Category: Movies

City Lights

This evening, I am going to cook some Depression Cooking food: I have had a bad test today, and with my newly gained freedom, I am going to spend this beautiful evening watching movies and get rid of my backlog. Isn’t this a beautiful way to cope with my unhappiness? Heh.

And so, I shall start with a funny movie; in fact, lately we have mostly been watching comedies because about a week ago, when I still felt happy and needed motivation to study for my tests, I felt like watching comedies a whole lot. The first choice fell on this Chaplin that Théo uses in „The Dreamers“ to prove how Chaplin is superior to Keaton. I have yet to see a long feature by Keaton, but I definitely agree with people that Charlie Chaplin deserves to be the most well-known silent actor. I grew up with stories of the Tramp, and still love them today.

„City Lights“ also appears on quite a few hitlists, and this is something I cannot quite understand. Of course it’s a brilliantly funny film, and it does end on a predictable, yet very sweet note, but I don’t quite see what elevates „City Lights“ over all the myriads of other brilliant movies. Is this very simple hilarity enough to judge it better over the likes of a Wilder or a Lubitsch? Personally I actually prefer the latter two, and I find their humour on a, how should I say, higher level? Chaplin indeed is very kitsch after all.
What makes me wonder even more is that „City Lights“ stands above other Chaplin films. What about „Gold Rush“, „The Great Dictator“, „Modern Times“, „A King in New York“ and all those I didn’t mention? At least „Modern Times“ was better in my opinion, and „A King in New York“ even more so, I think.

So, the question remains: Keaton or Chaplin?

Charade

It must have been at least two years since I have made a list of Audrey Hepburn films I want to see, and “Charade” has always been the one that I have only heard positive things about. Sure, “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” is more popular and more well-known, but it always seemed to me that “Charade” must be the crème de la crème of Audrey Hepburn’s films.

I was wrong. Perhaps it’s Audrey Hepburn’s role, perhaps it’s her underdeveloped relationship with Cary Grant, while I watched the film, something felt missing. Audrey Hepburn felt much less sparkling in this film, much less charming (but a little more stupid) and the story felt much less interesting than usual, because the shocking revelations and turn of events came off as little plot holes. (Which were solved at the end, sometimes at least.) Dear Ms. Hepburn, when you are not sure if a certain person wants you dead or not, you should not make out with that person.

Nevertheless, the film delivered two hours full of enjoyment to me. Even though this is clearly not a Wilder’s work, I had to laugh or at least smile quite a lot of times in this film. Especially the dialogue at the end was so perfectly charming – at this point, who cares about clichés anymore? Despite the little mistakes the film had for me, it was still very suspenseful, and I must say that I enjoyed Mr. Joshua’s changes of name a whole lot. Did you know that I have always wanted to change my name? I have always wanted to see how it is to suddenly go somewhere, change your name, start a new life for awhile and then go back at some point. Internet nicknames are nothing against the kick you can experience when somebody looks deeply into your eyes and calls you lovingly by your fake name. Or so I imagine it to be. Heh.

I can see how “Charade” can be other people’s favorite Audrey Hepburn film – it surely is one of the funniest and most suspenseful or her films. However, perhaps my bond to her other films (“Roman Holiday”, “Sabrina”, “Wait until Dark”) is already too strong to leave the top places in my ranking to “Charade” which had a few weaknesses for me. Finally, if somebody wanted me to recommend an Audrey Hepburn film to them, I would probably say “Roman Holiday” or “Wait until Dark” first, and then “Charade”.

My ranking, however, looks like this now:
Finally, my current ranking looks like this:
1. Wait until dark
2. Roman Holiday
3. Sabrina
4. Love in the Afternoon
5. Breakfast at Tiffany’s
6. Charade
7. War and Peace
8. Two for the Road
9. My Fair Lady
And of course there is more to come. I want to see “The Children’s Hour” someday, and “Funny Face”. I am not so sure about “The Nun’s Story”, “Nous irons à Monte Carlo” (just to see her speak French), “How to steal a million?” and “Paris when it sizzles”.

Full Metal Jacket

Okay, I admit that I could not resist writing about this movie. I know this is not the first time that my blogging backlog is full of films and other things I wanted to blog about, but then cast away everything for one of these movies that I have found mind-blowing. Now, perhaps this was not a mind-blowing experience as „Donnie Darko“ or „Huo Zhe“ were, but it comes damn close.

I have this bad habit of looking up beforehand what a movie is about, because I want to know what I will be watching. However, the positive surprise that a „Donnie Darko“ or a „25th Hour“ can give me is only possible when I don’t know much about the film beforehand at all. „Full Metal Jacket“ was such a case. I knew it’s some Vietnam war movie, but that’s all. And damn, this felt like „Jarhead“ all over, only better. Before seeing M*A*S*H, „Jarhead“ was the only war movie I have ever approved of, and now there is another item on the list.

By the way, I find it a little sad how American soldiers watch this movie before going to war. (It saddens me even more that they run through Iraq with the same music I used to listen to when I was younger.) Then again, I cannot understand anybody who seriously believes in either war or communism.

What can I say, this movie has everything; it’s funny, it has gorgeous characters, it’s extremely suspenseful, serious and dramatic at times. And last but not least, it’s wonderfully directed. I cannot see one single drawback of this movie, except maybe that it doesn’t have one single continuous storyline and ends a little too quickly for your average moviegoers’ mind. The movie is kind of strange indeed, but nevertheless, I cannot see anyone dislike it.
I have never really cared about „Full Metal Jacket“ before, but I recognized many of its quotes. Especially the beginning of the movie felt so incredibly familiar („Come to my house and fuck my sister“, harr harr) although I had no clue that these quotes came from the movie. This is what I call a cult film.

So far, I have seen “Eyes Wide Shut” (liked it), “Lolita” (disliked it), “2001” (loved it) and a part of “A Clockwork Orange” (no opinion yet), but I think that “Full Metal Jacket” has good chances to becoming my all-time personal favorite Kubrick film.

Pierrot le fou

I was asking myself this question because I do not quite think so. Belmondo and Jean Seberg felt much more natural together, and I must admit that I think that Anna Karina looks the best all by herself, so to say. To me, it feels like she is always standing alone in the camera, and this opinion might be colored by my knowledge of Godard’s and Anna Karina’s past relationship. It’s because her characters are always either torn between men (Bande à part) or unable to feel emotions (Alphaville) or a criminal woman who uses men (Pierrot le Fou). On top of that, she seems to be the only female character that Godard is portraying as mysterious, inexplicable while the others feel more exposed and simple to the public. He wants her for himself, I knew it, hahaha.
Well, perhaps I am over-interpreting this matter considering that I have not seen that much.

By the way, I really love the random title in German: “11 Uhr nachts”. It just doesn’t make any sense to me?

Oh God, I know why I have put Anna Karina onto my 20 favorite actresses list. Originally she was just in the list because I couldn’t think of anybody else, but she is truly great. (However, objectively, she is not as good as Giulietta Masina, hmm.) The simple look she gave Belmondo in the first scene was brilliant already. Even her hairstyle was great. All of Godard’s women talk the same, but she and Jean Seberg seem to be the ones who were able to incorporate this style the best. But seriously, this singing is disturbing XXXD

It is remarkable about this film that it’s another one of these films that I have disliked in its first 30 or so minutes, but then ended up adoring when I proceeded to its end. Even when I went back to see its beginning, I have come to appreciate it much more. Especially this tidbit of dialogue where Belmondo asks “What is cinema?” was great. The reply is probably the best summary of the film itself, heh.

After “Le mépris” (which stands out for me in many ways), this is my second color film by Godard. Considering how he seems to love his plays with striking colors, it makes me wonder why he didn’t make color films much more often. “Pierrot le Fou” is one of these films where every single color seems to be deliberate and ‘in place’. Everything seems to have a certain meaning, it’s just me who is unable to decipher them. Not to mention that these colors gives the film some pleasant and interesting visuals, which seem. Every single nouvelle vague I have seen so far is with style, and “Pierrot le Fou” is no exception.

Between the first 30 minutes and the rest, I have ignored the film for a few weeks until one day, I was craving for a nouvelle vague for some reason. And one the finest example of the nouvelle vague was what I got. Very much unlike Truffaut, Godard’s film feel like a puzzle of seemingly random pieces. The story of man who runs away from Death, Marianne reminiscing about the mad but conventional love of her parents, the absolutely brilliant hair style of Anna Karina at her first appearance in the film – there are countless such moments that make this film so immensely Godard-ish and so wonderful.

Although Godard seems so immensely popular, I still think that he is a little like Goethe: Everyone loves him, but this is because it’s expected from you to do so. When you dig deeper, you would see that most people barely know anything about Godard or Goethe respectively. Someone I know even used to say something like “Yeah, Le Mépris was good, but most of Godard’s films are just random, artsy shit.” I can totally see how this can be what a lot of film buffs are secretly thinking.
I think It’s just important to know that his films have no “story” and one should expect a certain degree of weirdness and pointlessness, but if you do that, you would see the meaning behind it. The characters are vain and egoistic, the story seems completely random, their relationships and feelings give off the impression of being very instable, but that is what makes it possible for Godard to show these people’s human side.

I think it’s adequate to present my first Godard ranking
1. À bout de souffle
2. Le Mépris
3. Masculin Féminin
4. Pierrot le Fou
5. Bande à part
6. Alphaville
I definitely am planning on seeing more, even though I feel bad that I have never bothered to see more than Godard’s and Truffaut’s films. Chabrol, Lelouch, etc. I have never even touched them yet.

Requiem for a Dream

You know, the main reason I am seeing this film is that everybody is talking about it. Everyone. It seems the whole world has seen it except for me, and I’ve been feeling for this perhaps 7 years now – that was the first time I have heard the brilliant soundtrack. And now, I am getting this weird feeling that I am too old for it.

“Naked Lunch”, the other drug film, was different – it was random, artsy and in many ways extremely interesting, just like I imagine the book to be that it is based on. Sure, “Requiem for a Dream” has an incredibly intense atmosphere, but I feel like I cannot relate to this at all. To me, they are youngsters with identity problems that I have never had, not even remotely in this way, and everything just screams “Wow, how immature” to me. If this movie were not such a mass phenomena (or is it just because it had a good soundtrack?), I wouldn’t have bothered seeing more than 15 minutes of it. I wonder how “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” would fare. I have heard that you should watch that movie when you’re on drugs. Does that also apply on “Requiem for a Dream”? I doubt it.

Considering the title: This is interesting because everything about him is totally not my type at all. These slightly dumb-looking eyes, the boyish statue, etc. But something about him is intriguing, and I seem to never have noticed when I saw other movies with him? Heh.

But what is much more interesting is actually Jennifer Connelly’s role – it’s shocking. I have seen her in one single movie, as John Nash’s loving and smart but frustrated wife. Back then, I saw “A Beautiful Mind” in the movie theaters (with Richard, btw) and I still remember that role very clearly because she was perhaps the first female character in cinema I really liked, heh. Seeing her playing such a teenage girl with bad taste and nothing to do is just too depressing. Oh well.

If somebody could tell me where the heck the point of this movie is, I will gladly listen. Until then, I probably will put it into the same category as “Ghost World” – the type of movies I can not relate to anymore? I still cannot believe I have just written a long, clearly negative post about a rather highly acclaimed film and it makes me feel like this guy who was wondering about what the whole point of “Match Point” is. But can I help it?

Nosferatu

Yes, it’s Nosferatu – I have finally seen it! I still remember declining the offer to watch it about a year ago and have always felt not at ease because of it, for no reason at all. Now, I have had the opportunity to see it with a live concert! Although the student ticket cost 12 euro (goddamn it, Babylon Berlin Mitte), it was absolutely worth it.

Ultimately, the experience of “Metropolis” had a bigger impact on me: The music was more dramatic, the atmosphere was better and perhaps the film itself was a more impressive one? Oh, and it seems that the audience of “Metropolis” was comparably more capable. People kept laughing during the screening of “Nosferatu” – what the heck?
Most of all, I was strongly impressed by the performance of the pianist during “Metropolis”. It was an extremely energetic and virtuous playing, and at the end, the performer was literally covered with sweat. Perhaps it was because I have never seen a silent movie with live music before and the first time made such a huge impact on me, but I truly believe that it was an unforgettable event.

Even though the experience of “Nosferatu” was less impressive, I still think this was an outstanding performance coupled with a movie that totally deserves its extremely high reputation. There was a pianist, a lead singer and a choir of about 40 people, who didn’t only “play music” but also made all sorts of noises like animal cries when there was a scene in the forest. Apart from a few shrieks that hurt my ear a little bit, the music was splendid. It’s difficult to describe such a live performance, but it definitely heightened my desire to see more of it.

So, I still have not said much about the film itself, didn’t I? This is mainly because (similar to Metropolis) it’s mainly a visual feast of brilliant storytelling, and I cannot believe that it’s the same when you watch it at home on a small DVD screen. (“To be or not to be” is another one of these kinds of films – it’s way too much fun to hear a whole audience laughing enthusiastically.)
But let me try. The first thing I have noticed throughout the whole film is that it had an incredibly dense atmosphere. The best scene of all was the carriage ride through the forest, I am sure Pixelmatsch will be fanboying more about this particular scene, because it’s just too good – visually and atmospherically the strongest of the whole film in my opinion.

Even though no black cat was involved, this atmosphere reminded me a lot of E.T.A. Hoffmann. The whole mid-19th century setting including the mysterious nature and the creepy main character, the subtle desire of sex and the bourgeoisie was so typical from what I perceived as romantic in the sense of the German literary movement. I was amazed and I liked that part of it a whole lot. I am sure Baudelaire and Hoffmann would have liked this movie.

The movie came with an interesting in which the people who organized this live event have commented on the film. Although I found the comments very interesting and insightful, I had to laugh a little when I notice how strongly they emphasized on the topic of sex. Sure, Nosferatu desired Hutter’s wife and it’s one of the major themes of the film, but ultimately it only received very little screen time. Whether Hutter’s wife was a sexually frustrated woman is rather questionable in my opinion and it does not surprise me at all that there were people who were interpreting the film in such a way. Of course Emilia Galotti was a passionate woman, but in this film it’s still a little far fetched in my opinion, heh.

“Nosferatu” is a classic, and one has to watch it with this in mind. Because of that reason, I always am having the impression that whoever would stumble upon this blog post has already seen the film, heh. As for myself, I am very interested in seeing more by Murnau now. I know that I will at least watch “Sunrise”.

Le Dernier Métro

The only reason why I am only blogging about this movie now is the fact that my urge of wanting to see another movie was stronger than my urge of writing about them. Plus, “Le Dernier Métro” is another one of these films that deserves much better treatment, and so: Welcome to a blog posting in which the content per word ratio tends towards zero.

If “La peau douce” is a 1 and “Jules et Jim” is a 10 on Truffaut’s scale, I’d say that “Le Dernier Métro” is something like a 5. It was an immensely enjoyable movie but without the psychological and emotional depth of “Jules et Jim”. I remember that back then, I did not say much about “Jules et Jim” and now I actually wish I did. Today, I wish for it so much that I am thinking of re-watching the film again. Even though I feel that I might say the same about this movie one day, there really is nothing mentionable about the film because it ultimately gave me exactly what I have expected: The direction was good, the story was extremely enjoyable and I recommend it wholeheartedly. (Especially since it’s shocking to see that Gérard Depardieu actually used to be much better looking than now, hahaha.)

By the way, my favorite scene is actually the end, I loved this little twist/punchline/whatever you would call it, and I won’t tell you because perhaps you might want to see the film – and if you do, you don’t want to get spoiled, no?

The Black Dahlia

Oh wow, it’s been awhile since I’ve seen such a bad movie, hahaha. These two hours felt like four and if it were not for the beau, I surely would have dropped it in the middle.

Okay, so it was not entirely bad and I wouldn’t say I did not enjoy it at all, I just got the impression that I am too used to good movies lately and “The Black Dahlia” obviously could not compete. Pixelmatsch for example didn’t care about anything aside from potential sex scenes with Scarlett Johansson. Actually I think that La Skarlette needs to play a whore once in her career. She just has to, every serious actress should. XD

The biggest mistake of this film is not to make Scarlett Johansson the main femme fatale, but a horribly boring girl. Eek. Film noirs are great because of the women, and these ones in the movie are so incredibly and surprisingly not attractive. Why is that?
However, I must say that there is some rather nice chemistry between her and Josh Hartnett. This not-really-sex scene with them in which he takes her on the dinner table was quite hot. For one second I felt remembered why I was one of those teenie girls who liked him. By the way, I never knew they actually dated for over two years! (Congrats to Mr. Hartnett for having been able to keep La Skarlette for such a long period of time.)

Hillary Swank is so disturbing in this role, she fails so badly compared to, say, Nora Zehetner in Brick. To me, she’s probably going to stay “the boxing girl” forever.
On a side note, I think that Hillary Swank’s role uses “fuck” way too often. This is not how a femme fatale should behave like. “Fuck” is like these machine guns that you can only use once but are powerful.

The one great part about the film is its looks. The soundtrack is a little silly, but it does a good job at being a “neo noir”. I have a certain weakness for this style and it actually makes me want to see an actual film noir now. But what should I see, I wonder? The torrent for “Angel Face” doesn’t have any seeds and there just are way too many of them. Sadly, I don’t think I have ever seen a real film noir so far. XD

If you are the one

I am wondering if it would be easier to write about a chinese love comedy, especially when I do not feel like promoting it. Don’t misunderstand, I have thoroughly enjoyed the film although it uses some silly, overly kitsch background music and obviously would never make it outside of China, because it copies Hollywood way too well and is way too full with Beijing dialect jokes.

This is actually one of the main appeals of Chinese love comedies: Their “chineseness”. Just like “The Host” seems incredibly Korean to me, Chinese people love their comedies and they feel especially close to those jokes that mirror their society. “If you are the one” is actually a brilliant example of this, it’s indescribable.

What is comparably easy to describe, however, is the great acting of the main protagonists. The ugly, bald guy is Ge You, perhaps one of my favorite Chinese actors if not the favorite and the girl is played by formally soft-porn-movie star Shu Qi. Although she’s not exactly my type, I must admit that her acting is top-notch and I think she comes off much more natural and believable than most other Chinese actresses despite her rather young age.

In China, the film apparently has exceeded everybody’s expectations and was the most popular film last year or something like that. It’s unusual for a Chinese movie to be able to stand against the concurrence of Hollywood, and with this movie, I actually can see why: Surely Hollywood has become weaker too (now that Lord of the Rings is over and The Dark Knight apparently didn’t cater to Chinese tastes as much), but this film has everything: Witty dialogue, a funny yet emotional story and a brilliant cast.
It’s so cute how he fell in love with her because he felt he was one of these rare women who are serious about a reltionship. I think a lot of people see themselves in the idealistic way the main characters are struggling for love. Maybe that is wishful thinking, but it surely is attractive to a lot of people.

For me, it was quite an experience to see one of these so very Chinese movies without too much depth again. While I thought it was quite silly at times, I actually also enjoyed it a lot and ever since the Berlinale, I would value enjoyment higher than the meaningful in a heartbeat. Maybe “If you are the one” is not necessarily the artistically greatest film and I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone but those who master the Chinese language, but I surely had a lot of fun watching this yesterday.

The Royal Tenenbaums

Since I am now forced to study for the possibly most boring exam I am going to have this whole year, I will be motivating myself with a comparably pleasant activity: Commenting on yet another great film.

I have decided to watch “The Royal Tenenbaums” because it’s one of the movies in the schedule at Movie of the Week. Unfortunately, I still have not seen “Requiem for a Dream” yet and I am not very interested in watching “Wristcutters”. The concept of the website is great, but I am a little underwhelmed by the line-up starting April. Well, I am in no position of whining, of course.

After totally fallen in love with “Little Miss Sunshine”, “The Royal Tenenbaums” is great on a completely different level. It is an ode to what we call family as well, but its comedy is much sharper and blacker than “Little Miss Sunshine”s. Comparing these two movies is rather difficult and probably inappropriate anyways. Of course, both start with a dysfunctional and end with a loving and close family, but the characters are fundamentally different.
A propos family, I find it very interesting how French films tend to either outright ignore family or disassemble them while Hollywood and the likes prefer to take a more optimistic look at this societal institution we all love and hate.

I don’t even have a favorite character though, it’s mostly the ensemble and the way they interact with each other. Perhaps I do dislike Margot for randomly mistreating her husband though; on the other hand, I can somehow identify myself with her. She’s quite a great emo character and her cynism is surprisingly understandable.

Unlike Little Miss Sunshine, I actually think that there is quite a lot to discover at “The Royal Tenenbaums”, let alone the greatness of its actors (Gwyneth Paltrow is actually pretty good, she’s just too… blonde?) This site for example has quite some inspiring observations, although it’s just noting some minor details about the film, it’s still interesting. Most other websites are just praising at how great the humour in the film is – and that probably is indeed its biggest strength. You have to like that type of black humour and be able to detect its wittiness, and then you would come to like a character like Royal just as much as his grandsons do.

Another appeal of “The Royal Tenenbaums” is its unusual and slightly artificial setting. Everything just cries black comedy into your face and it clearly looks like everything is supposed to be at the place it is. Although I hate it when characters wear the same outfit throughout a movie, in this case, it makes perfect sense. Perhaps Wes Craven actually is an interesting director?

It’s been 7 years since I have seen a poster of it at the CinemaxX Potsdamer Platz in Berlin for the first time and I still remember how I was intrigued by that poster. I am glad to have finally watched the film now and I especially recommend it to anyone who likes the cast, because it is in a film like this that they can show their brillancy. (Except Bill Murray though, it’s disappointing how he only got a silly character and just a bit of screentime.)