May 26, 2016

not sure where else to post this, but
@M Solo @captain awesome @Swizz @Narsh

 

May 19, 2016

"Reports of critics literally screaming profanities at the screen as Neon Demon ended. Hold on to your butts."

"The Neon Demon got exactly the reception I'm sure Refn was hoping for. Audience members literally shouting abuse at the screen."

"The Neon Demon: Visually and sonically it's Refn's most sublime work. Story-wise it barely exists."

"At "the neon demon" press screening some viewers are leaving the theatre. Understandable."

"THE NEON DEMON: slick with blood and glitter paint, Refn denounces superficiality with superficiality. A gorgeous hypocrisy I'm unopposed to."

"It's going to be a huge challenge to find the words to describe just how putrid NEON DEMON is. What a piece of s---."

"THE NEON DEMON: Resounding boos for Refn's getting-eaten-by-LA fantasia, which I dug. Not convinced much there beyond pretty surfaces tho."

"The Neon Demon is brilliant I absolutely loved it and really want all those who booed it to shut up."

"Dumbstruck by THE NEON DEMON, Nicholas Winding Refn's nightmare fairytale of LA. Savage & sublime; an assault on the senses."

"The Neon Demon is pervy, self-indulgent nonsense but there's a trashy allure. It's Death Becomes Her remade by Terry Richardson."

"Boos and loud Spanish heckling for The Neon Demon."

"Holy cow, Black Swan, Mulholland Drive, Heathers, Blow-Up & Only God Forgives have mated."

"The Neon Demon - So. f---ing. Rad. A f----- up study on narcissism drenched in neon. Refn gives finger to the audience & laughs all along."

 

Apr 19, 2016

Broke boys don't deserve Malick.

Also, I found these in some issues of American Cinematography. Thought maybe you guys would be interested in them. Each issue usually contains a page written by the director or cinematographer. Here are ones from Refn, Inarritu, and PTA.

 

Apr 14, 2016

Cannes Competition Lineup was announced today:

“Toni Erdmann” (Maren Ade)
“Julieta” (Pedro Almodovar)
“American Honey” (Andrea Arnold)
“Personal Shopper” (Olivier Assayas)
“The Unknown Girl” (Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardennes)
“It’s Only The End Of The World” (Xavier Dolan)
“Slack Bay” (Bruno Dumont)
“Paterson” (Jim Jarmusch)
“Staying Vertical” (Alain Guiraudie)
“Aquarius” (Kleber Mendonça Filho)
“Mal De Pierres” (Nicole Garcia)
“I, Daniel Blake” (Ken Loach)
“Ma’ Rosa” (Brillante Mendoza)
“Bacalaureat” (Cristian Mungiu)
“Loving” (Jeff Nichols)
“The Handmaiden” (Park Chan-Wook)
“The Last Face” (Sean Penn)
“Sierra Nevada” (Cristi Puiu)
“Elle” (Paul Verhoeven)
“The Neon Demon” (Nicholas Winding Refn)

 

Apr 13, 2016

good piece... i interviewed donoghue last fall about this. i thought book was ok -- movie surpasses it imo: http://www.awardsdaily.com/2015/10/...onoghue-talks-writing-process-and-influences/

also, @MovieSXN @Moviewatchers family. i reappraised ice cube's filmography for the week. take a look if u dare heh
http://theweek.com/articles/616026/how-ice-cube-quietly-evolved-into-hollywood-powerhouse

 

Apr 8, 2016

I guess it was the underwhelming trailer, but I went into Everybody Wants Some!! with somewhat low expectations and it actually turned out to be a lot of fun. Linklater once again exhibits his characteristic lightness of touch, with a casual, relaxed atmosphere that looks easy but is so rarely replicated. There's nothing even remotely resembling a conflict in the film, just his trademark focus on human connection and the nuances of conversation. He offers a highly entertaining, yet idealized look at his own past, but Linklater is fully aware here that nostalgia is usually seen through rose-tinted glasses.

 

Mar 20, 2016

wow the ending s----d a---.
Everything was really really good up until

 

Mar 7, 2016

Instead of highlighting the strengths and many interesting aspects of Knight of Cups, which I think Nick Pinkterton's review does more lucidly than I possibly can, I'll be a downer and just articulate quickly why I somewhat struggled with it, especially in comparison to To the Wonder, the film it most closely resembles in sensibility.

In To the Wonder, while there certainly were no characters in a traditional sense nor was there a natural depiction of marital strife, there was a bit more of a baseline foundation there, a palpable feeling of love found and love lost. With her incessant twirling, Olga Kurylenko's character may not have behaved like anyone in the real world, but she still felt like a person. Accordingly, not only did I witness her character's' central conflict, I felt it, even with the film's unconventional, even experimental approach.

In Knight of Cups, Bale's Rick is less a person and more a vessel to walk alongside as we sift through the memories and images of his past. We never get to know him, even in sketch, before being thrown into his memories and existential despair. With no character or even just something real with which to connect, I found it difficult to find my way into the film. While I could see his crisis of faith, I struggled to feel it. And the following may skew more towards personal prejudice than actual critique, but it was even more of an obstacle for me to empathize with the struggles of a rich white guy, who parties all the time and beds a parade of supermodels and actresses. This isn't to say I'm incapable of connecting with such a character, but without something concrete to hang my hat on, it was more of a challenge here.

On another Malick-related note, I thought this article from some of the comedians who cameo-ed in Knight of Cups to be really funny and interesting.

http://www.gq.com/story/nick-kroll-joe-lo-truglio-thomas-lennon-terrence-malick

 

Mar 5, 2016

I'd watched Possession (1980) and That Most Important Thing: Love (1975) previously. Last night I put on The Devil (1972) which was banned in Poland for ~20 years and led to his exile. It's kind of a twisted historical fantasy borrowing elements from Hamlet and, in my opinion, A Christmas Carol. The score is all twisted 70s hard psych and prog rock. He draws such intense, hysterical performances out of his actors and every one of his pictures can be described as a "manic fever dream". I'll probably tackle The Third Part of the Night (1971) next as I believe that's his last horror picture even though genres very loosely define his work.

 

Mar 3, 2016

Finally grew some balls and watched Satantango, yesterday, and was not disappointed. It's definitely one of the greatest films of all time, and in spite of my slight reservation (99, not 100), in some ways I think it's the greatest film ever made. Werckmeister Harmonies is still my favourite film of his, but this undeniably has more going on. I guess it depends on how you criterion a film's worth. I'm still thinking non-stop about it 24 hours later so I think that's a good sign.



Review

http://aestheticsofthemind.com/2016/03/03/satantango-tarr-1994/

Tarr’s poetic vision, a realism so uncanny, so surreal, so alive, is realized in each and every frame of the film, only minorly slighted by Tarr’s undeniable social-satirical agenda. This affectation of his work, which is exceedingly present in his early films, is nearly overcome in Sátántangó, a film which seems to demarcate Tarr’s transcendence to the purely cinematographic—purely poetic cinema—that is found in his final two features, Werckmeister Harmonies and The Turin Horse.

Sátántangó is a monumental cinematic achievement. It uses the art of cinematography, poetry, and literature to convey an image of the experiencing of life, an image which seeks to contain within its form the very depths of space and time, ephemerality and eternity, being and nothingness. There is perhaps no other film more formally daring, more patient and resolute, more wholly encapsulating than Sátántangó.

99/100 – Masterful



I also wrote an explanation of the film's seemingly ambiguous ending which I see constantly being misinterpreted online:
http://aestheticsofthemind.com/2016/03/02/satantango-explained-tarr-1994/


@Rowjay Stan

 

Mar 2, 2016

Before Sunrise
Possession
Nashville
Days of Heaven
The Master
Two-Lane Blacktop
The Face of Another
Taste of Cherry
The Conformist
Dogville

I watched most of those last year.
http://letterboxd.com/Redwell/

 

Mar 2, 2016

Mine probably hasn't changed too much. At the moment, something like...

The Tree of Life
Taxi Driver
Mulholland Dr.
Close-up
The Spirit of the Beehive
Vivre Sa Vie
Ikiru
Annie Hall
No Country for Old Men
L' Avventura

 

Feb 29, 2016

Here's to another year of film

 

Feb 5, 2016

I suspect Hail, Caesar! will go in the books as a lesser Coens' effort and, after the brilliant Inside Llewyn Davis, it very well might be. Regardless of its place though, I had a lot of fun with it. It is a broad, often extremely silly comedy, but most of it works thanks to a game cast, from Brolin in the lead through the glorified cameos from Johansson and Fiennes (Alden Ehrenreich probably steals the show overall).

The movie carries an undercurrent of existential searching and, if anything, it's this aspect that could have been further developed. However, unlike a lot of Coen protagonists before him, instead of finding a void at the end of his search, Brolin's Eddie Mannix finds meaning and purpose in his work and in the movies themselves. Odes to movies and Hollywood are certainly cliche, especially recently, but in the hands of the Coens, Hail, Caesar! is at once deeply strange and lovingly rendered.

 

Jan 15, 2016

Finally caved and wrote my against-common-opinion review of The Revenant.

[REVIEW] 60/100 - The Revenant (Innaritu, 2015)

Like Birdman before it, this beautifully shot and highly sensationalized film captivates in the moment but disappears into soulless immemory shortly after the curtains close. With each feature film, Innaritu has become more arrogant and mean-spirited, with little love for his characters and even less on screen. For what may appear a humanist tale, the Revenant is far from being humanist. It is Innaritu’s latent sadism become manifest as a perverse, horror-bordering, manipulation of the ego. The men, both white and native, are transformed into blood-lusting savages, an expression of Innaritu’s perverse way of seeing life. The Revenant is not about life or about revenge. It is anti-life and it is anti-human.

Read More:
bit.ly/1RMb7tp

 

Jan 13, 2016

Knight of Cups 2015
★★★★½ Watched 12 Jan, 2016

[REVIEW] 85/100 - Knight of Cups (Malick, 2015/2016)

Easily Malick’s most impenetrable film, as well as perhaps his most visually breathtaking. The subject matter is rather scattered, with little of a sense of grounding in the lead character’s life. Instead it uses poetic devices and artful cinematography to engage the viewer with a fleeting glimpse into a life. It borders between genius and superficial, creating most often a mass ornament of female bodies and the ‘high-life’.

All in all, the film’s poetic nature makes it more akin to a musical symphony than to cinema proper, and as such, I presume that it requires viewing multiple times for one to become in tune with the formal changes, motifs, and rhythms.

Read More:
http://aestheticsofthemind.com/2016/01/13/knight-of-cups-malick-201516/

 

Jan 12, 2016

This semester, I'm making the theme of my class on "style" and starting off with Buster Keaton's Seven Chances.

 

Jan 10, 2016

I forgot to post my movies to watch for January, but there isn't too much.

January 8- The Treasure (Corneliu Porumboui)
January 15- In the Shadow of Women (Philippe Garrel)
January 22- Aferim! (Radu Jude)

Also saw The Revenant...Ugliness beautifully rendered, but single-minded and familiar to a fault.

 

Jan 7, 2016

Looking forward to your thoughts because while I liked it overall I found it quite disappointing.

@Charlie Strangelove It really depends on the type of film and filmmaker. I typically consider that a 'technique' drawing attention to itself, or rather any element drawing attention to itself, as a form of vanity is a failure. In other words, if it draws attention to itself and the 'draw of attention' is its goal, then it is without substance. For example, most of Birdman and every Marvel movie action scene. But when a technique draws attention as a form of enhancing the narrative or emotional depth of the moment, it is a bravura moment wherein the technique is not celebrated for its technical fortuitousness but for its instrumental use in the film's narration. An example would be something like the slow zoom towards Anna Karina in Vivre sa vie, which draws a lot of attention but has a purpose and further depth beyond the mere technique. Or the circling camera in It Follows which certainly draws attention to its technical mastery but also helps in building a sense of tension and feeling of the unknown (where is IT? all around us!). That said, even when a technical achievement is narratively instrumental, I prefer subtlety.

 

Jan 2, 2016

Creed was awesome! A thoughtful reboot that hits its inspirational movie marks, but is nonetheless surprising and invigorating in its narrative and aesthetic choices. I didn't care for Fruitvale Station at all so I really wasn't expecting to love Creed as much as I did.