Finally had a night off from work so I decided to watch some movies I was really excited to watch for a while, they all ended up being pretty interesting..
fire within - 9/10 ... Truly fucking awesome. Louis Malle will be the next director I obsess over, I think. This film felt so REAL; especially for 1963... I TOTALLY connected with this film, a film about depression, suicide, and alcoholism. Embarassing to say, maybe, but eh. The film is about a guy who decides to kill himself in 24 hours so he decides to visit all his friends. BEAUTIFUL cinematography... bleak yet absurd. Great.
Irma Vep - 8/10. Is it possible for me to kinda dislike a film but also kinda think it was kind of a work of some kind of genius, too? This is the most frustrating film I've seen since... well... since the last Assayas films I saw, I guess! Olivier Assayas is a really interesting director, in that sometimes he seems completely incompetent in his direction/editing/storytelling/dialogue, but most of the time that "ameteur-on-purpose" thing seems on purpose, and quite often, he does things that absolutely BRILLIANT! Look, I really love Clean and Cold Water and thought Summer Hours was good, but Demonlover and Boarding Gate both were headscratching -- not in a good way -- punctuated by dull moments punctuated by moments of inspired lunacy and demented brilliance. This film is no different -- on the surface, it's VERY much like other great films of the past based on filmmaking, "8 1/2", "Beware the Holy Whore" (mmm Fassbinder mmmm), "Living in Oblivion"... actually, you know what? A big chunk of this film -- especially some of the visuals -- remind me of "Currently Untitled"! Haha! No, seriously, the plot is, like, identical in places (I promise I'd never even heard of this film until a few days ago): a film crew is trying to make a no budget movie but no one wants to work, no one's into it, but the film is actually a documentary of the director's real life romance with the great Maggie Cheung (whose performance in IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE is probably my favorite performance by a female actress ever -- this girl is EXTREMELY talented, and awesome; she can speak like 7 languages fluently!). They got married after making this film. They got divorced a few years later, but still made the film "Clean", which was mostly a true story (though Assayas didn't die of a heroin overdose in real life -- sorry for the spoiler, but it's on the back of box and happens in the first 5 minutes!), and quite fascinating. All in all, some of the INSANE visuals, Jean Pierre Leaud (one of my favorite acotrs of all time) and Maggie Cheung's GREAT performances, and the enegy.. let's not forget the final 5 minutes that are even kinda Brakhage-like.. make this one fresh, exciting, wonderful film... it has almost all the elements I look for in films, as a requirement for me to completely love them. So, yeah. There were some really weird, off putting (again, in a bad way) scenes, like the director didn't know what he wanted to do, which was clearly intentional. But yeah. I dug it.
All in all, I reccomend IRMA VEP (yeah, it's, like, the letters from "VAMPIRES".. what are those called? When a word makes up another word? Besides "text twist", heh).
SONIC YOUTH IS ON THE SOUNDTRACK AND IN THIS BADASS TRAILER: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtY0OBL6Tgo
I highly doubt anyone watching that trailer will NOT want to watch that movie now. And I don't blame you... just know that it's missing... something. I hope more people watch it, or have seen it, because I'd really like to discuss it with someone!
No matter what, I find this ASSAYAS character extremely interesting, and not just because of his name. (I also have bought a lot of Zeitgeist films recently, they've been releasing the only Philipe Garrel films that have ever been available on America; badass company right there). Is anyone a fan of him (I know everyone on here has seen Demonlover)? I like him because he's one of the few directors I can't quite figure out.. like, I dont' know what he compels him to do the stuff he does. This is intriguing.
NIGHTMARE IN CHICAGO - 8/10
Wow, what a revelation this is. A dark-as-hell serial killer film by Robert Altman (from the few films I've seen, one of the most talented directors of all time)
MADE FOR TELEVISION MOVIE (later released to theaters) from
1963.... THAT HAS NEVER BEEN RELEASED ON DVD OR VHS. I mean, this thing is truly ahead of its time. It feels like a fucking David Lynch film, for real, at times, in how deadpan it is, like a Blue Velvet type film, not his more surreal stuff. This is an amazing film, I mean wow. This is truly the first of its type, and almost no one has seen it. The picture quality is about a 6/10, probably ripped from a theatrical screener or a reairing of the original broadcast, but that's the best we're going to get right now, though I honestly do think a DVD release will happen sometime in our lifetimes. This is just one of those gems. I'm REALLY glad I found this, here's a much better review than I just did (I know I'm not a good writer):
One of the more amazing artifacts from the 60s, Nightmare in Chicago anticipates David Lynch's deadpan industrial style of film-making and the serial killer phenomenon (in both real life and movies). A wild cast, Phiilip Abbott (later Efram Zimbalist Jr's boss on The FBI) is Georgie Peorgie the Tri-State Killer, who casually strangles a woman in crowded strip club (originally shown on television in about 1963!) and triggers car crashes on the highway for his own amusement. Appearing are Ted Knight (yes, Ted Baxter) Robert Ridgely, Charles McGraw (Narrow Margin? Anyone?). This movie is intense and truly nightmarish, since the on-location production took the crew to Chicago, the actual freeways and freeway rest stops in and around the "Tri-state" area. It only exists as a film shown on television, since I have been looking for it for years and no known commercial copy is in distribution. It used to show up on television in the 70's, but it hasn't been seen for a long time. Think "Carnival of Souls" in color with Chicago and crowded streets and highways subbing for deserted Kansas.