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Author Topic: The Nobodies: New Hollywood cinema  (Read 14579 times)

oldkid

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Re: The Nobodies: New Hollywood cinema
« Reply #20 on: January 27, 2010, 02:05:29 AM »
Did you intentionally make your review of Breathless look like blank verse or was that a formatting quirk when you copied over from your blog?

This was intentional.

Isn't it free verse? Blank Verse is what Tennyson uses in "Ulysses" right? It's marked by a strict meter, I think, but no rhyme or anything. I'm not picking up on a uniform meter from stanza to stanza here.

You are correct, FLY.  Milton also used blank verse.
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'Noke

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Re: The Nobodies: New Hollywood cinema
« Reply #21 on: January 27, 2010, 12:44:22 PM »

The Nobodies #10: Harold and Maude

What a strange little film. Harold and Maude is about a teenager who, for fun, commits suicide repeatedly and attends funerals and an 80 year old lady who steals peoples cars. they enter a very strange but sweet relationship. Harold and Maude is a precursor to the very quirky branch of comedy that's very much a part of the indie wave nowadays. Juno, Son of Rambow, (500) Days of Summer, and especially Little Miss Sunshine. But Harold and Maude is different, in a good way. Here's why:

First of all, Harold and Maude is amazingly filmed. You can tell that you are in safe hands very early on, in the amazing credits sequence, a long tracking shot following a Harold walking around the room. Synched marvelously with Don't Be Shy by Cat Stevens, it's a wonderful bit of filmmaking. His style is not over the top, it's stylish but grounded as well. It feels so real.

His second bit of magic is his writing. His characters are quirky, but not over the top. Ashby does not create two strange characters rather, he creates two people who do strange things. An unmarketable film? Not especially. A romance between a teen and an old woman will turn audiences off, for sure, but what Ashby does is takes the concept and tries to reel it back in as much as possible, while sticking to his guns.

But it boggles the mind how many people have not seen this film. This should be a cult classic, this should be the film that gets talked about among sixteen year olds more then something like Donnie Darko. It's strange but sweet, and Harold and Maude are two people you just absolutely fall in love with.

The two leads are amazing. Bud Cort as Harold is quirky, goes from a wide eyed loner to totally sympathetic and sweet/naive kid throughout the course of the film. The real star, though, is Ruth Gordan, because not only is it such a hard role but also because she is bascially fantastic. She oinvest so much life into Maude and into Harold too, in a way, and Ruth Gordan managed to capture all that.

Verdict: Quirky, fun, sweet, delightful. It's a real gem of a film, and one that should be seen by more people.

Grade: A-
I actually consider a lot of movies to be life-changing! I take them to my heart and they melt into my personality.

smirnoff

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Re: The Nobodies: New Hollywood cinema
« Reply #22 on: January 27, 2010, 12:51:45 PM »
How bout that soundtrack! Great stuff eh?

'Noke

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Re: The Nobodies: New Hollywood cinema
« Reply #23 on: January 27, 2010, 12:52:36 PM »
And how bout that soundtrack! Great stuff eh?

Forgot to mention that, love that Cat Stevens soundtrack.
I actually consider a lot of movies to be life-changing! I take them to my heart and they melt into my personality.

smirnoff

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Re: The Nobodies: New Hollywood cinema
« Reply #24 on: January 27, 2010, 12:53:33 PM »
And how bout that soundtrack! Great stuff eh?

Forgot to mention that, love that Cat Stevens soundtrack.

I didn't enjoy the movie as much as you did, but a lot of it stuck with me. The music most of all.

ferris

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Re: The Nobodies: New Hollywood cinema
« Reply #25 on: January 27, 2010, 12:54:13 PM »
I like that you're including a "verdict" and grade at the end of each one.  I'm going to start doing that.
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'Noke

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Re: The Nobodies: New Hollywood cinema
« Reply #26 on: January 27, 2010, 12:55:39 PM »
I like that you're including a "verdict" and grade at the end of each one.  I'm going to start doing that.

don't give into the pressure Ferris!!

Actually, having a verdict at the end is quite nice.
I actually consider a lot of movies to be life-changing! I take them to my heart and they melt into my personality.

'Noke

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Re: The Nobodies: New Hollywood cinema
« Reply #27 on: January 29, 2010, 03:48:16 PM »

The Nobodies #11: The French Connection

Pace. French Connection's got it. Spades of it. It takes about two minutes for someone to die in a killing that is completely unrelated to the plot, but in the quick flash of faces we get before a man gets shot the pace of French Connection is set in stone. But then Friedkin goes about one-upping himself in our introduction to Popeye Doyle.

Starting off the with slightly absurd image of Gene Hackman in a Santa outfit, His partner, played by the wonderful Roy Schneider, goes inside the bar they're staking out. He calls for order, and starts arresting people. When one main guy runs out of the bar, we get this incredibly paced chase scene through the streets of Brooklyn. Please, be aware, Hackman is still wearing the Santa suit. Surreal? Awesomely so.

The obvious movies that came to mind when I was watching The French Connection were the Bourne Trilogy. Sure, different types of story. But the Filmmaking is amazingly similar. Quick cuts and shaky cams derive most of the tension, with fast paced action scenes sometimes consisting of nothing more then just one person trailing another(I'm thinking of the Waterloo station sequence in Ultimatum). The French Connection has amazing action sequences, rivaling and even sometimes succeeding the work Liman and Greengrass did on the Bourne trilogy. And I love the Bourne Trilogy, but this is definitely just as good as the first two and holds it's own with the third, which is my personal favorite.


Think I'm lying? Take a look at that car chase. Granted, watching Hackman drive through the underpass of a bridge is not quite as exciting as watching Damon run over every damn thing in a taxi cab, but there's something about that Sequence which is amazing. It's conceit is so genius. Instead of having a normal car v. car chase, Friedkin instead pits Gene Hackman's Doyle against a moving train overhead. The action going on in the train is just as intense, with the French accomplice a truly cruel villain. The stakes were there, but never sacrificing that realism that New Hollywood directors fight so hard for. This, my friends, is the New Hollywood blockbuster.

Don't think the story slacks. It doesn't. The rapid chase scenes are few are far between, but Friedkin brings his eye to such small scenes as following a mark or watching Charnier mess with Hackman on the train platform(how awesome was that scene?). Owen Roizman's cinematography is marvelous, so many shots stick in the mind. Watching Hackman throw his hat and gloves down in anger as Charnier gets away is such a great moment.

And how did I get this far without mentioning Hackman's performance itself? A tour de force, Hackman is bluster. He is stubborn in the way that movie cops always are, but Hackman does not need to understand the joys of subtlety. He is larger then life, and it's just amazing work. 

Verdict: This was another amazing movie. A frantic action film, Friedkin hits all his notes and Hackman needs no further proof for why he is a legendary actor.

Grade: A
« Last Edit: January 29, 2010, 03:51:54 PM by 'Noke »
I actually consider a lot of movies to be life-changing! I take them to my heart and they melt into my personality.

ferris

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Re: The Nobodies: New Hollywood cinema
« Reply #28 on: January 29, 2010, 04:27:53 PM »
Great review.  You gotta love that larger-than-life quality.  It's amazing to see him in this older films...
"And if thou refuse to let them go, behold, I will smite all thy borders with frogs" - Exodus 8:2 KJV
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'Noke

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Re: The Nobodies: New Hollywood cinema
« Reply #29 on: January 31, 2010, 01:41:32 PM »

The Nobodies #12: A Clockwork Orange

I'm not sure what I think of A Clockwork Orange. I was misled by what this movie was. I knew the plot. In a very forseeable future, the movie follows Alex, leader of his gang of droogs who like to spend their nights at the Korova bar drinking milk plus and doing bits of the old ultra-violence(I mean, if nothing else, this film is great for nothing but the little words you are going to start using in your life. Tell me you won't use the phrase "Ultra-Violence" in real life.) My thoughts going into this was that the whole movie would consist of Alex going around beating and raping innocent bystanders, with half an hour devoted at the end to him in prison and undergoing the experiment. This is only the first forty minutes in a movie that's two hours and twenty minutes long. Spun me for a loop.

First of all, about those first forty minutes. It is as great a piece of filmmaking as you will ever see. There's a distinct surreality to Kubrick's dystopia, but he is not debating man's nature as he did in 2001. Instead, his aim to present a world in chaos. A world without morals. This leads to our culture becoming mainly orientated into two groups, thrills and sex. Thrills are achieved through regular bouts of Ultra Violence and Sex is achieved along with it, by using the "In and out".

Kubrick is a very pessimistic man. He showed us destroying the world in nuclear world, he created a very advanced but sterile version of the future in 2001. But here, he seems to give up on humanity all together.

These first forty minutes are what we call amazing cinema. Kubrick's style is wonderful, his creation of the droogs are scary as hell. Sure, it has something to do with the in and out, and the ultra violence and what bogs end. But the outfits they wear, and the masks, they become imbodiments of chaos. there are other gangs like them, as we see multiple times, but they are just in military garb. The outfit of Alex and the droogs are just so demonic. this is added by the masks, but even more so by Alex's fake eyelash. Aided by the glint in his eye.

What makes a Clockwork Orange special is it goes in a what comes around goes around theory. So, when Alex goes to prison, he gets chosen for this program which will set him straight, provide order in his life. What happens is when he leaves prison, he happens to run into everyone he has wronged throughout the film, the Man in the house, the drunken man, his droogs. And we begin to sympathise with him. Alex's glint is gone, and now his eyes are filled with fear.

The image of Alex with his eyes strapped, forced to watch monstrosities is cruelty. His life does not get better. Kubrick is saying that Chaos is bad, but control is worse. Or maybe that control leads to chaos. Or something. Kubrick seems to be trying to say is that, here is a world without Morals. How we deal with the lack of morals is entirely up to us. Some people decide to run with them, decide to become desire only, taking what they want. Some remain some degree of respectablity, I think of the man in his mansion, but other then those cloes to him cannot feel compassion, cannot forgive, and cannot feel any need to go lightly on subjects, only to unleash their full malevolence on them.

I feel A Clockwork Orange starts to slag in the middle, but it starts to pick up again when Alex meets the police officers (You know which two I'm talking about) who take him to the woods. It's still a very good movie. How good? I'm still figuring that out.

Verdict: It's a colossal achievement, and the first forty minutes are wonderful. However, it loses it's pace and seems to falter a bit halfway through. It picks up towards the end though. Or maybe the middle and the end are perfect. I'm not sure.

Grade: A-. I guess.
I actually consider a lot of movies to be life-changing! I take them to my heart and they melt into my personality.