The Watercooler: (sound of crickets chirping)
The movies have taken a break from releasing anything I was interested in so I took a break from movies this weekend. It’s been awhile since I haven’t watched so much as a DVD between Friday and Sunday, but there it is. I may still pop in a DVD this evening – Blu-ray copies of Wages of Fear, The Third Man and Chungking Express are staring at me from the coffee table – but if I were a betting man (and I am), I’d wager that’s just not going to happen.
I have to say I’ve enjoyed not thinking about movies very much for a few days, but that puts me in the awkward position of leaving the Watercooler entirely up to you. I know there are still plenty of limited releases slowly making their way around the country or maybe you were one of the many people who helped make The Final Destination the number one movie at the weekend box office.
Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?
Filed under: Watercooler
if you didn’t watch any movies that means you’re turning into me. oh the horror… ;)
I watched only one, and that on DVD: Le Cercle Rouge. It was great, had that very cool French crime/heisty vibe going on. Alain Delon definitely knew how to wear a trench coat! It was *beautifully* shot, such an incredible sense of atmosphere. Anyway, it hit the spot. My first Melville. I want more.
Gonna try to see 500 Days of Summer some night this week. Just wasn’t it the mood for anything so chirrupy this weekend, so figured it was better to wait.
Went to a wedding at the lovely Overlook Hotel, er Timberline Lodge at Mount Hood. Great wedding, fun times, but it ate most of the weekend. I’m still recovering today and don’t have much to offer. The mountain was pretty, the sights were nice. That’s about it.
“but if I were a betting man (and I am)”
You abstain from one addiction only to embrace another.
We finished watching the BBC’s Bleak House on DVD. Excellent adaptation that at some 8 hours does justice to Dickens’ great skill as a story teller and social commentator.
Also revisited In the Loop and it held up very well the second time through.
Well, I had a rather busy week myself before the beginning of school on Tuesday, mostly at the Film Forum for the ongoing Brit Noir Festival, which ends on September 3rd after five weeks.
In A Lonely Place ***** (Nick Ray Classic; Film Forum; Friday night)
Brighton Rock ***** (Brit Noir gem; Film Forum; Saturday night)
The Fallen Idol **** 1/2 (Brit Noir Carol Reed classic; Film Forum; Saturday night)
Yield to the Night **** (Brit Noir; Film Forum; Sunday night)
The Criminal ***** (Brit Noir; Losey masterpiece; Sunday night)
I also saw two contemporary films in the mix:
Taking Woodstock ** (Ang Lee misfire; Edgewater multiplex; Friday afternoon)
We Live in Public *** 1/2 (Internet pioneer doc; IFC; late Friday night after BN screening)
The director of WE LIVE IN PUBLIC, a film that focuses on millionaire-turned-pauper Josh Harris, Ondi Timoner, appeared for a Q & A after the film, but I just couldn’t muster the staminer to stay on for it.
Jenny’s LE CIRCLE ROUGE and sartre’s BLEAK HOUSE? Fantastic stuff there, I quite agree.
Way to make the most of the fest, Sam! Nice job.
I just read that Marvel comics has been bought by Disney. No current film deals change for now, so you can expect Sony to keep stinking up the Spider-man franchise and Fox to keep bludgeoning the cinema with X-men spin-offs but WOW. Disney is on a real tear after snatching up Dreamworks.
Only a matter of time now before the Mousehouse becomes so bloated and powerful that it collapses in upon itself into a black hole, destroying all of the southern California in the process. And you thought LA would be destroyed by earthquakes or wildfires.
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3if39271c89709c28e51aaec2525f7793b
the only thing i saw this weekend was ‘thrist’. boy the sex scenes were abit different than what i see in american films. even the noises the participants made seemed way different than what we get stateside.
yep that’s the thing i most remember about this film.and it’s most interesting element to me. so i doubt this reallymaqttered much to critics/web mavens.
Always tough to choose between the rival Arkansas and New Zealand film series.
Season tickets for cat-and-mouse intrigue, with Le Cercle Rouge, Le Samouraï, Army of Shadows, Bob le flambeur and Un Flic?
Or go knocking door-to-door with Bleak House, House of Wax, Road House, Big Momma’s House & The House Bunny?
Joel…where there any creepy little girls hanging out in front of any creepy elevators?
Jeez, Sam practically had a movie-gasm there. Nice. I’m going to have to give the Watercooler prize to Jennybee though for breaking her Melville cherry. I suggest you get yourself to Les Enfants Terribles, Bob le Flambeur, Le Samourai (more Alain Delon in trenchcoats!) and Army of Shadows forthwith.
Sam, I caught The Fallen Idol when it made a run before coming out on DVD. It was no The Third Man, but it was terrific. I’ve got a thing for Michele Morgan, though Port of Shadows is my favorite of hers.
Glimmer on Thirst: “Boy the sex scenes were a bit different than what i see in American films…” Hahah…if that’s not a movie ad pullquote, I don’t know what its! I know what you mean about the noises too. All in all, I found the whole thing disturbingly erotic…and I mean that in a good way. But the question is, what did you think of it?
Ahhh…I see Ryan’s already pumping Melville. I haven’t seen Un Flic though…where does it fall in the canon in your opinion?
Sartre…as one who probably has a better ear for the accents, did you still find with In The Loop that people spoke so fast and the jokes flew so furiously that you missed stuff? Or am I just slow?
Ha! It’s always fun when Ryan is in the house.
Craig, I wasn’t aware of missing quickfire lines. As you say, probably helped by having a reasonably good ear for the accents. But that said, it’s hard to imagine I didn’t miss the odd line first time round as a result of laughing at and still processing one or more rattled off immediately before it. In the Loop is hilarious and trenchant political satire. Despite all the clever humor and performance by the end we’re left with a strong sense of how venal and plain stupid leadership utilized their minions of spin and brinkmanship to fabricate evidence for invasion and unthinkable human suffering.
And they do it all in the name of career advancement rather than attachment to some kind of closely held belief or ideology.
I’m not sure which is worse though now that I think about it, the mercenaries or the wingnuts.
I liked how the film allowed some characters moments in which they shook their heads clear of unthinking compliance and the immediate demands of self-advancement to more lucidly realize what had been set in motion.
“I’m not sure which is worse though now that I think about it, the mercenaries or the wingnuts.” I guess the film underscores that both were partners in crime. But the ideologue leadership arguably had the greatest power and therefore responsibility.
True, but the underlings ultimately did all the dirty work. Without the underlings, the idealogues would just be standing their in black socks with their dorks hanging out.
And the troops could have set down their arms and refused to fight or staged a coup d’etat and kicked them ideologue summabitches out of the White House.
Way to make the most of the fest, Sam! Nice job.
Thanks very much Joel.
I hope Sam brought fluids.
Thirst is great. One of the best of the year. The idea that it has a lower Tomatometer than Bandslam …. oh I’m just not going there ….
I once again missed any new releases this weekend, but all that I was considering was Cold Souls and Taking Woodstock. Bad reviews kept me away from Woodstock, but not enough are keeping me from Cold Souls. Maybe some night this week.
The only movie I did see was, for the first time, the 1938 version of The Adventures of Robin Hood. I loved it for a lot of reasons, including the fact that I could see how much my favorite Disney animated version of the story took from it. The acting is over the top but that makes for great entertainment. Plus I loved the set pieces and the richness of Technicolor. Made it really look like a far away, fantasy world, similar to Oz.
And I was supposed to watch and review Take Out as you responsibly did, Craig, but I didn’t get to it. Need to sit down and watch it this week as I’m expecting to like it.
Daniel, that’s great you caught Robin Hood. Corny maybe, but exuberantly fun. I’ve never had the pleasure of seeing it on a big screen.
craig…those noises.uh…what to say… to have heard this in a theatre…uh….i guess i’m a have sex scenes that get awy from the supposed/usual take on trying to do the ‘hot’ sex scene or things start and 3 seconds later fade to another scene.
i’m not sure i’d rate this as ‘disturbingly erotic’.
at any segment my reaction to these scenes could have shifted from disturbing or erotic or comical and well bewildered (again not expecting sex to come across this away in a theatre ) although there was no doubt the couple having sex were uh…rather enjoying themselves.
i was in the back row /i had a few rows to myself since the nearest others were seated like four or so rows away .
i could see faces. but when the sex scenes hit. a couple bits in some people started doing quick nerverous scans around the theatre to see how they should react ??/ how people were reacting to the sex scenes.
my words on the my reaction shfting in the sex scenes i mean to apply to the more ’straighword’ sex scenes. not the obviously surreal slant ones aka the sex scenes were we see the ex boyfriend/husband. oh whoever he was sorry. i never keep up with names. and names being in another lanuage is too much to ask for me to keep track…
Yeah, Craig, I should have emphasized that the theater experience really made it. I can’t imagine it would have been as charming on TV, where it’s harder to notice some of the small production details.
“I hope Sam brought fluids.”
Ha K. Bowen! I bought the super-duper container of diet-coke which held me over. I have PEEPING TOM for tomorrow night and then a double feature for Thursday night, which includes the notorious NO ORCHIDS FOR MISS BLANDISH. (NOOSE is the second feature). Funny thing about this festival is that anumber of these films are not really noirs. They are British yes, they are black and white, yes, and they may have that gritty realism, or gothic underpinnings that are part of the real noirs. But they fail on a number of the other criteria. PEEPING TOM is a great Michael Powell film, but it’s not really a noir.
Lucille came with me for GASLIGHT and HATTER’S CASTLE, which were Gothic melodramas, and bonafide ‘women’s pictures,’ and she came another time with my cousin, but for this festival I wa smostly on my own, and it is always a treat to get the big screen treatment for this line-up, which contained several rarities. True to form, I am now recklessly buying DVDs of many I have seen, except of course for the standards that many of us already have: THE THIRD MAN, THE FALLEN IDOL, etc.
The festival ends September 3rd, but a two-week run of a true noir, the masterpiece ODD MAN OUT begins on September 4th. I’ll be there with bells on.
Late to the Watercooler this week. I didn’t see any movies over the weekend, not even on TCM. On Monday I saw Adam, which was well done but felt a little derivative to me and that took me out of the movie a little. Hugh Dancy was excellent in the title role, very believable, and the rest of the cast was very good as well.
Last night I caught the late show of Inglorious Basterds, which I loved and commented about a bit in the review post.
Also, before IB I caught the trailer for Avatar, my first look at the trailer. Am I the only one who found it to be made of suck? The CGI looks impressive, yes, but it doesn’t appeal to me at all.
Glimmer, that ambivalence and those tonal shifts and how you’re never quite sure how you should be reacting to something is exactly what I liked about the movie.
I’m having a hard time pinning down from what you’ve said whether you liked it or not….maybe you don’t know yourself?
Jeez Sam, you’re still in Brit Noir heaven. I thought it surely had wrapped up, but you’re still going strong.
Alison….thrilled you loved IB. Can’t wait to read your comments in the review. And no, the horror over the Avatar trailer was pretty widespread. Mind you, it looked a helluva lot better on screen like that than on a computer monitor. Still….not impressive. The 3D preview was a lot better again, but still…I’m just not enthused about this thing at all.
OK, someone give me a good positive argument for Black Book. I don’t see it.
I loved Black Book, but it’s been some time since I watched it. Maybe you could help me out by saying what you didn’t like about it.
I loved Verhoeven’s cartoonish over-the-topedness. I loved the underlying theme about the excoriating effects of war on the soul. I loved Carice Van Houten naked. There I said it.
One of these days I need to sit down and watch it as a double feature with Lust Caution
craig, i guess i stil uh ‘absorbing’ the movie. may i need to watch it again while lying on my back. ; )
wow got to be quick aroud here it was a one week and out thing at houston angelika.
i’ve missed a few films this year thinking they’d get more than a week of play *gulp*/actually what happens is it sometimes god knows what for to leave +leave on time to get to film and then when check the next week schedule is so far gone…
but yeah i’m glad i saw ‘thrist’. i’m a little muddled on it bit that could be lack of uh film… whatever factoring in.
You’re still thinking about it all this time later. I consider that generally a good thing even if it’s not the kind of movie you’d want to own and watch every few months.