My Week In Film (11/17 - 11/23)

Blade Runner (1982)
(Directed by Ridley Scott)

Alright, alright, this turned out to be pretty good despite itself. The film works beautifully when its awesome synth-noir score hits and the shadows play beautifully on Young/Ford's faces. I think the plot is pretty boring but the overwhelming rainy/smoky atmosphere really just makes me forget all about it. What I didn't want was Roy Batty fucking howling like a wolf. What I wanted more in the vein of the monologue. I guess the implications of the story are interesting to me if not how they're handled. So, I enjoyed this. I'm glad I watched this. Get off my case.

Oh, and while I'm here:

Ridley Scott ranked

1. Blade Runner ★★★1/2
2. Black Hawk Down ★★★1/2
3. Matchstick Men ★★★
4. Alien ★★1/2
5. American Gangster ★★
6. Thelma and Louise ★★
7. Gladiator ★1/2
8. G.I. Jane ★

The Holy Mountain (1973)*
(Directed by Alejandro Jodorowsky

What a ridiculous film. Image after image of ridiculous things. Nudity, violence, paganism, jazz, the 70s. It's very much a film of its time and perhaps some of the radicalism of the film has been lost. The audience I was with laughed a lot. That's something I didn't remember doing. I mean, the images were outrageous but I took the film at face value. Now, I see its absurdism quite clearly. It would almost be silly if the images weren't so memorable and powerful and (ridiculously) symbolic. Anyway, shit is funny and bizarre. Of course, it fucking drags when it starts introducing a million people. This is amusing in a setpiece kind of way but it really does feel endless. Whatevs.

Blixaboy did a remix of the score of the film beforehand which turned out to be pretty amusing (as background noise).

I wish I could've seen Twilight right after this. We ran into the midnight crowd. I'm sure Chris Hansen was lurking around somewhere.

★★★1/2

À nous la liberté (1931) (Directed by Rene Clair)

Mostly winning. It starts out pretty uninteresting with winking and working and prison stuff. However, it soon starts painting an almost romantically funny portrait of friendship and technological progress and how maybe it is better to just go fishing. The friendship aspect of the film takes a while to start but once it does, it makes the film like 1000 times better. Anyway, at points there's a really great musicality to everything like Love Me Tonight but, sadly, that's not the focus, Another of pix's favorites bites the dust.

★★1/2

Close-Up (1990)
(Directed by Abbas Kiarostami)

Pretty interesting but kind of unsatisfying. The non-fiction aspects of the film are what's interesting to me. The entire film is a recreation of events with the actual people... except this time they're playing roles... with Kiarostami including himself in the proceedings... and as it depicts its own creation? Huh? The courtroom scenes were kind of a chore to get through. One camera as Kiarostami explains will be held in constant close-up on one of the characters while the other one will be used to get everyone else. And that's the way it stays for 30 minutes or so. It's interesting... but not really satisfying (as I already said). However, the ending really does make this film worth it...

Hopefully, pix can come from wherever pix is and explain this film's greatness to me


★★★

A Christmas Tale (2008)
(Directed by Arnaud Desplechin)

Another tale of a family with secrets and a bunch of other complications. They're French so, of course, all they do is smoke and talk about their problems. But Desplechin is always doing something interesting. He employs iris shots, direct address, cardboard cutouts/puppets? to tell his story. Something is always happening. Of course, all the acting is great. We have Amalric, Devos, Deneueve, Mastroianni all at the top of their game. The ideas regarding family and how families all have certain have myths about themselves are pretty interesting. However, what I liked most about were just little moments that felt just right like a son telling his mom that he doesn't want to disappoint her or some other dumb crap. Mostly, at its very best, it kinda reaches a weird cinematic ideal of mine that I'm not sure I can put into words... but just feels absolutely perfect. Anyway, this Desplechin guy... how does he make 2 and a half hour movies that go by in 30 minutes? I need to watch and rewatch this guy's films. One day they'll be favorites.

★★★★

Small Change (1976)*
(Directed by François Truffaut)

The Best Film of the 70s TM. Just really, really great. There is such a warmness to the portrayal of childhood in this film. In fact, I'll just say it right now... this is THE movie about childhood. It just has it all. I echo pretty much everything Worm said but I'll add that what also really makes it special is its portrayal of teachers. I like how they show up all the time on the film. When the little kids go to the movies, one of the female teachers is there on a date. One of the kids discovers that his teacher moved in next to him. I love it when his wife is about to have a baby. He's all ready to shoot the event but as it happens there's this look on his face that just kills me (plus he forgets to even turn on his camera which is hilarious). It's just funny and sad and everything in between and fuck it I'll throw it in there as well, it's perfect.

★★★★★

I guess I'll let the rating speak for themselves...

Jhon's Movie of the Week is... Small Change