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General Category => Entertainment and Media => Topic started by: jamie on March 23, 2010, 12:11:52 am

Title: big. stinkin. art films.
Post by: jamie on March 23, 2010, 12:11:52 am
So, what do you think of arthouse movies and films from all over the world? Are you into that stuff? I am, big time, but I am not sure how much of a snob I am being or if I am being pretentious. I am pretty sure I am not but I have been watching films which are really really nothing like hollywood things all the time now. I mean not exclusively, I saw Crazy Heart and stuff. It kind of stank, but it was all right, too. I wasn't buying into the cheesey story!

I made a topic about the dardenne bros and nobody gave a crap so I am just making this topic to talk about this stuff in general if anyone wants to.

What about African movies? you don't hear about them too often. i want to get into that but it's kind of difficult because all the wikipedia links to african film makers are broken. It's a bit easier to find stuff made in the middle east. Anyone watch Kiarostami movies? What do you think of that guy?

I really like watching movies from every place and every time made by anybody.

Drop any reccommendations right here. I'll drop a few of my own soon.
Title: big. stinkin. art films.
Post by: crone_lover720 on March 23, 2010, 12:44:48 am
they're good posts and you're not being a snob but I don't think we have anyone who knows about this stuff anymore. I am interested enough to watch some of these stinky films you're mentioning but until then I don't have anything interesting to say
Title: big. stinkin. art films.
Post by: jamie on March 23, 2010, 12:51:26 am
i've been looking at some film posts from a few years ago. man...everybody's gone.
Title: big. stinkin. art films.
Post by: FrostyPink on March 23, 2010, 12:51:58 am
First thing is first, have you seen Un Chien Andalou?
Title: big. stinkin. art films.
Post by: jamie on March 23, 2010, 12:52:41 am
Quote from: FrostyPink on March 23, 2010, 12:51:58 am
First thing is first, have you seen Un Chien Andalou?

nope! i'll look that film up right now.

edit: oh it's that one. i didn't know the french title. i have heard of this before but i avoided the eye cutting. i'm guessing i'll be hearing all about it in film classes at some point, though
Title: big. stinkin. art films.
Post by: Farren on March 23, 2010, 01:47:50 am
man I feel bad for jamie

I'm not much of a film buff anymore and you guys keep talking about all these movies I've never heard of and I'm still not done with tv shows like the wire, weeds, dexter and sons of anarchy yet while shit keeps coming and coming and coming

fuck I feel like an old dude
Title: big. stinkin. art films.
Post by: Shadow Kirby on March 23, 2010, 04:38:33 am
I'm just going to repost something I posted last month in another topic. Should give you a good selection of Iranian movies.

Quote
That is so true. I had an Iranian Cinema class last year and man, so many beautiful and amazing movies, all done with little to no support of the governmental (at best) and extreme censorship (at worst).

So Swordfish, I could just go and suggest you watch anything by Kiarostami, Makhmalbaf or Panahi but I'll distill it into a list of great works:
Once upon a Time, Cinema, Mohsen Makhmalbaf
The House is Black, Forough Farrokhzad (It's in b&w but fuck you if you are gonna miss one of the most shocking moment of beauty I've ever seen in a movie)
The Cow, Dariush Mehrjui
The Cyclist, Mohsen Makhmalbaf
The Gilan trilogy by Abbas Kiarostami
Where is the friend's home?
Life and Nothing More
Au travers des oliviers (don't know the english title but it's the third of the trilogy)
The taste of Cherry Abbas Kiarostami (BIG recommendation)
Ten, Kiarostami
Five, Kiarostami (you gonna hate that one)
Five in the afternoon, Samira Makhmalbaf (Mohsen's daughter)
Smell of Camphor, Fragrance of Jasmine, Bahman Farmanara  (pretty good and intelligent "comedy")

I don't know if a guy who is "not interested" in b&w movies will be interested in Iranian Cinema, but at least one of you guys will take a look.

Seriously man, after the teacher showed The House is Black, there wasn't a single noise in the class. It fucking rips your heart out.
Title: big. stinkin. art films.
Post by: bonzi_buddy on March 23, 2010, 03:08:47 pm
what. if it isn't for you jamie who the fuck actually checks out media-forum...! you have only made good topics so far.
i have interest in art films but not enough to actually start watching ones at the moment. like the darlene brothers movies sounded good but i just don't usually watch movies! i may start doing them at some point.
Title: big. stinkin. art films.
Post by: jamie on March 23, 2010, 03:35:58 pm
Quote
Seriously man, after the teacher showed The House is Black, there wasn't a single noise in the class. It fucking rips your heart out.

I just watched this. It was sad, for sure. I really didn't know anything about leprosy before watching, besides the really basic knowledge. I had never seen the effects of it like that. I didn't realise it was going to be a short film, though. I would have watched alot more of that if there was any! I looked up Forough Farrokzhad after it to see what else she had made and...NOTHING because she died in a damn car crash a few years later! I'm not much of a poetry guy but I might check out her poems sometime. I thought the last scene in the class room was the best part. It pulled it all together, which it was obviously supposed to do.

I was confused about what was going on because some of the kids were obviously not infected with leprosy, and I just read on wikipedia that only about 5% of the population is susceptible to it. So I guess kids of people with it can live in these leper colonies freely without any danger of catching the disease. Shit I just read there are still thousands of leper colonies around the world, too!

So if anyone is kind of interested in a short documentary/poetry film about leprosy then I think you should check it out. It's only 20 minutes long.

I'm getting a couple other films from that list of yours just now, too. Thanks for re-posting that because I must have missed it before.

oh and one more thing...

(https://legacy.gamingw.net/etc/upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/33/Foroogh.gif)

hubba-hubba.
Title: big. stinkin. art films.
Post by: big ass skelly on March 23, 2010, 03:44:24 pm
I think I saw some Werner Herzog films a while back and they were good?? I'm not too sure about what an Art House film is but I think they might be. I don't really watch anything smart or art. I only watch 300 and epic movie.
Title: big. stinkin. art films.
Post by: jamie on March 23, 2010, 04:05:39 pm
Quote
I'm not too sure about what an Art House film is

I don't really know how to define it exactly either, and it's an area of discussion where people like to get really wanky, but I guess it's a sliding scale which just has to do with a movie's priorities. On one end you've got making money and being more widely entertaining and on the other you've got trying to express and discuss a strong set of ideas or just the film makers expressing themselves over anything else. I just made the distinction so the topic was about art films because there are other topics where people are talking about films that are coming out and it's all the charting stuff so this is a topic for the stuff that isn't in that area.

I think it can be difficult to decide because there are films which on the one hand are mostly concerned with being a good exploration of some ideas but are also very successful commercially, and then there are also guys like say wes anderson (who i think you like right??) who make films that are really unique stylistically but also very commercially appealing.

So in the grey area you'll get movies which hit it big time while never having been made with that intention, and others which pretend like they didn't care about being popular but actually were made with that in mind.
Title: big. stinkin. art films.
Post by: the_bub_from_the_pit on March 23, 2010, 04:22:21 pm
TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival) just recently held a best of the decade films screening around Toronto and I checked a few of them out, including 'Synecdoche and a Century', which topped the list at #1. You can see the rest of the list here (http://www.theauteurs.com/lists/1028). It was interesting watching the movies off the list because I've never really had any exposure to many foreign films like this (where do you start???); I watched a few Jia Zhangke films which were great.

Anyway if you're really into the art house thing you should check out Synecdoche, it's definitely a film that takes a few solid viewings to be able to soak it all in but I think I've got the main gist of it after my first viewing. There were still some elements that went over my head but I guess I've never really bothered looking them up. It's made in Thailand but has subtitles, and it's incredibly beautiful! Watch it! I'm sure you can find it on the net.
Title: big. stinkin. art films.
Post by: jamie on March 23, 2010, 05:30:58 pm
yeah i found that TIFF list a few months ago and I have seen most of the movies on it by now. it's a really good list, i think, apart from one or two things on it i didn't enjoy so much.

jia zhangke rules!!!!! my favourite one is platform which i didn't even get to see the whole of because my subs messed up (do you have a link bubs...) but everything i have seen by him is great i really enjoyed em.

i saw syndrome and a century, too, but i was drinking when i watched it and can't remember the ending so i'll need to see it again. i watched the rest of weerasethakul's movies, too. he's another good guy. there are loads of great movies from asia coming out RIGHT NOW it's pretty cool.

i don't just want to do a series of name drops or whatever but yeah i am pretty excited about most things on that list, it's been a fantastic starting point to get into stuff from all around the world. you can watch a movie from a director that made it onto the list, then from there check out all their other movies. that is hundreds of movies you can be pretty sure are good right there!!

i haven't seen synedoche yet but since you mentioned it i'll get it right away. edit: oh i take it that it's synedoche new york you are talking about?? i'll get this anyway it probably is.
Title: big. stinkin. art films.
Post by: jamie on March 23, 2010, 05:36:27 pm
here is that TIFF list for anybody who is interested in it. i can personally recommend most of these movies! except a couple which stink and a couple which i haven't seen.

it's an overload but what i did was just save the list on my desktop and anytime i wanted to watch a film and didn't have any ideas in particular, i'd just pick one from this and watch. i think that's a good way to look at it.

Title: big. stinkin. art films.
Post by: GaZZwa on March 23, 2010, 10:05:13 pm
He's an American filmmaker, but have you seen anything by John Cassavetes? Shadows, Faces, The Killing of a Chinese Bookie, Opening Night, and Woman Under the Influence are all great great great.

He also starred in Rosemary's Baby.
Title: big. stinkin. art films.
Post by: GaZZwa on March 23, 2010, 10:29:18 pm
oooh ooh what about Satyajit Ray? I've only seen the Apu trilogy (Pather Panchali, Aparajito and The World of Apu) but i really recommend them.

and since its his birthday lets get some Kurosawa love going. Hardly obscure, but he's a real filmmakers favourite. Ran, Seven Samurai, happy bday Akira!

and i saw someone mentioned Werner Herzog earlier. I've only seen a few of his movies (everyone's seen Grizzly Man, right?) but everyone should check out Fitzcarraldo. It's about a guy in the amazon rainforest who pulled a ship over a mountain from one river system to another. Deciding against normal movie special effects (oh, Werner, bless you) Herzog actually had a ship dragged up and down a mountain in the amazon rainforest.

oh also I saw this Argentine film recently called La Antena (cheers for the dvd shep). I've been meaning to check it out for a couple of years, I think it came out in 2008. It's more or less a silent movie with a great visual style - almost German impressionistc. An Argentine movie called La Secreta de sus Ojos won best foreign film at the oscars this year so I'm interested in checking that out whenever its released over here.
Title: big. stinkin. art films.
Post by: big ass skelly on March 23, 2010, 10:46:56 pm
Fitzcarraldo, that's what I saw. I heard some people died doing his thing there with the boat in real life and the lead actor was going to quit the role because of it but werner herzog pulled a gun on him and told him he'd kill him if he quit. that's art.
Title: big. stinkin. art films.
Post by: GaZZwa on March 23, 2010, 10:58:44 pm
Jason Robards was originally going to play the main character, but whilst filming in the jungle he got dystentary, was sent home and his doctor refused to let him go back again. Mick Jagger was also cast in a supporting role, but by the time they'd organised a reshoot, he had to go tour with the Rolling Stones, so the lead role had to be recast and Jaggers character was taken out the script. Apparently one of the native tribe chiefs offered to murder Klaus Kinski, who played Fitzcarraldo, because he was causing so much trouble.
Title: big. stinkin. art films.
Post by: jamie on March 23, 2010, 11:28:01 pm
Quote
He's an American filmmaker

that's no problem at all! i didn't just want to talk about films in languages i don't understand. i haven't seen anything by john cassavetes that i know of for sure but yeah his name is very familiar. i'll check him out sometime.
Quote
Fitzcarraldo, that's what I saw. I heard some people died doing his thing there with the boat in real life and the lead actor was going to quit the role because of it but werner herzog pulled a gun on him and told him he'd kill him if he quit. that's art.

i think werner herzog is a nihilist or something. also, he made a cop film starring nic cage last year.
Title: big. stinkin. art films.
Post by: GaZZwa on March 23, 2010, 11:50:30 pm
yeah a remake of Bad Lieutenant. I wanna catch that one. Has it been out over here yet?

I loved it in Encounters at the End of the World, where in his narration at the start of the film as he's on the plane to Antarctica he says in his steely monotone german accent:

"I was surprised to have gotten this far. The International Science Foundation had agreed to let me film here, even though I made it very clear that I would not come up with another film about penguins."

AND

when he was being interviewed for the culture show by Mark kermode, he got shot!

Title: big. stinkin. art films.
Post by: Farren on March 24, 2010, 01:00:06 am
Quote
Herzog actually had a ship dragged up and down a mountain in the amazon rainforest.

what an idiot
Title: big. stinkin. art films.
Post by: jamie on March 24, 2010, 02:13:31 am
I just watched Millenium Mambo which is a movie by a guy called Hsiao-Hsien Hou and it's set in Taiwan and Japan. It was PRETTY good but there were a couple of things.

If you want to see a movie about hot taiwanese folk doin' drugs and getting really excitable then this is a cool movie for you. It's kind of about youth and about how young people with opportunities have kind of nice lives you like to watch,  but are also kind of assholes alot of the time. It's a good looking and sounding movie. Here is a link to the main theme of the movie:


The title might put you off cos it sounds a little dumb huh, but it's just a bad translation I think. It's got nothing to do with mambo. The only dancing is to hard trance music. If you're gonna check it out then don't read the rest of my post cos I'm gonna talk about what happens and ruin things, although there is barely a plot!

Okay so the two main characters for most of the movie are pretty horrible, both as people and to each other. The main character, Vicky, is more sympathetic but she's still stuck in a hell of a rut for...absolutely no reason??? The first hour and a half of the movie is about Vicky and her asshole boyfriend Hao-Hao and how they can't stand each other but won't leave each other. Hao-Hao is DJ, and Vicky works as a hostess at a club. You pretty much just watch their kind of empty and frustrating lives for a while, until it becomes clear that Vicky is open to feeling something more than this. She heads off to Japan on a trip with a couple of friends and has a really good time but then goes back home to Hao-Hao and eventually he beats her up a bit and she leaves him for good. She stays with her boss/friend Jack, who has a little talk with her about what she wants to do now. She doesn't know, she's confused and drunk all the time and doesn't really care. By the end of the movie, she decides to go back to Japan which is where we leave her as she is learning japanese and seems happier than she's ever been. It's a nice ending and the movie left me feeling nice, but there isn't any real resolution given to things here. She doesn't find her way or anything like that, I think she just learns to be happy and that's an important thing to know!

So I think the movie is about how much choice young people have today in affluent areas and how much temptation there is to just lead empty and frustrating lives, and how it's possible to break free of all of that and look for some quieter kind of happiness that is ultimately more fulfilling! Maybe.

It's also a bit superficial, because just being YOUNG is romanticised a bit too much. I mean being young is good! But I think I was supposed to be a bit more caught up in just how damn hot all these cool people were than I was. Maybe not, but the romantic music playing all the time makes me think I was.

i'm sorry these posts all ramble quite a bit, but i am not so great at organising ideas and thoughts on things on the fly i think. Anyway I thought it was a kind of feel-good film about being young and finding some direction, while having some cool subtext in there about the how empty and crazed an environment modern cities can be.

I'm really enjoying getting into all this chinese stuff (i mean this is from taiwan but it's still A china!). It's probably a passing phase but I am kind of wrapped up in alot of stuff coming from that area of the world right now. It's all very exciting, but I don't know what I really think of it yet. I just really like feeling like I am beginning to get a sense of something as huge as china and south east asia in general and what it's all about over there.
Title: big. stinkin. art films.
Post by: jamie on March 24, 2010, 02:28:02 am
Quote
and since its his birthday lets get some Kurosawa love going. Hardly obscure, but he's a real filmmakers favourite. Ran, Seven Samurai, happy bday Akira!

Happy B-day, Akira! yep i love alot of his movies, too! it's all good. man oh man.
Title: big. stinkin. art films.
Post by: Master Tea on March 24, 2010, 02:54:31 am
Quote from: jamie on March 23, 2010, 05:36:27 pm
here is that TIFF list for anybody who is interested in it. i can personally recommend most of these movies! except a couple which stink and a couple which i haven't seen.

it's an overload but what i did was just save the list on my desktop and anytime i wanted to watch a film and didn't have any ideas in particular, i'd just pick one from this and watch. i think that's a good way to look at it.



Gee whiz i've only heard of two movies in there... I like to save movie lists like these on notepad docs so this ones going there. I try to keep my eye out for more foreign film too, you are not alone at all, bub.

What I would recommend:

Breathless (Godard, French)
Children of Heaven (Majidi, Iran)
The Band's Visit (Kolirin, Israel)
Cinema Paradiso (Tornatore, Italy) this is my favorite movie ever btw
Raise the Red Lantern (Yimou, China)
Los Olvidados (Bunuel, Mexico)

I like to look for middle eastern filmmakers too. I have Chop Shop sitting on my hard drive and I still need to see Goodbye Solo. So many movies to see, man...
Title: big. stinkin. art films.
Post by: GaZZwa on March 24, 2010, 01:31:03 pm
I'm just about to watch Black God White Devil. It's written and directed by a fella called Glauber Rocha, and is a big film in Brazil's Cinema Novo period of the 60s. I'll report back on it later.

Master Tea: I love Cinema Paradiso as well. What a movie.

oh oh oh what about French New wave? everyone always goes on about Godard and with good reason (Bande a parte, Breathless, Alphaville)...i think someone mentioned Breathless in this topic. I really prefer Francois Truffaut (most known for Jules et Jim). Day for Night (Nuit l'americain) is one of my all time favourite movies. Plus his only English language role was in Close Encounters.
Title: big. stinkin. art films.
Post by: crone_lover720 on March 24, 2010, 02:36:27 pm
I watched breathless a year or two ago. what's good about it? I wrote it off as historically significant but contemporarily dumb and boring
Title: big. stinkin. art films.
Post by: jamie on March 24, 2010, 06:25:22 pm
i just watched something called les glaneurs et la glaneuse which means 'the gleaners and I'. it is mostly about people who scavenge, scower and rummage for whatever reason: necessity, ethics, art collection, all of those? It's really cool and it's made and narrated by a pretty likeable old lady who is a total goof through most of the movie. not too many goofy old ladies making docs, and this was one of the most interesting documentaries i have seen. i'll write more a bit later but check it out. i think just about anybody would like this. it's in french with subtitles and set around france, mostly.

it's got:

- a guy who makes totem poles out of junk and broken dolls
- discussion about the amount of wasted food, and how you can find so much stuff just thrown away
- a funny old lady goofing around and talking about how it feels getting older
- cool shots of food being prepared, food processing, stuff like that
- a bunch of eccentric people doing stuff centred around unowned objects, things which have been thrown away and wasted crops
- a pretty wide portrait of various kinds of stuff that goes on around france

Quote
I watched breathless a year or two ago. what's good about it? I wrote it off as historically significant but contemporarily dumb and boring

i haven't seen breathless in years but i do remember not liking it as much as some of godards other movies. i watched one he directed only a few years ago (edit-it's called eloge de l'amour) and man...i fucking hated it. it was so irritating. but there are a bunch of movies he directed in the 60's which i really liked, at least when i saw them i did!

i think the main character in breathless was obsessed with humphrey bogart or something, right? i remember thinking that was WAY COOL when i was 16 but i don't think i would now unless it was some commentary on how stupid hollywood has always been. not to say i don't like humphrey bogart films but i think making a movie be some kind of detatched homage to a hollywood personality like him is kind of gross i think. maybe that's not what the film is about at all, like i said i haven't seen it in ages but i remember it being very concerned with America being cool.

breathless seems lifeless and superficial in my memory. i should watch it again sometime to see. i've still got it on dvd. i remember liking vivre sa vie. also i just remember alphaville right now because i watched that when i was like 15 and it probably went over my head - even if it didn't i can barely remember it so i should see that again. i don't know what i think of jean-luc godard really. i know all his male protagonists are pricks and all his female ones are tragically beautiful and act insane.
Title: big. stinkin. art films.
Post by: Master Tea on March 24, 2010, 07:30:55 pm
Breathless was big deal in a few ways, but most of all because it was influential as hell. The stories behind its production are rather astounding: every scene was written the morning it was to be shot, its use of jump cuts (considered revolutionary at the time) werent even premeditated rather more accidental and an afterthought, no extras were hired so they just went out and filmed expansive shots in the street, using wheelchairs for tracking shots, timed shots for certain lighting, etc.

keep in mind that the movie arrived during the so called "golden age" of hollywood or whatever in the 70s, and a boatload of characters were emulated from the "gangster" dude michel. i think Godard only put Bogie in there because I know he loved american films and probably idolized Bogie in a similar way but also in this case it really helps the character, because he puts up this huge whole facade that he's a tough guy, and this helps compare michel with patricia. patricia in the end seems more evil than michel because she's not confused, and rather enigmatic.

Its cool, detached style and these self-adoring characters that put no regard into authority or the world around them was very attractive at the time; basically Breathless is awesome because it made hollywood movies obsolete, in a sense.
Title: big. stinkin. art films.
Post by: crone_lover720 on March 24, 2010, 08:22:22 pm
next youll be praising vertigo for its brilliant score and revolutionary use of telescoping......

but seriously I see what you're saying and I can appreciate all of that but it doesn't make watching the film any better for me. and yeah, I assumed the bogart obsession was to show how the main character is impressionable and immature and wants to be a cool guy. I don't remember the girl being evil tho, so I might watch it again. I haven't seen any other godard movies
Title: big. stinkin. art films.
Post by: Master Tea on March 24, 2010, 09:54:00 pm
vertigo had some baller sex scenes dog. dvda all the way

i should mention she wasn't really EVIL per se, i mean that michel is a criminal horndog and murders to preserve his freedom, and in the last couple scenes of the film patricia seems more calculating and ruthless in comparison. I don't particularly like citizen kane or Renoir's the rules of the game, but breathless, kane, and game all made turning points in the cinema and its nice to know why. if one doesn't like the film in the end, then thats that. not a big deal
Title: big. stinkin. art films.
Post by: jamie on March 28, 2010, 12:44:09 am
I just watched Synecdoche, New York and it was good. It's a film by Charlie Kaufman, who is pretty famous and I am surprised this wasn't more of a hit than it was because I remember Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless mind was pretty big? Maybe that was because it had Jim Carrey in it.

It was abou how people are obsessed with themselves and believe they are going to be famous and are very important, but we are actually not any more important than anybody else and that we're all going to die! It was kind of depressing, and it's a deliberately disorienting film (it seemed deliberate, and it makes sense for it to be). I think alot of people thought it was pretentious. It had high goals I think but I don't think striving for something like this film did makes it pretentious because I thought it did actually have a some interesting things to say. It feels like it's a grand, big thing because the main character of the movie is creating this ridiculously large theatre production, but I think that how aimless and formless the production became is the point of all of this, not how big it is, or how big it seems.

Time passes really quickly in the movie, without you realising it at first, and that is the disorienting part. I think it's supposed to be because you really feel like things are moving very quickly and things keep changing without any explanation, and everyone gets old and is gonna be dead soon! Actually, most of the main characters are dead by the end of the film. I just realised that. So it's also about doing important things before you are dead.

The film keeps retreating on itself until everything is discussed from a second or third remove. The main characters all have counterparts within the production within the film, and some of these counterparts have counterparts. It's not confusing, because you don't actually need to follow exactly how it all breaks down. The important thing is that the main character, Caden, is obsessed with his own life and that all these actors playing characters in the film are demonstrating more or less the same thing, and that is his obsession and everybody's obsession with narrativising their own lives.

Maybe you don't do that and the film maybe does seem like a load of BS, but I do and I think I understood what it was trying to say and I enjoyed it.
Title: big. stinkin. art films.
Post by: the_bub_from_the_pit on March 28, 2010, 12:50:39 am
Quote from: jamie on March 28, 2010, 12:44:09 am
I just watched Synecdoche, New York and it was good. It's a film by Charlie Kaufman, who is pretty famous and I am surprised this wasn't more of a hit than it was because I remember Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless mind was pretty big? Maybe that was because it had Jim Carrey in it.

It was abou how people are obsessed with themselves and believe they are going to be famous and are very important, but we are actually not any more important than anybody else and that we're all going to die! It was kind of depressing, and it's a deliberately disorienting film (it seemed deliberate, and it makes sense for it to be). I think alot of people thought it was pretentious. It had high goals I think but I don't think striving for something like this film did makes it pretentious because I thought it did actually have a some interesting things to say. It feels like it's a grand, big thing because the main character of the movie is creating this ridiculously large theatre production, but I think that how aimless and formless the production became is the point of all of this, not how big it is, or how big it seems.

Time passes really quickly in the movie, without you realising it at first, and that is the disorienting part. I think it's supposed to be because you really feel like things are moving very quickly and things keep changing without any explanation, and everyone gets old and is gonna be dead soon! Actually, most of the main characters are dead by the end of the film. I just realised that. So it's also about doing important things before you are dead.

The film keeps retreating on itself until everything is discussed from a second or third remove. The main characters all have counterparts within the production within the film, and some of these counterparts have counterparts. It's not confusing, because you don't actually need to follow exactly how it all breaks down. The important thing is that the main character, Caden, is obsessed with his own life and that all these actors playing characters in the film are demonstrating more or less the same thing, and that is his obsession and everybody's obsession with narrativising their own lives.

Maybe you don't do that and the film maybe does seem like a load of BS, but I do and I think I understood what it was trying to say and I enjoyed it.

Woops I just realized that Synecdoche was a typo in my post (I meant to type syndrome) but I'm glad you got the film nonetheless! I'm also surprised I've never heard anything about it - maybe because the reviews of it are so polar. It's either genius and remarkable or a grandiose heap of ambitious work that collapses onto itself.
Title: big. stinkin. art films.
Post by: jamie on March 28, 2010, 12:59:07 am
i don't really know if it's either. i know that is how people reacted to it, and i think it definitely wants to be genius (although i think the movie is a bit too self-aware to really get too far up it's own butt), but i think it turned out good and said some good solid things and was entertaining as well. i mean, it was pretty funny alot of the time! especially earlier on.

i would probably have never watched this movie if you hadn't made that typo. i've never really been interested in charlie kaufman.
Title: big. stinkin. art films.
Post by: GaZZwa on March 28, 2010, 02:44:14 am
Quote from: jamie on March 28, 2010, 12:44:09 am
I just watched Synecdoche, New York and it was good. It's a film by Charlie Kaufman, who is pretty famous and I am surprised this wasn't more of a hit than it was because I remember Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless mind was pretty big? Maybe that was because it had Jim Carrey in it.


Yeah, Jim Carrey in the starring role without a doubt helped Eternal Sunshine's chances, though the story shouldn't be discounted either. People getting their memories erased? A guy getting his memory erased and then changing his mind halfway through and running around in his own mind? Great! A guy directing a real-time play about his life, culminating in a huge set of New York built in a warehouse? Yikes.

As for Kaufman himself, I'm not sure his name alone would sell a movie amongst the set that don't so much pay attention to such things. I found the marketing for the film pretty interesting (it definitely falls squarely in the "how the fuck would you market THIS?" category"). In the U.S, the posters featured a picture of the city built inside the warehouse, looking pretty cool and modern. Here in the UK it featured a photo of Philip Seymour Hoffman before a light blue background, with the title in bright pink. It just looks "quirky indie movie". The poster even featured a quote which (seriously) said something along the lines of "the funniest comedy of the year", which as anyone who's seen it will attest is ridiculous as the film, though it does have funny moments, is incredibly bleak. Spike Jonze (who was originally going to direct before handing it over to Kaufman in order to finally make Where the Wild Things Are) and Kaufman even conceived it as a horror movie!

Anyway, I liked the movie very much, though I saw it when it was out in cinemas and need to see it again, and I think it'd be one that benefits from revisiting. I do really like Charlie Kaufman, he's one of the few writers in Hollywood  writing original screenplays and is the clear author of his films, even when someone else is directing them. I like Adaptation, Being John Malkovich and Eternal Sunshine a little more than Synecdoche, though I'm not sure if having Jonze as director as originally planned would have tempered its bleakness at all, or how much of a different movie it would have been.



Title: big. stinkin. art films.
Post by: jamie on March 28, 2010, 11:53:52 pm
i'm gonna watch syndromes and a century again real soon and do a big honking post on it hopefully!
Title: big. stinkin. art films.
Post by: Beasley on March 29, 2010, 05:10:01 pm
i watched the house is black. disturbing, depressing, and remotely beautiful.

synecdoche is next

Title: big. stinkin. art films.
Post by: Beasley on March 29, 2010, 05:31:55 pm
PSH ROCKS
Title: big. stinkin. art films.
Post by: GaZZwa on March 29, 2010, 10:50:14 pm
I hope for a day when people call him 'The Hoff'.
Title: big. stinkin. art films.
Post by: Master Tea on March 31, 2010, 12:44:36 am
that song "little person" from synecdoche is very good.
Title: big. stinkin. art films.
Post by: GaZZwa on March 31, 2010, 01:06:21 am
Hey Jamie, have you seen Tony Manero? I just finished watching it. Film4 is showing it all week. It's really good. It's a Chilean movie about this guy in 70s Chile under Pinochet who's kinda obsessed with John Travolta's character from Saturday Night Fever. And he kills people.
Title: big. stinkin. art films.
Post by: jamie on April 01, 2010, 10:59:20 pm
I did watch Syndromes and Century again and I liked it alot, especially the second half I think. Going over the same plot elements or replaying scenes from different perspectives are really cool. It makes it really clear what the choices the movie is trying to highlight are. It's why I didn't start realy liking this until the second half. The first half of the movie is really good and it's got some interesting stuff but I think when you realise what is going on in the second half. Actually, the monks are mostly in the first half and I liked them alot.

Quote
Hey Jamie, have you seen Tony Manero?

nope, i've never heard of it, but i'll keep it in mind now!
Title: big. stinkin. art films.
Post by: GaZZwa on April 02, 2010, 02:53:13 am
Well, I just finished up watching the movie Punch Drunk Love. Ok yeah, everyone knows this movie, but it has a very strong experimental streak running through it and is often called "an arthouse Adam Sandler movie" so I reckon that gives me license to talk about it here.

This really ranks up there with some of my favourite movies. I've seen it a whole bunch of times. The film's writer-director, Paul Thomas Anderson, is probably my favourite filmmaker, and definitely among the best of his generation. There's something about his movies that means I could just watch them and talk about them forever. They all have such an independent arthouse sensibility yet also recall classic Hollywood in the best way possible (the Goodfellas meets porn industry tale of Boogie Nights, the Citizen Kane in the old west through Kubrick's lens of There Will Be Blood...this is simplifying and making stupid comparisons but what you get my point).

Punch Drunk Love is no exception. It's sort of a closeup look at the Adam Sandler movie persona,  that immature, mumbling child of a guy who is prone to a little violence now and then, who still manages to charm the girl (with some persistence). All this is there, but it's magnified. With the character of Barry, his mumbling childishness becomes a much more real and crippling lack of self-esteem, bubbling over into outbursts of violence (he smashes a window at his sisters house when she jokingly calls him gay, smashes up a restaurant bathroom and more). In contrast to the usual Sandler roles who live it up in an average joe fantasy (see Sandler as marine biologist in 50 First Dates), Barry owns his own business, but lives a lonely life in his stark apartment calling sex hotlines. 

So thats all good and interesting, and much has been made about how good Sandler is in this movie. And I love all those things. But Punch Drunk Love is also such a FEAST. Visually, it's simply beautiful. The sets have a very neon and strip light feel to them, it works perfectly for the LA setting, which makes Barry's deep blue coloured suit and Lena's colourful dresses stand out even more. The details are amazing. Every time he meets Lena, the tie Barry wears is the same colour as the dress she was wearing the last time they met. In the first scene, Barry's assistant (who is wearing a Hawaiian shirt) asks him why he's wearing a suit today as he doesn't usually, to which Barry replies he felt like dressing up smart for work. The next time Barry goes to work, we see in a brief shot, not commented on or highlighted as a joke just a neat visual gag, his assistant wearing a smart suit. After he punches a wall, a closeup slyly reveals to those paying extra attention, that the cuts on Barry's knuckles spell out the word "love". The direction and cinematography is typically superb for a Paul Thomas Anderson, but even for him I think this broke new ground. I think it's here that he really came into his own as a filmmaker. This isn't saying anything bad about his previous movies, Boogie Nights is one of my favourites too, and Magnolia is pretty great (though I have a couple of issues with it), but whilst they're long and sprawling and flawed in their own way, Punch Drunk Love is small and compact. The camera moves around almost all the time, (there's a great shot that follows Sandler back and forth as he paces round his office), but stays still when it needs to. My favourite shot of the film comes when Barry's shadow is seen on a lit up wall as he is running. The music too! Apparently Jon Brion and Anderson were working on ideas for the score whilst the movie was still being written, so that shows how integral the music is to this film. For the most part, the score is pretty percussive and does a good job of keeping the audience on edge. Now and again some sweeping string will introduce the refrain of 'He Needs Me' from the Popeye movie, and Punch Drunk Love begins to feel like an old Hollywood romance.

Almost.

To sum this movie up, I'll use a quote from the film itself.

Barry: I'm looking at your face and I just wanna smash it. I just wanna fucking smash it with a sledgehammer and squeeze it. You're so pretty.
Lena: I want to chew your face and I want to scoop out your eyes and I want to eat them and chew them and suck on them.

Title: big. stinkin. art films.
Post by: the_bub_from_the_pit on April 02, 2010, 03:10:35 am
Quote from: jamie on April 01, 2010, 10:59:20 pm
I did watch Syndromes and Century again and I liked it alot, especially the second half I think. Going over the same plot elements or replaying scenes from different perspectives are really cool. It makes it really clear what the choices the movie is trying to highlight are. It's why I didn't start realy liking this until the second half. The first half of the movie is really good and it's got some interesting stuff but I think when you realise what is going on in the second half. Actually, the monks are mostly in the first half and I liked them alot.

nope, i've never heard of it, but i'll keep it in mind now!

hey do you know what's up with all the scenes where it just concentrates on some statue or object for a few minutes and nothing happens? I've thought about it and couldn't really come up with an explanation for it
Title: big. stinkin. art films.
Post by: jamie on April 02, 2010, 05:35:55 pm
Quote
hey do you know what's up with all the scenes where it just concentrates on some statue or object for a few minutes and nothing happens? I've thought about it and couldn't really come up with an explanation for it

that stuff pretty much went over my head if it had any significance. i don't recognise what or who the statues are representing. i guess it would mean more to someone who was familiar with the things thai people make into statues. I thought it was just to give things some context, which I think was lost on me. There was the juxtaposition of new statues and old ones, but like I say I don't know enough about what they are statues of to make a decision about what it means. The shots weren't that long, only about 20-30 seconds each and they were broken up, so they fit into the pace of things for me so much that I don't think I was looking for an explanation right then and I don't have one now!
Title: big. stinkin. art films.
Post by: jamie on April 03, 2010, 06:11:43 pm
(https://legacy.gamingw.net/etc/theinspirationroom.com/daily/trailers/2009/5/samson-and-delilah.jpeg)


I just watched Samson and Delilah. The middle third of this movie is fucking brutal as hell. I don't know how aboriginal people actually get treated in Australia, I mean I know it is badly, but if I see one person even shake their head at an aboriginal begger I am going to scream. Holy shit!!! There is also one particular moment in this movie where the worst thing in the world happens and I felt faint for a minute. The directing is really really good here especially. I am still fucking furious I just want to beat the next guy in 3/4 shorts and a hoodie I see into a bloody pulp. I can't DEAL with this. This shit actually happens and is probably happening right now and the only way to get over it (momentarily!!!!) is to just have it slip your mind! Anyway this movie drove me nuts while I was watching it. It is great, get it and see it.

Here's a trailer. The first part of music in this is actually from the film, but I don't know what dumb market genius decided to throw the Scorcese thriller score in the second half of this, so I think you should know that the film is not at all melodramatic or anything:

[/center]

There is alot to say about how well it was directed and how there is almost no dialogue in the movie, and also how the first section of the movie keeps repeating itself to show how monotonous and basic the character's lives are, but all of this stuff is just basically really well done and on top of all that the emotional impact it had on me was like a cannonball to the face.

Every white person in this film is a complete demon. Apart from the homeless drunk, who is just a goof, and doesn't really do anything wrong.

The only thing I didn't like was the christian shit in there towards the end. Why did she have to find strength like that? It doesn't ruin the movie, obviously, but I would have felt much happier for her if I thought she had really found something real. The movie is called Samson and Delilah, which are also the names of biblical characters but I don't know enough about the bible to know if this was some kind of re-telling of their story or has some revelance to those characters, but I never once felt like I was missing something. The religious angle is pretty light, really. It maybe takes up a whole minute of screen time through the movie but it's heavily anchored as the REASON that


Title: big. stinkin. art films.
Post by: jamie on April 03, 2010, 06:49:02 pm
sorry for being a bit hot under the collar when i made that post.
Title: big. stinkin. art films.
Post by: Marmot on April 05, 2010, 12:05:19 pm
i used to watch a lot of really wild art movies. one of my fav. was 1900 by the same dude who did the ultimate emperor of china. it was about the rise of italian fascism and how a peasant and some landowner kid started as friends but then got separated by politics. it has some pretty cool scenes, like when some blackshirt headbutts a cat lol and landowners working the land while the peasants just sit and watch lol
Title: big. stinkin. art films.
Post by: everyclear on April 05, 2010, 12:47:27 pm
GaZZwa thanks for the punch drunk love recommendation.  Watched in saturday and absolutely loved the movie. 
Title: big. stinkin. art films.
Post by: jamie on May 22, 2010, 11:17:59 am
I watched 24 City the other day. It's another Jia Zhangke one and it was really good as usual and guess WHO popped up halfway through? Joan 'Josie Friggin' Packard from Twin Peaks' Chen! That was kind of cool, but it did make me suddenly think that the whole movie was staged when I thought all of the stories were real (i didn't read up till after). It isn't - about half of the movie is made up and half of it is real people talking about this factory, 420, that everybody in the movie used to work at, real or fictional, before it was closed down.

It's called 24 City because this is the name of the modern residential and commercial complex that is being built in place of the factory which used to stand there.

It's good the way all of Jia Zhangke's films are good - it's just really interesting stuff to be making movies about, and he does it in a kind of matter of fact way that doesn't feel like he's making a huge statement one way or the other. I mean 24 City is obviously alot more concerned with the people that are getting left behind by the modernization of China, but it doesn't necessarily come out as against modernization, just the way it is being done.

I am only scratching the surface of China but if you are interested in China at all then I definitely recommend this movie.
Title: big. stinkin. art films.
Post by: thecatamites on May 22, 2010, 06:14:51 pm
i don't watch movies at all and maybe it's too well-known to be an art film or whatever but has anyone seen robert altman's 'nashville'? i watched it a while back and really liked it a lot. if nothing else it was one of the best movies about music i've ever seen. whenever i read about it noone really brings up that side of it except to talk about the funny lyrics and make jokes about HEH HICK COUNTRY MUSIC and while that's part of it (and a part i could have done without tbh) it's not the whole story by any means! what makes it work so much is that it makes you see what other people see in this music. you have this big cast of characters bouncing off each other, and they all have their own tawdry shit to get through and their own hopes and desires and petty grudges and all that, and then some throwaway generic-sounding country song plays and the camera just shows their faces and it sort of DESTROYS THEM because all the defences drop and you just see this hideous aching vulnerability connecting them all in the shared dream of some fucking honkey-tonk country ballad. and these seemingly throwaway moments and ideas and lyrics become just unbearably poignant.

the whole thing is an ensemble movie and kind of zooms between political commentary and heavy-handed satire/mockery and understated naturalistic things. parts of it did more for me than others and a lot of the political stuff especially feels sort of dated (not in a whoa-you-were-wrong way but in the sense that the stuff it makes fun off like incomprehensible campaign slogans etc are so much taken for granted today that it seems too broad to be funny) but the culmulative effect of the whole thing is pretty powerful. it's been a while since i've seen it and there's a lot more to talk about though.
Title: big. stinkin. art films.
Post by: im_so_tired on May 22, 2010, 06:34:56 pm
i am not a big film buff but they used to have this video rental store with an extensive foreign section near me so i'd get them there. unfortunately the place closed and the entire collection (which was huge!) was sent to some remote town in italy to be a public video library ;_;

My favorite that I saw from that place is an Iranian movie called Iron Island by Mohammad Rasoulof
Title: big. stinkin. art films.
Post by: jamie on June 05, 2010, 09:36:09 am
I just watched Cafe Lumiere. It was a really quiet kind of movie. Not alot really happens from beginning to end, just little snippets of this young woman moving around in Tokyo and the little (barely even) problems she has in her life and the things she does and deals with each day. You find out she is pregnant about 10 minutes in and it's probably the last major plot development in the movie, everything else after that just expands on what you already know, or is just there to let you think about her life, I think.

So if you are into slow movies which are just about the quiet, reasonably easy life of young people and really mild explorations of social themes then I guess this is a good one! Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed it, and if I was really into this kind of movie I would say I loved it, maybe. I can't imagine me having a very strong reaction to it coming to it cold like I did with no expectations of what it would be. I mean I have seen films by the director before (Hou Hsiao-Hsien), so I knew it was gonna be interesting at least.

I guess what I am getting as is how there is a lack of conflict in this movie. Like, even where there is plenty of opportunity for it. When the main character, Inoue, tells her parents she is pregnant, the parents are clearly not excited by this news. The mother asks questions kind of politely about her plans, and the father doesn't say another word from that point on in the movie other than to talk about food in the second last scene. Now that probably sounds like a conflict but it isn't really reciprocated - Inoue just keeps a cheerful attitude when she's talking to her parents and seems pretty confident in her decision to raise her baby alone, without the ex-boyfriend who got her pregnant. And that's pretty much how the movie ends. There are some scenes in the movie where you get to see the characters not talk about what they want to talk about, and then kind of out of nowhere, the movie ends.

I was pretty surprised when that music faded in at the end, over the shot of all the trains weaving in and out of the city, because it seemed like so much was left to be resolved. There were lots of things left unsaid, lots of things still to come in Inoue's future, including a relationship which looked like it was going to get romantic pretty soon, but none of it really happens in what turns out to just be a part of her life that doesn't go anywhere conclusively, but might. So maybe that is the point of the movie. That there are alot of possibilities for young people, that things get left unfinished as you move from time to time.

So I don't think I was even left with a clear opinion of the movie, but that happens to me alot. I enjoyed watching it though.

I noticed in alot of the films set in Japan that have been released in the last 15 years or so that I have scene, there are many interludes in the movie of characters walking around the place they live, while either some gentle guitar composed for the film or some relaxing classical music plays, and nothing in particular is happening, just a lot of tiny things at once in the background. This one had alot of that. If it wasn't so nice to hear and see you might get a little bored...I dunno if the frequency of me seeing this is just to do with the directors I have been watching, or if it's a trend bigger than that, but did anyone else notice that?
Title: big. stinkin. art films.
Post by: NPayne on February 12, 2012, 10:51:08 am
Was into for quite a while, then I just stopped for some reason. Still like movies, just regular ones though.
Title: big. stinkin. art films.
Post by: hero_bash on February 12, 2012, 07:18:26 pm
El Topo by something Jodorowski. I've read the lengthy interiew about that film and wow everything literally is filled with symbols and artistic shit like that that the film itself is just so terribly wtf.
Title: big. stinkin. art films.
Post by: Vellfire on February 19, 2012, 06:17:44 pm
el topo (it's alejandro jodorowsky btw) is a fuckin great film.  been a while since i've seen it so i can't write up a big thing about it but it's excellent