. Just because all the people have left a room, the camera is not doing anything, no objects are moving and in fact all activity has ceased on a subatomic level, it doesn't mean that Tarr isn't going to run the scene on for a few more minutes. At one point he very, very, very, slowly pans his camera in a circle over a room of sleeping people, just to make sure nothing whatsoever is happening, then the camera goes round again in the exact same circle to double-check that absolutely nothing is still happening. At another point we see an extended dialogue-free scene of people dancing from one camera angle, then it later replays the same scene from a second camera angle, as if Tarr didn't know that two pieces of footage could be edited together. It's amazing given the vast length and suffocating smallness of the story, that there are still giant unexplained plot holes, non-sequiturs, vague characterisations and other characters we don't know, doing things we aren't told about.

There are powerful moments in here though, like the scene of wind and refuse howling down a street alongside the two antagonists, the super-slow dolly-in on an owl observing us, any speech by the evil, manipulative Irimias (played brilliantly by the film's multi-talented score composer Mihaly Vig) and I was actually quite amused by the whole hour spent observing "the Doctor" grumble, amble round his room and drink himself into oblivion. The black and white visuals and stunning compositions are never less than perfectly executed. I knew going in that there was a controversial scene of a cat being tortured and killed. It's obvious that it wasn't permanently hurt, or poisoned (partly because I'm sure Tarr would've spent about 25-minutes showing it, if it had been), it's just done with clever editing and sound but it's still horrible because you can see the cat is afraid and doesn't know why it's being flung around. There is no need to do it for a bloody movie. At least I can be comforted in the knowledge that if I added up all the funerals of loved ones I sadly might attend in my future years, none of it could be as miserable an experience as watching 'Satantango' once.


It's telling quite how slow this film is, that this fan-made youtube video has applied something like a 5000 times speed up to the whole film (so it plays in it's entirety in just 2.5-minutes), yet some shots still look like they're playing at normal speed o_O:


^ Love the new electronic soundtrack. This is the way to see 'Satantango' and save yourself 7-hours!

But this youtube faneditor is my real hero! This joke almost made it all worth while :LOL:.


^ @blueyoda might appreciate this one.

'Satantango' might make a good fanedit project. Seeing how much you could this thing down would be an esoteric challenge.
 
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mnkykungfu

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A 7+ hour black and white foreign language film that's critically-lauded raises all kinds of red flags for me, so unlikely that I'd ever watch it. But I appreciate the description and video links above to save me from even trying!
 

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A 7+ hour black and white foreign language film that's critically-lauded raises all kinds of red flags for me, so unlikely that I'd ever watch it. But I appreciate the description and video links above to save me from even trying!

I would put the 82% of people on Letterboxd giving 'Satantango' 4-stars and above (and 48% gave it the full 5-stars) down to it being reviewed by a self-selecting sub-group. Because the vast majority of viewers+reviewers would only sit through the thing because they loved it, most normal people would've switched it off 5-mins into the first cow sequence. It's just the 5% of anal-retentive weirdos like me, that gave it what it deserves (less than 2-stars), who would force themselves to watch 7-hours of something that they hated, just to tick it off their mental to-do list.
 

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Gimme Shelter (1970)
Directors: Albert Maysles, David Maysles, Charlotte Zwerin
Country: United States
Length: 91 minutes
Type: Music, Documentary

I love the music of The Rolling Stones (their 60/70s period anyway) but I've never warmed to the band members and the recently broadcast BBC 4-part/4-hour retrospective 'My Life as a Rolling Stone' confirmed my opinion of them as low-key egotistical tossers (actually Ronnie Wood and Charlie Watts seemed aight), who are long, long past their prime. So it's great to see that this vintage 1970 documentary captures them approaching their full-force, dangerous, out-of-control and musically thrilling peak. Having watched the original cut of Michael Lindsay-Hogg's horribly dated and leaden 'Let It Be' doc following The Beatles in/from the same year as 'Gimme Shelter', I was pleased to discover that Directors, Albert & David Maysles and Charlotte Zwerin cut together something really energetic, "in the moment" and not at all dated. I didn't realise that some lines/scenes from 'Spinal Tap' were a specific homage/piss-take of 'Gimme Shelter'. Plus I reckon Michael McKean as 'David St. Hubbins' was trying to channel exactly the kind of pseudo-intellectual ramblings that Mick Jagger does here.

The music is fantastic, featuring some of the same cuts as feature on the Stones' classic 'Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out!' live album, as I recognised Jagger's cheeky ad-lib "I think I bust a button on my trousers. Hope they don't fall down. You don't want my trousers to fall down, now do ya?!" (loud cheers from the ladies in the audience). I could've done with seeing more than snippets of the amazing supporting acts like Tina Turner and Gram Parsons. Turner is singing like she's having an epic gospel-orgasm and Gram is sadly only seen from behind, singing a cover song, especially regrettable considering how little footage there is of him. Come on Peter Jackson, do a 9-hour recut of 'Gimme Shelter' too! Footage from the Stones' 1969 tour occupies most of the first half, with the 2nd half given over to chronicling the infamous Altamont Speedway concert. The cameras pick up plenty of footage of people in the crowd looking distressed, visibly crying, crushed, scared, angry and sometimes frighteningly disturbed by whatever "bad trip" they were on. I got the impression that it was very "lucky" that "only" four people died. There were about 50K people at the Hillsborough disaster, for example, where nearly a hundred died, where as there were 300K at Altamont, with what looked like the organisation, facilities and piss-poor management you'd expect for a small drunken village fete... and then you throw in the Hells Angels bikers beating the crowd with pool cues. Stones' drummer Charlie Watts bookends the movie with an Altamont post-mortem over a Moviola, going through the death of Meredith Hunter frame-by-frame, like crime scene footage at a trial. By the way, apparently George Lucas was one of the film crew at Altamont but his camera jammed.


I reckon this Robert Altman (not the film Director) photo of Gram Parsons at Altamont, blissfully lost in his music, is one of the greatest rock photos of all time, so I was disappointed to not see video of where it came from:

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mnkykungfu

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I would put the 82% of people on Letterboxd giving 'Satantango' 4-stars and above (and 48% gave it the full 5-stars) down to it being reviewed by a self-selecting sub-group. Because the vast majority of viewers+reviewers would only sit through the thing because they loved it, most normal people would've switched it off 5-mins into the first cow sequence. It's just the 5% of anal-retentive weirdos like me, that gave it what it deserves (less than 2-stars), who would force themselves to watch 7-hours of something that they hated, just to tick it off their mental to-do list.
You bring up a really interesting point about "self-selection", which is, I think, the problem that plagues really all film criticism. An audience goes to see (or stream) a film based on promotional material, and unless they were suckered by a misleading trailer, they've successfully self-selected for or against a film. Same thing on Letterboxd.

So you'd figure that it falls to professional critics to be more objective, since they kind of have to see everything regardless. Except even if they put their best efforts into it, it's still likely that they're going to be rather a biased audience for films...certainly they're unlikely to have the same emotional reaction as a general audience. Just by virtue of having to see so many movies, it's likely that a critic is going to have a much higher preference for films which are experimental and challenging, which are messy and unpredictable, which may have glaring flaws but have exciting successes. Critics are then going to sit through films designed for the mass market as a hostile audience member...they'd much rather be watching that Melville classic all their cinephile friends rave about than sit through the new big studio-produced movie.

I contend that the death of film criticism has come in a post Roger Ebert, post Leonard Maltin era. People like this are not really actively reviewing movies anymore. At some point, a film-viewer's subjective experience came to be valued more than whether a film objectively works or not. I didn't agree with Ebert 100% of the time, but I could read a review of his and know how well the film worked for what it was, regardless of if it was a favorite of his or not. He tried, and usually succeeded, at judging films on their own merits, and recommending them as such.

And that's where every jerk with an opinion about movies fails nowadays. Everyone is so concerned about being passionate and punchy that there's no perspective on film. An arthouse drama is automatically good if you like arthouse dramas. 5 stars. Or a horror film ranges between 3-5 stars no matter how bad it is, simply because you like horror films. I submit that only the very best horror films should get 5 stars, like the best MCU films should get 5, and the best dramas 5. Revolutionary, I know. But look how most people, even professional critics, rate a film and you'll see a near automatic 5 stars for the kinds of movies they love, whereas the ones they 'have to' sit through are fighting just to get a 3-star "it's good for what it is" left-handed compliment.

Satantango, in other words, is the perfect petri dish to test the disease. Or at least to see who's caught it.
 

TM2YC

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^ Any star ratings system for movies is kind of ridiculous to justify because it's comparing apples and oranges. e.g. Just looking at Letterboxd stars, it might be hard for you to justify giving the Chip 'n' Dale movie more than double the score of Ghandi. One needs to read your reviews to understand the context of the ratings. Equally I can't justify my 2.5-star ratings of both Doctor Strange 2 and Blade Runner 2049, the later is clearly a better and better made film but I didn't care enough about the former to be annoyed by it and pick it apart. Again you have to read the reviews to get the context.

My subjective ethos is generally:

5 = Perfect in every conceivable way. A movie I love and will watch multiple times.
4.5 = More or less perfect but I don't unreservedly love it.
4 = A great, great film but not like 100% my jam. It's difficult for a film to tip over and get higher than a 4 from me.
3.5, 3, 2.5 = Average, most films probably.
2, 1.5, 1, 0.5 = Reserved for films I truly hate, which isn't many because I generally don't waste my time with bad films (unless I have to, for things like this 1001 list).



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Soldier of Orange (1977)
Director: Paul Verhoeven
Country: Netherlands
Length: 149 minutes
Type: War, Thriller, Drama

When I watched 2006's 'Black Book', I didn't realise it was Paul Verhoeven returning to a subject he'd done before, 30-years before, as well as to film-making in the Netherlands. 'Soldier of Orange' is also a morally grey portrayal of various Dutch Resistance espionage efforts in WWII, featuring one of the same writers, at least two of the same cast members (much younger) and situations and locations that look very similar. Composer Rogier van Otterloo's main theme is suitably heroic and reminded me of 'Where Eagles Dare' at times. The fine cast includes Rutger Hauer, Jeroen Krabbe and Edward Fox. I think I slightly preferred this to 'Black Book' but there's not very much in it if you enjoy twisty WWII thrillers.

 

mnkykungfu

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^Soldier of Orange is great! If a little overlong. That is a bizarre poster...never seen it, and it does not capture the tone of the film. lol

I've taken to using Letterboxd's star and heart system in counterbalance. It's not perfect, but I think it allows me to rate fairly objectively. I absolutely have no problem rating Chip 'n Dale much higher than Ghandi. Some pretentious people would make a judgement just based on the titles alone and say that's ridiculous, or on the subject matter. But as I said, I'm looking at how well-made the film is, and how well it accomplishes its goals. Ghandi is a pretty shit biopic. It's pablum. Overstuffed, doesn't flow well, jammed with grandstanding moments. Chip 'n Dale however is a real smart comedy deconstruction. A lot of mastery of different styles and so much knowledge of the source material. I'll die on that hill, sure.

But take a film like Manhunter and a film like Silence of the Lambs. Both well-made, but the latter is impeccable. That said, it leaves me slightly cold, whereas I'm super into the vibe that Michael Mann puts out in the former. "Digging the vibe" is subjective, though. So I'd feel obligated to rate Silence... higher in stars, but I'd save the little "heart" for Manhunter.
 

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Red Desert (1964)
Director: Michelangelo Antonioni
Country: Italy
Length: 120 minutes
Type: Drama

'Red Desert' is beautiful to look at and powerfully acted but it's a bit drab (intentionally) and depressing for my tastes. Michelangelo Antonioni controls every element of the visuals, environment and atmosphere that his lost characters wonder around in, corridors are painted all-white, the horribly polluted industrial landscapes are painted in greys, sickly greens and alien purples, a cart full of fruit is even painted grey, so when he does make something red, in stands out. Viewed from 2022, it'd be natural to see this as a film about the destruction of nature but I think all the images of dead and poisoned rivers are simply being used as a metaphor for the characters. It's a real shame that the great Richard Harris has his distinctive voice badly dubbed over into Italian. His character is a dispossessed international business man, so why didn't they just write him as an Irish guy with limited Italian language skills, if Harris was an Irish guy with limited Italian language skills.

 

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Woodstock (1970)
Director: Michael Wadleigh
Country: United States
Length: 224 minutes
Type: Documentary

Watching this so soon after documentary about the notorious Altamont Speedway Free Festival was interesting. That had 300K people attending, while Woodstock had 400K, so despite the mammoth reputation of the latter, they had comparable audiences. That Woodstock wasn't the same kind of disaster seems to mostly be down to it having a proper raised stage (like modern festivals), with physical barriers to discourage the crowd from running amuck. Woodstock also had deaths (3 rather than 4 at Altamont) and you can see from the film it had bad management of food, water and facilities but the documentary keeps repeating like a propaganda mantra that everything was peaceful and a model example of free spirited hippie culture working together, outside the normal structure of society. So you have multiple people being interviewed saying things like "see you don't need cops/authority/government", despite the film showing the military having to be brought in to provide emergency medical care, mention of a building being burned down and numerous heedless pleadings with the crowd to not take the dangerous "bad acid" and to stop climbing on the precarious scaffolding. The camera men's (I'm going to assume men) lingering shots of young naked girls soaping themselves down in the local lake was questionable. Although to be fair there is quite a bit of footage of hairy naked men running around too.

At about 3.5-hours (in the Director's Cut) there is plenty of music to watch, only about half of it was to my taste. I loved the energetic, exciting music of The Who, Santana, Sly and the Family Stone, Joe Cocker and Jimi Hendrix, which all transcend the 1960s hippie scene but there was too much of the "hey you know like man, come dig this far-out vibe" flower-power Folk Rock. I've never seen so much tie-dye in my life! I was familiar with most of the artists but had not heard Canned Heat before, they absolutely tear it up with some raw, head banging, Blues Rock. I didn't know that Thelma Schoonmaker was assistant director and editor on this, alongside her future close collaborator Martin Scorsese. I've no doubt that the continual use of split-screen, inside multiple aspect-ratios, was a hugely innovative piece of editing at the time, it seems so natural now. Sometimes it's simply giving us multiple camera angles on a performance but at other times it's showing perhaps three different images and allowing the viewer to choose. I'm glad I've seen this cultural milestone once but I'll probably watch the highlights next time.



By the way, I'm up to 766 films viewed and reviewed, with 26 to rewatch, out of 1001, so about 3/4 of the way there.
 
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The Fourth Man (1983)
Director: Paul Verhoeven
Country: Netherlands
Length: 102 minutes
Type: Psychological, Horror, Mystery

Given the title, I thought this might have something to do with 'The Third Man' but apart from it also featuring a central character who is a bitter novelist that has been invited to give a lecture to a book club in a strange city, it shares no similarities. The phrase "Foreshadowing: The Movie" sprung to mind but really Paul Verhoeven employs foreshadowing and "backshadowing?", dreams and nightmares, Catholic symbolism and literary symbolism, to create a film where everything refers to something else, on multiple levels, where the line between reality and fiction explicitly does not exist. Jeroen Krabbe is so damn good.




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Funny Games (1997)
Director: Michael Haneke
Country: Austria
Length: 109 minutes
Type: Thriller

'Funny Games' is like the art-house 'Scream'. Up to a point it's one of the most brilliantly built up and sustained psychological thrillers I've seen. I knew nothing about it beforehand, so I was on the edge of my seat anticipating where the plot would go next and to what levels the horror would descend. But Michael Haneke isn't content with constructing a flawless thriller, he later deconstructs it too, which is cleverly done but in doing so, he wiped out most of the tension and drama for me. The antagonists are really terrifying because of the seeming randomness and pointlessness of their reign of terror, plus Arno Frisch's ambiguous smile is deeply unsettling.

 

mnkykungfu

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^Watched that recently and absolutely hated it. The problem is that once you figure out the director is making torture porn, but he's completely intent on torturing the audience with no chance of release, it deflates all investment in the story since there really is no story. Haneke has said that his whole intent was to make people turn off the film, but sadly he mistook how sadistic horror film lovers can be, and how many actually enjoy pointless sadism.
 
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