(1966, Dir. Jean-Luc Godard)
Considering I didn't see all of Breathless, this was my first Godard. When I was looking up stuff about The 400 Blows, I kept seeing stuff about this other movie starring an older Jean-Pierre Leaud, directed by Jean-Luc Godard. With each screencap of Masculin Féminin I saw the more I was convinced that I absolutely had to see this movie. So I went all the way to the Cincinnati library and acquired it. You already know from my previous post that I loved this movie. I loved it a lot. I haven't tried making any kind of favorite movies list for quite a while but I know this would be on there. I never wanted this movie to end. Not because I needed a plot to be resolved or a question to be answered, but because I just got so attached to the characters. I doubt I could even name any of them but I was very invested in them because they seemed so real. I enjoyed spending time watching these characters because they seemed like very real people with very real lives outside of what was being shown on screen. I really liked that. I'm all about it. While this film kind of a had a plot, it was more about conversations and relationships than solving any conflict. I'm kind of obsessed with talking and I find the poetry of conversation really fascinating. A film can cover a lot of ground content-wise if it's not bound to a plot. Characters can talk about anything at all if they're not bent on solving the Big Problem! That was new and interesting to me. The music from this movie is amazing. Chantal Goya, who stars alongside Leaud, was a pop star of the time and her music is used as the soundtrack and it is just great. I've been listening to it constantly! There were approximately a million other things I loved about this movie (the ENDING! etc) and maybe some things I didn't but prom killed me dead and my arms feel like they're made of jell-o. So that's the end of that. Peace out.
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I watched many a movie over spring break (and a lot of Twin Peaks and some Gilmore Girls), so here's a brief roundup. Some full-length reviews will be coming soon!
The Blues Brothers (1980, dir. John Landis) This is a movie that really commits to the bit and it was a lot of fun! It had me in stitches. It's so out there but it all works very well. I had the Rawhide theme stuck in my head for days after. Shoot the Piano Player (1960, dir. François Truffaut) In direct contrast with The Blues Brothers this one was sad and understated, yet musical! And gangster-y. Not a fun one but a good one. The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004, dir. Wes Anderson) Oh Wes, how I've missed you. This is easily my least favorite of Anderson movies I've seen (sorry!); I felt it somewhat lacked focus. It does have an incredible soundtrack, though. And of course it's still good and I really liked it, I just didn't love it like I wanted to. Masculin Féminin (1966, Dir. Jean-Luc Godard) Maybe one of my favorite movies I've ever seen? Wow! Wow. It was very conversational and that's what I'm all about. I got very attached to the characters and the music is delightful and visually it's very cool and I just really loved this movie. An Affair to Remember (1957, Dir. Leo McCarey) I've been meaning to watch this for a year or so and it was on TCM so I took my chance then and there. I spent the last ten minutes sobbing violently. Enough said. Brief Encounter (1945, Dir. David Lean) TCM put this on after An Affair to Remember so I just stayed put, and it was very worth it! This was a bummer of a movie that had a really interesting circular sort of narrative. It made for a great double feature. Elevator to the Gallows (1958, Dir. Louis Malle) I liked this one a lot--it felt sort of Hitchcock-esque but you could definitely feel the French New Wave coming on. The music was absolutely amazing (Miles Davis!) and mistaken identity is always intriguing. La Chinoise (1967, Dir. Jean-Luc Godard) (Pictured above) Wow Part II! WOW! I'm obsessed with this movie. It's pretty similar to Masculin Féminin but with markedly more Marxism. I have so much to say I can't say anything except that I LOVED this one. Wow. (1973, Dir. James Bridges)
In Short: A Harvard student struggles through his first year of law school. I better not watch this movie again for the next ten or so years because if I do I'll feel the same as I did watching it this time: I never want to go to law school. I did like this movie, though, and I liked it a lot more than I thought I would. It certainly had its ups and downs, but overall it was a worthwhile watch. The Paper Chase really, really wants to be The Graduate, and don't we all? The Graduate is great. But The Graduate is The Graduate and The Paper Chase....isn't. I think a lot of energy was wasted on trying to emulate Benjamin Braddock's story when Hart's story is a completely different animal. Hart is passionate and he's not entirely selfish and that makes him the complete opposite of Benjamin. The stories can't read the same way. Yes, they're both about men in their early twenties. That's about it. The Paper Chase could have benefited from creating an identity more its own. That's my main issue with the movie. When I realized it wasn't really about the relationship between Susan and Hart, I was a little more okay with the underdeveloped nature of said relationship, though it still bugged me. I liked the study group dynamic (even though certain members angered me beyond rationality) and the tension of the classroom was captured really, really well. It felt Hart's Big Moment with Kingsfield towards the end feel really earned. I really liked some of the camerawork in this film. One scene that especially stands out is the one pictured above. Susan and Hart are having a serious, intimate conversation and yet the camera holds that extreme long shot of them for the whole conversation. It adds a weird coldness and distance to the scene that I thought was really interesting. ~SPOILERS~ The ending is what really hit it home for me. I might not have liked the whole movie if it weren't for the ending. If Kingsfield had said something like, "I've learned as much from you as you have from me" or some nonsense like that, I would have been really grumpy about it. What a waste! But the effect of "What's your name?" was perfection. And even though I knew that Hart was going to throw his grades into the ocean the minute Susan handed them to him, I still enjoyed that. Again, it felt earned. It drove the point home. ~END SPOILERS~ I liked The Paper Chase! Young Edward Herrmann was there! It's a good companion to Legally Blonde, I guess! That's all. Good stuff. (2004, Dir. Jared Hess)
In Short: A kid from rural Idaho goes to high school and deals with his family. His expressions are consistently as emotionless as that last sentence. We all know that I love Napoleon Dynamite. (I mean, have you seen the “Vote for Pedro” class t-shirts I designed? I love Napoleon Dynamite.) I’ve seen it many times, and it just doesn’t get old. I have always found it really, really funny. Examining why comedy is funny is really tough. Watching this movie for the umpteenth time with the purpose of writing a review, I found myself thinking about why I find this purposefully flat high school comedy to be so...comedic. I think a lot of it is in the “purposefully flat” part. Napoleon doesn’t smile throughout the whole movie. His inflection rarely changes and when it does, it’s only barely, and it’s when he gets just a little bit louder to say “freakin’ idiots” or some such thing. It’s impossible to connect with the protagonist, and that’s weird and uncomfortable at first. There’s no real emotional arc to the movie--someone I know once said, “You feel the same after the first five seconds of Napoleon Dynamite as you do after the whole hour and a half,” and I think that’s pretty astute. It’s that flatness to the main character that accentuates the outlandishness of all the others, and makes them all the more funny. There’s a bored kind of quality that lends itself so well to the deadpan comedy that this movie employs. Crazy situations might be funny paired with over-the-top reactions to those situations’ craziness, but those situations are even funnier, Napoleon Dynamite proves, when there’s no reaction at all. It’s funnier for Napoleon to drink a glass of milk and say, “The defect in this one is bleach,” with absolutely no expression of disgust or any other emotion than it is for him to drink a glass of bleach-laced milk and start gagging or shouting. The Funny is in the flatness. This movie has a very distinct look to it. I’ve heard it described as being part of a “Wes Anderson Genre” and I think that’s fairly accurate. Not only do the characters fit that description, and the wandering plot (reminiscent of Bottle Rocket), but the aesthetic of Napoleon Dynamite is specifically curated in a way similar to Anderson’s films, with overly-kitschy settings and a color palette that is kind of outside life. The sort of cuts and shots employed vary so well and so surprisingly (again, good for the visual kind of comedy that this movie relies on) that it’s an interesting movie to watch despite the integral nature of its blandness. I love Napoleon Dynamite. Case closed. |
AuthorEileen here, writing reviews for film class. Archives
April 2018
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