Recently we've been trying to watch a lot more movies. I'm trying to "get caught up"... watch all those things that most people ended up seeing years ago while I was uh ... I'm not really sure what I was doing. I was probably talking on the phone all night. I was a social insomniac. Virginia Beach, Virginia not really being a bastion of culture, I didn't have much opportunity to see art house/non mainstream things. The Naro offered very limited runs of things. I saw "The Celuloid Closet" in that theatre when I was around 16/ 17 years old. But most of what they showed there were "gay" movies. Just as trite and boring and dumb headed as the "straight" counterparts they aped. Romantic Comedy is a blighted genre, even when the protagonists both have cocks. The "gay" movies were all predominantly male. Like lesbians didn't matter or were already represented in some way... which I can see.
Lawrence of Arabia on Friday night ("al Awrence is better"), then Through a Glass Darkly on Sunday. For Karl's birthday this year I got every Bergman movie I could find so we have a selection. We've watched other things too but I just can't remember now. Wonderful Days was great, but the subtitles were *terrible* and we just don't speak Korean. It was absolutely gorgeous though.
I've never been fond of Hitchcock... have I just not seen the right things?
Lawrence of Arabia on Friday night ("al Awrence is better"), then Through a Glass Darkly on Sunday. For Karl's birthday this year I got every Bergman movie I could find so we have a selection. We've watched other things too but I just can't remember now. Wonderful Days was great, but the subtitles were *terrible* and we just don't speak Korean. It was absolutely gorgeous though.
I've never been fond of Hitchcock... have I just not seen the right things?
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Aside from that, Suspicion is a personal Hitchcock favorite. Rope, Rear Window, The Man Who Knew Too Much, etc. - all good as well.
We've watched a bunch of other stuff lately though... Repo Man, Goodfellas, Bringing Out the Dead, Pistol Opera, Hitchhiker's Guide..., Pyrokinesis (Kurosufiya), House by the Cemetery, 2LDK, The Tenth Victim, Crash, plus some Lain, R.O.D. The TV, and other random anime stuff.
Also: Please promise me that, despite that amount of Bergman, you will not kill yourselves. :-)
I've been trying to force some classic / drama / artsy stuff into our DVD diet lately just because most of the time we're so tired or stressed out from work and other factors that we're more in the mood to simply be entertained. This means we usually end up watching the things that, while not necessarily "light" or "empty", aren't as dry, slow, heavy, or serious as other films. This isn't really a problem, but we *do* really enjoy these other films, so I feel like we take the easy way out most of the time and miss out on some amazing stuff.
I've also seen more classic / indie / art / foreign / etc. kinda movies than Holly has, so I feel even more compelled to work them in now and then so she can share these experiences. The best part is - she gets it. She knows that "Fight Club" isn't about guys beating each other up. She recognizes that Scarlett O'Hara is a manipulative little shit, not some idealized romantic role model. She gets Bergman, Verhoeven, Cronenberg, Scorsese, Kurosawa (be it Akira or Kiyoshi)... equally on a thematic/metaphoric level and an aesthetic/cinematic level. Like, more than anyone I've ever so much as hung out with, much less partnered with.
So I got that goin' for me... which is nice...
In the meantime, watch Bringing Up Baby. Funny movie. And it has a leopard!
I saw Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolfe but I've never seen The African Queen. My movie stuff is just... patchy. And there's no real rhyme or reason to it. Growing up in southern Virginia didn't help that, really.
I have to "try" not to work all night. If Karl doesn't make it a point to go into the other room and wait for me, I'd sit here and work ALL night. Honestly. I'm a little OCD about work. So it's definitely a matter of going out of my way to watch movies. If I didn't try to, I'd work for 16 hours then go to bed.
It's heresy to say it, but I also think that Hitchcock's methods have since been improved on, in the past 10 or 15 years - your tastes may be too spoiled on things like "The Usual Suspects" (very Hitchcocky) and good French cinema (a lot of those guys have Hitchcock down better than he did)
stuff.
I've seen Vertigo... which is indeed the saddest movie ever (without lapsing into bullshit like What Dreams May Come... which I think was produced by the population reduction movement. I mean I know *I* wanted to fucking kill myself).
I have such bizarre taste, but I'm not much of a "classic mystery" type and I've somehow gotten the idea that hitchcock is psycho, the birds, and then a bunch of 'who done it' stuff... which I know isn't the case. I like Polanski's brand of mystery... the kind that makes you feel clausterphobic, guilty, sad, and intrigued. Like not wanting to open the container that's been at the back of the fridge. You want to know what's in there... but you're scared of what it might be.
Haha.. I just reduced Polanski to mold. Heh.
Polanski creates the sexiest mold you'll ever see. I always find myself wanting to be in his movies for some reason -- not be an actor -- just live there... I'm sure that I'd get killed in the first 45 minutes or so, though...
I'm not much for the mysteries either -- it seems the British do it best, which somehow illustrates the problem with mysteries -- they smell like cheese and don't brush their teeeth (mysteries, I mean). But I do like mysteries that turn out to not be mysteries -- like Eco's books -- haven't seen too many movies like that, though-- can you think of any?
Session 9 is a great example, and even though I understand why people call it horror, I have a hard time placing it there becuase people think horror = zombies and/or gore and little else.
A lot of asian horror skirts that line too. Where it's creepy, stylish, but you don't really know what's going on. Cure is a great movie where, even at the end of things, you're still not really sure what exactly happened.
I think the only sort of thriller/mystery thing lately I've seen that I liked was Dirty Pretty Things, but that's becuase it was nothing at all like I expected it to be and everyone in the world when on and on about Audrey Tatou's nipple exposure in it that I expected it to be really fucking dumb.
I'm so not up on mysteries... that I don't think I can actually name one.
Glad I asked though, as I have never seen the movies that you mentioned and now I will. I must admit though, that, I am stupid, and am now intrigued at the thought of seeing Audrey Tatou's nipple.
I totally agree on the Asian front -- didn't think about that -- in fact, lotsa Anime touches on what I'm talking about -- a lot of the Ghost in the Shell stand alones focus on that very subject.
If you pile something simple beneath difficult philosophical/mathematical/scientific concepts, you have a mystery which really isn't a mystery -- the confusion enlightens you without
your realizing. You can't always even understand it to the point of being able to talk about it, but you feel smarter... and dumber...