Friday, May 31, 2002

Film Center ran a frustratingly scheduled Joris Ivens retrospective through May, showing 15 films in all. A Tale Of The Wind was the only one I made it to, and it was mesmerizing. On the surface it chronicles Ivens' attempts to film the unfilmable - the wind. However it also seems to be a reflection on his life as a filmmaker, an overview of his work, and a way for him to look back and reflect as much as anything else. Ivens seems to be at peace with his own death throughout (he actually died right after the film was released,) yet an infectuous humor and light mood runs throughout the film's length. During the film's final scenes, Ivens seems filled with joy, as if the last dream of his life has finally been fulfilled, and the mood is infectious. The slow, measured pace is perfect for the subject matter and reflective of Ivens' age and thoughtfulness.
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Posted by gdd @ 08:38 PM CST [Link]

Wednesday, May 29, 2002

My First Movie contains interviews with approximately 20 directors, all discussing their experiences making their first movie. The sibjects range from the famous (Oliver Stone, The Coen Brothers) to the less famous (Mira Nair, Pedro Almodovar.) The films range from Blood Simple ($800M budget, 35mm, full crew) to Pepi, Luci, Bom (no budget, Super-8, whenever time permitted.) Despite the differences all the interviews are fascinating to read. This is a really fun and interesting book.

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Posted by gdd @ 10:04 PM CST [Link]

This is the second Tsai Ming-Liang film I've seen (I saw The River at Facets a couple years ago.) One nice thing about What Time Is It There? is that it contains a sense of humor I don't remember from The River, at least in the first half or so. The scenes where Hsiao is whacking his watch against the pole are totally great. That actor was perfect for this part, he wore the same poker face throughout the film. He goes around completing his weird tasks with a kind of stonefaced determinism that was spot on. The obsessive mother was excellent as well, the scene where he confronts her in the kitchen as she covers up her walls was quite moving and powerful, wonderfully played by both parties. Its interesting how he rages against her obsession while completely forgetting his own, which affects far more people. In fact, his obsession fueled hers since it was his resetting of their living room clock which kind of triggered her slide off the deep end (although I got the feeling that it would have managed to happen regardless.)
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Posted by gdd @ 10:00 PM CST [Link]

Saturday, May 25, 2002

I first heard about this film on This American Life, during a segment broadcast in 1997. The basic gist is, there is a contest in Texas every year wherein 24 contestants put their hand on a hardbody truck, and the first one to take their hand off loses. It typically goes on for three days. That segment contained a long interview with Benny Perkins taken from the film Hands On A Hard Body produced in an utterly surreal and atmospheric way (you can hear the show via RealAudio here.) I had heard this broadcast and always remembered it. Then a couple weeks ago, Doc Films was showing the film. It got recommended highly in a couple local papers, but I couldn't make the screening. However, seeing it on DVD, I decided to get it. [more]

Posted by gdd @ 08:03 PM CST [Link]

I was really as interested in going to see how George Lucas' new hi-def digital video cameras looked being digitally projected as anything else. Answer: not as impressed as I thought I would be. I sat second row, and there were noticeable jaggies in almost every scene. This is supposed to be a step forward? Whenever there was text on the screen it looked even worse. Lucas was smart enough to choose a font with nice thick lines though, the trailer for Matrix: Reloaded used a thin serif font that was so jaggie it was unreadable. [more]

Posted by gdd @ 06:10 PM CST [Link]

Crazy book about Rodriguez's efforts making El Mariachi. Very inspiring, although frustrating in some ways. I mean, its great to go out and make a film on the cheap, but the way he does it would take so much time that nobody trying to lead a somewhat normal life would ever be able to attempt it. He himself makes this point, whichs is fine, but it doesn't help me. Regardless, the book is a riot to read. This is especially true of the later sections where he gets to Hollywood and is being wined and dined. I can't even imagine what he could have done now with digital editing. It would have cost him a bit more, but man he really could have gone nuts.

Posted by gdd @ 06:03 PM CST [Link]

Tuesday, May 21, 2002

A very interesting and well made film from director Jafar Pahani. Once again, this suffered poorly from bein viewed on the train. I missed some of the elements from the beginning of the film wrapping up at the end because of the long gap in between viewing the two halves. Also there were some subtle changes in mood and approach throughout which I didn't immediately pick up on either. Thankfully, much of this was addressed and reprised in a long interview with Pahani, included as a bonus feature. [more]

Posted by gdd @ 08:41 PM CST [Link]

Monday, May 20, 2002

As I've been thinking about what my next project is going to be (or perhaps reviving the first one) I've been reading some books on the filmmaking process. Its a tall pile - Making Movies, My First Movie, Rebel Without A Crew, Feature Filmmaking At Used Car Prices (a super old edition) - and it keeps growing. I'm not really looking for stylistic stuff here, I have my own ideas and I want to work creatively very loose and fast. If I wanted more I would go to film school. What I'm really looking for is technical and practical knowledge, two things I am sorely lacking. How does a film camera really work? What goes happens on a set from day to day? What approaches have various filmmakers used to go at their subjects? [more]

Posted by gdd @ 09:25 PM CST [Link]

This film is kind of like Richard Linklater's companion piece to Waking Life. Tape was shot using digital video on a set which is a perfect match for a choosy motel room. In it three characters come together to hash out an event that happened between them many years ago. The movie was interesting, but not horribly so. All the cast members seem to have been quite taken by the script, something I don't really understand. Technically, however, the film is really interesting to me. [more]

Posted by gdd @ 08:35 PM CST [Link]

Tuesday, May 14, 2002

Donnie Darko has two commentaries - one is Richard Kelly (director) and Jake Gyllenhaall (Donnie) and it is annoying. Whenever Richard Kelly begins to discuss something seriously - themes, technical details, whatever - it seems like Gyllenhaall pops up with a joke or starts goofing off and the thread is lost. It just seems like Gyllenhaall has this attitude that there is something wrong with taking things too seriously which really rubs me the wrong way. If you don't take it that seriously then go get another fucking job, there's a thousand actors who do and are probably more talented waiting to crawl up the ladder. It just rang of this whole attitude of discussing something like film in a serious manner is pretentious and dull.

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Posted by gdd @ 09:47 PM CST [Link]

Projections is a series of books put out by Faber And Faber. Each "issue" covers film in various ways. This book was guest edited by Mike Figgis contains a series of interviews he conducted with a variety of writers, executives, actors and directors. The interviews are fairly wide-ranging but they have a general theme of Hollywood and how the mainstream movie system does and doesn't work. Its a sensible theme for Figgis to cover, he's done large and small films, with varying levels of control, most of them challenging in one way or another. The book is quite interesting, and like all the other books in the series I got a lot out of it.

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Posted by gdd @ 09:41 PM CST [Link]

I've just finished reading Movie Wars (yes, I'm right on the ball getting to that). I actually liked the book a lot more than I expected. I come from an independent rock music background, and basically the same war has been fought there for years, so I thought a lot of it would be kind of a rehash of stuff I already knew in a different setting. I was glad that wasn't true, and there was a lot of information there to chew on. In particular, the habit of Miramax buying up films for the sole purpose of burying them left quite a bad taste in my mouth. You know, you hear stories of that kind of thing all the time in say, the automobile or computer industries. Microsoft buys up a company that has some new technology then buries it so they can keep making their stuff. I guess I had not allowed myself to think of the film industry that way, even though I'm sure in the back of my mind I always knew it to be true.

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Posted by gdd @ 09:39 PM CST [Link]

Friday, May 10, 2002

After I watched A Taste Of Cherry on the train, I knew that it hadn't gotten its due. The combination of ambient noise and getting cut in the middle sucked the life out of it. So I held onto it and gave it another viewing, much to my great pleasure.

This slow, quiet film from Abbas Kiarostami is a wonder of masterful filmmaking. As opposed to a film like Donnie Darko, which takes its energy from a really visceral directing style, A Taste Of Cherry is based in a certain calm which forces us to think and contemplate the scenes unfolding before us. I have never seen a movie so slowly paced which moves along so quickly. [more]

Posted by gdd @ 11:07 PM CST [Link]

Wednesday, May 8, 2002

The Music Box's matinee series Film Noir Defined continued with Fritz Lang's The Woman In The Window. I've enjoyed this series quite a bit, seeing things that I might not have otherwise seen or gotten to. Music Box is killing me in coming weeks, so many things to see - Kiss Of Death, The Big Heat, In A Lonely Place, ABC Africa, all the Jacques Demy films. Of course the Demy film I'm most interested in, Bay Of Angels, is only playing on a weekday.

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Posted by gdd @ 10:23 PM CST [Link]

Tuesday, May 7, 2002

I saw six films this weekend, four in theatres. I've been debating how to cover them, juggling various grouping schemes (like for instance, discussing all the Middle Eastern films together) but instead I will discuss them as I saw them. It just seems more natural that way, the impressions of one film always move into the next. The one exception is I'll probably do a longer piece on A Taste Of Cherry separately.

Seeing six films in two days (2 Saturday, 4 Sunday) is a somewhat intense experience. In a way, you don't get to give any single movie its due, because I feel that films are better off being left to sit for a while. However, the reality of my situation is that if I want to get to everything I'm interested in then this is how I have to do it, especially since I really can't get to anything on weekdays.

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Posted by gdd @ 07:59 PM CST [Link]

Monday, May 6, 2002

I had a very long rambling essay about seeing movies this weekend, and Baran and Donnie Brako in particular, which was lost due to an internet outage. Perhaps I will revive it at some point, but to summarize - I liked both films very much. Baran had less faults but Donnie Darko reached for more and in the end I was more impressed with it. Plus it contained some very interesting filmmaking, whereas Baran was interrupted by the guy behind me snoring. More tomorrow.

Posted by gdd @ 10:12 PM CST [Link]

Wednesday, May 1, 2002

Well, I saw Singin In The Rain and The Cat's Meow last weekend, and I liked both although I find myself with no great thoughts about either. The one thing I really liked about Singin' was how it seemed really stylized and yet really simple. Kind of nice. Cat's Meow all the colors seemed really faded and dull, which seems odd, but then again it might have been a projection problem which Piper's Alley is kind of infamous for.

Otherwise I'm kind of stuck for viewing, all my Netflix stuff is kind of stuck in limbo. I have three movies here (Belle De Jour, Faraway So Close!, Iron Monkey) waiting for sometime when I can watch them with Bethany. Taste Of Cherry is waiting for a non-train re-viewing, which will happen sometime this weekend. Donnie Darko just shipped today, so it won't be here until Monday. In a noteworthy statement of poor planning, I will be going to see Donnie Darko at Film Center this weekend. At least the DVD has commentary.

Bethany will be gone all weekend, and my goal is five theatre viewings, I have lots to catch up on. Donnie Darko Saturday is a definite. If Umberto D gets held over at Music Box then that is high on the list, otherwise Promises is open, which is also high on the list. Y Tu Mama Tambien is still around. The Woman In The Window is at a matinee, thats a definite. Look at that, five films already. Might have to shuffle that list around, I'd like to see more new stuff.

Posted by gdd @ 08:41 PM CST [Link]

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