Proportionality

although, boo boo, you really need to put some more periods into your rants. you're overusing commas there a bit.

Wtf I thought this was a joke at first. I must have missed the whole thing because I thought that film was stupid as hell.

Bridge of Spies
Okay film overall but a number of things bugged me: Tom Hanks' character is so flawless (brave and good and clever and even humourous when he needs to be) that it's boring. I get the impression films like these, putting the one exceptional individual against the masses and the government, are there to appease a country's guilt feelings, in this case American guilt towards McCarthyism. This type of film is not specific to the US of course and the opposite self-whipping stance isn't much better, but do they really have to be made with such smoothness? (an odd choice of words perhaps but I can't find a better one to express the impression I got in this film that there was nothing remotely ambiguous or challenging or complex, especially when one considers the extraordinary subject matter, and I wasn't even asking for much because I wasn't expecting a some deep political thriller either).
The plane sequence, as impressive as it is, felt padded in, there for the sake of having an action sequence, and the American pilot's storyline in general was filler to me. Coen bros. humour and Spielberg's sleek direction didn't seem to click well either.
The worst thing about the film was the music though, horribly bland and overbearing. I can't believe a director with that kind of experience and stature would choose such an easy and awful way to make the audience feel moved. The whole ending [SPOILERS] him coming back just when the TV says he's been a big hero, how convenient, his wife walking upstairs and watching him sleep I MEAN COME ON[/SPOILERS].
Actually the only good things I tried to find in this mildly exciting and occasionally funny film were there because it's Spielberg and I respect him. If it wasn't I would probably have dismissed it completely. I hope that maybe all of this was done on purpose as a kind of ironically caricatural take on history and I didn't get it.

apparently, we all need to see Carol ... anyone seen it yet?

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/no ... odd-haynes
http://filmmakermagazine.com/96594-why- ... ol-in-16mm

“the actual physical grain of film adds another expressive layer that is impacting the surface of the characters’ emotional being. It has to do with how film captures movement and exposure in the frame — finer grain for highlights and larger grain for lower light areas — that gives a certain emotionality to the image that feels more human.” -- Lachman

Also, https://vimeo.com/148026900 David Ehrlich's year-end countdown

girl do you even follow us?

Damn, the old DA has been pretty sassy lately. But I can dig it. Why is Cloud Atlas dumb as hell? Also, your take on Bridge of Spies is kind of interesting but I'm not sure what you expected. How do you feel, for example, about Jimmy Stewart's standing man films with Frank Capra?


probably my most anticipated film of the year. Pretty much everything Todd Haynes has done is perfect. And anytime there's a praised Cate Blanchett or Rooney Mara performance, I'm there.

speaking of, have you seen Girlhood?

The only (yes, the only one...) Stewart/Capra film I've seen is It's A Wonderful Life, and I really don't think the characters are comparable. Bailey has internal struggles and even lashes out violently at his family at one point. It's part of what makes him interesting and anybody who has big dreams and wishes for more than he has got (so basically, all human beings) can identify with him. Tom Hanks' character is completely unhesitatingly one-dimensional, and I thought that for a moderately serious political film that was unfortunate (if it was a complete cartoon and overtly caricatural I wouldn't have minded but it does take itself rather seriously, despite the jokes). I wasn't expecting anything special though, and I know Spielberg isn't necessarily very subtle. I saw that you and PBR thought it was good I haven't seen much 00's Spielberg so I thought I would give it a try.

Regarding Cloud Atlas, "dumb as hell" is probably harsh. I just thought that the interesting thing about the stories were the links between them, but only a couple of them were interesting in their own right, and even then, not much to write about. To me it just quite fun but thought it was much more than that so came off as pretentious, like all stories that seem a bit too engrossed with the way they are being told than with what they're telling.

Since I've been saying mean things about films lately (well, except Coriolanus which I found awesome), I recently saw The Conformist, which I thought was amazing but I have trouble wrapping my head around the whole thing so I can't find much to say about it other than the fact that I have never seen a movie filmed in quite that way, its style is very unique, and it has some of the most striking cinematography I've ever seen.

Yeah, It's a Wonderful Life is certainly the most complex of Capra's standing man films. But a lot of the earlier ones like American Madness, Mr Deeds Goes To Town, and Mr Smith Goes To Washington (if memory serves) mostly have characters who are basically frustrated saints. But I think that just because a narrative presents its hero as only having minor faults, as basically being a human stand in for a kind of ideal or principle, doesn't mean that the film itself isn't serious. It just means that it's serious in a more allegorical kind of way. In any case, I found it to be a moving film simply because it was sleekly well executed and it appeals to the notion of adhering to principles in a tough situation where everyone wants to compromise for petty political reasons. For me it seemed like a film which was meant to unite Americans in a time of complete polarization and political chaos, demographically. At the same time though I could understand criticisms that it's not "challenging" but it's kind of the point of Spielberg's filmography to never be challenging (with the lone exception of AI). I would say it's the only one of his historical films other than maybe Empire of the Sun that isn't absolutely drowning in syrupy bullshit. But anyway, I can understand if someone finds it bland or whatever. I went in with extremely low expectations and was impressed.

In your Cloud Atlas criticism I'm not sure what "the way they are being told" refers to vs. "what they're telling" refers to. In my mind the way they are being told is what they are telling = they are explicating connections across eras for the service of those connections rather than for the interest of the individual stories themselves. That's the whole point of the movie and it does it quite complexly. I had to rewind and jump around a bit to fully grasp the significance of what was going on. If the individual stories got bogged down in themselves it would have risked obscuring the whole point of the movie. I think the individual stories were fleshed out enough to keep the transpersonal from totally overwhelming the individual. In fact I thought that the transpersonal enhanced the sense of the individual. But if you mean that the stories are too wrapped up in their production design or flashy effects to successfully convey the connections, that I can understand. I'm open to criticisms of the film which I don't relate to, I guess I just don't quite know what your are yet. Am interested to know, though.

Have you seen much other Bertolucci? I like The Conformist but I find it a bit tiresome and numbing after awhile. Just too much sensory information to take in and definitely can't follow the story because of how distracting the look of the film is. I think that Last Tango In Paris is his best work with Storaro in terms of balancing the narrative with the look of the film. The cinematography is gorgeous but serves the story rather than distracting from it. Though the beauty of that film has more to do with the way the camera moves and frames things rather than the interesting lighting or flashy colors which are the additional elements in The Conformist. Problem with Last Tango it was pretty undeniably exploitative of Maria Schneider, which makes it very difficult to enjoy. She's beautiful in The Passenger as well, which is probably a better film on balance.

It's an appealing theme I agree and at first I was pretty engrossed but as the film went on I got dissappointed with the way it was handled. I mentioned the music but there's also that parable/memory the Russian spy tells Tom Hanks about that guy who still stands up after being beaten. Too many things that felt way too contrived.

Tbh I'm probably being an idiot. You're absolutely right about the risk of obscuring the whole point of the movie. Like you say, I might have been distracted by the general flashiness (and heavy-handed humour of the old people's home section).


I haven't seen any other Bertolucci. I watched the beginning of 1900 but switched it off after a while because it felt too over-the-top and I didn't feel like using up 5 hours of my time (gorgeous cinematography though). Since there is a lot of information to take in The Conformist, especially on a first viewing, I couldn't really make out which aspects of the cinematography were actually useful in conveying a certain meaning and which parts were trying hard to look interesting from a merely visual point of view. Normally I am very suspicious of visually "pleasing" films, but I thought that its confusing nature, especially in the beginning, went well with the dreamy evocation of the past, the way the action jumped from one thing to the next in a rush of windswept leaves, on the whole made the film feel like a truly psychological exploration, as disorientating (and even numbing) as that can be, as if Lynch had made something with a political aspect. I didn't get the impression the colours were all that flashy, and when they were they expressed something, like for instance that big clichéd sunset in the train expressing something of Marcello's aspiration towards a contrived and artificial normality. And the use of shadows was perfectly served the Cave allegory motif. So I wouldn't call all the visual sophistication merely "additional elements" but to me an integral part of the story.

Dude I've been doing that for like a decade since I stopped using apostrophes as commas.

star wars: the force awakens - 5/5. pretty much what i expected. big, commercial filmmaking at its best (fuck off boo boo). it's the best star wars movie by a good distance in my opinion. probably the first great star wars film, really. not sure right now if it's as good as star trek or not. one or two twists and turns were poorly done but not to the point that they didn't work, and other negatives about the film aren't major enough to take away from the 5/5 rating i just gave it.

I'm excited!

My brother is in town so I'm trying to find movies that he will at least not quit after the first 20 minutes. Because of the good experience with Cloud Atlas on my own, tried Jupiter Ascending for a second time, and it is impossibly bad. I mean parts of it look really incredible, but the writing and acting is simply unforgiveable. TV level movie acting and writing. So we both quit after 20 minutes.

Then tried out God Help The Girl. I thought this was pretty good. I kind of think that Emily Browning is almost too attractive to be an actress though. Just distractingly hot. The story is completely unfocused and the movie pretty much exists for Stuart Murdoch to direct a bunch of people running around in extravagantly tasteful hipster clothing, passively defining their personalities against each other in obvious ways, and then breaking out into a song that Stuart Murdoch wrote. That makes it sound like it's bad, but it's not. In fact the way it is filmed is kind of a likable cross between Noah Baumbach and Wes Anderson-ripoff. It's just this attractive little movie that is made for Urban Outfitter kids four years after most Urban Outfitter kids would be interested in it. Ultimately a better film than Garden State though, because no plot is better than a terrible one, and it's filmed interestingly, and... the people dress interestingly... and Emily Browning's face. Also the songs are pretty good and I don't like Belle & Sebastian. Probably the biggest sin of the film is that it's two hours long and when it was over I only felt like I knew about 40 minutes worth about what the characters are like. Did I mention that Emily Browning is holy moly hot in this? I guess the main selling point for this is that rather than an indie musical dramedy where there's an offensive manic pixie dreamgirl character, here the manic pixie dreamgirl is the main character, so it's not quite as offensive. Unless I'm wrong.

I feel ya. This may just be a matter of me going into the film with low expectations because I've seen more recent Spielberg than you have, so for me the contrived syrupy elements seem tame compared to like Lincoln or War Horse. I would probably also put it above some of his films that are considered genuine classics though, like Saving Private Ryan and The Color Purple. If you're used to your historical dramas being really thoughtful critically acclaimed stuff, this is going to be disappointing, cause it's Spielberg. But I think if you're into new Spielberg at all you can't find this disappointing.


You're probably right. I guess I mean additional in the sense that I was only capable of making sense of them, at that time, as feeling additional. Another element with Burtolucci is that he's an Italian filmmaker, and I always find the Italian overdubbing on films of this period distracting. So it's difficult for me to follow what's going on in the first place, and then the plot is kind of unclear anyway, and then you have all these overpowering images. It's a lot to take in. Like Cloud Atlas, in a different way, I guess. Also I think that when I watched that I was in my big Cassavetes/low low low budget relationship drama phase and was super skeptical of overly composed looking films. It's a film I need to revisit for sure.

Had you seen this dreww? (in case you think about trying it again)

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShAeafYCqxk[/youtube]

I agree about Italian overdubbing, it can be very off-putting, especially when there are non-Italian actors. Senso with Farley Granger was particularly annoying. I would actually prefer it if they had all actors speaking their original language (and subtitle when needed), than having great actors dubbed in Italian. When I watched Rocco and his Brothers I switched between the French when there was Alain Delon and Annie Girardot (sound seemed to have been taken live, oddly enough, or else the dubbing was very well-done) and Italian for the rest.

It must have been very strange on set.