#30 - The Red Shoes (1948, Michael Powell / Emeric Pressburger)


This movie was really interesting because it was a musical without any singing! We've got an idealistic dancer, the composer she loves, a tyrannical director, backstage drama, everything you'd expect from the Dream Factory except the tunes. Of course, I generally am apathetic about the tunes so this is cool with me. Except that most of this movie left me wanting more, it's pretty light on actual drama and the like.

But OH MAN, the mid-film ballet sequence!! Only the best fifteen minutes of film EVER!!!! I'm totally a sucker for any supposed stage performance that utilizes crane shots, superimposition and montage. You know, just like the real ballet. I'm not kidding though, this and all those awesome Busby Berkley numbers rule so hard because they do so much that theater can't offer. If only there were more ballet films like this! I wish the whole thing was ballet. I guess I should see The Tales of Hoffmann, that's a full opera in this style. I hope it is.

new #100:

#57 - The Shop Around the Corner (1940, Ernst Lubitsch)

This was cute. I liked it.

new #100:

#37 - Two or Three Things I Know About Her (1967, Jean-Luc Godard)

I love me some Godard but this was a mess. I really couldn't tell what it was about. Was it the story of a young suburban housewife working part-time as a prostitute? An experiment about what people really are thinking during day-to-day small talk? An indictment of consumerism? Something to do with Vietnam? There were a lot of big ideas, all just glossed over with no unifying theme. Cinematography was outstanding, however. Still, I dunno... this seems to be the moment Godard loses me. Weekend is an absolute masterpiece though. I still need to see La Chinoise.

new #100: Terra em Transe

#46 - The Conversation (1974, Francis Ford Coppola)


Wow, it's been a long time since I've updated. I actually watched this about a week ago but I've been way busy with essays and visiting my sister in Pittsburgh. This movie is excellent, by the way. I'm sure I'm the last person on Earth to see it, but yeah. Gene Hackman is incredible. It was a thrill watching his conscience take over as he found himself unable to separate himself from his work any longer. I also found it interesting that we never really discovered the importance of the conversation in the park, or rather, we found out that it wasn't what they were saying, but that they were saying anything at all. Great cinematography too, especially the shots that looked like Blue Note jazz covers.

new #100: Aliens

#63 - Throne of Blood (1957, Akira Kurosawa)


I saw this at the AFI the same night as Sansho the Bailiff, this one being part of the "Shakespeare in Washington" festival. This is of course, Kurosawa's adaptation of Macbeth, set in feudal Japan. While mostly faithful to Shakespeare's original, Throne of Blood goes Macduff-less and features a ghost of an old man rather than the witches.

Kurosawa's foggy forest settings complement the ghost story, which evidently is inspired by Noh theater. Stephen Prince argues that the film is Kurosawa's attempt to portray Shakespeare in the kind of Japanese theater popular in Shakespeare's day. I dug it, but there's Kurosawas I like more.

new #100: Black God, White Devil

#13 - Sansho the Bailiff (1954, Kenji Mizoguchi)

More goodies from the Mizo retro at the AFI. Although a DVD is (finally!) arriving next month, I absolutely had to see this on the big screen. Unfortunately, this meant seeing in on 4 hours of sleep with no time to make a run to the concession stand beforehand to load up on caffeine. Just barely getting in on time (the "Directed by Kenji Mizoguchi" credit was onscreen when I took my seat) meant I had to sit in the very front of the theater (good showing by the way, kudos DC-area cinema patrons) with my head tilted all the way up, in the position one assumes when trying to sleep in a car, or a cinema.

Yup, I missed a great deal of the final act. I saw the final reunion with Zushio and his mother but I did not see him discover the fates of his father and sister. Fuck spoiler tags, yo. Thank God I'll be able to watch this again on DVD in a month to tie up loose ends.

Of course, what I saw (and what I saw was at least 3/4 of the two-hour movie) was phenomenal. Mizoguchi is definitely one of my favorite filmmakers of all time. I love how his postwar films deftly address contemporary social issues in a jidai-geki setting. Both Sansho and Ugetsu deal with the horrors of war and fascism and Oharu showed how women are still degraded and mistreated. It'll be interesting to see Street of Shame later this week (oh, I hope I don't have to work) to see how Mizo crafts a contemporary film. Too bad A Geisha isn't being shown, that's one I want to see soon too. Ah well, we have the Masters of Cinema Mizoguchi box and a Criterion Eclipse box coming soon so 2007 looks to finally be the year Kenji Mizoguchi gets his due on DVD.

new #100: The Terminator (honest, I've only seen T2!)

#41 - Paths of Glory (1957. Stanley Kubrick)

If not the greatest anti-war film ever, could this be at least the most cynical and at the same time heartbreaking indictment of the war politic? Of course, talking about the scenes that affected be would be spoiler city, so I guess no mention of that. Though I've always liked Kubrick, I never disagreed with complaints that his films are mechanical or lacking emotion until I saw Paths of Glory. It's so awful and so timely too.

new #100: All Quiet on the Western Front (what a coincidence!)