amateurist, i have a question,

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I don't know why my post was cut-and-pasted up there without the previous one. Makes no sense at all.

― Kovacs Laszlo (Ken L), Monday, 18 July 2005 20:30 (eighteen years ago) link

Uhm, just to show that, exactly after your post, it suddenly became June 27th, 2001. But I've just realised that this happened on every ILX thread, so yeah, the joke's pretty lame.

― Daniel_Rf (Daniel_Rf), Monday, 18 July 2005 20:33 (eighteen years ago) link

To serve as context: your post, just before Amateurist's "2001" post, is marked 2005.

er xpost

― sleep (sleep), Monday, 18 July 2005 20:34 (eighteen years ago) link

Apparently it is I who have the power to turn back the clock. Let's go, Daniel_Rf!

― Kovacs Laszlo (Ken L), Monday, 18 July 2005 20:36 (eighteen years ago) link

Let's go, sleep!

― Kovacs Laszlo (Ken L), Monday, 18 July 2005 20:36 (eighteen years ago) link

I can't do this alone.

― Kovacs Laszlo (Ken L), Monday, 18 July 2005 20:36 (eighteen years ago) link

I think you and Amateur!st have to work in tandem. Like the Wonder Twins.

― Daniel_Rf (Daniel_Rf), Monday, 18 July 2005 20:38 (eighteen years ago) link

Shucks, I'm not a Hungarian time-traveler, I'm just a guy who spends way too much time on the internet.

― k/l (Ken L), Monday, 18 July 2005 20:43 (eighteen years ago) link

kl i see the only post 65 movie you listed is resnais american uncle. whats that like? i like the thot of a em rigorous movie from ol 1980

am what made u angry abt dancer in the dark? is there a thread? isnt there a truly lovable scene of dancing spinning and ageing on courtroom tables? fucking w the bailiff?

― 007 (thoia), Tuesday, 19 July 2005 02:39 (eighteen years ago) link

also jocelyn i like how youve got mail and life as beautiful cn just be grouped together as somehow bad in the same way

― 007 (thoia), Tuesday, 19 July 2005 02:41 (eighteen years ago) link

People imagine themselves living their lives like characters in movies do, but in reality they are more like rats in cages acting on impulses and struggling for survival. The main story is intercut with shots of the old-time movie stars the characters identify with and with shots of lab rats and with a real-life scientist explaining the behavior of the rats and presumably, the humans. Thus, when his department/branch is merged with another and Gerard Depardieu is forced to fight for a his job against his opposite number a la David Brent, we see him smoldering, we see how Jean Gabin would have slugged the other guy, and we see a lab rat submitting to the more dominant rat that has just been introduced into his cage. It is a beautiful movie.

― k/l (Ken L), Tuesday, 19 July 2005 13:36 (eighteen years ago) link

But NRQ listed it too, so I wonder what he has to say.

― k/l (Ken L), Tuesday, 19 July 2005 13:37 (eighteen years ago) link

it's a real curveball of a movie. basically the 'science' inserts make you think of all life interactions as one of 4 categories (i forget what). but anyway you *can* just obey this, but in fact it opens out and you think, hell no, this isn't just 'nature' we're observing but human society. and then you think it's a tree -- but it's really a wall. fin.

― N_RQ, Tuesday, 19 July 2005 13:42 (eighteen years ago) link

Mon Oncle d'Amerique was my fav movie of 1980, at least in 1980.

Whoever slammed Pvt Idaho for "Keanu presence" is senseless. The film wouldn't work if he didn't have presence.

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 19 July 2005 15:11 (eighteen years ago) link

dancing in the dark was like some kind of empathy-squeezing torture chamber

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Tuesday, 19 July 2005 16:07 (eighteen years ago) link

that's me, i'm senseless. it's probably the best thing he's done but really i'm not going to entertain any keanu revisionism. tho i do like seeing it written as "Pvt Idaho," like it's a Pvt Benjamin sequel starring jon heder or something.

and i kind of like miss congeniality.

― demonlolver (gcannon), Tuesday, 19 July 2005 16:29 (eighteen years ago) link

Actually, Miss Congeliality was not as bad as that movie with CubaGooding Jr. where he's stuck on a boat with all these Swedish women but it turns out it's a gay boat tour because all gay jokes are funny See?

― jocelyn (Jocelyn), Tuesday, 19 July 2005 16:47 (eighteen years ago) link

"dancing in the dark was like some kind of empathy-squeezing torture chamber"

Amateurist would you say that the common thread of the three films you hate most is that they cynically attempt to provoke certain reactions/force certain emotions out of you?

I've seen this criticism applied to all three. I haven't seen "In The Company of Men" but I quite like the other two.

― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 01:58 (eighteen years ago) link

I don't see how that (cynical provocation to emotion) applies to Elephant.

I finally saw MOPI and don't get the love (where it exists). The hopped-up straight-from-Shakespeare scenes were fantastic, but nothing else clicked.

― milozauckerman (miloaukerman), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 02:07 (eighteen years ago) link

i think the trick to enjoying films that rilly try to force reactions explicitly (as opposed to more subtley) is to think that you and the director are in on the same joke, so to speak -- i.e. to read them as variants on trix of the new wave.

i realize this sort of reflexive self-mediation is also the type of cinema-crit that ams dislikes.

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 04:13 (eighteen years ago) link

Ten more. My list needed a queer infusion. (I'm not saying that all ten that follow are queer, but most probably are.)

The Ladies' Man (Jerry Lewis)
Light is Calling (Bill Morrison)
Un Chant d'amour (Jean Genet)
Electrocuting an Elephant (Thomas Edison)
Too Funky (Thierry Mugler/George Michael)
Last Year at Marienbad (Alain Resnais)
Elephant (Alan Clarke)
Le Tempestaire (Jean Epstein)
To Beep or Not to Beep (Chuck Jones)
Ivan the Terrible (Sergei Eisenstein)

― Eric H. (Eric H.), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 04:42 (eighteen years ago) link

threads like this remind me that i have seen so few films

― demonlolver (gcannon), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 04:43 (eighteen years ago) link

i find myself returning to ivan the terrible a lot in the past year.

i really want to see "le tempestaire" having seen a bunch of silent epstein films. apparently it's coming out on dvd soon.

...

"Amateurist would you say that the common thread of the three films you hate most is that they cynically attempt to provoke certain reactions/force certain emotions out of you?"

well for "in the company..." and "dancer" maybe. i probably had a different problem w/ "elephant."

although as noted above i am not averse to feeling strong emotions at the movies. i guess i didn't feel like anything else but a "strong reaction" was being stirred up in me. they didn't leave me with anything to chew on except the "point." i guess i would say they were little more than provocations. but i'm not sure i'm entirely comfortable with that form of dismissal.

i don't really know if that's the kind of "cinema crit" that i dislike. (is there a kind of cinema crit i dislike? i mostly dislike poor arguments, unreasoned ones. which characterizes a lot of writing in general.) i'm not quite sure i know what you're saying, actually. what jokes are the makers of those films making that i should try to be in on? or imagine myself to be in on?

btw i'm not saying no one should enjoy these films or that they enjoy them for the wrong reasons. i just happened to have strong reactions against them (i walked out on one of them and considered doing so for the other ones).

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 04:44 (eighteen years ago) link

another movie i really disliked was arnaud desplechin's "leo, in playing 'in the company of men'" (which is an adaptation of a play called "in the company of men" that has nothing to do with la bute's movie.) i've disliked, to varying degrees, all of desplechin's films, though i've liked long stretches of them too, and he's obviously very talented (as are all the filmmakers who've made some of my least-favorite movies).

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 04:45 (eighteen years ago) link

i really want to see "le tempestaire" having seen a bunch of silent epstein films. apparently it's coming out on dvd soon.

Yeah, I've only watched the two on this compilation, and both lead me to believe he's a supple awesome filmmaker.

― Eric H. (Eric H.), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 04:47 (eighteen years ago) link

I understand the impulse to really dislike films by talented filmmakers more than untalented ones, fwiw, though I've strongly un-disliked the two Desplechin films I've seen thus far. We'll see how his earlier films treat me.

― Eric H. (Eric H.), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 04:48 (eighteen years ago) link

threads like this remind me that i have seen so few films

http://www.american-buddha.com/ala.357.jpg

"Join the club!!!

― Eric H. (Eric H.), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 04:51 (eighteen years ago) link

the desplechin film i had the really negative reaction to just came out two years ago (it was playing in one theater in paris because almost all the critics there hated it, and it never came to the usa outside of a few festivals). i haven't seen his earliest stuff.

that kino avant-garde thing is out already? i need to buy that.

if you ever get a chance to see epstein's 'faithful heart' or 'finisterre'... run don't walk.

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 04:53 (eighteen years ago) link

I got a pre-release of the dvd set for review (not up yet, I'll get a link later). I only wish I could've written about all 24 films, but I had to come up with an angle so I talked about the handful of films that seem like satires of (or, in the case of the Welles, is an acknowledged piss-take on) "genuine" a-g films. I sort of couldn't decide whether or not 9413, a Hollywood Extra or Lot in Sodom were or weren't in that group, so I declared them genius, et al.

― Eric H. (Eric H.), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 05:11 (eighteen years ago) link

Amateurist what do you think of Todd Solondz

― She's built like a steakhouse, but she handles like a bistro! (Adrian Langston), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 06:16 (eighteen years ago) link

"I don't see how that (cynical provocation to emotion) applies to Elephant."

Oh, just the whole kids shooting other kids on camera thing, esp. post Columbine. I'm not saying that the film fits the criticism, just that I read some allegations to that effect in reviews at the time.

The film that has made me feel like I'd been psychologically assaulted most strongly is probably Requiem for a Dream. I think I liked it though.

― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 06:24 (eighteen years ago) link

xp well i think soon as youd identify w trier youd be haunted but i dont think thats his project. i think dancer in particular is so allusive and catchall even that u cn hate the pastiche, esp if you hate it conceptually, but its fucking hardly a chamber

tim i suspect if you saw requiem again youd feel miles away, but its funny, storyboarding infection and allegory

― 007 (thoia), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 06:32 (eighteen years ago) link

btw amateurist i am actively wondering what kind of cinema crit you dislike. scrounging for that am vs screen vs silverman vs france

― 007 (thoia), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 06:41 (eighteen years ago) link

rephrase, wondering what cinema crit you like! thats better! but i like gen dressing downs ok

― 007 (thoia), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 06:44 (eighteen years ago) link

i dont think linda williams has let me down to start

― 007 (thoia), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 06:48 (eighteen years ago) link

i just watch chinatown again and there is no reason it shouldnt be in my top ten, so delete spirit of the beehive and add chinatown

― t0dd swiss (immobilisme), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 06:54 (eighteen years ago) link

I forgot to put Spirit Of The Beehive on my list, so promote that and relegate... what, The Rules of The Game? Never mind.

I forgot Singing In The Rain and Black Narcissus too. And I probably forgot Young Frankenstein and The Big Lebowski too.

― k/l (Ken L), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 12:32 (eighteen years ago) link

Eric H., what exactly is queer about 'Last Year in Marienbad'?

― Baaderonixx cancels each other out (Fabfunk), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 12:42 (eighteen years ago) link

Yeah, good question. Does it make you wanna dress up like Delphine Seyrig?

FWIW, I almost swapped out My American Uncle and put that one in instead. OK, I'll stop.

― k/l (Ken L), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 12:44 (eighteen years ago) link

clarke's 'elephant' isn't very queer.

― N_RQ, Wednesday, 20 July 2005 12:45 (eighteen years ago) link

(I'm not saying that all ten that follow are queer, but most probably are.)
...

-- Eric H. (ephende...), July 20th, 2005. (Eric H.) (later)

― jed_ (jed), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 12:56 (eighteen years ago) link

Well, we're just trying to narrow it down.

― k/l (Ken L), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 12:57 (eighteen years ago) link

Actually Delphine Seyrig is one of my top fliXor krushes, especially in Stolen Kisses, perhaps predictably so.

― k/l (Ken L), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 13:12 (eighteen years ago) link

I'd forgotten Desplechin did Playing 'In the Company of Men' -- that was as overdone (gratuitous fiction/nonfic distancing) as Esther Kahn was half-baked.

Lewis' "Ladies Man" is pretty queer, but then he's an unconventional masculine model, considering he was among the top 10 box-office stars from 1950-65 or so.

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 13:13 (eighteen years ago) link

I'll admit that I haven't thought of Marienbad too much in queer terms (and fwiw I wouldn't say that Electrocuting an Elephant is queer at all except for the killing of the object of minstrelesquerie; and obv Just Plain Elephant has very little if anything to do with queerness). I'm sure that someone could probably mount a great reading of the film, though, looking at not only the Chanel gowns but also the secrecy/repeptitiveness of the all-important "location" (hotel/gay club), the role-playing and double-faced-ness, the translation of emotions through "body architecture" (i.e. voguing)... Straight audiences would undoubedly find such a reading intensely reductive, but then again they probably find queer readings of anything reductive.

― Eric H. (Eric H.), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 17:16 (eighteen years ago) link

that assertion is itself reductive!

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 21:48 (eighteen years ago) link

Fuck you, straighty! [raggett smiley.]

― Eric H. (Eric H.), Thursday, 21 July 2005 00:49 (eighteen years ago) link

100 movies jbr likes, in alphabetical order (sorted by excel)! please don't take this as gospel; i realize that for every "crap" film that's on here, there are ten brilliant ones i left off. i also realize how utterly random my list is. i think this is a good thing.

A Fistful of Dynamite (Sergio Leone)
A Guide For the Married Man (Gene Kelly)
A New Leaf (Elaine May)
A Star is Born (George Cukor)
ABBA: The Movie (Lasse Hallström)
Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein (Charles Barton)
After Hours (Martin Scorsese)
Annie (John Huston)
Back to School (Alan Metter)
Bedazzled (Stanley Donen)
Best In Show (Christopher Guest)
Blood For Dracula (Paul Morrissey/Antonio Margheriti)
Boy On a Dolphin (Jean Negulesco)
Brewster McCloud (Robert Altman)
Butterflies Are Free (Milton Katselas)
Call Me: The Rise and Fall of Heidi Fleiss (Charles McDougall)
Can't Stop the Music (Nancy Walker)
Claudine (John Berry)
Cocksucker Blues (Robert Frank)
Dawn of the Dead (George A. Romero)
Desk Set (Walter Lang)
Desperately Seeking Susan (Susan Seidelman)
Dirty Mary Crazy Larry (John Hough)
Dogfight (Nancy Savoca)
Dude, Where's My Car? (Danny Leiner)
Ed Wood (Tim Burton)
Edison, The Man (Clarence Brown)
Exotica (Atom Egoyan)
Fame (Alan Parker)
Far From Heaven (Todd Haynes)
Four More Years (Michael Shamberg/Allen Rucker)
Foxes (Adrian Lyne)
Frances (Graeme Clifford)
Freaky Friday (Gary Nelson)
Freeway II: Confessions of a Trickbaby (Matthew Bright)
Ghost World (Terry Zwigoff)
Ghostbusters (Ivan Reitman)
Girls Just Want to Have Fun (Alan Metter)
Goodbye, Columbus (Larry Peerce)
Harold and Maude (Hal Ashby)
Heat (Paul Morrissey)
Heathers (Michael Lehmann)
Home Room (Paul F. Ryan)
Imitation of Life (Douglas Sirk)
Irma La Douce (Billy Wilder)
Little Darlings (Ronald F. Maxwell)
Little Fauss and Big Halsy (Sidney J. Furie)
Lolita (Stanley Kubrick)
Love and Death (Woody Allen)
Love Story (Arthur Hiller)
Manhattan (Woody Allen)
Midnight Cowboy (John Schlesinger)
Mulholland Drive (David Lynch)
My Bodyguard (Tony Bill)
My Own Private Idaho (Gus Van Sant)
Mystery Train (Jim Jarmusch)
Nights of Cabiria (Federico Fellini)
Norma Rae (Martin Ritt)
North By Northwest (Alfred Hitchcock)
Over the Edge (Jonathan Kaplan)
Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (Sam Peckinpah)
Phantom of the Paradise (Brian De Palma)
Purple Noon (René Clément)
Quiz Show (Robert Redford)
Rosemary's Baby (Roman Polanski)
Safe (Todd Haynes)
Slums of Beverly Hills (Tamara Jenkins)
Somewhere Tomorrow (Robert Wiemer)
Straight to Hell (Alex Cox)
Suddenly, Last Summer (Joseph L. Mankiewicz)
Summer of Sam (Spike Lee)
Switchblade Sisters (Jack Hill)
The Conversation (Francis Ford Coppola)
The Day After (Nicholas Meyer)
The Goodbye Girl (Herbert Ross)
The Jerk (Carl Reiner)
The Lady Eve (Preston Sturges)
The Lonely Guy (Arthur Hiller)
The Long Goodbye (Robert Altman)
The Out-of-Towners (Arthur Hiller)
The Panic in Needle Park (Jerry Schatzberg)
The Pawnbroker (Sidney Lumet)
The Purple Rose of Cairo (Woody Allen)
The Royal Tenenbaums (Wes Anderson)
The Shining (Stanley Kubrick)
The Sunshine Boys (Herbert Ross)
The Sweet Hereafter (Atom Egoyan)
The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (Joseph Sargent)
The Virgin Suicides (Sofia Coppola)
The Warriors (Walter Hill)
The Way We Were (Sydney Pollack)
Three Days of the Condor (Sydney Pollack)
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (David Lynch)
Two For the Road (Stanley Donen)
Vanishing Point (Richard C. Sarafian)
Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock)
Volcano (Mick Jackson)
West Side Story (Jerome Robbins/Robert Wise)
Westworld (Michael Crichton)
Xanadu (Robert Greenwald)

― badass porcelain knives (Jody Beth Rosen), Tuesday, 26 July 2005 11:24 (eighteen years ago) link

that's two (count 'em) alan metter movies!

― noise dude, you're stepping on my mystique (Jody Beth Rosen), Tuesday, 26 July 2005 16:51 (eighteen years ago) link

nice list! there's a few that would certainly make my own top 100 (a & c meet frankenstein, ghost world, lolita, lady eve, two for the road, vertigo).

― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Tuesday, 26 July 2005 22:47 (eighteen years ago) link

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