Aug 6, 2016

ok last set of stills, trailer coming in September.

 

Jul 11, 2016

Just watched The Forbidden Room, which is simultaneously one of the most engrossing and exhaustive experiences I've ever had with a film. It's easily one of Maddin's most fleshed out homages to cinema, Such a hilarious, insane, unnerving, and ridiculously entertaining homage to myriad genre and eras of film that, despite it's slightly overlong running time, remains fascinating as it goes deeper and deeper down a rabbit hole of distorted images, dreams, and lost films.

 

Jul 7, 2016

Yo! I saw the quite great film section here and really figured I should join the forum!

 

May 26, 2016

Guys, I finally met @Woody. I'd liken it to the De Niro and Pacino diner scene in Heat...except exceedingly cordial.

 

Feb 23, 2016

@MovieSXN.. dear friends... @Narsh

Sunday is the Oscars. In advance, Newsweek paid me $$ to write an SNL guide to oscars, as fmr head writer Adam McKay is on the cusp of winning Best Adapted Screenplay. It's comprehensive-ish and you all should read with pride:
http://www.newsweek.com/looking-all-snl-staffers-received-oscar-nods-429584?piano_t=1

 

Jan 6, 2016

I think it's essential to stay current with new releases. There are so many films that you must check off your list, if you're trying to watch everything, and doing that in addition to having to catch up with newer releases makes things even more difficult. So, if you're staying current, I feel like you can set aside the time to watch older films when you want to. I think this is a great time to be alive and experiencing/watching/movies movies. There is so much variety.

 

Dec 24, 2015

Guys, I have some tragic news. I was watching The Force Awakens and there were just 15-20 minutes left and s--- was getting real, but then suddenly...the f---ing fire alarm went off!!!

It was a false alarm but the wait was too long to restart, so as of now, I still don't know how it ends!

This world is a dumpster fire.

 

Dec 22, 2015

"Well, I think the word “spiritual” gets me off the hook. I just shot it and wrapped it recently, and it has nothing to do with Dazed and Confused other than it would be set four years later, when one of the younger characters went off to college. It’s a party film. It’s really about the beginning of school, not the end of the school year. I guess personally or autobiographically it’s kind of in that realm, but it’s also a continuation of Boyhood, believe it or not. I don’t know if one film can be a sequel to two different movies, but it begins right where Boyhood ends with a guy showing up at college and meeting his new roommates and a girl. It overlaps with the end of Boyhood."

http://thefilmstage.com/news/richar...im-talking-about-picks-up-where-boyhood-ends/

 

Dec 3, 2015

Korine has full creative control, and his films are imprinted with a distinguishable signature. He is an auteur.
Michael Bay is also an auteur.

Based on the latter, being an auteur isn't synonymous with good filmmaking. Being an auteur is synonymous with having a cohesive body of work, whether you relate to that body of work or not is up to you. It can be trusted that a great auteur with whom you 'click' with will have an entire body of work of interest to you. A non director, like Aaron Sorkin, or even cinematographers like Lubezki, cannot be called auteurs, even if a similarity in the meaning of the word applies.

PS: I think Tarantino is a worse auteur than Korine. And I don't even like Korine much.

 

Nov 26, 2015

Creed was dope.

I hadn't seen a single Rocky film until a few months ago -- and now I've seen all. Creed is definitely its own thing, but is effective in its nod to the previous films of the franchise. The Rocky films are always so formulaic and cheesy, but it's always been so rewarding and fulfilling. Creed has a lot of that, but it's effective because you just buy into its formula.

It's fun seeing Ryan Coogler inject some of his filmmaking in a big studio film like this. Michael B. Jordan is great as well.

 

Oct 22, 2015

posting some of my writing per @captain awesome request

Leviathan (Andrei Zvyagintsev)

Zvyagintsev’s highly praised, Leviathan, opens and ends with shots displaying nature at its most bleak and violent while he spends the time in between exploring the same concepts with people and civilization. The focus here is a rather small scale story of a man and his family who are on the verge of having their land seized by the local government, but it translates into a universal account that suggests our rights as human beings are often ignored by overpowering authority figures. Similar to the Coen Brothers’ A Serious Man albeit much different in approach and tone, the film is a retelling of the Book of Job with Nikolay (Aleksey Serebryakov) as our simple man protagonist who sees his entire life crash down around him. Together with his second wife, Lydia (Elena Lyadova), and his son, Romka (Sergey Pokhodaev), Nikolay lives in a humble house near the sea that was passed down through several generations; everything he knows and lives for resides on this land and he’s not willing to admit defeat at the force of the despicable local mayor, Mer (Roman Madyanov). Nikolay calls upon an old army comrade, Dmitriy (Vladimir Vdovichenkov), who is now a big shot lawyer in Moscow to represent him in court. As expected, Nikolay’s attempt at pleading his defense gets brushed aside in court as the judge robotically reads off the verdict as if they didn’t even think of taking his defense into consideration. This brings Nikolay and Dmitriy back to the drawing board where Dmitriy assures the family that things will work their way out even if he has to resort to blackmailing the mayor with a folder full of political corruption evidence he prepared. The first stretch of the film feels a bit mechanical in setting up its premise but it slowly steers off into a more personal look at the effect the case has on Nikolay’s mentality as well as the state of the relationships within his family.

The unfortunate situation leads Nikolay to guzzling liters of vodka which only leads to more problems and a further disconnection from his wife and child who are not in the greatest spirits themselves. Romka hasn’t yet adjusted to the idea of having a new mother plus the inevitable changes to come and lack of immediate support from a parental figure only leave him more desperate. Lydia feels alone and distant in a household that doesn’t appreciate her efforts which drives her to make some poor decisions which work to further complicate their lives. It’s Elena Lyadova’s portrayal of Lyida that allows for an emotional connection as we’re able to sympathize with her even at her lowest moments. As the film progresses we gradually feel the situation taking its toll and what started as a bleak but sometimes humorous story turns into something unrelentingly dark and devastating. We switch back and forth between the family’s struggles and the political forces who bestowed their fate as we observe the nasty nature of human beings and how the craving for power and dominance will stop at nothing even if it means shattering others to reach the goal. The glorious photography from frequent Zvyagintsev collaborator, Mikhail Krichman, masterfully captures the haunting environment through which the characters move as well as that which surrounds them to create a fittingly dark atmosphere. Zvyagintsev’s refusal to spoon-feed the viewer makes for an engaging watch as we’re left to speculate on the outcome of certain scenes before we’re offered the pieces required to fit the puzzle. The approach here is admittedly distant and calculated but that didn’t stop me from being emotionally invested, perhaps it’s due to my familiarity with these sorts of happenings being from Eastern Europe but I don’t often leave a film feeling so deeply affected and depressed. This is through and through an exceptionally crafted work that is not easy to shake off and embodies precise relevance in today’s world.


A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (Ana Lily Amirpour)

Ana Lily Amirpour’s feature film debut places us in the middle of the imaginative town of Bad City where the reality of everyday life is suspended as a ways of emphasizing on the loneliness and isolation each of its inhabitants faces. A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night was initially marketed as an Iranian vampire horror film but the film itself is actually less of a horror film and more of a romantic love story. The film certainly features some haunting elements but at its core it’s a simple tale of two lonely people coming together and finding comfort in one another regardless of their differences.

The girl referred to in the film’s title (Sheila Vand) is a vampire who lurks through the night watching over the people of Bad City and enforcing her moral code where she sees fit such as when she sees a local prostitute, Atti (Mozhan Marno), being taken advantage of by a smug d--- dealer, Saeed (Dominic Rains). Her eventual love interest is a young man named Arash (Arash Marandi) who strolls around town in his vintage Thunderbird, which he is proud to own after years of hard work, along with his new cat companion until he is confronted with trouble due to the debts his incompetent father, Hossein (Marshall Manesh), acquired through his drug addiction. We follow these central characters and quietly observe their lives and how they and those around them cope with existence, often turning to drugs and sex as an escape.

The story is told patiently with little use of dialogue while the visuals, sound design and use of music play an integral role in conveying its essence. Lyle Vincent’s lush black and white cinematography effectively captures the eerily luminescent aura of this run-down town and along with the diverse rock soundtrack infused with the western-influenced score, Amiropour creates an unshakable atmosphere that this wholly unique world she’s presenting thrives off of. Amirpour also has a brilliant eye for composition which is best represented in the film’s centerpiece “disco ball scene” in which our two lovers share their first intimate moment over the tune of the song “Death” by the band White Lies while a disco ball is rapidly spinning, projecting scattering lights on the wall as the characters gravitate towards each other.

Many critics have extensively noted the filmmakers from who Amirpour may have drawn influence from such as David Lynch, Jim Jarmusch and Quentin Tarantino but her vision is much more unique and refreshing than she is given credit for; you would be hard pressed to find another film with the defining image of an Iranian vampire girl wearing a chador while cruising on a skateboard down a dark, deserted street. It’s Amirpour’s thorough knowledge of both Iranian and American culture that allowed her to create something within the genre that stands apart from the rest, and her decision to set the film in Iran and s---t it in California put her in a position where her creative control could flourish and she could tell her story without any boundaries. The film is universally relatable as we have all felt lonely at one point or another in our lives and Amirpour’s impressive talents as a writer and director cement her as one of the most exciting and promising cinematic voices of her generation.


Like Someone in Love (Abbas Kiarostami)

In recent years, Abbas Kiarostami has chosen to move away from the comfort zone of his home country Iran in order to get a better understanding of the world and its people on larger scale, yet the pictures he comes up with are every bit as personal and intimate as his previous films and he is perhaps able to further explore certain themes that have been recurring in his work throughout his career. In his second feature made outside of Iran after the Italy-set Certified Copy, he chooses to observe life in modern day Japan. Interestingly enough, Kiarostami had a script and the idea of shooting in Japan for a decade before the film was actually made but he chose to hold off because he didn’t feel he was at the right age to fully understand and relate to the film’s older character. The film revolves around the central character of Akiko who is a student by day and an escort by night and her interactions with an old writer, translator and retired professor who hires her for a night and her jealous fiancée who is suspicious of how she spends her time away from him. Kiarostami manages to create a powerful connection between the viewer and the characters by withholding any information we would typically get in a film such as backstory for the characters and instead presents each situation in the same way we would perceive real life; this way we have to gather what we can about the characters by observing only what is happening in the moment.

The very first shot of the film starts us in the middle of a scene where we’re in a café and the camera is fixated on people sitting at tables and talking, we’re unsure what to make of it until we hear an off-screen voice proclaim “I’m not lying” which turns out to be Akiko as she argues with her fiancée on the phone and we soon realize that she is in fact lying to him about her whereabouts. The conversation leaves Akiko annoyed and flustered and from that quick conversation and only hearing Akiko’s end of the line we are able to gain an understanding of the status of their relationship and that Akiko is clearly not happy with him. We are introduced to the next key character when a man sits down at Akiko’s table and begins to feed her advice before proceeding to persuade her into taking a job for an “important client,” we then realize that this is actually her p----, Hiroshi. Akiko endlessly refuses the task stating that she had plans to study and meet her grandmother who is in town visiting but Hiroshi won’t let up until Akiko eventually bursts out of anger and breaks the scene. The next shot is the first striking use of reflection in the film which has Hiroshi outside of the café taking a phone call with his figure being reflected on the café window as Akiko moves about inside gathering her belongings; this is the first instance that places two characters in the same frame while showing how disconnected they are from each other, this concept is later revisited in a shot inside the professor’s apartment which sees Akiko being reflected through an off TV as the professor struggles to converse with her and then again in the professor’s car as we see her reflection through the rear-view mirror while her fiancée is working under the hood. The following sequence is an incredibly heartbreaking one which features Akiko sitting in the backseat of a taxi listening to the voicemails her grandmother left her throughout the day as she rides to her destination. The emotional connection felt in this scene speaks levels for its execution as we don’t know much about Akiko at this point but we can see and feel the pain in her eyes as she stares out the window and listens to her grandmother’s voice. At one point, Akiko asks the driver to circle around the nearby train station in hopes of catching a glimpse of her grandmother before she takes off and by her unfortunate luck, she is rejected the opportunity of seeing her face as there is a van that blocks her point of view each go around.

The eventual confrontation with the professor, Takashi Watanabe, takes place inside his apartment where he and Akiko awkwardly try to make conversation as she playfully compares herself to the girl in a painting hanging on his wall as well as two women she sees in framed pictures around his apartment which we could assume are his wife and daughter. This all plays into the title, Like Someone in Love, which stands for the idea that these characters are “like” something but not quite the real deal. This is further explored the following day when the professor drops Akiko off at school and we are finally properly introduced to her fiancée, Noriaki, who mistakes the professor for her grandfather and he goes along with it as he feels that he is like a grandfather figure to her. The same could be said about Akiko and Noriaki’s relationship as Noriaki feels like he is in love with her yet it seems more like he’s using the idea of love and marriage as a ways of gaining control over her. Akiko is at a point in her life in which she is constantly feeling controlled by the men around her, whether it be her p----, her fiancée or now the professor, who doesn’t necessarily have bad intentions but might be using her as a replacement for his actual granddaughter who never visits him which is hinted at during a conversation Akiko has with his nosy next-door neighbor. All of this pressure placed on Akiko eventually comes crashing down in a harrowing finale that doesn’t feel much like an ending at all and leaves us with one of the most terrifying and lasting final shots of recent years.

Kiarostami takes his time with every scene and the film can’t be said to be very eventful but this sense of real-time allows for a more personal connection between the viewer and the characters and story. This can also be attributed to his handling of the actors as he claims that he refused to provide any of them with a full script but instead only gave them the few pages they were going to s---t each day which made the acting more natural and in the moment since the actors were never sure of where the film was headed. The actor in the role of the old professor, Tadashi Okuno, is a life-long extra who had never once spoken a word in a film despite appearing in numerous films throughout his lengthy career; but more than anyone else auditioned, Kiarostami was able to understand him and they built a spiritual connection that rubbed off on the film and gave it the pure and intimate quality that shines through. Kiarostami being a foreigner in the land of Japan gives him the role of an observer rather than that of a filmmaker who is in complete control over his surroundings; he’s there simply to attempt to capture some truthful moments in hopes of learning more about the culture and its people for himself. This completely honest expression strongly resonates with me because the idea of looking to unfamiliar parts of the world in order to learn more about one’s self and human nature is absolutely fascinating. Kiarostami has stated that he had a great time working with the Japanese crew and listed it as one of the most fulfilling filmmaking experiences of his entire career and it really shows in the final product as every piece blends together perfectly. The photography by Katsumi Yanagijima captures the rather limited locations in a subtle manner creating images that are at once simple and incredibly effective. There is a feeling of quietness apparent through most of the run time as music is only used at two different points; both instances use the song “Like Someone in Love” by Ella Fitzgerald and it fits wonderfully in both cases: it is first played quietly through a stereo in the professor’s apartment as he carefully arranges the dinner table for Akiko and himself and again in the end credits following the startling and abrupt ending which gives it a heightened effect. The film starts and ends in the middle of scenes attempting to mimic life situations as we don’t often have clear beginnings and endings in real life. Like Someone in Love shows that Kiarostami is still at the top of his capabilities and as excited as ever to engage with his audience and provide us with challenging cinema that causes us to rethink the art-form.

 

Oct 22, 2015

Man, I missed out on some good discussion!!

Can I join this? :P

The problem with Birdman is that it uses an exclusively cinematic trick, the mobile camera, to produce an exclusively theatrical presence. At best its artistry is limited to that of theater, which is engaging in the meanwhile but due to its reliance on drama/actors it has no resonating features.

With you on Foxcatcher, but Whiplash is excellent and while it's certainly not one of the best films ever, it showcases some of the best editing/accelerated editing seen in an American film of recent memory. As a cinema of accumulation and refrain (montage which builds and images which are repeated for resonating measure. Example: drumsticks on bloody snare which are seen repeated at quicker intervals in closer and closer frame) it uses the art in media-specific/cinema-specific ways, which for me is generally a huge plus in evaluating a film.

To me, it doesn't matter whether a film is 50 years old with a reputation or 1 year old with none. Nothing outside of the film, including its place in history, is relevant to its artistic qualities. Sticking with reputation shows you have no real merit for critique. The consensus is a passionless art.

King.

I think anyone who watches film seriously keeps in mind their biases, and is able to treat film subjectively while remaining relatively objective. I would argue that all my favourite films are not just subjectively but objectively great, and I can argue this.

What I'm not sure about are films that don't work for me. When it does, I accept the aesthetic. When it doesn't, I reject it. This is how I feel about Spring Breakers. It hasn't clicked for me, which is why I can't see why it is considered a masterpiece by some. But I consider myself wrong about this, and I will never argue that it isn't. Maybe one day my mind will open to the extent that it works. Meanwhile, and to intentionally pick a film that would cause a pushback, I think The Place Beyond the Pines is a masterpiece, and I know I am right about this. I know in the same way that @Vahn knows about Spring Breakers and you know about Top Five (that was your favourite film of the year, right?)

 

Oct 21, 2015

@MovieSXN happy with this one... i spoke with the writer of ROOM this morning:
http://www.awardsdaily.com/2015/10/...onoghue-talks-writing-process-and-influences/

shout out @WPG for not helping me on this!

 

Oct 17, 2015

http://letterboxd.com/razvahn/list/top-15-of-the-2010s/

tis how im feeling atm

 

Oct 2, 2015

While I'm no @FilmAndWhisky, here are some quick thoughts on Mountains May Depart and Cemetery of Splendour.

Mountains May Depart
Jia Zhangke's latest is a generation-spanning tale depicting how the forces of capitalism and globalization mold the relationships and shift the lives of its characters over time. While this theme would often lend itself in Hollywood to some sort of cheap corporate villain, Zhangke's approach is far too reflective and subtle for such a simple characterization...which isn't to say he isn't above utilizing conceptual absolutes as character. While there is indeed a corporate a------ character, vying against a coal miner for the affections of the same girl, this character proves in his own way to be just like the rest...his life unknowingly being swept up by larger forces out of his control. The general sense one gets from Zhangke's film is a sense of loss and alienation. Something, perhaps ineffable, is being lost and the way the people relate and interact with one another is somehow being subtly and irrevocably altered in the globalized world of the 21st century.

However, while Zhangke conveys these ideas with measured clarity, the film never really resonates emotionally as much as it could or perhaps should (and I usually fall for narratives concerning the passage of time). Splitting the 2-hr film into three sections leaves the film feeling uneven and doesn't allow us to get especially close to any of the characters. The weakest, as many others have stated, is the final English-language section set in Australia. With its stilted dialogue and the relegation of Zhao Tao's character to the background, it's dramatically flat with the emotions dissipating rather than swelling. Overall, it's a flawed film from a major filmmaker so I'd say it's still definitely worth a look.

Cemetery of Splendour

I appreciate the honesty! While I don't have the same issue with Bresson, I must admit that I at times do have a similar one with Apichatpong Weerasethakul, which is paradoxically almost a testament to his abilities as a filmmaker. His films are so serene, so tranquil, so meditative that I often find myself so caught up in the mood he evokes that my mind starts to wander away from what's actually taking place on the screen. Cemetery of Splendour is very much in the same vein and I can't imagine that fans of his prior master works will be disappointed.

Enchanting imagery that turns the mundane striking...deliberate pacing that allows the film to breathe and enables the viewer to absorb the sights and sounds...a light, playful touch with a warm sense of humor...casual, surreal flights of fancy into folklore...it's basically everything one would expect from a Weerasethakul film (the only thing missing is a sudden time or narrative shift). At the same time, the film's easy-going, relaxed nature almost contradicts the director's introductory message prior to the screening...that this film was a reaction to the Thailand's recent military government and the country's loss of democracy.

The central plot, which concerns soldiers who have succumbed to sleeping sickness because they're fighting the battles of past kings, certainly conveys this reaction in a neatly codified metaphor, but it's perhaps Weerasethakul's idiosyncratic humanism that's the strongest act of defiance.

 

Aug 21, 2015

 

Aug 12, 2015

my best friends! surely some of u will appreciate this:
http://www.newsweek.com/straight-outta-compton-nwa-ice-cube-dr-dre-362133?piano_t=1

@Old_Parr @Dew @FilmAndWhisky @ImmortalTechnique
@Vahn @irbis @Pinhead

 

Jun 19, 2015

Film club fam, can you read/RT this?



@Rowjay Stan @FilmAndWhisky @Vahn @CharlieWork @Twan @Woody @Old_Parr @TimmyT @Dew @Swizz @irbis
@Bleed

 

May 4, 2015

Film of the year incoming.

 

Apr 28, 2015

Before he shoots the film with Jessica Chastain, Xavier Dolan is shooting a movie after Cannes with Marion Cotillard, Lea Seydoux and Vincent Cassel.

http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplayl...olans-next-film-just-la-fin-du-monde-20150428