Flipside Movie Emporium

[Jim Harper]

The original Dark Water is an excellent film. In many ways it's superior to Ring; Nakata improves on what he's already built, but that is the film's primary fault too, although a minor one. Definitely recommended.

I should be off to see the remake on Friday, with a reasonably open mind, I assure you.

[beltmann]

[Jim Harper]

[beltmann]

Say it with me: O-ver-ra-ted

Eric
_________________
"When I was in Barcelona they showed pornography on regular television. I'm assuming it's the same way in Mexico since they also speak Spanish." - IMDb user comment

[Jim Harper]

[beltmann]

[Jim Harper]

[beltmann]

[Jim Harper]

[Danny Baldwin]

[beltmann]

Undertow / David Gordon Green / USA / 2004

Since so many of its pleasures have to do with its ambience and rhythms, it seems somehow reductive to describe Undertow as a Southern drama about a struggling family invaded by a long-forgotten uncle. In fact, the movie is probably closer in spirit to a backwoods fable?peel back all that kitchen-sink realism and you?ll discover a lyrical, dark, gothic kingdom version of the American South, one where a story can involve the pursuit of literal gold coins and end at a figurative River Styx. David Gordon Green obviously has an affinity for inventing rich characters?as two brothers flee their treacherous uncle, they cross paths with a series of vivid people and places?and his brand of poetic realism reminded me of Night of the Hunter and especially The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

Eric
_________________
"When I was in Barcelona they showed pornography on regular television. I'm assuming it's the same way in Mexico since they also speak Spanish." - IMDb user comment

[beltmann]

7/11 ? 7/17/05

Features in preferential order:

Dark Water (Salles, USA 2005)

March of the Penguins (Jacquet, USA 2005)

Spite Marriage (Sedgwick, USA 1929)

The Conformist (Bertolucci, Italy 1970)

Ella Enchanted (O?Haver, USA 2004)

Free and Easy (Sedgwick, USA 1930)

Short films in chronological order:

Anthem (Augustine, USA 2004)

So Funny It Hurt: Buster Keaton & MGM (Brownlow and Bird, USA 2004)

March of the Penguins is a nonfiction film about a year in the life of an emperor penguin tribe, focusing almost exclusively on their reproduction process. I was fascinated to learn the details--especially that after the egg is produced, the father shields the egg until it hatches, literally waiting for months for the mother to return with food for the chick--and I was astonished by the footage, captured during Antarctica's harshest seasons. Presented not as exploration but as narrative, the footage is edited into a cutesy tale of parental devotion, which effectively works you over but also indicates what's off-beam about this documentary--it overpersonifies these birds, literally confusing instinct with a human version of love. It feels like watching Bambi being passed off as good zoology.

Free and Easy is Buster Keaton's first talkie, and one of the studio comedies he made for MGM, basically out of financial necessity. MGM demanded total obedience from its players, and viewed Keaton strictly as a performer-for-hire, rather than a multi-talented genius that had been churning out masterpieces as a maverick independent for a decade. The Free and Easy script, over which Keaton had no creative control, reduces him to a stupid buffoon--it's quite painful watching one of the great American artists suddenly become a dancing monkey for the studio factory. You can practically read the helpless discouragement on Keaton's face. The exuberance is certainly gone.

I'm a little surprised that Dark Water ended up being my favorite of the week, but it earns it.

Eric
_________________
"When I was in Barcelona they showed pornography on regular television. I'm assuming it's the same way in Mexico since they also speak Spanish." - IMDb user comment

[the night watchman]

[Danny Baldwin]

[a35mmlife]