Flipside Movie Emporium

[JoeE]

I've seen several sites with threads like this and they're not always interesting but with the potent personalities (and elevated tastes!) that dwell here I'd actually LIKE to know what you folks are watching. It tends to spawn discussion and remind you of things youve been meaning to check out...

This week I saw:

Bread and Roses (Loach)

Even Dwarves Started Small (Herzog)

The Last Movie (Hopper)

The Brothers Quay: Ten Astonishing Short Films

Irreversable (Noe)

What Time Is It There? (Tsai Ming-Liang)

Tully

Another Day in Paradise (Clark)

Skins (Eyre)

MASH (Altman)

Hamlet (Almereyda)

Talk To Her (Almodovar)

(As a consultant with an irregular schedule, it's feast or famine with my film diet... this was a good week. )

[the night watchman]

Ah, I love the Brothers Quay. Haven't watched the DVD this week, but I prolly oughta.

This week I watched:

Planet of the Vampires (Bava)

SWAT (some guy)

Shower (sum gai)

The Night Holds Terror (some guy w/ Cassavetes in the cast)

That's how elevated my taste is.
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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

[beltmann]

New this week:

Power and Terror: Noam Chomsky In Our Times (Junkerman, 2003)

Umberto D. (De Sica, 1952)

Confidentially Yours (Truffaut, 1983)

Ararat (Egoyan, 2002)

American Wedding (Dylan, 2003)

Spider (Cronenberg, 2002)

Zatoichi's Vengeance (Tokuzo, 1966)

Baptism of Solitude: A Tribute to Paul Bowles (Hurley, 2002?)

Cousin Bette (McAnuff, 1998)

Gigli (Brest, 2003)

Brother's Keeper (Berlinger and Sinofksy, 1992)

The strongest was Umberto D., and yes, Gigli is as bad as they say. Most disappointing was Power and Terror, because I generally find Chomsky to be enlightening but here he was glib and surprisingly disinterested in scholarly support for his notions. (Frequently his defense was simply, "Everyone knows this...")

I also re-watched Magnolia with two friends who had never seen it. Under those circumstances, it's like screening it fresh--you watch with their eyes, rather than your own. I still think Anderson allows his actors too much leeway (especially in the second half), but that flaw is dwarfed by the film's overall brilliance; it's a hypnotic experience.

Eric

[matt header]

Man, I need to see more movies. These are the only new ones I've caught this week:

Spider (Cronenberg)

American History X (Kaye)

Detroit Rock City (Rifkin)

Seabiscuit (Ross)

Scotland, Pa. (Morrisette)

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (Ford)

Solaris (Soderbergh; still haven't seen the Tarkovsky version, tragically)

I enjoyed The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance very much, especially the way it commented on the screen personalities of John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart as well as their characters themselves. Seabiscuit, also, is one of the best movies of the year so far.

Matt

[the night watchman]

Man, I got to see "Spider." Croneneberg's my favorite director alongside Lynch.

Tarkovsky's "Solaris" is really good, but be sure to have a pot of coffee handy while you're watching it.
_________________
"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

[Danny Baldwin]

Surprisingly, I just began creating a new Screening Log (I was awful at keeping one before) for just this reason. I've seen a ton of crap this week, some good movies are on the way from Netflix soon, though.
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Danny Baldwin

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[Michael Scrutchin]

I watched over the past 10 days:

[beltmann]

Could we tolerate life sans Netflix?

As a (nearly) lifelong Wisconsinite, I've been a film student in a land with sparse access to the movies that matter. I remember long years scavenging the back corners of libraries, small video stores, and rummage sales, just to get my hands on significant works. For example, I recall finding, a decade ago, Battleship Potemkin, Rashomon, Paths of Glory, The Virgin Spring, Napolean, and Intolerance (among others) stacked in a dusty, forgotten room at the Green Bay Public Library. Thankfully, Netflix has made our task exponentially easier.

Michael, feel fortunate that Netflix has made your Truffaut quest simple. I spent many years slowly tracking down most of his works. (My first was his first, The 400 Blows, which I rented at my local Blockbuster in 1992; a few months later bought the exact same VHS copy pre-viewed for $4--and I still have it.) Netflix has allowed me to fill in a few gaps. Still, I sorta miss the old days of trolling for good stuff--there was a sense of ecstatic discovery, of palpable gratitude, that simply doesn't exist with Netflix.

I'll add The Eye to my week's list. Enjoyable, although clearly derivative of both Sixth Sense and Ringu. (I liked it more than either Ringu or its American remake.)

Eric

[Danny Baldwin]

I still prefer the good 'ol video store, but Netflix is cheaper and has a better selection. I gave up on Blockbuster and Hollywood Video after the late fees had just amounted to too much.
_________________
Danny Baldwin

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[JoeE]

We've got a rental haus near me that is owned and run by film enthusiasts. It's been in business for years and has thousands of titles.

It's truely a marvel of a store. Sections include the usual drama, thriller, comedy, western and horror/sci-fi, as well as, about 30 director spolight sections ranging from Scorsese and Altman to Fassbinder, Kore-eda and Wong Kar-wai. Plus: Foreign, classic, cult, blaxploitation, The Critierion Collection Series, Independant, animation and a few more. I went in the other day and they had just gotten Kieslowski's Decalogue on DVD and 4 copies of Irreversable (actually they've had an import for awhile). They totally rock and if I ever get real rich I'm going to buy the place.

The most unbelievable thing is all non-new releases are 5 titles for 5 days for 5 dollars! It makes it real easy to be a film glutton. All you need is the time.

[matt header]

That sounds like the greatest building in the world. I've lived in small-town West Bend for fifteen years now (although I was at Madison for a year, and I'll soon be in Milwaukee), and though our library has some treasures (The General, The Garden of the Finzi-Continis, Napoleon), it's definitely not the number one option for classic film collecting. Some of my favorite memories have been going to the Virgin Record Store in Chicago every couple of months, where I've gotten some films I've heard were necessary (The Bicycle Thief, The Seventh Seal, The Seven Samurai). Still, I'd rather not drive in one of the most heavily trafficked cities in America every couple of months just to buy a movie, no matter how much I love them. I gotta join Netflix.

Matt

[beltmann]

[beltmann]

Danny, I just clicked on the link to your Screening Log and found this quote: "If you do rent it, try to get the full-screen edition of the DVD, though. Widescreen isn't necessary." Say what? Isn't widescreen always necessary?

In the Humanities class I teach, I transition from painting to cinema by placing a slide of the "Mona Lisa" up, and then positioning a frame over it that covers the top and bottom. Since the frame still enables us to see her face, we can still see the "story" of the piece, so I argue that the chopping is of no consequence. The students always argue (correctly, of course) that the top and bottom are indeed significant--if they weren't, da Vinci wouldn't have bothered to paint them. After that, convincing my students that a pan-and-scan movie isn't really the movie isn't too difficult.

The fringes of a frame may not directly relate to the "narrative," but they are still there for a reason, as any cinematographer would vociferously insist. This is true whether the film is Lawrence of Arabia or Bringing Down the House, since in each case a cinematographer worked very hard to carefully compose each and every shot.

Eric

[Michael Scrutchin]

[Danny Baldwin]

This is Bringing Down the House we're talking about, Michael. On a few things that really don't need spectacular cinematography (or even great quality) I'd rather watch the full-frame version. Most things need widescreen, but there are some exceptions. I was watching it on a 42" TV, too, and that's pretty big.
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Danny Baldwin

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