I like 'em crispy

The notoriety of the Norwegian black metal scene of the late 80s/early 90s is something which typically precedes the music itself. Whilst digging around for clips about it, some musician (don't ask me who because the group of bands associated with this stuff, good or bad, is fucking mammoth) mentioned that one of the ironies of black metal becoming a trend is that it was never meant to be anything more than self-gratification for the people who were making the records. Certainly never commercial. And yet in 2009 we get Until the Light Takes Us, probably the documentary on the Norwegian black metal scene with the biggest release to date.

The interview I read with directors Aaron Aites and Audrey Ewell before watching gave me a fairly good idea of what to expect i.e. "they sound like art hipsters"

I didn't love it, but there are certainly parts that I enjoyed.

Gylve "Fenriz" Nagell from Darkthrone and Varg Vikernes of Burzum immediately chalk up as the film's most interesting narrators. Fenriz seems somewhat on edge but amiable, genuinely unnerved by what "black metal" has come to mean and represent today. Vikernes is engaging and well-spoken as usual (which is part of what makes him so bothersome when you know about him and his personal beliefs).



I've heard people say that this isn't a film to watch if you don't know anything prior to, but I tend to think it's one that will actually convince people who've never heard of these bands to look into them. The major topics (Dead's suicide, Euronymous' murder, the church burnings, Vikernes' trial/imprisonment) are discussed, but not belabored or moralized as they seem to be in most other documentaries or specials that I've seen. Fenriz's visit to a Swedish art exhibit on black metal was a highlight for me. Hellhammer from Mayhem and Faust from Emperor also fill in some details.

But then there's the rest of the film. In that same interview, Aites and Ewell mention that they would've never made the Until the Light Takes Us had they not been able to get both Fenriz and Varg. Thankfully they were, but the contrast/connection they seem to want to make between the two falls slightly flat. It starts with each briefly mentioning each other, their interviews cut back and forth, but then it's sort of forgotten about, returning in a scene where Fenriz watches footage of Varg talking about him. Something similar happens when the issue of Christianity (anti-Christian beliefs were one of, if not the binding factor for these bands) and its destruction of culture is brought up. Several of the interviewees briefly remark on it, then we're given a really shitty montage of close-ups of religious statues. Aites and Ewell are walking into a goldmine. They've got some of the best people possible to discuss the history of this movement, they've got big ideas, unfortunately what's left to them outside of these people is handled amateurishly.

However, the one-on-one interviews themselves are the majority of the film and they're very solid. Until the Light Takes Us is worth watching for them alone. It's a pretty fascinating story not only because of the scandals that occurred, but how young, how dedicated, and how talented these people were and how radical some of their ideas (and certainly their music, not simply thematically, but technically) were at the time. It was an all consuming lifestyle, not some kind of trend. And yet this film is now being served up to people like myself who were in kindergarten in 1993.

P.S. Taking bets on whether or not the inclusion of that Harmony Korine bit is meant to be taken seriously or as a grim response to Fenriz's lamentation of black metal becoming trendy.

Also it's best if we not talk about the Frost stuff. At all. Except this.

You have to follow the script

Note: I did the unholy and watched this on my laptop, meaning screen capping would've been a nightmare. The photo used is ripped straight from Google.



My forays into animated cinema are few and far between. I think the last animated film aimed for "adults" that I saw was Grave of the Fireflies which made me bawl/question humanity/the works. Needless to say I hold no grudge against the medium, I simply don't get around to seeing as many of these films as I should.

Satoshi Kon's Perfect Blue fits in amongst most solid suspense thrillers to come out within the past 20 years, though it isn't flawless. The story is simple enough. Mima, a pop idol, quits her job in favor of acting. She soon realizes she's being stalked and fears for her life while simultaneously suffering an identity crisis as she questions her career, watching its rocky start.

Perfect Blue is rare these days in that naivete towards technology pushes its plot. Mima is clueless to being stalked until her manager, Rumi, helps her buy a computer (and a beast of one, size wise) and set up an internet connection. She enters a URL a fan sent her, leading to Mima's pseudo-journal, recording all of her actions that day (or what her crazed fan believes she should've done that day, anyway). I guess it was just interesting to be brought back to memories of the Internet in its infancy (in terms of being a household luxury, at least) and how intimidating and exciting it seemed.

I'd imagine that any semi-suspicious film-goer will be able to call out Mima's harasser from early on. Obvious false leads are only fun when they're so obvious that you disregard them and then feel like an idiot when they weren't false leads at all. In one of the film's first sequences, we are introduced to Me-Mania and we know he's a creep because...he looks like one! He's got beady eyes, his teeth are fucked up, he has that whole skeevy heavy breathing going on. He also seems to be everywhere that Mima is professionally. Scenes of him overhearing everyday conversations about Mima occur 2 or 3 times. It's even revealed that he's behind the shady website! Then, a-ha! He's not the killer. Shocking! Really.

The whole story concerning the stalker quickly becomes much less interesting than Mima's own psychological problems. I think I uttered "the fuck?" to myself 3 times when her dreams began to fade into her reality. The sequences of this are on par with, if not better than, some in most effective psychological thrillers today. Kon leaves the truth of the matter completely ambiguous, which seems less satisfying, but is far more enthralling than if it'd been explained. It's tough to make a viewer feel completely disoriented about time and reality, but Kon completely succeeds with these scenes.

And then he ruins it with that ending. Oh, that ending. Like I've said, I wasn't surprised when the murderer was revealed and a standard chase scene ensues. One thing I appreciated here was the use of Mima's alter ego (visions of her former pop-idol self taunt her throughout the film). While the mirage had previously seemed slightly hackneyed, the image of it gracefully skipping after a frantic Mima through deserted Tokyo was surprisingly effective and the first time in the film that it worked at being creepy. It was much better than watching the killer just run after her, anyway.

I would've preferred if the film had closed with the end of this sequence, but instead there's a tacked on hospital scene and an even worse, cheery "I'm okay afterall!" ending. As baffling as it was, it still doesn't outweigh how enjoyable the rest of Perfect Blue was. Solid 90s suspense. I'm looking forward to checking out Kon's other work.

Note: Don't eat while watching this. I decided to tuck into some leftovers and then that murder scene (you know what I'm talking about if you've seen this) came on and...ugh. Serves me right.

Up next, Days of Heaven!

You've got bird shit in your hair

Becoming a Tim Roth fan after first seeing Reservoir Dogs at 17 has led me to some great films (Made in Britain, The War Zone), some okay films (Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, Rob Roy) and utter shit films (almost everything after the Hollywood crossover?) Though his career post 1995 has been lackluster in terms of quality (to put it lightly) I was happy to hear that Stephen Frears' The Hit, one of his breakout roles and a film then little known in the US, was getting a DVD release through Criterion.



The Hit was a film of failed assumptions, in my case. Nobody is what they appear to be, stock characters are abandoned. Both Roth and John Hurt (another favorite) play unexpected roles. Roth initially seems to fall into his typical psychopathic baddy, but becomes something far more likeable. Hurt is out of character because he's ruthless. It actually felt odd at first to see him as Braddock, which works to his advantage. While it isn't surprising to see Roth screaming and waving his gun around as Myron, it's always a shock when Hurt commits to his threats.



Terence Stamp, as Willie, is an extremely calm victim, exhibiting complete control over his captors at all times. When confronted about his inexplicable acceptance of his death, he spouts bits of philosophy on its role in the human cycle. Myron and Braddock try to understand, but can't.



The handling of Willie's fate was easily my favorite moment in the film. Not only was it what surprised me most, but it felt far more realistic, more pathetic, and much more satisfying than what I was expecting. The Hit was a great, breezy crime film, and this scene was its crown. I won't easily forget it, nor do I hope that I ever do. Films ought to humanize their characters like this more often (when it fits, anyway).

Rounding out a great cast are Laura del Sol (who is stunning, strong and provided 2 solid "cringe!" moments for myself) and Bill Hunter (and his lovely toupee).






It also needs to be said that The Hit is a treat just to look at, and not simply because of its beautiful Spanish setting. The compositions of its scenes are played with constantly. Seeing as this is far from a standard thriller, it makes sense that it looks nothing like one either. (My caps do it no justice. It needs to be seen to be appreciated.) Aesthetically, it feels quite modern for a film made over 25 years ago.



Overall, an unexpected and total delight.

Do you know what a snatch is?

The fact that I find it mildly difficult discussing Peter Watkins' Punishment Park without bringing up my personal political opinions is a testament to how effective it is as a crash-course in radical leftist rhetoric.

Having said that, I must admit to having found the film fairly tedious. Good, but not mindblowing.

It's incredibly dated, something which acts both positively and negatively.

Positively because it serves as a perfect snapshot of America in 1970, when peaceful protesters had rapidly turned into militants, feeling that their initial approach had failed. The wearied reactions of Punishment Park's victims, dehydrated and relentlessly chased by the police, reflect the feelings of counterculture American youth at the time. Peace had failed them, and it quickly felt like violence was failing them as well. Wondering whether or not it's worth chasing the flag against the police pursuit mirrors the hangover of the summer of love.



Negatively because the film is permanently stuck in its era. The outdated speech, the clothing, the arguments, the political background. Regardless of whether or not the cores of the political issues raised by Punishment Park are still problematic today, so much of the film is so 1970, that it's impossible to say this is something that still feels "fresh" 40 years later. This is a film with essentially no humor, but there were more than a few times when I had to stifle a chuckle due to how outdated some of the dialogue is.

Everything about the film is geared towards its purpose of presenting a radical leftist view of American society in 1970. There's zero subtlety (or we can say it's "unapologetic about its politics"). This isn't hard to determine when the first shot is a zoom-in of the US flag flying backwards. While admirable, I do tend to get bored when films are as one-sided as this. The scenes following the actual prisoners in the desert quickly became more interesting than the tribunal interviews. Every question asked, whether by the fascist administration or the film crew are worded to provoke a leftist response. And not a single person in this pseudo-documentary is a poor orator. Every answer is flawless. This kind of perfection, however rough the language or passionate the speech, gets pretty dull and repetitive.

What struck me most about Punishment Park, in terms of things I liked, was its setting. It's a present day (back then, anyway) dystopia. Not a dark, decrepit undisclosed future with a vague fascist leader, but the sunny deserts of California where absolutely nothing is modernized and Nixon is clearly responsible. This is where I can understand Punishment Park being underrated in terms of its controversy and forward-thinking. The violence isn't graphic, but the explicit depiction of cops as merciless killers against civilians is also effectively jarring, even if the idea behind it ("pigs" is used nonstop by the characters) is nothing new.



It's getting a bit dull to write this, probably because I wasn't affected by Punishment Park as I'd liked to have been. The problems and arguments brought up are still relevant today, but besides the points I mentioned, I don't think the film is nearly as strong today as it was 40 years ago.

On a small note, are there other places in the US nearly as isolating and stunning as the California salt flats? Eeesh.

God was wrong

Over the course of the past few years (I don't know if it's me getting older or what), I've noticed a bit of a Criterion Collection backlash amongst film snob hacks. I'm not sure if this has to do with their earliest releases (Armageddon is the first one that springs to mind) or the fact that having a ready-made, readily available "canon" ruins a lot of fun, but I can't contest that their transfers are great. Plus, more often than not, I tend to be intrigued by what they release. Does this mean that Criterion is the be-all, end-all of cinema? Absolutely not. It goes without saying that tuning into its releases isn't an excuse not to look outside its boundaries, but I don't think there's any harm in its existence, by any means. Plus, they do sometimes bring movies to the States that were otherwise hard to come by here, causing me to wish they'd be more expansive (Brighton Rock, please. Les Idoles, please).

That being said, Bigger Than Life is a Criterion release!



It's kind of unfortunate that Nicholas Ray (and James Dean, for that matter) is best known for Rebel Without A Cause. I'm biased, because a) I don't like it b) it was the only Nicholas Ray movie I'd seen prior to Bigger Than Life, yet I am still comfortable making this statement!

Where most Hollywood dramas of the 1950s might have sought to show the troubles of the everyday, suburban post-war American family, Bigger Than Life might be the first one I've seen to attack the very idea of these suburban families, and viciously so. Behind the already controversial critique of modern medicine and its "wonders" is a thinly veiled ("They're dull." "So are we.") launch against the complacency of 1950s middle America. The only thing more irksome than James Mason's sudden transformation into an egomaniacal douchebag is that there are moments where you can understand where his outbursts are coming from. He's a highly unlikeable character, post-cortisone addiction, and though he may have been a stranger in 1950s American society, he sure as hell isn't in 2010.



Things spin from uncomfortably realistic to ridiculous pretty quickly, but the extent to which they become ridiculous, is satisfyingly shocking for its era (a protagonist justifying the murder of his son with the Bible? locking his wife in the closet to do so?) as well as for its typical suburban setting. Bigger Than Life is loaded with scenes and dialogue I wouldn't have dreamed of seeing or hearing in Old Hollywood. Its ending is predictable, but had Barbara Rush never gotten out of that closet, Bigger Than Life would've never seen the light of day in the U.S.

Don't let the cats out

With his retrospective now over, the Pierre Clémenti adoration posts will probably be coming to a halt lest I somehow get my hands on his filmography (no small feat in the US). Or my rental of The Leopard shows up and I can talk about how odd it is seeing him blonde and clean-cut.

That being said, I wrangled up a few friends to come with me to Anthology's second showing of Belle de Jour. A few scrolls down tells you I've recently rented it, but again it was proven that DVD home viewings, regardless of how clear they are, can never live up to their theater counterparts. I'd completely overlooked just how good Catherine Deneuve and Michel Piccoli were in it. Most of its odd humor had been completely missed and seeing it at Anthology only reinforced how significant Clémenti is as Marcel. I might be biased or maybe it was because I knew what was coming, but when he first showed up onscreen, you could literally feel the movie completely shift. In my opinion, Belle de Jour is a nice little gem, but Marcel ends up pushing it into new territory due to Clémenti's energy.

It was nice to know that my friends enjoyed the movie. I made a Clémenti fan out of my best friend. Another friend preferred Jean Sorel and couldn't understand how my calling his character a Ken doll was an insult. My third friend compared Clémenti to André the Giant, physically. If you understand this, please comment.

Small note: The version screened had different subtitles than the DVD's. White, and not nearly as inclusive (though what's cut is primarily small talk), they were also italicized at times to distinguish reality from Séverine's dreams. Takes a bit of the fun out, no? Sometimes knowing French has its perks, I guess.

Let's end this with a little list of Clémenti movies I'm anxious to see and some clips:

Benjamin, Il Gattopardo (though his role is quite minor), Wheel of Ashes, Le lit de la vierge, Les Idoles. He was in much more, but these would be my first stops.




(don't even get me started on this movie)

Bonus: This is from Sweet Movie, which apparently tests the "eww" limits, but I'd be up for it. This is precious:



Up next, Bigger Than Life!

In a way, I felt like Aleksei Kravchenko was Elem Klimov's Falconetti, in Come and See. What it lacks in dialogue, the film more than makes up for in its imagery and, perhaps just as important, its sound. The ending was a bit of a letdown, but overall the film was fantastic, providing more than a few scenes not to be forgotten.

Good times on the reg

It's been a while, but the end of my current semester has been nothing short of a swamp. I don't know if it's because it's the first time since I was 16 that I've been unemployed, but these past few weeks have been excruciatingly long. Lots of paper writing and other academic distractions.

At the same time I've been able to squeeze in a few movies, so here comes a mega post.



Jeanne Dielman was incredible, to put it lightly. Coming from the iPod/Netflix generation where basically everything pushed on us is meant to reflect our supposedly non-existent attention span, Chantal Akerman's movie was a smack in the face. If fast-paced action films filled with explosions are at one end of the attention span-spectrum, 3 hours of a woman doing household chores with no music and practically no dialogue as at the far end of the other. While there is this slightly feminist aspect of the film, this revealing of how tedious and borderline imprisoning the life of a housewife can be, what I respected so much about Jeanne Dielman is how difficult it must've been to make. Cooking food, making coffee, making the bed, etc. seem like basic functions but because Akerman films each of them completely, the detail put into place must've been extreme. Just think of Delphine Seyrig, showing up to work and having to tenderize pieces of meat, but exactly as Akerman instructs her to, for hours a day. It's finely choreographed domesticity. And because the film is 3 hours long, who knows how much film was left to deal with before the editing process. Jeanne Dielman was an experience and nothing less. It tested my boundaries and proved that I could love something I was completely unaccustomed to. Brilliant.



As much as I love watching French films from the 60s and 70s, I'm pretty awful when it comes to its more contemporary cinema. Nevertheless, I had to watch Arnaud Desplechin's Rois et Reine for my cinema class and really enjoyed it. Mathieu Amalric, whom I'd never heard of prior to, is really fantastic, particularly at bringing humor into an otherwise dire film...sort of. It's difficult for me to pin a genre onto the film (drama, maybe) because of its nature. You never really know what's reality and what isn't, but in a very subtle manner. It's not the typical drama, by any means, and I really enjoyed myself. Desplechin is better known in the States (I think) for a more recent film, Un conte de Noël , which I've never seen, but is said to have some of the same characteristics. We'll put it on my checklist, considering Rois et Reine was so good.



With the Pierre Clémenti retrospective rapidly approaching, I've done more research on him, picking out which films I'm planning to become broke for during the week of the 11th, but also which films of his I should watch that aren't being screened. This somehow led me to Porcile, an odd little number by odd little director Pier Paolo Pasolini. It's a strange film, to say the least, the story concerning Jean-Pierre Léaud is easier to follow than the sparse story of Clémenti's cannibal, but as a fan of his, it's at least worth a peek for its visuals. It's beautifully shot, and Pasolini films Clémenti like a prince. The fact that he never rested on his good looks to accept typical film roles is one of the reasons I admire him so much, but they certainly don't hurt either. In the simple words of my professor, when Clémenti was brought up in class yesterday, "Il est beau, non ?"

Note: While I wasn't enraptured by Porcile, its transfer (Water Bearer Films?) is fucking atrocious. If you're looking to watch the film, try to track down one from another distributor.

But you're not a woman

I told myself that I was going to wait to see Belle de Jour until the Clémenti retrospective, but June feels really far away and I wanted to rent it pretty badly. I was slightly disappointed, but not too much.

Catherine Deneuve has never been one of my favorites. She was beautiful in her youth and is aging well, yes, but that doesn't mean I find her particularly interesting. I respect the humanitarian and feminist work she's done, but sometimes you love actors and actresses and sometimes you don't. I don't have anything against her, but I'm not fascinated by her either (okay, I love her in Les Parapluies de Cherbourg, but that's an exception). Here's a gratuitous Muppets shot:



All useless rambling aside, I found her pretty good in this. Belle de Jour is very tame by today's standards, but in 1967 the idea of a bored housewife with explicit masochistic sexual fantasies must've been groundbreaking. She's maybe 23/24 in this, so accepting the role was risky and I can respect her for that. There is this risk of the timid woman not happy with her sweet husband because he's not abusing her, but I think it's a stretch here. It definitely falls into the "bad boy" attraction crap, but Séverine knows when to draw the line with Marcel's obsessive behavior and I don't know many other movies of this era that deal with a woman's sexuality both so explicitly and with respect. You never get the idea that Buñuel is judging his protagonist for her preferences. Also Deneuve's Yves Saint-Laurent wardrobe is gorgeous.




Pierre Clémenti, on the other hand, is one of my all-time favorites. His role as Marcel gets a lot less screen time (maybe 30 minutes) than I'd thought, but he laps it up. You're drawn to Deneuve throughout the film, but whenever she's onscreen with Clémenti, he completely steals the scene from her. I think this is his best known performance and the last mainstream one for quite some time. His character is disgusting (and those TEETH), but he's really excellent and hammy in this. And what a sassy dresser! Oh and Michel Piccoli also is good as always.

The bored housewife theme is definitely nothing new, but this approach to it must've been back in the day. Buñuel's "surrealism" in this isn't nearly as interesting today as it was then. I've heard of people describing Belle de Jour as blurring the line between fiction and reality, but I found Séverine's fantasies to be quite distinctive from her everyday life. Also, judging from the US trailers (both the 1960s one and the re-release one) it was promoted as softcore porn here in the States, which is not only an insult to the movie, but complete bullshit. I didn't find Belle de Jour to be phenomenal, but it was enjoyable, with good performances, and it was far more than a skin flick.

In other news, I'm an hour into Jeanne Dielman and it is AMAZING. I'll be done with it this weekend and will write about it sometime next week, I'd imagine.

Ball of Fire

If entries earlier I stated that Bette Davis wasn't my favorite Old Hollywood actress, then Barbara Stanwyck is definitely my queen.

Puss Puss

Thanks to the calendar handout in French class this morning, I now know that Anthology Film Archives is having a Pierre Clémenti retrospective from June 11th to the 17th. A good opportunity to learn more about his work as well as a chance to catch Belle de Jour on the big screen. Unfortunately it won't make up for my missing the US premiere of Les Idoles a few years back.

Le temps détruit tout.

Ideally, I would've written about Irréversible immediately after watching it, when I was still completely rattled and thus in the perfect state of mind to do so.

I vaguely remember when it was released in New York, but more than anything I now think of it as a kind of "dare" movie, who can stomach it and who can't. Anyone who's heard of the film knows about the 9 minute rape scene, and most of them also know of the graphic skull bashing via fire extinguisher. Honestly, when this is where a film's notoriety stems from, it's not surprising if it develops such a reputation.

I definitely felt a similiar anxiety before watching it. Kind of nervous about the rape scene, but feeling like I was prepared, and if anything I'd be able to have a weird sense of pride after having sat through it. Plus, I'd liked Seul Contre Tous enough that I hoped the movie would offer more than shock value. I'd read up on Irreversible years ago, having never intended to watch it, so I felt like I knew what was coming.

I guess with a build-up like that it's not even worth mentioning how wrong I was. I was aware of (and intrigued by) the fact that Noé incorporated low-frequency sounds into the soundtrack for the first 20-30 minutes, barely audible, but capable of causing serious discomfort in people. Combined with the dizzying camerawork of the film's opening, I was caught off-guard by how nauseous I felt, very early on.

While I can defend the rape scene to no end, the claims of homophobia are more difficult to combat. The first major event of the film takes place in a gay S&M club named Rectum, and even though I still felt nauseous from the cinematography and the music, I definitely remember thinking "okay, this is a bit much" when it came to the seemingly endless shots of dudes in leather, sucking each other off, beating, masturbating, etc. There's a way to shoot this neutrally, but this wasn't it. There was definitely a sense of perversion and filth associated with it. Regardless of the fact that Noé threw in a cameo of himself as one of the guys jerking off, it still felt homophobic. The fact that Monica Bellucci's rapist is supposed to be gay definitely doesn't help.

I can barely comment on the fire extinguisher scene, because I knew when it was coming, and knowing how squeamish I am, I covered my eyes. What it didn't protect me from were the sound effects. The repeated clanking of the metal against this guy's head, the squishing mixed with the guy's progressively weakening cries made the scene feel like it was much longer than I'd expected. People who've actually watched it have spoken of its bizarre realism, despite being CGI. I'm not surprised.

The rape is a different story. By the time Bellucci started down the long red underground corridor and I knew what was coming, I was already in a completely different state of mind than I'd anticipated. Nauseous, almost exhausted, I was kind of terrified for it. A big critique of this single, 9 minute shot, is the question of whether or not it was gratuitous, some people even going so far as to say Noé was a sick bastard, appealing to the few who'd watch it and take some kind of pleasure in it, even questioning whether or not it promoted rape. This, I can't believe in any way, shape or form. The gut reaction, and the only appropriate response to the way this scene is done, is complete disgust. I'm not ashamed to say that I cried a little bit and saying I reacted this way strictly because I'm female is complete bullshit. My brain went through the rounds. "This is degrading/why is this so long/why am I watching this/why am I not covering my eyes now/what's wrong with me/this is awful, but necessary." Despite its length, absolutely nothing about it is glamorized. One mainstream review, though it praised the film, asked if 9 minutes was necessary. I might've agreed before seeing it, but afterwards, I can't. The bottom line, for me, is that this is the most effective depiction of rape in a fictional film that I've ever seen. It's repulsive because it needs to be. Any other treatment of it would be an insult to the depravity of rape itself.

One small detail that made me even more nauseated was the shadow of a bystander who appears in the background, sees what's happening, and promptly leaves without doing anything.

The rest of the film follows the events preceding the violence. It's a chance to recover after a truly brutal 30-40 minutes. Included is a kind of expected, lengthy "French" scene where the three protagonists are on the metro discussing sex and another where Cassel and Bellucci romp around naked. I just sounded a bit negative there, but while I was a little bored by the metro scene, the latter is very warm, if not sweet, and above all crucial in reinforcing how cruel the violence that precedes it is, explaining Cassel's reactions without defending them. I found the acting to be quite strong on all fronts.

I won't disclose the "surprise". I knew about it going into the film, and I wish I hadn't. Knowing about the violence still didn't prepare me for how painfully unpleasant this film would be, but knowing this "surprise" definitely weakened the effect of the ending.

True to form, the noise over the white screen at the very end made me squirm all over again. As a noted Daft Punk fangirl with just a bit (read: loads) of shame, I found Bangalter's soundtrack really fitting. It doesn't hold up as an album on its own, however.

Immediately afterwards, I had my cigarette and one of those rare, "what did I just sit through" moments. I was shaken. Without a doubt, Irreversible is the single most unpleasant cinematic experience I've ever had. Having said that, it was an experience entirely, where most films only seek to be. I was sucked in and affected, deeply. So, despite being an extremely cruel film, I can comfortably say that Irréversible was incredible. Just don't expect me to watch it again.

Small note: This is definitely not a film to see in parts. There are scenes online, but I guarantee that this is one that needs to be seen from start to finish to understand or even begin to argue against/for it. Watching it in pieces, I would definitely understand how someone could immediately be critical. If you have the guts to sit through it, and this is one film where I see no right to judge someone who doesn't, sit through all of it.

Adorable for adorable's sake

Ah, to look like this at my age.

A new breed of fuck

I watched In the Company of Men yesterday. It's a delightful rom-com about two businessmen who decide to wine, dine and emotionally destroy a co-worker.

In all seriousness, the movie was pretty good, though its notoriety seems far less deserved now than it did 13 years ago. It's dark by all means, its protagonists thoroughly disgusting, but compare it to something like Happiness, which came out only a year later, and it's relatively tame.

That being said, the acting is solid across the board. Aaron Eckhart is really great if by great I mean effectively portrays one of the biggest dicks I've ever encountered in a film.

Here's a good bit that most people seem to remember:



Unfortunately my favorite scene (HEY!) isn't online. I cracked up when I first saw it, felt guilty, then watched it another 3 times. The last scene is also a perfect closer.

So I guess it's sad that Aaron Eckhart ended up in a Batman movie and the dude who directed this is also responsible for this gem.

Voilà , ma morale

I'm still unsure of how I really feel about this movie, but this might be one of my favorite openings ever.

Stop acting like Henry VIII

Back when I was in high school, I went to see some movie at Film Forum and saw the trailer for a restored print of Classe Tous Risques. I didn't get to see it then, but I finally rented it today and was fairly disappointed. It wasn't bad, a slightly above average gangster flick, but not much else.

Anyway, it prompted me to look into a movie I saw a poster for while I was in Paris. This one:



Jean-Paul Belmondo is up there in age now, so seeing him in an ad for a movie called A Man and His Dog was harmless, but kind of giggle-inducing.

The trailer only made things better. It's worth a view for the "chien" count, even if you don't understand anything else (plus, bamf Max von Sydow makes an appearance):



-My dog, where is he?
-MYYYYYYY DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOG
-What's your dog's name?
--My dog
-My dog, my dog, my dog
-We're going to find your dog

This is my father in 20 years.

I still like Belmondo a lot in the 60s stuff. Maybe he needs to call it a day.

MOOOOOON CHIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEENNNNNNNNNNNN !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Alain Delon gets pelted with a then/now next.

Just because

Tipping is un-American

I think I have my handful of favorite leading ladies from the Golden Age of Hollywood and Bette Davis has never been one of them. Whether or not it's from my not having seen many of her films or just not loving her, I'm not sure, but I watched The Petrified Forest for the first time last night (first movie of 2010). It was weird seeing her play a little bumpkin instead of an ice queen. I didn't love her in it, but the movie was pretty good, quick, and she was adorable (simultaneously looking 18 and 80):



Obligatory insane, elderly Bette Davis:






I also watched Man on Wire, which was a nice little treat.

Excluded from ravioli night

Redoing this blog for 2010 for the following reasons:

-new year
-new decade
-it was shit before (how I eventually feel about most blogs I start, but so be it)
-my tastes have slightly evolved (normal)
-urge to practice free writing skills
-last semester of college
-boredom

Not fascinating or original, but whatever.

Introductions are always terrible, so I'll leave you with a treat and call it a night:



For the kid in you!