Just watching Jackie Brown. It's a better movie than I remembered. I think when I watched it the first time I was looking for a similar experience to Pulp Fiction, and JB is a different beast. Totally different makeup and genes.
One thing I've always wondered: in American movies, you always have people sitting in cars "staking out" a place. And nobody ever notices them. Maybe cars in the US have special windows which make people inside invisible?
13 comments:
Hah! You could refer to the Hollywood movie industry in its totality as "A Study on Clichés".
There is a story that Luis Buñuel in his younger years developed a cardboard widget with holes on it through which smaller strips of cardboard could travel. The strips had markings on them referring to concepts and typical events in movie plots. There was also small openings showing other segments of the strips.
By adjusting the strips on the widget to reflect the initial setting of the plot, the widget would then tell you what happens in the rest of the film. This way, it was said, the widget could reliably predict the ending to any Hollywood film.
Mm, no. I think Quentin himself seems adolescent and abrasive in person, but I like his movies a lot. 'Specially Pulp Friction. Lots of poetry in the pictures and words.
Admittedly, similar to another hero of mine, Frank Miller (comics), he can't seem to do any work without violence in it. Which is very limited.
Adam, what's the anecdote?
Wow! Someone knowledgable about Buñuel. Yes, I had heard this anecdote (but don't have the book). Even if, possibly, a little coloured, the anecdote is quite telling. They didn't think of US films very highly, did they? :-)
Speaking of Buñuel, I have been trying to locate a VHS copy of "The Exterminating Angel" for over a year with no success. I've had a standing marketplace order at Amazon, with no results.
But just today I noticed that it will be released on DVD (PAL) on August 28th, 2006. Jiiihaaa! I've been looking forward to seeing this movie since the 70's.
I've ordered "That Obscure Object of Desire".
How about Bourgoisie? That's at least a title I recognize.
"Emanuelle Beart cavorting around naked with her goats in Manon des Sources"
.... I would NEVER watch a movie just because a pretty girls is nude in it!
Who am I kidding. If Hollywood wasn't in such a puritanical country and had more nudity, I would never leave my DVD player.
Actually, "Manon des Sources", and its first part "Jean de Florette", are very beautiful movies. Not only are they french movies light-years away from Hollywood, but they're adaptations of Marcel Pagnol's novels. Whether he wrote novels of direct movie scripts, Pagnol never made anything below very good. Poetic, humoristic... and the Manon naked scene is DOMAI-ish by excellence!
But you already knew that, Eolake, you dirty old man. (Well old in 6 years, as you confess in another post!) ;-)
I think Pagnol was a DOMAI precursor. He worshiped innocence, beauty, and love.
I WANT that synoptic chart widget thingie! Where can I find it on the web?
Me too!
I have no idea if it exists, or if there are photos of it, somewhere. As far as I know, it has always been just a story. But who knows?
Adam wrote: "... Dali ... being such an abject wanker!"
Huh? Would you mind elaborating a little? He certainly wasn't to everyone's liking, but you can't say that Un Chien Andalou and L'Age D'or aren't timeless masterpieces or that Dalí's contribution in them wasn't fundamental and irreplaceable.
For all I care, a person with Dalí's level of output in both quality and quantity has my permission to be any kind of "wanker" he fancies being. :-)
"The only difference between a madman and I, is that I am not mad" -- Dali
The limits between genius and madness really become blurry towards the extremes. Actually, Dali is seriously believed to have been a clinically delirious paranoid schizophren. (You have to admit some of his stuff could only have come from a very disturbed mind!)
Not to excuse some of his political positions, but trying to explain them. Some people have a different degree of accountability.
I remember one of the antics of Col. Kaddhafi in one recent Arab League summit. He arrived wearing white gloves, explaining-bragging that he "didn't want to get dirty by shaking the blood-tainted hands of some Arab leaders". In a way, it was hilarious, specially considering who's talking here!
You HAVE to admit, that guy doesn't have "the same kind of normality" as yours and mine. (Or yours, at least!)
I understand you, Adam. I just meant that when a person is clinically insane, their judgement MIGHT be understandably impaired.
(Lawyers will love me for saying that!)
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