love

Author Topic: pixote's super slow dictation marathon  (Read 33250 times)

1SO

  • FAB
  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 36129
  • Marathon Man
Re: pixote's super slow dictation marathon
« Reply #130 on: August 21, 2012, 10:45:33 PM »
I'd like to offer up Mohsen Makhmalbaf's Salaam Cinema.

pixote

  • Administrator
  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 34237
  • Up with generosity!
    • yet more inanities!
Re: pixote's super slow dictation marathon
« Reply #131 on: August 22, 2012, 12:38:01 PM »
I'd like to offer up Mohsen Makhmalbaf's Salaam Cinema.

Perfect!

pixote
Great  |  Near Great  |  Very Good  |  Good  |  Fair  |  Mixed  |  Middling  |  Bad

pixote

  • Administrator
  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 34237
  • Up with generosity!
    • yet more inanities!
Re: pixote's super slow dictation marathon
« Reply #132 on: August 23, 2012, 02:38:57 PM »

Rivers and Tides: Andy Goldsworthy Working With Time
Thomas Riedelsheimer, 2001

Another film I revisited left me scratching my head. Rivers and Tides is a little documentary I once doted over, and while I find moments of it intriguing, it seems too obvious now. Goldsworthy has to tell me what it means, explain his work and it ruins the magic for me. I’d rather just be shown his wondrous work instead of guided on a tour.

I didn't realize until searching for a quote just now that my dictator had fallen out of love with his dictated film. Now I feel let off the hook for just barely liking it. Goldsworthy is definitely an interesting artist, but as a documentary subject, he's a little too subdued and monotone. He's like a professor whose lectures always put you to sleep and you wake up mad because you know you missed his saying some really interesting things. The score is equally somnolent, and I didn't really love the look of the film either (but that might've just been the poor quality of the transfer that Netflix is streaming).

However— Goldsworthy's art and process are really thought-provoking, and, slightly countering Sam's revised take, I didn't feel that the artist's ruminations on them came at all close to exhausting the possible meanings contained within. I was fascinated by the way he seems to celebrate the life that's inherent to death. He only says a few words about this himself, but it's what most engaged me about his works. The screenshot above is the result of a moment where he lies on the ground at the start of some rain to keep that one patch dry. On the one hand, it's an act of joyful playfulness (so much of his art is reminiscent of childish games like making sand castles, snow angels, treeforts, jigsaw puzzles, dams); but on the other hand it's also darkly reminiscent of a chalk outline at the scene of a homicide. I love that. It perfectly complements the nature of his art, too, whereby so many of his works seem vulnerable to collapse before he's able to finish them. (Those moments of potential and actual collapse are maybe the most engaging moments of the film.)

The film doesn't touch too much on Goldsworthy's character, but the one time he really talks about himself and his appreciation for solitude is very eye-opening. Just in that brief moment, I got the sense of how much his work could be read as a direct expression of his personality. Suddenly it was very tempting to read him as a depressive, preoccupied with the passing of time and his inescapable mortality and the greater and greater distance between his ever-fading childhood and the present day. And that, really, is the real value of the film for me: not so much the images and ideas contained on the screen, but more the various digressive and random thoughts and ideas it inspired in me. It's one of those movies that's a little boring when you're there in the theater but fascinating when you discuss it over coffee afterwards.

Grade: B-

pixote
Great  |  Near Great  |  Very Good  |  Good  |  Fair  |  Mixed  |  Middling  |  Bad

pixote

  • Administrator
  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 34237
  • Up with generosity!
    • yet more inanities!
Re: pixote's super slow dictation marathon
« Reply #133 on: August 28, 2012, 11:26:29 PM »
How about you try Three Comrades out...

Reviewed!

Sorry, Junior. :-/  I'll try better with your next dictation. What will it be?

pixote
Great  |  Near Great  |  Very Good  |  Good  |  Fair  |  Mixed  |  Middling  |  Bad

Junior

  • Bert Macklin, FBI
  • Global Moderator
  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 28709
  • What's the rumpus?
    • Benefits of a Classical Education
Re: pixote's super slow dictation marathon
« Reply #134 on: August 28, 2012, 11:29:54 PM »
I gave 1SO The Long Day Closes. How does that sound? First watch? Rewatch? Not interested?
Check out my blog of many topics

“I’m not a quitter, Kimmy! I watched Interstellar all the way to the end!”

pixote

  • Administrator
  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 34237
  • Up with generosity!
    • yet more inanities!
Re: pixote's super slow dictation marathon
« Reply #135 on: August 28, 2012, 11:31:20 PM »
I gave 1SO The Long Day Closes. How does that sound? First watch? Rewatch? Not interested?

Sounds good! Another one I've meant to see for a while but never have.

pixote
Great  |  Near Great  |  Very Good  |  Good  |  Fair  |  Mixed  |  Middling  |  Bad

1SO

  • FAB
  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 36129
  • Marathon Man
Re: pixote's super slow dictation marathon
« Reply #136 on: August 29, 2012, 12:24:16 AM »
Three Comrades might suffer from the expectations of greatness. I wasn't into it right away either. Sure, the car and the first meeting were okay but they don't live up to the Borzage hype. Maybe that's why Moonrise works so well. It has a dazzling opening. The 2nd half is twice as good as the first and the ending is really powerful.

Junior

  • Bert Macklin, FBI
  • Global Moderator
  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 28709
  • What's the rumpus?
    • Benefits of a Classical Education
Re: pixote's super slow dictation marathon
« Reply #137 on: August 29, 2012, 01:28:24 AM »
After championing Three Comrades and it mostly failing to meet that high bar, I wonder if I should move on to Lucky Star. That ending is among the best ever (and this time I think it'll be able to live up to the hype).
Check out my blog of many topics

“I’m not a quitter, Kimmy! I watched Interstellar all the way to the end!”

Junior

  • Bert Macklin, FBI
  • Global Moderator
  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 28709
  • What's the rumpus?
    • Benefits of a Classical Education
Re: pixote's super slow dictation marathon
« Reply #138 on: August 29, 2012, 12:08:46 PM »
I either didn't know or forgot that flieger dictated Little Man, What Now? to you. That's awesome. It again has a kind of vague eastern european setting, but the setting shouldn't bother you as much this time around. There's a particular scene in a forest that is kind of amazing.
Check out my blog of many topics

“I’m not a quitter, Kimmy! I watched Interstellar all the way to the end!”

AAAutin

  • Elite Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 4186
Re: pixote's super slow dictation marathon
« Reply #139 on: August 29, 2012, 01:04:54 PM »
Perused your Top 100, hoping to get a better grasp of your taste. What I don't know is the extent of what you've seen, so just stop on the first one you haven't:

Dark Days (Marc Singer, 2000) [AAAutin]
La Haine (Mathieu Kassovitz, 1995) [AAAutin]
This Is England (Shane Meadows, 2006) [AAAutin]
The Return (Andrei Zvyagintsev, 2003) [AAAutin]
Scum (Alan Clarke, 1979) [AAAutin]
The Last Minute (Stephen Norrington, 2001) [AAAutin]
The Dancer Upstairs (John Malkovich, 2002) [AAAutin]
The Lovers on the Bridge (Leos Carax, 1991) [AAAutin]
Sunshine State (John Sayles, 2002) [AAAutin]
Men With Guns (John Sayles, 1997) [AAAutin]
Nine Queens (Fabián Bielinsky, 2000) [AAAutin]
Julia (Erick Zonca, 2009) [AAAutin]
Burden of Dreams (Les Blank, 1982) [AAAutin]
The Time of the Wolf (Michael Haneke, 2003) [AAAutin]
Birth (Jonathan Glazer, 2004) [AAAutin]
Libertarias (Vicente Aranda, 1996) [AAAutin]
The Mission (Roland Joffé, 1986) [AAAutin]
Somers Town (Shane Meadows, 2008) [AAAutin]
Avalon (Barry Levinson, 1990) [AAAutin]
Reel Paradise (Steve James, 2005) [AAAutin]
Neds (Peter Mullan, 2010) [AAAutin]
Army of Shadows (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1969) [AAAutin]
The Indian Runner (Sean Penn, 1991) [AAAutin]
The Reflecting Skin (Philip Ridley, 1990) [AAAutin]
Character (Mike van Diem, 1997) [AAAutin]