Category: Rant

Providence

I think I have been trying too hard to like this film, somehow. Perhaps I should have watched another Resnais first, or I should have tried to get into the film more. Or I should have immediately started to get french or even german dub of this film, because I simply could not stand the “english”ness of these characters. And that’s supposed to play in Rhode Island? Anyways, la bourgeoisie should die.

What is interesting however, was that there were tidbits of the movie that were incredibly funny – and there were other tidbits where I thought “my gosh, this dialogue is actually really great!”, but on the other hand, I have been forcing myself through the majority of this film. I suppose I should put this film onto the re-watch list – and I will watch it with french dubs. After all, Gérard Depardieu is dubbing Kevin, which is just such an incredibly good fit. Just look at them and you’ll understand <3

From the “list that started it all”, this is the first film that I have kind of disliked. Perhaps this even is the worst of all of them, because I believe most or all of the others would be actually good and enjoyable films.

Modern Times

I have had this film on my computer for some ages and finally decided to watch it. If you ask yourself why I have never watched this film for so long – it’s an old silent classic. Personally, I’m not a big fan of silent films exactly because I dislike the fast frame rate. It makes all those stories seem blatantly unnatural for me (the same happens with most musicals, by the way). If you also ask yourself how I got the idea to watch this: Right after I went to the museum of the Cinemathèque last year, I saw the scene in which Chaplin falls into the machinery and then slips back again. Somehow I found that utterly hilarious and it intrigued me so much that I decided to watch the film at that time, but never came around to do it.

Now, after getting very interested in the repeated discussion in “The Dreamers” whether Keaton or Chaplin is funnier, I decided to finally check it out myself. (Oi oi, “The Dreamers” is going to become the “Unbearable Lightness of Being” of film for me… not really. “The Unbearable Lightness” is just THE work of fiction in my young life.) When I was younger, I remember that my parents have liked watching Chaplin’s films a lot, and so I still remember having watched one involving Chaplin in a circus – and I especially remember the last scenes in which the tramp always turns his back to us and goes away. I wonder which film that was?

Anyways, this is the list of Chaplin films I want to start with (in this order):
– A King in New York
– City Lights
– The Great Dictator
– Gold Rush
– The Kid
I have no idea what Keaton’s major works are… the Wikipedia article on him is too long!

Recently, I have also realized something horrible: even though I like films much more than I used to and put much more thoughts into watching them, but when I look at the box-office-top-1 films from 2003, I actually have watched much more back then, and I even spent loads of money on the cinemas. O.o

WordPress is evil, because it has killed a part of my posting again. Oh well, here I go onto the review of the actual film (as you can see, I am much less committed to write this now, but I still had to write about it): What I realized very quickly is that Charlie Chaplin’s is blatantly funny, but not in the way of making me laugh. It’s more like I feel like smiling throughout the whole film, maybe because comedic situations just don’t make me laugh as much, I was just amused at seeing the tramp’s delightful clumsiness and hilarious pantomime. My favourite was how he was waving the red flag, I think, hahaha. But, there is not much more to say about it – comedic films are just better watched.
Speaking of the red flag, I do think that this film has some pseudo-communistic touches, but I think that’s way not enough to rise such a political controversy as it happened back then. I really love how Charlie Chaplin was hated in Hollywood, hehe.

Finally, I think that I still don’t like silent films as much – and this one actually isn’t even a “real” one, it’s just that Charlie Chaplin prefers to remain, well, silent. However, I find the beginnings of film quite intriguing, and definitely will be watching more of ‘the old times’.

Ohoho, I finally managed to create a little poll. Considering that I have been blogging for such a long time, it’s quite strange to me that this actually is a first O.o

So, after buying so many DVDs recently (and there is more to come), I have been thinking about the no.1 question of all collectors: how to sort my DVDs on my shelf. This kind of reminded me of the protagonist of “High Fidelity” who re-ordered his whole vinyl collection every time something dramatic happens in his life. Finally, I decided to sort them alphabetically by the original title.

What about you? You can find the poll (and possible future polls) on the sidebar. :3

Annie Hall

How should I put it – I have been watching Annie Hall with nothing but the thought of Manhattan in my head. Surely I have been comparing both films the whole time, and their relation to New York.

First, New York. “Manhattan” showed the beauty of New York through Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue and a certain poetry of the life in New York (yes, going to art exhibitions surely is one of the greatest and important things you can do in New York) while “Annie Hall” shows a clear attachment of the protagonist to the city by making fun of the horrid life in Los Angeles. Woody Allen’s neurotic characters reflects on New York as much as New York reflects on him, and that is shown in a much stronger and nicer way in “Annie Hall”. Unlike “Manhattan” however, this makes me feel a little a bit scared of New York though, haha.
I still want to live there one day, but before I turn 35 and not for longer than 2 years please :3

Next, Annie herself is the most outstanding and interesting character in this film. The whole film stands and falls with her eccentric character who, in my eyes, was horrible and brilliant at the same time. La-dee-dah. With her and Alvy’s relationships being the main topic of the film, a lot is spent on characterizing her – and that is brilliantly done in my opinion. Why Annie is horrible actually does not necessite any explanation: She’s similarily neurotic as him, she is extremely weird and full of complexes of not being good enough for him. She puts on horrible voices and is quite egoistic in the way she only really cares about herself and mostly doesn’t want to be lonely. On the other hand, she also is shown as an interesting, multi-faceted woman whose personality is inherently hilarious. You immediately understand why a man would be attracted to her, because she seems to be somebody special that you can have lots of fun with. Reality shows that being happy with such a woman probably is an impossible thing to do.

The character of Woody Allen himself is not all too novel now that I have watched Manhattan. The only thing that is added were the jokes about jews which were utterly hilarious of course. Allen is still a beautifully sarcastic, funnily neurotic person who makes me think of Schnitzler‘s Anatol. That guy, unfortunately, is much more of an asshole and totally not funny but some character traits in their inability of having a proper relationship is somewhat similar.
Also, “Manhattan” shines through the character of the 17-year-old girlfriend as the antipole to the somewhat childish and incapable characters of the rest of the supposedly more mature cast. Basically, I have enjoyed Manhattan more because it shows the dynamics of relationships between several people. I guess I just enjoy stories about interpersonal relationships more when more factors (i.e. people *hrr*) are involved. It touches me more and adds lots of (melo-)drama.

Similar to Schnitzler’s plays, Woody Allen’s films make me think about relationships (on top of making me laugh a lot ;) ). Basically I feel so reminded of the realities of relationships and how I definitely don’t want them to be. In films and in books, these relationships are greatest enjoyment and hilarity, of course.

Well, I love character-driven films like this that make me laugh many times. But really, Woody Allen is a genius for having produced films such as “Manhattan” and “Annie Hall”, although I admit that I preferred the former, mainly because the main characters made me facepalm a few times while “Manhattan” was just funny from the start to the end.

PS. I’m listening to “Kiss Me” on repeat now. How silly. I wish Truffaut’s grave would look as beautiful as in the music video. Unfortunately it’s full of metro tickets in reality.

Ah ah. I want this posting re-written but as long as I haven’t, feel free to read this draft.

This is a meta post, which means that I won’t be talking about a specific film, but films and my perception about it in general. For starters, as you all can imagine, I am quite opposed to seeing films from a purely academic perspective, and studying film would be the last thing I would be willing to do in my life, although it’s probably one of my most important interests outside of university. The german Wikipedia gives a quite interesting definition on cineast and the english one only says “movie enthusiast”. Now this is probably a little bit too broad, because you can watch movies excessively without digging deeper at all. Most anime viewers who watch more series than me don’t seem to care about what anime is, the financial state of the studios and their artistic development, names of people besides Anno, Miyazaki and Shinkai, or cross-references and trivia. Still, these people are quite some anime enthusiast like a lot of others are movie enthusiasts without knowing one single author or director’s name. There are other movie enthusiasts like me who haven’t watched all that many films, but know about more titles and names than they ever could watch.
On the other hand, it would not surprise me if there are students of film who are less of a movie lover than the people you find at the AwardsDaily forums, have watched less and are less knowledgeable (same for music, by the way). Studying just teaches you much less and in a very different way than when you actually enjoy it in your free time. (I see that with electrical engineers too, my my.)

Among the people who like movies, there seem to be large differences to me when it comes to their motivation of watching films. Basically what I can observe is this:
a) Social reasons: For example, when I was younger, I have seen quite a lot of horror flicks because I was dragged into those girl’s evenings that always comprised a silly comedy and then a horror movie. Comparably mainstream and social movies would be “American Pie”, “A Beautiful Mind”, “Pirates of the Carribean” and “Lord of the Rings”.
b) Pure entertainment: Some people like to watch a lot and actively research what could be interesting. However, they don’t read secondary literature all that much or research about the background of the films. They just enjoy talking about films and the film itself, not the background or the history of film, is what matters. This kind of movie enthusiast would never watch “Citizen Kane” because it’s horribly boring. Or “Casablanca” just because it’s a classic. They have a little bit of a l’art pour l’art approach to films (although it’s not exactly a good comparison as these people don’t necessarily seek “art”). They most probably watch screwball comedies like “Some like it hot”, suspenseful thrillers like “Infernal Affairs” and witty films like “Harold and Maude”. Also, these are the people who would come to watch extremely obscure things that I could never possibly name.
c) Small talk: People who only care about big names to be able to small talk. They obviously also have a bit of a background information for those small talk purposes. Entertainment is less important. Now I have never encountered such a person, but I suppose they exist. After all, I am like that with books – honestly my interest in books is much less of an entertaining nature, but it is a mix of the wish to brag about being well-read and genuine interest in culture, society and history. Most of the books I have read were a drag to read, but they were insightful. (“Citizen Kane” is particularily insightful to film history, by the way, but a drag to watch, imho.) These people only watch the necessary classics or influential films to brag with names like Godard (“Le Mépris”) and Monty Python (“The Meaning of Life”).
d) Academia: People who mainly are interested in films from an academic standpoint which actually stems from a genuine interest from what films are, and how they came to be. I suppose there isn’t all that much to explain about this.
e) “Lessons” for life: Similar to the discussion to whether a piece of literature should necessarily have a message, I am sure a major motivation for people to watch films is its closeness to real life. They transport us to situations that we will never encounter ourselves in a closer way than books or photographs would, or they reflect our own life, relationships and the likes. Or they show something about our society or political situation. Not only enjoyment, but a certain ‘depth’ is sought by people who prefer socio-critical films such as “Tropa de Elite” or “Dancer in the Dark”.

The kind of movie person I think I am, and always want to be, would a mix of all four with a proportion of 1:3:2:2:3. I can only describe it with the term cineast, even though the word is associated with the abominable elitism *cough cough* and I’d actually prefer to call it something else. Basically, I want to know a lot about the background of films (and therefore watch “Citizen Kane”, “2001” and films of the Nouvelle Vague mainly for understanding the history of film), and at the same time, the main purpose is still to enjoy and watch them. Also, I would feel horrible if there was nobody I could talk about them and surely I hope to be able to bring these things up in a business conversation. *harr harr*
Which means that these 4 types of motivation definitely are not mutually exclusive: I am the kind of person who finds parodies and cross-references particularily enjoyable, like in Je t’aime John Wayne and the music video for Kiss Me which accumulates all those great scenes of the film. The background therefore contributes to the enjoyment of film itself. (Hm, I wonder if it’s a bad thing that “Je t’aime John Wayne” isn’t really a good film when it stands for itself taken out of context, but only when related to its references.)
However, I don’t really want to define myself by having watched a lot of movies, so maybe there is a certain elitist aspect to it.

Another aspect I want to bring in is “The Dreamers”, a film that I have been thinking back of a lot while writing this post. Now I know that “The Dreamers” wasn’t exactly well-received among critics (maybe they just hate Bertolucci’s steoretypically freudian father complex personality too much), but personally, I just found it extremely well-reflecting on myself. Just like with “Before Sunrise” (a silly other example) that makes me dream of experiencing such an unusual romantic encounter, I admit that I would have loved to live in a time in which being a film enthusiast actually also has a political meaning and reflects a lifestyle which is intriguingly unconventional and rebellian. Besides my particular attachment to closely intertwined triangle relationships (recommendations are very welcomed although I seriously doubt that something could impress as much as “Jules et Jim” did), I loved the way the three have incorporated films into their life. On top of that, when I watched the film, I was at the museum of the “Cinémathèque francaise” shortly before and learnt a bit about the affair around Henri Langlois which is mentioned in “The Dreamers”. Of course that contributed to my high esteem of this film.
I feel like I am 40 years too late for that crap though (see “The Edukators/Die fetten Jahre sind vorbei”) and having a ménage à trois just doesn’t mean all that much anymore.

Just like in literature or music, there also are different kinds of “mainstream” in film. The ones would call all the Hollywood crap mainstream, then again, among film enthusiasts, Jarmusch is pretty mainstream because everybody knows him. There seems always be another layer of obscurity, especially when you consider regional differences. I would love to talk about this more, but first that is slightly off-topic, and second, I feel that I don’t know enough about the “film scene” in the world to be able to say much about this.

Finally, this brings me to the question: What kind of movie enthusiast are you (if you consider yourself one)? What do you guys think, how would you define your own approach to films?

PS. This commercial is somewhat good XD
PPS. I really should stop writing these kinds of meta postings, because they always leave me with this horrible feeling of being a bad writer and ranting too much. However, I already prepared another meta post which hopefully is going to be better than this one, haha.
PPPS. I could immediately write 2000 words on triangle relationships, how society soils them and how fiction makes them more interesting than real life ever could. (The model of man, wife and “amant” is an affront to the woman in society while the model of a woman with two men is suicidal.)

After reading the comments to my last posting, I realized yet again that lists are an evil thing. Basically, I am pretty positive that the anime I want to watch in my plan to watch list are everything that exists in the anime world that I want to watch. I have been browsing quite a few anime websites and other people’s MyAnimeList pages (yes, yours too, Martin! XD) to get recommendations and although 58 series looks like a lot, I get the feeling that it is a feasible to watch all of these in my life. Especially when most of them are just inspirations and you don’t feel like you absolutely have to watch them. The same goes for manga where I have the impression that I am still somewhat up-to-date despite the awful lot that gets released every day. Such a thing would never be possible with movies. Although I have no idea how many of them actually get produced and I feel that 100 years of movies sounds better than over 2000 years of books, I know that I am never going to watch all these films I wanted to watch before I die. I suppose I am a little bit in the kind of phase where I wonder what I want to do with my life, and by that I mean what I want to have accomplished. The experience of all these films that I find interesting are part of what I want to accomplish.

Another problem I have with the sheer endlessness of films is the fact that it’s somewhat difficult to talk to people about the films you watched. People’s tastes are different and especially when you don’t watch mainstream movies, there is only a slight possibility to find people to regularily talk to about your movies – there are too many films that people watch at different periods of times (except for the really recent ones). So unless you adapt to their watching schedules, films are much less, hm, social than anime perhaps? On the one hand, I love its individuality; on the other hand, it’s a little bit sad to watch a great film, but there is nothing interesting about it on the internet. It’s possible that I am searching at the wrong place, but compared to most anime, it’s less likely to find extensive discussion, fan sites or information on a film, except for Donnie Darko or Memento.

On a positive side note, of course I still think it is a great thing that so many good films exist in the world. If I compare the list of films that I have found mindblowing and influential with the list of anime, I would definitely say that the films have had a greater impact on me. And I think more than anything, it is this impact that I am pursuing.

PS. A propos series, I think I should consider watching some real life series. Like Six Feet Under. Or this one chinese series that my parents love so much. (It’s actually a harem series, albeit one that must be so sophisticated that my parents recommend it to me. XD)

This is a posting celebrating Shii’s move to our sweet domain, yay yay! Hopefully the move and the new design will inspire him to blog more about the films he watched. :3

Besides that, I have recently gotten a list of his backlog – it’s even longer than mine! Not surprisingly, I haven’t watched many of those films, thus there aren’t many that I can recommend. The file also includes a list of films that he liked a lot, and again, I have not watched many of them either! So, here we are. I’ll try to be as short as possible, but I’ll most likely fail.

Films that I wholeheartedly recommend
4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days: Should be watched in a dark, quiet cinema. Incredibly dense atmosphere, brrr.

2001: Odyssee: A classic, and featuring brilliant music. In retrospect, it made me think of Ed Wood though, somehow.

Mystery Train: If “Night on Earth” didn’t exist, this one would be Jarmusch’s most brilliant film, on par with “Coffee & Cigarettes”. Funnier, dirtier and more original than C&C though.

Stranger than Paradise: It took me quite awhile until I finally watched this, and it’s cinematography is stunning. Also, funny plottwists ahoi.

I’m a Cyborg, but that’s OK: I’m a Park Chan-wook fangirl – although this one is totally different from his other films, it’s still very original and cute.

Sympathy for Lady Vengeance: A simple story and the most stunning execution. A must when you have liked Old Boy.

Citizen Kane: What a classic. I suppose you just have to see it when you want to call yourself cineast.

Linda Linda Linda: I wrote an incredibly long post on this, and we all are slice of life fans. So what should I say? ;)

Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit: Maybe my opinion is biased because I am a huge Wallace & Gromit fan and loved Chicken Run. Also, we had the opportunity to watch this in a movie theater. But hilarity ensues.

Brick: My very first “noir”, and at least part of my top 10 on Facebook. So atmospheric, sexy and intense. Arr.

Manhattan: Possibly the best Woody Allen ever – after all, Match Point only wins by nostalgy factor.

Go: It’s been ages since I watched this, and anti-korean sentiments make me facepalm all the time, but that is what made this film brilliant.

Films I would recommend with reservation
Two Days in Paris: This is so Julie Delpy! How can one not like this film even though it’s so incredibly, incredibly flawed. I even want to watch this film again for some reason (after all, I didn’t even blog about it. O.o)

Zodiac: I enjoyed it although I somewhat felt bored all the time. Let’s say that this film was very weird without being weird at all.

Metropolis: It’s a Fritz Lang, and the concept of the city are plain brilliant, but the story was disappointing after the gripping psychological depth of “M”.

Films I don’t recommend
Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance: When I watched this back then, I found the story pointless and needlessly gory. What the heck?

Sophie’s World: I watched this film because I loved the book as a little child (like everyone), but this adaptation is plain stupid. The only good scene was when Sophie kissed that guy, that looked cute.

Nackt: Brrr, stupid germans talking about relationships, brrr.

Films that I suppose I should watch
I love how this film mainly consists of meaning- and thoughtful films. I approve.

400 Blows (“Sie küssten und sie schlugen ihn” is a beautiful german title, by the way)
Funny Games
Nightmare Before Christmas
Sunset Boulevard
Das Dorf meiner Träume
Die Siebtelbauern
The Constant Gardener
Lovers of the Arctic Circle
Three Colours: Blue
My Life Without Me
The Fearless Vampire Killers
Paris, Texas
Cookie’s Fortune
Au hasard Balthasar
Little Miss Sunshine
Les Amitiés particulières
Last Life in the Universe
Frühling, Sommer, Herbst, Winter und… Frühling
Stalker
Die Rückkehr
Caché
Abril Despedaçado
Rabbit-Proof Fence
Babettes gæstebud
Badlands
In the Mood for Love
La Vida Secreta De Las Palabras
The Wizard of Oz

Maybe one day, I will make a longer feature/page out of this or something, we’ll see. Here, we have a rough estimate of how much time I took to go through museums or exhibitions. Feel free to help my memory if you do not agree with this data at all (^.~ )

Paris

Louvre: 10 hours
Musée d’Orsay: 3-4 hours
Centre Pompidou: 3 hours
Panthéon: 15-30 minutes
Maison Victor Hugo: 15-30 minutes
Musée Picasso: 1.5-2 hours
Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie: 2 hours
Musée du Quai Branly: 1-1.5 hours
Palais de Tokyo: 1.5 hours
Ste-Chapelle: 15-30 minutes
Conciergerie: waste of time, but about 30 minutes
Grand Palais: 2-3 hours, depending on the exhibition
Musée Carnavalet: 2 hours
Espace Salvador Dalí: 1 hour
Orangerie: 1 hour
Musée Guimet des Arts Asiatiques: 3 hours
Musée des Arts et Métiers: 2 hours
Musée National de l’Histoire naturelle – Grande Galerie de l’Évolution: 2 hours
Musée National de l’Histoire naturelle – Galerie de Minéralogie et de Géologie: 1 hour
Basilique de St-Denis: 30 minutes
Musée de la Vie Romantique: 15 minutes
Musée de l’Érotisme: 3 hours
Jeu de Paume: 3 hours depending on exhibition
Invalides – Tombe de Napoléon: 30 minutes incl. audioguide tour
Invalides – Musées: 2 hours
Musée National du Moyen-Age/de Cluny: 1 hour
Musée Rodin: 2 hours
Musée de l’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris: 1 hour
Petit Palais: 2 hour
Musée de l’Homme: 2 hours

Madrid

Prado: 4 hours
Thyssen: 3 hours

London

British Museum: 3 hours
National Gallery: 4 hours
Madame Tussaud’s: 3 hours

Cairo

Egyptian Museum: 1 1/2 hours

Berlin

Technikmuseum: 5 hours
Jüdisches Museum: 2 hours
Neue Nationalgalerie: 1 1/2 – 2 hours, depending on the exhibition
Pergamonmuseum: 2 1/2 hours
Altes Museum: 45 minutes
Alte Nationalgalerie: 1 1/2 hours
Bauhaus-Archiv: 1 hour
Gemäldegalerie: 3 hours
Holocaust-Mahnmal: 1 hour

In conclusion, you can easily see that Paris made a museum person out of me and now I am planning to see many, many more. I’m slowly trying to think of other museums I have been to rather recently and will add them to the post…

Today, the weather was so great again so I decided to go over to the Parc Montsouris and write e-mails (and Facebook messages, eww). And I found the place where the american woman in “Paris Je T’aime” realized that she loves Paris!
I’m still sitting here and took two pictures with the iSight (too bad I forgot my camera XD): one when I came here and one right now.

As you can see, I have lots of plans… some of the restaurants are must-sees and others just alternatives – aah, it’s not easy to choose! Oh right, I should make myself clear about the legend:

Point: I have been to this place
Dark blue: I have been here and don’t plan to come again so soon
Aqua: I want to go there
Yellow: Places I have to take Pochi to
Red: Food
Kitty: Obligatory food places (will be replaced by Yarrkitties when I have visited them.)
Pins: Everything related to japanese culture *haha* (Mainly food, of course.)
Purple: My dormitory
Green: My university

Größere Kartenansicht

This map is far from being complete or perfect, but I felt like I accomplished something after compiling it! Haha…