Author Topic: pixote's super slow dictation marathon  (Read 33234 times)

mañana

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Re: pixote's super slow dictation marathon
« Reply #150 on: December 17, 2012, 09:14:09 AM »
And yet still more productive than Basil's Soderbergh essays.  :)
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1SO

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Re: pixote's super slow dictation marathon
« Reply #151 on: April 05, 2014, 09:58:52 AM »
Must Bump because...

26. Salaam Cinema  (Mohsen Makhmalbaf, 1995)  [1SO]

pixote

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Re: pixote's super slow dictation marathon
« Reply #152 on: September 14, 2016, 04:36:29 PM »
It's been four years since the last review in this marathon (super slow! as advertised) but less than two years since I watched a handful of the dictated films and neglected to write them up. Because I really want to wrap up this marathon within the next year, I'm not going to make the effort to go back and rewatch those films (unless I get the chance to see Harakiri in 35mm). Instead I've just give them short-shrift here (sorry!), writing reviews from the haziest of memories, and then move on to the remaining 22 dictations. C'est la guerre.





Don't Look Now  (Nicolas Roeg, 1973)
Dictated by Emiliana

What I remember most about Don't Look Now is Roeg's sharp eye for the tiniest visual details, both with the camerawork and the editing. The film is so wonderful stylistically that Daphne Du Maurier's (somewhat silly) story became a nuisance after a while — a distraction from Roeg's visual essay on Venice.

I wish I remembered more, but I'm relieved not to feel burdened to try to cultivate the best screenshots fro the film. That would be a most time-consuming task, with a lot of agonizing choices to be made.

Grade: B-





Harakiri  (Masaki Kobayashi, 1962)
Dictated by michael x

Here's the capsule review I wrote when I added Harakiri to my Top 100+ (at #98): "I didn't need the flashbacks. Kobayashi's film is at its best when it's pure chamber piece — a samurai film written by Sophocles after he saw 12 Angry Men." I'm surprised I made no mention of the striking black-and-white cinematography. There aren't many other films — if any — that put stark visual contrast to better cinematographic use. It's a gorgeous film.

Grade: A-





Kanal  (Andrzej Wajda, 1957)
Dictated by zarodinu

Even though I liked Kanal overall, it has to be considered something of a letdown for me, given my fondness of the other two film's in Wadja's war trilogy. A Generation ranks at #88 on my most recent Top 100, and Ashes and Diamonds came in at #50 on the list before that. The wartime sewers are tremendous visual setting, but something about the story or characters just underwhelmed me. At this remove, though, I couldn't tell you exactly what.

Grade: B-





The Woodsman  (Nicole Kassell, 2004)
Dictated by Bondo

Despite earning the same grade as Kanal, The Woodsman is a film that exactly met my expectations. It's a nice little movie with a strong lead performance that decently handles some delicate themes. It never rose above the level or ordinary for me, however. Most of the time I felt like I was watching a made-for-tv movie — one I'm happy to have watched but unlikely to ever revisit.

Grade: B-





Sans soleil  (Chris Marker, 1983)
Dictated by 'Noke

I've never said this before and I'll never say it again, but I'm sort of glad right now that 'Noke isn't around — because I honestly didn't even remember that I watched Sans soleil until I checked my screenings log just now. The fact that I rated it a B means that Marker's meditations weren't as mesmerizing as I'd expected them to be. But I can appreciate the irony of a film about time and memory evidently being wholly unmemorable.

Grade: B



It's both funny and sad that four of these five films were dictated to me by Filmspotters who no longer post here.

pixote
« Last Edit: September 15, 2016, 12:37:57 PM by pixote »
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pixote

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Re: pixote's super slow dictation marathon
« Reply #153 on: September 14, 2016, 05:17:40 PM »


The Blair Witch Project  (Daniel Myrick & Eduardo Sánchez, 1999)
Dictated by smirnoff

Let me say off the bat, smirnoff, that I was super excited to watch this and really appreciate the dictation. That being said...

Is there a mashup somewhere of the characters in Blair Witch screaming "JOSH!!!" with Michael from Lost screaming "WALT!!!" Not sure which is more annoying, but the mashup would probably be hilarious.

One of my rules is cinema is that when you have cool story, don't use petty squabbling as filler. If there's a bomb at a police station, don't waste precious minutes of film with Officer Joe's grudge against Sgt. Baker because Baker ate Joe's sandwich from the fridge even though Joe clearly labeled it, "Property of Officer Joe!" If there's a massive alien invasion of earth, don't spend a long sequence in some creepy human dude's basement, not even if Tim Robbins lives there. Murderous martians are way more interesting than Tim Robbins! Likewise, if there's a witch in the woods, focus on the damn witch!

The Blair Witch Project completely violates this rule. It's like 90% petty squabbling. The characters are awful. For one thing, they're really shitty documentarians, unable to hold a camera at all steady, unable to frame a shot, unable to let an interview subject finish a sentence without interrupting, etc. And as protagonists, they're equally horrible people, completely lacking in humor and ingenuity and all the other traits I want in my protagonists. The film lets us know at the start that they're going to die, and when they finally do, it's tempting to applaud in relief. They didn't do anything! Just walked and walked! Climb a tree at some point! Follow the sun! Anything different, please, for the love of story.

Still, the concept of the film is as brilliant as the execution is lacking, and I greatly admire it for that. JOSH!!!

Grade: C

Up next: Stroszek (unless Bright Star jumps the queue, in tandem with the A Decade of Filmspots marathon)

pixote
« Last Edit: September 14, 2016, 05:20:13 PM by pixote »
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Junior

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Re: pixote's super slow dictation marathon
« Reply #154 on: September 14, 2016, 07:13:56 PM »
That's not an uncommon response, I think. I love the movie desire the squabbling which, while annoying, does feel somewhat realistic. I say somewhat because I don't think the acting is all too great either. But the scares feel like nothing before and very few after have achieved, so there's that.
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1SO

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Re: pixote's super slow dictation marathon
« Reply #155 on: September 14, 2016, 07:33:59 PM »
Is there a mashup somewhere of the characters in Blair Witch screaming "JOSH!!!" with Michael from Lost screaming "WALT!!!" Not sure which is more annoying, but the mashup would probably be hilarious.

The recently released Honest Trailer does it in the middle.


Surprised to hear your rule. Do you make a difference between petty squabbling and seemingly banal conversation, like in Pulp Fiction? Rope is built on an entire evening of petty squabbling as filler. I think it can be a effective tool and would never disallow it. Blair Witch is a fine example. I don't want them to be calm and rational as the film goes on. I want them to quickly lose their cool and turn on each other over any little thing.

pixote

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Re: pixote's super slow dictation marathon
« Reply #156 on: September 14, 2016, 07:57:56 PM »
Surprised to hear your rule. Do you make a difference between petty squabbling and seemingly banal conversation, like in Pulp Fiction? Rope is built on an entire evening of petty squabbling as filler. I think it can be a effective tool and would never disallow it. Blair Witch is a fine example. I don't want them to be calm and rational as the film goes on. I want them to quickly lose their cool and turn on each other over any little thing.

The War of the Worlds example is probably the clearest one. Basically my rule is that a film, like anything, should focus primarily on its strongest assets; and any other elements that compete for running time should be no less interesting than that main focus. For me, this reaction mainly applies to genre cinema and high concept stories, but a variation exists for artier films, too. Often, for example, my reviews will complain when films which excel on pure atmosphere or pure comedy shift focus in their second halves as obligatory story beats take center stage at the expense of that atmosphere or comedy.

In the case of Blair Witch, I can imagine a good version of the film where the witch is almost a McGuffin that just acts as a catalyst for self-destructive behavior between a group of characters, like the gold in Treasure of the Sierra Madre. That's not how I experienced the film, though. The acting and dialogue are never as interesting as the wicker artifacts that provoke them. If Tarantino had doctored the script, things might be different, but as is, much of the film has the feel of dialogue as improvised by non-actors, who curse excessively as a crutch to create the illusion of intensity when they don't know how else to fill the silence. It didn't strike me as real or as artful.

If I watch the film again, I'll mute the disc and play the score from The Lodger in the background instead.

pixote
« Last Edit: September 14, 2016, 08:00:15 PM by pixote »
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smirnoff

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Re: pixote's super slow dictation marathon
« Reply #157 on: September 14, 2016, 09:10:09 PM »

The Blair Witch Project  (Daniel Myrick & Eduardo Sánchez, 1999)

Grade: C
:))

I would go further than Junior and say the acting felt completely realistic. So much so that the notion that it is acting falls away almost immediately for me. There's none of that uncanny valley feeling I get with the acting in other found footage films, where I sense that the "real people" are still actors without being able to describe why.

And it's not just the acting that somehow doesn't feel like an act. The same goes for the shitty camera work. In every found-footage film since this one I sense a deliberateness to where the camera is pointing. They may shake the camera all around, and have it at odd angles, or obscured by a hand, but it's like the harder they try to sell the idea of it being natural, the more of a act it feels like. I don't feel the act to BWP's camera.

I think the lack of any visible witch also contributes to the film not feeling like manufactured realism. The actors aren't made to react to a tennis ball on a stick (later to be made into a monster in post).

Even without the creeping threat of something "out there", I am compelled by the movie. Simply being lost in the woods is enough. At first they're only panicking inwardly, and outwardly they're trying to keep it together. And then as their situation becomes more and more undeniable they're outwardly panicking and inwardly trying to keep it together. The dynamics of the group throughout this slowly worsening situation really strike a chord with me. How these long days, and longer nights, wear them down... they're so emotionally raw towards the end that they're on the verge of tears and sheer panic from the moment they wake up. It gets to the point where they don't have enough mental gas left in the tank to steady their emotions... it's only the brief shots of adrenaline that stop them shaking.

The yelling is a big part of what makes this movie affect me.  The strain and panic in their voices, which sometimes they're trying to control and can't... that really gets to me. And then towards the end as they're entering the house and yelling Josh it just gets more and more shrill, and the effect is magnified for me in the way the audio and video become separated as the two people holding the equipment become separated... and just the speed they're running through what is obviously a CINECAST!ed up place with hand prints everywhere... *chills*. GOSH!!!  ;)

I was more scared watching this scary movie than I ever have been doing something that's actually scary.

I can't explain it though. We have such opposite reactions to such specific things.

Quote
much of the film has the feel of dialogue as improvised by non-actors, who curse excessively as a crutch to create the illusion of intensity when they don't know how else to fill the silence.

For me I see characters trying to cope... trying desperately to fight off panic. Swearing and getting angry the way a person blows on a fire hoping to keep it from going out.

I wonder how I can be so sold and you can be so unsold. Could we pinpoint the root of it if we looked hard enough? Is it something that exists in us before the movie began?

I'm curious, do you recall your first found-footage film? For myself, and I imagine for many people, this was my first.

MartinTeller

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Re: pixote's super slow dictation marathon
« Reply #158 on: September 14, 2016, 11:34:54 PM »
I just can't believe that dude threw out the map. That makes no damn sense. What, did the witch make him do it? That felt like manufactured drama to me.

Otherwise I pretty much like it. One of the most memorable endings ever.

pixote

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Re: pixote's super slow dictation marathon
« Reply #159 on: September 15, 2016, 12:41:21 AM »
I'm curious, do you recall your first found-footage film? For myself, and I imagine for many people, this was my first.

I don't think I saw one until Cloverfield, which I thought was okay; and then Paranormal Activity, which really impressed me. It's definitely possible that if I saw Blair Witch before Paranormal, my opinion of the former would be higher and my opinion of the latter would maybe be a little lower.

I don't think I ever would have accepted Blair Witch as feeling real, though. In fact, I think one of the things I liked about Paranormal was the artistry that went into the camera setups; like, the artifice was foregrounded — the manufacturing of the realism — but it actually enhanced the experience rather than detracted from it.

I think the lack of any visible witch also contributes to the film not feeling like manufactured realism. The actors aren't made to react to a tennis ball on a stick (later to be made into a monster in post).

I'm glad we never see the witch. I think it's a better film for that. But I wanted more threat from the unknown. I just never felt any sort of terror, honestly. I think my annoyance with the style and the performances kept me too distanced. I was always watching the movie but never inside of it.

Even without the creeping threat of something "out there", I am compelled by the movie. Simply being lost in the woods is enough.

This sounds great to me in theory, but I think maybe the nature of their being lost felt too arbitrary. Like MartinTeller mentioned, kicking the map into the river is pretty nonsensical. And it turns out to be irrelevant anyway because even with the map, I'm pretty sure they would've crossed the river twice at that same spot anyway, like Link in the Lost Woods.

And then towards the end as they're entering the house and yelling Josh it just gets more and more shrill, and the effect is magnified for me in the way the audio and video become separated as the two people holding the equipment become separated... and just the speed they're running through what is obviously a CINECAST!ed up place with hand prints everywhere... *chills*. GOSH!!!  ;)

I think I would have found the ending pretty effective if I hadn't completely checked out of the movie by that point. Next time that the film is available on Netflix, I should try watching the last twenty minutes out of context and see how I react to it.

I wonder how I can be so sold and you can be so unsold. Could we pinpoint the root of it if we looked hard enough? Is it something that exists in us before the movie began?

I'm just more of an unforgiving jerk than you are. :D

I'm not sure we can pinpoint it. I really related to that Honest Trailer 1SO linked to, so I guess, as Junior said, my reaction is hardly unique. I'm pretty sure I bring a lot of extra baggage to the table here in terms of what I expect from documentary style; and also the possible disadvantage of having seen Paranormal Activity first (along with Paranormal Activity 2, which I also liked but just barely; and Chronicle, which I'm pretty sure violated the rule I alluded to in my Blair Witch review; oh and Paranormal Activity 3, which was awful).

pixote
« Last Edit: September 15, 2016, 12:43:26 AM by pixote »
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