The Film Lovers Thread!

[northernsky]

^that are essential survival skills. i even have a teapot warmer to keep the tea warm for several hours. ha!

i wanted to go to a screening of fritz lang's "spione" [spies] tonight, but i can't seem to make up my mind.

+ i haven't watched a film in a theatre for months.
- i hate theatres.
+ i make an exception for this one.
- it's expensive. i'm broke.
+ i should support their efforts to show silent films although it always means a financial loss for them.
- i don't feel like leaving the house today.
+ but my grandma always says i should get some fresh air from time to time.
- i have to take the rapid-transid train and it smells in there.
+ it's the only screening and a DVD isn't available.
+ silent film screenings with live piano music are the better experience anyway.
+ this probably my last chance to visit this theatre before moving, and i will miss it.

hm, it's getting clearer.

 

[northernsky]

i did go. and the film was such fun i don't regret it. it truly is the godfather of every spy film ever made. it had everything: hidden mini cameras, an icy russian spy that falls in love with spy #326 from the other side, the megalomaniacal evil mastermind in a wheel chair, a waggon on the loose, a car chase, a kidnapping ambush with grenades disguised as coconuts in a streetstand, an evil seductress and a japanese secret ambassador commiting harakiri, hidden cyanide capsules, and lots of fake beards (and it's not as trashy as it may sound.)

 

[bleuFunk]

^ You're so lucky to live an area that shows those kind of things!

 

[northernsky]

^ You're so lucky to live an area that shows those kind of things!

they don't show silent films so very often, but on special occassions (like fritz lang's 30th day of death.) they do.

i enjoy those screenings particularly because they have live piano music, the acoustic in that theatre is impeccable and the piano player is really good.

and funny too. yesterday he went to the bar and had a drink during the intermission (the film was 3hrs. long.) and he missed the beginning of the second part. the film started without him, and when the audience called for him, he rushed into the hall and imitated the piano tunes while hastening to the grand piano.

is there no theatre that shows classic films in your area?

 

[LoveMyBoots]

apparently, The Fountain got boos at the Venice Film Festival

 

[bleuFunk]

No, they don't show any near me. I know things are shown from time to time in Ann Arbor, but that is about an hour drive for me. I kicked myself for missing a screening of "City Lights" though.

 

[northernsky]

apparently, The Fountain got boos at the Venice Film Festival

uh, i had such high hopes for the film, but when i saw the trailer i was disappointed. well, let's wait for the film to come out. i was looking toward resnais' coeurs as well but it was only very mildly appreciated by the critics. how were the other films received? i heard the black dahlia was applauded.

No, they don't show any near me. I know things are shown from time to time in Ann Arbor, but that is about an hour drive for me. I kicked myself for missing a screening of "City Lights" though.

ah, i know, i miss more screenings than i actually go to. but normally i'm quite content with DVDs, if i can get my hands on them (although i prefer watching them on a TV screen and not on my computer screen. hey, you have TCM over there, haven't you? that would be reason enough for me to get jealous. )

 

[northernsky]

do you want to help me decide what films i should see next?

 

[fashionicon]

+ i haven't watched a film in a theatre for months.
- i hate theatres.

I'm cursed. Everytime I go to the theatre, someone always has to sit right next to me. It dosen't matter if theres 100 people in the theatre or 10, it never fails.

I always get a. the girl with the 42 oz. drink who wants to hog both arm rests and ends up touching you everytime she picks up her drink and sets it down. or b. the guy with the cold, a loud repeating cough, the sniffles, the bird flu, SARS, who concidently sits in the chair beside me.

 

[northernsky]

I'm cursed. Everytime I go to the theatre, someone always has to sit right next to me. It dosen't matter if theres 100 people in the theatre or 10, it never fails.

this creeps me out somehow. someone once told me people who are let into a room would behave like air molecules and spread evenly. but apparently not.

I always get a. the girl with the 42 oz. drink who wants to hog both arm rests and ends up touching you everytime she picks up her drink and sets it down. or b. the guy with the cold, a loud repeating cough, the sniffles, the bird flu, SARS, who concidently sits in the chair beside me.

that's tough. you could act like you just discovered you were too shortsighted for row #10 and change to row #6 to get a better view or something.

 

[northernsky]

do you want to help me decide what films i should see next?

pff, i'll play dice then.

any comments on the venice film festival?

 

[visconti]

Has anyone here had a chance to see the new print of Bela Tarr's "Satantango"? It's coming to my area for one weekend in October and I'm debating whether I should go to the theatre or wait for the Facets DVD in November. I've only seen his "Damnation" and the longest film I've sat through in a single day was the long version of "Fanny och Alexander". I'm sure the cinematheque would be the ideal viewing situation, but given the 7.5 hour length and a lengthy (and supposedly incredibly realistic) cat torture scene, I'm not sure if I could get through it.

 

[northernsky]

Has anyone here had a chance to see the new print of Bela Tarr's "Satantango"? It's coming to my area for one weekend in October and I'm debating whether I should go to the theatre or wait for the Facets DVD in November. I've only seen his "Damnation" and the longest film I've sat through in a single day was the long version of "Fanny och Alexander". I'm sure the cinematheque would be the ideal viewing situation, but given the 7.5 hour length and a lengthy (and supposedly incredibly realistic) cat torture scene, I'm not sure if I could get through it.

did the forum just swallow my post?

no, i haven't seen satantango. i've only seen bits and pieces of werckmeister harmonies, but if the cinematography in satantango is anything like it, i would want to see it on the big screen. (then again, watching films on my computer makes me want to see everything on the big screen.)

i think you should give it a try. if you pass out, you can still get the DVD afterwards. (do they really show the film on one evening? or do they split it in half and show it on two days?) as for the cat torture scene.. i recommend the hands over the eyes and ears-method. works for me. don't tell anyone.

i remember watching until the end of the world (the 3 hour version though) in a screening room with only wooden chairs. we used to bring pillows or use our jackets to sit on the floor in front of the first row. but as we all don't get younger, i think i wouldn't do things like that anymore now if the film is over 2 hours long.

ah. my video store got a brand new damnation/werckmeister harmonies DVD. hm, hm, hm. maybe.

 

[visconti]

It's shown in two parts with intermissions in both parts. I think it'd be more or less four 110 minute blocks. They have the print for a weekend and end up showing it twice. Part one is shown on Friday night and again on Saturday afternoon. Then they show part two on Saturday evening and sometime on Sunday. The theatre is about 45 minutes away, so I'd just make it a day and go on Saturday. The more I think about it, the more likely I'll go. The DVD is coming out in the US and Europe, but the US DVD is being released by Facets. Even when they have decent prints to work with (as they should here), they don't do a very good job with transfers, so it'd probably lose a lot of the finer details.

 

[northernsky]

enjoy.

 

[Fuuma]

Was visiting some friends in London and Barcelona but managed to catch a few movies while traveling. If anybody wants comments just ask, I recently saw:

• Man push cart/USA/Bahrani/2005
• Berlin, symphony of a great city/Germany/Ruttmann/1927
• Dammi i colori/Albania/Sala/2003 (can't find it on IMDB but here's a link with some info: http://www.artnet.com/magazine/reviews/douglas/douglas11-4-04.asp)
• Emak-Bakia/France/Ray/1926
• Étoile de mer, l'/France/Ray/1928
• Entr'acte/France/Clair/1924
• Little miss sunshine/USA/Dayton&Faris/2006

 

[northernsky]

what did you think about ruttmann's symphony of a great city? i liked it very much, and i found it so much more enjoyable than other non-narrative films.

entr'acte and the ray-films sound very interesting. where did you see those?

i just had the sudden impulse to go to the movies today, but the film i wanted to see (der freie wille/the free will) won't be shown this week, i guess it lasted only two weeks. argh, i hate that.

visconti, how was satantango?

 

[visconti]

Northernsky- Satantango's not playing for a couple of weeks. I'm going to get caught up with most of his other films in the meantime.

I'm not sure where Fuuma saw the Man Ray films theatrically, but if you're interested, they're both available in a DVD set that Kino released a couple of years ago. It's sort of overwhelming because it has about 6 hours of mostly silent, experimental films on two discs. I'd probably have been better off buying it and spacing things out, but I rented it and watched all of them over the course of a few days. Unfortunately that made everything blur together. I only have a really clear memory of the Eisenstein short. That's probably because I'd seen in before.

(kino.com)

Disc 1

• Le Retour à la raison
  (Man Ray, France, 1923, 2 min.)
• Emak-Bakia
  (Man Ray, France, 1926, 16 min.)
• L'Étoile de mer
  (Man Ray, France, 1928, 15.5 min.)
• Les Mystères du château du Dé
  (Man Ray, France, 1929, 20 min.)
• The Life and Death of 9413, a Hollywood Extra
  (Slavko Vorkapich, Robert Florey, U.S., 1928, 13 min.)
• Ménilmontant
  (Dimitri Kirsanoff, France, 1926, 37 min.)
• Brumes d'automne
  (Dimitri Kirsanoff, France, 1928, 12 min.)
• Lot in Sodom
  (James Sibley Watson, Melville Webber, U.S., 1933, 27 min.)
• Rhythmus 21
  (Hans Richter, Germany, 1921, 3 min.)
• Vormittagsspuk (Ghosts Before Breakfast)
  (Hans Richter, Germany, 1928, 9 min.)
• Anémic cinéma
  (Marcel Duchamp, France, 1926, 6.5 min.)
• Ballet mécanique
  (Fernand Léger, France, 1924, 11 min.)
• Symphonie diagonale
  (Viking Eggeling, France, 1924, 7 min.)
• Le Vampire
  (Jean Painlevé, France, 1939, 8.5 min.)
• The Hearts of Age
  (Orson Welles, William Vance, U.S., 1934, 8 min.)

Disc 2

• Überfall
  (Ernö Metzner, Germany, 1928, 22 min.)
• La glace à trois faces
  (Jean Epstein, France, 1927, 33 min.)
• Le Tempestaire
  (Jean Epstein, France, 1947, 22.5 min.)
• Romance sentimentale
  (Sergei Eisenstein, Grigori V. Alexandrov, France, 1930, 20 min.)
• Autumn Fire
  (Herman G. Weinberg, U.S., 1931, 15 min.)
• Manhattan
  (Paul Strand, Charles Sheeler, U.S., 1921, 10 min.)
• La Coquille et le clergyman
  (Germaine Dulac, France, 1926, 31.5 min.)
• Regen (Rain)
  (Joris Ivens, the Netherlands, 1929, 14 min.)
• H2O
  (Ralph Steiner, U.S., 1929, 12 min.)
• Even -- As You and I
  (Roger Barlow, Harry Hay, LeRoy Robbins, U.S., 1937, 12 min.)

The Rene Clair short is available as a supplement on one of the DVDs that Criterion released 3 or 4 years ago. It's either 'Under the Roofs of Paris' or the one that lead to a lawsuit with Chaplin regarding the similarities in his Modern Times. It's worthwhile. I think I ended up watching it more often than the feature.

 

[northernsky]

Northernsky- Satantango's not playing for a couple of weeks. I'm going to get caught up with most of his other films in the meantime.

oh. i wonder why tarr isn't talked about where i live. have you seen werckmeister harmonies yet?

I'm not sure where Fuuma saw the Man Ray films theatrically, but if you're interested, they're both available in a DVD set that Kino released a couple of years ago. It's sort of overwhelming because it has about 6 hours of mostly silent, experimental films on two discs. I'd probably have been better off buying it and spacing things out, but I rented it and watched all of them over the course of a few days. Unfortunately that made everything blur together. I only have a really clear memory of the Eisenstein short. That's probably because I'd seen in before.

my video store has a VHS tape with early experimental films on it and i remember at least some of the films you listed being on it (especially le coquille et le clergyman that i want to see.) but as i'm already using up all visiting time at places that have a TV set and a video-tape player available (i don't know if i look like a very social person or a parasite.), i don't think i can squeeze those films in.

i can imagine how those films blurred together. i still have to take short films in very small doses (even the more accessible ones), they are just so different to watch than feature length films, and somehow i haven't got into them yet. i appreciate them for giving the opportunity for experiments like feature length films can't but sometimes there's so much going on i get clobbered over the head by it.

but i can understand that you watched them all. i'm tempted to do the same if i have a DVD or VHS-tape with several films on them. (and i always mock people who can't behave at "all you can eat"-buffets. tsk.) a friend allowed me to rent films in her name from her faculty during the semester break, and that's tricky because they usually have two films on one tape and you can borrow three tapes that means you can easily end up with six films you want to see. oh no.

The Rene Clair short is available as a supplement on one of the DVDs that Criterion released 3 or 4 years ago. It's either 'Under the Roofs of Paris' or the one that lead to a lawsuit with Chaplin regarding the similarities in his Modern Times. It's worthwhile. I think I ended up watching it more often than the feature.

(suing filmmakers for ripping off? oh, old times.)

it's on the a nous la liberté DVD. oh, i should devote a whole weekend to the subconsciousness sometime and watch all those surreal films in a row. even if it might get blurry.

 

[Fuuma]

what did you think about ruttmann's symphony of a great city? i liked it very much, and i found it so much more enjoyable than other non-narrative films.

entr'acte and the ray-films sound very interesting. where did you see those?

i just had the sudden impulse to go to the movies today, but the film i wanted to see (der freie wille/the free will) won't be shown this week, i guess it lasted only two weeks. argh, i hate that.

visconti, how was satantango?

Symphony of the city was an invigorating display of efficient montage and use of music. However I have issues with modernists and their idealized image of modern life and technological progress which was in full display in Ruttmann's film.

I saw the surrealists films at the Tate modern, which is IMHO the right context to see films like those that tend to explore visual arts possibilities through the medium of cinema instead of being "proper" films as we know them. I'd go with Visconti suggestions if I were you but do buy/rip/whatever the DVD to be able to see it in a couple of sittings.

Free will: sounds like an interesting, although painful, watch.