The 'Recently Watched Films' Thread

[Manuel76]

Originally Posted by Liam

Of course, that is only the surface of things. It is one of those rare works of art of great transformative power that make you lose your sleep for a few days, .
What, no mention of Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans? I am shocked!

My personal favorites include:

- [] Terje Vigen (Victor Sjöström, 1917)

- [] Häxan (Benjamin Christensen, 1922)

- [] Nanook of the North (Robert Flaherty, 1922)

- [] La Chute de la Maison Usher (Jean Epstein, 1928)

- [] Tabu: A Story of the South Seas (W. F. Murnau, 1931)

Although not a silent film (alas, as I thought most of the dialogues were wooden), I would strongly recommend Les Croix de Bois (Raymond Bernard, 1932).

Robert Flaherty's mind-boggling Man of Aran (1934) is also not to be missed.




Cheers,
L

Liam, I love Sunrise too, amazing camerawork and decors.

La chute de la maison Usher: I loved just one scene, but it's enough: when they are carrying the coffin with all those candles superimposed. I saw it along taime ago but stillremember that scene. Anyway if you like french silent cinema there's a film which is a miracle: Le brassier ardent. It's difficult to find but it's unforgettable.

Nanook of the north and Man of Aran, beautiful images but didn't like them that much (but they're two very great films).

And Haxan, very strange and funny.

Regarding La passion de Jeanne d'Arc, what do you mean by "transformative power"?

This is my favorite scene in the film: The urgency with which Jeanne feels the sin she has commited, how she's only relived after telling the judges, and how this judges, so cruel and wicked till that moment are really moved even if they realise they must kill her anyway. And finally the wonderful "dialogue" with Artaud.

YouTube - Le Passion de Jeanne D'Arc, 1928, by Carl Dreyer

It's only 8 minutes but is, to me, one of the best scenes in movie history.

[Manuel76]

Originally Posted by Igu Soni

I just watched Requiem for a Dream third time. After the first two times I thought this wouldn't be masochism. But this time the screen was larger and the volume louder. Now, it is.

I saw it several times too, only found it very repetitive in the last half an hour, but it still has much impact. Ellen Burstyn was impressive but she spoke too many times about her "red dress".

I saw Pi by same director and it was an interesting film too.

[Manuel76]

[QUOTE=miercuri;52305] I appreciate minimalism but in the past few years almost all Romanian films I've seen were in the same vein. It might be their trademark but I wish I could see something different one day.
However, there was one scene in 4,3,2 which I truly loved: the family dinner. It might not make much sense if I describe it as painfully Romanian, but it is exactly that. I don't think there was another Romanian director who could say so much about our culture in just one scene.
QUOTE]

Totally agree, but it doesn't happen only with Romanian cinema, unfortunatelly.

The big scene was OK but I was like waiting for something like this, it was as if I already had seen similar movies in so many films, and it was, for me, too clearly supposed to be the film's Great Scene.

A found the film interesting (especially in a year with not so many great films) but I was a bit dissapointed.

Miercuri, could you please recommend some good new romanian films?

[miercuri]

Originally Posted by Manuel76

Miercuri, could you please recommend some good new romanian films?

Sadly, I haven't watched any I would recommend lately. There is a Belgian film by a Romanian director, Radu Mihaileanu, called Le concert. It got really good reviews but I have yet to see it. I'll let you know what I think of it.

[learna]

Originally Posted by Bottle Rocket

In the silent world, I would also add:

A Trip to the Moon (Melies, 1902)
The Last Laugh (Murnau, 1924)
The Big Parade (Vidor, 1925)
Metropolis (Lang, 1927)
Pandora's Box (Pabst, 1929)

• The first is brief but wonderful ... linked here to YouTube -- watch for the "Scientists," who are priceless.

• The second is a grim, realist glimpse of defeated post-WWI Berlin, with a tacked-on but satisfying happy ending.

• The third is arguably the first war movie, predating even Abel Gance's revolutionary "Napoleon," (1927) and a worthwhile companion piece to two others. The first, "Hell's Angels (Hughes, 1930) was originally begun as a silent but revised in mid-production when "The Jazz Singer" launched the sound era; it includes the only color footage of Jean Harlow, as well as the original of the line now usually misquoted as "... let me slip into something more comfortable:" "Hell's Angels" is one of the raciest pre-Code Hollywood movies, and also one of the only films ever to portray Zeppelins at war. The other is the first anti-war movie, the original "All Quiet on the Western Front" (Milestone, 1930), also an early talkie, which was banned by the Nazis and several other European powers.
  
  In passing, I should also mention "Today We Live" (Hawks, 1933), one of Joan Crawford's first talkies co-starring Gary Cooper, Robert Young, and Franchot Tone, which was adapted from a story by William Faulkner and one of very few movies to feature footage of First-World-War bomber aircraft and early Royal Navy motor torpedo boats. Also, of course, Chaplin's "Great Dictator," his first talkie (1940, rather late to the sound game).

• "Metropolis" is in a single word, awesome ... if you've never seen it, it should be your very next movie.

• "Pandora's Box" is among Louise Brooks's handful of roles, and I am always amazed by how very modern she looks even today, like a time-traveler visiting an older, fustier age.

BRocket

PS: sorry about all the notes and trivia; I just really, really love silent films that involve the Great War.

Bottle Rocket, thank you for the list of the films and your review, all of them look very interesting. "Metropolis" and "Pandora's Box" were in my plans, I remember some clips from Chaplin's "Great Dictator" that I saw by chance when I was too small for such film and my impression is not vivid and maybe it is worth to be seen again.

What, no mention of Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans? I am shocked!

My personal favorites include:

- [] Terje Vigen (Victor Sjöström, 1917)

- [] Häxan (Benjamin Christensen, 1922)

- [] Nanook of the North (Robert Flaherty, 1922)

- [] La Chute de la Maison Usher (Jean Epstein, 1928)

- [] Tabu: A Story of the South Seas (W. F. Murnau, 1931)

Although not a silent film (alas, as I thought most of the dialogues were wooden), I would strongly recommend Les Croix de Bois (Raymond Bernard, 1932).

Robert Flaherty's mind-boggling Man of Aran (1934) is also not to be missed.

Liam, thank you! I am sure that all of them are worth to be seen and I have added them to the list. Now I realize that my spare time is taken up for near future but hope that one day I will come back in the present-day world.

[Manuel76]

Avatar: Disney Pocahontas+Titanic+ Jurasic Park+3D

Dissapointing: Cameron seems to be the new Spielberg: obvious, simplistic, tacky, a tear-jerker...and full of c***(Igu, avoid Avatar if yo can).

[Liam]

Originally Posted by Manuel76

...and full of c***

Cunt? Cock? I'm scratching my head here...

Surely, you DON'T say!!!





,
L.

[Bottle Rocket]

Originally Posted by Liam

Cunt? Cock? I'm scratching my head here...

L.

You eat with that mouth, kid?

Obviously M76 meant "cats," Liam.

BRocket

... but seriously folks: I'm guessing he meant "cack"

[Heteronym]

I watched an Argentine movie called El Secreto de sus Ojos a few days ago. It caught my attention after I noticed it was nominated for an Oscar. Has anyone seen it yet?

[Liam]

Originally Posted by Bottle Rocket

You eat with that mouth, kid?

I do. Please don't ask who[m] .




L.

[Igu Soni]

Originally Posted by Manuel76

Igu, avoid Avatar if yo can

Laugh all you want, but I liked it (not, however, any more). The cl***es didn't bother me in this movie, except at one or two points.
In fact, I like lots of cl***ed bulls***, like Shaolin Soccer and Speed Racer.


I watched There's Something about Mary a couple of days back. Not very funny but fun anyway. A worthy predecessor, in my opinion, to the ultimate trash that is the American Pie series.

[kpjayan]

I was watching an Irish (?) movie today "Garage" on TV. I thought it was fantastic...

[Igu Soni]

Originally Posted by Liam

Cunt? Cock? I'm scratching my head here...

Surely, you DON'T say!!!





,
L.

Look around the conversation between manuel, lenz and me earlier in the thread.

[lenz]

[QUOTE=Igu Soni]Laugh all you want, but I liked it (not, however, any more). The cl***es didn't bother me in this movie, except at one or two points.
In fact, I like lots of cl***ed bulls***, like Shaolin Soccer and Speed Racer.[QUOTE]

Originally Posted by Liam

Cunt? Cock? I'm scratching my head here...

Surely, you DON'T say!!!

,
L.

[QUOTE=Igu Soni]Look around the conversation between manuel, lenz and me earlier in the thread.[QUOTE]

I think we're getting our filthy words mixed up here. But, you guys would know better than me.

[Clarissa]

Just back from seeing Eisenstein's Que Viva Mexico at the Filmmuseum here.
Definitely even if he never was able to finish it.

The last scenes reminded me of Malcolm Lowry's Under the Volcano - another masterpiece.

[saliotthomas]

Originally Posted by Clarissa

The last scenes reminded me of Malcolm Lowry's Under the Volcano - another masterpiece.

I must see this.


I watched Cold soul, i don't know how this has been received or how old it is, but it was a good surprise to me.
A actor , Paul Giamatti who keep his real name in this, is preparing a theater play Uncle Vania and reach a dead end in his work, a weight he can not bare any more. That's when a friend mention to him a society that extract and keep your soul for a certain amount of time.
In parrallele to Paul we discover Mina who is a mule Betwin US and Russia carrying black market souls.

Said like this, one can image the worst of the B Movies, but Paul Giamatti (Side ways) is not Jean claud Van damme and there is a nice atmosphere of humour and saddness all along.The idea that seems at first hard to handle is very well treated and Giamatti, in playing few time the same role during the rehearsal of his play with different soul, is excellent. Beautifull part in Russia that give a different dimension to the story.
A very good movie, maybe the best this early in the year (and maybe later) and i will follow what Sophie Barthes will do in the future.
If you can see it ,do really.

Also The box Which remind me that i should keep rotten fruits to throw at my TV sometime.


And the most excellent animation movie Mary and Max. Very,very good.

[Clarissa]

Under the Volcano - the book is better than the film (Albert Finney and Javqueline Bisset in the leading rôles). The book is the masterpiece!

[Bottle Rocket]

Originally Posted by Liam

I do. Please don't ask who[m] .

GLAAD to see that you are as prone to cliche as the rest of us, mon 'tit fee . Or would that be supine?

Either way, that last sally would have driven Oscar Wilde with ennui: please up your game

BRocket


Actually, my real purpose with this post is to point out that R.J. Flaherty, for all his documentary chops, was kind of a creepy guy according to most accounts I've read ... a wrong-side-of-the-bearskin, never acknowledged child by Nanook's "wife" (which she wasn't in RL. but then. "Nanook" wasn't either) as well as various other tamperings-with-truth. Which is not to say he wasn't a true pioneer, just not any kind of patron "saint" -- otoh, the only way I can account for myself is to posit a patron sinner instead. (see PM for related Q's)

[Loki]

Yesterday I finally went to see Paranormal Activity.
Yesterday afternoon I read an article that says that in Naples ambulances have been called because someone felt ill. Then my father told me that also in America there have been such cases. To cut a long story short, I was really curious.
The film was great, and it did live up to my expectations. There had been so much talking about it that I expected it at least to be great. Paranormal Activity is able to create so much tension that it makes you hold your breath for the whole duration of the film.
Also, the film was shot in a week with only the director, his best friend and the director's partner (the last two are the two protagonists); and it only cost 15.000$: that's what they say anyway.

I recommend the film to anyone who enjoys watching horror/thriller films.

[Loki]

Yesterday I finished watching Dangerous Liaisons (1988), co-starring Michelle Pfeiffer. This adaptation of Laclos's great epistolary novel is quite good, there are some differences from the novel but they're virtually inevitable.
It goes without saying that the book is much better but still I've enjoyed the film.
Unfortunately the ending is not developed enough: for example the director has cut off the illness and folly of Madame de Tourvel. Also, I haven't liked the scene of the duel between two of the main characters, also because is a creation of the director.

Then some days ago I watched The Blair Witch Project: there is so much fuss about it that it wasn't as I had expected. I mean, it's an interesting film, quite thrilling, and probably a pioneer of the genre. I would have liked to see it at the cinema: it would have been much better.
I'm planning to see the sequel, but I don't think it's worth it, is it?