[Antagon]

Originally Posted by Toilet & Bowels

Awesome film, have you seen Meshes of the Afternoon?

I've seen parts of it. Actually considered playing the whole thing in the background during one of my gigs. So I started looking into it, but stopped for some reason. I can't recall why, actually. Gotta watch it again, this time in its entirety.

Recent ones:

It Follows: Beautifully eerie atmosphere, stellar score. I was a tiny bit disappointed by the change of approach towards the nature of the creature midway through. For all its freshness it seems like some currently popular horror movie tropes were still fair game. Bit of a shame, but maybe I was expecting too much. Apart from that, it's a gorgeous movie that more than succeeds in creating its own distinct world.

The Babadook: Another recent horror movie that has been getting a lot of praise. Partly I can see why. I thought that some of the scenes did indeed invoke a strong feeling of uneasiness. The depiction of one of the characters's slow decent into madness was masterfully done. It was also quite tense at certain points without resorting to cheap jump scares. There are some things that stuck out like a sore thumb though. The child-character was insufferable at the beginning. During the first half of the movie, he was an extremely unlikeable character. Later on, some possible explanations for his behavior emerge, but by that point the damage had been done. Some of the things that were supposed to be scary were also very hit-or-miss. I even found myself chuckling at things that were meant to be eerie. The psychological horror angle was great, but some things kept me from fully buying it. Overall I'd say I recommend it though.

The Night Of The Hunter: Yes, it was actually the first time I've watched it. And to be honest, I'm kind of shocked I wasn't able to enjoy it as much as I'd hoped to. It's one of the most universally acclaimed films of all time, yet it didn't fully wow me. I can't really point my finger on it though. Was it the constant change of tone? Did I think Robert Mitchum's performance was too over the top? Was it the fact that the gullibility of some of the characters was so off-putting to me that I wasn't fully able to suspend my disbelief? Or maybe it was the cheesy ending? I did love the dreamlike quality of the visuals though.

[evollove]

I've never once made it all the way through MARIENBAD, and I've tried quite a few times. Either sleep or something more interesting interrupted me. Usually sleep. I started to watch in ten minutes chunks. Then five. Then said fuck it. What's weird is I like just about everything else he did. MURIEL is underrated and I thought the recent YOU AIN'T SEEN NOTHING YET was good.

[noisereductions]

Originally Posted by schizophrenicroom

double indemnity

*thumbs up*

[Antagon]

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance: Finally got to watch it in its entirety. I remember only seeing the ending a few years ago. I thought it was pretty longwinded. Sure there were some nice touches, but overall it didn't really do much for me. But maybe a lot of this is due to the terrible German dub. I usually avoid dubs, but it just so happened to be on tv and there was no other option.

Being There: Peter Sellers is amazing in this. And there's something about combining calm, almost meditative cinematography with biting satire.

The Panic In Needle Park: Needed my summerly fix of gritty 1970s-1980s New York-based movies. A young Pacino showing his early acting potential. It started out with deeply flawed but likeable protagonists and spiralled into something way more sinister. It did stretch a bit at certain points but a fine movie overall.

The Conversation: This has got to be one of my all-time favorite suspense-based movies. Hackman is great and the sound-editing plus forboding visuals make for a haunting viewing experience. Coppola had quite a run in the 70s.

[ilduclo]

haven't watched it yet, but there's a new-ish (2oi4) Roy Andersson one out

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1883180/?ref_=nm_knf_t3

can't wait, as I can't think of anyone who more correctly sees modern man in all his ridiculousness and subtleties. You should watch the trailer for it! "A shrimp sandwich and a draught beer for free"

[!@#$%!]

 

SLEEP DEALER (alex rivera, 2008) - great little fucking cyberpunk-ish movie. clearly derivative but also original-- a good straighforward script that makes great/funny critiques of border economies. acting and directing and production values may be a bit bantamweight but hey, the movie delivers for my taste. i thought the writer/director was mexican but turns out he's from nueva york. so he's rudy after all! good yob. watchit, ése.

Originally Posted by Antagon

The Conversation: This has got to be one of my all-time favorite suspense-based movies. Hackman is great and the sound-editing plus forboding visuals make for a haunting viewing experience. Coppola had quite a run in the 70s.

that was the american remake of antonioni's "blow-up", wasn't it? i haven't seen it. seen blow-up maybe 3 times? gets better each time. blow-up is actually an adaptation of julio cortázar's "las babas del diablo," which is a really good & strange short story you should probably read if either a) you read spanish or b) can get a good translation. not sure what languages you read but seeing as how he ended up living in france maybe the french translations are good/personally supervised. maybe. but anyway. cortázar. impressed me a lot when i was a lil' kid.

[Antagon]

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

that was the american remake of antonioni's "blow-up", wasn't it? i haven't seen it. seen blow-up maybe 3 times? gets better each time. blow-up is actually an adaptation of julio cortázar's "las babas del diablo," which is a really good & strange short story you should probably read if either a) you read spanish or b) can get a good translation. not sure what languages you read but seeing as how he ended up living in france maybe the french translations are good/personally supervised. maybe. but anyway. cortázar. impressed me a lot when i was a lil' kid.

It's not really a remake of Blow-Up, but Coppola said he was influenced by it and both are dealing with similar issues. It was a key-influence on some of the themes, but the approach of each respective film is quite different. Both gravitate towards secretly uncovering something by means of technology. But The Conversation is a lot more focused on the dangers of the technology in question. It's a movie about wire-tapping after all. And Gene Hackman's protagonist couldn't be more different from David Hemmings's Thomas. He's a careful, increasingly paranoid religious man who is starting to question the implications of his profession. The Conversation is a slow-moving, but incredibly tense and atmospheric film. The visuals are gritty and beautifully arranged. Combined with the sound of the recordings, there's always the notion of an ominous presence in the background. I think you might like it.

[evollove]

Originally Posted by Antagon

a slow-moving, but incredibly tense and atmospheric film.

I've been meaning to ask, are you a big Bergman fan? You seem to have patience for the slow stuff. I don't, but I make an exception for a man I consider on par with any other truly great artist of the 20th century, like Stravinsky or Picasso.

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by Antagon

It's not really a remake of Blow-Up, but Coppola said he was influenced by it and both are dealing with similar issues. It was a key-influence on some of the themes, but the approach of each respective film is quite different. Both gravitate towards secretly uncovering something by means of technology. But The Conversation is a lot more focused on the dangers of the technology in question. It's a movie about wire-tapping after all. And Gene Hackman's protagonist couldn't be more different from David Hemmings's Thomas. He's a careful, increasingly paranoid religious man who is starting to question the implications of his profession. The Conversation is a slow-moving, but incredibly tense and atmospheric film. The visuals are gritty and beautifully arranged. Combined with the sound of the recordings, there's always the notion of an ominous presence in the background. I think you might like it.

i see. i might check it out... thanks!

if you haven't yet, then see "the lives of others" about a stasi wiretapper (it's a german movie). eh, you've probably seen it already.

[demonrail666]

I like Antonioni but I've never been able to get into Blow Up. Compared with his earlier films it's dated quite badly. Certainly some scenes just make me cringe. I suppose you could say that about the swinging 60s generally but it does increasingly feel more to me like a symptom of that time rather than any real analysis of it.

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by demonrail666

I like Antonioni but I've never been able to get into Blow Up. Compared with his earlier films it's dated quite badly. Certainly some scenes just make me cringe. I suppose you could say that about the swinging 60s generally but it does increasingly feel more to me like a symptom of that time rather than any real analysis of it.

antonioni always specialized in portraying empty worlds

[Antagon]

Originally Posted by evollove

I've been meaning to ask, are you a big Bergman fan? You seem to have patience for the slow stuff. I don't, but I make an exception for a man I consider on par with any other truly great artist of the 20th century, like Stravinsky or Picasso.

I loved every one of his films I've seen so far. Love me some Bergman. I do have patience for slow-paced stuff that doesn't necessarily feel slow. There are plenty of movies that aren't the most eventful in terms of plot points or busy imagery/action, but keep you intrigued through their atmosphere and little touches here and there. Technically speaking, The Conversation actually did have a slower pace than most other Thrillers, but never did it feel slow to me. It's just a perfect mix of tension and character development that made it a great experience. I did find the pacing of films like Stranger Than Paradise or, as mentioned before, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance off-putting though. But I do have to admit that the first one does have its own charm nonetheless. I guess whether a film is just slow-paced or actually feels slow is a very subjective thing.

[Antagon]

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

i see. i might check it out... thanks!

if you haven't yet, then see "the lives of others" about a stasi wiretapper (it's a german movie). eh, you've probably seen it already.

Yes, loved it!

[demonrail666]

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

antonioni always specialized in portraying empty worlds

Yeah, but when I watch Blow Up I come away thinking it's a bit of an empty film, which I never do with L'Avventura, or L'Eclisse or any of his Italian films up till then. Blow Up for me seems to suffer from the same problem as Zabriskie Point in that I'm not convinced Antonioni ever really got the culture(s) he was commenting on, so wasn't able to say anything particularly interesting about it/them.

Another big problem with both films I think is that I'm not sure the cast understood him at all. He benefitted enormously from having Monica Vitti in those earlier Italian films. She seemed to instinctively get what he was doing and it could be argued that his films always suffered when she wasn't around. Certainly Hemmings (a competent actor at best) seems totally out of his depth and even Vanessa Redgrave has admitted she felt inhibited by Antonioni's reputation and unsure what he expected from her.

[Toilet & Bowels]

I saw Blow Up when I was a teenager and it seemed absurdly out of date to me, that could have been due to my age at the time but my gut feeling says not. I've had L'Avventura on my shelf for a while, maybe I'll watch it soon.
I'm going to watch Journey to Italy tomorrow, which I'm quite excited about.

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by demonrail666

Yeah, but when I watch Blow Up I come away thinking it's a bit of an empty film, which I never do with L'Avventura, or L'Eclisse or any of his Italian films up till then. Blow Up for me seems to suffer from the same problem as Zabriskie Point in that I'm not convinced Antonioni ever really got the culture(s) he was commenting on, so wasn't able to say anything particularly interesting about it/them.

Another big problem with both films I think is that I'm not sure the cast understood him at all. He benefitted enormously from having Monica Vitti in those earlier Italian films. She seemed to instinctively get what he was doing and it could be argued that his films always suffered when she wasn't around. Certainly Hemmings (a competent actor at best) seems totally out of his depth and even Vanessa Redgrave has admitted she felt inhibited by Antonioni's reputation and unsure what he expected from her.

his actors were not vitti? sure. the culture gap? maybe. empty film? doesn't feel like that to me at all. if anything i've grown more fond of it once i got past the titillation of the first viewing. the movie is not about the apparent (and now-dated) "cool." it's (for me anyway) about the emptiness behind it.

here 2 different reviews: one from 1966, another from 1998 (this last one by ebert).

the one from '66 calls the performances "excellent," and ends like this:

How a picture as meaningful as this one could be blackballed is hard to understand. Perhaps it is because it is too candid, too uncomfortably disturbing, about the dehumanizing potential of photography.

ebert makes some awesome points too, such as this one which maybe addresses toilet's teenage impressions:

Young audiences aren't interested any more in a movie about a "trendy" London photographer who may or may not have witnessed a murder, who lives a life of cynicism and ennui, and who ends up in a park at dawn, watching college kids play tennis with an imaginary ball. The twentysomethings who bought tickets for "Blow-Up" are now focused on ironic, self-referential slasher movies. Americans flew to "swinging London" in the 1960s; today's Londoners pile onto the charter jets to Orlando.

anyway, i am a little tired to compose a full argument and it's been a while since i last watched so i don't have everything at my fingertips it but i leave you with these links which are much more articulate than i could be right now (or maybe ever):

http://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?...B467838D679EDE

http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/gr...e-blow-up-1966

ebert gave it a 4/4. i would too if i used those numbers.

[demonrail666]

I get its point I just never thought it was a particularly interesting one. By 66, the 'emptiness' argument had already become something of a pop cultural staple (the Stones Satisfaction, Richard Hamilton's collages, etc) and I'm not sure Antonioni adds much to it. As for the film itself, we can agree to disagree about the acting. Some obviously think Hemmings did a good job while I'm not convinced, but that's a subjective point on both sides. For me Blow Up ultimately remains a movie in Antonioni's second or even third tier (not a massive criticism given how much I like a lot of his other films) but an interesting curiosity in terms of 60s film overall - although, as an analysis of the era/scene, I put it below Nic Roeg's Performance or even Richard Lester's The Knack.

Anyway, had a bit of a teen nostalgia-fest this past few days, watching films I loved when I was growing up.

The Warriors; The Wanderers; Mad Max II; Death With; Dawn of the Dead.

Loved them then, still love them now.

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by demonrail666

I get its point I just never thought it was a particularly interesting one. By 66, the 'emptiness' argument had already become something of a pop cultural staple (the Stones Satisfaction, Richard Hamilton's collages, etc) and I'm not sure Antonioni adds much to it.

la dolce vita really wrote the book on that subject

=====

last night, or maybe it was the night before, saw fassbinder's "LOVE IS COLDER THAN DEATH". from 1969. his earliest film i could get on DVD.

 

i totally see the pre/post "sirk" (supposedly) transition. this film is dedicated to claude chabrol and eric rohmer and two other people whose names i didn't recognize/can't remember now, but more than rohmer it looks to me a strongly godard-influence movie with maybe a whiff of melville's gangster iconography.

cheaply made but not bad considering the times. some takes are just too fucking long but that i suppose goes with the movie. merchant of four seasons was made the following year and it's a huge leap in style-- not just the obvious use of color but the injection of overwrought emotion as well as the social critique that would characterize him later.

--

ps i think i realy like hanna schygulla in his films

[Diesel]

It Follows
Wyrmwood
Crawl Or Die
The Battery

All Propa gud! buh

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by Robert Schunk

I've always thought Blow Up was about the limitations inherent in artistic media themselves. In other words, did his photography actually document a homicide or did it merely create an artifact due to the limitations inherent in representing three-dimentional reality in two dimensions? (Actually, adding time, which still photography omits entirely, he's really squeezing four dimensions into two.) Is he really seeing a murder in his photos or is he merely looking too hard at his own creation? That he was active in London-in-the-Sixties is not necessarily relevant, except to reduce the artistic frame of reference to a passing pop-cultural phenomenon (which is meant to be ephemeral, anyways) rather than attempting the same with "Great Art", say, Alfred Stieglitz, which might have seemed a bit Dadaist at the time.

right, that's there too, and that is (maybe?) in the original cortázar story, which happens in paris to an amateur photographer-- not to a "cool" guy or in any kind of "scene".

but antonioni was famous for his portrayals of emptiness, which he definitely adds here. one theme, multiple variations.