Two-Lane Blacktop

Got this merely because it has the only starring roles of James Taylor and Dennis Wilson. This one is breezy with nothing much of consequence happening, I enjoyed it but I can't say I was rivetted for the whole duration of the movie.

The central theme is mostly the transitory situation of the main characters, with the most transient being "The Girl". Almost verite-like and possessing an unusual gravitas for scenes which do not demand such, it is a close cousin of "Badlands", another of my favourites.
I guess if you strip "Easy Rider" of all its subtext about the counter-culture and straight people, you'd end up with this - a story mostly about motion. I had wished the drag races were more exciting but it fits the movie.

My fave character is G.T.O., breaking up his ennui of motion by picking up more transients and fabricating rich lies about how he acquired the Pontiac 455. Wilson is just playing himself, a cool, relaxed dude content with watching life pass. Taylor however has that steely gaze and looks incredibly intense, which is out of place with the atmosphere of the movie, but still a wonder to watch.

The conclusion is highly satisfying, even if there's no conclusion. I mean the characters have been moving and are still moving at the end. I enjoyed this a whole lot. 3 and 1/2 stars out of five.

Metropolis

Damn! Still not the latest version with the restored missing scenes. This is the 2001 cut, with intertitles filing in the missing scenes. This is a rewatch, although the first time I saw it was the colourised version with a cheesy soundtrack by Bonnie Tyler, Queen and the rest (1985 version). That was a garbled mess even if the visuals are nice. As it is, the intertitles about the missing scenes does fill in some answers to the 1985 version, like how Maria escaped and what happened between worker 11811 and Josaphat.

It's still a strange and beautiful film, even if I thought the scenes of expositing the future was short, few and far in between. The plot is neo-Marxist in tone, the ant-like workers revolting against the upper class hedonists. There are elements of 20s Futurism all over the place, though I would have liked it to use zeppelins instead of biplanes in the cityscape shots. Still some profound mysteries go unanswered... Why would the builder of Metropolis want to destroy the drones since they are responsible for the upkeep of the city? What exactly is the role of the Thin Man besides spying on the founder's son? The robot transference only applies to living beings, why did Rotwang, the mad scientist, want to graft the founder's dead wife in the first place? What is the fate of worker 11811?

As it stands, I tend to differ from most popular opinion. Metropolis is hardly Lang's best film, that would be the intriguing and startling "Spione". IMHO, Metropolis is overrated. In much the same way I feel that "Touch of Evil" is Welles' best, not "Citizen Kane", and "Le Doulos" is Melville's finest, not "Le Samourai". That's going against the grain for you.

The Dark Knight : Holy insufferable fanboy praise, Batman.

Saw this yesterday. Was in quite a good mood if sleepy after my monthly injections for my condition. It's all good, miles ahead of Batman Begins, where Nolan didn't really know exactly what to do with R'as Al Ghul. Only minor niggle is that the franchise is long in the tooth, this being the sixth movie. There's just so many of Batman in an armoured suit you can take. Why don't they just let him wear grey spandex and his leather briefs on the outside?

On the plus side, the Joker is mesmerising and a lot closer to the comics version (the current maniacal psychopath type, not the clown of the 60s). The movie only really truly comes alive whenever he appears. His character this time is a lot closer to what sparked off the character in the comics in the first place, that is Conrad Veidt's permanently smiling face in "The Man Who Laughs".

Also, I have certainly delivered an aversion to Hollywood blockbusters, having watched so many quirky films. It seems that there still remains this box of thought for Hollywood, and it never veers off it. So, lotsa things blowing up and car chases. But that's just stating the obvious. Nolan also is ill-equipped for directing fighting scenes, as it all looks like a giant blur to me.

On the whole, I was entertained though I felt they could have done more with Two-Face. And I still liked Burton's Batman a lot better than this. Mainly cos the origins are fucked-up. The Joker was a small time hood who feel into a vat of chemicals, giving him a rictus, white skin and green hair. Dent had his face splashed with acid during a trial. But these two have already been covered in the earlier Bat-movies so........

There's also too much Bat-existentialism and repartees between Wayne and the other characters which aren't that interesting - boring brooding. The Joker should have more screen time. Jus wanted to let u know what a fanboy thinks.

Nekromantik 2

The above is probably the most gruesome image in the show. This one hardly disturbs or horrify. It just puts you in an indecipherable mood, expecially durng the corpse-fucking scenes and the strange lullaby-esque score. It's probably an off-beat romantic movie, just building and building up towards the inevitable climax, which almost outdo the original's. Hardly that bad to warrant seizure of its reels upon release.



The Holy Mountain

My third Jodorowsky watch. And it's not as good as either "El Topo" or "Santa Sangre". The minute it fails is when it follows a straight narrative instead of the disconcerting plotless imagery of the first half an hour. The nine disciples just aren't that interesting. However, the mixing of shit and sweat to make gold resonates with me. The score is cool, though. And the ending is straight out of "Monty Python & The Holy Grail".



House by the River

A genre unto itself - gothic noir. Other than that, there's not that much happening with this. The plot is straightforward murder mystery. It doesn't have the twists and turns of the far superior "Scarlet Street" and the ending is lacklustrous. File under "Die Nibellungen" for uninteresting Fritz Lang fare.



The Birth of a Nation

This one however is hilarious. Subversion of the Ku Klux Klan to make them heroes. All the blacks here merely want some white meat. I dunno much about race relations after the Civil War but surely it is not as skewered as this. There is one scene which seems to precogitate the gangsta culture of rappers these days, however. Yeah the Confederacy!



New Order : Live at Glasgow

Recent concert interspersed with interviews with the band. As yet again, the crowd-pleasers such as "Temptation" and "Bizarre Love Triangle" make the most sense. The Joy Division song lack the gruffy baritone of Ian and the newer songs sound alien, not having been established yet. My copy doesn't have the second "rare concert footage" 2nd disc which I don't miss as those songs I really don't like. So energetic when pushing 50?

Joy Division

The story of JD as told by the people who were there. Tony Wilson (head of Factory Records), Peter Saville (sleeve designer) Hooky, Barney and Stephen (band members) and Annik Honore (Ian Curtis' girl friend). Deborah Curtis gave this a berth, maybe there's too many painful memories to dredge up. What I like most about this documentary is the juxtaposition of the music against the English urban landscape. The images drag me back to my years in Cardiff, Wales. As it is, the music is a vivid portrait of any British town and serves as their ambient soundscapes. Nothing too revelatory here except maybe for descriptions of Martin Hannett, their producer.

The Best of Radiohead

Always wanted a retrospect of their music videos although this looks like an episode of Channel V's (local MTV channel) "Retro". The early videos are generally bland and two versions of "High and Dry" is overkill even if it is one of my fave songs by them. Others I've seen before. The cartoon for "Paranoid Android" is interesting, as this is the uncensored version, no pixellated nipples of the mermaids. My favourite amongst all is the surrealistic dream-like "Knives Out". I already have "I Might Be Wrong", "Push Pulk Revolving Doors/Like Spinning Plates" and "Sit Down Stand Up" on another DVD - "Te Most Gigantic Lying Mouth of All Time". Nothing from "In Rainbows" as this is a Parlophone DVD.

Hellboy 2 : The Golden Army

Nothing much to say about this except it can't decide whether to be a grim fairytale like "Pan's Labyrinth" (using creatures similar to that movie) or le grand superhero bash. I liked it, but only just.

Bought another 7 DVDs.

The Atrocity Exhibition

As I've said before, just to see what can be done with an essentially unfilmable novel. This one is liberating only in the sense that there's no narrative to focus on, so your mind is free to just enjoy the stream of images and the zen-like haikus of J.G. Ballard's dialogue, which are lifted entirely from the book. A lot of the descriptions are missing, especially the Liz Taylor bits. Also the description of sex in the novel which has a marvellous aesthetic kinesthesia, is painfully reduced to shots of a penis entering a vagina (what's so great about that?). At 1 minute I was already bored, at 11 minutes even more so and at 23 minutes - I was looking at the time display on the player to see how much film is left. The audio-video sync is also atrocious - thee's a gap of over half a minute in some scenes. Jim Thirlwell's (Foetus) score is fantastic though.

(Square root of) 964 Pinocchio

A Japanese cyberpunk movie in colour. Dunno what to make of this. The colours are nicely picturesque. I thought it would be another "Organ" which was crap but no, there are quite interesting visuals to keep anybody interested. Not much of a plot to speak of, just a lobotomised sex slave on the rampage. There is a very long vomiting sequence and eating back the vomit for anybody who is interested in that kinda thing. For me, I found the slowed-down short "Caterpillar" in the bonus features to be more engaging than the main feature.

Scarlet Street

Generally noir at its pinnacle. A quite complicated story which is highly unpredictable and you're not quite sure where it will go. There's also a subtext of the ambiguation of art and artists much in the same way as Woody Allen's Bullets over Broadway. Its complex overtones might put some people off, if they're expecting some direct story as "Double Indemnity". But I enjoyed this thoroughly.

Renaissance

Visually arresting although the plot is cliched. Some researcher gets kidnapped and it's the nefarious plan of a sinister mega-corporation as she discovered something important. That aside, the motion capture (digitalised movements of actors) is great to look at and rendered in monochrome, making it look like a French sci-fi comic. Could do without the obvious Blade Runner references (huge video ads, concepts of humanity) and the architecture which is lifted from the first Batman. Not too bad if you can stand a cliched plot.

Sisters (contains spoilers)

An early De Palma oddity. By all accounts, this is probably his breakthrough, and it uses many motifs he would apply later on - the Hitchcock tribute, the psychic overtones, split screen, excessive sex and violence (not that much here though).

The first half takes some time to build up - it looks as if he spliced "Rear Window" with an episode of "The Streets of San Francisco". The quaint archaic Bernard Herrmann doesn't help much either - it's overtly bombastic. There is quite a bit of split-screen. Sometimes innovative - the pov show the detail of some scenes, other times gimmicky - why use two camera angles when one should do? And it's headache inducing as well. The first half also shows a bit of paucity in direction.

The second half, however, is pure delirium - the b&w flashback scenes owes much to Tod Browning's "Freaks" and a portent to the future, especially "Eraserhead". Is it just me or is the "treating a straight person as a mad person" sequence morbidly funny?

In the end, what strikes me most is how realistic this is - the characters bleed to death slowly instead of the fast despatch, the pop psychology of the twins' mind-set, the power of hypnotic suggestion and a cut to the femoral artery does kill.

Also, I have to say this is highly influential, with Lynch (the b&w sequences), Cronenberg (the dualism and integrity of the twins' mind), Tarantino and Stone (the opening television show sequence) paying their dues to it. Highly recommended, along with De Palma's best - Phantom of the Paradise and Blow Out.

Sigh! Another eight more movies to go:-

Twin Peaks : Fire Walk With Me

Two things bad about this. First, the dialogue is leaden and stilted and does not match the panache of the series, which was probably why it got such a slamming from critics and fans of the tv series upon first release. Secondly, Sheryl Lee is a terrible actress, over-emoting at all times and mostly just screaming her head off. I've kinda given this the brush-off for a while, accepting the bad rep as an excuse. As it stands, it's not as bad as the reception suggests.

I got this merely for completion's sakes, having watched all of Lynch's movies bar "The Straight Story" and got the entire tv series on DVD. The soap elements aside, the surrealist sequences are generally spooky, disturbing and haunting. I would think of this as a somewhat unconventional "horror" movie, providing genuine disturbance and fear rather than the cheap scares in the usual fare. The sequences do get under your skin in a bad way, the only Lynch movie to do that to me since the twitching dead dog and the bleeding chickens sequence in "Eraserhead". If only he kept the needless character interactions to a minimum and shot more of the nightmarish sequences, this would have been a way better movie.

Got eleven DVDs yesterday, these are the two I watched first:-

Be Kind, Rewind

Played for less than a week in the cinemas here. Easy to see why. This kind of gentle, small-town humour can't be easily appreciated by third world mentalities. Hey! Where's the slapstick and the fart jokes? It takes a while to settle in, but this is generally hilarious and the jokes are original and not so obvious. The sentimentality can be a bit cloying. And oh yeah, who wants VHS in this day and age anyway? Jack Black and Mos Def has an interesting chemistry. Makes me want to swede a movie myself, really.

Hearts of Darkness

This is the most excellent "making of" documentary I have seen. The highpoints are the complete shots of Martin Sheen's drunken breakdown which makes him entirely easy to sympathise with, and the final shots involving Brando and Hopper. Which are intriguing, as I didn't know they were improvised and that Brando and Hopper's frame of mind at that time weren't that far removed from their on-screen personas', as the snippets here reveal. The building and rebuilding of the temple and those setting up of the helicopter shots also sound really laborious. I think this is the only "making of" which is a bit more interesting than the actual product, good as "Apocalypse Now" may be. My copy also comes with a "making of" the movie "Youth of Youth" which I'm not really interested in.

Return of the Living Dead : Necropolis

Put off watching this for some time as I originally intended to get the first installment, not the fifth. As it stands, it is not too bad, as a Day of the Dead lite or a B-version of Resident Evil. The gore is cheesy, so is the acting, but on the downside, there is no nude scenes. Also, the two geezer character actors (forgot their names) who usually appear with their morbid jokes in the series are also missing here. The plot moves along briskly and at 95 minutes, no one can say it out-stays its welcome.

Arkham Asylum : A Serious Place on Serious Earth (Graphic novel)

Been putting off getting this for yoinks. I read it before and was not particularly impressed. Still isn't that impressed.... The take on Batman's villains are a breath of fresh air, especially the Mad Hatter's paedophilia and Clayface's disease but other than that, it is hardly that much a microscopic examination of Batman's psyche, as the psychiatry is rather tenous and just skims the surface of the Bat-mind.

More interesting is the descent of Amadeus Arkham into insanity. I suppose if it ousts the Batman story and just concentrated on Amadeus it would have been much more interesting. As it is, there's just not that much happening with Batman in the madhouse....

The text script here is rather more interesting, as Morrison originally wanted The Joker to be in Madonna garb. Now, that would have been eye-opening. Also, the illustrated breakdowns by Morrison (writer not artist) also seem to suggest I'd enjoy this more if it wasn't painted in that surrealistic style and just drawn by more "conventional" artists. Boo! Give me "The Killing Joke" anytime.

Marvels (graphic novel)

Just got this as an accompaniment to "Kingdom Come" as Alex Ross is also the artist. Not quite as good as that other one, this is just the history of the Marvel Universe told from the pov of a photo-journalist. There's just too much emphasis on characters I didn't like - the original Human Torch and the Sub-Mariner. Other than that, the persecution of mutants didn't occur so early, if I remember. The Judgment Day theme of Book Three is skimmed over quickly (Galactus' coming). And finally, the death of Gwen Stacy lacks the emotional impact of the original four-colour edition. Overrated, IMHO. Now where's "Astro City"?

Wanted

Nothing much to comment about this. Merely an update of the "Matrix" setpieces, with hardly any of the philosophical impact of the first. A lot of suspension of belief, too much even for a summer movie. The most incredulous being a Whiskas van can chase a Lamborghini. Come on, Timor, give us back the wide-eye wonder of "Nightwatch" and "Daywatch".

Kingdom Come (graphic novel)

Been meaning to get this one for ages. Apparently, my dear old comics buddy loved this to bits. As the graphic novel is, it's not bad at all. A more straightforward old farts coming out of retirement to right things, which comes across as a clarion call to resurrecting the idea that superheroes fill the void left by vanished myths of old gods.

I enjoyed this much better than "Dark Knight Returns", which is more or less covering the same ground - insane future, old guard reinforcing old values. I know I'm gonna get flack for this, but the usage of the aged Justice League is not as interesting as the second Dark Knight, nor the juxtaposition of Lex Luthor and gang. What is the good thing here is that the characters are more grounded in "reality", even if the bedlam here is just anarchic superheroes using the world akin to a boxing ring to cater for their show of might.

Batman looks great as an old geezer, though. As usual, my fanboy instincts are greatly appeased by the amount of superheroes here, mostly progenies of the old guard, and uses a lot of characters (sons and daughters of Justice Leaguers) from the under-rated "Infinity Inc.", definitely one of my favourite team series, before it was abolished by Crisis on Infinite Earths (it was set on Earth 2).

There is also definitely a Christian bent on the whole thing, as Revelations is quoted endlessly, and the Spectre seems to have been ordered by God. The central crux of Billy Batson/Captain Marvel to the whole story is also quite beautiful.

I love this. Art's not shabby at all, although it can get a bit patchy if Alex Ross didn't use a human model for his paintings.

Duck Soup

Rather nice on a rewatch. Some quite nice vitriolic shots at governments and administration. The song and dance routines are quite good. A lot of the verbal jokes from Groucho are rather hit and miss, though. My favourite is that he gets mad at being called an "upstart" but not "swine". Harpo is seemingly lifting the slapstick off the "Three Stooges", though. At least one racist joke about "darkies" although it's really not that racist if you look at it.

Animal Crackers

My least favourite of the three, although the interludes when Groucho is talking to himself is highly influential on comedies that came afterwards. The central lost painting crux is just not that interesting. More interesting is the part where Zeppo sits in for Groucho, and the voice is dissimilar and they had to shot that part in near darkness.

Horse Feathers

Rather interesting take on the education system. Pretty good harp solo from Harpo as well. The climactic football game is madness and has to be seen to be believed. More hit and miss jokes as well.