Films

[Syeknom]

Tonight I watched, and loved, Richard Lester's The Knack... And How To Get It (1965).

A film following the larks, mishaps and sexual competition between three housemates in '60s London - a hapless schoolteacher (Michael Crawford as proto Frank Spencer), aggressively lascivious playboy mod and an Irish artist (whose first course of business is to paint a room Margiela white). It's absolutely gorgeously and effortlessly stylish - an absolute pleasure just to soak up the atmosphere and scenes. Everything is treated with a detached air of coolness and levity helped greatly by the jazzy musical score. There's slapstick abound, visual gags everywhere, a hyper-kinetic camera and editing (even a Benny Hill section) and a hilarious greek chorus of disapproving old folk commenting relentlessly on the behaviour of the youths.

This is all in stark and, increasingly, discomforting contrast to the primary theme of the film - male sexual conquest, misogyny and ultra-masculinity. It's easy to feel uncomfortable during the later parts of the film - unclear whether events and the reactions to them are poignant (though never moralising) commentary on the consequences of the debauched lifestyle led by swingin' youths and the hyper-sexual cultural milieu, or a sexist and callous relic of filmmaking and attitudes best left forgotten forever. Given the distance the subject is treated and lack of moral stance the film takes on its happenings, together with the continually irreverent humour and stylish filming, it is easy to take the second stance - one that I don't feel is especially fair or justified (though this film would certainly be handled very differently filmed today). I feel like the film (and play it's based on, written by Ann Jellicoe - her gender perhaps noteworthy evidence in establishing the intent of the story) is intentionally taking us to the extremities of what hyper-masculine sexual culture offers and by remaining aloof, light and detached while dealing with the very real consequences of this it confronts us (or more intentionally, our '60s audiences to whom this lifestyle and manner of thinking is perhaps more pervasive?) with the terrific gender-power imbalance, potential for serious harm and the ethical bankruptcy in treatment both towards women as a gender and the aftermath of sexual trauma. It's astonishingly bold, discordant and provocative beneath its easy, dazzling, frivolous surface.

Highly recommended.















Plot spoilers below:

[ramseames]

the new ryan reynolds movie is being filmed below my window

http://comicbook.com/2015/02/08/deadpoo ... -is-wham-/



they have fake rain and thunder and i keep forgetting that it was a really nice clear day today every time they test it.

someone keeps yelling motherfucker a lot, i think its him

[maj]

Went to see fast and furious 7, It was just as good as the other 6 and remains my fave franchise of all time.

[brlmski]

everyone should watch ikiru

[bels]

Saw Blade Runner Final Cut in the cinema. The OG flintstone film. Still great. I need to get a poncho

[pips]

Saw the new Avengers movie on iMax and remembered why I hate watching stuff in 3D. Wearing two glasses at the same time is not cool and not enjoyable. The movie itself was okay. Good points about the film were the increased diversity of the cast, varied settings, and a very handsome Chris Evans. Cons: lack of a compelling villain, same core story as the first, shoehorned romance subplot, and cliched portrayals of places (dreary gray for the fictional Eastern European, formerly Soviet city, dusty orange for an African city, sleek blues for hyper modern Seoul). I get why they go with these tired filmmaking cues especially for a blockbuster like this but I'm still going to complain about it. Like with the first movie, it felt like watching a very long TV episode.

I'm watching it again in the next week or so and I'd probably have a better perspective by then but it's still a good way to waste 2.5hrs if you have nothing else to do. It's not a movie that gives a strong opinion on anything so if you just wanna watch people fight and blow things up this movie is for you.

[Cowboy]

I recommend the movie Instructions Not Included, a Spanish American film about a playboy turned single father and the journey he takes with his daughter.

It's a simple film. Very colorful in setting and wardrobe, very lighthearted comedy and character interaction for the most part, well crafted characters.

It's also very heavy at the same time, and pulls hard at the heartstrings. (IMO, and i'm not too much of a movie crier either)

Fun film, don't watch if you hate subtitles because a large portion of the movie is in Spanish only.

[hooplah]

has anyone seen the short film/performance art piece AMERICAN REFLEXXX?

http://www.americanreflexxx.com/

it's only 15 minutes, i'd really recommend watching it... if you can stomach it. it's fucking disturbing. people are animals

if anyone else has seen it or watches it, i'd love to talk about it

[stappard_]

I think the most striking images are towards the end when you see the crowd following. I bet if you asked any of them why they were following or what they were filming they wouldn't be able to tell you




The mob had pretty successfully dehumanized its prey (and itself) by the end though. When the artist turns and they scatter, its completely, weirdly primal

[wiggly--woo]

Re: American Reflexxx, there’s a lot of Gasper Noe shit going on in the film with the shaky hand-held camera of 'Irreversible' (which, incidentally, features a woman in a revealing dress walking down the street at night and eventually being attacked), as well as the horrendous and loud and garishly neon-lit urban dystopia of 'Enter the Void'. I say ‘going on in the film’ because there’s essentially two pieces of art happening here: there’s the live performance art aspect of it and then there’s the visual representation of events that the film gives us.

Also, I have a slight tendency to over-analyse films but I think the word “reflexxx” in the title is a very deliberate and telling choice of wording and spelling and fairly integral to the piece itself.The ‘xxx’ is obviously a reference to pornography and it is a pretty pornographic piece, partly because of the revealing clothes, bleach blonde hair, high heels, seductive poses, bodily objectification and so on, but also because there is an element of so-called ‘torture porn’ given that its essentially fifteen minutes of violence (verbal and physical). But the ‘xxx’ is tagged onto the end of the word ‘reflex’ which in my mind has connotations of instinct, or animality almost. A reflex is something which just sort of happens – it’s “an involuntary and instantaneous response to a stimulus” (according to Wikipedia). The stimulus of American Reflexx is Signe’s body (Signe being the girl in the mask) which at the opening is objectified (i.e. “would you fuck me with that mask on?” or whatever that guy says) and gradually becomes more and more abject (i.e. 'cast-off') until the point of physical attack.

And for me that’s the heart of the whole thing: Signe’s body is simultaneously object and abject, to the point where she is attacked and nobody shows any concern, for not only is her body abject but she has been reduced to a mere object or spectacle, stripped of all her corporeality and humanity (in the cultural rather than biological sense). There is a wonderful quasi-irony though in the fact that in the first piece of art (the performance), it is Signe who loses her humanity through her masked face and (abject) gender-ambiguous body, but in the second piece of art (the film), it is those around her who lose their humanity, reduced to being nothing more than the savage children in ‘Lord of the Flies'. a very clear civlization/barbarism thing going on i think. just my $0.02, anyway.

[hooplah]

i was reading some about it today, two things i came across struck me--1. the more obvious one, that the mask is a mirror and thus anyone who comes into contact with her is directly looking at themselves. the man who is hitting on her in the beginning is essentially staring back at his own face. when the girl tries to trip her and signe turns around and the crowd scatters in fear, they're being reflected back at themselves. and if that fucking asshole of a turd who shoved her at the end hadn't pushed her from behind, she would've been face-to-face with her own disgusting, animalistic qualities as well.

the second thing i read was on signe's tumblr i think--a commenter took notice of the juxtaposition/difference between male and female confidence in the video. when signe is "feminine" and sexy, she's subject to the gazes and the comments of the crowd; she is their object, like you said. but when she turns around in the couple moments that it looks like she's going to react or chastise the mob, her "masculinity" scares the crowd.

i also wonder how her treatment would have been better or worse if people hadn't seen alli coates filming her... scary thought. the moment in the video where alli gets separated by the crowd and is trying to catch up to signe gave me real anxiety because i felt like alli was signe's only real protector in that situation

[Iliam]

Watched the documentary Useless by the chinese film maker Jia Zhangke. The film follows three interwoven sections of the Chinese fashion industry: a garment factory in Guandong, where workers make clothing for the label Exception by Mixmimd, the work of Chinese designer Ma Ke, who designs Exception but is working on presenting her high fashion label Wuyong in Paris, and three tailors in a rural Chinese mining town.





The documentary doesn’t make any kind of explicit claims and there are relatively few talking heads, but the different threads did make me consider the relationship between the different areas of the fashion industry ~ the factory labour which is required to sell the mass market Exception, whose the profits are needed to fund the high fashion Wuyong, whose philosophy is based on an idea of authenticity derived from traditional practices and relationships, but which is part of an economic system that is undercutting the viability of the very tailors that Wuyong's philosophy romanticizes.




The film isn't simply critical of Ma Ke and Wuyong. Her show in Paris is really beautiful, and the camera is in love with the textures of her clothing. And there’s an interesting affinity between the Jia Zhangke and Ma Ke, who both rely on funding from financial sources often at odds with the artist’s values, and whose works is received by an audience mostly outside China, whether that's at Paris Fashion Week or the Venice Film Festival (where Jia Zhangke has won multiple awards).



The film seems to me to be not just an examination of the Chinese garment industry, but a story about China and its modernisation. The fashion industry serves as the lens through which to view the relations between new and the old, wealthy and the poor, the city and the country, the changing habits and tastes of the ‘new’ China, its relationship to the West and the artist's place in all this. After Notebooks on Cities and Clothes and Paris is Burning, this is one of the best films that I’ve seen about clothing.




In 2008 ~ worth checking out.

[hooplah]

finally watched inside llewyn davis. goddamn.

[rjbman]

Mad Max is the best action movie I have seen since Taken, and I'm pretty sure it surpasses that.

[ramseames]

Mad max is the best movie I've seen in years, period

[jrisk]

just got back from seeing mad max again. it's top notch.

[ramseames]

[youtube]U9kK-CbqH0k&[/youtube]

crazy how many of the stunts were real

[dull]

if you guys havent seen Leon the Professional you should. Really cool movie that isnt afraid to go outside the lines a little bit. Pretty fuckin cool outfits too.

[bird.in.flight]

The Sydney film festival is here! I'm mostly catching archival stuff, aside from the new Hou Hsiao-Hsien, and I'm really excited to see prints of some personal favourites for the first time
Seeing the following:

INGMAR BERGMAN The Virgin Spring
INGMAR BERGMAN Persona
DJIBRIL DIOP MAMBETY Touki Bouki
SERGEI PARAJANOV The Colour of Pomegranates
LARRY COHEN Gold Told Me To
HOU HSIAO-HSIEN The Assassin

I'm most excited to see The Colour of Pomegranates, one of my all-time favourites, with the original score and not the new Nicholas Jaar one!

[CheerUpBrokeBoy]

i didn't see it but Jurassic World just had a $511 million opening weekend

holy fuuuuck

[Cowboy]

^

I saw it

Was good

Lots of advertising tho, seeing that a lot more lately in films

[can-]

me and earl and the dying girl is really sweet, set to a lot of my favorite music and very emotional. strong recommend

[freddy]

Love and Mercy was fabulous. It was nice to see a movie that narrated the struggles of Brian Wilison's lifelong struggle with mental illness, along with his zaniness, eccentricity, and creativity in the Beach Boy's studio and in his personality as well. The autobiographical drama gives hope that not is all lost with one's internal battles, especially when we have close ones that care and help us navigate the turbulent interpersonal storms of our unpredictable madness. It's only love and mercy from friends and relationships that supported him throughout tough times. I was left with a lot of self-reflection of those who I had challenges with and those who provided support through my own ups-and-downs of my struggles of mental illness. Highly recommend, a bit romanticized though, but tons of feels provoked, a personal favorite.

[dull]

dope was pretty cool, should have been expected from a movie with Pharell and Blake Anderson on it tho

[bird.in.flight]

Was supposed to see a Tran Anh Hung double feature today, but looks like they axed The Scent of Green Papaya.
They're showing ZHANG YIMOU Raise the Red Lantern instead though, which I haven't seen, but I really enjoyed The Story of Qiu Ju, so I'm looking forward to this!

[JewTurk]

A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existance dir. Roy Anderson

I was overjoyed to see that this film was playing in Tucson so I made the drive down this weekend to watch it with some friends.

Definitely... something else... I can say that much.

There was some really strong deadpan moments and a lot of great black humor throughout the movie. I'd mention what is featured in the movie but, in terms of content, it really is few and far between. So I don't want to spoil anything. Incredibly slow paced, dialogue is repeated throughout different plot-lines, the main one being that of the traveling salesman.

It just seems like he took the mundane bits of life and found humor in them, the color scheme is incredibly washed out. The movie is just a string of tableaux, a retrospective look at life I figure. Two scenes in the movie are very intimate but we never see those characters in the film again... Just, very interesting. Would love to hear what others made of it.

Also, the pigeons in the background throughout the movie, very subtle... Every scene feels like a painting though, really beautiful cinematography.

[can-]

inside out is so beautiful i cried the whole time

[mahi-mahi]

"Take her to the moon for me"

[Cowboy]

The Martian was...stellar

Really good. If I had to compare it to Gravity in the sense that it's a one "man" trip thru space and the acting is both extremely difficult and heavily central to their mental state/condition is say The Martian wins by a lot

Bit heavy on the Deus Ex here and there but overall, fun and exciting.

Bit off all my nails so that's always a good sign.

[can-]

the martian totally blows matt damon is not watchable or charming in that role. the movie looked good though.