2010s List Discussion and Suggestions (Lists Project Vol. 3)

An ongoing project to survey the best films of individual decades, genres, and filmmakers.
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domino harvey
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Re: 2010-2014 List Discussion and Suggestions

#101 Post by domino harvey » Thu Mar 17, 2016 11:17 pm


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Re: 2010-2014 List Discussion and Suggestions

#102 Post by bottled spider » Fri Mar 18, 2016 12:49 am

I see. Point taken.

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Re: 2010-2014 List Discussion and Suggestions

#103 Post by mfunk9786 » Sat Mar 19, 2016 12:52 am

Starlet (domino harvey Spotlight)
Every time I tried to assign my own expectations to this film - thinking it'd rely too heavily on the objectification of its model lead, thinking it would dwell too deeply in the misery of any of its supporting characters, thinking it'd only have shallow, social media level lessons to impart - I was far, far off base. If anything, this film insisted that I stop trying to out-think it. Because it is continually warm, surprising, sweet, and life-affirming, without letting up until the literal final frame. It's not every day that an ending like Starlet's comes along (it rivals Phoenix's, also on my list), in being so many things simultaneously, without relishing what it withholds as some sort of clever ace card. It is just the end of this story, it is all that we deserve to see, all that we deserve to know. It is happy, and sad, and informative, and beside the point.

This will be making my final 25 for sure.

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HJackson
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Re: 2010-2014 List Discussion and Suggestions

#104 Post by HJackson » Sat Mar 19, 2016 4:59 am

I don't watch anywhere near enough contemporary film so I'm looking forward to catching up with this project. I'm planning to use whatever available evenings on this so to avoid clogging up the thread I'll just post my thoughts in lumps of five to ten pictures.

Starlet
It took me a while to warm to this one. Something about Dree Hemingway with her little pet dog going around yard sales looking for an irregular object to use as vase while her roommates smoke drugs in the middle of the day just rubbed me the wrong way. Once Besedka Johnson becomes a major player and her relationship with Hemingway takes centre stage, it really becomes enthralling though. I think its chief success is the imperceptible change of this relationship over the picture from something primarily motivated by guilt to something much more important to the Hemingway character such that, when her flatmate makes her vindictive intervention, you end up being genuinely fearful about the potential fallout. Like mfunk I was impressed by the ending. My only real reservation is the twist in the middle. It was unexpected but it had minimal impact on the A-plot (apart from offering a nice undertone of awkward levity to the scene where Hemingway and her roommate try to deal with their boss, while Johnson sits in the car oblivious) and I thought the scene showing Hemingway's character at work was perhaps gratuitous.

Night Moves
Absolutely stunning. It's remarkable how, in the first half of the picture, Reichardt manages to give the viewer many of the traditional pleasures of a suspense thriller in the context of a slow, spare art film about eco-terrorists whose characters and their motivations are left mysterious and underdefined. Once this phase of the film passes it becomes a more thoroughly amorphous thing. I don't really have much to say about it other than I found it haunting. It's something I look forward to going back to, and I'm glad I watched it late at night when I was tired and open to being hypnotised by something slow and deliberate like this.

The One I Love
Watchable and occasionally enjoyable, but a little too in love with its premise - which is interesting but not as hot as the film wants it to be. There's an insufferable stretch of about ten to twenty minutes where the characters just walk in and out of the guest house and report back to each other with comments like 'wow it's, like, really weird isn't it?' Not really, I think most people picked up on what was happening as quickly as the mechanism was introduced. Then we're subjected to another half an hour of not-so-interesting and really quite predictable plot development until we get a final showdown which at least carries you along with some kinetic energy to a cheap ending that you can see a mile off (and which isn't improved by a minute-long lingering shot of Mark Duplass working it all out while we're already moving to switch the flick off).

Maps to the Stars
Only my second Cronenberg after Videodrome. It isn't on the same level but it's a wildly funny satire on Hollywood with a weird supernatural thriller element tacked on in a way that works effectively. The highlight for me isn't Julianne Moore, fine as she is, but the teen star. The three scenes where he deals with being undermined by a younger co-star who is getting more laughs than him is gut-busting stuff. There's something so deliciously dark about the subject of the satire in this case and I'm glad that the screenwriter showed absolutely no restraint when putting him in the most loathesome scenarios imaginable - the early scene where he goes to visit what he thinks is a young girl with AIDS to boast about his latest box office gross really is just the beginning. I need to watch this one again to get a better handle on all the moving parts, but it was a fun ride when I watched it.

Listen Up Philip
The first third or so with Jason Schwartzman does a great job of giving us a sense of the character and giving us a stake - regardless of what an asshole he is - in the moves he makes in the literary milieu that the film does a good job of establishing. It's also wildly funny at this point. Once it takes it first digression away from this character and focuses on Elizabeth Moss, I pretty much zoned out. I don't have much to say about it beyond that point because it never successfully recaptured my interest, even when Jonathan Pryce (who, as ever, is wonderful) pops back in adds some flavour to the proceedings.

Frances Ha
A much better indie flick which shows more commitment to its central character, flawlessly realised by Greta Gerwig. The aimlessness begins to bother but it never loses steam in the same way that Philip did. I was satisfied.

Love & Mercy
I'm in love with this. Paul Dano seems to have gotten the lion's share of the credit for the Wilson characterisation, probably because he gets to do all of the fun stuff in the studio and write timeless hits like Good Vibrations, but I was actually more impressed by Cusack in this one. It probably helped that I'd seen him playing a very different role in the same kind of setting only a few nights earlier in Maps to the Stars, but I was quite stunned by the totally pure innocence and vulnerability that he was able to conjure up. I found the scene with Elizabeth Banks on the boat very moving, but perhaps I'm just being sappy. Both male leads do good work here though and it's a miracle that the film hangs together so perfectly given the plot structure (which in inferior hands would just be a disaster waiting to happen), successfully juggling two sets of supporting characters, two (well realised) time periods, and two leads playing the same character who aren't that similar in appearance.

This and Night Moves will almost certainly be making my final list. Starlet will probably get a look in, but I have a lot of big beasts to watch before I can be sure.

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domino harvey
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Re: 2010-2014 List Discussion and Suggestions

#105 Post by domino harvey » Sat Mar 19, 2016 6:57 am

Glad to see the positive reactions to Starlet, which is guaranteed to be in my Top 5, should anyone else want to game the system for the upcoming Best of the Decades Lists Project list

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mfunk9786
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Re: 2010-2014 List Discussion and Suggestions

#106 Post by mfunk9786 » Sat Mar 19, 2016 10:55 am

domino harvey is banned. Reason: tryna game the system

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swo17
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Re: 2010-2014 List Discussion and Suggestions

#107 Post by swo17 » Sat Mar 19, 2016 2:21 pm

I was afraid this would happen. Then again, each person can only "game" 5 films here, and the 5 films you most want to game can't be that different from the 5 films you like the most. The moment you start to think that someone else is sure to vote for a certain film so you don't have to, you've just realized that you might not really like that film as much as you thought.

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zedz
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Re: 2010-2014 List Discussion and Suggestions

#108 Post by zedz » Sun Mar 20, 2016 5:05 pm

Next semi-random Hong was The Day He Arrives, which seemed even better than the first time, and I think I have more of a grasp on what he's doing with the film this time around.

It's another expert play with narrative, plodding amiably along as a low-key comedy until its strangeness gradually builds to critical mass and demands an explanation that it simultaneously denies.

Our protagonist, Sungjoon, is a former film director now teaching in a backwater. He returns to Seoul after some time away to visit his friend Youngho (AND THAT'S ALL HE'S GOING TO DO IN SEOUL, he reminds us on more than one occasion). On the day he arrives (hmmm) he can't get hold of Youngho, so he wanders around the streets. He runs into an actress he once worked with, who is very keen for him to join her for coffee, but he'd rather keep wandering and try to find any other cafe. At a restaurant, he's asked to join a group of film students, who are really impressed to meet a moderately famous filmmaker. They get drunk together and Sungjoon asks them if they want to visit a rather vague 'very special place' on the other side of town. As soon as they get across town, Sungjoon is suddenly horrified by his entourage and abruptly flees from them. He finds his way to the apartment of former lover Kyungjin and drunkenly talks his way in. It appears that their former affair ended very badly, and perhaps somewhat scandalously (maybe this is what put an end to Sungjoon's directorial career?), but they have a one-night stand anyway, which again ends with a sense of futility and finality.

The next day, Sungjoon catches up with Youngho, runs into the actress yet again and in the evening they go, along with Youngho's female friend Boram, to a bar called Novel. The owner is out, so they help themselves to drinks. When the owner returns, she apologises profusely, while Sungjoon is impotently transfixed by her resemblance to Kyungjin (she is, of course, played by the same actress). He goes out to have a smoke and Kyungjin texts him a message of longing.

The next day, Sungjoon and Youngho (after running into the actress for the third time) have lunch with an actor they'd both worked with, and the lunch deteriorates into recriminations about the time Sungjoon failed to cast the actor in a role he'd promised him. The rift is papered over and in the evening the three, along with Boram, go to a bar called Novel. And here's where things get overtly weird: it's as if they hadn't been there the previous night, and the same events and conversations recur (the bar owner is out and arrives apologetically, for example). But the group dynamic is different with an extra person, so when Sungjoon goes out for a smoke, this time Boram joins him to flirt (Sungjoon is oblivious, distracted by the haunting resemblance of the bar owner to Kyungjin and another longing text from Kyungjin). When he's out there having another smoke, the bar owner ducks out to buy some dumplings and he joins her, impulsively kissing her in the street on the way back. In the early morning, all five are trying to hail a taxi for the vomiting actor. Boram storms off; Youngho follows her; a taxi is hailed, leaving Sungjoon and the bar owner conveniently alone together. They go back to her place.

The next day, Sungjoon and Youngho have dinner with Boram (at the same restaurant they'd been to the previous day). Sungjoon talks about his conquest, then talks about how easy it is to do fake readings of people (oddly enough, the same conversation the actor was having with the bar owner the previous evening while Boram and Sungjoon were outside) by simply including two opposites in the reading (e.g. You're happy on the outside, but inside you're sad). He demonstrates with Boram, who's shocked and moved by just how deeply Sungjoon understands her, despite the transparency of the scam. After dinner, they go to a bar called Novel. This time around, Boram is really annoyed that the bar owner was out when they arrived. While Sungjoon is outside having a smoke and ignoring Kyungjin's text, the bar owner goes out to buy dumplings. He accompanies her, and on the way, he apologizes about the previous night. The bar owner has no idea what he's talking about, she's never seen him before. Nevertheless, they kiss and hook up for a one-night stand in the bar after everybody else has left.

The next day is very much like the first one. In fact, Sungjoon has just arrived in Seoul and this time he finds that Youngho is way too busy to catch up. He doesn't run into the actress this time, but he does run into a number of other former colleagues who have very little time for him. He also runs into Boram, or a woman who looks exactly like her, and they strike up a pleasant conversation.

By the time you get to the second night, the repetitions are odd enough to give you a kind of surreal frisson; by the third, they've escalated to a puzzle that begs to be solved; by the fourth, the remaining internal logic has been ruptured, since for Sungjoon it's at least the second night at Novel, but for the bar owner it's his first.

So what's going on in this film?
SpoilerShow
My theory is that almost all of the film is Sungjoon's fantasy about what will happen in Seoul on the day he arrives, and - despite his protestations - what he really hopes for is to be reunited with his former lover. He's playing and replaying scenarios in his head, trying to make them as plausible and natural as possible in delivering his desired outcome. But things keep going wrong (mostly thanks to Sungjoon's lingering sense of reality and narrative logic).

His first approach is blunt and direct: he reunites with his actual lover, but the plot mechanics he dreams up are awkward and unsatisfactory. He uses the bunch of film students and the ridiculously vague promise of a 'really cool place' to get himself into Kyungjin's neighbourhood, but then finds himself saddled with three unwelcome sidekicks, which he has to 'write out' in the most perfunctory manner.

That fantasy doesn't work for Sungjoon anyway, as it just leaves the couple in the spot they were in previously, so next time around he invents a surrogate Kyungjin in the form of the bar owner, and imagines a series of scenarios that might deliver what he wants (i.e. sex with Kyungjin without the inevitable unpleasantries). First time around, no opportunity for a hookup arises, so he varies the scenario on the subsequent nights (an additional warm body, a hostile Boram). Night three kind of works, but evidently going back to her place is a bit too much of a commitment for Sungjoon - and maybe too much of a reminder of the real Kyungjin - so bonking in the convenient bedroom he imagines to be just off the bar is a better solution.

Considered as a series of (sexual) fantasies explains most of the films oddities. Sungjoon is working and reworking narrative material in order to perfect the fantasy: he retains the fictional elements he's happy with (e.g. the arrival at the abandoned bar, which allows for the 'reveal' of the surrogate Kyungjin, and also puts her at an apologetic disadvantage), and recycles bits and pieces (the 'reading' conversation, meeting the actress, the Korean restaurant) that are neither here nor there. He also stacks the deck with subtle self-aggrandizement: in his fantasies, his former colleagues (most obviously represented by the emblematic actress, but also Youngho) are all pleased to see him, whereas the reality we see at the end of the film is the exact opposite; every woman flirts with him; Youngho is delighted to spend hours in his low-wattage company.

But he also comically loses control of his own narrative on more than one occasion: not only is the device of the students a clumsy one that he has to suddenly do away with, but they come back to haunt him in the company of the omnipresent actress later on; his vagueness about whether or not they're visiting Novel for the first time trips him up on the final night (this is a particularly deft piece of writing: the narrative has blithely continued on for Sungjoon in the warm afterglow of the previous night's conquest, until another part of his brain realises that the rebooted fantasy just doesn't work unless it's the first time for the bar owner - the last thing he wants with this sexual encounter is the inconvenient baggage of the previous night); the reunion with Kyungjin backfires because she immediately reminds him what a shit he was the first time (and whatever disaster it was that ended his career raises its shadowy head more than once); on the second night at Novel, Sungjoon has to have two smokes, because the first time it's the unwanted Boram, not the bar owner, who joins him outside.

The final sequence confirms that the entire film takes place on "the day he arrives", and unsentimental reality effectively dashes his hopes for a sexy encounter with his ex-lover or her double, but it does offer up the more modest possibility of a rewarding encounter with another woman, one that he'd casually shunned in the course of his fantasies.

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Michael Kerpan
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Re: 2010-2014 List Discussion and Suggestions

#109 Post by Michael Kerpan » Sun Mar 20, 2016 7:25 pm

zedz -- a very appealing theory! I like it.

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TMDaines
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2010-2014 List Discussion and Suggestions

#110 Post by TMDaines » Mon Mar 21, 2016 9:39 am

Durak (2014): Once you a have a healthy number of ratings and a lengthy watchlist on IMDb, the site generates pretty sound recommendations, especially once you get through all the obvious viewing blind spots that you may have. This film came courtesy of there.

The setup is fairly simple, during a violet domestic dispute about stolen money that serves as the film's prologue, a water pipe bursts. The whole scene underscores what is to come: a tale of a corrupt society teetering on the brink of disaster socially, economically and politically.

The hero of the film, Dima, the "durak" (fool) of the title of the film, is a bright young plumber on the way up in the world. After inspecting the damage, he soon realises that the burst pipe is merely evidence of a much larger issue: the entire block of flats is falling apart and will do so in 24 hours. While this should have been rectified during regular renovations of the building, the funds to do so were skimmed off the top by the local head of the housing organisation.

In response, Dima goes right to the very top of the provincial town in an attempt to save the lives of the occupants. Is anyone going to be motivated to act, however, if they have already been bleeding the system dry until now? Perhaps covering their own backs will prove the only motivation.

A brilliant film: one where you truly don't know whether to laugh or cry. From my time in Ukraine though, I dread just how accurate this slice of modern small town Russian life is.

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zedz
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Re: 2010-2014 List Discussion and Suggestions

#111 Post by zedz » Mon Mar 21, 2016 4:38 pm

TMDaines wrote:Durak (2014): Once you a have a healthy number of ratings and a lengthy watchlist on IMDb, the site generates pretty sound recommendations, especially once you get through all the obvious viewing blind spots that you may have. This film came courtesy of there.

The setup is fairly simple, during a violet domestic dispute about stolen money that serves as the film's prologue, a water pipe bursts. The whole scene underscores what is to come: a tale of a corrupt society teetering on the brink of disaster socially, economically and politically.

The hero of the film, Dima, the "durak" (fool) of the title of the film, is a bright young plumber on the way up in the world. After inspecting the damage, he soon realises that the burst pipe is merely evidence of a much larger issue: the entire block of flats is falling apart and will do so in 24 hours. While this should have been rectified during regular renovations of the building, the funds to do so were skimmed off the top by the local head of the housing organisation.

In response, Dima goes right to the very top of the provincial town in an attempt to save the lives of the occupants. Is anyone going to be motivated to act, however, if they have already been bleeding the system dry until now? Perhaps covering their own backs will prove the only motivation.

A brilliant film: one where you truly don't know whether to laugh or cry. From my time in Ukraine though, I dread just how accurate this slice of modern small town Russian life is.
I found this a decent enough film, but I couldn't help but think it was a blunter and more conventional knock-off of the work of Alexey Balabanov (to whom the film is dedicated). I also felt that the pervasive air of dread muted various plot twists. It's so obvious that everybody except the hero is profoundly corrupt that nothing they do is surprising as long as it's horrible. I also felt that the 'this aged building will definitely collapse within 24 hours' gimmick was something a screenwriter, but no engineer ever, would say, and most of the film's action hangs on that gimmick.
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The failure of the building to collapse on schedule does indeed become a plot point, so fair enough, but I still don't buy the initial certainty that drives the urgency and extremity of the preceding plot. I don't see why the young plumber's concern couldn't have operated practically the same way without the ridiculously artificial and conventional 'time bomb' device.

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2010-2014 List Discussion and Suggestions

#112 Post by TMDaines » Mon Mar 21, 2016 6:44 pm

zedz wrote:I found this a decent enough film, but I couldn't help but think it was a blunter and more conventional knock-off of the work of Alexey Balabanov (to whom the film is dedicated). I also felt that the pervasive air of dread muted various plot twists. It's so obvious that everybody except the hero is profoundly corrupt that nothing they do is surprising as long as it's horrible. I also felt that the 'this aged building will definitely collapse within 24 hours' gimmick was something a screenwriter, but no engineer ever, would say, and most of the film's action hangs on that gimmick.
SpoilerShow
The failure of the building to collapse on schedule does indeed become a plot point, so fair enough, but I still don't buy the initial certainty that drives the urgency and extremity of the preceding plot. I don't see why the young plumber's concern couldn't have operated practically the same way without the ridiculously artificial and conventional 'time bomb' device.
SpoilerShow
Pretty sure the film does not show the building failing to collapse on time. The film ends just after sunrise the next morning after Dima sounded his warning late the night before, in the early hours even. It still had at least another 12 hours to fulfil his prophecy.

A similar event happened in Beijing IRL where cracks appeared in a building and it collapsed and killed residents whilst they were being evacuated. It was captured on TV even.

I didn't particularly feel there were any real plot twists. All the characters essentially acted as I expected them to and the events unfolded likewise. Dima was also going to go back to the building, the matriarch of the town was always going to cover her tracks, etc.

I interpreted the ending bleakly. His efforts were shown to be wasted on group who were too stupid to be appreciative of them. Hence the ironic title of the film. I'm loathe to read too much between the lines in films, but I interpreted it as a pretty clear criticism of an underclass in modern Russia, who refuse to see the wood for the trees and prefer to drink themselves into a continual drunken stuper to hide from reality. Even when they were being alerted to an immediate danger, they'd sooner drink to try and ignore it. People like this exist everywhere, but it's more tragic in a country where you do not have a welfare system that treats your life as something worth maintaining or investing in. Ultimately what Fedotov and the rest of the corrupt officials remark about money being wasted on an underclass who would never amount to anything, and hence their lack of guilt for draining the system, is shown to be a somewhat rational, albeit psychopathic, line of thought... although they would of course find some justification to steal from anyone, rich or poor.

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Re: 2010-2014 List Discussion and Suggestions

#113 Post by knives » Sun Mar 27, 2016 11:42 pm

Hard to Be a God
Any film which conjures so effectively to mind Watkins, Pasolini and Tarr automatically has an intense likability factor that is hard to bring down. Unfortunately German does just that as this one stays significantly past the time that its style affords. Pretty much all German seems to want to convey is presented in the first 45 minutes and then he repeats those notes with little to no variation for the next two hours plus. What was once a hilarious reminder of the terribleness of medieval Russia with hints of the present and possibly future turns into a dull slog of asses, penises, and whatever else faux shocking thing comes to mind. Perhaps had he lived long enough to edit it down German would have accomplished a much more refined film, but that's not what is present. It's not even like the story or themes particularly warrant the length considering how casual the approach to the former is and how concisely the later is communicated. I'd still recommend it as an aesthetically interesting film, but the complete package fails to maintain its Rabelaisian inventiveness.

Hereafter
Eastwood has no excuse for this film considering he was able to make three good to great films out of Paul Haggis scripts. Peter Morgan has made a few good scripts so the utter failure this has to have anything good about it I place entirely on Eastwood's grouchy feet. The most underdeveloped of the stories, by the way this basically being an anthology might be the worst part, is the only one that could be salvaged into a decent movie and I half suspect that's just left over good will from Aja's High Tension.

The Intouchables
This is one of those mysterious films which the Internet makes seem popular, but not through the usual avenues of discussion or parody. Instead it seems to randomly pop up on populists lists like IMDB all of the time despite seemingly having no distribution, at least that I can remember, and no one seemingly having seen it. On the outside it is a fascinating mystery of how popularity works in the modern age. That is the only point of interest though as the film is some terrible Weinsteined cinema de papa. It's also vaguely racist in its benign liberal leanings ala Crash. I'm just surprised the American remake starring Steve Carrel and Kevin Hart hasn't been made and failed yet.

Green Zone
I'm really surprised this was made as late as 2010 as it seems like such a relic of the Bush administration in terms of the politics, characterization of Damon's rebellion, and the portrayal of the middle east conflict. Greengrass, in a way I'm sure is entirely accidental, has composed what feel like the perfect period piece of Bush era liberalism. My understanding is that this is treated as the black sheep of Greengrass' career, but this is far and away the most enjoyment and engagement I've gotten from him because that anthropological aspect remains so interesting. The movie still has problems with the camera work and editing being ugly though. It's a totally incompetent film aesthetically to keep that short. The movie also never succeeds in creating a realism with Damon who always comes across as Damon playing a liberal military officer for the purposes of espousing Greengrass' politics instead of achieving documentary. That later bit though just helps in the distanced pleasure I described earlier and I'm glad however late to the party to have such a perfect summary of the attitudes of the era in the way that Stone used to do with Salvador in particular being brought to mind.

Thor
I lot interest in the MCU fairly quickly with this as the first casualty of that disinterest. I think though that the distance of time has done well because though this is a mess of a film the talky Branagh quality keeps the film afloat of most of these problems. It really is nice to get one of these super films with only two boring action scenes. The Shakespeare scenes work best with the play between Hopkins, Hiddelston, Hemsworth, and Elba being juicy political squabbling. The earth stuff isn't as entertaining, and frankly that's all this film offers, and makes me wish they had chosen to adapt the Kirby comics rather then the Ultimates which fits Branagh's strengths better. Though Portman and Dannings Charters and Caldicott routine is consistently pretty funny.

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Re: 2010-2014 List Discussion and Suggestions

#114 Post by Tommaso » Mon Mar 28, 2016 7:03 pm

knives wrote:Hard to Be a God
Any film which conjures so effectively to mind Watkins, Pasolini and Tarr automatically has an intense likability factor that is hard to bring down. Unfortunately German does just that as this one stays significantly past the time that its style affords. Pretty much all German seems to want to convey is presented in the first 45 minutes and then he repeats those notes with little to no variation for the next two hours plus. What was once a hilarious reminder of the terribleness of medieval Russia with hints of the present and possibly future turns into a dull slog of asses, penises, and whatever else faux shocking thing comes to mind. Perhaps had he lived long enough to edit it down German would have accomplished a much more refined film, but that's not what is present. It's not even like the story or themes particularly warrant the length considering how casual the approach to the former is and how concisely the later is communicated. I'd still recommend it as an aesthetically interesting film, but the complete package fails to maintain its Rabelaisian inventiveness.
I agree that German makes all his points in the first 45 minutes (just as Pasolini does in "Salò", if that is the Pasolini film you have in mind; Paso's imagination of the Middle Ages in "Il Decameron" and "Canterbury Tales" is a far cry from German's vision), but like with "Salò", it needs the full-length time of this film to give the viewer to experience these points, with no chance to escape and to easily store it away in one's memory as something which is disturbing but ultimately 'only a film'. The three-hour runtime of Hard to be a God makes it an almost physical experience - you really feel splattered with mud and emotionally devastated in a way that hardly has any comparison in any film I've ever seen (apart from "Salò" indeed). But apart from this 'instinctive' reaction, and the puzzle that the plot actually is - I just shy away from seeing it a second time to make more sense of it, perhaps I should simply read the original book -, Hard to be a God completely baffled me for its sheer visual inventiveness; the way how German achieves a three-dimensional effect from a two-dimensional medium (and that also goes for the sound, in which the probably more important parts are very often blurred by insignificant other dialogue or simply sounds) is extraordinary and adds to the feeling of total disorientation and chaos that this film probably wants to convey. Yes, it's a very difficult and unpleasant film, but I consider it as one of the greatest films I've seen in recent years.

Two other ones I've recently watched and which I think are so well-known here that I may only add some short impressions:

La grande bellezza (Sorrentino 2013): The first thirty minutes or so rather annoyed me for seemingly not being much more than a crude updating of "La dolce vita" with far less interesting characters (and at least they had better music at their parties in the early '60s...). But the more it went on, the film became a fascinating and nostalgic exploration of a 'missed' past, even though Sorrentino presses the Proust comparison a bit too hard by mentioning that author several times. Rome of course is the ideal backdrop for such a story, and even if you find the film shallow (which I don't think it is) you'd have a hard time not to be impressed by the visuals (and I don't just mean the Roman architecture but the extraordinary lighting and camerawork in general) and also the fantastic use of the different musics in the film. I didn't know the main actor before, but his performance made his difficult and not exactly likeable character constantly interesting. And that end credit sequence is a very special treat, too.

Clouds of Sils Maria (Assayas 2014): I have to admit that I again made the mistake to think that a (former) teenie idol could never actually be or become a great actor. 'Again', because Leonardo di Caprio should have taught me the lesson already. So I can only offer my apologies as I realised that Kristen Stewart is completely outstanding in this film. The way she constantly probes Juliette Binoche's entrenched habits and in general the relation between their characters made the film highly interesting. But someone once described this as "Persona"-lite, and unfortunately I tend to agree. The way how reality and fiction - in the form of the play they're rehearsing - melt into each other isn't exactly new, and the way how the film - inexplicably - gets rid of Stewart's character is entirely unconvincing. Even more so Binoche's "Please, give me a few more seconds before you turn your back on me" (or something to that effect) line to Moretz during the final stage performance of the play. I mean, how obvious can you get if you want to make your point as a director? Not a bad film, often quite fascinating in its 'chamber play' character and great acting all around, but nevertheless, give me Bergman over it all the time. It doesn't even need to be "Persona". In any case, if it introduces some people to the films of Arnold Fanck via the short excerpt from "The Cloud Phenomenon of Maloja", it'll have done some good service. ;)

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knives
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Re: 2010-2014 List Discussion and Suggestions

#115 Post by knives » Mon Mar 28, 2016 7:30 pm

It was actually Canterbury Tales I had in mind as some of the gags are awfully reminiscent of it though the lead's role here is perhaps closer to Pasolini's own in The Decameron. I appreciate your point about needing to live in this world and that argument certainly makes sense applied to Salo. Perhaps getting a little too into the subjective though for that to work German would have needed to keep the film as visceral as those 45 minutes throughout. Having the end of the dark tunnel be the moment when breathe can finally be released, but it instead feels as if the moment is just a shrug. The movie has gone dull from a lack of audience engagement. There's a certain escalation to Salo where things end about as far as they can go, but nothing in the final hours of Hard to Be a God is any more extreme or inventive then those first 45. It's a relatively level presentation which is what induces for me the 'got the point' reaction.

That said, as my reference to Rabelais was meant to indicate, I see the film as less in the shocking or disturbing vein of Salo and more in the vein of the pure body humour of the French master. My comments all still apply, but I don't see any attempt to make a hard film here and the argument you posed for length don't strike me as exactly applicable in the way I can clearly see them do in Salo meaning that though I don't think it passes that test I don't see it wanting to either.

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zedz
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Re: 2010-2014 List Discussion and Suggestions

#116 Post by zedz » Wed Mar 30, 2016 6:39 pm

Bird People (Pascale Ferran) - A film I missed first time around, but all of Ferran's films have been terrific. Her great coming-of age film L'age des possibles should be a shoo-in for the films of youth project, but I don't believe it's readily available.

As usual, this is a quirky, nicely observed character study for the most part, about two characters (who barely meet) in an airport hotel, both craving freedom in different ways. Josh Charles is a Silicon Valley bigwig who, on a business trip to Paris, abruptly decides to abandon everything from his old life (including his wife and kids) and start anew. It's a fundamentally selfish move that you expect the movie is going to blandly endorse, but Ferran doesn't let Charles off the hook so easily, especially in a great extended scene with Radha Mitchell as his outraged spouse taking him to task via Skype.

The other character is a hotel maid, played by Anais Demoustier. She has already withdrawn from much human contact and now lives what life she has vicariously, through the guests upon whom she eavesdrops. Her 'escape' is no less abrupt, but several degrees of magnitude odder
SpoilerShow
- as she turns into a sparrow. She continues to eavesdrop on guests and staff for a while, but subtly begins to lose her connection with the human world altogether.
For me, this development - and the film as a whole - worked just fine, but I can understand how people could be completely thrown out of the narrative at this point. Bird People ends up being a parable, rather than a drama, about human connection, complete with a tentatively triumphant conclusion, and it would certainly be in contention for my list if we were running to fifty spots. As it is, it still has an outside chance.

Melancholia - Lars von Trier's epic of depression (don't worry, it IS the end of the world) was still extremely impressive a second time around, but crikey, does this film lose a good third of its impact on home video. Seen with a couple of thousand people on a three-storey screen with state of the art sound, the ending of this film was one of the most extraordinary experiences I've ever had in a cinema. At home, it was like any other effects sequence. (And the allegorical opening sequence is also drastically less impressive.) It's possibly the most striking instance I've seen of a film being diminished by a different (but not substandard) presentation, and I don't know how that will impact on my ranking of it. Is it a problem of the film that its impact is so dependent on format?

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swo17
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Re: 2010-2014 List Discussion and Suggestions

#117 Post by swo17 » Wed Mar 30, 2016 6:55 pm

L'age des possibles isn't even available through backchannels (not subbed anyway).

How much does your home theater resemble an actual one? I watched Melancholia projected onto a 100" screen with surround sound and felt that it had the intended impact.

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Re: 2010-2014 List Discussion and Suggestions

#118 Post by MongooseCmr » Wed Mar 30, 2016 7:06 pm

knives wrote:I'm just surprised the American remake starring Steve Carrel and Kevin Hart hasn't been made and failed yet.
Hilariously accurate

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knives
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Re: 2010-2014 List Discussion and Suggestions

#119 Post by knives » Wed Mar 30, 2016 7:29 pm

That's somehow even a more generic choice then Carrel.

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Tommaso
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Re: 2010-2014 List Discussion and Suggestions

#120 Post by Tommaso » Wed Mar 30, 2016 7:50 pm

zedz wrote:Melancholia - Lars von Trier's epic of depression (don't worry, it IS the end of the world) was still extremely impressive a second time around, but crikey, does this film lose a good third of its impact on home video. Seen with a couple of thousand people on a three-storey screen with state of the art sound, the ending of this film was one of the most extraordinary experiences I've ever had in a cinema. At home, it was like any other effects sequence. (And the allegorical opening sequence is also drastically less impressive.) It's possibly the most striking instance I've seen of a film being diminished by a different (but not substandard) presentation, and I don't know how that will impact on my ranking of it. Is it a problem of the film that its impact is so dependent on format?
Exactly my impression, even though I still found the film extremely moving and beautiful on dvd, and Kirsten Dunst's performance remained a totally extraordinary thing. But no, it's not a problem of the film that it's so dependent on the format, it only shows what a great master von Trier is in using the big screen and the 'big' technology' in such an uncompromising way. "Melancholia" is a film that reminds us that home viewing is simply not an equivalent for watching a film in the medium that is was made for, namely the cinema. The difference may be more extreme than with most other films, but don't let the somewhat diminished effect that it has on your private screen influence your rating of it. Trust your initial impressions, not the technology. That ending can indeed be only fully experienced in full size and with the most powerful surround subwoofers. But don't blame von Trier for our less-than-ideal home viewing set-ups.

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zedz
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Re: 2010-2014 List Discussion and Suggestions

#121 Post by zedz » Wed Mar 30, 2016 8:09 pm

swo17 wrote:L'age des possibles isn't even available through backchannels (not subbed anyway).

How much does your home theater resemble an actual one? I watched Melancholia projected onto a 100" screen with surround sound and felt that it had the intended impact.
Did it feel like Melancholia had actually hit your house?

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domino harvey
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Re: 2010-2014 List Discussion and Suggestions

#122 Post by domino harvey » Wed Mar 30, 2016 8:30 pm

If your system is nice enough, you can actually feel your own marriage being sabotaged by Kirsten Dunst

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swo17
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Re: 2010-2014 List Discussion and Suggestions

#123 Post by swo17 » Wed Mar 30, 2016 8:34 pm

zedz wrote:
swo17 wrote:L'age des possibles isn't even available through backchannels (not subbed anyway).

How much does your home theater resemble an actual one? I watched Melancholia projected onto a 100" screen with surround sound and felt that it had the intended impact.
Did it feel like Melancholia had actually hit your house?
Yes but I feel like that every day so I may not be the best judge.

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dustybooks
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Re: 2010-2014 List Discussion and Suggestions

#124 Post by dustybooks » Thu Mar 31, 2016 12:09 am

domino harvey wrote:If your system is nice enough, you can actually feel your own marriage being sabotaged by Kirsten Dunst
I just choked on my cereal; well done.

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thirtyframesasecond
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Re: 2010-2014 List Discussion and Suggestions

#125 Post by thirtyframesasecond » Thu Mar 31, 2016 8:34 am

I thought The Intouchables was France's most successful film ever or something. I thought it looked really schmaltzy, like something that could've easily been done by Ron Howard or Paul Haggis.

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