Flipside Movie Emporium

[matt header]

Yeah, it's the only movie from Kren that I've ever seen, but I liked this one a great deal. It's composed of a handful of grainy b&w images of extreme close-ups of people's faces, and the eyes of one person suddenly jump to the eyes of another, and then we travel down that face and come to the nose, and then jump to the nose of another person - it's basically an extreme analysis of the terrain of the human face. After we watched it, we learned that all of the "mugshots" used were of convicted murders put to death - which added a sense of mystery and painful remembrance to the movie. The editing itself is stunning (I just watched "Man With a Movie Camera" by Dziga Vertov today; the editing techniques are very similar).

We watched it for my Film 101 Introduction to Experimental Film and Video class, right after watching some early movies by Lumiere and Melies. It should be a nifty class, judging by the first two days.

(By the way, I think Fiennes' performance in "Quiz Show" is superb, and his role in "Schindler's List" is commanding and unforgettable; I must admit I'm not a big fan of "Sunshine," though.)

[beltmann]

I absolutely love Vertov, especially Man With a Movie Camera. (Actually, I really dig a lot of those early Russians, like Eisenstein and Pudovkin.) Your class sounds great, although Melies and the Lumieres don't seem to quite fit into the "experimental" category. (History, yes--I show several by both when I teach Humanities, primarily to illustrate how early cinema split into two paths, the tradition of fantasy and the tradition of reality.) Let us know occasionally what you're watching in there--especially when you get to Brakhage. Speaking of the Lumiere brothers, you gotta see Lumiere and Company, a 1995 anthology film for which forty international directors contributed their own 1-minute, 1 shot films, using no synchronized sound and no artificial lighting. Best of all, they had to use an original Cinematograph, just like the Lumieres did. I thought it was terrific fun.

Eric

[Mark Dujsik]

[beltmann]

Yes, I too liked him very much in Red Dragon. I didn't include it above because, well, it's just not in the same league as those I listed. Still, his work is a large reason why I liked Dragon considerably more than Hannibal.

Eric

[Danny Baldwin]

Yeah, I loved him in Red Dragon too; he, really, created one of the best villians of the decade so far...I gave Spider to my dad and he hated the thing, though--he didn't like Fiennes either.

Didn't get a chance to watch Nicholas Nickelby, though. Homework took me too long, and I had to tune into "The Joe Schmoe Show," as Mark recommended.
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Danny Baldwin

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[Mark Dujsik]

[The Third M?n]

This week I haven't got round to seeing anything really, what with school and everything. However, last week I saw Requiem for a Dream and Trois Couleurs: Bleu. Both masterpieces, what can I say.

[beltmann]

As much as I admire Blue, I'd rank it third in the trilogy. Red strikes me as one of the great films of the Nineties, and I always thought White was underrated--I think it's human, disturbing, funny. Still, I'd place Kieslowski's Dekalog above all of them.

Eric

[The Third M?n]

I wouldn't know how it compares to the rest of the films in the trilogy, as it's the only one I've seen thus far. Of course, I'll see the other two some day.

[the night watchman]

You know, Requiem for a Dream was very good, but for me it was still a "drug movie," which buffered much of the emotional impact. In other words, I pretty much knew where everything was headed within about the first fifteen minutes, and predicted the path of the crises as each was introduced. The movie was just a process of waiting for the shit to hit the fan, which is exactly what happened. I much prefer Pi.
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"If you're talking about censorship, and what things should be shown and what things shouldn't be shown, I've said that as an artist you have no social responsibility whatsoever."

-David Cronenberg

[The Third M?n]

Okay, this is what I wrote about Pi in my website's viewing log:

[the night watchman]

I can understand that. Maybe it really comes down to subject matter. Many people speak at great length about the visual style of Pi, which is a worthy point of discussion, but it's the themes and ideas of the movie that resonated with me and keep drawing me back.

Also, I have acquaintances who are drug addicts so, in a manner of speaking, I was already a third of the way toward being fed up with the characters of Requiem before the movie even started, if you know what I mean.
_________________
"If you're talking about censorship, and what things should be shown and what things shouldn't be shown, I've said that as an artist you have no social responsibility whatsoever."

-David Cronenberg

[The Third M?n]

[the night watchman]

[beltmann]