Matoaka’s Miranda (This comment was deleted by IMDb based on an abuse report filed by another user, because of some perceived religious slight.) Malick’s method is to frame films as remembrances. Remembrances of romantic notions, whether freedom, peace, war or love (as his four films trace). This way, he can exploit a languorous floating through… Continue reading The New World (2005)
Tag: p2006
Comments first posted in 2006
Kung Fu Hustle (2004)
Comedic Self-reference You can read from others about the basic nature of this, and how widely it is admired and enjoyed. I myself admire and enjoy it. It is a movie about movies. Its something between a “Scary Movie” style parody and a “Charlie’s Angel’s” … What’s called an homage but is really more of… Continue reading Kung Fu Hustle (2004)
Beginner’s Luck (1935)
Inverted Show This is my favourite Our Gang short. It has everything that I recall fondly: rowdy fellowship and kids conspiring against adults resulting in innocent mischief. Although the series had already been around a dozen years, for me the master cast was the Spanky, Buckwheat, Alfalfa period. This was the first with them together.… Continue reading Beginner’s Luck (1935)
Bee Season (2005)
Letters to God I am coming to believe that no effective movie can be deeply spiritual. We know the problem with cinematic love: how do you show it? Sex? Placed in the midst of larger flows like war? Mystical forces are similar, internal. A bond, a sway that cannot be seen by definition, cannot be… Continue reading Bee Season (2005)
Bettie Page: Bondage (1998)
The Previous Edge In all things, there is an inside and an outside and that defines edges. Not edges between, but edges beyond which you can see the difference. There are, I suppose many domains of which this can be said of sex, and the various rituals and totems associated with it. I was coming… Continue reading Bettie Page: Bondage (1998)
Betty Blue (1986)
The Piano Sometimes a film makes a long, long journey. For me this happened in several ways. The first is in real time. I saw this a couple decades ago in the short version. I was unimpressed. The word on it then was all about the first scene, how it was supposed to be “real”… Continue reading Betty Blue (1986)
Æon Flux (2005)
Credible World Science fiction movies are an odd thing. They and “detective” movies depend more heavily on literary conventions than other types of films. But you know, where detective movies have swallowed the form and adapted in rich ways, science fiction hasn’t settled gently into film. Its an odd, unintuitive truth, despite the flood of… Continue reading Æon Flux (2005)
The Ballad of Jack and Rose (2005)
Overdeveloped Oh man, how sad. It is a sad story of failure that itself is a failure. It is placed in a world where the unnatural is impinging on the natural and that is called undesirable. And it itself is so unnatural, so manufactured and manipulative it runs counter to itself. Sure, it is independent… Continue reading The Ballad of Jack and Rose (2005)
Barbed Wire Dolls (1976)
Captured I’ve been involved in a dangerous business, diving into the catacombs of film, digging around in trash pits and seeing grand things. Part of this endeavour comes from my appreciation for the vitality of film today which in large part is anchored by Spanish and Spanish-speaking filmmakers. There’s an easy sliding of realities, a… Continue reading Barbed Wire Dolls (1976)
Arsenic and Old Lace (1944)
Playing with Plays Adapted for the screen by the same folks who next did “Casablanca,” incidentally with Lorre. Filmed by someone known for his light touch. I’m not of a fan of Capra’s, as he values the little quirky hooks in the story and dialog and depends on some grand sweep (usually nostalgic) to make… Continue reading Arsenic and Old Lace (1944)