Thanks for the word on Daybreakers. Been looking forward to the film since it was announced (hopefully it will be what I Am Legend was supposed to be, at least that's what the Spierig brothers promised) and when Gordon was announced as composer I got even more excited (damn you Neil Marshall!). I hope that comes through well; I'm certainly envious of your trip to the sessions. Perhaps when I make a trip to Auckland (that's where you live, right?) you can invite me to lunch with Chris Gordon and we can eat some dingo.

And you just now saw Fellini's La Dolce Vita?! You sure are slow . . . you've at least seen Juliet of the Spirits and Nights of Cabiria, right? What about 8 1/2? That's the one in black and white? Is that too boring for you? Or maybe it's the fact you have to read the subtitles? I know that can be hard but with practice I think we can shape you up nicely.

Oh, and The reason why Fellini is glad to be dead.

I haven't yet seen LA STRADA, AMARCORD, and 8 1/2. Gold left buried in the ground for now - there's a lot to catch up on with other directors too.

Today, I received a call from a high school friend who's currently attending the Westwood College of Aviation in Houston, Texas. Back in high school, we would often talk about films and I introduced him to Malick's film by showing him The Thin Red Line (he's a big war movie buff). Before he called this morning, I hadn't talked with him in a little over a year, so it was refreshing to chat about what had been happening in our lives. What he mainly called to tell me about was the fact that he had just auditioned for an extras role in a film called Tree of Life, which was shooting in nearby Matagorda County (a very small, almost non-existent county, he says). He knew that my reaction was going to be speechless, because I always look forward to Malick's new projects and I had absolutely no idea that this was filming already (but he thought he had the upper hand in assuming I hadn't heard of it yet). He said he remembered the director's name and he wanted to audition for my sake (drop me some inside stories, etc.) but unfortunately he wasn't quite what they were looking for. I said that was too bad but at least we can look forward to the film and then we went on with our other discussion (he's not a huge movie fan).

"As I said, little is known about the film. The Hollywood Reporter mentions the usual "plot is closely guarded" irritant, and to rub in the annoyance tells us an insider could only say that it's a "complex drama." According to a bit of trivia on the IMDb, Tree of Life actually originated in the summer of 1978, when Malick began working on the project, which was then titled Q. Considered his most ambitious project, Q was originally a multi-character story set in the Middle East during World War I, but it also featured a prehistoric prologue with a Minotaur. Then, by the end of the year, the prologue became the whole film. Like The Fountain, it seems like the plot took place over a long, long time. Unfortunately, in 1979 the director and Paramount apparently had a falling out about money; after that Malick disappeared for twenty years."

Little wonder though, given that my recent viewing on DVD has outclassed just about anything I've seen in cinemas since THE NEW WORLD. Some of the films I've only just seen for the first time include:

- The Wages of Fear (Clouzot)
- After Life (Koreeda)
- Ordete (Dreyer)
- Metropolis (Lang)
- Ten (Kiarostami)
- The Sand Pebbles (Wise)
They all pretty much get the thumbs up from me, to varying degrees.

One which didn't get the thumbs up was Richard Attenborough's MAGIC, despite having a superb Jerry Goldsmith score. I wish I hadn't bought it.

Re-viewings include:
- The Magnificent Ambersons (even in this form, still one of the best films Welles ever made, and one of the best American films of the 40s. Herrmann's score was over half-deleted from the film, but it is also a very fine effort.)
- The Lady from Shanghai (cries out for a re-score and re-mix - and a restoration of the 70 missing minutes - but all that aside, there's a lot of fun to be had here from Welles' contribution to the noir genre)
- Touch of Evil (ah! a Welles film that can be seen in a relatively close approximation of his intentions! So good!)
- The Testament of Dr Mabuse (one of the best concepts for a sequel ever... a chilling story indeed)
- Shanghai Triad (one of Zhang Yimou's most underrated films, with a nice indirect narrative perspective on the jostling for power within the gang culture of 1930s Shanghai. Very effective sound design and photography.)
- Hitchcock's remake of his own The Man Who Knew Too Much. No film ever had a musical setpiece as good as this one.

Soon up for a re-viewing is the Criterion Collection release of Welles' MR ARKADIN, which will be a pleasure, I'm sure. Also up for a first viewing: ARMY OF SHADOWS, DEAD OF NIGHT, SHORT FILM ABOUT LOVE, CLOSELY OBSERVED TRAINS and PRINCE OF THE CITY. The feast will continue.

The classics in American film that year were THE INSIDER and EYES WIDE SHUT.

The very good American films were MALKOVITCH, BRINGING OUT THE DEAD, RIPLEY, FIGHT CLUB and RUSHMORE. I'd like to see LIMBO again, but from memory it was also very good. But with those being the key films of the year, it doesn't seem like the year was THAT revolutionary.

There are others that got a lot of acclaim, but none really struck a chord with me then or since - MAGNOLIA, THREE KINGS, SUMMER OF SAM all come to mind.

AMERICAN BEAUTY has lost a bit of its lustre since then. It was good, but perhaps everyone got a teensy-bit carried away. The more recent LITTLE CHILDREN will be the suburban study that is respected more in the years to come, I suspect.

Admittedly THE SIXTH SENSE and THE MATRIX are high quality blockbusters, and it would be rare to find two on a list in any given year since 1990, but they don't feel like they can quite breathe up there with EYES WIDE SHUT, AFTER LIFE and others.

And remember, I don't actually think MAGNOLIA, THREE KINGS and SUMMER OF SAM are that good.

CACHE (Haneke)
THE NEW WORLD (Malick)
GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK (Clooney - now there's something I never thought I'd say!)
NOBODY KNOWS (Koreeda)
THE PROPOSITION (Hillcoat, australian release)
MUNICH (Spielberg's best in years)
SYRIANA (a wonderful film, though a little rushed in parts)
SARABAND (Bergman, though this release was delayed from late 2003)
THE SQUID AND THE WHALE (Baumbach - easily his best film)
DE BATTRE MON COEUR S'EST ARRETE (Audiard)
GRIZZLY MAN (Herzog)
TOUCHING THE SOUND (Riedelsheimer)

And even the imperfect ones are pretty good - THE CONSTANT GARDENER, ENDURING LOVE and HISTORY OF VIOLENCE both come to mind.

There were also quite a few films that got their American premiere in 2005 which were superb -
2046 (Wong Kar Wai)
THE WORLD (Zhang Jia Ke)
OLDBOY (Park)
HOWL'S MOVING CASTLE (Mirazaki)
... all of them worthy of a top 10 list from that year.

Are you sure 2007 and 1999 stand head-and-shoulders above all of that? Because I sure ain't. True, the 2-3 best films in those years are towering... but not that towering.

EDIT - And I forgot Winterbottom's TRISTRAM SHANDY: A COCK AND BULL STORY and Tommy Lee Jones's THREE BURIALS OF MELQUIADES ESTRADA! For shame!

So far I've seen:

- Terence Davies' OF TIME AND THE CITY
- Werner Herzog's ENCOUNTERS AT THE END OF THE WORLD
- Alexander Sokurov's ALEXANDRA

Another recent excellent cinema experience was Fatih Akin's THE EDGE OF HEAVEN. And on dvd the other night, I saw Bergman's PERSONA, which is remarkable.

Still ahead of me at the festival:
- Powell and Pressburger's classics THE LIFE AND DEATH OF COLONEL BLIMP and BLACK NARCISSUS
- The classic 'Turn of the Screw' adaptation - THE INNOCENTS
- Errol Morris's STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE
- Zhang Jia Ke's WU YONG (USELESS) - Especially looking forward to this one.
- Claude Chabrol's recent GIRL CUT IN TWO
- A Japanese silent film called PAGE OF MADNESS.

There is also a film by Taiwanese master Hou Hsiao Hsien floating around Sydney cinemas at the moment - FLIGHT OF THE RED BALLOON. It's a shame distributors picked this time of year to put it out. Hopefully it will hang on for another week or two.

By the way, have you seen The Unknown Woman? I thought it was quite excellent. Just caught it at work last night. Ennio's score is absolutely incredible: I had no idea he scored it, but when a certain theme came up I thought it was either him hands-down-no-questions, or some other Italian composer trying his/her darndest to sound like the master; alas the end credits confirmed my suspicion--the posters we got had no composer listing.

Not to say anything of his age, but I was shocked by what he achieved with this score at this point in his career; it's a complex and compelling work. Fortunately, in the film, it's mixed loud and plays a major role... especially the lullaby: Which, when I had first seen the trailers we had, thought it sounded like something close to what Jerry Goldsmith might compose. The "horror" elements strangely make me appreciate what Zimmer was doing with Hannibal a lot more during the earlier Italian-set scenes... I see what he was going for, taking more than a few nods from his favourite composer. Anyway, I highly recommend the film, Michael, it's definitely up yours, Andrew's, and my alley.

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Originally posted by nuts_score:
Sorry sorry sorry Michael! I've been piecing together some reviews of Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, I'm Not There, and Youth Without Youth while I've been dodging the summer fare at the cinemas in favor of the better, smaller stuff;

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HAHA! Those are all terrible movies, you goofball. Marisa Tomei was naked in Devil; I'm Not There was boring and useless, particularly if you like Dylan at all; and Coppola's one made me wanna' shoot myself. :P

I can add to the list of what I've seen in the last couple of weeks the latest Errol Morris film, STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE. As in FOG OF WAR, Morris opens the door to a new perspective on things I thought I knew something about. Recommended.

On the Herzog film, it's actually genuinely good, and worth a cinema perspective. Filled with Herzogian touches, and to be honest, it's about much more than RESCUE DAWN was. The people he encounters at the end of the world are what gives the film its heart and title. For visual bravura, it's mostly the underwater diving sequences that stand out. I'm glad I saw it on a big screen in a receptive crowd. Very funny in parts.

THE INNOCENTS took me a little while to get into, but this classic Jack Clayton-helmed Henry James adaptation has some of the most authentically scary moments I've experienced in a cinema. And the thing is, what lies behind those moments is so simple and non-gratuitous. But you can't help but feel the charge that rips through the cinema at those moments. When I saw this film in high school, I thought of it as a story of possessed children. It's quite clear to me now that it's a story about a crazy governess with an over-active imagination.

The cinema experiences I'm still thinking about (no clear ranking):

- The Edge of Heaven (Fatih Akin)
- Flight of the Red Balloon (Hou Hsiao Hsien)
- Aleksandra (Alexander Sokurov)
- The first half of WALL-E
- There will be blood (Paul Thomas Anderson, which I really must see a second time, but time is short)
- Hunger (Steve Mcqueen)
- The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (Julian Schnabel)
- Black Narcissus (Powell and Pressburger)
- The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (Powell and Pressburger)
- The Innocents (Jack Clayton)
- Ashes of Time: Redux (Wong Kar Wai)
- Glass: A Portrait of Philip in 12 Parts (Scott Hicks)
- Standard Operating Procedure (Errol Morris)
- Of Time and the City (Terence Davies)
- My Blueberry Nights (Wong Kar Wai)
- The Dark Knight (Christopher Nolan)
- We Own the Night (James Gray, just saw on dvd the other night, so this is not a cinema experience - an interesting companion film to Eastern Promises, and a stronger narrative experience for me)
- The non-framing device parts of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (David Fincher)
- Encounters at the End of the World (Werner Herzog)

If I had to single some out as the films that really wiped the floor with me, I'd name Flight of the Red Balloon, The Edge of Heaven, Aleksandra, Hunger, Of Time and the City, Ashes of Time: Redux, There will be Blood, Diving Bell and the Butterfly and Glass: A Portrait of Philip in 12 Parts.

Mind you, the strongest experience I had in a dark room with strangers this year was not a film, but a play. Complicite's A DISAPPEARING NUMBER really struck a chord with me. If you ever have a chance to see a Complicite production, be there.

Most Disappointing? (Compared to their potential.)
- Quantum of Solace (Marc Forster)
- Youth without Youth (Francis Ford Coppola)
- technically one of last year's - Golden Compass (Chris Weitz)

Negative experiences:
- The New Babylon (one of the more dubious classics I've seen - with a live orchestra performing Shostakovitch's score)
- Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (Lucas & Spielberg could get anything made between them, and they did this - let the record show this)
- Silent Light (Carlos Reygadas is set to be a new darling of the arthouse, bringing together Tarkovsky, Bresson and particularly in this film, Dreyer. I'm pretty suspicious though. This film was an incredibly irritating cinema experience.)
- Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (it's no reflection on how well made this film is that I hated it. But I did hate watching it, and can't ignore that)
- Useless / Wuyong (Zhang Jia Ke's films are normally very strong... I think this subject was not as absorbing as he thought it was)
- Australia (roughly what I expected. I didn't hate it though, which is not what I expected)

Missed (because you can't see everything)... In Bruges, Burn after Reading, Princess of Nebraska, Happy Go Lucky, doubtless there were many others.

And there were other films as well that I was neither for nor against... Body of Lies, Un Secret, The Orphanage, The Girl Cut in Two, and there were others, Man on wire (which was pretty good, actually).

You'll notice I haven't seen Tarsem's THE FALL. It's my fault that I haven't seen a lot of good films this year, but that one isn't my fault. I have the DVD on order from the US, since it has received neither cinema nor dvd release here.

I watched The Reader last week; and I'll be seeing The Wrestler and Revolutionary Road soon. By then, I think I'll be ready. Hopefully I can deliver something that's worth the wait.

quote:

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Originally posted by franz_conrad:
It'd be a shame to watch SILENT LIGHT on anything other than a big screen. I didn't particularly like the film, but it was a film that used the big screen well.

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