Tuesday, June 25, 2002

John Sayles and Maggie Renzi came to Chicago to introduce this film, as a kickoff event for their current traveling retrospective. Sayles spoke for a few minutes then took questions from the audience. Somehow he managed to not pick me, but still pick the person who had to ask "What happened at the end of Limbo?" He said, "Well, either the plane had their friends and they were rescued or the plane had the bad guys and they were killed." This is not the answer I would have given, because it avoids the issue. The real answer is, "Three people who were separate and alone became united as a single unit and then the movie ended because the movie wasn't about the fucking plane." Ah, if only. [more]

Posted by gdd @ 08:30 PM CST [Link]

Tuesday, June 18, 2002

I was not mentally completely there when I viewed this, the newest film by Abbas Kiarostami. I just had a lot of things going that weekend (parents visiting, two upcoming trips out of town to plan, etc.) so I didn't really get the full effect of this as much as I probably should have. The long segments focusing on just the kids and singing and dancing caused my mind to wander, not because they were boring, just because I was distracted. It didn't help that this was in the tiny room at Music Box. I would have thought that a new movie by someone whose star seems to be on the rise would at least merit a week in the big room, not shoved into the little room sharing half a schedule with Late Marriage. I understand The Lady And The Duke is really a big screen experience, but come on. [more]

Posted by gdd @ 08:43 PM CST [Link]

Friday, June 14, 2002

I actually only caught a piece of this on Turner Classic Movies, I'll probably see the whole thing when it reruns later this month. I did have a comment about what I saw though. I seen Scorcese's previous historical documentary A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies, and I found it to be really interesting and insightful, as well as introducing me to a wide variety of work I wasn't familiar with. Personal Journey was divided up into segments, for instance Mavericks, with short discussions of the work of several directors interspersed with clips. It was a great way to introduce a lot of material in a short amount of time, leaving the viewer to further investigate whatever they liked. However in the 30-45 minute portion of My Voyage To Italy I saw, Scorcese only discussed two movies, and both were by the same director (Bicycle Thief and Umberto D, both by Vittorio De Sica.) Of those two films, he showed long extended clips from each, tracing each film from beginning to end. [more]

Posted by gdd @ 10:33 AM CST [Link]

Wednesday, June 12, 2002

I would probably say this is the greatest silent film I've seen. Not that I've seen that many, but still, this is surely the best. I have to give an enormous amount of credit for this to the fantastic score played by David Drazin, who I had also seen play with the BUster Keaton features I saw at Film Center last year. I'm curious if the score for these films is provided with the movie or chosen by the pianist (I can only assume it is provided) but Drazin paced it so perfectly, timing beats with footsteps and cuts, it added immensely to the experience. The mood of the music was also expertly matched with the various sections of the film. Drazin is truly great at what he does. I found a short bio of Drazin here, towards the middle of the page. [more]

Posted by gdd @ 07:56 PM CST [Link]

Sunday, June 9, 2002

I remember seeing the trailer for this and thinking to myself, "ugh, period piece, pass." I really just am not a fan of the genre (with the exception that proves for Barry Lyndon.) However, I was intrigued when the blurb came up, proclaiming that Lady And The Duke brought Rohmer into the digital age and I'm thinking to myself...what are you talking about? Then I noticed the backgrounds, and I was fascinated. I could tell exactly what was being done, and I knew I was going to have to go see this. [more]

Posted by gdd @ 01:11 PM CST [Link]

Thursday, June 6, 2002

I love Errol Morris, and one of the great disappointments of my life is the fact that I did not have access to Bravo when the first season of First Person aired. Can we have some DVDs of that someday? Please?? Having recently gotten DirecTV, I was mightily pleased to discover that IFC has produced a second season of First Person. This was the first episode I've seen, and it was classic Errol Morris through and through.
[more]

Posted by gdd @ 09:13 PM CST [Link]

The George Washington Criterion Collection DVD has lots of fun extras, as we have come to expect from Criterion. First off is the commentary with David Gordon Green, cinematographer Tim Orr and cast member Paul Schneider who plays Rico. This commentary is well worth the time of anyone interested in this movie. Most noteworthy is a ten minute section wherein Green discusses his love for Terrance Malick and The Thin Red Line, at one point describing a scene he loved so much it made him weak in the knees. I love hearing stuff like this, just unabashed fandom. So many people in this day and age seem to be embarassed to express any kind of unrestrained joy about anything, as if appreciating something on an emotional level is something to be shunned. It was just nice to see someone being open and honest, which all parties are throughout the commentary.

[more]

Posted by gdd @ 09:04 PM CST [Link]

While only marginally film related (at best,) I lament the death of Dee Dee Ramone, the greatest of all punk rock bassists. His screams of ONE TWO THREE FOUR before every blast on It's Alive (the second greatest live album of all time) fueled so many of my days I can't even begin to count. My heart has yet another empty space where one of my heroes once resided.

Posted by gdd @ 03:13 PM CST [Link]

Monday, June 3, 2002

Two examples of films I saw on video, and as soon as I did I realized that I really hadn't seen them at all. Bigger Than Life I had only really heard about through Rosenbaum's essay in Placing Movies. Then I saw a bit of it in the Personal Journey With Martin Scorcese DVD, and I was really really interested. I could tell already that it wouldn't translate well to video, but I felt like who knows when I'll ever see it otherwise. Searching around for a while, I discovered that not only was it not currently available on video, it appeared that it had never been released on video at all. A lot of times I can find letterboxed laserdiscs of stuff like this, but there was no evidence of that either. Finally I found a guy on Ebay selling letterboxed VHS tapes of the film, and jumped at it for a measly $10. When I got the tape, I discovered it had been taped off Fox Movie Channel. At this point, I was fine with that, just getting to see it at all. Of course, two weeks later I discovered that it was being screened at Block Cinema (although it was at a time I couldn't have attended anyways.) [more]

Posted by gdd @ 10:20 AM CST [Link]

Ah Summer, when a young man's fancy turns to baseball and parking at The Music Box becomes impossible even for an early afternoon show. Time to dig out the bike.

Of the new releases I've seen this year (all five of them,) this is by far the best. The key to this film, for me, is the scene where ZaZa pueposely unlocks Judith's door despite the fact that he knows his parents are downstairs waiting. To what end is he doing this, what is he trying to accomplish? At first I figured he was springing some sort of trap on his parents, but obviously this was not the case and our whole perception of him changes here because of wht he did before. That whole portion of the film is really gripping, and it wouldn't be nearly as much so without that touch. It is to credit of Dover Koshashvili that ZaZa's motives in this case and others are left unsaid, rather than turning this into a political statement as most directors would in a film about arranged marriage. The ambiguity is a very large part of what makes this film so good. [more]

Posted by gdd @ 10:15 AM CST [Link]

Reading Getting Away With It really piqued my interest in seeing the Richard Lester films, particularly the earlier ones. So it was with great happiness that I saw that Film Center was showing The Knack and The Bedsitting Room this month as part of their English new wave series. This is the first Lester film I've seen (well, OK, except Superman II) and I just loved it. So filled with energy and life. I'm generally curmudgeonly but I was just grinning my head off through a lot of this, especially in the first two acts. Now I'm just more jazzed to see Hard Day's Night and Petulia. [more]

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

I didn't really watch this, I just caught pieces of it on Fox Movie Channel while I was doing stuff around the house, so it won't go on the master list. Still, this was probably one of the first science fiction films I saw as a youngster, and I've had a real fondness for it ever since. It wasn't until after I saw it featured in Theremin that I went and revisited it as a film buff, and I really appreciated the craft that went into it. I mean, some of the acting is pretty bad, and the story is sappy and heavyhanded (although I admit to having a soft spot for sappy and heavyhanded sometimes.) However the cinematography and music are spectacular. You can really hear the beginnings of the classic Bernard Herrman score developing here. Combine that with the stark black and white cinematography of Leo Tover in the spaceship interiors, and you create a fantastically spooky and otherworldly feeling. This certainly isn't the best movie or even best science fiction movie I've ever seen, but in terms of mood and craft its hard to top.

Posted by gdd @ 10:08 AM CST [Link]

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