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Posts From the Internet Film Discussion Group, a_film_by

This group is dedicated to discussing film as art from an auteurist perspective. The index to these files of posts can be found at http://www.fredcamper.com/afilmby/ The purpose of these files is to make our posts more accessible, for downloading and reading and to search engines.

Important: The copyright of each post below is owned by the person who wrote the post, and reproducing it in any form requires that person's permission. It is possible to email the author of any post by finding a post they have written in the a_film_by archives at http://movies.groups.yahoo.com/group/a_film_by/messages and emailing them from that Web site.

13001

From: Fred Camper
Date: Fri Jul 23, 2004 3:45am
Subject: Re: Re: completely off-topic

hotlove666 wrote:

>--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Gabe Klinger"
>wrote:
>
>
>Too bad you weren't wearing an a_film_by t-shirt. We need to have
>those made.
>
>
Hmmm. As this group's "owner" I've been wondering how I can make a
profit off my "property." Ruper Murdoch made me an offer to buy the
group but you all know I would never sell it to anybody, except maybe my
co-moderator Peter, and he doesn't want to pay anything for it, so this
T-shirt racket sounds like a good idea. I'm going to look into it.

Gabe's post lured me out of my no-TV watching habit for about 20
minutes. I don't think I've watched the local news since I stopped
watching TV almost entirely, and that was ten years ago. It was as
stupid as ever. The NBC affiliate local station led with a breathless
report featuring "team coverage" about how Chicago's 911 system was down
for about an hour today, as if that were an event of major import. There
was a brief reference to Bush protesters, but unless I blinked at the
wrong time Gabe wound up on the cutting room floor. This was no surprise
to me, given the way TV news works. Most distressing is the kind of
moronic use of imagery that watching too much TV inures you to, but that
comes as a shock if you've not seen it in years. There were cuts to the
burning or collapsing Twin Towers almost every time 9/11 was mentioned
(and they kept mentioning it in the context of today's failure of the
emergency phone system! Yikes!), which I think was three times on the
NBC station. I dunno, if I saw that sort of thing every day for two
years I might want to blow up somebody, anybody, Saddam or Osama or some
other evil foreigner, too. Not really, but I can see how imagery reduced
to illustration and used only for shock value hypnotizes the viewer,
fries the brain, renders one almost mindless.

Fred Camper
13002

From: Gabe Klinger
Date: Fri Jul 23, 2004 4:13am
Subject: Re: completely off-topic

Fred wrote:

> It was as
> stupid as ever. The NBC affiliate local station led with a breathless
> report featuring "team coverage" about how Chicago's 911 system was down
> for about an hour today, as if that were an event of major import.

Fred, like you I find the local stations to be grating, awful journalism, with about one
news story of quality every week or two weeks. But that's what you get in a culture
that cares more about "local events" than the rest of the world.

Which is why I was chased away in Winnetka today; my chants were greeted with
shock, as these suburbanites simply aren't used to anyone acting or doing anything
to the contrary of what's expected.

You didn't blink. They cut me out of the 10pm news (visually, that is -- you could
definitely hear me saying "war criminal!") but my appearance was made on the 6pm
news, before I made my initial post, and that was pretty good. If you go to the NBC
web site, there is mention of a "teenager". That would be me (the resident interviewed
incorrectly identifies me as a 17 year-old):

http://www.nbc5.com/politics/3565094/
detail.html?z=dp&dpswid=2265994&dppid=65194

CBS did something similar, and all Fox News happened to comment on was that Bush
had nothing but kind words for our Mayor, whose daddy was just as bad as Bush -- a
vigilante who tried to excise black civil rights activists three decades ago, among
other crimes -- and whose son is guilty of extreme bad taste.

I expected as much from Fox News, I only wish channel 9, who are usually better
about such things, would have been there.

Gabe
13003

From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Fri Jul 23, 2004 4:23am
Subject: TV news (Was: completely off-topic)

> I dunno, if I saw that sort of thing every day for two
> years I might want to blow up somebody, anybody, Saddam or Osama or some
> other evil foreigner, too. Not really, but I can see how imagery reduced
> to illustration and used only for shock value hypnotizes the viewer,
> fries the brain, renders one almost mindless.

I too invariably have a horrible reaction to TV news, though I feel less
hypnotized than outraged. Is this another film-buff grievance, along
with objecting to 4:3 images stretched to widescreen dimensions? Does
paying attention to the syntax of visual communication create a low
level of tolerance for TV news' abuses? At any rate, I can't think of
another institution that has done more to degrade the quality of life. - Dan
13004

From: Robert Keser
Date: Fri Jul 23, 2004 4:33am
Subject: Re: completely off-topic

Bravo, Gabe! I didn't see the TV news, but it seems no one else saw
you on it either. Maybe some manipulation of the news is called for
now (hey, it works for Republicans). Identifying yourself as an
auteurist surely wouldn't do it [!], but I'll bet saying that you're
a Michael Moore supporter would.

By coincidence, today a friend asked me to spend an hour with her
high-school class to prepare them for a trip to see F-9/11, and then
to de-brief them afterward. These dozen kids went in to the theater
reasonably curious but came out ready to storm the barricades: their
teacher had to keep reminding them about the Patriot Act!

(Incidentally, when your neighbor said "He's our president, sonny",
that's when you can say,"Oh yeah? How come, when Gore got more
votes?").

Anyway, well done, Gabe!

--Robert Keser
13005

From: Fred Camper
Date: Fri Jul 23, 2004 4:46am
Subject: Re: TV news (Was: completely off-topic)

Dan Sallitt wrote:

> ....Is this another film-buff grievance, along
>with objecting to 4:3 images stretched to widescreen dimensions? Does
>paying attention to the syntax of visual communication create a low
>level of tolerance for TV news' abuses? .....
>
I think we're on the same wavelength about this. A barrage of images
full of "hot" content (I really didn't need to see the collapse of the
South Tower again tonight, and I can't even remember if that was
"illustrating" the emergency phone system outage or Bush's visit)
assembled meaninglessly is the editing equivalent of caring so little
about imagery that you don't care whether pictures are being improperly
cropped or not.

But I wouldn't say this is an arcane film buff concern. At least, in a
thinking culture, it shouldn't be. We should always care about "syntax,"
if we care about what we spend our time watching, or reading, or saying.
The problem is that so many people, in the words of my late friend Kirk
Winslow, "just don't care." Not caring about syntax perhaps explains
why for such a long time a majority of Americans seemed to think that
Saddam did 9/11.

Fred Camper
13006

From: Nick
Date: Fri Jul 23, 2004 5:07am
Subject: Otar Iosseliani

I'm working my way through Blaq Out's limited edition French DVD box
set of OTAR IOSSELIANI films. Only the latest film, LUNDI MATIN (Monday
Morning), has English subs, but most of the other films have relatively
little dialogue (French subs tho').

A friend of mine spoke to Iosseliani about these DVDs, and apparently
he actually prefers people who *can't* understand the dialogue, or
dialect, to view his films rather than those who can... It was this
that led me to dive into the set. My French is minimal, and the French
subs have helped a tad.

The films are:

(Georgia)
AVRIL (1962)
LA FONTE (1964)
LA CHUTE DES FEUILLES [FALLING LEAVES] (1968)
IL ETAIT UNE FOIS UN MERLE CHANTEUR [LIVED ONCE A SONG THRUSH] (1970)
PASTORALE (1975)

(France)
LES FAVORIS DE LA LUNE (1984)
UN PETIT MONASTERE EN TOSCANE (1988)
ET LA LUMIERE FUT (1989)
LA CHASSE AUX PAPILLONS (1992)
BRIGANDS CHAPITRE VII (1996)
ADIEU, PLANCHER DES VACHES! (1999)
LUNDI MATIN (2002)

I've seen the marvellous Georgian films and am about to embark on the
French films.

I'm interested in reading more about Iosseliani, and other than this
interview at www.nostalghia.com , I can find very little else of
substance:
http://www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~tstronds/nostalghia.com/TheTopics/
Ioseliani.html

-
Anybody got any Iosseliani faves?

-
also from nostalghia.com :

"In the early 1980s Andrei Tarkovsky visited the London Film Festival.
During his conversation with the audience following the screening of
Nostalghia, someone asked him what contemporary Soviet filmmaker he
admired the most. The answer came immediately: "Otar Iosseliani!" The
response was met with a stunned silence, as no-one appeared to know who
he was talking about. Iosseliani's remarkable talent and unique sense
of humour was at that time still a well-kept secret — thanks to the
Soviet authorities..."

-

-Nick Wrigley>-
13007

From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Fri Jul 23, 2004 5:08am
Subject: Re: Re: great stuff on TCM (was Bresson's LE PROCES)

I taped it off of Turner a number of years back.
Isabella introduced it. Very charmingly of course.
I prefer it in many ways to "Viaggio in Italia."

--- Dan Sallitt wrote:
> >>- EUROPA '51 (Rossellini) - 10/1 at 2am EST
> >
> > Holy shit.
>
> If someone in NYC tapes this or wants to have a
> communal screening,
> please let me know. - Dan
>
>
>

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13008

From: Tristan
Date: Fri Jul 23, 2004 5:11am
Subject: Re: TV news (Was: completely off-topic)

If you think Mid-western news is bad, it's nothing compared to Los
Angeles local news. It's a mixture of celebrity dating news, thing
that may kill you, and new plastic surgery breakthroughs. I don't
think they even discuss national news, let alone world news.

-Tristan
13009

From: Michael Lieberman
Date: Fri Jul 23, 2004 5:29am
Subject: Re: Re: completely off-topic

I plan to weave the GOP convention into the piece I'm working on now...I just need a Hit -err, Bush-Cheney sticker emblazoned on my camera to get away with it.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jaime N. Christley"
Date: Fri, 23 Jul 2004 02:28:28 -0000
To: a_film_by@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [a_film_by] Re: completely off-topic

Bravo, Gabe. And thanks for broaching the topic of protest. By way of coincidence I was thinking about what I was going to do for the RNC, besides work on my screenplay or see LOS ANGELES PLAYS ITSELF at Film Forum. What I'm probably going to do is this: set up a table near Union Square or Washington Square Park, somewhere where I don't have to fear being trampled on or dwarfed by a larger demonstration, and hang a sign from it that will say KERRY-HATERS FOR KERRY. Now, I don't *hate* Kerry. I've been reading some of his web site and his plans sound promising on some issues. But what bugs me is that his plans overall have the air of criticizing "how things were done" instead of "that they were done at all." The impetus reflected in my joke title translates to a strong desire to remove Bush from Office and to make my country safer, my economy and job market stronger (I'm a temp and I've been looking for a job for about nine months), and to take the relations my country has with other countries back from the brink. I think voting for John Kerry is the first step in doing this, hence I'm for him while I'm also for electoral reform and addressing the root causes of our problems, rather than painting over them and calling it a day. Anyway, at this table I just want to talk to people about the above, and to go into greater detail. I was inspired by an entry in Zach's blog in which he compared an effective and an ineffective anti-Bush protest in February. I'm all for effective, reasoned, and well-prepared protest and dissent. I also have an idea for buttons that say "reluctant voter." Are these not allowed in the voting booth? It seems like they'd qualify as being non-partisan. -Jaime --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Gabe Klinger" wrote: > But since most of us movie people are into the anti-Bush campaign... > > If you live in Chicago and can watch the 10 pm news (NBC and CBS, though NBC has > better footage), I'm on there, as the sole protestor at the site where Bush visited the > home of (AON executive) Pat Ryan for a Republican fundraiser today. > > My neighborhood, in the Northeast suburbs of Chicago, is probably one of the most > staunchly Replublican in the entire country, and I was jeered away, and nearly > attacked by one 16 year old, who told me that "no one wanted me". > > A woman on the news is asked about my reaction, and says that I probably "don't > know anything about politics". > > I was followed home by a police car. > > Gabe

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13036

From: joe_mcelhaney
Date: Fri Jul 23, 2004 3:44pm
Subject: Re: pan & scan, re-vewing (was: Storytelling/Remakes/Intelligence)

--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
wrote:
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "cairnsdavid1967"

> wrote:
> > > "It's common wisdom that a theatrical viewing on the biggest
> > > possible screen is the filmgoing ideal. But I guiltlessly
prefer
> > the
> > > restless, dynamic pan-and-scan TV print versions of Lawrence of
> > > Arabia (1962), at AMMI, and Spartacus (1960), at the WR, to the
> > > widescreen restorations I saw in 1989 and 1991, respectively.
> > > Without the sometimes irrational reshaping and often epileptic
> > > cutting from one end of the super-image to the other, both
films
> > > acquired tonnage, gracelessness, and torpor along with scale,
> like
> > > massively overweight hogs. Finally, I understood what the
critics
> > of
> > > the day meant in their kvetching about monolithic epics
(writing
> in
> > > the Voice, Andrew Sarris dismissed Lawrence as 'dull, overlong
> and
> > > coldly impersonal'). Sometimes, less movie is more movie."
> >
> > He's a philistine.
>
>
>Truffaut wrote that Aldrich's VERA CRUZ was nuch better in the
>French-dubbed version than in the original English. Isn't it a bit
>the same kind of wise-guy going-against-received-wisdom attitude?

In this week's Voice, he writes that "Fellini may be the most dated
and retrospectively overinflated of the new wave era's headline
acts." He's also written that Italian neo-realism is the most
overrated movement in all of cinema. Atkinson's reviews are filled
with this sort of thing, none of his "wise guy" assertions ever
backed up with sustained critical analysis.
13037

From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Fri Jul 23, 2004 3:54pm
Subject: Re: Atkinson (pan & scan, re-vewing)

--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "joe_mcelhaney"

> In this week's Voice, he writes that "Fellini may be the most
dated
> and retrospectively overinflated of the new wave era's headline
> acts." He's also written that Italian neo-realism is the most
> overrated movement in all of cinema. Atkinson's reviews are filled
> with this sort of thing, none of his "wise guy" assertions ever
> backed up with sustained critical analysis.

But when Godard did it, it was all right. Or he did it well. Or
something. Very few list-members seem to be intoxicated with making
broad declarations, which is a good thing, I suppose. But it can be
fun in the right hands.

I used to completely hate Michael Atkinson but now I don't
completely like him. Beneath his foppish stupidity there's a
certain consistency and integrity that I find admirable...you can't
say that about David Denby or Anthony Lane, two of the worst
American critics who've made it to any kind of exalted position like
reviewing for the "New Yorker." But a pan by Atkinson will intrigue
me to see a film.

I guess he's a smart guy, but over and beyond every single scribe in
the Voice's film section I prefer several online critics and
bloggers, and of course quite a few people who members of a_film_by.

-Jaime
13038

From: Elizabeth Nolan
Date: Fri Jul 23, 2004 3:58pm
Subject: scripts on the net

There are many scripts on the net sites. I don't
know who puts them there or maintains the
sites. I think there is a lot of individual effort.

http://www.script-o-rama.com/table.shtml

http://sfy.iv.ru/

http://moviescripts.cjb.net/

http://www.screentalk.biz/hitchcock.htm

http://geocities.com/classicmoviescripts/

are some of the web sites I use. It is a hit or miss thing reference a
script
being there; and as you point out... what you get, is what you get.

You can also do a google search, but SCRIPT is a common
computer language word.

--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Elizabeth Nolan wrote:
> http://www.simplyscripts.com/
> has a box for searching for scripts

ER - Is this where you got The Searchers? Who posted it?

I was just pointing out one small thing: Don't expect the shooting
script to be labelled Shooting Script. It may very well be labelled
Final Revised Script.

You have brought us treasure. Please tell us more about where you
found it, who's posting it and how we can get it.

Please, ma'am, I'd like some more!
13039

From: jaketwilson
Date: Fri Jul 23, 2004 4:06pm
Subject: Re: Script - screen

On the script-to-screen question, I share the viewpoint of David C,
and I also like the quote from Biette: I tend to look on narrative
film essentially as a form of drama, but I see no contradiction
between this and stressing the role of the director. I would add that
virtually any script whatsoever has something valid at its core which
speaks to basic human desires and fears -– if not, it wouldn't have
been written in the first place. Seems to me that the director's job
when saddled with a weak script isn't to impose visual style from the
outside, but to see past the "literary" inadequacies, locate the
basic appeal of the material, and figure out how the emotions which
arise from this can be most effectively and thoughtfully brought to
life. I think of this as the monster movie principle: the trappings
of the "monster movie" genre may be corny, but the human fear of
monsters, and what monsters can be made to symbolise, never goes out
of date.

JTW
13040

From: jaketwilson
Date: Fri Jul 23, 2004 4:09pm
Subject: Re: Atkinson (pan & scan, re-vewing)

--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Jaime N. Christley"
wrote:
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "joe_mcelhaney"
>
> > In this week's Voice, he writes that "Fellini may be the most
> dated
> > and retrospectively overinflated of the new wave era's headline
> > acts." He's also written that Italian neo-realism is the most
> > overrated movement in all of cinema. Atkinson's reviews are
filled
> > with this sort of thing, none of his "wise guy" assertions ever
> > backed up with sustained critical analysis.
>
> But when Godard did it, it was all right. Or he did it well. Or
> something.

Atkinson is no Godard, needless to say. I've sometimes found his
reviews mildly amusing but I've never learned anything from them. J.
Hoberman always manages to cover the ground and make the points, but
for a fine critic he seems to have had a disastrous stylistic
influence.

JTW
13041

From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Fri Jul 23, 2004 4:11pm
Subject: Chris Marker's wit

I went off (or on?) a weird tangent of web-searching and found
myself looking at the IMDb page for George Bernard Shaw (who by the
way is a featured character in Sokurov's MOURNFUL INDIFFERENCE), and
the quotes - the great "Shavian wit" in small bites - reminded me of
some of the things in the narration for SANS SOLEIL and REMEMBRANCE
OF THINGS TO COME.

Like the line:

"It's a woman's business to get married as soon as possible, and a
man's to keep unmarried as long as he can"

sounds an awful lot like Marker's observation, from watching women
in Guinea-Bissau:

"All women have a built-in grain of indestructibility. And men's
task has always been to make them realize it as late as possible."

There are other examples, but of course one can read a modified
(compartmented) transcript of the narration on the internet to see
that there's a great deal more to his ruminations on EVERYTHING, but
there are enough to make me wonder.

I wouldn't be surprised to discover that Marker is a great admirer
of Shaw. Is there any evidence that points to this?

-Jaime
13042

From: jaketwilson
Date: Fri Jul 23, 2004 4:22pm
Subject: Re: Chris Marker's wit

Jaime wrote:

> I wouldn't be surprised to discover that Marker is a great admirer
> of Shaw. Is there any evidence that points to this?

If so I haven't heard, but it's an apt connection. I always presumed
Marker owed more than a bit to Borges, who wrote an essay
maintaining "the primacy of Shaw".

JTW
13043

From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Fri Jul 23, 2004 4:21pm
Subject: Re: Atkinson (pan & scan, re-vewing)

--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jaketwilson" \

> Atkinson is no Godard, needless to say. I've sometimes found his
> reviews mildly amusing but I've never learned anything from them.
J.
> Hoberman always manages to cover the ground and make the points,
but
> for a fine critic he seems to have had a disastrous stylistic
> influence.

The general line seems to be that Hoberman spawned the "house style"
at the VV but Atkinson embodied it. I wonder if MA will ever create
anything with the epic, grotesque, seductive qualities of Kael's
legendary work.

I could never really work up any emotions about Hoberman, though.
He's very elusive. As an instructor at NYU he's never boring but
never particularly inspiring, either. Hear he's a workaholic.

Jake, I owe you that RIO BRAVO article. I suppose I should get off
the internet, but I'm at work and what else is there to do! (Not
work, surely.)

-Jaime
13044

From: jess_l_amortell
Date: Fri Jul 23, 2004 4:40pm
Subject: Searchers script (Re: scripts on the net)

> > http://www.simplyscripts.com/
> > has a box for searching for scripts
>
> ER - Is this where you got The Searchers? Who posted it?

That site yields these URLs:

http://geocities.com/classicmoviescripts/script/searchers.html

http://www.weeklyscript.com/Searchers, The.txt
13045

From: jaketwilson
Date: Fri Jul 23, 2004 5:13pm
Subject: Re: Storytelling/Remakes/Intelligence

hotlove666 wrote:

> Ultimately what we enjoy in allegory isn't the often outmoded
> meanings (although you need to do a lot of thinking before you can
> say that about The Faerie Queen, at which point you may not want to
> say it at all...), but the form of the poem, painting, play or film
> which we interpret allegorically -- and we are ALWAYS interpreting
> films allegorically, on this site and elsewhere. It's just that, as
> esthetes, we are more interested in the shell than in the kernel.

I'm not. If the meaning is banal I don't care how it's expressed. But
as I said in my earlier post re monster movies, "banality" is not so
much a characteristic of ideas in themselves: an idea acquires or
loses weight depending on the context, and our sense of the
experience that lies behind it. So when I say "meaning" I'm not
talking about a moral at the end (e.g. "there's no place like home")
but meaning as it emerges across the film, which is always different
from an unambiguous verbal proposition. Artworks don't say what they
mean, and the very fact we have to interpret them implies that they
can be interpreted in more than one way.

I guess what I'm saying is that, maybe unlike some others on this
board, I don't separate aesthetics from a quest for enlightenment.
Strictly, a film doesn't state anything, but it does illustrate
something, namely a possible view of the world. In order to find a
film interesting, I need to feel I've learned something from this
view -– at least, from the knowledge that it can be maintained.

JTW
13046

From:
Date: Fri Jul 23, 2004 5:18pm
Subject: Re: Re: Chris Marker's wit

There is a whole group of turn of the century, British writers who emphasize clever, witty paradox. These include Oscar Wilde, George Bernard Shaw and G. K. Chesterton. They have influenced many later writers, including those as diverse as Borges and Noel Coward. Probably Chris Marker also draws on this tradition.

Mike Grost
13047

From:
Date: Fri Jul 23, 2004 5:23pm
Subject: "The Clay Bird" flies to Chicago

"The Clay Bird" is playing this week at the Gene Siskel Center, according to the Chicago Reader:
http://spacefinder.chicagoreader.com/movies/critic.html#26282

Enjoyed this film when it came to Detroit!
The film denounces all sorts of extremist ideology, both religious intolerance and Marxism.

Mike Grost
13048

From: Kevin Lee
Date: Fri Jul 23, 2004 5:33pm
Subject: Re: New York Asian American International Film Festival - notes

I plan to watch BEAUTIFUL WASHING MACHINE on Saturday, as well as
AFTER THE APOCALYPSE, which was made by a local filmmaker who slaved
away at it for 2 1/2 years.

I don't know why I'm such a sucker for Village Voice reviews since I
disagree with them half the time; maybe it's because no one else
covers some of these films and venues (did TIME OUT cover this
festival at all? Their magazine was in the artist's goodie bag. And
has Mike D'Angelo left?). David Ng was way too curt in his dismissal
of 15, and I wouldn't agree with him that TAKE OUT is on the same
level as the Dardennes. The film starts off well and has its heart in
the right place, but the story it totally preposterous: a Chinese
food delivery man has to pay $1000 to his gangland loan sharks in 24
hours, so he persuades the other co-delivery guy to let him do all
the deliveries and thus collect all the tips. Uh, wouldn't it have
been more effective if they BOTH did deliveries and he could take all
the money and pay his buddy back later? Instead the other guy sits
around at the restaurant -- why his boss doesn't fire his ass for
shirking is beyond me -- while our hero bikes his ass off from one
Manhattan walk-up to another. Given that the average delivery tip is
probably $2, our hero must have made 500 deliveries in one day. Even
in an extended 18-hour shift, that's 25 deliveries an hour, or one
every two minutes! Who's your daddy, Spiderman?

Anyway, check out www.koreanfilmfestival.org to get a first look at
the 4th Annual Korean Film Festiva, playing at the ImaginAsian
Theater in August!

Kevin

--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Dan Sallitt wrote:
> > Pleased to report that buzz on Royston Tan's 15 (a film that,
> > incidentally, would fit right in with the recent "gay or not
gay?"
> > discussion on male behavior in certain films and plays) is
incredibly
> > high around the festival -- it's playing again Wednesday
afternoon.
>
> I delayed too long and missed this. Kevin, have you (or anyone
else)
> seen THE BEAUTIFUL WASHING MACHINE and TAKE OUT, the films in the
series
> that the Village Voice talked up the most? - Dan
13049

From: jess_l_amortell
Date: Fri Jul 23, 2004 5:42pm
Subject: Re: Atkinson (pan & scan, re-vewing)

> > Atkinson is no Godard, needless to say. I've sometimes found his
> > reviews mildly amusing but I've never learned anything from them.

I know what you all mean about Atkinson, more or less, but some years ago when he was still writing for the New York Press, something he (anyway, I'm fairly sure it was he) wrote about Stanley Kwan's ACTRESS (and ROUGE) managed to motivate me to attend this double feature, which I recall as my introduction to Chinese film. I remain grateful to him for this. (I'd like to think he still has his ear to the ground...)
13050

From: hotlove666
Date: Fri Jul 23, 2004 5:58pm
Subject: Re: scripts on the net

--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Elizabeth Nolan wrote:
> There are many scripts on the net sites. I don't
> know who puts them there or maintains the
> sites. I think there is a lot of individual effort.

Well, these URLs are pretty awesome. They are mixed, but the first
one, which is the best for contemporary H'wd film scripts you'd pay
15 bucks for at H'wd Book and Poster, clearly labels the provenance
of its scripts in the index, with Final Shooting Script often
identified as such. Classicmovies contains a lot of transcripts of
the finished films, also identified as such in the index, but in the
case of actual scripts you have to go to the document to see what
you're getting. Many seem to be scripts that have been published.
The "transcript" notation next to It's a Wonderful Life at that site
is more accurate than the sfy version of the same film, which
purports to be a script. This is an interesting case, because Joe
Dante thinks based on internal evidence that the whole wraparound
structure was arrived at in the editing room -- I have yet to see an
actual shooting script or early drafts that could confirm this.
>
> http://www.script-o-rama.com/table.shtml
>
> http://sfy.iv.ru/
>
> http://moviescripts.cjb.net/
>
> http://www.screentalk.biz/hitchcock.htm
>
> http://geocities.com/classicmoviescripts/
>
>
> are some of the web sites I use. It is a hit or miss thing
reference a
> script
> being there; and as you point out... what you get, is what you get.
13051

From: Kevin Lee
Date: Fri Jul 23, 2004 6:04pm
Subject: Childs Play: The Bride and Chucky Stephens

I'll have you know Jaime that Chuck Stephens's article on KILL BILL
in the latest FILM COMMENT is the one I've found most persuasively in
favor of QT's epic. Why? I don't have the article in front of me so
I can't quote, but he seemed to be saying, "Look, who are we kidding,
we go to the movies for the very same simple juvenile thrills that QT
is celebrating and referencing to no end in his magnum opus, so
instead of pooh-poohing it like a bunch of schoolmarms let's open
ourselves up to it and re-embrace it." Which is fine and true on one
level but it still reeks of the same self-congratulatory cinephilic
posture that I find terminally vapid and irrelevant to the rest of
the world, the one that caters and seduces so many of QT's minions.

But Stephens takes it to another level when he talks about family.
He talks about his father's casual affection for movies, the way he'd
skip work in the afternoon to catch whatever sounded good at the
multiplex. Stephens is brilliant and quite moving in how he ties
these anecdotes to KILL BILL, a film that strings together so many
moments affectionately lifted from so many movies that were casually
watched because they were "whatever sounded good" on QT's video
shelf, and yet the cumulative product is anything but casual. And
then Stephens somehow links this recollected bond with his father to
that between The Bride and her daughter... I'll have to read this
again. It didn't dissuade me from my fundamental misgivings with the
films, but it opened up new areas for appreciation.

Interestingly, a lot of it contradicts another review I really liked,
the long review that was in the Chicago Reader (for instance, the two
articles have very different takes on the pregnancy test sequence, as
well as QT's treatment of family themes).

Kevin

--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Jaime N. Christley"
wrote:
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Kevin Lee"
>
> > I agree with Dan that TWILIGHT SAMURAI has a couple of amazing
> action
> > sequences -- on both a dramatic and thematic level, I find them
to
> be
> > more tautly crafted and meaningful than the bloodlettings in KILL
> > BILL or Kitano's ZATOICHI. (I prefer DOLLS over ZATOICHI as
> well.)
>
> I prefer the magpies.
>
> -Jaime
13052

From: hotlove666
Date: Fri Jul 23, 2004 6:18pm
Subject: Re: Storytelling/Remakes/Intelligence

> I guess what I'm saying is that, maybe unlike some others on this
> board, I don't separate aesthetics from a quest for enlightenment.
> Strictly, a film doesn't state anything, but it does illustrate
> something, namely a possible view of the world. In order to find a
> film interesting, I need to feel I've learned something from this
> view -– at least, from the knowledge that it can be maintained.
>
> JTW

I stand corrected. I was stating an extreme esthete's position. I
recently noticed this re: Tristana. I went back to Oudart's classic
post-structuralist reading, Jeu de mots, jeu de maitre, where he says
that what matters about the film isn't its statement that
Christianity has castrated Man and made Woman a fetish, but how it
says it. Actually, both matter. But if some hack said the same thing -
- apart from the a priori fact that, said by some hack, it wouldn't
be the same thing -- it would be of only psychological or
sociological interest. Which is fine. Serial killer films are a whole
genre where there's a lot of crap, but also a certain amount of
sociological and psychological illumination to be had...often put
there unconsciously by the writers and/or directors. And a film like
Tristana, which I put at the top of the scale of what narrative film
can do, offers illumination in every scene, while pushing the
envelope of film form in a way that no one to date, IMO, has caught
up with -- except maybe Bunuel himself in That Obscure Object of
Desire.

Both sides of the coin.
13053

From: Aaron Graham
Date: Fri Jul 23, 2004 6:21pm
Subject: Re: scripts on the net

> > http://www.script-o-rama.com/table.shtml
> >
> > http://sfy.iv.ru/
> >
> > http://moviescripts.cjb.net/
> >
> > http://www.screentalk.biz/hitchcock.htm
> >
> > http://geocities.com/classicmoviescripts/

These are all great links. Another one to add to the list is:
http://simplyscripts.com/a.html

It lets you know whether it's a draft or a transcript before you open
up the link. It's also a pretty good judge of what scripts are out
there are on the net.

-Aaron
13054

From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Fri Jul 23, 2004 6:37pm
Subject: Re: Childs Play: The Bride and Chucky Stephens

--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Kevin Lee"
wrote:
> I'll have you know Jaime that Chuck Stephens's article on KILL
BILL
> in the latest FILM COMMENT is the one I've found most persuasively
in
> favor of QT's epic. Why? I don't have the article in front of me
so
> I can't quote, but he seemed to be saying, "Look, who are we
kidding,
> we go to the movies for the very same simple juvenile thrills that
QT
> is celebrating and referencing to no end in his magnum opus, so
> instead of pooh-poohing it like a bunch of schoolmarms let's open
> ourselves up to it and re-embrace it." Which is fine and true on
one
> level but it still reeks of the same self-congratulatory
cinephilic
> posture that I find terminally vapid and irrelevant to the rest of
> the world, the one that caters and seduces so many of QT's
minions.

I'm all for simple juvenile thrills but there are a lot of movies I
wouldn't reject out of hand if that was my only motivation, or even
my central one.

I can't speak for the minions.

> But Stephens takes it to another level when he talks about
family.
> He talks about his father's casual affection for movies, the way
he'd
> skip work in the afternoon to catch whatever sounded good at the
> multiplex. Stephens is brilliant and quite moving in how he ties
> these anecdotes to KILL BILL, a film that strings together so many
> moments affectionately lifted from so many movies that were
casually
> watched because they were "whatever sounded good" on QT's video
> shelf, and yet the cumulative product is anything but casual. And
> then Stephens somehow links this recollected bond with his father
to
> that between The Bride and her daughter... I'll have to read this
> again. It didn't dissuade me from my fundamental misgivings with
the
> films, but it opened up new areas for appreciation.

That sounds pretty cool, I'd like to read it when Lincoln Center
remembers I actually have a membership and I should be getting them
in the mail. Thanks for the recommendation!

> Interestingly, a lot of it contradicts another review I really
liked,
> the long review that was in the Chicago Reader (for instance, the
two
> articles have very different takes on the pregnancy test sequence,
as
> well as QT's treatment of family themes).

Did you read Geoffrey O'Brien's review from the time of Vol. 1?
It's really good.

I don't like fighting about the film, but a lot of the discourse
taking place around it irks me, and I find most of it to be shitty
and unhelpful. And of course people know it's a button that they
can push and I'll fly into a tizzy (if a tizzy means: tossing off
caustic and increasingly cryptic remarks).

Like it's interesting that you used the word "minions," albeit
(presumably) with tongue in cheek. The suggestion is that, with a
few exceptions (or, I don't know, no exceptions) there are these
people that *like* KILL BILL and they like it because they've been
brainwashed by a bunch of thrills and some hints of Art. The
necessary implication is that the people who don't like it are
seeing it with clear, objective eyes. A dichotomy as ludicrous as
it is masturbatory.

As far back as I can remember, movie message boards and bulletin
boards and lists and forums are always divisive when it comes to
major films like Tarantino's. The very first "big event film" that
I can remember taking over a bulletin board and squandering
bandwidth was...ironically, RESERVOIR DOGS.

I guess I don't spend a lot of time on Tarantino.com, where a
message board would be a bit more one-sided and cultish. Are those
are the minions you're talking about? Are you really worried about
the state of culture because of them?

But...even the David Lynch Discussion Board has one or two regulars
who enjoy taking every opportunity to mention pseudo-casually that
they don't really like David Lynch films that much. What does that
say about them?

-Jaime
13055

From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Fri Jul 23, 2004 6:34pm
Subject: Re: Re: Atkinson (pan & scan, re-vewing)

--- jess_l_amortell wrote:
(I'd like to think he still has his
> ear to the ground...)
>
>
But if he thinks "La Dolce Vita" is "dated" then he's
got his head up his ass. Fellini's dissection of
publicity culture and high/low social interaction is
nothing if not MORE relevant today than when it was
released. At the time it was seen as capturing a very
specific epoch in Italian history known as "Il Boom."
-- when the war was truly over, Italy had bounced back
and suddenly became THE place to go (see also "The
Talented Mr. Ripley.") Fellini was right on top of
this moment just as Antonioni would be right on top of
"Swinging London" a few years later with "Blow-Up."

By Atkinson's "standards" that's "dated" too.

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Take Yahoo! Mail with you! Get it on your mobile phone.
http://mobile.yahoo.com/maildemo
13056

From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Fri Jul 23, 2004 6:58pm
Subject: Killing Kill Bill

http://film.guardian.co.uk/features/featurepages/0,4120,1251571,00.html

JG Ballard, novelist:
"Look Back in Anger is definitely one of the worst
films I've ever seen. I walked out of that towards the
end, it was so appalling. To remember it is to be
traumatised all over again. It was self-indulgent,
flatulent, adolescent and hammily acted by Richard
Burton - utterly unconvincing. Part of the blame must
lie with John Osborne. I didn't like the play, and the
film showed up all its weaknesses.

And Kill Bill Volume I, which I rented the other day,
is dreadful. It was scarcely a film at all - just a
lot of cinematic posing by Tarantino, who has
obviously completely run out of ideas. It's just a
compendium of film cliches, which weren't wittily
transposed or played upon. Dreadful. It's appalling to
think there's a Volume II, and even conceivably a III
and a IV somewhere in the echo chamber of Tarantino's
imagination. It's a fast-forward experience if you
want to save your sanity. I've got 60 years of
film-going under my belt, and Kill Bill I is
definitely on the all-time bad list. "

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
New and Improved Yahoo! Mail - 100MB free storage!
http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
13057

From: jaketwilson
Date: Fri Jul 23, 2004 6:59pm
Subject: Re: Storytelling/Remakes/Intelligence

hotlove666:

>An example I've always turned to when thinking about the behavior of
the signifier is allegory. A knight in The Faerie Queen named
>Chastity (like Cher's daughter) represents an idea, but he also
exhibits a certain behavior. In his seminal book, Allegory: Theory of
>a Symbolic Mode, Angus Fletcher said: "He behaves like an obsessional
neurotic," someone with an idee fixe, someone with very rigid ideas
>about what he can and can't do, obsessed with fear of contagion, etc.
etc. And his behavior is part of the symbolic form we call allegory.

Would it be right to say that allegory differs from other narrative
forms in being more strictly metaphorical, i.e. equating two quite
separate objects? I don't know The Faerie Queen, but in The
Pilgrim's Progress, say, the literal and allegorical meanings have to
be more or less separated from each other though neither really makes
sense alone. For example, Doubting Castle is either a literal
castle, or a metaphor for doubt, but the characters who are knocking
down the castle can't "know" that they are really demolishing doubt,
because if they were paralysed by doubt on the literal level Bunyan
wouldn't need to trap them in a castle. So Fletcher's comment is
almost a sort of joke, because it depends on taking allegory more
literally than the form seems to demand. The same slippage would
occur if one started asking over-literal questions about the
characters who used to appear in McDonalds advertisements: why a
talking hamburger would encourage us to eat other hamburgers, etc.

A movie which enacts this kind of "postmodern" confusion is
PLEASANTVILLE, impossibly set "inside" the "fictional" world of a
bland `50s sitcom. The characters inside this sitcom are portrayed as
having idees fixes in just the way Fletcher describes, since their
only activities are those which (according to the film) could have
been portrayed on `50s TV during that period – the wife is
a "perfect" homemaker, no-one ever has sex or discusses intellectual
ideas, etc. Of course, because these characters are representations
of representations, their unreality is exponentially multiplied –-
yet because the film is a historical allegory, this unreality is
presented as if it were somehow representative of the historical `50s
themselves! So colorisation winds up being equated with the civil
rights movement – a metaphor that tells us little about either of its
terms, because it makes sense only in the specific and rather
tortuous context the film sets up.

As far as I can tell, full-blown allegory is actually quite rare in
live-action film, because the medium automatically provides so much
literal detail it's hard for the metaphoric level to move to the
foreground. In saying this, I'm distinguishing allegory from the kind
of symbolism which seems to arise naturally out of a narrative. The
first example that springs to mind is BATTLE ROYALE, which
obviously "means" something like: society forces the young to destroy
each other. That's a powerful idea on many levels, but given the
premise of the film, the broader symbolism doesn't need to be spelt
out –- all Fukasaku really has to do is present the specific story
effectively and allow it to resonate.

Maybe this is an overly narrow point of view, but I often feel
dissatisfied with films that are too obviously "allegorical", because
it seems like the literal and metaphoric levels of meaning haven't
been sufficiently brought together. That's my trouble with ETERNAL
SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND, for instance, though I suppose the
thinness of the SF framework could be viewed as deliberate parody.

JTW
13058

From: peckinpah20012000
Date: Fri Jul 23, 2004 7:14pm
Subject: Re: Killing Kill Bill

What more can one add to both Ballard and David's comments? This is
the reason I joined this group and am extremely honored that my
membership has been approved. Unfortunately, QT is now the darling of
postmodernist academics who want to appear "cool" (or in the new
word, is "awesome") by their students many of whom see through them
and the trashy films their espouse on the grounds of teaching them
about "their culture" - which it is not.

On a personal note, I have been "blacklisted" by the editor of an
academic journal for daring to question both his judgement and
certain members of his editorial board who objected to my calling QT
a "derivative hack" in relation to a creative director like
Hitchcock. My article was regarded as "too negative" and I was not
given the right of reply to these accusations. Long live future
articles on digital watches and computer games!

This is really why I am so excited about learning important insights
from other members of this group and enjoying intelligent and
critically astute debates.

Tony Williams

--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
>
http://film.guardian.co.uk/features/featurepages/0,4120,1251571,00.htm
l
>
> JG Ballard, novelist:
> "Look Back in Anger is definitely one of the worst
> films I've ever seen. I walked out of that towards the
> end, it was so appalling. To remember it is to be
> traumatised all over again. It was self-indulgent,
> flatulent, adolescent and hammily acted by Richard
> Burton - utterly unconvincing. Part of the blame must
> lie with John Osborne. I didn't like the play, and the
> film showed up all its weaknesses.
>
> And Kill Bill Volume I, which I rented the other day,
> is dreadful. It was scarcely a film at all - just a
> lot of cinematic posing by Tarantino, who has
> obviously completely run out of ideas. It's just a
> compendium of film cliches, which weren't wittily
> transposed or played upon. Dreadful. It's appalling to
> think there's a Volume II, and even conceivably a III
> and a IV somewhere in the echo chamber of Tarantino's
> imagination. It's a fast-forward experience if you
> want to save your sanity. I've got 60 years of
> film-going under my belt, and Kill Bill I is
> definitely on the all-time bad list. "
>
>
>
>
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> New and Improved Yahoo! Mail - 100MB free storage!
> http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
13059

From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Fri Jul 23, 2004 7:16pm
Subject: Wanking JG Ballad (was Killing Kill Bill)

David Ehrenstein reported JG Ballard saying:

> And Kill Bill Volume I, which I rented the other day,
> is dreadful. It was scarcely a film at all - just a
> lot of cinematic posing by Tarantino, who has
> obviously completely run out of ideas. It's just a
> compendium of film cliches, which weren't wittily
> transposed or played upon. Dreadful. It's appalling to
> think there's a Volume II, and even conceivably a III
> and a IV somewhere in the echo chamber of Tarantino's
> imagination. It's a fast-forward experience if you
> want to save your sanity. I've got 60 years of
> film-going under my belt, and Kill Bill I is
> definitely on the all-time bad list. "

I do believe that's a complete album of worthless I-hate-KILL-BILL
cliches, thank you David!

-Jaime
13060

From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Fri Jul 23, 2004 7:17pm
Subject: The Long Riders

For the first half hour of this Walter Hill film I wasn't sure I
liked it too much. But the main reason I wasn't responding well
ended up being the thing that became the most compelling: its
meandering quality, it's strange lack of focus, its diffuse and
inadequate characterization...THE LONG RIDERS is a western-myth film
that's been atomized and stretched thin, and for this viewer it was
a strange experience, but gradually a very compelling one.

- One thing that has great weight is the way the characters always
seem to be thinking before they speak (or if they don't, their
failure to do so has a specific meaning, i.e. when Robert Carradine
mouths off to the train conductor, "Jesse James rides with the
Youngers"* there are narrative consequences); my favorite instance
of this is the porch confrontation between the James mother (Fran
Ryan) and the Pinkerton chief (Jacob Rixley); also the way the two
Pinkerton men who bomb the James house seem genuinely remorseful and
confused by what they've done sucks the easy gratification out of
their summary execution by the gang, and replaces it with...
something that doesn't feel quite as warm and fuzzy

* I also like the way Hill deliberately made room for R. Carradine
to say to the conductor, "I ain't aimin' to do nothin', I'm doin'
it!"

- There are landscape shots here are just stunning

- The slow-mo "balletic" violence is obviously lifted from THE WILD
BUNCH, but without that film's tragic heft (from having carefully
delineated each of that film's character's personality and then
giving them a glorious death), but the weird thing is, I think Hill
has and shows a lot more affection for his characters (all of them)
than Peckinpah; neither approach is wrong - although I've always had
a little trouble with WILD BUNCH - but it seems there's more to
Hill's use of the technique than paying homage to Peckinpah

-Jaime
13061

From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Fri Jul 23, 2004 7:18pm
Subject: Re: Killing Kill Bill

--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "peckinpah20012000"
wrote:
> What more can one add to both Ballard and David's comments? This
is
> the reason I joined this group and am extremely honored that my
> membership has been approved. Unfortunately, QT is now the darling
of
> postmodernist academics who want to appear "cool" (or in the new
> word, is "awesome") by their students many of whom see through
them
> and the trashy films their espouse on the grounds of teaching them
> about "their culture" - which it is not.
>
> On a personal note, I have been "blacklisted" by the editor of an
> academic journal for daring to question both his judgement and
> certain members of his editorial board who objected to my calling
QT
> a "derivative hack" in relation to a creative director like
> Hitchcock. My article was regarded as "too negative" and I was not
> given the right of reply to these accusations. Long live future
> articles on digital watches and computer games!
>
> This is really why I am so excited about learning important
insights
> from other members of this group and enjoying intelligent and
> critically astute debates.
>
> Tony Williams
>
>
>
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
> wrote:
> >
>
http://film.guardian.co.uk/features/featurepages/0,4120,1251571,00.ht
m
> l
> >
> > JG Ballard, novelist:
> > "Look Back in Anger is definitely one of the worst
> > films I've ever seen. I walked out of that towards the
> > end, it was so appalling. To remember it is to be
> > traumatised all over again. It was self-indulgent,
> > flatulent, adolescent and hammily acted by Richard
> > Burton - utterly unconvincing. Part of the blame must
> > lie with John Osborne. I didn't like the play, and the
> > film showed up all its weaknesses.
> >
> > And Kill Bill Volume I, which I rented the other day,
> > is dreadful. It was scarcely a film at all - just a
> > lot of cinematic posing by Tarantino, who has
> > obviously completely run out of ideas. It's just a
> > compendium of film cliches, which weren't wittily
> > transposed or played upon. Dreadful. It's appalling to
> > think there's a Volume II, and even conceivably a III
> > and a IV somewhere in the echo chamber of Tarantino's
> > imagination. It's a fast-forward experience if you
> > want to save your sanity. I've got 60 years of
> > film-going under my belt, and Kill Bill I is
> > definitely on the all-time bad list. "
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > __________________________________
> > Do you Yahoo!?
> > New and Improved Yahoo! Mail - 100MB free storage!
> > http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail

Good night, everybody!

-Jaime
13062

From: Craig Keller
Date: Fri Jul 23, 2004 7:31pm
Subject: Re: Re: Storytelling/Remakes/Intelligence

> The first example that springs to mind is BATTLE ROYALE, which
> obviously "means" something like: society forces the young to destroy
> each other. That's a powerful idea on many levels, but given the
> premise of the film, the broader symbolism doesn't need to be spelt
> out –- all Fukasaku really has to do is present the specific story
> effectively and allow it to resonate.

This is a good observation -- I've been trying to decide for a while
now whether this aspect of the cinema and visual narratives is a great
strength, or some kind of weakness. Maybe it's both.

craig.
13063

From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Fri Jul 23, 2004 7:31pm
Subject: Re: Re: Killing Kill Bill

--- peckinpah20012000
wrote:
> What more can one add to both Ballard and David's
> comments? This is
> the reason I joined this group and am extremely
> honored that my
> membership has been approved. Unfortunately, QT is
> now the darling of
> postmodernist academics who want to appear "cool"
> (or in the new
> word, is "awesome") by their students many of whom
> see through them
> and the trashy films their espouse on the grounds of
> teaching them
> about "their culture" - which it is not.

Welcome aboard, Sir.

I have long been a Ballard fan, and If I know
Tarantino he's high on the list of peopple he'd hope
to impress.

So nice to see him getting kicked to the curb by a
TRUE master of violence -- the greatest since
Bataille.

>
> On a personal note, I have been "blacklisted" by the
> editor of an
> academic journal for daring to question both his
> judgement and
> certain members of his editorial board who objected
> to my calling QT
> a "derivative hack" in relation to a creative
> director like
> Hitchcock. My article was regarded as "too negative"
> and I was not
> given the right of reply to these accusations. Long
> live future
> articles on digital watches and computer games!
>
"Derivative hack" is fairly temperate, IMO.

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Vote for the stars of Yahoo!'s next ad campaign!
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13064

From: Kevin Lee
Date: Fri Jul 23, 2004 7:31pm
Subject: Re: Atkinson (pan & scan, re-vewing)

--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Jaime N. Christley"
wrote:
>
> I used to completely hate Michael Atkinson but now I don't
> completely like him. Beneath his foppish stupidity there's a
> certain consistency and integrity that I find admirable...you can't
> say that about David Denby or Anthony Lane, two of the worst
> American critics who've made it to any kind of exalted position
like
> reviewing for the "New Yorker."

Which reminds me, www.robert-bresson.com has just posted a much more
focused and much less sweeping version of my critique of Terrence
Rafferty's New York Times article originally posted here:

http://www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~tstronds/robert-
bresson.com/Words/KevinLee.html

Bressonians of the world, unite!

PS: After my initial attack on The New Yorker, I decided to read a
couple of recent reviews, and I actually quite liked Denby's review
of BEFORE SUNSET! There was one by Lane that I liked as well, so go
figure...
13065

From: Craig Keller
Date: Fri Jul 23, 2004 7:35pm
Subject: Re: Re: Atkinson (pan & scan, re-vewing)

> PS: After my initial attack on The New Yorker, I decided to read a
> couple of recent reviews, and I actually quite liked Denby's review
> of BEFORE SUNSET! There was one by Lane that I liked as well, so go
> figure...

Both have their moments -- emphasis on "moments."

cmk.
13066

From: jaketwilson
Date: Fri Jul 23, 2004 7:38pm
Subject: juvenile thrills (was: The Bride and Chucky Stephens)

> And then Stephens somehow links this recollected bond with his
father to that between The Bride and her daughter...

Haven't read the Stephens article, but I still think KILL BILL makes
most sense as an anthology of primal scenes from Tarantino's fucked-
up childhood. Which no doubt it would take a busload of
psychoanalysts to explicate fully, but dominant themes seem to be 1)
cinema as a surrogate parent, nurturing and terrifying by turns, and
2) rage against the father. Re the latter, one of the most suggestive
comments I've heard was from a friend who pointed out the affinity
between Bill and Noah Cross in CHINATOWN; don't know if that'll
strike a chord with anyone else, but it makes sense to me.

JTW
13067

From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Fri Jul 23, 2004 7:44pm
Subject: Re: juvenile thrills (was: The Bride and Chucky Stephens)

> Re the latter, one of the most suggestive
> comments I've heard was from a friend who pointed out the affinity
> between Bill and Noah Cross in CHINATOWN; don't know if that'll
> strike a chord with anyone else, but it makes sense to me.

I'll have to think about that, as there seems to be more differences
than similarities, at least as I see it.

But, you know, this is all moot since Tarantino is an overrated hack
and KILL BILL is one of the worst movies ever made. And so it goes.

-Jaime
13068

From: Kevin Lee
Date: Fri Jul 23, 2004 7:49pm
Subject: Re: Atkinson (pan & scan, re-vewing)

note that Yahoo!, which may be conspiring with the New York Times to
limit Bressonian discourse, screwed up the link in my previous
message. Here goes again:

http://www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~tstronds/robert-
bresson.com/Words/KevinLee.html

--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Kevin Lee"
wrote:
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Jaime N. Christley"
> wrote:
> >
> > I used to completely hate Michael Atkinson but now I don't
> > completely like him. Beneath his foppish stupidity there's a
> > certain consistency and integrity that I find admirable...you
can't
> > say that about David Denby or Anthony Lane, two of the worst
> > American critics who've made it to any kind of exalted position
> like
> > reviewing for the "New Yorker."
>
> Which reminds me, www.robert-bresson.com has just posted a much
more
> focused and much less sweeping version of my critique of Terrence
> Rafferty's New York Times article originally posted here:
>
> http://www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~tstronds/robert-
> bresson.com/Words/KevinLee.html
>
> Bressonians of the world, unite!
>
> PS: After my initial attack on The New Yorker, I decided to read a
> couple of recent reviews, and I actually quite liked Denby's review
> of BEFORE SUNSET! There was one by Lane that I liked as well, so
go
> figure...
13069

From: Aaron Graham
Date: Fri Jul 23, 2004 7:50pm
Subject: Re: The Long Riders

> - There are landscape shots here are just stunning

So is Ry Cooder's wonderful music to go along with it. Almost as good
as his cues for "Southern Comfort".

> - The slow-mo "balletic" violence is obviously lifted from THE WILD
> BUNCH, but without that film's tragic heft (from having carefully
> delineated each of that film's character's personality and then
> giving them a glorious death), but the weird thing is, I think Hill
> has and shows a lot more affection for his characters (all of them)
> than Peckinpah; neither approach is wrong - although I've always
had
> a little trouble with WILD BUNCH - but it seems there's more to
> Hill's use of the technique than paying homage to Peckinpah
>
> -Jaime

I'm a great admirer of this film, and Hill in general. I think it's
his strongest western to date, and although he didn't originate the
project -- that was Keith Carradine and James Keach -- I think he
made it his own through the music he employed, the "balletic
violence" (oh, how I do hate that term, but have to use it anyway),
and the "updated-from-noir chiarascuro" style so characteristic of
Hill. BTW, that term is borrowed from Armond White's review
of the "Deadwood" pilot. I think his reviews for "Supernova"
and "Deadwood" are simply some of the best texts on Hill at this time.

-Aaron
13070

From: Aaron Graham
Date: Fri Jul 23, 2004 7:56pm
Subject: Re: Wanking JG Ballad (was Killing Kill Bill)

> I do believe that's a complete album of worthless I-hate-KILL-BILL
> cliches, thank you David!
>
> -Jaime

I quite enjoyed reading Michael Winner's dismissal of "Johnny Guitar"!
This from the participant of such British reality shows as "Celebrity
Sleepover" (pretty self-explanatory, I think) and maker of "Death
Wish III".

-Aaron
13071

From: jess_l_amortell
Date: Fri Jul 23, 2004 7:58pm
Subject: Re: Atkinson (pan & scan, re-vewing)

--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein wrote:
> But if he thinks "La Dolce Vita" is "dated" then he's
> got his head up his ass.

No, he likes Dolce Vita -- I think ("still..potent.."):
http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0429/atkinson3.php
13072

From: Craig Keller
Date: Fri Jul 23, 2004 8:01pm
Subject: Re: Re: juvenile thrills (was: The Bride and Chucky Stephens)

>
> But, you know, this is all moot since Tarantino is an overrated hack
> and KILL BILL is one of the worst movies ever made. And so it goes.

All right, I'm feeling all the proper guilt by the passive-aggressive
pro-'Kill Bill' snipes. So I'll play along and ask: Why do you think
'Kill Bill' is so much the bomb?

craig.
13073

From: hotlove666
Date: Fri Jul 23, 2004 8:27pm
Subject: Re: Storytelling/Remakes/Intelligence

--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jaketwilson" >
Would it be right to say that allegory differs from other narrative
> forms in being more strictly metaphorical, i.e. equating two quite
> separate objects?

Metaphor does that, and does it on the basis of similarities - the
sun and a ahilling, say. Allegory establishes a continuous string of
analogies between abstract ideas and characters or things or actions
which represent them: the characters Everyman meets are the Seven
Deadly Sins, for example.

I don't know The Faerie Queen, but in The
> Pilgrim's Progress, say, the literal and allegorical meanings have
to
> be more or less separated from each other though neither really
makes
> sense alone. For example, Doubting Castle is either a literal
> castle, or a metaphor for doubt, but the characters who are
knocking
> down the castle can't "know" that they are really demolishing
doubt,
> because if they were paralysed by doubt on the literal level Bunyan
> wouldn't need to trap them in a castle. So Fletcher's comment is
> almost a sort of joke, because it depends on taking allegory more
> literally than the form seems to demand. The same slippage would
> occur if one started asking over-literal questions about the
> characters who used to appear in McDonalds advertisements: why a
> talking hamburger would encourage us to eat other hamburgers, etc.

This is a very sophisticated and interesting observation I'll have to
think about.
>
> A movie which enacts this kind of "postmodern" confusion is
> PLEASANTVILLE, impossibly set "inside" the "fictional" world of a
> bland `50s sitcom. The characters inside this sitcom are portrayed
as
> having idees fixes in just the way Fletcher describes, since their
> only activities are those which (according to the film) could have
> been portrayed on `50s TV during that period – the wife is
> a "perfect" homemaker, no-one ever has sex or discusses
intellectual
> ideas, etc. Of course, because these characters are
representations
> of representations, their unreality is exponentially multiplied –-
> yet because the film is a historical allegory, this unreality is
> presented as if it were somehow representative of the historical
`50s
> themselves! So colorisation winds up being equated with the civil
> rights movement – a metaphor that tells us little about either of
its
> terms, because it makes sense only in the specific and rather
> tortuous context the film sets up.

Again, I'll have to give this some thought. The example is certainly
an intriguing one.

> As far as I can tell, full-blown allegory is actually quite rare in
> live-action film, because the medium automatically provides so much
> literal detail it's hard for the metaphoric level to move to the
> foreground. In saying this, I'm distinguishing allegory from the
kind
> of symbolism which seems to arise naturally out of a narrative. The
> first example that springs to mind is BATTLE ROYALE, which
> obviously "means" something like: society forces the young to
destroy
> each other. That's a powerful idea on many levels, but given the
> premise of the film, the broader symbolism doesn't need to be spelt
> out –- all Fukasaku really has to do is present the specific story
> effectively and allow it to resonate.

That is an allegorical interpretatation of Battle Royale, and if it
only seems valid occasionally, the film is a discontinuous allegory,
as opposed to one where every step in the action corresponds to an
abstract idea. (However, batle and progress are the two main forms of
allegorical narrative.) When I say that we constantly make
allegorical interpretations, I'm again quoting Fletcher, but the
examples are pretty obvious: Wayne in Liberty Valance is Force,
Stewart is Law and Liberty is...well, Liberty, in the sense of
anarchy. The girl is Civilization and so on. Whenever we make a
thematic intrerpretation of a naturalistic or even a fantastic
narrative, we're allegorizing. Actually, the fantastic is almost
always allegorical if you scratch a bit: The Hulk, for example.

The form of full-blown or continuous allegory, says AF, is a kind of
magical thinking, where the author tries to establish point by point
correspondence between a action and meaning in order to control
meaning. And magical thinking (of the obsessional or compulsive kind)
pervades allegorical narratives: contagious and sympathetic magic,
cosmic charms with magical power and so on. These forms also pervade
scifi and fantasy, where the primary function of allegory is often
discarded for the sheer marvels of allegorical ornament and power
fantasy. But Star Wars is a romace with abundant opportunities for
allegorical readings, which fans have not neglected to pursue.

> Maybe this is an overly narrow point of view, but I often feel
> dissatisfied with films that are too obviously "allegorical",
because
> it seems like the literal and metaphoric levels of meaning haven't
> been sufficiently brought together. That's my trouble with ETERNAL
> SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND, for instance, though I suppose the
> thinness of the SF framework could be viewed as deliberate parody.

Haven't seen it yet.

Allegory is a favored mode in dictatorships, for obvious reasons --
it's sometimes called the Aesop Language. The statement in Viridiana
that Don Jaime's estate has been languishing, unproductive and slowly
degenerating, for 20 years makes a covert allusion to Franco's reign
and equates the estate with Spain -- something Bunuel, who still
wanted to go back and make Tristana, of course denied. In political
allegory, the surface characterizations and actions may conceal
historical figures and events.

This edges into the area of figura, where Abraham's lamb prefigures
Jesus, for example, but that's really something different from the
mode of symbolization in a political cartoon, being the forerunner of
double plots like the one in Henry IV, where another kind of magical
connection between events and people in history -- a providential
one -- is being posited.
13074

From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Fri Jul 23, 2004 8:36pm
Subject: Re: juvenile thrills (was: The Bride and Chucky Stephens)

--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, Craig Keller
wrote:
> >
> > But, you know, this is all moot since Tarantino is an overrated
hack
> > and KILL BILL is one of the worst movies ever made. And so it
goes.
>
> All right, I'm feeling all the proper guilt by the passive-
aggressive
> pro-'Kill Bill' snipes. So I'll play along and ask: Why do you
think
> 'Kill Bill' is so much the bomb?
>
> craig.

I've gone into detail in the past (here and elsewhere), but in
brief: it reminded me, again and again, and again, and again, why
I've chosen to devote my life to the cinema, and more broadly to art
in general. All the petty bickering turns into shit compared to
that.

I'm sorry to act so petulant and I hate myself for doing so, but at
the same time I feel I'm just responding as appropriately as the
situation warrants.

-Jaime
13075

From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Fri Jul 23, 2004 8:38pm
Subject: Re: The Long Riders

--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Aaron Graham"
wrote:
> > - There are landscape shots here are just stunning
>
> So is Ry Cooder's wonderful music to go along with it. Almost as
good
> as his cues for "Southern Comfort".

No arguments there! Glad to recognize another Hill fan (I'm a
developing one, myself).

-Jaime

>
> > - The slow-mo "balletic" violence is obviously lifted from THE
WILD
> > BUNCH, but without that film's tragic heft (from having
carefully
> > delineated each of that film's character's personality and then
> > giving them a glorious death), but the weird thing is, I think
Hill
> > has and shows a lot more affection for his characters (all of
them)
> > than Peckinpah; neither approach is wrong - although I've always
> had
> > a little trouble with WILD BUNCH - but it seems there's more to
> > Hill's use of the technique than paying homage to Peckinpah
> >
> > -Jaime
>
> I'm a great admirer of this film, and Hill in general. I think
it's
> his strongest western to date, and although he didn't originate
the
> project -- that was Keith Carradine and James Keach -- I think he
> made it his own through the music he employed, the "balletic
> violence" (oh, how I do hate that term, but have to use it
anyway),
> and the "updated-from-noir chiarascuro" style so characteristic of
> Hill. BTW, that term is borrowed from Armond White's review
> of the "Deadwood" pilot. I think his reviews for "Supernova"
> and "Deadwood" are simply some of the best texts on Hill at this
time.
>
> -Aaron
13076

From: Craig Keller
Date: Fri Jul 23, 2004 8:47pm
Subject: Re: Re: juvenile thrills (was: The Bride and Chucky Stephens)

> I've gone into detail in the past (here and elsewhere), but in
> brief: it reminded me, again and again, and again, and again, why
> I've chosen to devote my life to the cinema, and more broadly to art
> in general. All the petty bickering turns into shit compared to
> that.
>
> I'm sorry to act so petulant and I hate myself for doing so, but at
> the same time I feel I'm just responding as appropriately as the
> situation warrants.

Erm, okay. But what is the situation?

craig.
13077

From: Kevin Lee
Date: Fri Jul 23, 2004 9:00pm
Subject: Re: juvenile thrills (was: The Bride and Chucky Stephens)

--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Jaime N. Christley"
wrote:

> I've gone into detail in the past (here and elsewhere), but in
> brief: it reminded me, again and again, and again, and again, why
> I've chosen to devote my life to the cinema, and more broadly to
art
> in general. All the petty bickering turns into shit compared to
> that.

Well that's certainly as fine a criteria for determining greatness as
anyone can give. BEFORE SUNSET fits that bill for me, among many
other favorites of this year. Heck even KILL BILL reminds me of why
I care about the cinema, though I suspect not in the same sense as it
does for you.

I haven't had the pleasure of reading any of your indepth writings on
the film. Can you link me to any particularly salient posts or
essays of yours on it (I just tried your site but it doesn't seem to
be working?)?

Cheap shot about the "minions" aside (heh heh), my criticisms of KILL
BILL are anything but petty -- they cut pretty deeply and
passionately into what matters to me about cinema (as opposed to
cinephilia, which I consider to be cinema's mortal enemy).
13078

From: Kevin Lee
Date: Fri Jul 23, 2004 9:07pm
Subject: Re: Childs Play: The Bride and Chucky Stephens

Where can I find O'Briens' review? Given what he's written on
PASSION OF THE CHRIST and FAHRENHEIT 9-11, he's proving to be one of
the most relevant critics writing today, in my view.
13079

From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Fri Jul 23, 2004 9:21pm
Subject: Re: Re: Atkinson (pan & scan, re-vewing)

But he doesn't say how or why. In short he's less than
useless!

--- jess_l_amortell wrote:
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
> wrote:
> > But if he thinks "La Dolce Vita" is "dated" then
> he's
> > got his head up his ass.
>
>
> No, he likes Dolce Vita -- I think
> ("still..potent.."):
>
http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0429/atkinson3.php
>
>

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
New and Improved Yahoo! Mail - 100MB free storage!
http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
13080

From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Fri Jul 23, 2004 9:26pm
Subject: Re: Re: juvenile thrills (was: The Bride and Chucky Stephens)

It's unutterably stupid. It's about nothing. It risks
nothing. It says nohting. Just poses and smirks (part
1) followed by a pseudo-commentary on poses and smirks
(part 2)

So he's regurgitated a poassable of semi-obscure
action films into a stew of "ain't-it-cool" with Uma
Thurman instead of Samuel L.Jackson.

SO FUCKING WHAT?!?!!!

A waste of time and brain cells.

--- Craig Keller wrote:
> >
> > But, you know, this is all moot since Tarantino is
> an overrated hack
> > and KILL BILL is one of the worst movies ever
> made. And so it goes.
>
> All right, I'm feeling all the proper guilt by the
> passive-aggressive
> pro-'Kill Bill' snipes. So I'll play along and ask:
> Why do you think
> 'Kill Bill' is so much the bomb?
>
> craig.
>
>

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail is new and improved - Check it out!
http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
13081

From: Craig Keller
Date: Fri Jul 23, 2004 9:28pm
Subject: Re: Re: juvenile thrills (was: The Bride and Chucky Stephens)

> they cut pretty deeply and passionately into what matters to me about
> cinema (as opposed to
> cinephilia, which I consider to be cinema's mortal enemy).

Once again today, I'll bite the bait and ask: Can you explain what you
mean in this last thought?

craig.
13082

From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Fri Jul 23, 2004 10:21pm
Subject: Re: Childs Play: The Bride and Chucky Stephens

--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Kevin Lee" wrote:
> Where can I find O'Briens' review? Given what he's written on
> PASSION OF THE CHRIST and FAHRENHEIT 9-11, he's proving to be one of
> the most relevant critics writing today, in my view.

That makes two of us that think that!

Check it:

http://www.filmlinc.com/fcm/11-12-2003/killbill.htm

As usual with O'Brien - and like Manny Farber (but not stylistically)
- this review isn't "a defense" or "a pan." You can sense he's gone
one way or the other on the film but *it doesn't matter*, it isn't a
central for what he's doing with a film. I've had it with this
line-in-the-sand brand of film criticism (of which I'm a party, it's a
hard habit to break), O'Brien and others like him are a fresh and
invigorating break.

Kevin, you've got a substantial post up there in response to
KB-related matters and I'll get to it later. Not ignoring it, not
ignoring anybody (much), just busy all of a sudden.

-Jaime
13083

From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Fri Jul 23, 2004 10:32pm
Subject: OT: gay marriage

Are there any heteros left with a conscience *and* the notion that the
efforts to ban gay marriage isn't their problem?

An excellent column in this week's "Village Voice" (after a morning
spent sniffing a their film section) should put an end to that
illusion. It's everybody's problem.

http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0429/hirsch.php

-Jaime

p.s. Also in the issue, Richard Goldstein's column on the Cons "what
are they, a couple of fags?" attack on Kerry-Edwards is golden: a
comprehensive appraisal of the whole non-issue and a great response to it.
13084

From: Jaime N. Christley
Date: Fri Jul 23, 2004 10:35pm
Subject: Re: juvenile thrills (was: The Bride and Chucky Stephens)

--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Kevin Lee"
> Well that's certainly as fine a criteria for determining greatness as
> anyone can give. BEFORE SUNSET fits that bill for me, among many
> other favorites of this year. Heck even KILL BILL reminds me of why
> I care about the cinema, though I suspect not in the same sense as it
> does for you.

Okay!

> I haven't had the pleasure of reading any of your indepth writings on
> the film. Can you link me to any particularly salient posts or
> essays of yours on it (I just tried your site but it doesn't seem to
> be working?)?

They're scattered. Not on my site.

> (as opposed to
> cinephilia, which I consider to be cinema's mortal enemy).

I'll second Craig's "huh?" Sounds like you have your own Bill to deal
with!

-Jaime
13085

From: jpcoursodon
Date: Fri Jul 23, 2004 10:46pm
Subject: Re: juvenile thrills (was: The Bride and Chucky Stephens)

--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Kevin Lee"
wrote:

>
> Cheap shot about the "minions" aside (heh heh), my criticisms of
KILL
> BILL are anything but petty -- they cut pretty deeply and
> passionately into what matters to me about cinema (as opposed to
> cinephilia, which I consider to be cinema's mortal enemy).

Could you define what you mean by "cinephilia", and why it's
cinema's worst enemy? I was under the impression that most people in
this group were "cinephiles" (in the old French sense)but maybe the
term "cinephilia" seems too close to "necrophilia" for comfort.

Also, why are Denby and Lane among the worst American film
critics? (this is from an earlier post and I don't quite remember who
said it, there were so many posts today and I was busy...Plus it's my
birthday.

Speaking of American film critics, Sarris in this week's "NEW YORK
OBSERVER" raves about BEFORE SUNSET, which he calls a "perfect" film
and the best of the year this far. Any comments? I had liked BEFORE
SUNRISE and I'm looking forward to this 'sequel." Maybe it will make
up for not spending my usual two months in France this year...

JPC
13086

From: hotlove666
Date: Sat Jul 24, 2004 0:01am
Subject: Re: juvenile thrills (was: The Bride and Chucky Stephens)

--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
wrote:
> --- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Kevin Lee"
> wrote:
>
> >
> > Cheap shot about the "minions" aside (heh heh), my criticisms of
> KILL
> > BILL are anything but petty -- they cut pretty deeply and
> > passionately into what matters to me about cinema (as opposed to
> > cinephilia, which I consider to be cinema's mortal enemy).
>
> Could you define what you mean by "cinephilia", and why it's
> cinema's worst enemy? I was under the impression that most people
in
> this group were "cinephiles"

Yeah!

> Also, why are Denby and Lane among the worst American film
> critics? (this is from an earlier post and I don't quite remember
who
> said it, there were so many posts today and I was busy...Plus it's
my
> birthday.

Happy birthday JP!
13087

From: Michael Worrall
Date: Sat Jul 24, 2004 0:02am
Subject: Re: Storytelling/Remakes/Intelligence

--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "cairnsdavid1967"
wrote:
> Michael, I'll reposnd in kind in due course, but could I just
point
> out one or two areas where you don't seem to be reading me
accurately?
>
> > and while
> > > I agree that the mainstream media and the state encourage a
kind
> > of
> > > laziness in the consumer, I still believe in individual
> > > responsibility for whether you succumb.
> >
> > Succumb to what?!
>
> I think that sentence is pretty clear: "a kind of laziness in the
> consumer."
>
Yes, I should have asked "succumb"? But I think my questioning still
holds.

But David, I am little less inclined to respond if you are going to
reply to my asking you to explain yourself with a exasperated "sigh".

If you have not already, go and read my "What is an auteur?" post
where I state that I was not implying that studio directors did not
have a hand in the writing of the script. Keep in mind that
many/some/a few -you pick the variable that you are comfortable with-
- studio directors did not "choose" their script or subject matter
but rather it was assigned to them.

Finally, by something that is debatable I mean it can be
quesioned,re-thought or revised, not something to win or declared
over by submission of evidence.

Michael Worrall
13088

From: hotlove666
Date: Sat Jul 24, 2004 0:06am
Subject: Re: Atkinson (pan & scan, re-vewing)

--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Kevin Lee"
wrote:
> note that Yahoo!, which may be conspiring with the New York Times
to
> limit Bressonian discourse, screwed up the link in my previous
> message. Here goes again:
>
> http://www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~tstronds/robert-
> bresson.com/Words/KevinLee.html
It says I don't have permission.

you
> can't
> > > say that about David Denby or Anthony Lane, two of the worst
> > > American critics who've made it to any kind of exalted position
> > like
> > > reviewing for the "New Yorker."
NYorker critics haven't always been bad. I found an article about
Shadow of a Doubt and Journey Into Fear which was pretty acute about
Welles and Hitchcock imitating each other. Nothing much since then...
>
13089

From: Richard Modiano
Date: Sat Jul 24, 2004 1:04am
Subject: Re: juvenile thrills (was: The Bride and Chucky Stephens)

--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
wrote:

"...it's my birthday."

Omedeto gozaimasu. May you enjoy many more.

"Speaking of American film critics, Sarris in this week's "NEW YORK
OBSERVER" raves about BEFORE SUNSET, which he calls a "perfect" film
and the best of the year this far. Any comments? I had liked BEFORE
SUNRISE and I'm looking forward to this 'sequel." Maybe it will make
up for not spending my usual two months in France this year..."

Julie Delphy was interviewd on KPFK (L.A.'s local left radio station)
this morning and among other things told the intervirwer that she
wrote dialogue for her character in the movie (as did Ethan Hawke for
his charcter) with Linklater's encouragement, said some of her
favorite romantic movies were HISTORY IS MADE AT NIGHT and MINNIE AND
MOSCOWITZ and that SOME CAME RUNNING was one of the best American
movies of the '50s. Anyway, her comments about the actor-director
collaboration on BEFORE SUNSET make it sound more than intriguing.

Richard
13090

From: jpcoursodon
Date: Sat Jul 24, 2004 1:24am
Subject: Re: Atkinson (pan & scan, re-vewing)

--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "hotlove666"
wrote:
New Yorker critics haven't always been bad. I found an article about
> Shadow of a Doubt and Journey Into Fear which was pretty acute
about
> Welles and Hitchcock imitating each other. Nothing much since
then...
> >

Thanks for the birthday wishes, Bill. But saying that "nothing much"
of interest has been written in New Yorker film criticism in fifty
years is a little bit harsh. Granted, it's not the kind of stuff you
read in Cahiers, but then, vice versa. I would never make such
sweeping statements myself, although I may have made some in my
wayward youth.... And I'd still like to know why Denby and Lane are
so despicable. Because they have a cushy well paid job at the New
Yorker perhaps?

JPC
13091

From: Michael Worrall
Date: Sat Jul 24, 2004 1:57am
Subject: Denby/Lane (Was: Atkinson)

--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "jpcoursodon"
wrote:

>> Thanks for the birthday wishes, Bill. But saying that "nothing
much"
> of interest has been written in New Yorker film criticism in fifty
> years is a little bit harsh. Granted, it's not the kind of stuff
you
> read in Cahiers, but then, vice versa. I would never make such
> sweeping statements myself, although I may have made some in my
> wayward youth.... And I'd still like to know why Denby and Lane
are
> so despicable. Because they have a cushy well paid job at the New
> Yorker perhaps?
>
> JPC

JP,

First of all, happy birthday.

Rosenbaum writes about Denby and Lane in his book: "Movie Wars". I
remember something to the effect that he finds Denby a middlebrow
and moralistic --though Rosenbaum says he does appreciate Denby's
chiseled prose-- and I believe his criticizes Lane for his open
ignorance of the avant-garde, along with other
observations/statements that Rosenbaum finds quite damning. Now I
do not have the book with me and Johnathon, you can certainly
correct me if I mis-representing what you wrote.

I personally find them to be of the "content first" school of
criticism and do not stary too far from Hollywood and European art-
house fare. I get annoyed because people assume they are the
knowledgeable and cultured by association of the magazine they write
for. I can not tell you how many trailers I have sat through at art-
houses that have blurbs from Denby and Lane, as if it gives the film
the seal of quality and culture.

Michael Worrall
13092

From:
Date: Fri Jul 23, 2004 10:05pm
Subject: Re: Re: juvenile thrills (was: The Bride and Chucky Stephens)

Richard Modiano wrote:

>and that SOME CAME RUNNING was one of the best American
>movies of the '50s.

Gee, this makes me really curious to see some of Delpy's directorial work.

FWIW, I concur with Sarris about "Before Sunset." It's a masterful film.

Peter
13093

From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sat Jul 24, 2004 2:07am
Subject: Re: Re: Atkinson (pan & scan, re-vewing)

--- jpcoursodon wrote:
And I'd still like to know why
> Denby and Lane are
> so despicable. Because they have a cushy well paid
> job at the New
> Yorker perhaps?
>
Denby is as pompous as he is solopsistic. He thinks
his life experiences are interesting. They aren't.
He's not the first man to marry a lesbian. But he's no
Aldous Huxley -- to put it mildly.

Lane I rather like. Unlike a number of well-placed
film critics he freely admits to that which he doesn't
know -- and relates hi enthusiasm in learning. Of
course film criticsim shouldn't be an
on-the-job-training affair, but the fact that editors
continue to appoint people they find "interesting" and
"lively" to the job -- rather than someone with actual
knowledge -- shows the low estate in which film is
held.

Of coruse the fact that Quentin Tarantino is taken
seriously also shows the low estate in which film is
held.

Lane was here in L.A. a couple of years back and gave
a lecture. I found him quite endearing, especially
when he spoke of the unfairness of life. Speaking of a
mentor he lamented : "A great teacher, a brilliant
educator pops off at 50-- and there's Leni Riefenstahl
turning 100. WHY CAN'T SHE JUST FUCKING DIE
ALREADY!!!!"

I could love a man like that.

13094

From: Damien Bona
Date: Sat Jul 24, 2004 2:22am
Subject: Re: juvenile thrills (was: The Bride and Chucky Stephens)

Many happy returns, Jean-Pierre. I hope your day has been to
birthdays what the films of [insert your favorite director here] are
to other movies.
13095

From: David Ehrenstein
Date: Sat Jul 24, 2004 2:36am
Subject: Re: Re: juvenile thrills (was: The Bride and Chucky Stephens)

Oh yes -- Happy Birthday, Jean-Pierre!

--- Damien Bona wrote:
> Many happy returns, Jean-Pierre. I hope your day
> has been to
> birthdays what the films of [insert your favorite
> director here] are
> to other movies.
>
>

_______________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Express yourself with Y! Messenger! Free. Download now.
http://messenger.yahoo.com
13096

From: Damien Bona
Date: Sat Jul 24, 2004 3:20am
Subject: Re: Denby/Lane (Was: Atkinson)

--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:

> Denby is as pompous as he is solopsistic. He thinks
> his life experiences are interesting. They aren't.

You called that one right, David. Denby is an orotund bore who
wouldn't know a good movie if it bit him on the ass. (I remember he
was particularly condescending to Blake Edwards in the 80s -- when
Edwards was making some of his most memorable -- and certainly most
elegiac -- works of his career. Denby clearly thought he was being
hip but in reality he only revealed himself as the clown he is.) And
if you've seen him on Charlie Rose you know he's the type of nimrod
who was (with good reason) picked on a lot as a kid.

Denby's also something that the world of New York media and arts is
littered with: a middle-brow who's convinced he's a highbrow.

At least Anthony Lane is a glibly entertaining and sometimes witty
writer. I would have no problem with him at all if he was simply an
essayist who wrote about a whole array of subjects for The New
Yorker. As it is, he is in the tradition of the long-time New Yorker
critic John McCarten who never wanted to elucidate about movies --
not that he was capable of doing such -- but sure liked to make plays
on words. But Lane knows little about films and has no business
writing about them

And while we're on the subject of awful film reviewers, IMHO theirs
is no one who surpasses Slate's David Edelstein. He's been a fool
from the first day he wrote for the Voice, and is a man completely
bereft of originality, wit or insight. But he sure is filled with
self-regard: David Denby-lite

-- Damien
13097

From: jpcoursodon
Date: Sat Jul 24, 2004 3:26am
Subject: Re: Atkinson (pan & scan, re-vewing)

--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, David Ehrenstein
wrote:
>
> Denby is as pompous as he is solopsistic. He thinks
> his life experiences are interesting. They aren't.
> He's not the first man to marry a lesbian. But he's no
> Aldous Huxley -- to put it mildly.
>

Nobody is. And either all life experience is interesting or none
is. I'm ambivalent about mine. And I didn't even marry a lesbian (I
think)... I love "solopsistic", by the way. So suggestive of the solo
act.

> Lane was here in L.A. a couple of years back and gave
> a lecture. I found him quite endearing, especially
> when he spoke of the unfairness of life. Speaking of a
> mentor he lamented : "A great teacher, a brilliant
> educator pops off at 50-- and there's Leni Riefenstahl
> turning 100. WHY CAN'T SHE JUST FUCKING DIE
> ALREADY!!!!"
>

A great piece of film criticism! What's there to like?
>
>
>
>
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Y! Messenger - Communicate in real time. Download now.
> http://messenger.yahoo.com
13098

From: jpcoursodon
Date: Sat Jul 24, 2004 3:42am
Subject: Re: Denby/Lane (Was: Atkinson)

--- In a_film_by@yahoogroups.com, "Damien Bona"
wrote:
>
> Denby's also something that the world of New York media and arts is
> littered with: a middle-brow who's convinced he's a highbrow.
>

My, so much spite around! I'm not sure I understand why. Maybe I'm
just a lowbrow who's convinced he's a middle-brow.

> By the way, I'm not sure I could tell a piece by Denby from one by
Lane (although if I studied them a bit I probably could.) But by and
large there is a certain accepted way to write about movies for this
kind of press (upper-middle-brow/lowerhighbrow, maybe) that
absolutely everybody practices -- from Sarris to everybody at the
VOICE and other venues (I am talking about the US of course.
Differences are minimal because both the attitude and the style are
similar.
JPC
>
13099

From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Sat Jul 24, 2004 5:06am
Subject: Lane (Was: Atkinson (pan & scan, re-vewing))

> Lane I rather like.

Yeah, what little I've read by him was interesting. - Dan
13100

From: Dan Sallitt
Date: Sat Jul 24, 2004 5:10am
Subject: Before Sunset (Was: juvenile thrills)

> Julie Delphy was interviewd on KPFK (L.A.'s local left radio station)
> this morning and among other things told the intervirwer that she
> wrote dialogue for her character in the movie (as did Ethan Hawke for
> his charcter) with Linklater's encouragement

In the article I read, Linklater, Delpy and Hawke said that the actors
wrote dialogue for each other as well as themselves.

> said some of her
> favorite romantic movies were HISTORY IS MADE AT NIGHT and MINNIE AND
> MOSCOWITZ and that SOME CAME RUNNING was one of the best American
> movies of the '50s.

Can you get mail-order brides from Paris? - Dan

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