RECENT WATCHING 1st Half of September

i have not been watching very many movies lately as i have been getting caught up in burn notice, mad men, and true blood. also, im 1/3 of the way through masaki kobayashi's 9 1/2 hour human condition trilogy and im working on another entry on 1960s japanese films from the bold and daring nikkatsu studios. ive also been travelling. why am i apologizing? i watch too many freakin' movies as it is? btw, i was at ATP (all tomorrow's parties music festival ny) that had film showing and i saw jim jarmusch walking around. my jaw dropped and i just wanted to run up to him and make fishing with john and down by law references with a sprinkling, 'mothafuckin ghost bustin bill murray' thrown in. i didnt see any of the films (only 1 i hadn't seen, HAUSA, which will end up in here eventually). anyway, here is a quick summary of the movies i saw that arent going to get full entries

RATCATCHER

ive now seen both of lynne ramsay's feature films and think we are in desperate need of another film from her. while this one was simply ok, her style is unmistakably unique, daring, thoughtful and brilliant. she is the best filmmaker in the british isles.

i recommend renting the criterion release which features three of her short films, kill the day, gas man, and little deaths, the latter of which is superb!

THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD

a fine methodical cold war drama from the 60s with richard burton and claire boom, directed by martin ritt. at times a bit plodding but burton was pleasantly restrained and was quite good

WHILE THE CITY SLEEPS and CAUSE FOR ALARM

i am grouping these fine superior 1950s film noirs by fritz lang and tay garnett (resp) because i DVR'd them thinking i hadnt seen them before. turns out i did and i enjoyed them so i watched them again. you should watch them

JUNIOR BONNER

in this lil cin verite number from the 70s, steve mcqueen (the ultimate king of cool) plays a rodeo champ. sam peckinpah directed this and like most of his films, i thought it was dull and didnt care for it but every steve mcqueen is worth watching. so cool.

PARK ROW

solid early work by sam fuller, one of the greatest directors of all time. this was about the newspaper industry around the turn of the last century. not a spectacular film but fuller's stye is remarkably unique. not sure how he made turn of the century new york noirish. great score as well

yeah, thats it...SERIOUSLY!

carlos saura and spanish film in the 70s

i dont know much about spanish film from the 70s but i know that it was an interesting time. franco still heavily censored the filmmakers and the wacky comedy of pedro almodobar was still years away. what resulted was dreamlike and ethereal films of victor erice and carlos saura. CRIA CUERVROS is a good example of the films i see as typical of 1970s spain. in english, the title is raising ravens, an idiomatic expression for misteaching your children or opening a pandora's box. the plot is very much centered around that. at the beginning of the film, we see a child sort of witness her father killed and the ghost of her mother guiding her. her and her two sisters go to live with her aunt as she continues to get visits from her mother. it is a film about growing up in a dysfunctional situation but making the most of it. the remarkable thing about cria is how remarkably subtle the message is. we would only how tortured the child (her name is ana, and is played by ana torrent) is due to flash-forwards from her as an adult talking about the time.

maybe i am grouping this victor erice and spirit of the beehive because ana torrent was in that too and also had elements of fantasy in it. either way, i didnt care for beehive but i did enjoy cria.

grantd, the film was slow and i was bored a bit during the middle but i was pretty entranced by the visuals. i am really glad torrent has continued to have such an amazing career as she was talented beyond her years in this and beehive, for the matter. definetely worth a watch

a short blog entry about killing

thats a kieslowski reference bitches!

two films to discuss in this one. Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer and The Honeymoon Killers. i think the link between is obvious (serial killers natch) and of course IMHO neither of them were very good. in fact, they both sucked...pretty hard.

Henry is a tale of a couple white trash serial killers and their innocent and unknowing sister/lover and Honeymoon is about a fat chick and a swarthy italian swindling people out of money and occasionally killing them.

Henry is a prime example of the poorly acted early 90s low budget independent film genre and Honeymoon is a prime example the poorly acted early 70s low budget independent film genre. and both films were directed by people who didnt really have much of a career afterwards though honeymoon had the distinct honor or NOT being scorsese's first feature length film. he was fired after spending too much time filming master shots (shots of the whole scene which are usually shot before close ups). of what could have been.

the early 90s and early 70s both marked returns to independent cinema. with cassavettes in the 70s and soderbergh/hartley in the 9s0, there was definetely a solid movement back to simpler character driven films. unfortunately, these were not the best of the genre