The women of Meek’s Cutoff

Oh come on Carey, don’t cry

iwdrm:

“This is Ripley, last survivor of the Nostromo, signing off.”

Alien (1979)

(via hello-zombie)

lepoinconneurdeslilas:

Blue Velvet

Yes, but more to the point: Isabella Rossellini

Singularidades de uma Rapariga Loura (Eccentricities of a Blonde-haired Girl) (2009) by Manoel de Oliveira

The elegant photography and the exquisite interiors enhance the old-fashioned style and the dreamlike mood of the film. I also like the extensive use of pillow shots throughout the piece.

Down by Law (1986) by Jim Jarmusch

Ok, so, remember Omar Sharif’s grandiose entrance in Lawrence of Arabia? Well, Jim Jarmusch did something similar (albeit on a smaller and shorter scale) in Down by Law. I’ve tried to capture the effect with a few screen shots, but I guess it’s one of those “you had to be there” instances. Oh Well.

This Is England (2006) by Shane Meadows

After putting it off for so long (years, actually), I’ve finally managed to take the time to watch This Is England. Powerful stuff.

It helps a lot that the casting is absolutely spot on. And that kid, man-o-man, did they get lucky finding that kid.

Next on my Brit-grit list is Fish Tank. God knows how long it’s going to take me before I can muster the energy to see that one, but I must. And I will.

Sherlock Holmes (2009) by Guy Ritchie

thenotes:

Whatever faint annoyance you might have with this film—its relative slightness, its franchise-baiting—is blown away like the down of a thistle by its sense of sheer fun.  Its witty banter, steampunk zaniness (the critical object is a Victorian-era remote control) and timelessly alchemic duo provide more than enough pleasure to overwhelm a sort of indistinct villain.  What really drives the movie’s success, however, beyond winning performances, is a fine knack for what makes the source material potent literature and not just pulp: reason versus superstition.  Taking as its motto the Arthur C. Clarke notion that any technology beyond a certain level of sophistication is “indistinguishable from magic,” Sherlock Holmes tests its hero’s most staunchly held convictions about material reality with cunning and flair.  It’s not so much a whodunnit as a howdunnit.  And in his navigation of Rube Goldbergian deathtraps or untangling of knotted motives, we’re pleased to find that the detective of 221B Baker Street is in some sense a glib hypocrite—that though he demands all data before coming to a conclusion, he’s simultaneously making absurdly accurate, dazzlingly intuitive leaps and bounds.  Holmes would never admit to being a heuristic intellect, but that’s what allows him the occasional error and breathless adventure.

Well said. I do love a good steampunk aesthetic, especially when it’s accompanied by Guy Ritchie’s exuberant edit-directing style and Hans Zimmer’s drunk score (he describes it as the Pogues joining a Romanian orchestra, which I quite like). I also personally favour howdunnits over whodunnits so I was in my element here (I got my kicks out of watching Holmes’s systematic deconstruction of all that black magic nonsense).

The casting was inspired: just like the recently released Up in The Air, Sherlock Holmes goes for a charismatic trio of actors. This time it’s Robert Downey Jr, Jude Law and Rachel McAdams who work their magic. I bought into Holmes&Watson’s bromance instantly as I did Holmes&Adler’s romance, finding both relationships equally engaging and without any need for much introduction, which is a testament to the great chemistry among the three actors but also to efficient storytelling and editing. I enjoyed watching Holmes and Watson banter/bicker and I thought Adler was a very believable match to Holmes’s smarts (her questionable morals made her all the more attractive). I’ve been a fan of McAdams since Mean Girls so I’m glad to see her share the bill with big stars in a big production. As a sidenote, The Time Traveler’s Wife is worth watching just for her.

To end this review on something random, I thought the end credits were stunning. After a quick web search, it turns out that the cool ink wash animations used for the credits could very well be a combination of photo filter and CG animation, as opposed to original illustration work. Still, the effect is pretty effective.

Avatar (via nevver)

Avatar (2009) by James Cameron

When it comes to ecological preaching in film, I’d rather turn to Miyazake, who, in my opnion, plays a much more subtle and poetic game than James Cameron. Just like George Lucas, Cameron should leave screenwriting to the professionals: Avatar’s story line is so lame, the plot so predictable, the characters so two-dimensional and devoid of edge or humour that it’s really hard to be fully engaged in the story and stop oneself from rolling one’s eyes and making snarky comments every once in a while. And that’s really too bad because Avatar is such a visual treat.

The 3D experience definitely worked for me on this one (even though my eyes had difficulty adjusting to the 3D effects in some of the indoor scenes) and there were moments when I was totally under the spell of Cameron’s magic. The fight scenes are spectacular, Pandora’s flora and fauna are gorgeous, the Na’vi people are a graceful bunch that look very real to me (a step up from Gollum on so many levels) and watching the Na’vi fly the Ikrans (some sort of mountain banshees) is the most thrilling ride I’ve had in a movie theatre in a while.

nedhepburn:

i always thought she looked amazing in Sin City.

Me too. But I’ll always remember her best — and not just sporadically — as Tai

Holy Rollers (2010) by Kevin Asch

“In Brooklyn, a young Hasidic Jew, seduced by money, power and opportunity, becomes an international Ecstasy smuggler“…I’m intrigued.

(To be premiered at Sundance)

Cold Souls (2009) by Sophie Barthes

Meh…Lots of good ideas that all went to waste. Too bad as I’m sure a half decent screenwriter could have come up with a meatier and more engaging script.
A few things I liked: a soulless Giamatti doing Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya, Giamatti’s great chemistry with Dina Korzun (their five-second bit on “frivolity” is pitch perfect), and, most importantly, Dina Korzun herself.

The White Ribbon (2009) by Michael Haneke

I knew this Haneke film was going to be particularly good (it won the Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes festival after all) but I didn’t expect to be blown away like this. This is so far and by far my favourite film this year.

The White Ribbon details the disturbing events that unfold in a small Austrian village just before the outbreak of World War I. Shot in beautifully crisp black and white, the film is eerie, perverse, full of repression, perversion,  malice, violence and brutality…You know, the usual Haneke stuff. But in the midst of all that, it’s got a rather touching romance between the school teacher, who narrates the film, and a young nanny. Ironically, their love story is where you can find genuine innocence, while at the same time Haneke asks us to focus on the corrupted innocence of the children of the village.

More importantly, the White Ribbon is utterly absorbing. Of course, in the end, Haneke offers no answers, nor easy solutions. The ending left me left me a tad frustrated but it felt right. I need to watch this again.

Tales from the Golden Age (2009) by a few Romanian directors under the supervision of Cristian Mungiu

The final 15 years of the Ceausescu regime were the worst in Romania’s history. So of course, the propaganda machine of that time decided to refer to that period as “the golden age”. Now, if humor is what kept Romanians alive under Ceausescu, then Tales from The Golden Age captures that mood perfectly.

The film is a collection of five cine-sketches, each story portraying a different aspect of every day life in Romania under the hated regime. It’s mainly about the survival of a nation having to face the totally absurd and twisted logic of a dictatorship.

I’m not familiar with the new wave of Romanian cinema (most notably Cristian Mungiu’s critically acclaimed 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days and Cristi Puiu’s The Death of Mr Lazarescu), but I hear that Tales from The Golden Age stands out as a more commercial attempt to reach a wider international audience.

But even though the comedy in the film feels quite light and no matter how funny and farcical you find each situation, you never lose sight of how fucking sad it all is.

Check out the trailer
Check out Philip French’s review in The Guardian

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More detailed synopsis + some personal rambling:

> Story one: The Legend of the Official Visit:
“… about a village preparing frantically to Potemkinise their dismal community before the arrival of a party bigwig, but when an underling arrives to say that the visit is cancelled, everyone piles on to a fairground carousel swing in a mood of delirious relief. Too late, they realise they can’t stop, because no one can reach the off button – they must just whirl on until the machine runs out of fuel 12 hours later: a great image for incompetence, insincerity and an eternity of desperation.” — Philip French, The Guardian

In fact: on the occasion of Ceausescu’s working visits, countryside mayors ended up hanging fruit in trees to make sure their villages would be noticed, obeying even the strangest orders from the ferocious Party activists (at one point in the story, when the mayor is showing the Party Inspector some pigeons, explaining that he’d make them fly as a welcome to the official escort, the inspector gave him a bored look and said “make them white”).

> Story two: The Legend of the Party Photographer:
An official photo-retoucher has the job of making Ceausescu look as tall and imposing as Giscard d’Estaing during that pre-Photoshop era. Then he had to make him wear a hat. And do that in time for the newspapers to hit the stands the next morning. At some point, someone actually shouted “Stop the presses”… Yes, you guessed as much: serious cock-up and hilarity ensued.

In fact: communist party secret regulations stated that in official pictures, President Ceausescu couldn’t take his hat off in front of the representatives of the rotten capitalistic world.

On a more personal note: I seriously felt for that poor pre-press guy as he collapsed in his chair, clutching his chest, after someone had shown him the photo cock-up on the front page of the newspaper. This story particularly touched me for I’ve experienced this sort of situation first hand in places like Russia and Uzbekistan, and, believe me, just like the protagonists in the story, I wasn’t laughing then.

> Story three: The Legend of the Chicken Driver:
This one is rather tragic. A truck driver has the task of trucking chickens across country in food-strapped Romania, under strict orders not to stop. But then, there’s this woman he lusts for and want to impress with chicken eggs. And that’s when things go bad.

> Story four: The Legend of the Greedy Policeman:
A cop scores a pig from his brother-in-law. All OK so far. Except that the pig is brought to him alive. Now, the problem for our cop is to find a way to slaughter the pig discretely so as not to alert the neighbours to his pork supply. So of course, he choses to gas the animal in his kitchen”…I’d personally re-title this story “pig explosion”.

> Story five: The Legend of the Air Sellers:
A couple of students embark on a confidence scam to part people from glass bottles, which can be sold for cash. The “bottled air” scam is quite ingenious actually but only made possible by the absurdity of life under Ceausescu.

Myth: rumor has it that, in the golden age, a lot of Romanians purchased their cars by reselling empty bottles.

Abbie Cornish

Judging from the trailer alone, I don’t have much interest in the new Jane Campion movie, but oh my lord, Abbie Cornish’s face is that of an angel.