Week #8; a three-stack on Wednesday definitely didn’t help with any of my course work.

A Bay of Blood (1971) dir. Mario Bava
23/04/16

Italian horror is at once the greatest and most intriguing slice of cinema. ★★★

Vivre sa vie (1962) dir. Jean-Luc Godard
26/04/16

My first Godard; so methodically attended to and precisely laid out both visually and narratively that my knowledge of its production seems odd; among many other changes to the final presentation was the fact that Godard switched the endings, from Nana surviving her ordeal to becoming a victim of it. This supposedly led Anna Karina on another suicide attempt, an activity seemingly common in her and Godard’s problematic relationship. Nonetheless an ecstatic entry into Godard’s oeuvre. Maybe a masterpiece. ★★★★½

Tangerine (2015) dir. Sean Baker
27/04/16

“Feels fake. Los Angeles is a beautifully wrapped lie.”

An explosive, literally in-your-face, volatile experience; Baker’s use of iPhone to film lends itself thematically to exposing the LA underworld in all its oozing filth in pesudo-documentary fashion. His use of music here is fantastic, as if the film itself is broken into sequences of visual dubstep (in the best way possible) and Tangerine exists in itself as an ode to indie filmmaking and its possibilities. Donut time forever. ★★★★

Short Cuts (1993) dir. Robert Altman
27/04/16

The final week of Altman season (though a one off Monday screening is happening next week), once again presenting his work in glorious 35mm (this has failed to find itself a home on blu-ray so what I saw was the best looking copy of it). One of the biggest films I’ve ever had the pleasure of witnessing. All 9 storylines are attended to equally, Altman balancing insane character arcs with plentiful humour and agonising drama in a similar vein to Nashville, only here it feels more sincere, more relevant (to me, at least. I’m not from Nashville). I dare you to find a better cast, I double dare you. 3 hours feels like 1 hour and I could sit there for another 5. ★★★★★

Captain America: Civil War (2016) dir. Joe Russo, Anthony Russo
27/04/16

Eagerly attended a midnight screening for this, only to have my heart ripped out and torn to shreds. Best Marvel movie ever my ass.

Written for Letterboxd: 

Disclaimer: this is a generic good v bad list of incessant and hyperbolic ramblings.

Pros:
– Spider-Man skips ye ol origin story and bounces right into the action, his scene big on building genuine laughs and positive vibes for future reboots. But you just. can’t. beat. Tobey.
– Fight scene finale (this) is a major plus (especially that shield drop), but ultimately left me longing for more intimate mano a mano close-knit man to man hand to hand combat instead of dumb “hi my name is Spider-Man and have you guys seen Star Wars?????” remarks. Whether I was once again experiencing the wrath of my mortal enemy cinematic fatigue, or the plain fact that my seat was too close to the screen, or even that I’m just again a piece of shit again and was prejudiced against this type of action from the beginning, but I felt that most moments of action seemed a blur, almost choppy in presentation (not at all aided by plentiful cutting). This almost makes me appreciate Batman’s crime fighting sequences in BvS even more.
– Smaller scale drama as opposed to end-of-the-world crazed villain is definitely beneficial. If this is the first step in the closure of the Avengers storyline (for the sake of purpose; to put an end to world-shattering villains that are always and obviously defeated in the end) then it’s a step in the right direction; interior fragmentation. Gives much needed weight to previous MCU entries.

Cons:
– The endless, cringey one-liners between heroes among the action is starting to become grating; especially Hawkeye’s “people don’t usually talk this much in a fight” (paraphrasing), anything remotely involving tic-tacs and generally all comments Spider-Man makes in the fight (bleh). I can’t be the only one who finds these repetitive Avenger quips unfunny.
– It looks kinda gross. For a hundred million dollar production with firm emphasis on CG characters, Civil War shines as a glorified, computer-generated fuckfest of a film. How Tony Stark still manages to look like a bobblehead in his IM suit is beyond me (???). The fight is made only more bland and lifeless with the enormous amount of pedestrian space surrounding the central confrontation.
– If you know anybody who says the “have you guys seen that really old movie Empire Strikes Back” comments were their favourite part of the film, remove them from your life immediately.
– Fuck Spider-Man’s TOO damn smooth all CG suit.

All in all: media3.giphy.com/media/JpqnWRtJHhsu4/giphy.gif
★★★

The sleep cycle app gave me a 100% sleep rating last night but my eyes are so god damn itchy that I feel like it’s lying.

Week #7. Watched the least amount of films in a week that I possibly can; I’ve been knee deep in assignments, so you can’t blame me.

Mystery Road (2013) dir. Ivan Sen
19/04/16

Written for Letterboxd: 

Stock standard Australian crime thriller, another that feeds off of the cultural divide between indigenous and non-indigenous citizens. Like No Country For Old Men without the thrills or the wit, though reminiscent in that the protagonist is a rifle-wielding introvert who bears an uncanny resemblance to Josh Brolin–voice and all. Spends all its time in the build up that the climax comes well deserved, but in no way attends to tying the knots that its central mystery unravels; even worse considering I had to watch this for my cinema class’ narrative week. Ouch. Forgettable in the grand scheme of things, but it’s the people, not the dogs, that are the monsters.

BUT, since analysing the film further in class I have come to appreciate it more: I fear I too readily dismissed the fact that it based itself on the fracture between white and non-white Australians (solely because that seems to be what half of all popular Australian films in the past decade have done; though in saying this the examples that I had seem to have slipped my mind. I think I’ll drop the point). I haven’t seen nearly enough Australian films to reject the industry so easily (keen for The Proposition, Picnic at Hanging Rock, Walkabout, among many others) and it doesn’t help that infamous Australian auteur Baz Luhrmann has plagued my neutral standpoint, but again, I’d be willing to reconsider him. We’ll see. ★★★½

California Split (1974) dir. Robert Altman
20/04/16

Altman season is in full bloom; another (slightly faded) but still glorious 35mm original print, which is seemingly the only way to view the film in it’s intended state (copyright with music led to ~5 mins being cut from the home video release; apparently because of Happy Birthday?). Jeff Goldblum has his (literal) 15 seconds of fame in his second feature role (and later appeared in Altman’s 1975 masterpiece Nashville) and he owns every moment. I’ve come to discover that an Altman film is kinda like a live concert; a profound sensory experience, loud and unforgiving, and always inhabited by some of the most absurd people you’ve ever seen–and you can’t help but savour every moment. Truly a riot. Elliott Gould is to the 70s what Clint Eastwood is to the 60s. ★★★★★

Vincent & Theo (1990) dir. Robert Altman
20/04/16

A more commercialised Altman, trimming down his multi-track audio that he has been so famously appreciated for, reducing the zooms (though some are still there, and they’re divine; eg. the scene where Vincent shoots himself in the field: the camera focuses on him painting, zooms out when he walks out into the field, then zooms in on him as he hobbles towards the camera) and moving to focus on the smaller, intimate moments of the larger story at hand. The theatrical cut, a 138 minute feature as opposed to the 4-part, 200 minute TV miniseries, definitely feels sporadic at points, sorely lacking the extra 60 minutes of content. Altman jumps furiously though multiple decades without anything but the onscreen events to guide the audience, in one scene a marriage, and in the next a child; this is not to say that there’s anything wrong with this technique, but Altman employs it constantly and the grand scale that should be achieved in lost into a series of fragmented happenings. ★★★½

Stay tuned. If you want.

Week #6??? I did what I thought I couldn’t and took a little off week.

45 Years (2016) dir. Andrew Haigh
11/04/16

A sensual piece from Haigh, almost acting as a companion piece to Michael Haneke’s Amour (2013), but with tragedy in truth as opposed to loss. Not too much to say about this as I was deathly tired when I saw it, and walked 20 minutes back home only to realise that I’d left my wallet in the cinema. A lady behind me bawled her eyes out. Big ups for the ending, and Haigh’s effortless and restrained direction. ★★★½

Enemy of the State (1998) dir. Tony Scott
12/04/16

Ah, vulgar auteurs, how I love you–some of the most interesting and visually creative directors working today (I’m looking at you, Michael Mann) fall under this umbrella, and Scott is as much of an auteur as the rest. Longing the day when I can marathon his catalogue.

Written for Letterboxd:

Humanity captured as fluctuating waveforms, blips on a radar, man’s physical existence bound spatially by invisible frequencies (the The Conversation homage) where the truth is perceptible only through deep lenses or played back on a tape. Conspiracy trumping conspiracy, where the state of paranoia is stomached because that’s all there is left to bear (“Baby, listen to this fascist gasbag.”). Paranoia as personal assets reimagined as polygons floating in government databases (who knew what Jack Black was capable of). Scott poses strands of the NSA as bumbling goons, hired thugs with their only dialogue colloquial (and always concerning haircuts); people who steal kitchen appliances for the fun of it (“I’ll be back for my blender.”), who hold all the control but know not what to do with it, always caught second place in a perpetually escalating hell-fire of a race (which concludes customarily in an epileptic culmination of blood and gunfire). A sensationalised view of American privacy of government property through and through, though not without Scott’s action film degradation (this is a Jerry Bruckheimer production after all) which keeps activity high but fulfillment low. I still haven’t seen The Conversation, supposedly this film’s Big Brother? ★★★½

McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971) dir. Robert Altman
13/04/16

Altman season has started at the Cinematheque!!! Here, the man (the myth, the legend…) crafts the perfect ‘anti-Western’, a film less concerned with the stand-offs and the high-stake gang tensions than the power of capital and forbidden love. McCabe & Mrs. Miller is a sensory overload; in usual Altman fashion characters speak all the time, all at once, as Leonard Cohen bursts the film into episodes of sorrowful Western ballots and cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond boasts a widescreen Panavision spectacle (best for Westerns). Seen in not so glorious 35mm–never seen a print looks this rough. ★★★★

3 Women (1977) dir. Robert Altman
13/04/16
rewatch

Written for Letterboxd, last August: 

A vague, sensually confounding piece, a dream on-screen, a babbling dreamer and a graceful outsider’s formation of an inexplicable relationship. I am deathly in love with Altman’s style in every sense, his inquisitive zooms and ambient conversation, his free-flowing character interactions and longing shots. The recurrence of fantastical, feminine creatures and clear influences from Bergman’s Persona, along with the fact that the film literally is based on Altman’s dream leave something deeper to be found, uncovered and desired.

Written for my blog, now: 

I feel like my thoughts on this have stayed in line with my previous evaluation, though I’ll be damned if someone watched this alone at home and found it nearly as hilarious as the people in my cinema did–whether they were laughing at it or with it I don’t know. Likely a punch to the gut to many in the final minutes when, in a dreamy haze of superimpositions and tight strings, the more invisible titular 3rd woman has a miscarriage. The entirely of the concluding ~20 minutes is haunting, goosebump-inducing cinematographic fear. I don’t know if Altman can top Nashville (1975) at this point. ★★★★

I’m ready to get back into the action next week.