Medium Cool, a refreshing experience, many thanks.
Not remotely similar, this interesting and hugely enjoyable little gem punches far above it's weight. The effect is cumulative and by the end, unexpectedly powerful:
And while we spoke of many things, fools and kings This he said to me "The greatest thing You'll ever learn Is just to love And be loved In return"
Harvey » Wed Nov 18, 2020 1:07 pm wrote:Just started reading Plausible Denial by Mark Lane, near the begining he says he wrote the film Executive Action, 1973. Watching it tonight, any good?
Screenplay by Dalton Trumbo?! GTFO! And I never saw this trailer before. How the hell does our history hide like this in plain sight?
We meet at the borders of our being, we dream something of each others reality. - Harvey of R.I.
To Justice my maker from on high did incline: I am by virtue of its might divine, The highest Wisdom and the first Love.
My Octopus Teacher is a science fiction tale of first-contact between aliens, a cross species love story, the video diary of a mid life crisis, a nature documentary and strangely, a clean canvas. A delight.
And while we spoke of many things, fools and kings This he said to me "The greatest thing You'll ever learn Is just to love And be loved In return"
^ An earlier film by Craig Foster of Octopus Teacher. This is from 2000, The Great Dance: A Hunter's Story about the San tribesmen, nomadic hunters of South West Africa.
And while we spoke of many things, fools and kings This he said to me "The greatest thing You'll ever learn Is just to love And be loved In return"
Dark, provocative and ambiguous, with a number of unpalatable resonances in the world. Closest I can come to it is that one which many here (including myself) enjoyed, The Best Offer. Perhaps, depending entirely upon where one stands, this is better.
Based on the novel by Charles Willeford, but only very loosely according to critics. In any case, I'm looking forward to reading it.
And while we spoke of many things, fools and kings This he said to me "The greatest thing You'll ever learn Is just to love And be loved In return"
Brandon Cronenberg, son of David Cronenberg has made an uneasy and subtle inquiry into consciousness, free will, autonomy, coercion, culpability, narrative and mind control. I haven't seen his prior feature film, Antiviral (2012) but I will after seeing his latest Possessor (2020). The film powerfully conveys the confusion and loss of self experienced by possessor and possessed and correspondingly stains the viewer with its discoveries.
Curse of the Demon (1957) directed by Jacques Tourneur hints at similar territory though at a level of remove, and is equally coherent, even with added mystification. Brilliantly done and extremely enjoyable. Based on the M.R. James story 'Casting the Runes' it has all the necessary ingredients for a suspenseful and thrilling evening!
I recently re-watched Seconds (1966) directed by John Frankenheimer and which has almost certainly been seen by everybody here, but if you haven't already done so, it is also excellent.
And while we spoke of many things, fools and kings This he said to me "The greatest thing You'll ever learn Is just to love And be loved In return"
I've watched a lot on your recommendations here, Harvey, and always look forward to them. Burnt Orange Heresy, after a well-done if not unique set-up (I mean the part up through Sutherland's appearances in the middle), disappointed me in the latter part for not breaking out of a predictable noir track. Also, a fleshed-out character (Bernice) turned into a functional one at the end, acting in a way that confounds all sense unless she's there as a commentator. Up to that point I liked her a lot better than the way the movie treated her. One realm in which this film could exceed The Best Offer might be as an analysis of the high-art industry and its ideologies, but not either as an artwork or as a resonator of lived emotional experience.
We meet at the borders of our being, we dream something of each others reality. - Harvey of R.I.
To Justice my maker from on high did incline: I am by virtue of its might divine, The highest Wisdom and the first Love.
Jack, I was in two or three minds on that question myself, but I do think it was a useful comparison to make.
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Wikipedia adds to the sneering tone of reviews by Guardian and New York Times and includes them in its entry on this haunting documentary Sans Soleil (1983) by Chris Marker (author of La Jetée).
It blurs between home movie, travelogue, documentary and fiction, inhabiting perceived time with wry humour and flitting brusquely between widely dispersed locations, focussing primarily on Japan. Sharing similar themes with Koyaanisqatsi (released the year before) it appears as a meditation on the speed and ruthlessness of change under the onslaught of globalism, evoking the rapid disappearance of sustaining human cultures through its tender observation of them.
And while we spoke of many things, fools and kings This he said to me "The greatest thing You'll ever learn Is just to love And be loved In return"
We have a new winner for 100 percent Most R.I. Series of All Time, which I just binged the first season of. I had no idea it existed. The tip comes courtesy of a Mr. Wells on the Facebook Corporation Chat Pages. The main plot foresees the Covid events, at least as these are understood by several of the currently most prolific board members.
Two British-length 'seasons' both aired in 2013, then it was canceled for kind of obvious reasons, including claims of defamation by relatives of actual persons. It's apparently been remade in horrible fashion for Amazon, which I do not intend to be watching, and aired (premiered, or whatever the right word would be) right in the middle of Covid Times in September. All 12 of the original Channel 4 episodes are currently on Youtube, as unlikely as that seems. Here is Season 1 (age restricted, and there is a reason for that - extreme extreme violence).
^ I could have sworn there was a discussion here at the time it first screened. Re-watched it after the recent flurry of discussion on Twitter to discover that what seemed over the top and melodramatic in 2013 merely seems brutally coherent against the backdrop of today.
The Postman's White Nights (Belye nochi pochtalyona Alekseya Tryapitsyna) is a small, quiet and rather beautiful vignette by Russian director Andrey Konchalovsky. Like the footage assembled by Werner Herzog into Happy People: A Year in the Taiga (2010) or the equally stunning Babushkas of Chernobyl (2015) this film succeeds in evoking not only the beauty of landscape and how landscape creates animal, human and community alike, but also, as in those films, it takes place under the long shadow of the modern while looking back to something more organic and survivable, a situation never more jarringly visual than in Russia. Years ago I remember reading a description of the violent turbulence experienced during re-entry from space by a Russian cosmonaut, it reminded him of his horse and cart rolling over cobbles back home. In one scene, so fleeting that if you turn your head away you’ll miss it, the theme finds a memorable focus.
All of which is to bring us to a more recent meditation by the same director, il Peccato (Sin) 2019, utilising an unknown (to me) Italian cast. Konchalovsky depicts a slice from the life of Michaelangelo in which the viewer is treated to oblique views of power seen through the lives of feted artists and ordinary people alike. From the first scene I knew I was in for a treat and it isn't long before Michaelangelo stares up from below his own David in the Palazzo Vecchio toward a hanged man, a scene which quietly states the central theme, the contradictions and accommodations between art and power.
Scene from Walker
Since I discovered the above from the blog of film maker Alex Cox, I should probably also mention Cox's masterpiece, Walker (1987) made the same year as his film Straight To Hell (surely the seed of Tarantino's entire canon) about the life of William Walker and the path toward his ultimately fatal adventures in Nicaragua. A funny, glorious, political and essential example of cinema as art rather than dry historical re-enactment, the film was cruelly obscured on its release, probably because of the uncompromising political tone (actually filmed in Nicaragua during the contra war) and Cox was never to make another big budget film. It's well worth watching in the context of the restored version of Straight To Hell (Straight To Hell Returns) as the two films seem to inform each other in surprising ways.
Edited for spelling.
And while we spoke of many things, fools and kings This he said to me "The greatest thing You'll ever learn Is just to love And be loved In return"
With surprisingly little fanfare, Doors (2021) mines similar territory to Annihilation (2018) while revealing more of a sense of what the territory actually is. I really like what the creators achieve in this picture given a relatively small budget. The film is comprised of three shorts which combine to explore the same event from different viewpoints. Needless to say, if you enjoyed Annihilation, there's a good chance you'll also enjoy this.
I waited quite a long time to encounter Synchronic by Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead but it was worth the wait. Having seen all of their previous films I was anxious (and fearful) to discover what they'd achieve with a bigger budget. I certainly wasn't disappointed. Suffice it to say, I love that in all the adventures of the protagonist, his encounter with a Deep 'Primitive' is the only time that another human doesn't immediately try to kill him on sight. Nuff said.
And while we spoke of many things, fools and kings This he said to me "The greatest thing You'll ever learn Is just to love And be loved In return"
by Harvey » Sat Nov 14, 2020 3:11 pm 
