weekend of 23rd, quick list

Akira.  Finally saw beginning to end.  Everybody as spectacular as every says, but we do get sore over long destruction sequences.

Midnight in Paris.  A nice idea,  but at times feels just like name dropping  celebs, and working too hard on its point.  Still,  beautiful Paris in the rain. 

How green is my valley.   I liked it,  very bleak coal mining period piece.  A bit surreal seeing malibu stand in for the Rhondda, and Roddy Macdowell age 13 filming less than a mile from the planet of the apes locations.

Ministry of Fear.   Fritz Lang noirish thriller with 5th columnists and Nazi sympathising Austrians in London. 

The French Dispatch

After seeing Clooney and Swinton in Michael Clayton yesterday,  I decided today I'd watch them in something else (I've recently seen Hail Ceasar, and was thinking Burn After Reading), but I spotted Swinton was in the new Wes Anderson.   Having recently had my third viewing of Grand Budapest Hotel, I figured I'd enjoy this one. 

Oh my goodness,  did I ever make the right move.   A few great laugh out loud scenes. But fantastic stories.  It's an anthology movie, each chapter another article from the magazine "The French Dispatch".  The visuals are just stunning, the humour is quirky and fun. The cast is great.

Not afraid to step into animation when needed. The sets move in and out of the wings like in a lavish stage play.  The 1.33:1 aspect ratio frees up space in screen for visuals outside the main narrative. The use of colour,  when used,  is delightful,  and the use of monochrome keeps the visuals clean and moody required.

I wish is bought,  not rented it as there's too much to get it all in the first half dozen viewings. 

O Brother, where art thou

As a re-watch I don't have much to add, but the soundtrack is a fun collection of songs. 

Great film

a quick list

Friday I finally got to see Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter.  Bitter sweet tale of a young woman's descent into depression,  and an escapist Treasure hunt against the backdrop of a claustrophobic Tokyo, and the frigid beauty of the welcoming but alien Minessota winter.

Saturday was Michael Clayton,  Tom Wilkinson and George Clooney in a nice little legal, chemical corporation cover up law case with hitmen and car bombs.

I also finally got to see Delicatessen. Probably the only Jeunet I hadn't seen up to this point.   Very similar in bleakness and style to Bigbug and Cite des enfants  perdu, maybe also Micmacs.  Absurdist farce, this time post apocalyptic. As opposed to the more light hearted Amélie and TSSpivet.

Argo

Bio pic about the rescue of American diplomats stuck in Iran in 1980.

Though a real story,  this plays like a Tom Clancy thriller.

Ben Afflek directed an starred.  I can see why everyone lives this movie when it came out. 

Wreckers

A kinda slow unravelling of a marriage.   It looks very much like a British independent film of the 70s, but is from 2011, making the camera work seem clumsy, not engaging.

Thr audio levels were all over the place on the stream,  I don't know if that was the directors intent,  but took away from the film. 

All I can say was Clare Foy's wardrobe was very British and very rural.

Skip it

Girl With Green Eyes (1964)

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058142/

Rita Tushingham in another fun coming of age movie. It's not as bold as A Taste of Honey, nor as polished in script or camera work. One thing that worked very well for me was the editing. I loved how a dialog would start, and every line was delivered in a different location with a different wardrobe, conveying how the story of a love develops over time as one long conversation.  It could have easily come off as clumsy continuity, but seemed like a nice way of taking a stage play, and adding a realistic timeline in the movie.