Film Log, '10

Submitted by Menindrag on Sun, 01/24/2010 - 08:01
Tags: 
  • Delicious
  • Digg
  • StumbleUpon
  • Facebook
  • Google
  • Technorati
  1. Lolita - Stanley Kubrick(1962) Gr. Peter Sellers steals the show on this.
  2. Stoned - Stephen Woolley(1962) B. Just an awful film about Brian Jones.
  3. To Kill a Mockingbird - Robert Mulligan(1962) G. Gregory Peck is just a darling in this.
  4. Stand By Me - Rob Reiner(1986) A.
  5. Barry Lyndon - Stanley Kubrick(1975) M.
  6. The Shining - Stanley Kubrick(1980) M.
  7. Taxi Driver - Martin Scorsese(1976) Gr.
  8. Pierrot le Fou - Jean-Luc Godard(1965) M.
  9. A Woman Under The Influence - John Cassavettes (1974) Gr.
  10. A Serious Man - The Coen Brothers (2009) G. I think i would of enjoyed it more if I were Jewish but the Coen magic still made it worthwhile.
  11. My Neighbour Totoro - Hayao Miyazaki (1988) G. Has it's moments. Totoro at the bus stop springs to mind.
  12. The End Of Evangelion - Hideaki Anno (1997) T. Stupid alternative ending to one of the best animes I've ever seen. Completely overblown and pretentious, taking the subtleness of the series (well, as sublte as a program about giant fighting robots, cloned out of a biblical being, piloted by 14 year olds fighting against monsters named after angels which ends in every human being becoming one primordial soup, can be...) Episode 25 &26 of the series were some of the greatest things I've ever seen. This is just bullshit
  13. Grave Of The Fireflies - Isao Takahata (1988) Gr.
  14. Voices Of A Distant Star - Makoto Shinkai (2003) G.
  15. Princess Mononoke - Hayao Miyazaki (1997) Gr.
  16. Ghost In The Shell - Mamoru Oshii (1995) G.
  17. Howl's Moving Castle - Hayao Miyazaki (2004) A.
  18. 5 Centimeters Per Second - Makoto Shinkai (2008) M. Shinkai is the animated Tarkovsky.
  19. Spirited Away - Hayao Miyazaki (2001) Gr.
  20. El laberinto del fauno - Guillermo del Toro (2006) Gr.
  21. Modern Times - Charlie Chaplin (1936) Gr.
  22. Sunset Boulevard - Billy Wilder (1950) Gr.
  23. Nanny Mcphee & The Big Bang - Susanna White (2010) T.
  24. City Lights - Charlie Chaplin (1931) M.
  25. A Single Man - Tom Ford (2009) G. Colin Firth is brilliant in this, of course he is his usual civilized Englishwenchman but he also manages to be a harrowing, depressed wreck of a man more than ready to kill himself, and still retain his dignity. Also, Nicholas Hoult is dandy in it, showing he has substance unlike some of his other less um, yeah ex-Skinsian colleges.
  26. Green Zone - Peter Greengrass (2010) A.
  27. In The Loop - Armando Iannucci (2009) Gr.
  28. Saving Private Ryan - Steven Spielberg (1998) Gr.
  29. Gladiator - Ridley Scott (2000) G.
  30. Stalker - Andrei Tarkovsky (1979) M. Tarkovsky does it again, this may even top The Mirror and Nostalghia for me.
  31. Touch Of Evil - Orson Welles (1958) Gr.
  32. The Mummy Returns - Stephen Sommers (2001) T. I would just like to make a point. This film features massacres, innocent killings, people being eaten alive by bugs, a merciless killing of a mother in front of her son, torture, people being burnt alive, the 'hero' of the story shooting innocent by standers and showing no remorse, someone was pulled apart and his peices thrown across the room. It even shows a man showing pleasure out of the thought of brutally killing an 8 year old child. And this was a 12A? Shown on daytime television? And yet you can't say the work fuck before 9 o clock? I may be repeating a point made on Apocalypse Now, but I would rather be future child here the word fuck than see someone eaten alive by insects. More people are killed, and in more vicious ways than in any Tarantino film, even in video games such as Call Of Duty. Atleast they have 16 & 18 ratings, and yet they get all the controversy whereas films like this, the worst people say about them is that it's a bad film, not morally but in quality. I just find this kinda strange, that in many 'family' films, it shows killings and often those killings are shown to be good & a happy ending. And then we wonder why our kids are violent?
  33. The Seventh Seal - Ingmar Bergman (1957) M.
  34. Pickpocket - Robert Bresson (1959) M.
  35. The Bourne Ultimatum - Paul Greengrass (2007) G.
  36. The Elephant Man - David Lynch (1980) B. The film was doing the one thing it reprobated, it was exploiting John Merrick, his history. Hypocrisy surrounds this film. They were trying to be kind to him, but ended up patronizing him. They wanted to give him a better life, but ended up exploiting him. Even the film, which is meant to be a drama about him, ended up using his story, giving the viewing the same cheap thrills as the carnival goers. David Lynch's genius as a film maker just made this watchable, but I thought it was, well, a highly shameless film.
  37. Persona - Ingmar Bergman (1966) Gr. Was Alma in love with Elisabet?
  38. The Bourne Supremacy - Paul Greengrass (2004) B.
  39. The Bourne Identity - Doug Liman (2002) A.
  40. Citizen Kane - Orson Welles (1941) Gr. Finally got around to watching it.
  41. Au hasard Balthazar - Robert Bresson (1966) M.
  42. Nostalghia - Andrei Tarkovsky (1983) M.
  43. Banshun - Yasujirō Ozu (1949) M. Absolutely beautiful. Understated, modest, solemn. The final scene with the father peeling the apple is of the most heartbreaking moments in cinema I have seen so far.
  44. Meshes Of The Afternoon - Maya Deren, Alexander Hammid (1943) G. I guess...? I don't know much about experimental cinema. I'm told this is a masterpiece, but I can't work out whether I think it is one...someone help please.
  45. La passion de Jeanne d'Arc - Carl Dreyer (1928) M. Those eyes...
  46. Werckmeister Harmóniák - Béla Tarr (2000) M.
  47. The Godfather: Part II - Francis Ford Coppola (1974) Gr.
  48. The Godfather - Francis Ford Coppola (1972) M.
  49. The New World - Terrence Malick (2005) G. Surprisingly good.
  50. There Will Be Blood - Paul Thomas Anderson (2007) Gr. The whole film like a sermon, like oil being raised from the ground in sacramental beauty. The baptism sums up the whole film in a few minutes. Slowly raising, slowly building into a brutal climax of blasphemous agony. I drink your milkshake, will go down in the canon of classic movie quotes.
  51. Irréversible - Gaspar Noé (2002) B. The first half breaches on torture-porn. I felt it was a deliberate attempt by the director to push past our limits and make is feel physically sick, without actually having much substance. It had about as much true feeling as double penetration does romance. However, the second half is better. The scene in the tube shows a flash of genius from Noé, if only temporary. The actual backwards narrative worked, however they either didn't push the notion of Fate & 'Tiem Destroys Everything' enough or they pushed it too much, I can't tell. I like the flowing camera work & editing to make each scene one long take, however as some points the camera got too much. The scene in 'The Rectum' for example, however the rape scene is shot with Kubrick'ian honest. Flawed, with only flashes of brilliance.
  52. Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo - Sergio Leone (1966) Gr. Easier to digest than once upon a time, just as brilliant. Leone is a genius.
  53. C'era una volta il West - Sergio Leone (1968) M
  54. Pi - Darren Aronofsky (1998) G
  55. Mulholland Drive - David Lynch (2001) B. I just really didn't like this. I expected too. I love Lynch, Inland Empire is one of my all time favorite films but I just didn't like this. I found it tedious, boring, self indulgent aswell. Even more so than Inland Empire. Inland Empire was a horrific dream land filled with stream of consciousness imagery and Freudian logic, but Mul Dr. It couldn't work out whether it was meant to be a satire of Hollywood, a surreal dream land or a noir tribute. It just didn't fit for me. I'm sorry guys, but it just didn't.
  56. Lost In Translation - Sofia Coppola (2003) Gr
  57. Primer - Shane Carruth (2004) G
  58. Curse of the Golden Flower - Zhang Yimou (2006) A
  59. Silence Of The Lambs - Jonathan Demme (1991) G
  60. Requiem Of A Dream - Zhang Yimou (2006) Gr
  61. Blade Runner - Ridley Scott (1982) M
  62. Synecdoche, New York - Charlie Kaufman (2008) M
  63. Meeting People Is Easy - Grant Gee (2008) B
  64. Inglorious Basterds - Quentin Tarantino (2009) G
Author Comments: 

M: Masterpiece
Gr: Great
G: Good
A: Average
B: Bad
T: Terrible

kaplan02/07/2010

Any chance you might join the Listology Scoreboard? It's innocent but fun. You find it here.

khriz02/05/2010

With regards to Mulholland Dr. couldn't you interpret it as being all three of those things? I mean like all Lynch movies it is heavily metaphorical and complexly layered so I certainly think it could be interpreted in a number of ways. Have you seen Bergman's Persona?

Out of interest did you know what was coming in Irreversible before watching it?

Menindrag02/06/2010

It most certainly is about all those things, and I normally love films which have multiple meaning & subjects. But this one, I don't know. It came out more a brown, sticky mess of molded colours rather than a Cy Twombly painting if that makes sense. And I watched Persona a long time ago, I need a re watch of that.

And yeah, well. I knew there was a murder & a rape scene. But I didn't realise how realistic & how brutal it was going to be.

Elston02/14/2010

Interesting thoughts on the Elephant Man. Didn't you think the film was largely aware it was exploiting John Merrick (or rather, exploiting the story of people who exploited John Merrick?) There's a scene early on where Anthony Hopkins shows off Merrick to a room full of doctors. The opening of that shot is a close-up of a spot-light, which looks very much like a projector (and the lecture hall could be a movie theatre). I get the feeling the filmmakers were aware of the irony and were in many ways poking fun at the audience who all came to see the freak. Instead they delivered a surprisingly humane treatment of the man (minus the embarassing Hollywood moments). Anyway, I do fully concur that Lynch's genius is squirted all over this thing. This film and Eraserhead have convinced me he's one of the utmost genius' of using sound in film. And of course the visuals are good as usual (love the ending sequence when Merrick kills himself, to name just one).