[sassygrrl]

Candy, I'd go for Sleeper or Bananas. I still quote certain parts of Sleeper today to my family because we're a bit silly. Then again, those are the two Woody Allen movies that got me into him. Speaking of which, did any one see his newest one? It's out on DVD now.

I really liked A Serious Man. It was a very dark comedy, but it raised some interesting questions near the end. I really loved that they cast unknowns for the leads. I read they were working on this and No Country for Old Man at the same time.

[designermedusa]

girltrouble, I want to see anti-christ. Your thoughts on the film is exactly how I thought it would be, but it's something that I just have to see for myself.

anna, I saw an advertisement for Skin, I want to see it, but will probably have to wait for dvd if it doesn't get a bigger release.

I saw a film on NetFlix called Bex X, I believe it was from Belgium. It's about autism and bullying, sad, but very interesting.

This weekend I think I'm going to check out Coco Before Chanel, New York, I Love You and maybe A Serious Man.

[girltrouble]

you might want to go for bananas or take the money & run, or sleeper, candy. it's first part of his career, when he was all about the jokes. they are much more playful.

anna, i have the biggest crush on the sophie okonedo. she is so exotic looking.

i saw von trier's anti-christ tonight. such a beautifully shot piece of crap. it was super pretentious, but utterly ridiculous. it was funny reading people talking about how it was a good fusion of arthouse and horror. ugh. i could not disagree more. there are so many other movies that do that fusion better. my friend and i were laughing half way thru the movie.

[anna k]

I had a day off today, so I went to see the movie Skin. It was a really moving and affecting film about race, class, and the apartheid system in South Africa, and how the real story of Sandra Laing was a representation of the racial divides. She was born to white-looking parents, and looked black, and her parents supported apartheid and fought to have her legally declared white. Her being their child and looking black doesn't make them sympathetic to the black Africans, just wanting her to assimilate into being white. It's a powerful drama, and Sophie Okonedo as Sandra captured her shyness, confusion between being white and looking black, and how she couldn't really belong with either race.

I'm really glad that I saw this film, it opened up my eyes to what life under apartheid would be like (like blacks and whites not being under the same roof anywhere). Some telling and sad scenes including young Sandra trying to scrub her dark skin off with a homemade concoction that burns her, or standing outside in front of a clothing store window while her mother is inside the window holding up dresses for her to choose from.

[candycane_girl]

lol, I just looked up Zelig at IMDB and most of the roles appear to be various doctors. I guess I'll figure that one out if I watch it.

I just want something silly that will give me a laugh.

[girltrouble]

zelig is a riot, candy, although it's not like normal woody allen films. but personally, i love that movie. it got me into woody's films. ok, that, sleepers and what's up tigerlily?

i saw both in the theaters, dearest dolor, and i agree. the original knocked me on my ass, the remake was instantly forgettable. it's one of those films you don't even talk about after, because you've lost interest the second the credits roll. there is something to be said for leaving the audience uncomfortable, unhappy, angry or restless, sadly , hollywood hasn't figured that out yet.

i'm curious, dolor, is your film diary a blog? if so, can i have the addy?

[candycane_girl]

I'm finally going to see Where The Wild Things Are this weekend. I have a feeling it'll leave me feeling quite melancholy.

Has anyone seen Zelig, the Woody Allen movie? That's a possible contender for my Saturday night movie. I should also check the tv listings though, sometimes they have good stuff.

[dolor]

Speaking of lame US remakes,
one of the most notorious is the US version of "The Vanishing"-- which tacked on a high adventure finale + happy ending, and lost the distinctive existential creepiness of the original: "Welcome to oblivion..."
And the same (Dutch) director was drafted for the US travesty!

I never saw the (universally panned) US version, but am happy to report that the original Dutch version has recently arrived at Netflix, and so I'll be watching it shortly.

[sassygrrl]

Anna, I loved Frozen River. I agree with you - Melissa Leo was fantastic & I was so proud of her for getting the Oscar nom. I really enjoyed her relationship with her older son too - the way he was looking out for the younger brother.

I saw that recently for my film class and really loved it. I also loved her relationship with her son. I'll keep my eye out for more of Courtney Hunt's films.

I'm going to see A Serious Man tonight.

[kari]

Anna, I loved Frozen River. I agree with you - Melissa Leo was fantastic & I was so proud of her for getting the Oscar nom. I really enjoyed her relationship with her older son too - the way he was looking out for the younger brother.

[girltrouble]

the outlaw cracks me up. but you can see why jane russell had a career, what with that crazy bra

i used to have a movie blog/diary. but i prefer posting here.


been seeing remakes of late, and my usual diet of horror films. saw the uninvited, a super shitty remake of one of my favorite asian horror movies, a tale of two sisters. i don't care if americans remake foreign movies, but at least understand the materials and what makes that first film brilliant. much like the spanish film open your eyes was turned into vanilla sky, the makers of the uninvited drained every bit of subtlety out of it, which was one of the virtues of TOTS. uninvited spells everything out. heaven forbid americans have to figure anything out. i'm sure a dozen test audiences were utilized so everyone leaving the theater felt like their hand was held. [roll eyes] another mistake is that they upscale everything. and they do it here. a claustrophobic little house is turned into a huge house. a dock is turned to a doc boat house, and a spooky scene in TOTS, with some people coming to dinner is turned into a huge dinner party and drained of all it's murky creepiness.

the strangers, a remake of the french horror film, ils, or them, actually downsizes the original, but misses the point. while i didn't think either movie was very good, ils had a few things going for it: for most of the movie you never knew how many people were hunting the main couple. could have been 5 people, could have been 2 dozen. the second was a terrific sense of mundane irony: after a night of killing, the killers, who we discover are about junior high aged kids, come running out of the woods to catch their school bus. this is completely lost on the makers of the strangers, who just make the killers a bunch of faceless vagabonds. the last, and easily the best thing about ils is the first 10 minutes, which was fantastic. so better than both movies.

tomorrow morning i'm going to try to watch charisma, which i've been meaning to see.it's described as "eco- thriller" film. it's directed by kiyoshi kirosawa, (pulse, cure, bright future), one of my favorite directors. and i've been meaning to see it for years. cure, to me is the zenith of the serial killer genre for me, and it's wonderfully made. so charisma should be pretty amazing.

[anna k]

I saw Frozen River tonight, and it stuck with me. It was set at Christmastime, and the cold bitter winter heightened the isolation and desperation of the two main women, and their symbiotic relationship made more sense as the film went on. They felt like real people (which probably helped that they were played by lesser-known actresses), sort of made me think of My Life Without Me (trailer life in Canada, wanting to get out of poverty, big dreams and hopes, making drastic choices for a better life for them and their loved ones). I had wanted to see it last year and didn't get around to it, and am happy that it was an indie success, plus an Oscar nominee for Melissa Leo's heartbreaking performance. It's just a memorable and intimate little film, I'll look forward to whatever the director Courtney Hunt does next, I'm amazed that it was her feature debut.

[likeanyother]

cc_g: Are into sci-fi at all? If you are, you might like Sunshine -- it's one of those movies that's really good to watch alone in the dark as it draws you in and makes you feel like you're on the ship with the characters. I really liked it (the ending is kinda wacky though).

I also recently watched a documentary called Touching the Void, perhaps you've already heard of it since it's been out for a while, but I highly recommend it. Another one that draws you in and keeps you there. It's about two mountain climbers, as unappealing as that may sound, it's really damn good and inspiring.

[candycane_girl]

I'm going to stay home this coming weekend and I just want to rent a movie and relax. I'm trying to think of what to rent now though, so that when I get to the movie store I know what I want. So...has anyone seen any good movies lately?

[dolor]

Cara GirlTrouble,

Yes, I miss you too! I'm sorry that our movie trails don't overlap more often. This is more my fault (so to speak) since my trail skips about all over the place.... and I almost never watch anything current.
We do share an interest in Noir, and I did catch "His kind of Woman" recently, which is somewhat noir-- and then enters deeper into Howard Hughes' bizarritude. In ways that reminded me of the bizarritude of HH's "The Outlaw." I'll return shortly and say a bit more about that.

yr dolor

PS I've recently begun to maintain a film diary-- esp useful in regard to forgetting if I saw X, and what I made of it.

Do you-- or anyone else-- keep one?

[anna k]

I saw a new documentary yesterday called La Danse, about the Paris Opera Ballet. I was split on it. I enjoyed the scenes of ballet dancers rehearsing for a show, being critiqued by the choreographers, and the administration putting together the show. And the dances were incredible to watch, with a lot of fluidity and strength, particularly the stunning Medea and one dance that had this robotic/contemporary feel to it. What I didn't like was that it was two and a half hours long, and seemed way too long for a documentary about dance. Also, the dances and the choreographers were never identified onscreen through captions, and neither were the dancers, so I wouldn't know at times who/what I was watching.

I also watched 9 Souls last week, this Japanese film, and thought it was fantastic, and took what could have been a cliched trope (the prison breakout film a la The Great Escape or The Rock) and turned it into a road movie, where all the prisoners were still imprisoned by their crimes even in the free world, and had a lot of big dreams that probably would go unfulfilled. It was sad and funny and tragic and moving, with gorgeous landscapes of the Japanese countryside and a kickin' rock song that played during their escape.

[kari]

Anna, I saw Bright Star - loved it.

I saw a preview for The Fanstastic Mr. Fox - can't wait!!

Friday night I decided to go to the movies - but it was a bit past 7. So my choices were limited. Ended up seeing a documentary called Chelsea on the Rocks.. Don't bother.

[candycane_girl]

According to one of my friends who actually spoke to the prof, lateral connection means that there are many aspects of a production that connect on a surface level in an interesting way. This is an option, as opposed to only looking at one aspect of a production in great depth.

I finished my proposal last night. I'm at school right now and I'll probably be here till at least 9 so I had to get it done yesterday. Anyway, I'm kind of trying to argue that with the Royal Tenenbaums Wes Anderson becomes a true auteur because the film is viewed almost like a book (there are captions, actual descriptions of the scene at the beginning of each chapter, a narrator, heavy back stories, and so much detail that it could easily become a book). And so there's kind of some irony there because he is an auteur/author of a film/book.

[girltrouble]

i cannot tell you how much i miss you dolor!

[dolor]

La CCG,

Here's a guess at "lateral connection." It's connection on the side, as opposed to direct, head-on connection, and pertains to how the Tenenbaums are a large extended family which does not directly bump against each other (because they are each so caught up in their scenes, their POVs, so as to not see each other clearly, correctly and communicate directly), so instead they bump each other laterally, accidentally, as they scurry about, and interact more haphazardly, rather than straightforwardly...

It's just a guess... Helpful?

Thanks for the hugs and you too T-Gal. We've really worked at being good parents, post-divorce, and have done well... I trust. The divorce was not a ghastly battleground, that we certainly avoided. So awful for children to see their parents attacking each other, & fighting over them...
Meanwhile, I'm down here in delightful Mexico-- Xalapa, Veracruz-- and all is linda y bonita y saboroso.... y verde! Entonces, no tengo dolor aqui... Mas calor que dolor...