I heard about a new documentary on Jim Baker and the source family (http://vimeo.com/58953915 | http://thesourcedoc.com/) and found out this series of interviews.

Not everything Bunuel made is available, but of the dozen or so I've seen, none have disappointed. Oh, I suppose he repeats his themes a lot, particularly male jealousy, but big whoop.
-----
Zero Dark Thirty was so much better the second time. Kind of genius in its own way. First time, I thought it was cold and devoid of normal human emotion. Now I see that as its strength. Almost any other director would've made it more pulse-pounding and "action-y", and I think it took great control to simply tell the story without jerking the audience around.

Anyone else see it?

i forgot who the fuck didn't like it (apparently tons of people, judging by the imdb ratings) but this shit was brilliant, gorgeous, extraordinary, delicious---



cosmopolis

really, i think i get why so many people don't like it-- you have to be familiar with, or at least amenable to cronenberg's language, methods, obsessions. it pulls elements from things as far away as existenz and the italian machine (one of his early shorts) and dead ringers and crash...

it's "heavy" too-- it demands you think instead of just see--add some jazz drums and intertitles and it could be masculin-feminin (ha).

fantastic. extraordinary. i enjoyed it immensely. i want to watch it again right now.

K so I think one thing we all seem to agree on is Scorcese rules. So top 5 films by him?

In no order for me it's

1)Taxi Driver
2)Raging Bull
3)King Of Comedy
4)Shutter Island
5)Mean Streets

It's admittedly De Niro heavy but bite me. Two notable mentions for me is The Departed and Kundun.

i didn't like the departed. but goodfellas should be in his top 5 i think.

1. Last Temptation of Christ
2. Kundun
3. Aviator
4. A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies
5. (A fan edit of New York, New York could be really good)

I hate that film with a passion.


1. Mean Streets
2. Taxi Driver
3. Goodfellas
4. Raging Bull
5. Colour of Money

haaa haaa haaa

i can see how you could hate the characters, but they are what they are-- the ultimate sociopathic one percenter and his various minions/associates.

it all made perfect sense to me, it even felt a bit of a cyberpunk movie (minus the punk part), the unreal everything of it, perfect, very don de lillo, very cronenberg also, brilliant.

if anything the only part that felt a bit off to me was the last one, the one with harvey pekar, or whatever he's called. which is the only part that people who hate the movie seem to have liked. to me it was the opposite, it was a slight letdown, a bit obvious, after all that otherwordliness to end up in that random grime and the predictable employee with a grudge, but eh, the dialogue throughout the film was poetry to my ears, what can i say, i'm a sucker for conversation movies.

e.g.:

"your prostate is asymmetrical"

As you say, there was something inevitable about Cronenberg adapting a DeLillo novel; they do seem like kindred spirits in lots of ways. It's interesting that you're drawn to the dialogue, though. I like DeLillo a lot but that's a side of his writing I really struggle with. Great ideas and amazing descriptions but he does that thing where his characters don't so much speak to each other as make statements. I'm sure it fits with his overall message and can apprecate how it might work conceptually, it just really grates on me, and it seems that Cronenberg stuck pretty close to DeLillo's dialogue.

haaa haaa yes!! i remember you saying how much you hate his dialogue. which again i can understand-- it is as you say, not natural speech but statement-making. i think a lot of people of his era do/did stuff like that, try to jam some sort of philosophical shit to inform their novels because the novel had been declared dead and they had to try something so they turned to "theory". so you have people like kundera or julian barnes or what was the name of that playwright with the chaos in the english garden? i forget. in any case, yes, it's theory, disguised as novel or drama, but where i find julian barnes's moralizing extremely irritating i find delillo speaking through his stiff masks highly entertaining. the sense of alienation/otherwordliness i get from him is wonderful: i "get" it, not that i claim i "understand" it, but i catch his mental illness temporarily, and for me it's an enjoyable ride, like one of those comfy fevers one has to take in bed with a pile of comic books. calvino does the same thing to me by the way, now that i think of it (except calvino is harder to enter). i rant too much this morning, i am procrastinating urgent work, i should temporarily flee but thanks for the ear.

not sure if this counts but just finished watching "citizens of cosmopolis" which is the documentary on the "making of" cosmoposlis and its fucking sensational. damn, i love those people, particularly the crew. looks like such a great place to work.

on a hilarious note, i wasn't aware that the actor guy is the one from "twilight". mainly because twilight doesn't register in my radar except as laughable tv commercials and vague pop culture references. but good on him, for doing this. good actor too. and is juliette binoche getting hotter with age? please say it is so... she was smoldering. ANyWAY, good fun, good fun. if i could own this blu-ray i probably would, but i never buy movies. maybe i'll just keep it around longer till its magic is fully spent and i can return it.

Along with Winter Light, it's probably mine, too.

Microcosmos is a cool flick.

heres the whole movie of MICROCOSMOS

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zboRn6cImY
it's actually quite good. better to watch while listening to something else
the music and soundtrack to this movie is more silent then anything
or at least "nature noises"
quite good
i would recommend this for a new years eve party on mushrooms
we did it some years ago and mustve played it 6 times in a row

Trying to watch all my Ethan Hawke movies

I've not seen the documentary but thanks for the recommendation. I'll definitely see if I can find it. Although I've seen quite a few of Bergman's films, I really don't know much about him at all, either about his life or motivations, anything.

In 1934, aged 16, he was sent to Germany to spend the summer vacation with family friends. He attended a Nazi rally in Weimar at which he saw Adolf Hitler.[8] He later wrote in Laterna Magica (The Magic Lantern) about the visit to Germany, describing how the German family had put a portrait of Adolf Hitler on the wall by his bed, and that "for many years, I was on Hitler's side, delighted by his success and saddened by his defeats".[9] Bergman did two five-month stretches of mandatory military service. - (wikipedia)

Father was Lutheran minister. Ingmar's brother received a "magic lantern" for Christmas, and Ingmar tricked him into trading. He was a rebellious brat, and figured a life in the arts would piss his parents off well enough. He began in the theater, working his way into the prestigious Royal Dramatic Theater. He wrote as well, and one of his scripts got turned into a movie. It was a matter of time before this theatrical genius was given a shot at making a film of his own. While he was popular enough in Sweden, it wasn't until Smiles of a Summer Night that the international audience took notice, and his next film, Seventh Seal, made him an arthouse star. For the next few decades, he'd spend the summer filming, the winter directing a play. "Theater is my wife, film is my mistress."

In the mid-70s, the Swedish authorities accused Bergman of tax evasion. He fled to Germany. It all got sorted out. He lived the rest of his life on the tiny island of Faro, where he filmed a number of bleak things.

He's been married five times and has had countless long-term relationships otherwise, Liv Ulmann maybe most famously. His last one, to a chick named "Ingrid" (no, not that one) was the longest. She seemed cool.

He retired from film with Fanny and Alexander in 1982, but continued to write. Shortly before dying, he added one more film to his oeuvre--Saraband, a sequel of sorts to Scenes from a Marriage. (The DVD of Saraband has a meaty "making-of" thing that would contrast well with the much earlier documentary.)

I think he's the greatest director in cinema history. But if that's too much, you have to agree he's at least one of them.

The fact Bergman and Antonioni died on the same day still freaks me out a bit. Godard would've been shitting bricks that day.

I'll agree aesthetically he's one of the greatest, but I'll say this about this one negative thing about him-he had generally one style.

Put it this way, Kubrick was able to do the almost painfully slow films like 2001 (and no that isn't a slight on him as that's one of my fav. films), but yet he clearly had the talent to pull off a comedy like Dr. Strangelove or a horror like The Shining. Honestly I couldn't ever imagine Bergman being able to pull off a comedy film. Don't get me wrong he was incredibly brilliant at what what he did and his style, but for me a level of greatness has to be attributed to their ability to do more than one style of filming.

Sure you can do the long shot of a slow scene, but could you do a scene that tried to kick things up a level.

OPEN THE FLOODGATES OF WRATH!

tired to watch Poltergiest.....then Far Out Man.....then Betty Blowtorch.....and now Waking Life

it's a shitty night and i need another goddaamn dirnk and maybe change up movies
i bet the Wacky Wild Kool Aid Style video would look fucked on a giant Aquos tv
was thinking of hooking up the beta machine to it to see what it looks like

tired to watch Poltergiest.....then Far Out Man.....then Betty Blowtorch.....and now Waking Life

it's a shitty night and i need another goddaamn dirnk and maybe change up movies
i bet the Wacky Wild Kool Aid Style video would look fucked on a giant Aquos tv
was thinking of hooking up the beta machine to it to see what it looks like

had to put on MIDNIGHT RUN
it's been a brutal night and it's time to lay down and die
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_tWmEfrJcs

I agree that Bergman can be slammed for being dour.

(On the other hand, there are a handful of early comedies which are good.)

But what a weird comparison, Kubrick and Bergman.

Bergman never had a social satire like Dr. Strangelove.

But Kubrick never made a love-letter to the family like Fanny and Alexander.

Bergman never made a sci-fi film.

But Kubrick never made a quiet chamber piece with only two or three characters.

Bergman wrote his own stuff, mostly.

Kubrick developed scripts from novels, mostly.

Ultimately, Bergman was interested in interior life, Kubrick with social life. I don't get the comparison.


So true, because Kubrick cares more for ideas. On the other hand, not much politics in Bergman.


(I wonder how old Kubrick was when he declared WILD STRAWBERRIES his fav. Was he responding as an older man or as a young film enthusiast?)

i want to get inon this but im hungry and sleepy and i have futbol to watch

damn

briefly: bergman is at heart a playwright. he started wuth and went back to theatre. his films are plays. his obsessions the same and always personal. what made him a great filmmaker was nyqvist.

kubrick was first a photographer. the camera came first. what he put in it was second. which is why he could go from one place to another depending on script. also (we've said this before) not an "actor's director."

in a way these two are opposite and complementary.

btw joo guys watched the nyqvist documentary? light is my... something, i g=forget (need coffee/breakfast)

err hm oh, funny story (funny peculiar not haha)-- i have the tv version of fanny and alexander coming my way. yessssssssssss.

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to !@#$%! again.

You guys have missed my point. I'm not knocking Bergman in any way. I've enjoyed (is that the right word?) pretty much all of his films. My point was Bergman's pattern of films are in many ways similar to each other. The small films with 2 or 3 people pondering aloud about various philosophical questions was something he, along with Dreyer, were brilliant at but come on give me something else. Stretch yourself.

As for my choice of Kubrick he was the first director to pop into my head. My point was to show directors who showed a desire to stretch out. Why was Bergman happy to stay in a certain style of film?

To reiterate-I enjoy Bergman films a hell of a lot.


Remind me aside from the first half hour, how many characters where in 2001?


Paths of Glory? Spartacus?

Gotcha.

I happen to think there's some variety in Bergman, but I'm probably overthinking it. There is certainly something called "Bergmanesque."

But then, Kubrick's cold, detached uber-intellectual approach never changed much either, even if he did play with different genres.

And the more I think of it, Kubrick really did suck with characters, Kirk Douglas' stuff being a good exception. For example, I can't think of any memorable female characters at all. The women serve to push or frustrate the men's desires, and that's about it.

And 2001? The only interesting character in that is a fucking computer.

By the way, has anyone watched 2001 on acid? Was it a good trip or a total bummer?

Bergman + Comedy = Woody Allen
Kubrick + Characters = P T Anderson

Spartacus is shit. Kubrick disowned it, and with good reason, and afterwards left Hollywood for England.

This was a production of egomaniac ham Kirk Douglas. That movie is an atrocity. Well Douglas knew what he was doing I suppose because they broke box office records. But as a Kubrick film, it's complete shit. When I watched it I couldn't believe it. 5/5 vomits.


I didn't. I thought I explained why it is that way...

Spartacus the TV series on the other hand is my guilty pleasure. Ultra violence, ultra sex, lines like "by Jupiter's cock", show rules.

I'll give you 5/5 vomits in a minute.

I'll give you 5/5 vomits in a minute.

Eyes Wide Shut?

skyfall

waaaaay better than i expected it to be.

one thing i noted through the movie (look at the poster) was that he carries a tiny gun. 9mm short! okay for a gun of last resort/at close quarters i suppose, but had he carried something that packs more wallop he would have avoided many of the unnecessary headaches he encountered in the movie, like people running away from him. ha!



but anyway, sam mendes, not bad... not bad at all...