Tombstone of the Fireflies (2008) Taro Hyugaji 6/10
Whip It (2009) Drew Barrymore 4/10
The Third Lover (1962) Claude Chabrol 7/10
Moon (2009) Duncan Jones 5/10
Last Seen Movie - The Latest Movie You Have Seen; ratings
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Precious Doll
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El Cielo Dividido (aka Broken Sky, 2006; Julián Hernández) 10/10
Mexico City. College students Gerardo (Miguel Angel Hoppe) and Jonas (Fernando Arroyo) meet and fall in love. One night at a disco, Jonas is distracted by another young man who kisses him and disappears in the night; Jonas can't forget him and starts to reject Gerardo; torn by jealousy and a broken heart, Gerardo begins hooking up with Sergio (Alejandro Rojo). Is it too late for Jonas to realize what he's lost?
I was so wary about watching this film. The reviews are largely negative (a whopping 35 on Metacritic), complaining about the largely wordless narrative, describing it as "indulgent." Perhaps, but what director isn't?
The film opens with a quote from Resnais' Hiroshima Mon Amour (though tellingly citing screenwriter Marguerite Duras rather than Resnais), which immediately points out what Hernández is aiming for: a romance of visual poetry. True, Broken Sky lacks the socio-political undercurrents of the Resnais film, and his characters, at first, lack the depth of of those played by Emmanuelle Riva and Eiji Okada. There's no commentary here about social classes or the political climate of Mexico itself; instead, it's a ruminative, daring, highly original tale of love. That's all. Love, in all its joy and heartbreak. (Jane Campion, take note.)
So I was worried that I was in for disappointment, but as the film proceeded, I found myself entranced and dazzled. Despite that 2 hour 20 minute running time, I didn't want it to end. And when it did, my heart was literally breaking and, for the first time in I don't know how long, a film had a few tears springing from my eyes.
Broken Sky is an astonishingly beautiful, and beautifully heartbreaking, film. Part of this is due to the thoroughly committed--and utterly fearless--performances of the three leads, especially Arroyo (yes, it helps that they're gorgeous young men who get naked a lot, but that's just a bonus). But most of it is due to Hernádez's extraordinary direction and the magnificent cinematography of Alejandro Cantú, the camera roving around the characters as if by magic, color and light saturating the screen.
There are so many breathtaking scenes here: Gerardo's mother hears lovemaking coming from her son's room--when she hears the laughter and realizes he's with another man, she smiles; Jonas lost in the disco beat, his eyes closed, in rapture; a long shot of Gerardo and Jonas on rafters, separating, coming together, separating; an eye- and ear-dazzling sequence of Gerardo and Sergio hunting each other in a dive bar accompanied by Renee Fleming's recording of Dvorak's "Mesicku na nebi hlubokem" from Rusalka; Gerardo and Sergio laughingly dancing to a corny Mexican song in a hotel room; and the devastatingly beautiful final scene.
I suspect it will be days before I recover from this film.
Mexico City. College students Gerardo (Miguel Angel Hoppe) and Jonas (Fernando Arroyo) meet and fall in love. One night at a disco, Jonas is distracted by another young man who kisses him and disappears in the night; Jonas can't forget him and starts to reject Gerardo; torn by jealousy and a broken heart, Gerardo begins hooking up with Sergio (Alejandro Rojo). Is it too late for Jonas to realize what he's lost?
I was so wary about watching this film. The reviews are largely negative (a whopping 35 on Metacritic), complaining about the largely wordless narrative, describing it as "indulgent." Perhaps, but what director isn't?
The film opens with a quote from Resnais' Hiroshima Mon Amour (though tellingly citing screenwriter Marguerite Duras rather than Resnais), which immediately points out what Hernández is aiming for: a romance of visual poetry. True, Broken Sky lacks the socio-political undercurrents of the Resnais film, and his characters, at first, lack the depth of of those played by Emmanuelle Riva and Eiji Okada. There's no commentary here about social classes or the political climate of Mexico itself; instead, it's a ruminative, daring, highly original tale of love. That's all. Love, in all its joy and heartbreak. (Jane Campion, take note.)
So I was worried that I was in for disappointment, but as the film proceeded, I found myself entranced and dazzled. Despite that 2 hour 20 minute running time, I didn't want it to end. And when it did, my heart was literally breaking and, for the first time in I don't know how long, a film had a few tears springing from my eyes.
Broken Sky is an astonishingly beautiful, and beautifully heartbreaking, film. Part of this is due to the thoroughly committed--and utterly fearless--performances of the three leads, especially Arroyo (yes, it helps that they're gorgeous young men who get naked a lot, but that's just a bonus). But most of it is due to Hernádez's extraordinary direction and the magnificent cinematography of Alejandro Cantú, the camera roving around the characters as if by magic, color and light saturating the screen.
There are so many breathtaking scenes here: Gerardo's mother hears lovemaking coming from her son's room--when she hears the laughter and realizes he's with another man, she smiles; Jonas lost in the disco beat, his eyes closed, in rapture; a long shot of Gerardo and Jonas on rafters, separating, coming together, separating; an eye- and ear-dazzling sequence of Gerardo and Sergio hunting each other in a dive bar accompanied by Renee Fleming's recording of Dvorak's "Mesicku na nebi hlubokem" from Rusalka; Gerardo and Sergio laughingly dancing to a corny Mexican song in a hotel room; and the devastatingly beautiful final scene.
I suspect it will be days before I recover from this film.
"...it is the weak who are cruel, and...gentleness is only to be expected from the strong." - Leo Reston
"Cruelty might be very human, and it might be cultural, but it's not acceptable." - Jodie Foster
"Cruelty might be very human, and it might be cultural, but it's not acceptable." - Jodie Foster
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anonymous1980
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jowy_jillia
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Precious Doll
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Spy Crawlers (2007) Mamoru Oshii 2/10
Julie and Julia (2009) Nora Ephron 5/10
Vincere (2009) Marco Bellocchio 8/10
My Sister, My Love (1966) Vilgot Sjoman 7/10
The Burning Plain (2009) Guillermo Arriaga 4/10
The Greeks Have a Word for Them (1932) Lowell Sherman 6/10
Nude on the Moon (1961) Doris Wishman 2/10
Julie and Julia (2009) Nora Ephron 5/10
Vincere (2009) Marco Bellocchio 8/10
My Sister, My Love (1966) Vilgot Sjoman 7/10
The Burning Plain (2009) Guillermo Arriaga 4/10
The Greeks Have a Word for Them (1932) Lowell Sherman 6/10
Nude on the Moon (1961) Doris Wishman 2/10
"I want cement covering every blade of grass in this nation! Don't we taxpayers have a voice anymore?" Peggy Gravel (Mink Stole) in John Waters' Desperate Living (1977)
/Gladiator/ (Ridley Scott) - 6/10
Watching this one again. I've been trying to close out some outstanding holes I have in viewership this decade. Why then return to Gladiator? Well, I just saw Kingdom of Heaven and wanted to see how this movie holds up. The answer...? Good and bad. Bad as a Best Picture winner. Okay as the now-defunct Sandals & Swords Epic. Bad as spectacle. Good as Russell Crowe vehicle, of which it appears we won't have terribly many more. Okay as a narrative. So basically a bit of a mixed bag. What Gladiator has on Kingdom of Heaven, Troy, and those of its ilk is that it's dumb. Were I to read this script and Kingdom of Heaven, I would never think the latter would produce a worse film.
Gladiator is very entertaining for the first hour and a half or so. The final act is a murky, rushed mess that peddles in Roman politics barely sufficiently set-up throughout the narrative. What Gladiator does well - and after Kingdom of Heaven, it's pretty abundantly clear where one succeeds and the other fails - is provide two clear personas that drive the film forward with love and hate. There is nothing you can't hate about Joaquin Phoenix's hissy villain. It's a mannered, twitchy, whiny performance that works very, very well especially considered how painfully bland it is on the page. Phoenix is attuned to James Gray's sensibilities so I'm very eager to see his work that year on The Yards. He was clearly having a helluva year with Gladiator, The Yards, and the overwrought Quills in which he invested a small planet's worth of dignity and introspection. To contrast, there's nobody in Kingdom of Heaven that you can readily root against. This is certainly admirably complex but Ridley Scott is not the person to realize this vision.
Speaking of having a helluva year...it's very difficult for me not to root for Russell Crowe. After now a decade of watching others attempt to elicit the same effect, I must say that I really don't think Russell Crowe's Oscar is all that undeserving. Javier Bardem and Tom Hanks sorely deserved it more, but Crowe does so much of the heavy-lifting for Gladiator, and considering how intermittently it transcends dumb entertainment into something that appears like more. And when you consider the likes of Gibson, Pitt, Farrell, and Bloom, that's certainly saying something.
It's a manically-edited film with mezzo production values and egregiously cheap FX. It certainly didn't feel that way in 2000; when you stack up the inflated costs of both Gladiator and Kingdom of Heaven, they must be comparably priced and yet the latter looks so much better! But Gladiator has the foresight to be dumb, and people like Emmerich, Peterson, and sadly Stone are not intelligent enough to make history live with any degree of seriousness. The hour-and-a-half of Gladiator that excels thrives on this.
For the record, my favorite Russell Crowe epic of the decade is Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World.
Watching this one again. I've been trying to close out some outstanding holes I have in viewership this decade. Why then return to Gladiator? Well, I just saw Kingdom of Heaven and wanted to see how this movie holds up. The answer...? Good and bad. Bad as a Best Picture winner. Okay as the now-defunct Sandals & Swords Epic. Bad as spectacle. Good as Russell Crowe vehicle, of which it appears we won't have terribly many more. Okay as a narrative. So basically a bit of a mixed bag. What Gladiator has on Kingdom of Heaven, Troy, and those of its ilk is that it's dumb. Were I to read this script and Kingdom of Heaven, I would never think the latter would produce a worse film.
Gladiator is very entertaining for the first hour and a half or so. The final act is a murky, rushed mess that peddles in Roman politics barely sufficiently set-up throughout the narrative. What Gladiator does well - and after Kingdom of Heaven, it's pretty abundantly clear where one succeeds and the other fails - is provide two clear personas that drive the film forward with love and hate. There is nothing you can't hate about Joaquin Phoenix's hissy villain. It's a mannered, twitchy, whiny performance that works very, very well especially considered how painfully bland it is on the page. Phoenix is attuned to James Gray's sensibilities so I'm very eager to see his work that year on The Yards. He was clearly having a helluva year with Gladiator, The Yards, and the overwrought Quills in which he invested a small planet's worth of dignity and introspection. To contrast, there's nobody in Kingdom of Heaven that you can readily root against. This is certainly admirably complex but Ridley Scott is not the person to realize this vision.
Speaking of having a helluva year...it's very difficult for me not to root for Russell Crowe. After now a decade of watching others attempt to elicit the same effect, I must say that I really don't think Russell Crowe's Oscar is all that undeserving. Javier Bardem and Tom Hanks sorely deserved it more, but Crowe does so much of the heavy-lifting for Gladiator, and considering how intermittently it transcends dumb entertainment into something that appears like more. And when you consider the likes of Gibson, Pitt, Farrell, and Bloom, that's certainly saying something.
It's a manically-edited film with mezzo production values and egregiously cheap FX. It certainly didn't feel that way in 2000; when you stack up the inflated costs of both Gladiator and Kingdom of Heaven, they must be comparably priced and yet the latter looks so much better! But Gladiator has the foresight to be dumb, and people like Emmerich, Peterson, and sadly Stone are not intelligent enough to make history live with any degree of seriousness. The hour-and-a-half of Gladiator that excels thrives on this.
For the record, my favorite Russell Crowe epic of the decade is Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World.
"How's the despair?"
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Big Magilla
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Assassination of a High School President (2008) Brett Simon 8/10
Sony bought this, Simon's first feature, after its showing at last year's Sundance Film Festival but never released it theatrically.
Originally titled The Sophomore, it's a smart, witty high school comedy in the tradition of Election and Rushmore with a little Heaven Help Us thrown in. Although a DVD cover blurb compares it to Rushmore and The Usual Suspects, it more closely resembles Chinatown than The Usual Suspects in its denouement, even mimicking that film's famous last line.
Reece Thompson stars as the nerdy school reporter who solves the theft of the school's SATs twice, first in being falsely led to believe it was the school president (Patrick Taylor) and later uncovering the truth after he himself is falsely accused. Mischa Barton as the hot chick, Luke Grimes as her step-brother and a very good Bruce Willis as the lay principal of the Catholic high school also have major roles. Kathryn Morris of TV's Cold Case is completely unrecognizable as the school's slutty nurse.
It's worth seeking out.
Sony bought this, Simon's first feature, after its showing at last year's Sundance Film Festival but never released it theatrically.
Originally titled The Sophomore, it's a smart, witty high school comedy in the tradition of Election and Rushmore with a little Heaven Help Us thrown in. Although a DVD cover blurb compares it to Rushmore and The Usual Suspects, it more closely resembles Chinatown than The Usual Suspects in its denouement, even mimicking that film's famous last line.
Reece Thompson stars as the nerdy school reporter who solves the theft of the school's SATs twice, first in being falsely led to believe it was the school president (Patrick Taylor) and later uncovering the truth after he himself is falsely accused. Mischa Barton as the hot chick, Luke Grimes as her step-brother and a very good Bruce Willis as the lay principal of the Catholic high school also have major roles. Kathryn Morris of TV's Cold Case is completely unrecognizable as the school's slutty nurse.
It's worth seeking out.
Kingdom of Heaven: Director's Cut (Ridley Scott) - 6/10
An exhausting act of Pro vs. Con. Were I to read both this and the script to GLADIATOR, there's no doubt in my mind that this would be the superior read. Ultimately, Monahan's script is too out-dated for today's audiences. This is the kind of star-studded episodic odyssey where you introduce Jeremy Irons an hour into the movie. It doesn't help that Orlando is very dull. On the other hand, the cinematography in this film is far stronger than GLADIATOR (some awkward slo-mo shutter-toggling aside), and the scope of the film is grander in production. It's a little too anachronistically utopian-minded, but this is a very interesting film that never quite succeeds. At over three hours, it feels truncated still. I can't imagine how the theatrical release must have been.
I kept thinking that this material called out for a stronger sensibility than Ridley Scott, but who else? The man is a great showman but his strength is in lavish atmosphere and earnest pacing that can bumble (AMERICAN GANGSTER) as much as sting (BLACK HAWK DOWN). I don't think anyone else in this country would even want to bring this story of the crusades to the screen. I'm going to say it's a subject best left to Europeans. I'm now reminded of how long it's been since I last watched Tarkovsky.
Edited By Sabin on 1254906309
An exhausting act of Pro vs. Con. Were I to read both this and the script to GLADIATOR, there's no doubt in my mind that this would be the superior read. Ultimately, Monahan's script is too out-dated for today's audiences. This is the kind of star-studded episodic odyssey where you introduce Jeremy Irons an hour into the movie. It doesn't help that Orlando is very dull. On the other hand, the cinematography in this film is far stronger than GLADIATOR (some awkward slo-mo shutter-toggling aside), and the scope of the film is grander in production. It's a little too anachronistically utopian-minded, but this is a very interesting film that never quite succeeds. At over three hours, it feels truncated still. I can't imagine how the theatrical release must have been.
I kept thinking that this material called out for a stronger sensibility than Ridley Scott, but who else? The man is a great showman but his strength is in lavish atmosphere and earnest pacing that can bumble (AMERICAN GANGSTER) as much as sting (BLACK HAWK DOWN). I don't think anyone else in this country would even want to bring this story of the crusades to the screen. I'm going to say it's a subject best left to Europeans. I'm now reminded of how long it's been since I last watched Tarkovsky.
Edited By Sabin on 1254906309
"How's the despair?"
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Precious Doll
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The Good, The Bad, The Weird (2008) Ji-woon Kim 1/10
Surrogates (2009) Jonathan Mostow 4/10
Sick Girl (2007) Eben McGarr 2/10
The Buttercup Chain (1970) Robert Ellis Miller 2/10
Operator 13 (1934) Richard Boleslavsky 7/10
Nick and Norah's Inifinite Playlist (2008) Peter Sollet 5/10
Surrogates (2009) Jonathan Mostow 4/10
Sick Girl (2007) Eben McGarr 2/10
The Buttercup Chain (1970) Robert Ellis Miller 2/10
Operator 13 (1934) Richard Boleslavsky 7/10
Nick and Norah's Inifinite Playlist (2008) Peter Sollet 5/10
"I want cement covering every blade of grass in this nation! Don't we taxpayers have a voice anymore?" Peggy Gravel (Mink Stole) in John Waters' Desperate Living (1977)
Thanks Uri for your condolences. She was a great singer.Uri wrote:Indeed. At least when it comes to movies about blind film makers, BE is still better than Hollywood Ending.Hustler wrote:Maybe Uri, The Grand Maestro is getting older, a la Woody Allen. Dont´you think? I have the feeling that he is shooting the same movie again and again and again....Uri wrote: Agreed. One of my least favorite Almodovar too. His career can be divided into chronically distinctive phases – the raw enfant terrible up until Laws of Desire, the stylish enfant terrible, culminating with Kika, the reflective, relatively introverted and very personal transformative phase (my favorite) of The Flower of My Secret and Live Flesh. And then, with Mother, Talk to Her and Volver he turned into the universally accepted Grand Maestro. I'm afraid that with Bad Education and this one we're witnessing a new dead end direction in which he examine Cinema – in general, but mostly his own. One might call it academic, but I'd choose the term futile.
And can someone explain to me how the moderately – looks wise, talent wise and charisma wise – gifted Cruz became this Grand Diva?
Usually called "the voice" of Latin America.
Ludwig (1972; Luchino Visconti) 8/10
Lavish if lengthy and leisurely-paced bio-pic of the so-called "mad king" of Bavaria, Ludwig II (Helmut Berger): his relationships with Austria's Empress Elisabeth (Romy Schneider, more nuanced here than in the Sissi films) and composer Richard Wagner (Trevor Howard); his ill-fated engagement to Elisabeth's sister, Sophie (Sonia Petrovna); his homosexuality; his descent into a solitude of fairy-tale madness; and the coup that brought about his demise. Strong performances, spectacular scenery, breathtaking cinematography, but, oh, soooo long.
Lavish if lengthy and leisurely-paced bio-pic of the so-called "mad king" of Bavaria, Ludwig II (Helmut Berger): his relationships with Austria's Empress Elisabeth (Romy Schneider, more nuanced here than in the Sissi films) and composer Richard Wagner (Trevor Howard); his ill-fated engagement to Elisabeth's sister, Sophie (Sonia Petrovna); his homosexuality; his descent into a solitude of fairy-tale madness; and the coup that brought about his demise. Strong performances, spectacular scenery, breathtaking cinematography, but, oh, soooo long.
"...it is the weak who are cruel, and...gentleness is only to be expected from the strong." - Leo Reston
"Cruelty might be very human, and it might be cultural, but it's not acceptable." - Jodie Foster
"Cruelty might be very human, and it might be cultural, but it's not acceptable." - Jodie Foster