2012 sum up: still waiting to see the canadian psychological horror/sci-fi film 'beyond the black rainbow'..... and 'cabin in the woods' is definitely also a contender for my personal fave films this year, but who knows, a 'comic-book movie' may win out. woody allen's latest 'to rome with love' is really pretty fun. and whit stillman's 'damsels in distress' is excellent. 'we need to talk about kevin' would be up there as well. 'prometheus' is good and so is 'the avengers'.... but both had problems, i'd say. and i still haven't seen the new wes anderson -- hardly new any longer and at this point may have to wait for DVD. obviously i am excited to see 'anna karenina' despite it's being directed by cheeseball joe wright. and of course i am behind on foreign films and more arty stuff. like i still totally want to see the norwegian (?) film 'headhunters' -- heard it was great.
Monday, February 13, 2012
i've been lazy with this site. still watching tons of movies. will post faves before oscars. xoxo
i am a recent dario argento convert. i caught "inferno" (1980) at the castro theatre the other night -- it was my first argento film on the big screen and it was shown on film which was nice. i've only seen "phenomena" (1985, starring a pubescent jennifer connelly), and "opera" (1987) which is maybe one of the grossest horror movies i've ever seen, but also one of the coolest. "inferno" is the second in the "three mothers trilogy" and i've yet to see "susperia", which seems to be the argento film you hear about most -- i've read that "inferno" is inferior, but whatevs -- i thought it was fucking great. if you only watch films for a good narrative, then i wouldn't recommend argento at all. but if you like intense colors and interiors (i want to live in an argento film -- from what i've seen, some of the my most ideal living spaces are created in his movies) and intense/erratic metal, prog rock/electronic music, then you will be satisfied. the whole point of me blogging about this isn't really to discuss the merits of argento's oeuvre, but to go on a limb and connect one of my favorite musician's stuff to argento. i could totally be TRYING to see a connection between john maus and dario argento -- and my thought isn't totally original: lots of maus' reviewers, especially of his most recent "we must become the pitiless censors of ourselves" (2011) have drawn a connection between his style and that of the music heard in argento films. and it could totally be a coincidence that his song "tenebrae" shares the name of an argento film (that i've yet to see, but is high on my list -- if only to see if there's an explicit connection). john maus is a pretty academically minded dude, and maybe he poo-poos horror films, even ones as cool looking and over-the-top as argento's. i am going to believe that he doesn't and surmise that maybe somewhere along the line he went through an argento phase. or maybe it's just that people in my age group who like john maus' records (who is also in my age group) also find argento films appealing for similar reasons that we find maus' music appealing.
verdi's "nabucco" is featured in "inferno" and the second i heard the music i thought of john maus' "opening" (mp3) from his "songs" record (2006) which i guess you could say is just a tribute to religious organ music or whatever but the first minute of "nabucco" reminded me of it nonetheless. see + hear for yourself:
not surprisingly, maus lists a bunch of classical pieces as what he's into listening to during an interview for pitchfork a few months back. after listening to the original soundtrack, i realized that it's "the library" (mp3) song that sounds like maus' "opening" specifically -- similar organ-intro feel.
in addition to verdi, argento uses kieth emerson for the score of "inferno" -- here is an example & a pretty good montage of scenes from the film:
be sure to listen all the way through -- this is one of the most rockin', over-the-top religious songs i've ever heard in a film. i don't care if argento fans say it's not as good as the usual music by goblin -- i think it's genius!! check it & enjoy: "mater tenebrarum" by godfrey salmon & keith emerson
and another mellow electronic pop track: "elisa's story" by keith emerson
and again, i can't help but hear similarities to john maus -- not the opera necessarily, but the overall style i guess feels similar to... i dunno, almost any of his songs really, but "don't worship the devil" comes to mind or "too much money" (mp3) off of "love is real" or even "believer". okay, i think i should end this probably unconvincing comparison..... i will leave you with this hopeful anthem
also, the onion's AV club just did a cool piece on the giallo genre -- the list of films is overwhelming, but i am going to do my best.
saw 'contagion' last night and i woke up around 5 a.m. because i had to pee and then i had that creepy feeling that maybe i had been having a bad dream and felt kinda scared :\
i never really think of myself as susceptible to this sort of thing and feel that i was desensitized at an early age (watching 'poltergeist' on HBO at like 8 -- it was the '80s -- will do that, i believe). i have a half morbid fascination, half intellectual curiosity with apocalypse-ism (there must be a fancypants academic term for this out there somewhere) and i guess the possibility that the millions of surfaces i touched just even going to the movie theater last night could lead to deathly infection if there was an outbreak is fodder for an eerie feeling in the middle of the night.
what i like about the film is that it isn't overly sentimental, and there was only really like two semi-hokey parts where i felt the music was a little overly emotional or that soderbergh's attempt to remind us of random-acts-of-human-kindness were a tad bit contrived -- which is a pretty good achievement, i'd say. the film maintains an icy, eerie vibe and remains mostly objective about the ins and outs of how a pandemic might go down these days.
the film begins on "day 2" and it isn't until the very last few scenes that the events of "day 1" are revealed and the process of how the disease got its start is illustrated for us step-by-step. i was drinking wine in the theater, so i even missed the most overtly 'political' message -- maybe the only political message in the film -- and it wasn't until i was discussing the ending with my friend (i was sorta sad and offended that the disease originates in china -- i feel like they are always the villain in these sorts of scenarios) and she pointed out that blame is actually placed on the U.S.! sadly, i am sure i am not the only one who missed this detail in my typical tipsy, air-headed sunday-mental state. we see a bulldozer with the logo of the north american company that the patient zero (gwenyth paltrow plays the marketing exec who goes to china representing this company) works for cutting down banana trees where the bats hang out. we know from early-on in the film that the disease stems from an unfortunate encounter between a bat and a pig. as the tree is bulldozed, the bat's home is compromised and he flies into a pig farming building and hangs in the rafters and either poop or something he was eating falls (can't remember which, sorry) and the pig beneath him eats it and is then sold to a farmer in a little cage -- it's all very depressing and ripe material for a PETA supporter. then we see the chinese chef where paltrow's character, beth, was having dinner handling the raw pig meat asked to step away from the kitchen and so he wipes his hands on his apron (he doesn't wash them! perhaps the film's primary moral message is for cleanliness) and then goes to meet beth, shakes her hand, and then we already know that both chef and exec are dead two days later......... all because an evil U.S. corporation displaces a bat. the film has come full circle in a very dickensian ending -- we get our just desserts for exploiting their country in the first place. i'd argue that the other point the filmmakers are suggesting is that our planet is over-populated, which is another reason these meetings between two unlikely animals takes place. exactly how overly-populated we are is made clear when we are shown how the disease spreads from city to city and each time a new city is introduced their population number is noted as well as the name of the city (i.e. san francisco, population -- i think they lied and said we had 3 million people living here and i think it's more like 800 thousand). when half-way through the film we learn that 26 million people have died it is a pretty mind-boggling figure, for me anyway.
there is a tradition of this sort of apocalyptic film, of course, but what it instantly reminds me of is albert camus' novel the plague -- one of my faves, of course -- which is told from the perspective of an algerian doctor who lives in a city where an epidemic is caused by diseased rats. the novel serves as a metaphor for war, as well, and i read it in 2005 or '06 when we were fully at war with iraq. i had also been reading a three-part series on global warming in the new yorker during that time. needless to say, the novel scared the shit out of me and seemed even more relevant probably than when it was written in 1947.
i would recommend 'contagion' -- it's really good for this sort of timely genre fare. you might not wake up thinking about end-times in the middle of the night, but the film certainly does a good job illustrating the way fear spreads, anyway.
really? a movie about a girl in love with a boy named thurston called 'daydream nation'? i'm skerred. but obviously i have to see it. i am just concerned that this film is probably really crappy and made by a psychotically obsessed sonic youth fan from canada. but... i kind of love that girl from 'the house bunny', kat dennings. actually i just love 'the house bunny'.
I want Thor to be my boyfriend. Chris Hemsworth looks like a Viking crossed with Kurt Cobain!
Also this movie is really fucking good: it is a sexy, surreal, psychedelic paradise. I can't wait to see what happens next -- hope there's a sequel where we get to see Thor as a totally ruling boyfriend & mystical master of the universe.
A few months ago I was trying to catch up with the best films of 2010 but didn't actually get to see before the awards. Luckily Maren Ade's 'Everyone Else' was on Netflix instant watch. It is one of those films my brain keeps wandering back to, so I figured it was worth a mention on my blog. EE is a film about the power dynamics of a relationship.... About the insecurities we sometimes feel about ourselves, how we worry our significant other perceives us, or feels we aren't quite living up to their expectations of a partner in the long view.... and ultimately comes down to finding a way to carve out a relationship that isn't oppressed by a bourgeois definition of itself -- a fairly tricky thing to navigate, as Ade explores. I became rather smitten with Lars Eidingerwho plays Chris and enjoyed watching Birgit Minichmayr who plays Gitti, his girlfriend. My favorite remark about 'Everyone Else' comes from my friend Miriam who writes: '[...] there is new math here: figuring how long her club "cool" trumps his square bourgeois inheritance as the couple transitions from their classless twenties towards their invested forties. Also unexpected were the lovingly rendered shots of a young man's bald spot and his soft and bony, sloping frame. Ah yes, this was a film made by a woman. A film of a couple laughing together and watching each other move from behind, from a few paces back.' (Miriam also writes about 'Everyone Else here)
Have to include pics of the lovely Lars, of course...
