Author Topic: The Top 100 Club: Knocked Out Loaded  (Read 13229 times)

Knocked Out Loaded

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Re: The Top 100 Club: Knocked Out Loaded
« Reply #10 on: November 09, 2018, 04:37:18 AM »
Knocked Out Loaded, I'll be watching,

The Emigrants/The New Land
La Ceremonie (also)
The Ice Storm
It seems like families in peril is this month's theme for you!
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oldkid

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Re: The Top 100 Club: Knocked Out Loaded
« Reply #11 on: November 09, 2018, 10:30:50 AM »
This one is for both you and Sam.

Daisies

The theme is clear: No rules. Two young girls who decide that since others can be "spoiled" why can't they spoil themselves?  They will do whatever they please.  And so will the director, the cinematographer, and to a lesser extent, the editor.  Everyone is going to play. Tints, games with men, quick edits, stealing food, body teasing... just play.

The overall effect on me, though, is... boredom.  Perhaps because I've seen this play before.  Because I prefer Varda's version of new wave playfulness better.  Perhaps because there's only so much you can do with tints and quick cuts.  I guess I wish there was more imagination, more variety.  I can see the innovation for the 60s, and I can see the attempt to do something startling, and I guess it was, back in the day.  But it seemed rather drab to me in 2018.

3/5
"It's not art unless it has the potential to be a disaster." Bansky

1SO

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Re: The Top 100 Club: Knocked Out Loaded
« Reply #12 on: November 09, 2018, 11:24:54 PM »
I think every time it's your turn I say I plan to watch La Cérémonie, but have a hard time finding it. This time I went looking first.

KOL, I will be watching La Cérémonie.

Knocked Out Loaded

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Re: The Top 100 Club: Knocked Out Loaded
« Reply #13 on: November 11, 2018, 04:23:00 AM »
I think every time it's your turn I say I plan to watch La Cérémonie, but have a hard time finding it. This time I went looking first.

KOL, I will be watching La Cérémonie.
Yeah, it's been hanging there on the shame tree like i ripe fruit for quite a while. Happy viewing!
:)
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1SO

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Re: The Top 100 Club: Knocked Out Loaded
« Reply #14 on: November 11, 2018, 09:35:33 AM »
Happy?

It's definitely not a film I can just watch and dash out a review. What happens vs. the approach to how it's presented is something not entirely new to me and it's not a style I prefer, but this is a superior version of that particular type of film. Right now that seems more a credit to the performances than Claude Chabrol's direction, though it takes an invisible touch to make it work.

I'll hopefully post more concrete thoughts at the end of the day.

It's easy to see a fan of Daisies being drawn to this for similar thematic reasons.

philip918

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Re: The Top 100 Club: Knocked Out Loaded
« Reply #15 on: November 11, 2018, 11:45:39 AM »
We'll see if I get to them, but very much want to see:

Trouble Every Day
Wings of Desire
The Turin Horse

1SO

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Re: The Top 100 Club: Knocked Out Loaded
« Reply #16 on: November 11, 2018, 12:34:00 PM »
La Cérémonie
I miss the days of Filmspotter discussion, something that used to be constant around here, usually covering multiple films. Occasionally there's something in the Spoiler thread, like Last Jedi or Arrival. I like the unexpected group discussions, like the Shocktober where everyone decided to watch Pontypool. This is a film that would be ripe for such group therapy to help everyone sort out their feelings. I'm not even sure which avenue this post should take.

- an expansion of my previous comment about the mundane style and the ultimate substance
- explaining how the story is like Mike Leigh making a thriller, meaning it's short on actual thrills but rich with class satire

Being the first post, I don't want to spoil but the Spoiler is where everything snaps into focus. The first review I read afterwards was by Roger Ebert who wrote about it for his Great Movies column. His opening remark sums up my thoughts pretty well.

Quote
"There is a relentless feeling to it, as if the characters are engaged in a performance that can have only one outcome. It comes as a surprise to all of them, and to us. But given these people in this situation, can we really say in hindsight that we're surprised?"

Then I pulled up Ebert's original review, where he only gives the film 3 stars. This made total sense to me. Being raised with American style and American ideas about what a film should do and how it should do it, I often find some boredom in French thrillers - and I could make a long list from Purple Noon to The Trouble With Harry, and most of Claude Chabrol's other films - because they're mostly about unassuming characters who create small amounts of friction for two hours, but contain a death or two along the way so they're labeled thrillers, even though slow-burn doesn't accurately describe the style of the storytelling. It gives as wrong an impression as calling the film "Hitchcockian". You might as well say "it's actually a comedy," which is both correct and completely misleading.

Yet on that score, La Cérémonie does it so well (mostly because of the performances and effortless watchability of Isabelle Huppert and Sandrine Bonnaire) I wonder if this will lift my opinion of the entire long list of French thrillers that work in a similar palette.
« Last Edit: November 11, 2018, 12:52:11 PM by 1SO »

Knocked Out Loaded

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Re: The Top 100 Club: Knocked Out Loaded
« Reply #17 on: November 12, 2018, 05:54:02 AM »
We'll see if I get to them, but very much want to see:

Trouble Every Day
Wings of Desire
The Turin Horse
I'll commend all three of those heartily. They all have been pretty emotional experiences to me so we shall see what I can rake up on these substantially speaking.
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Bondo

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Re: The Top 100 Club: Knocked Out Loaded
« Reply #18 on: November 13, 2018, 08:15:26 PM »
La Cérémonie
- explaining how the story is like Mike Leigh making a thriller, meaning it's short on actual thrills but rich with class satire

I feel like it is giving the film too much credit to imply it is rich with class satire. And with Mike Leigh having arguably made a thriller or two, we don't need to imagine too much how his would paint a richer portrait of the characters. If I could put my reaction to this film in one word it would be emptiness. I'm not sure if I've failed to pick up what the film is selling to make me feel empathy for the twin leads, or if I've failed by asking it to make me feel empathy in the first place. If the former I'd tend to blame the film, if the latter I'd just insist the film isn't for me then. This feels more in line with Funny Games, and I don't respond well to nihilistic anarchy.

Dave the Necrobumper

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Re: The Top 100 Club: Knocked Out Loaded
« Reply #19 on: November 14, 2018, 02:34:32 PM »
You have seen this already, but here it is:

Spoilery review

Touch of Evil (1958 Orson Welles)

There is an off-ness to this movie, the opening seems like a musical, the framing is just not right. The people are just not quite right, but they are oh so real. I was very much drawn into this world, although I had trouble tracking which side of the border they were at different times.

There was a lightness to the evil of most of these characters, like they only had a touch of evil. Perhaps it is my time spent watch more recent films, where evil is so often bathed in that has me considering this only light evil. It makes me wonder if there was an implicit "The" in front of the title or an "A". Perhaps it was both. No it was both. Perhaps Welles just had to pull it back because of the times. I am think particularly of what happens to Heston's wife. The film goes in like they were going gang rape her, but later Grande asks a question and the answer is they did not, it was like the film could not go that dark, but it really wanted to.

I cannot think of a similar role Charlton Heston ever played.

Rating: 79 / 100

 

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