i put 12 years a slave in my netflix quee cuz there's no decent movie houses near me. it predicts 5 stars! see you in 3-6 months.

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ps- netflix sez there's a 1984 version directed by gordon parks!!

OSCARS

They're fun if you don't take them too seriously. Actually, a pretty good bunch this year.

12 Years a Slave-Haven't seen. See above for discussion.
American Hustle-Christian Bale AND Bradley Cooper?? No the fuck thank you. (Actually, this looks fun in an ARGO sort of way. Still.)

Captain Phillips- Thought it was racist the Somali pirates were black. Kidding. Don't fuck with USA!

Gravity- Epic but intimate. Neat.

Her- Manages to be original, thought-provoking and pretty tedious. I had to bump up the playback speed on this. Still, glad it exists.

Nebraska- I dunno. Not a huge Payne fan. Acting is great.

Philomena- Good. Not enough of Steve Coogan's ass, so I have to say Alpha Papa was better.

The Wolf of Wall Street- Sum not equal to parts. A number of great scenes, but even after three hours I thought, "That's it?" If Casino is a poor man's Goodfellas, this is the poor man's Casino.

Blue Jasmine and Inside Llewyn Davis not nominated? Weird.

And evollove's Oscar goes to:



DALLAS BUYER'S CLUB

I know. I'm as surprised as anyone. I assumed it would be a sappy Hollywood tear-jerker. It's not. At all.

SPOILER ALERT: A few characters have HIV/AIDS. So I figure there's got to be a scene where the character is dying in a hospital bed and in a weak voice gives a life-affirming speech while a dramatic orchestra plays on the soundtrack. This scene is NOT in the movie.

Also, there's a court battle in the plot. But no prolonged court room scene with high drama and lovely speeches. It's over in about thirty seconds.

Basically, this film is not at all what I thought it would be. It moves toward cliche, then quickly veers in another, more honest direction. Matthew McConaughey is clearly going to win, as he should.

I pre-judged this movie. Thought it was going to suck in 99 different ways. (Look at that poster. A slab of cheese.) I was so wrong. Best film of the bunch.

Finally got round to seeing Fassbinder's debut feature film, and it's overall pretty impressive stuff. Fassbinder himself stars as Franz, a small-time criminal who finds himself being compelled to join a local gang. The film follows Franz as he and his associates, including fellow criminal Bruno (Ulli Lommel) goes through various scenarios, including the killing of a revenge-fuelled Turkish man. The police are on their tail on this one (and on other crimes the pair have been fingered for as well), and the film climaxes in a planned armed robbery which goes wrong, leading to the death of Bruno after being shot by the police. Franz ends up escpaing with his girfriend Joanna (Hanna Schygulla), and here the film ends.
Filmed in black and white, "Love Is Colder Than Death" initially has a stagey feel to it, but soon opens up as Franz and co wander through the environs of an un-named Bavarian town. Faasbinder spends an inordinate amount of time smoking and snarling at all and sundry, and this with his leather biker jacket, kicks off the public image that he had through much of his career. Ulli Lommel acquits himself well (and dresses in a style remisicent of Hunter S Thompson in his "Fear and Loathing..." era). Hanna Schygulla doesn't have that many lines, but looks striking and delivers a much-needed female presence to the film. The direction itself is competent and functional, but there are hints to what would later develop into Fassbinder's trademark style (use of slow camera pans, "still" images on film etc).
As a debut feature entry into the emerging New German Cinema, this is definitely an important film, I reckon. I have some rather large gaps in my Fassbinder film viewing, and this has certainly whetted my appetite to check out more of his output this year. Very much recommended if you're interested in post-war German cinema.

Lamberto Bava's poor sequel to his own "Demons". Not even a script (co-written by Dario Argento) helps matters at all. Not a film I can recommend, really. For Lamberto Bava completists only.

"Chafed Elbows" by Robert Downey Sr

The Manchurian Candidate remake with Denzel, a bit rough around the edges, but decent.

Great, great film based on the lives of a soul DJ based in the Dalston area in 1977. Fine action/plot, a class soundtrack, accurate portrayal of gay characters, and a piece of social history in itself. Never a boring moment, either. Definitely recommended if this sounds like it floats your boat.

Sorry but while it's heart might be in the right place, that's a bloody awful film. A cliche ridden embarrassment.

Heh heh - been a while since we disagreed on a film, eh? :) Fair enough to you - personally, I found it enjoyable stuff, though certainly don't expect you to like everything I do! Be interested to know your take on it, if you have a spare moment.

Talking of seriously bad films, someone on FB tried to talk up Jesus Franco's "Bloody Moon" as being a decent giallo effort. I remember that one as being an absolutely godawful trainwreck, with some of the worst special effects I've ever seen. I think I lent it to you, and you referred to it as "Bloody Awful"!

PS. Just about to watch Claude Chabrol's "The Breach" - have you seen that one at all?

I just think Isaac Julien was so busy shoe horning good causes into the thing that he forgot to make a watchable film. The acting's no better than you'd find in a 'serious' bit of kids tv and the politics seem no more real than those massive 'community' murals you used to find on the sides of run down housing estates. YSR is testament to a period when British cinema seemed to be run by social workers rather than filmmakers.

Definitely some interesting thoughts there - to be honest, I haven't seen that much Brit cinema of this period, so I should check out some more to see where you're coming from on this. Agreed that the acting ain't exactly A1 level stuff, but it didn't come across as that particularly awful to me. As for the politics - well, I did have a good laugh when one of the characters turned out to be an SWP member (they get everywhere, don't they?), and will concede that the "NF News" bit was a tad shoehorned in, though I still think the gay stuff was overall sensible and even-handed. I'm trying to think of other films that had the "worthy" thing going on which I've seen, and nothing's coming up so far - it'll probably come to me once I wake up in a few hours time (wait a sec - would Godard's "La Chinoise" count as "worthy", or is that a different beast altogether?).

Anyway, ta muchly for your take on it - always appreciate your views on film business and stuff.

Overall pretty impressive stuff by Claude Chabrol - a decent story, some good performances, and pretty-well paced. My criticisms of it is that it could have lost 15-20 mins of running time to tighten up the flow of the film, the ending is slighty daft, and the plot seems to veer off at tangents at times. But all in all, good work by Mr Chabrol. Will check out his "L'Enfer" in due course.

The difference with Godard is that you don't have to share his politics to enjoy or at least appreciate his films - although it obviously helps and I do think his films declined the more explicitly political they became. There are obviously great political filmmakers though (Eisenstein? Pasolini? Bunuel? Loach? Fassbinder?) but above all else they were great filmmakers full stop. I like some of Isaac Julien's short independent stuff but when it comes to features I just don't think he has a clue. It's telling that after YSR he went straight back to the independent/gallery scene and hasn't tried to make a feature film since. Thank fuck.

Some better politically oriented Brit stuff from that period would be (for me anyway) something like Letter to Brezhnev but the best stuff seemed to be more TV based: Edge of Darkness, Our Friends in the North, A Very British Coup, Boys From the Black Stuff, Made in Britain, etc.

maybe it's the way these people get funding. here if you want money from PBS you have to touch all these fucking "points" or whatever. ugh!

Didn't realise that Julien didn't make another feature after YSR - well, I never. Think I'll defo check out some of his shorts though. And yep, agree w/you on the political film-makers you cite. I'd also throw in Costa-Gavras ("Z") too. Re. Godard, I love loads of his pre-explicity political stuff, and even "La Chinoise" has its charms to me as well, even if I think the nutty Maoist stuff therein is completely daft. I do remember coming away from the "British Sounds" doc though thinking he missed a trick there - what could have been a v interesting politically-themed doc was a bit of a misfire to me in the end. A real shame, that.

PS. Your "thank fuck" comment made me chuckle :D;)

EDIT: Just seen the addition to your last post - not seen "Letter To Breznev", as it goes, but have seen much of the TV stuff you cite (especially love "Boys From The Black Stuff).

British Sounds fluctuates between brilliant and boring in roughly equal measures. But I like the fact that it's so confrontational and almost encourages you to walk out. YSR's far too nice for its own good, like an episode of Desmonds directed by Tom Robinson.


That's probably true in this case. The bulk of the money for that film was put up by Channel 4 which at that time liked to see itself as a champion of all things marginal. I'm sure there were meetings held during production as to whether room could be found for a black dyslexic lesbian vegan. For better or worse, it's no wonder the country quickly turned to the Happy Mondays and Men Behaving Badly as an antidote to it all.

A documentary covering the history of the cocaine trade within Miami, and the attendant "drug wars", during the late 1970's, up to the end of the 1980's. What I was hoping to be a serious, sober look at the cocaine industry turns out to be nothing of the sort - starting out with gun pornography, this documentary wheels outs much-repeated cliches and tropes (including some rather racist commentary upon the Colombian and Cuban population of Miami), and seems to revel in death and murder (there are many gruesome still photos of murder victims featured throughout)

There are little actual insights from the law enforcement agencies and "experts" (no surprise there then), and those involved in the cocaine trade themselves seem to spend much time talking about the "good old days". Police corruption and political campaign financing is touched upon momentarily, but never followed up, and the documentary peddles the nonsense that Miami was "crime free" before the cocaine wars kicked in. George Bush Senior is shown in his "war on drugs" mode, which the documentary considers to be a "success", and other minor-league politicos get to air their views without being challenged once.

The last hour of the documentary spends much time upon the life of Medellin Cartel member Griselda Blanco, but even this gives no real insights into her control, power and influence within Miami and beyond - all we hear is that she had expensive tastes, was a lesbian (shock horror!), and was not averse to having rivals bumped off. The rest of the running time involves various small-fry gangsters and hitmen talking about their activities, and how they ended up being caught and imprisoned.

The documentary itself has a distinctive made-for-TV feel to it, and at 2 hours in length, is way overlong; the running time could easily have been cut by at least 30 minutes. There's absolutely no comment made on the impact of the cocaine trade on Miami's Latino population - all we're told is that the Latinos are essentially "bad" people, and that's your lot. There's also zero comment on the effect/impact of the cocaine trade within Colombia itself.

"Cocaine Cowboys" seems to possess all the accuracy and insight of your average "Mondo" film, and says nothing at all about how the influx of cocaine affected a major American city. In fact, the only thing to note on this documentary is that the incidental music was done by Jan Hammer, composer of the "Miami Vice" theme tune...and you'd probably get a more accurate idea of the drug trade by watching an episode of said TV programme!

An uninformative, slanted and cliched documentary, then. Doubtlessly there are other drug-related documentaries out there which offer far more in scope and information. Seek them out instead, and avoid this pile of nonsense. Not recommended at all.

I have a perverse fascination with that whole 80s Miami thing. I read as much about it as I can (including the book the doc was based on) and can say that as far as the truth goes it's about as close as you'll get. The problem is everyone involved has a massive agenda, either to stay out of jail, to boost their ego or to simply stay alive. And you really can't gloss over the Colombian thing. Not to say people like Jon Robrts weren't violent but once the cartels started to get properly involved the violence did simply go off the scale. Shootings in shopping malls, etc. You should read the book it's based on. The author questions the validity of a lot of the stories he's told but even he eventually can't deny that it was horrible, but also utterly glamorous. It's hard not to turn Miami in the 80s into gun porn. The police would never talk about it because they were knee deep in it all themselves and from what I've read about Griselda, the doc actually under-plays a lot of it.



This is the book you want to read. It's what the doc was based on but more focused on Roberts (it's basically his memoir). It gets repetitive towards the end as it does just become a paranoid sequence of killing and fucking but I do believe that for people like Roberts, that was what it was like. And the first third, which talks about him in Vietnam and which barely makes the doc at all is I guarantee one of the most flat out crazy things you'll ever read - even if you don't end up believing a word of it.

Thanks for the book recommend - that looks really interesting, will see if I can order that online tonight (EDIT - just ordered it from Amazon UK)

Agree with you on what you say on the Miami/Colomiba drug wars thing - "Cocaine Cowboys" could have really gone into that into great detail, but for whatever reason, chose to skim the surface and not dig any deeper. Griselda is a fascinating/gruesome figure, for sure, and you'd think that spending so much time on her, the doc would have provided some real info there - but again, the doc skims the surface and treats her like some sort of "mystery" figure.

(EDIT - missed the bit where you said you've already seen the doc - whoops! Sorry about that)

I've seen it and I love it but, as I said, I'm fascinated with everything related to that subject so I was always going to. And compared to the book, the doc is, if anything, really toned down. A lot of it's fabricated but enough isn't for it to be a total mindfuck.

The problem for the film is that because it could never really go into some of the violence it kind of had to focus more on exotic characters like Griselda and the glamourous lifestyles. It's all in the book too but more as a backdrop to the more brutal stuff. The problem with the gun porn argument is that that's how people like Roberts saw it and pretty much lived it. Same with the glamour. To underplay it would've been to pretend that they weren't leading playboy lifestyles, which they were. For a time anyway.

Same with the issue of the cartels. The film (and the book) isn't really about them. It's really about some young American upstarts who pioneered the drug trade in Miami prior to their arrival so it's not really fair to criticise it for not dealing with a topic it's only tangentially about. There was definitely violence before the cartels got involved but its a historical fact that once the likes of Carlos Lehder got involved it escalated out of all control, but that's really when the story of people like Jon Roberts and Mickey Munday sort of ends. There's plenty of books and docs about the cartels. This tells another story where they're really not at the centre. If you want to get more into that stuff, Simon Strong's book Whitewash is far better, and there's countless docs on people like Lehder and Escobar.

There's a sequel to Cocaine Cowboys that's pretty much all about Griselda. It's not as good as the first one but obviously goes into lots more details about her. But it seems much more tailored to a kind of gangsta-rap friendly audience than the original was.

Cocaine Cowboys II: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cx_M3_FBUTY

Hunting Escobar: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwuud6vwkhw

There's a Cocaine Cowboys II?? Ye gods! (Have saved that onto my "to view" list on YouTube, & ditto w/"Hunting Escobar").

The cartels stuff you mention sounds completely insane/psycho - will defo have to look more into that. Have added "White Wash" to my Amazon wishlist - will buy it once I've bought and read "American Desperado".

And on this: "The film (and the book) isn't really about them. It's really about some young American upstarts who pioneered the drug trade in Miami prior to their arrival so it's not really fair to criticise it for not dealing with a topic it's only tangentially about." - I hadn't factored in the cartels stuff, so I think that's fair comment, even if, on balance, I still personally feel that "CC" is highly flawed. But as you say, there is plenty on this subject to get your teeth into.

The Caine Mutiny

I tried watching On The Road, but even Kristen Stewarts nipples couldn't get me through it...

Excellent interview with Joaquim Pheonix, discussing HER and more:

http://www.npr.org/programs/fresh-ai...ate=2014-01-21

i like her face a bit, but i think she's a terrible actress

AM I WRONG?

Did you see Adventureland? It's with Kristin, before she got big. I remember thinking how much I liked her and how I wanted to keep an eye on her future projects. Boy, was I wrong.

She's no longer a real actress. She's just "Kristin Stewart" the celebrity/product. Good or bad doesn't matter. She shows up in a movie and you either go, "She's cool" or "She's annoying" and that's about it.

All that said, I'd enjoy seeing her nipples.

adventureland…. yes yes. with zuckerberg? sure! and that snl guy. that was fun, if a bit of a cliché ending. i liked her character, and i liked her face, but she was pretty wooden though, as i recall.

An excellent atmospheric horror effort from Wise, and a film where Hammer-style theatrics are ignored in place of psychological tension and dread. Great performances from the cast, and the black and white cinematography looks fantastic. Perhaps slightly overlong (this one hits the 2 hour mark), "The Haunting" nevertheless is a stellar example of 60's horror at its finest. In fact, it comes close to being as seminal and powerful as "Carnival Of Souls" at points, so you know that this is an exemplary one. If you're into your horror stuff, this comes very highly recommended indeed.

Why? She was never an actress to begin with. She can't act when it comes to delivering lines, she is one of those "faces" actors, who makes faces, pantomimes, and expressive gestures. Essentially movies just pan in an out of her facial expressions.


Meh, chalky white girl nipples are a dime a dozen, I'd be more interested in Kristen Bell yo! Damn. Years ago I watched every single damned episode of Veronica Mars religiously, rushing home from University classes and never missing a new episode for both seasons, until the honeymoon was over and I realized the acting and production was fine, but realistically I just had a huge school boy crush on Kristen Bell.

https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/i...yI5JKD8yXz3lUV

Totally agree. One of the few horror films (along with Carnival of Souls and a handful of others) that's actually frightening.

Death Wish IV.. and just for demonrail, I hated every damned minute of it, but I watched at least half an hour just out of crass spite!

philistine

Yes, that was definitely a Philistine movie, the first one was decent enough, but by the III or IV sequel it become not only redundant but Bronson's character devolved into a caricature of the first one.

In this case I'd obviously have to agree. I like the first one and II has a decent sleazy quality but the rot was setting in even then. III was awful though and I'm not sure I even bothered with the 4th one. But Bronson was a has-been by then. The difference is for you he's a never-was. So you're still a philistine.

blue jasmine
august: osage county
dallas buyers club
so far the latter has been my fav in all aspects.


gonna look for the cocaine cowboys today. thanks.

All round decent effort from Joel and Ethan Coen in their latest film, in which folk singer/guitarist (Oscar Isaac) navigates the early 60's Greenwich Village scene, and one by one burns his bridges as he struggles to get gigs, gets a female folk singer (Carey Mulligan) pregnant, and surfs from couch to couch as he attempts to establish himself as a folk musician. An ill-fated trip to Chicago sees him sharing a car with a heroin-using jazz pianist (John Goodman), and eventually he decides to rejoin the merchant navy, but even this doesn't work out for him. Thje film ends as Issac's set at a folk club is followed by that of a somewhat well-known emerging protest-folk musician, and Isaac (after taking another beating) sees his life going absolutely nowhere.

Oscar Isaac acquits himself well as the dissolute musician who just can't seem to get anywhere. Carey Mulligan is striking and mean-mouthed at the same time, and John Goodman's role is brief but still convinving. The plot moves along at a fair old pace, and there are one of two laugh out loud moments amongst the more sombre scenes of the film. The folk music soundtrack is overall fairly decent, and the film looks very good - Greenwich Village of the time being evoked pretty well. There's a long-running meme about a runaway cat, and Garrett Hedlund's short role as a near-silent, chain smoking beat poet is certainly textbook Coen territory.

So, "Inside Llewyn Davis" is a nice addtion to the Coen oeuvre, and worth seeing, even if folk music doesn't particularly interest you. One slight issue, however: in the recording seesion scene, an electric guitar can clearly be heard on the soundtrack, even though the scene in question has acoustic guitars only. A bit early to be citing Dylan's electric period, methinks!

I disagree about Carrie Mulligan, I thought she was non convincing and also thought the John Goodman role was pretty gratuitous. The driver, who I thought was supposed to be Neal Cassidy was great, as was the sister and the club owner in Chicago. One of my favorites in a while. I also saw a few not correct for the period objects and styles, but it was all in all pretty accurately done. Left the movie house with a good feeling. A good antidote movie for either the reality is tremendously awful movies or the alternative, life is just grand and love is in the air fakiness out of Hollywuud.

Man the Coen Bros are so hit or miss for me, at least since 2000.

I HATED Oh Brother Where art Thou. fuck all that shit, the music, the period, the shitty yellow filter on the camera. I hate it all.

The Man Who Wasn't There was just plain boring.

Intolerable Cruelty I stopped watching after 10 minutes. I let my wife finish it by herself.

The Ladykillers was 1/2 funny 1/2 stupid, and not in a good way.

No Country for Old Men was amazing. AMAZING

Burn After Reading was such a piece of SHIT. Fucking horrible stupid, pointless fucking movie. such suck-ass shit.

A Serious Man was boring as FUCK as well.

True Grit I enjoyed OK, but it was a piffle. It was a unnecessary remake of a movie/book. 1/2 the time I could have given a fuck.

From 87 to 99 they made so many films I love, and only one I really HATE. That would be the fucking infuriating Hudsucker Proxy. HATE THAT FUCKING MOVIE

Coens. Love 'em or hate I guess.

INSIDE is typical Coens: perfect visuals, dark dry humor, John Goodman, and the sense after the thing ends that it ultimately doesn't have much of a point.

First four movies are great and I've watched 'em all a billion times since they came out. Since then, "hit or miss" nails it. Have they made a comedy better than Raising Arizona? A better noir than Blood Simple? Pushed themselves as far as they did in Barton Fink? Personally, I don't think so. I might add Fargo to the first four, but that's probably it.

Instant classic, in my opinion.

By the way, of the nine Oscar flicks, six of them are based on true stories. Nebraska is an original script, but not Payne's. Only her and Gravity were written by the directors, and the director of Gravity co-wrote it with his son. Make of all that what you will.

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Gonna watch Inequality for All tonight.