Movie-Watching Time
Mushroom-picking in The Man Without A Past
A couple of hours ago, I finished up my final exam grading, punched all the numbers into the spreadsheet and assigned course grades. I won’t actually file the grades till tomorrow; I always like to sleep on them and run through my decisions once more in the morning. There’s one more ceremony to attend tomorrow evening and the semester can be put to rest. (I apologize here for stooping to a moment of shameless self-promotion—can I blame my mom for badgering me, sweetly, into doing it?)
And now to breathe a sigh, take a few days off from work and devote them to a small spell of—what else?—devoted movie-watching. I have discs from Netflix and Greencine on my night-stand, radiating guilt each time I look at them. And I have several newly bought DVD’s lining the shelves, unopened. So, here’s what I’m looking forward to:
Some films that I should’ve seen by now but haven’t: Robert Mulligan’s To Kill A Mockingbird, Brad Bird’s The Incredibles and Bob Rafelson’s Monkees film, Head.
A small stack of films by the contemporary filmmaker I find most repeat-watchable, Aki Kaurismaki.
Albert Brooks’ classic Modern Romance, which I’ve been awaiting on DVD for years.
A couple of 1990’s films I like a lot that I’ve been meaning to return to: Kelly Reichardt’s River Of Grass and James Toback’s Black And White.
Atop my Netflix and Greencine queues, waiting to be shipped: Monte Hellman's Cockfighter and Stephen Chow's Shaolin Soccer.
Others: Allan Moyle’s teen film Times Square, Jean Epstein’s The Fall Of The House Of Usher, and, um, Mouse Hunt.
So, if you feel like it, let me ask you: movies you’re looking forward to or thinking of seeing in the next few days or weeks, in the theaters or on DVD?
posted by girish @ 5:00 PM
65 Comments:
All That Heaven Allows! I should be stripped of my movie buff badge for completing a film studies major without seeing a single Douglas Sirk film...
And also Xiaogang Feng's Cell Phone at Pittsburgh's Silk Screen Asian American Film Festival this weekend.
Congratulations on your award. I assumed you taught film studies.
Enjoy the break and the movie-watching. I'm not ashamed to admit that I love The Incredibles. It's really smart.
I'm looking forward to finally getting to see Tristram Shandy.
Andy, I've checked that film out from the library half a dozen times and every time it's sat on a stack while I watch the things under it; and then it goes back, unwatched. I know it's supposed to be quite good; I'm not sure why I never follow through on it.
In the next few days I'll be watching All That Jazz, Closer, The Barbarian Invasions, and Harlem Nights. Catching up on the current stack of to-be-returneds.
Girish, Shaolin Soccer is a lot of fun but I saw it in the theater and it was, well, awfully choppy. So then when I got home I looked it up and found that Miramax had forced the director to remove about 30 minutes of footage from it. I hope you've got the full version, not the 90-minute one.
Congratulations, Girish. That's awesome. I knew you'd be one of the professors who actually gives a damn about the students. :-)
Girish, congratulations -- that is a great honor to receive an award like that, and I'm quite happy for you. (And I don't think it's shameless at all to be mentioning it.) Also glad to hear that you'll have some extra time to catch up with movies.
I've got a few movies lined up for viewing in the very near future. First up is Ozu's Late Spring, just out from Criterion; second is Malick's The New World. I had planned to see The New World in the theater but then missed it, and then I was hoping the DVD would have the uncut version, but no luck. Still, I can't wait to see it.
Like you, I've never seen To Kill a Mockingbird, even though I own it on DVD. Will probably watch that very soon. Also, I have Renoir's Rules of the Game on my shelf. I haven't seen that yet, either, and am almost shamed to admit it :)
Well, happy viewing.
Congrats!
Of new, mainstream movies, I'm looking forward to Strangers with Candy.
Movies I have on my desk, waiting to be watched: Erotikon, Spider, The End of the Affair, Fantômas and Greed.
Movies I'm supposed to be getting from Netflix soon: Shoah, Ilsa, Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks, Losey's Eva and the second season of In Living Color.
My goal is to go through all the Johan van der Keuken films on the two French 3 DVD coffrets by the end of Memorial Day weekend...even if it kills me. :)
Congratulations on your award!
I got a shipment of new DVDs from NoShame that I started to work on. I just saw the two Zurlini films today. I have two three hours plus Italian television films on two saints. I have some early Carl Dreyer from Netflix (Michael and Parson's Widow) and a 60s Hong Kong musical, Ozu's Hen in the Wind and the Korean The Aggressives coming from Nicheflix.
Congratulations Dr. Shambu!
Great list of films you've got lined up (well...some of them) -- I'm really curious to hear your thoughts on Head, which is my pick for the film that best captures what the 60s were all about.
As for my titles I'm looking forward to watching -- I've got a stack of older Korean films I haven't dipped into yet. Then there's Star Spangled to Death, which I just ordered, but I need to find a 7+ hour block in which to watch it. I'm also eager to watch all three discs of The Complete Mr. Arkadin.
Acquarello -- I'm well jealous about the Johan van der Keuken coffrets. Are they all avec sous titres?
Thanks, y'all.
These comments sure are giving me a lot of ideas.
Andy ~ Imitation Of Life notwithstanding, All That Heaven Allows is my favorite Sirk. You're in for a major treat. And there's a nice Laura Mulvey essay in the Criterion DVD.
"I assumed you taught film studies."
Trevor ~ Film is a hobby. But a huge one.
Tuwa ~ I need to check the running time on Shaolin Soccer. Had no idea.
Michael ~ I drove to Rochester to catch Late Spring a year ago, before I knew it was coming to DVD. It's up there, among the one or two best Ozu's I've seen. Guaranteed to blow you away.
Eric ~ Harem Keeper Of The Oil Sheiks? Awesome title. Losey's Eva is so baroque! An interesting film; I need to find a way into Losey. He still remains quite remote and inaccessible to me. Saw La Truite but couldn't get into it. Loved The Boy With The Green Hair though, with the child Dean Stockwell.
Acquarello ~ the JvdK set sounds like pure dynamite...He has such a great reputation in Europe as one of the best doc filmmakers of recent times, and is so little known here. I've seen very little by him but loved everything I've seen.
Peter ~ I don't think Netflix is carrying the NoShame Zurlinis yet. I'm keeping an eye out for them....
Filmbrain ~ "Great list of films you've got lined up (well...some of them)".
Perhaps you refer to Mouse Hunt!
Think I shall blame Ben and David for making me want to see it....
Congratulations on the award !!
After the hectic (and expensive) SIFF schedule, it will be just DVDs for me for a while. I am looking forward to watching Tsai's What Time is it there and Vive L'Amour. At SIFF, I was very impressed by Wayward Cloud and have not seen any of his other films.
I also have the new Sonar Kella DVD from Netflix. I hope the print quality is better than the really old cassette I have got. Continuing the theme of self-promotion, I recently blogged about growing up with Feluda. Thought you might enjoy.
Congratulations! For the record, I've never confused Ozu's Late Spring for any of his other films. It's probably my favorite Ozu.
I'm in a quandary myself: should I finish up all the Bresson available on Netflix, or should I keep digging into the stack of Filipino films I've begged and bought through the months? One of them, Mario O'Hara's Uhaw sa Pagibig (Thirst for Love) is a noir gem; Bona is probably the only major Brocka I hadn't seen (it turned out to be great). what are the rest like? Looking forward to Soltero, Gil Portes' Merika, and a smattering of digital films from new Filipino filmmakers...
The Zurlini films should be available at the end of May from Netflix. I get screeners from NoShame. I definitely recommend Violent Summer, though Girl with a Suitcase has a great soundtrack.
Congrats, Girish. Cocktails in your honor -- very cool.
Did you know that Claire Denis chose Hellman's Cockfighter to be screened alongside her own S'en fout la mort (No Fear, No Die) at the Vienna Film Museum's retrospective of her work? I've added it to my queue, too.
Dr. Shambu! Let me add to the pile-on of congrats!
Movies piled on my shelf awaiting viewing:
The four-hour, uncut version of Bob Dylan's RENALDO AND CLARA, as well as a DVD bootleg of all the concert footage from his mid-'70s Rolling Thunder tour.
CISCO PIKE, with Kris Kristofferson.
SHOPGIRL.
The six-hour BEST OF YOUTH. I don't know when I'll get to that.
STONED, the Brian Jones film which I got an advance screener of, and comes out in July on DVD.
Howard Hughes' HELLS ANGELS.
And I also have TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD and just never seem to want to watch it. I have no idea why.
There's a Hayao Miyazaki blog-a-thon going on? When was I supposed to find out?
Regarding the JvdK sets, oui, avec sous titres anglais, these do look as though they were made for the entire European market. So far, my first impressions are that his features can be quite transgressive, like watching a couple's foreplay in Amsterdam Global Village and a woman giving birth in Face Value. He has often said that there's always a shot in his films that "crosses the line", so it's always interesting to see how he defines that in each film.
His short films are very experimental, not quite Kubelka frenetic, but a lot of alternating images being presented in very rapid succession. Time/Work is one of my hands down favorites from these sets.
Ok, today I found two French short animations and had to share them, outstanding...
The First one is 'Dynamo':
http://www.beam.tv/beamreels/reel_player.php?reel=CFRYpXnVMs&reel_file=QDpwNVKTJx&fs=1
And the second, 'Fin D'ete' ('End of Summer'):
http://www.findete.com/
The people who did both of them are the same and even studied together.
Thanks, everyone. Great reading and tips.
The Siren on Borzage's Moonrise.
Congrats, Girish. I just returned from taking pictures at our main university commencement ceremony. I'm a total sucker for the pomp and pageantry of those things. I love all the robes and hoods and banners. The commissioning of new ROTC officers gets me, especially.
As for my to-watch plans, I have three piles going right now. The first stack (GreenCine) is William Wyler films. I'm reading his bio and working through, in chronological order, everything available on DVD. Next up are Counsellor at Law and The Good Fairy.
Pile #2 is from NetFlix, and it includes the best reviewed films of the last two years or so that I missed. Next up are Tropical Malady and Mysterious Skin.
The third pile is the one that makes me crazy. It's all of the DVDs I felt compelled to buy but can't seem to find the time to watch. At the top are Battle in Heaven and Safe. I've seen them before but have been eager to give them both a second look.
Oh, and to keep myself occupied while on the treadmill, I've been watching David Attenborough's The Life of Mammals, which is too great for words.
Ask me again this time next week, and, unfortunately, I'll probably give you the same list.
Let me throw my congrats onto the pile, Girish!
Meantime, I'm thinking about revisiting John Ford this weekend, but who knows. The German Film Awards are tonight and they just might put me in the mood for something else.
Congratulations from me too, G!
I'll be at the Filmmaker's Coop benefit at Anthology . . .
Mes Féliciations pour votre prix Professeur! ;)
I like good timing! There are a few Johan van der Keuken showing here, but there wasn't the one recently reviewed by acquarello, and I never heard of the guy before so I wasn't sure. I'll give it a try this weekend.
The films I'll be seeing next week are the Cannes nominees that get a simultaneous French release nationwide, so I can watch them in Paris (Caiman, Vovler, Marie-Antoinette)
Harry - it's there (L'œil au dessus du puits/The Eye Above the Well, May 29, 4:30). If you decide to go tomorrow, the 4:30 screening has the documentary short Sarajevo Film Festival Film which I liked very much as well. It was filmed during the Balkan Wars, and features this young woman who keeps "escaping" to the film festival so she doesn't have to think about the snipers and the miserable quality of life her family now have (during the early 90s) because of the ongoing war. It's sad and beautiful.
Merci, mes amis.
Vous êtes trop aimable.
Hey, it's Tuwa's first blog-a-thon:
Miyazaki's Spirited Away.
Walter on Princess Mononoke.
Thanks for the link, and warmest congrats to you, Dr. Shambu! I am finishing up the small pile of loaners from you, with The Smiling Lieutenant still to view. This is Asian American History month. A friend of mine on another board has reminded me of that by writing to TCM to ask why they hadn't acknowledged that in any way. Good question, yes? it could make for very interesting programming. So this weekend I will definitely be watching Piccadilly, and possible the silent Thief of Baghdad for a double Anna May dose.
Others in the queue: the seven-hour TV version of Fanny & Alexander, The Flavor of Green Tea Over Rice, a Preminger double feature of Whirlpool and Where the Sidewalk Ends, and maybe Night of the Hunter with Mr. Campaspe because he has never seen it. The next best thing to seeing a masterpiece for the first time is seeing a masterpiece with someone else who is seeing it for the first time.
Adding to the pile-on: congradja-malations, professor!
I'm in a DVD-ish mode right now as well, after staying away from the things for the most part during the SFIFF.
Tomorrow night I'm going to show Herzog's Wheel of Time DVD (with his short La Soufriere beforehand) to some friends.
I also have one of the Unseen Cinema discs out from the rental shop, and a couple of selections from the public library: Woman on the Run and La Promesse (which I've seen once before but I've seen three other Dardenne films in the meantime and want to see what I think of this one now). When I'm done with those, Le Samourai is waiting for me on the library hold shelf. Never seen that one before.
Then there's a few I've borrowed from friends and really ought to get back to them. And, like Darren, a stack I've for some reason purchased but not watched yet.
Luckily May is one of the lightest months in terms of nearby celluloid treats to tempt me.
The next best thing to seeing a masterpiece for the first time is seeing a masterpiece with someone else who is seeing it for the first time.
Oh, how right you are, Campaspe!
Hey, congrats on the award! If we can't shamelessly self-promote on our blogs where else can we do it?
I will go for Sarajevo, acquarello. It's a shame I only find out about this now. I missed the radio talk Michel Ciment did in march when the retrospective (apparently complete) started... I noted Time/Work plays again in June.
(unrelated) Tonight, I took a peek through the window at the Godard exhibition... it looks so cheaply home-made, dark, handwritten signs and more than ever conceptual presentation. I'll try to visit it soon though.
Tuwa: The next time you check All That Heaven Allows out from the library, watch it! It's everything that I hoped it would be. Wonderful! And now I have something to write about!
My own take on Howl's Moving Castle
May be jumping the gun--haven't heard from Walter if I'm part of the blog-a-thon or not. Can always edit.
Thanks, everyone.
Campaspe, I'm sure Mr. C will love Night Of The Hunter, and applaud his wife's impeccable taste afterwards!
Noel, no need to worry about getting permission to be part of these blog-a-thons. They're equally available to all: your posting automatically makes you part of one. Nice Howl post, by the way. And all those connections to past Miyazaki were right on.
Five-for-the-day Mother's Day post by Odienator at MZS's place.
Congratulations, Girish, on your undoubtedly well-deserved award!!! Now I'm not sure if I want to call you Girish or Doctor Shambuuuuuuuuuu! 8^)
I've been watching screener tapes and dvds for this year's SF Docfest, most of which have stuck or stalled halfway through, leaving me quite frustrated, and deciding that I don't think I like screener tapes and dvds.
So to compensate, I'm off today to watch two Jacques Demy films in the Castro Theater--"Lola" and "Model Shop"--after which, I'm going over to a friend's house with the dvd of "Tears of the Black Tiger" to share Wisit and pizza. After that he's treating me to the Brazilian Girls at the Warfield. Tomorrow I continue my mini-Demy retrospective and return to the Castro for "Donkey Skin" (my second viewing; it's sweet and enchanting) and "The Pied Piper" (with Donovan!), and, if I still have the energy will drop into The Dark Room for Bad Movie night to see "Blood Feast"!!!
Maya--Always always call me Girish.
"Lola" and "Model Shop" is a fantastic double bill. Be prepared to be knocked out!
Mockingbird is really wonderful. I saw it in high school before I had much interest in film--the opening credit sequence made me realize for the first time that film didn't mean just pointing a camera at some actors. It's really lovely--there's just an undefinable pitchperfect mood of time and place, and of childhood, through the whole thing, much like in the novel.
Someone mentioned Rules of the Game--I finally saw it, and must say I was a bit disappointed. Very good, but I don't see why it's at the top of lists.
Thanks, girish, Walter replied in the positive, so no editing necessary.
Plenty of material out there about Rules of the Game, but in short, it was a satire on the ridiculousness of upper-class Europe that at the time was too dead-on to be popular (during its commercial run seats were burned in protest). You got a double-level comedy where the rich chased the rich, the poor chased the poor, and maybe the most resonant line said is by the butler, who when Cheyniest demands that he stop the farce, the butler replies "which one?"
It's a play on ideas that for once is truly playful, an allegory on the upper class that's so stylized you can miss it if you're not careful, and a sad view on the inconvenience of innocent idealism--what we usually think of as capable of great achievements--that sheds not a single tear.
Funny I think Mockingbird humane morality is too clearly outlined to be much interesting. I'm aware of its high rep--not just with the casual viewer, but with auteurists who think Mulligan's career is up for re-appraisal. I probably need to see it again, see if it registers better a fourth time around...
This is funny:
Think I'm going to change the name of my blog from girish to girlish!
Yan and Noel--I've heard great things about Mulligan; Zach Campbell likes him a lot too.
Think I saw Summer of '42 at the same (hormonally rich) age as the kid in the film.
Um, vividly remember Jennifer O'Neill in it.
It's the only thing I've seen by him.
Round-Headed Boy on seeing Bob Dylan in concert.
I'm very very excited that Tom Verlaine (the guitar-god of Television) has made his first record in 15 years. Here's an L.A. Weekly story.
It wasn't Jennifer O'Neil in Summer of '42 that charged my hormones; it was Susan George in Straw Dogs (don't ask me how I got to see that, at my age then), and I don't think you can call that 'charging'--more like supercharging.
The Man in the Moon (1991) is an excellent summation of Mulligan's career.
Thanks for recommending Man In The Moon. I'm pretty sure it was one that Zach recommended too, when we were chatting about Mulligan.
Just added it to my Netflix queue.
Along with a couple of new releases announced this morning: 3 by Haneke--The Seventh Continent, 71 Fragments, Benny's Video.
Here's David on Abel Ferrara's Mary.
Acquarello's been writing steadily on a wide range of cool stuff (come to think of it--since 1997!): lately, Johan van der Keuken, Ulrike Ottinger, Chris Marker, etc.
Andy Horbal on Poseidon:
"There are, I suppose, "spoilers" ahead, but only if you've never seen a disaster movie before."
I actually had Kelly Reichardt as a professor junior year. She taught an experimental film course which was fantastic. River of Grass is great as well and I've also been meaning to see it again.
Allow me to add to the tidal wave of congratulations, man. That's awesome.
Have you seen the Epstein before? I seem to be the only cineaste in the known universe who finds it a bore. I recently saw the contemporaneous American short version by James Sibley Watson and Melville Weber that does everything Epstein's does except over twelve minutes rather than 65.
As for my current movie choices... oy. With the acquisition of DVR service from my cable company, my backlog has gone insane. So I have to take it day by day. Today's choices, after I finish writing: Peter Weir's Fearless and Anthony Mann's Bend of the River. I'd also like to get to Kurosawa's Ran, but that's a huge chunk of time...
Final note, because I have to crow to someone about this: Next Sunday, a local independent theater is screening Hitler: A Film from Germany. And it's being introduced by my college film professor. Apparently, I hit the film-geek lottery.
Ben ~ I can't wait to see her new one, Old Joy. As far as I know, it doesn't have distribution and I narrowly missed it in NYC a couple of months ago.
Steve ~ Susan Sontag flew in and showed Hitler several years ago at the Cinematheque in Toronto in a program she curated. (Also on the program were: Sokurov's Days Of The Eclipse; Kurosawa's High & Low; Zanussi's Contract; Renoir's Nana; and Ophuls' Earrings of Madame De....)
Alas, it was before I even knew of the existence of the place.
Oh, and Satantango was part of the program too. (Spring season 1997).
Thanks for the link to Verlaine. I saw Television once at CBGBs with some band called Talking Heads. I later saw Verlaine do a solo show in Boulder, CO.
I really loved Old Joy - it's criminal that it hasn't been picked up for distribution yet. I'll have to check out Rivers Of Grass.
David, it's available at Netflix...Would go well with another woman filmmaker you've been renting recently (I was peeking at your queue today).
Peter, I missed that whole live early punk/new wave scene when it was happening. I was still in my pre-teens, I think, not to mention ten thousand miles away.
Hey G -
Once again, congrats on the prof of the year, man!
Sometimes I wish I majored in something different in undergrad - Just so I could have you as a professor......But what I got was something better: a mentor and a friend.....
Thanks for being there when both of our lives become really busy - You're the man, we'll talk soon....
-mike-
Yang Ban Xi has finally backflipped into the Bay Area for a week, so that'll be crammed in somewhere in the next few days; the exciting thing this week is a rare run of Frans Zwartjes' Pentimento (I'm not sure it's ever been shown here) at Yerba Buena Center on Thursday and Friday.
Kicking myself for not reading this post early enough to find out about the Demy double-bills, having already missed the series at PFA earlier in the year ...
There goes what I said earlier about a light month for nearby celluloid treats.
Girish, I saw Ozu's Late Spring last night, and you were right -- it blew me away. I'm nearly speechless. It's definitely one of the most beautiful and soulful films I've ever seen. And when I say "beautiful," I don't just mean in a visual sense (though it is certainly visually beautiful), but in an emotional, existential sense as well. If only all cinema were this good.
Mike, thanks man. I hope we get to hang out this summer.
Jim and Brian, you guys sure live in a city of plenty.
Michael, I remember shuffling out of Late Spring sniffling like a child.
At the Toronto Film Festival, they have a program called Dialogues where filmmakers show up and screen their favorite films and talk about them and do a Q&A afterwards. Several years ago, Hou Hsiao-Hsien did Late Spring (though it was before I started attending the festival).
Jim ~ Just visited (and enjoyed) your site.
Couldn't find an RSS feed. Could you let me know if/when you install one? I'd like to subscribe.
Late Spring is a heartbreaker, all right. That's one of the quietest, saddest endings I know.
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