Nikan
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Post by Nikan on Apr 17, 2020 14:07:33 GMT
Third viewing of The Great Escape. Every time I get to it's last hour, it feels like I'm experiencing it for the first time: I want them all to succeed... and I watch in awe that they don't... yet we never think of them as the losers at all. amazing.
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Post by DeepArcher on Apr 19, 2020 21:37:13 GMT
I rewatched The Social Network for the first time in a few years last night in honor of, you know ... and I gotta say, every time I rewatch this I always fear that it won't hold up, only to find that the opposite is true. I think it gets better every time I watch it.
It's not the type of movie I gravitate towards either, and yet, it's just so masterful. Sorkin's script seriously has to be the best of the decade -- and it feels sacrilegious to say that over films like Phantom Thread, Parasite, The Handmaiden, and others -- but there's just so much going on in it that it reveals new subtleties every time I watch it. Literally every word of it is chosen so carefully and has some greater tie-in with the overall film. There are a lot of brilliant examples of this, some of the ones that get mentioned often like the "row crew" line in the first scene or the Victoria's Secret reference in the second, but one that I felt stupid for never noticing until now is how Sean's line at the end about having never heard of "the chicken" (a line I always hate for disrupting the dramatic climax until this last rewatch) was a call-back to the fact that he had never read anything about Eduardo ... there's so many clever things like that that I keep seeing more and more of the more I watch it.
I had it at #13 on my list and still think I'd rank it there -- but it truly is the defining film of the decade in a lot of ways, culturally at least if not cinematically as well. I was hoping something directly below it (Parasite, Fury Road, Master) would pull off the win, but it's an excellent, exceedingly appropriate top choice nonetheless.
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Post by JangoB on Apr 23, 2020 11:31:02 GMT
I don't think that the 1965 Marlen Khutsiyev film I Am Twenty has any status of particular significance on an international stage when it comes to Soviet cinema, and in fact it's not even that well-known or talked-about in Russia. It absolutely should be - it's truly one of the great examples of why Soviet cinema was among the most significant art forms of its time, and generally an example of how in the 60s European cinema was firmly ahead of its American counterparts due to its inventiveness and freedom. The film is an almost three-hour portrait of the lives of young people in 1960s Moscow - there is no perfunctory story or anything, it's just a glimpse into a young generation of that time, of their hopes, of their struggles with identity, of their relationship to their history. The movie pissed off Nikita Khrushchev who thought that the main characters were depicted as being too aimless which in his eyes wasn't possible in the time of the great communist idea. This is why artists differ from politicians - the latter see people as tools of their platform, the former see them as people. The cinematic language is clearly inspired by the New Wave and is brimming with freedom. There're surrealistic touches, there's the free-wheeling camera movement, there's the essential idea that the feeling is more interesting that plot. And it's all wonderful. The movie is particularly powerful to watch these days because it's basically about the grandparents of our generation. It not only reminds us that they used to be young as well, it lets us directly into their lives, giving us a chance to sit with them side by side and have a conversation. Something we probably ought to be doing more often. And just as a bonus - Andrei Tarkovsky has a small part in this as a slimy disrespectful party guest who gets slapped in the face! Director cameos are always my favorite ones and this is no exception. Nice to see him young and having fun, even is his character thoroughly deserved that slap.
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Nikan
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Post by Nikan on Apr 26, 2020 20:03:14 GMT
Just re-visited Gattaca... and it's still lovely.
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Post by JangoB on May 4, 2020 11:41:43 GMT
This one here is a rewatch, an overdue rewatch of a film that I saw a bit too early in my movie-exploring days and didn't really grasp/appreciate. Peter Weir's Picnic at Hanging Rock is of course a true masterwork. There're atmospheric films and then there're films that seem to enter your subconscious and transport you into a different mysterious realm. "Picnic" belongs to the latter category. A mystery with no answer that keeps haunting the people around it and does the same to the viewer - it seems to me that if you fall in love with this film, the enigma of Hanging Rock will never cease to pull you closer and closer, and the sounds of Zamfir's pan flute will turn you to a whole other world. Can't quite believe there was a time when I didn't fall under this film's spell.
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Post by JangoB on May 8, 2020 12:31:12 GMT
I haven't really heard The Lady from Shanghai described as one of Orson Welles's best or most significant films but I must say that I was absolutely floored by it. We've all heard about Welles's fights with studios and about his initial ideas being restructured, recut or thrown away altogethe, and while it's true that in most cases I would've preferred to see his vision remain intact, with this particular movie I'm actually kind of happy that it turned out the way it did. Sacrilege, I know, but I just completely fell in love with the insanely energetic and very modern-feeling (in the best possible sense) pace and editing of the movie. It's a noir that truly stands out and that even feels somewhat radical for its time and for its genre - the artistry on display is unbelievable, Welles's direction is some of the most imaginative of the 1940s, the film just shines with life and freedom. And on top of that the studio editing just makes the experience tighter, brisker and more expressive. Would I like to see Welles's originally intended long version? Sure but I can't help but think that the studio interference actually helped make the resulting picture even crazier, bolder and more awesome. It's a unique case of commercial intentions turning themselves upside down and creating a work of art.
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