Raxivace's 2019 List of Movies or: (Goodbye to Neo-General Chat 3D)

[Eva Yojimbo]

Been a rough couple of days. There's a certain movie from a famous director that I've spent like five days trying to slog through and its been a real struggle.

When you first said this my first thought was "Satantango."

WTF is this blasphemy?

It's not that I hate the movie or anything, its just never been a personal favorite of mine and it leaves me kind of cold. It would never make a list of my top 100 or anything, though I wouldn't argue with people that rank it super high either.

Strange. That's one of those films like Rules of the Game where I think the brilliance is so blatantly obvious that I'm a bit confused when some people don't see it. Like, with most films--even masterpieces like 2001--I can get why they wouldn't appeal to certain people, cinephile or not, but 8 1/2 just seems like one of those "if you have any interest in film you probably love this." It's also one of those films I'm not sure I've ever read a bad thing about from cinephiles.

Huh, I must be confusing you with someone else then. I could have sworn I saw somebody at some point say Cloud Atlas was just The Fountain but worse... Can't remember who it could be now if it wasn't you.

Yeah, definitely wasn't me. I don't think I ever reviewed Cloud Atlas, but I remember saying pretty soon after watching it that it definitely warranted a rewatch and that I really liked it. Don't think I ever compared it to The Fountain (they're quite different films beyond the multiple storyline structure... and even then the actual structure is entirely different).

I did like The Fountain more, though. I've seen it three times and have ultimately settled on a 9/10. Gut-wise it's more a 9.5/10, but I do think there are some problems. Mainly, I don't really think the plot convolution adds much to the film. Like, it would've worked just as well if it had made it clear that the past/present were just the stories that each were writing about their present situation. And it is true that the melodramatic acting becomes both more obvious and less impactful upon rewatches (at least for me), but I still think the visuals/aesthetics carry the film so well that it ultimately doesn't hurt that much.

I dunno, I like how the ambiguity allows for other possible interpretations to exist, at least in theory.

Or perhaps another way to put is that without the convolution it keeps the film from being so easily reduced to just a single explanation like "The movie is about art therapy"- Not that I'm saying you're reducing the movie down to only that (I like that interpretation and think its totally valid), but if the movie just made that super explicitly clear then I think people would stop thinking about the movie altogether if they didn't have to work for an interpretation of their own. Just look at the reactions to mother! nowadays, and how the movie is "solved" and therefore not worth engaging with any further just because Aronofsky talked about some of the movies themes in an interview.

Anyways, more than anything I just found the contrast between the three eras themselves to be interesting and how they each dealt with death- with that mind whether there's specifically meta-fiction going or reincarnation shenanigans like I suggested or something else I haven't even though of isn't actually an aspect I feel strongly about one way or another.

The progression in the film from old world religion to modern science to new age-y spiritualism is perhaps telling of Aronofsky's beliefs too, now that I think about it.

That's an argument I've made before about the opacity of stuff like 2001, NGE, and Godard, so I definitely get the argument, but I think there are key differences. NGE and Godard are undeniably metafiction, so in metafiction you want the audience contemplating the themes, and making the plot confusion is one way to provoke those questions. 2001 may not be metafictional, but it's themes are essentially about encountering the unknown, and if that's the theme then provoking questions by not giving an easily digestible story is, again, the name of the game. I don't think The Fountain has themes that really need that kind of "I don't know what the fuck's going on so I'm going to really think about it." I also think that, far more than these other works, it's also much less explicitly theme-driven and much more about the characters and drama, and the characters and drama carry those themes just fine without the confusion because coping with death is quite obviously what the story is about.

Like I said, I don't think it destroys the film by any means, but in an odd way I do kinda feel like it makes it a bit (just a bit) pretentious, in that it seems like it's trying to provoke deep thought about themes that are already there on the surface and don't really go much deeper even if you do think about them. This is very much NOT how I feel about NGE or 2001 or most Godard films; which oftentimes seem almost inexhaustible in how much substance you can extract from them via analysis. With The Fountain I really do feel like it works best as an aesthetic audio-visual experience first and as a really emotional dealing-with-death melodrama second and then in a distant third is all the thematic stuff. Like, even if there is the controversy over whether the third section is real or just a story, I don't really think that adds all that much to it. Like, either way, I don't think it changes all that much even if it is just one or the other.

Anyway, we do seem to basically agree on the rest. :)

Trying to get to some posts done before Resident Evil 2 and Kingdom Hearts III take over my life for a while.

13. Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind (1984, Dir. Hayao Miyazaki) - Yeah I dunno what happened here. It took me an entire week to slog through this nonsense about how it's good for ugly insects to have overrun the world because, uh environmentalism or something. Even as a preachy allegory for the very real concerns about pollution in the modern world, this just seemed like very silly primitivism that makes James Cameron's Avatar merely silly primitivism look nuanced by comparison.

Before watching Nausicaa, I honestly thought I might like it and that it might be the movie to change my mind about Miyazaki and would help push me into finishing his filmography. Well I certainly want to finish Miyazaki off now alright, if only because he single-handedly ruined the movie watching pace I had going for 2019.

Gone are my glory days when I could watch a four hour film twice in two days... Miyzaki has drained me of all my power and ability.

Geez, I can't imagine anyone being THIS repulsed by any Miyazaki! TBH, I don't remember that much about Nausicaa. Mostly, I remember watching it and thinking of Akira, in that both were these epic, reputed-to-be-masterpiece mangas that were condensed into these messy, but aesthetically impressive films. I certainly wouldn't rank Nausicaa among Miyazaki's masterpieces, but I remember just enjoying the experience of it. I don't even remember thinking much about its environmental themes. Again, beyond Mononoke (and The Wind Rises, I guess), I don't think I've ever made much of Miyazaki's themes in general; not because they're not there, but because I think his real strength is an imaginative, magical world-creator. I get that the themes are there but, much like The Fountain, I don't think they ever go especially deep. In Mononoke they work largely because of how integrally it's woven into the film as allegory and how well-done the drama in that film is.

Anyway, for Miyazaki on a pure-fun level, I echo Lyndon's recommendation of Laputa. Actually, outside of Mononoke and Totoro, it's my favorite film of his. Strangely, though, it's probably his least beautiful or imaginative film, but it's undoubtedly the most purely entertaining plot of his filmography with a number of action/adventure set-pieces that are really exhilarating.

14. Notorious (1946, Dir. Alfred Hitchcock, Rewatch) - I think I realized my previous mistake with this movie. The first time I watched it, I took it more as a thriller with romantic elements, perhaps like The 39 Steps. That was wrong- in Notorious the plot is mostly an excuse for the classy, sexual drama to play out. The essay from the Criterion booklet really excellently talks about this.

This is easily one of Hitchcock's best films. Almost certainly the best performance he got out of Bergman and Grant.

I was also surprised how much this seems to recall other Hitchcock films. Claude Rains poisoning Bergman recalls the imagined murder plot in Suspicion (The use of the coffee or tea or whatever in this movie is very reminiscent of the “poisoned" milk in Suspicion), and Claude's relation with his mother even seems to foretell Psycho.

Yes! I've been saying this about Notorious for years! Besides Marnie, this is really Hitchcock at his psycho-sexual-drama best. People seem to get confused because it's set in the world of spys and agents that it's going to be more inline with Hitch's thrillers and then are often disappointed by the lack of any action or thrilling set-pieces; but all of its great moments are character-driven and executed with some of the most imaginative cinematic techniques of Hitch's career. It's also all really twisted in a way that I've never fully been able to put my finger on. I think the thing I really love about both Notorious and Marnie is just how fucked up all the characters/relationships are, and how so much of the source-tension seems unspoken, subdued, complex, and so tangled that it's difficult to fully articulate just where everyone's at. Like, Claude Rains is playing the "villain" here and he's arguably more sympathetic than Grant is!

I'll try Laputa, Mononoke, and Howl's at some point, I just feel way less motivated to watch through them now. I saw Spirited Away when I was a kid and didn't like it then, though that was with the English dub and cut up for television at that- I feel like I should give it a second chance.

Do Laputa next, because it would be a great palette-cleanser and be a good setup for the much darker/heavier Mononoke. I do feel Mononoke is his best film, but it's also really the fullest expression of his environmental themes so I don't think you need more of that after reacting so negatively to Nausicaa. I'll be shocked if you don't at least enjoy Laputa. TBH, I never fully warmed to Spirited Away. On the one hand, it's perhaps his most visually imaginative world, but I just don't quite feel the magic in it that I do with, say, Totoro, which is much more subdued and nuanced by comparison. Spirited Away has always seemed a bit... empty, for me. I can still love just experiencing the world, though.

20. The Blue Angel (German version, 1930, Dir. Josef von Sternberg) -

This was the first von Sternberg I saw and I was basically bored to tears. I just didn't get what the deal was at all. I've never seen it again, but my opinion on VS hasn't changed much watching his other sound features (silents were a different matter as I mentioned before).

22. The Favourite (2018, Dir. Yorgos Lanthimos) -

I recognized the dir. name, looked it up and realized he's the guy that did that Dogtooth movie that I hated. I kinda thought The Favourite looked interesting. What you say about the black comedy not landing well here is the same thing I thought about Dogtooth, but combine that with the cringiness of it trying to be uber-edgy. I guess the only great Greek filmmaker is still Theo Angelopolous.

[Eva Yojimbo]

Saw some films:

The Lincoln Lawyer (2011; Brad Furman) 10/10
Killer Joe (2011; William Friedkin) 10/10
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975; Milos Forman) 8/10
Point Break (1991; Kathryn Bigelow) 8/10
Robin Hood (2010; Ridley Scott) 7/10

Yes! Someone else who appreciates Killer Joe! I've been raving about that film for years and I don't think I've ever convinced anyone to watch it. It still seems like the perfect candidate to be a cult classic, but the cult hasn't come to it yet! Didn't care much for Lincoln Lawyer, though. It seemed like a pretty typical film of it's type, though probably a bit more interesting and better acted/directed. Haven't seen Cuckoo's Nest in a long time, but it was a favorite of my parents and it's really one of those films I didn't really connect with when I saw it at a rather young age. I might could appreciate it more now. Don't remember much of Point Break but it's another one I haven't seen for ~2 decades. I do remember thinking Robin Hood was rather underrated. It's marred by a messy script and messier direction/editing, but it has some great moments and some gorgeous cinematography that Scott doesn't have the patience to linger on enough (compared to, say, The Duellists).

Btw, am I the only one who loved Avatar?

I'd say I was on the border between like/love. I completely get the complaints about the story/plot, but again it's just a film whose world I enjoyed being in a lot. I think that kind of world building is a really underrated quality in filmmakers.

Throne of Blood (1957; Akira Kurosawa) my rating 8/10; imdb rating 8.1/10

The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976; John Cassavetes) my rating 9/10; imdb rating 7.5/10

I'm with Rax on Throne of Blood; too different from Ran to compare. I dearly love both and both are solid 9.5s. In some respects, they're almost like opposites, especially in how ToB feels so claustrophobic and Ran feels so expansive/epic. ToB also has this haunting tonal quality that's quite different than Ran's very vivid, expressive quality. Much of that's down to the B&W vs color cinematography, but it's also in how they're shot/edited. Kagemusha is almost like a middle-ground between them. I basically have all three of them at a 9.5 FWIW.

I'm also with Rax about Chinese Bookie, though I think my rating wasn't far off from yours (I think I gave it a 6.5 IIRC). I don't think Cassavetes works particularly well in genre films as he doesn't really understand what makes those genres work. He does fantastically well in character-driven dramas, but trying to turn genre films into character-driven dramas just doesn't work. Still, there's some quality writing and acting there.

Anyway... I've seen only 4 films this year. My ratings and short info on them:

Infernal Affairs (2002; Andrew Lau, Alan Mak) my rating 9/10; imdb rating 8.1/10
The Deep Blue Sea (2011; Terence Davies) my rating 8/10; imdb rating 6.3/10
xXx (2002; Rob Cohen) my rating 8/10; imdb rating 5.9/10
The Chronicles of Riddick (2004; David Twohy) my rating 7/10; imdb rating 6.7/10

If anyone is interested to hear something more about them, I can write a little bit. If not, that's okay too.

Only seen The Deep Blue Sea. Would be interested in hearing your thoughts. Terence Davies would be at or near the top of my "most underrated directors" list, but TDBS wasn't one of my favorites of his, though I still thought it good. He's done a few book adaptations and I often find he feels a bit too mannered and restrained in these. What made his "personal" trilogy of films so good (Trilogy, Distant Voices..., Long Day Closes) was that he combined these almost painfully personal films with this truly imaginative and immaculate cinematic craft. In his other films, most of the craft is still there but there's little of the emotional and thematic substance (at least, not much beyond what's just in the source material).

So I've finally finished Monster. Maybe I didn't understand everything what was going on in the series, but I can say that it is a fascinating series. As something which tries to analyze what is apsolute evil and where does it come from, I would say it is one of the best. At least in my opinion. It is certainly creepy at times and twisted. Very dark. Probaby nothing like last anime series I watched, Cowboy Bebop. That was fun, playful and creative. Anyway... I'm not sorry I watched Monster. Even though it maybe could have been somewhat shorter.

Anime series I've finished so far:

Cowboy Bebop
Neon Genesis Evangelion
Monster
Ergo Proxy
Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
Samurai X: Trust and Betrayal
Anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day
Clannad
Clannad: After Story
Paranoia Agent
Claymore
Serial Experiments Lain
Mushishi
Higurashi no naku koro ni
Texhnolyze
Revolutionary Girl Utena
Kino's Journey
His and Her Circumstances
Now and Then, Here and There
Haibane renmei
Elfen Lied

Cowboy Bebop, Neon Genesis Evangelion and Revolutionary Girl Utena are by far my favourite anime series.

Pretty close to my own list of animes seen! There's only a few here I haven't seen, but other than Escaflowne I can't immediately think of any I've seen that you haven't. For me, NGE stands alone at the top, and then Utena, Bebop, Texhnolyze, Haibane Renmei, and Paranoia Agent are on the second tier and I'd have difficulty definitively deciding between them. They all have their strengths and weaknesses.

I managed to see 230 movies and 5 anime series in 2018. Here are my top viewings. I will put an 'R' next to a movie which was a rewatch.

Now and Then, Here and There (1999-2000)
Princess Mononoke (1997) R
Sunshine (2007)
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) R
Django Unchained (2012) R
Avatar (2009)
Blue Jasmine (2013)
Being John Malkovich (1999)
Changeling (2008) R
Chungking Express (1994) R
The White Ribbon (2009)
Yojimbo (1961)
Cure (1997)
Hulk (2003) R
Cowboy Bebop (1998-1999)
Heathers (1988) R
Howl's Moving Castle (2004) R
Finding Nemo (2003)
Ratatouille (2007)
How to Train Your Dragon (2010)

These are the ones I've seen. If there's any you want to discuss just say so. :)

[Eva Yojimbo]

So I used to be really big into anime (obviously; look at my screen name). It started in high school; when some friends invited me to check out their anime club.. I hadn't heard of anime yet. And what were watching the first time I came? Evangelion, of course. Specifically, the episode with Toji and Unit 03. I was instantly hooked. Went to at least a dozen anime conventions over the next few years.

When I went to college, my school didn't have an anime club, so I founded one. Also got into Asian studies and took Japanese because of my interest. But my interest gradually declined, and now I just don't care about it at all, other than still liking my favorites from back then. Some favorites:

Evengelion (of course)
Trigun
Cowboy Bebop (but I liked it BEFORE it was broadcast and became popular in America!)
Serial Experiments Lain
Escaflowne
Akira
Child's Toy (though I never finished the whole show)
Golden Boy
Flame of Recca

Also love AMVs.

If you loved Lain, you really should check out Texhnolyze and Haibane Renmei. They're from the same guys (Ueda/ABe) who did Lain, and I actually prefer them to Lain. Texhnolyze is even darker/weirder than Lain but also (IMO) more emotionally involving (especially the end). Haibane Renmei is the opposite; it's this light, airy, beautiful, bittersweet work that's as close as anime gets to Ozu. I've often called the three of them the Divine Comedy of anime, with Lain being Purgatory, Texhnolyze being Inferno, and Renmei being Paradise.

Also, Utena is the Shojo version of NGE.

Escaflowne was the shit. It's the only anime other than Cowboy Bebop that I managed to get my parents into back in the day. I think I saw it a total of three times and I was equally entertained all three times. It still has probably the best plot-twist in the history of anime.

[Lord_Lyndon]

It's great hearing from you Eva, after a really long time! I have very fond memories of our discussions on imdb, especially our 'Full Metal Jacket' discussions which were quite epic. Also, I learned a lot from you by reading your posts and your reviews on different sites back in the day. For example, I would have never understood brilliance of something like 23rd Psalm Branch without your review. I also want to thank you for your wonderful recommendations back in the day (films and anime).

Someone else who appreciates Killer Joe! I've been raving about that film for years and I don't think I've ever convinced anyone to watch it. It still seems like the perfect candidate to be a cult classic, but the cult hasn't come to it yet!

Yeah, It is a great movie, wonderfully shot and acted. McConaughey was magnificent as 'Killer Joe'. Its imdb rating is not high, so I would say it is one of the most underrated films of all time. I don't know why it isn't more popular. Maybe it is too dark or disturbing for people, even though it plays like a dark comedy of sorts.

I think that kind of world building is a really underrated quality in filmmakers.

I agree. Miyazaki excels at this. If we talk about animated movies, of course. He is hardly underrated, though.

In some respects, they're almost like opposites, especially in how ToB feels so claustrophobic and Ran feels so expansive/epic.

Yeah... I was a bit off when I said some things about 'Throne'. It is an excellent film, but I still can't help but feel that it just isn't one of my favourite Kurosawa films. It doesn't help that I'm probably one of biggest fanboys of his masterpiece 'Ran', an epic and legendary film that is certainly a contender for the title of greatest film ever made. In my opinion, of course. I've seen Kagemusha and I like it a little bit more than Throne of Blood.

Only seen The Deep Blue Sea. Would be interested in hearing your thoughts.

I saw it, because just like you, I respect Davies as a filmmaker (I've seen Distant Voices a long time ago). As you know much better than me, his films are very formal, and aesthetically speaking they are masterpieces. His mise-en-scene and editing rhythm tend to evoke something reminiscent of human memories, which is one of the reasons why people react emotionally to his films. Correct me if I'm wrong so far. Things I liked in his film Deep Blue Sea is his evocative and moody cinematography which puts you in a lull, but also evokes time period quite beautifully. It is a very slow-paced movie, a character drama with a stunning performance by one of my favourite actresses, Rachel Weisz. But what I most like about the movie are its themes an questions it asks. The examination of social mores and position of women withing the society. And even more, some crucial questions it asks: 'What is true love?' What is true happiness and how to find it?' 'Why do we sometimes do things that hurt us and continue to do so even when we are aware of the consequences?' Anyway... That's what I got out of it.

[Lord_Lyndon]

Pretty close to my own list of animes seen! There's only a few here I haven't seen, but other than Escaflowne I can't immediately think of any I've seen that you haven't. For me, NGE stands alone at the top, and then Utena, Bebop, Texhnolyze, Haibane Renmei, and Paranoia Agent are on the second tier and I'd have difficulty definitively deciding between them. They all have their strengths and weaknesses.

To be honest, most anime series I've seen were recommended by you. The ones that weren't... I found them on imdb.

Now and Then, Here and There (1999-2000)
Princess Mononoke (1997) R
Sunshine (2007)
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) R
Django Unchained (2012) R
Avatar (2009)
Blue Jasmine (2013)
Being John Malkovich (1999)
Changeling (2008) R
Chungking Express (1994) R
The White Ribbon (2009)
Yojimbo (1961)
Cure (1997)
Hulk (2003) R
Cowboy Bebop (1998-1999)
Heathers (1988) R
Howl's Moving Castle (2004) R
Finding Nemo (2003)
Ratatouille (2007)
How to Train Your Dragon (2010)

These are the ones I've seen. If there's any you want to discuss just say so. :)

I would certainly like to hear your thoughts on these: Cure, Heathers, Howl's Moving Castle and Ratatuille.
Here are some my thoughts:
Cure (1997)-This is one of the most haunting, creepy and atmospheric films ever made. Kiyoshi Kurosawa seem to be a master at conjuring this kind of mood and ambiance. I would really like to hear what you thing about less popular Kurosawa as a director.
Heathers (1988)-Maybe the best teen movie and also a brilliant dark comedy. What also seemed to me is that the film tried to say something about society as a whole, using school as a sort of microcosm of the society. But I didn't quite get what, to be honest. Maybe you have some idea.
Howl's Moving Castle (2004)-I know you rated this one 7/10. I would just like to hear some general thoughts about the film, and if you agree that this film is a quite powerful anti-war statement.
Ratatuille (2007)- Would like to hear your rating. I think this one is one of the best animated films of all time, and a wonderful love letter to artists in general.

[Eva Yojimbo]

It's great hearing from you Eva, after a really long time! I have very fond memories of our discussions on imdb, especially our 'Full Metal Jacket' discussions which were quite epic. Also, I learned a lot from you by reading your posts and your reviews on different sites back in the day. For example, I would have never understood brilliance of something like 23rd Psalm Branch without your review. I also want to thank you for your wonderful recommendations back in the day (films and anime).

Awww, thanks. Great hearing from you too!

Someone else who appreciates Killer Joe! I've been raving about that film for years and I don't think I've ever convinced anyone to watch it. It still seems like the perfect candidate to be a cult classic, but the cult hasn't come to it yet!

Yeah, It is a great movie, wonderfully shot and acted. McConaughey was magnificent as 'Killer Joe'. Its imdb rating is not high, so I would say it is one of the most underrated films of all time. I don't know why it isn't more popular. Maybe it is too dark or disturbing for people, even though it plays like a dark comedy of sorts.

It's absolutely a dark comedy, but it also plays pretty well as a drama. I half-suspect that it's one of those films that people get confused about tonally and aren't quite sure what to make of it. I love it precisely because of how outrageous it is, but without forgetting about the craft in the process. Lots of outrageous films just try to get by without much thought/effort put into everything else, so it's nice seeing one that has this noir-ish style to it.

In some respects, they're almost like opposites, especially in how ToB feels so claustrophobic and Ran feels so expansive/epic.

Yeah... I was a bit off when I said some things about 'Throne'. It is an excellent film, but I still can't help but feel that it just isn't one of my favourite Kurosawa films. It doesn't help that I'm probably one of biggest fanboys of his masterpiece 'Ran', an epic and legendary film that is certainly a contender for the title of greatest film ever made. In my opinion, of course. I've seen Kagemusha and I like it a little bit more than Throne of Blood.

I guess how you feel about Throne is always how I've felt about Rashomon. Though I get what the big deal about it is, I've never really fully connected with it. Kagemusha feels like Kurosawa really trying to write/direct his own Shakespeare film. I almost feel it even feels more Shakespearean than Throne and Ran.

Only seen The Deep Blue Sea. Would be interested in hearing your thoughts.

I saw it, because just like you, I respect Davies as a filmmaker (I've seen Distant Voices a long time ago). As you know much better than me, his films are very formal, and aesthetically speaking they are masterpieces. His mise-en-scene and editing rhythm tend to evoke something reminiscent of human memories, which is one of the reasons why people react emotionally to his films. Correct me if I'm wrong so far. Things I liked in his film Deep Blue Sea is his evocative and moody cinematography which puts you in a lull, but also evokes time period quite beautifully. It is a very slow-paced movie, a character drama with a stunning performance by one of my favourite actresses, Rachel Weisz. But what I most like about the movie are its themes an questions it asks. The examination of social mores and position of women withing the society. And even more, some crucial questions it asks: 'What is true love?' What is true happiness and how to find it?' 'Why do we sometimes do things that hurt us and continue to do so even when we are aware of the consequences?' Anyway... That's what I got out of it.

I think you're pretty much dead-on about what makes Davies a great filmmaker. I wrote pretty long reviews for both Distant Voices and Trilogy back in the day and even went into describing how his technique seems to closely evoke how memory works through associative (rather than linear) editing. I do agree about DBS on the aesthetic level, but it didn't pull me into the drama as much. It's still an excellent film though, and I do think you're right about the themes it touches on. I think it still got an 8/10 from me (so it's only a "disappointment" compared to the 10 and 9.5s that are Trilogy, Distant Voices, and Long Day Closes).

I would certainly like to hear your thoughts on these: Cure, Heathers, Howl's Moving Castle and Ratatuille.
Here are some my thoughts:
Cure (1997)-This is one of the most haunting, creepy and atmospheric films ever made. Kiyoshi Kurosawa seem to be a master at conjuring this kind of mood and ambiance. I would really like to hear what you thing about less popular Kurosawa as a director.
Heathers (1988)-Maybe the best teen movie and also a brilliant dark comedy. What also seemed to me is that the film tried to say something about society as a whole, using school as a sort of microcosm of the society. But I didn't quite get what, to be honest. Maybe you have some idea.
Howl's Moving Castle (2004)-I know you rated this one 7/10. I would just like to hear some general thoughts about the film, and if you agree that this film is a quite powerful anti-war statement.
Ratatuille (2007)- Would like to hear your rating. I think this one is one of the best animated films of all time, and a wonderful love letter to artists in general.

Cure is probably the best of the K. Kurosawa's I've seen. I don't remember it in detail, but I do recall really liking the creepy vibe it evoked and how it was kind of an allegory for subliminal social influence. However, it was also one of those I think suffered a bit from being a bit too cool/chilly/distant, kinda the problem I have with most of Melville's films. I think with thrillers there's a fine line between being cool and frigid, and Cure was a bit too far on the right end. Still, it does a lot of stuff really well so I can't fault it too much. I think I gave it a 7.5.

Heathers is one of those films I watched in my teens when I was watching a lot of 80s teen movies in general. Unlike the more popular films of the genre (Breakfast Club, eg) they haven't rerun it on TV much so I haven't watched it since then, but I do remember quite liking it. It did seem a bit different from the other films of the genre, but I certainly wasn't sophisticated enough back then to read any thematic substance into it!

Actually, Howl's has grown in my mind a lot since I first saw it. I think I'd at least bump it to an 8/10 by now. I do think it's one of Miyazaki's most beautiful, imaginatively crafted worlds, but I couldn't quite connect with the story the first time I saw it. Still, like most Miyazaki's the feeling of being in that world lingers long after you forget what the story is even about. I can definitely see how it could be read as a strong anti-war statement, but I still feel like Mononoke and The Wind Rises are more substantial takes on that subject.

I think I gave Ratatouille an 8.5, but I'm a pretty big Pixar fanboy and love (to varying degrees) just about everything they do. Ratatouille didn't quite hit me in the feels like Toy Story 3 or Up did; and I don't think it was quite as well crafted as Wall-E or Nemo, but I'd probably put it on that second tier of great Pixar films along with The Incredibles and Monster's Inc.

[Raxivace]

When you first said this my first thought was "Satantango."

That one I have actually considered watching for a few years now. I probably will one of these days.

It's not quite as long but Jeanne Dielman is another one I'm tempted to finally sit down and get through, though I suspect I'll end up hating it.

Strange. That's one of those films like Rules of the Game where I think the brilliance is so blatantly obvious that I'm a bit confused when some people don't see it. Like, with most films--even masterpieces like 2001--I can get why they wouldn't appeal to certain people, cinephile or not, but 8 1/2 just seems like one of those "if you have any interest in film you probably love this." It's also one of those films I'm not sure I've ever read a bad thing about from cinephiles.

Yeah I dunno. I'd probably have to rewatch the movie to really put my finger on why it didn't connect with me.

Some masters just won't please everyone I guess. Like we both like Ford but a lot of young people seem to not care for him (Especially if that blowup on Twitter a few days ago about John Wayne is any indication).

That's an argument I've made before about the opacity of stuff like 2001, NGE, and Godard, so I definitely get the argument, but I think there are key differences. NGE and Godard are undeniably metafiction, so in metafiction you want the audience contemplating the themes, and making the plot confusion is one way to provoke those questions. 2001 may not be metafictional, but it's themes are essentially about encountering the unknown, and if that's the theme then provoking questions by not giving an easily digestible story is, again, the name of the game. I don't think The Fountain has themes that really need that kind of "I don't know what the fuck's going on so I'm going to really think about it." I also think that, far more than these other works, it's also much less explicitly theme-driven and much more about the characters and drama, and the characters and drama carry those themes just fine without the confusion because coping with death is quite obviously what the story is about.

Having had a bit more time away from the movie I think I agree with what you're saying more than I disagree in regards to the movie being a bit pretentious, especially since no real new interpretative strategies for the film have popped into my head or anything since watching it.

Still a hell of an experience to actually watch.

Geez, I can't imagine anyone being THIS repulsed by any Miyazaki!

Yeah I thought after some time away from the old man my feelings might have softened but nope. :(

TBH, I don't remember that much about Nausicaa. Mostly, I remember watching it and thinking of Akira, in that both were these epic, reputed-to-be-masterpiece mangas that were condensed into these messy, but aesthetically impressive films. I certainly wouldn't rank Nausicaa among Miyazaki's masterpieces, but I remember just enjoying the experience of it. I don't even remember thinking much about its environmental themes. Again, beyond Mononoke (and The Wind Rises, I guess), I don't think I've ever made much of Miyazaki's themes in general; not because they're not there, but because I think his real strength is an imaginative, magical world-creator. I get that the themes are there but, much like The Fountain, I don't think they ever go especially deep. In Mononoke they work largely because of how integrally it's woven into the film as allegory and how well-done the drama in that film is.

My complaint about the environmental stuff isn't that it's there (Just to be clear, I'm not some climate change denier or anything), but that I feel too often people making movies about these themes always reduce the conflicts in them to black and white didactic tales where obviously anyone against the environmentalist protagonist is clearly evil and things aren't complicated at all.

Like I'm not sure Nausicaa is shown to have any kind of flaw in the film at all, during the entire run time. Not even flaws-that-aren't-actually-flaws even. She's right, she saves the day, everyone against her is clearly stupid and and couldn't possibly have a valid reason to be against the ugly bug monsters that have invested the planet and lol who wouldn't want to live under the danger of giant bugs etc.

It just feels one-dimensional even for this type of action/adventure movie.

The "world" of the movie didn't do that much for me either though considering Miyazaki's popularity and the age of the film I'll concede the possibility that I've seen a million things influenced by this (Particularly in anime and Japanese video games) and might not be impressed with that aspect of the film for that reason.

Yes! I've been saying this about Notorious for years! Besides Marnie, this is really Hitchcock at his psycho-sexual-drama best. People seem to get confused because it's set in the world of spys and agents that it's going to be more inline with Hitch's thrillers and then are often disappointed by the lack of any action or thrilling set-pieces; but all of its great moments are character-driven and executed with some of the most imaginative cinematic techniques of Hitch's career. It's also all really twisted in a way that I've never fully been able to put my finger on. I think the thing I really love about both Notorious and Marnie is just how fucked up all the characters/relationships are, and how so much of the source-tension seems unspoken, subdued, complex, and so tangled that it's difficult to fully articulate just where everyone's at. Like, Claude Rains is playing the "villain" here and he's arguably more sympathetic than Grant is!

Yeah it definitely is not one of the more conventional Hitchcock spy films, that's for sure.

I wonder whether Grant is worse than Rains though (If we ignore the Nazi thing for a moment anyways). When I last watched the movie it occurred to me though that the poisoned tea (Or coffee or whatever the drink was) is probably a parallel to your wine bottle motif that you tracked throughout the movie- i.e. both beverages connected to men that are offered to Bergman. The poisoned drink even made the original DVD cover of the Criterion release it is so significant.



However thinking about it, Bergman starts the movie as an alcoholic. Or with a drinking problem anyways, as we see in the party scene at the beginning. Won't the drink that Grant offers be as potentially destructive as the literal poison she ingests from Rains?

That the uranium is ultimately hidden in wine too as a part of the plot takes on an interesting thematic significance. Is that not, metaphorically, what Bergman will be drinking by staying with Grant?

Also I really have to rewatch Marnie. Before I thought Hitchcock was endorsing some of the grosser actions of the Sean Connery character in that movie (And the whole thing between Hitchcock and Tippi Hedren herself makes it hard not to at least consider that part of the movie), but I suspect in reality there are more complications there than I was giving credit for.

Do Laputa next, because it would be a great palette-cleanser and be a good setup for the much darker/heavier Mononoke. I do feel Mononoke is his best film, but it's also really the fullest expression of his environmental themes so I don't think you need more of that after reacting so negatively to Nausicaa. I'll be shocked if you don't at least enjoy Laputa. TBH, I never fully warmed to Spirited Away. On the one hand, it's perhaps his most visually imaginative world, but I just don't quite feel the magic in it that I do with, say, Totoro, which is much more subdued and nuanced by comparison. Spirited Away has always seemed a bit... empty, for me. I can still love just experiencing the world, though.

Yeah I'll check out Laputa at some point I guess. I know people rank Mononoke highly (I think it even tied with End of Evangelion in some big awards thing in Japan back in 1997?), but if its just anime Ferngully again I'll be a bit bummed.

I do think environmental issues are hugely important but again, I feel like I haven't seen any kind of fiction film that really deals with it in a nuanced, serious way, instead arriving at silly solutions like giving up all of civilization, let's go live in the forest lol.

This was the first von Sternberg I saw and I was basically bored to tears. I just didn't get what the deal was at all. I've never seen it again, but my opinion on VS hasn't changed much watching his other sound features (silents were a different matter as I mentioned before).

Yeah even though I liked the movie more than you I really doubt von Sternberg will ever by one of my favorites.

I recognized the dir. name, looked it up and realized he's the guy that did that Dogtooth movie that I hated. I kinda thought The Favourite looked interesting. What you say about the black comedy not landing well here is the same thing I thought about Dogtooth, but combine that with the cringiness of it trying to be uber-edgy. I guess the only great Greek filmmaker is still Theo Angelopolous.

FWIW a lot of cinephile types seemed to really like The Favourite. Among that crowd, I appear to be in the minority.

Some of his other movies have gotten decent critical reception too. I know people were really into that Killing of a Sacred Deer movie, though I never saw that one.

[Raxivace]

Escaflowne was the shit. It's the only anime other than Cowboy Bebop that I managed to get my parents into back in the day. I think I saw it a total of three times and I was equally entertained all three times. It still has probably the best plot-twist in the history of anime.

If you're talking about the one I think you're talking about then I think I might agree. It definitely caught me off guard.

[Eva Yojimbo]

When you first said this my first thought was "Satantango."

That one I have actually considered watching for a few years now. I probably will one of these days.

It's not quite as long but Jeanne Dielman is another one I'm tempted to finally sit down and get through, though I suspect I'll end up hating it.

I always highly recommend people watch one of Tarr's normal-length films first. His style is the same in all of them, so if you don't like one of his shorter films there's no reason to sit through one film that's the length of three long ones. Of his normal-lengths, I think Werckmeister Harmonies is the best, but Damnation is probably the film closest to Satantango. By the Turin Horse he really seems to be getting more metaphysical/Tarkovsky-esque compared to the socio-political leanings of Satantango.

Like we both like Ford but a lot of young people seem to not care for him (Especially if that blowup on Twitter a few days ago about John Wayne is any indication).

What's this Twitter blowup you refer to?

Having had a bit more time away from the movie I think I agree with what you're saying more than I disagree in regards to the movie being a bit pretentious, especially since no real new interpretative strategies for the film have popped into my head or anything since watching it.

Still a hell of an experience to actually watch.

Yes! THAT's the reason you watch The Fountain! In a way it reminds me of another underrated modern "experience" film like Into the Void.

My complaint about the environmental stuff isn't that it's there (Just to be clear, I'm not some climate change denier or anything), but that I feel too often people making movies about these themes always reduce the conflicts in them to black and white didactic tales where obviously anyone against the environmentalist protagonist is clearly evil and things aren't complicated at all.

Like I'm not sure Nausicaa is shown to have any kind of flaw in the film at all, during the entire run time. Not even flaws-that-aren't-actually-flaws even. She's right, she saves the day, everyone against her is clearly stupid and and couldn't possibly have a valid reason to be against the ugly bug monsters that have invested the planet and lol who wouldn't want to live under the danger of giant bugs etc.

It just feels one-dimensional even for this type of action/adventure movie.

The "world" of the movie didn't do that much for me either though considering Miyazaki's popularity and the age of the film I'll concede the possibility that I've seen a million things influenced by this (Particularly in anime and Japanese video games) and might not be impressed with that aspect of the film for that reason.

If your big problem with the themes is the one-dimensional presentation then I do have a feeling you'll like Mononoke more, as it's much more complex and nuanced in its interpretation. The "war" between the forest spirits/animals and the humans destroying their environment are both presented as being sympathetic, and the protagonist is trying to mediate between all while having his own shit to deal with. In that film, the real "villain" is mostly kept off-screen as just something people refer to.

Yeah, if the world of Nausicaa didn't appeal to you then there's not much else I could say to defend it.

Yeah it definitely is not one of the more conventional Hitchcock spy films, that's for sure.

I wonder whether Grant is worse than Rains though (If we ignore the Nazi thing for a moment anyways). When I last watched the movie it occurred to me though that the poisoned tea (Or coffee or whatever the drink was) is probably a parallel to your wine bottle motif that you tracked throughout the movie- i.e. both beverages connected to men that are offered to Bergman. The poisoned drink even made the original DVD cover of the Criterion release it is so significant.



However thinking about it, Bergman starts the movie as an alcoholic. Or with a drinking problem anyways, as we see in the party scene at the beginning. Won't the drink that Grant offers be as potentially destructive as the literal poison she ingests from Rains?

That the uranium is ultimately hidden in wine too as a part of the plot takes on an interesting thematic significance. Is that not, metaphorically, what Bergman will be drinking by staying with Grant?

Also I really have to rewatch Marnie. Before I thought Hitchcock was endorsing some of the grosser actions of the Sean Connery character in that movie (And the whole thing between Hitchcock and Tippi Hedren herself makes it hard not to at least consider that part of the movie), but I suspect in reality there are more complications there than I was giving credit for.

I wouldn't say Grant is WORSE than Rains, but I do think Rains comes off a bit more sympathetic on the surface if you don't think about it too hard. He's clearly in love with Bergman and probably cares more for her than his organization and, if anything, seems to be another Hitchcock "villain" like Norman Bates who's just being suffocate by his mother. It's hard not to sympathize with the "betrayal" he feels at the end. Meanwhile, Grant is clearly, throughout most of the film, putting his job in front of Bergman despite seeing first-hand what it's doing to her. Of course, in the end he does finally have the guts to rescue her, and that ultimately makes him more heroic than Rains, but just on an emotional level it's hard to feel like he actually cared more than Rains. Really good observation about the poisoned drink VS wine bottle. Never considered that, but I definitely think you're onto something!

Marnie is tough to read because I think superficially it seems like Hitch is endorsing the disgusting actions of Mark, but I think the closer you look the more the film complicates this. For one thing, the big revelation in the end about the cause of Marnie's mother being so "distant" to her was her being a prostitute, and the cause of Marnie's trauma was killing one of her mother's Johns who was a sailor there on shore-leave that tried to rape her mother. Despite the revelation, Marnie's mother still refuses to show her daughter affection, and the film ends with Marnie and Mark walking off together and, IIRC, the last shot of the film is of the harbor with that ship in the shot; basically a reminder of the sexual trauma that started everything, but now it's hovering over the entirety of Marnie and Mark's relationship. Not only that, but it seems to be suggesting that it's history repeating itself, that despite Mark saying he's trying to help Marnie, he's essentially done the same thing to her that the sailor did to her mother. This may seem like it's reading too much into one image, but this kind of doubling/mirroring between protagonists and villains is something that's all over Hitch's cinema; Spellbound, Strangers on a Train, and, as we discussed above, Notorious. So it's actually extremely likely (to me) that Hitch was intending us to draw the parallel between the sailor who raped Marnie's mother and Mark who raped Marnie. Then you try to read how much (if at all) the film justifies what Mark did only because he was trying to "help" Marnie. I think there's quite a lot of evidence that Mark is really just cloaking his lust and animal-like interest in Marnie under the guise of "helping her." The fact that he treats her like a caught animal is something she references and he actually acknowledges. Again with the mirroring, it seems like both Mark and Marnie have this thing with ownership-by-force; with Marnie it's literally stealing goods, with Mark it's ownership by manipulation, which is in itself indication that Mark is essentially treating Marnie as something less than human, as an animal or goods, as something to own.

One thing I love about Hitchcock's cinema--and it's very similar to Shakespeare's plays--is how they generally choose to dramatically present rather than to thematically editorialize. The fact that they just present these very fucked up characters that are neither wholly-good or wholly-bad, who do fucked up things to each other but often have their semi-sympathetic reasons for why they're doing it, without the films ever making any explicit moral condemnation beyond the general lingering feeling that not all's right with the world. Of course, I do think it's fine for art to take moral stances against things that need moral stances taken, but the real world is full of people and situations that contain a lot of good and bad mixed together, so we also need artists like Hitch and Shakespeare who are willing to present that mixed-the-fuck-uppery without moralizing all the time, and usually the work is all the richer because of it.

EDIT: I'm really an idiot. It just occurred to me after all these years of discussing Marnie that the fucking rape scene happens on their honeymoon CRUISE! Of course Hitch was drawing parallels between Connery and the original rapist/sailor that began the trauma. Can't believe it took me that long to realize it, but for some reason I'd forgotten that scene happened on a boat!

I recognized the dir. name, looked it up and realized he's the guy that did that Dogtooth movie that I hated. I kinda thought The Favourite looked interesting. What you say about the black comedy not landing well here is the same thing I thought about Dogtooth, but combine that with the cringiness of it trying to be uber-edgy. I guess the only great Greek filmmaker is still Theo Angelopolous.

FWIW a lot of cinephile types seemed to really like The Favourite. Among that crowd, I appear to be in the minority.

Some of his other movies have gotten decent critical reception too. I know people were really into that Killing of a Sacred Deer movie, though I never saw that one.

I was in the minority for not liking Dogtooth as well. Black comedies tend to be like quirky comedies in that I seem to either really love them or really hate them and there's not much in between.

[Lord_Lyndon]

I guess how you feel about Throne is always how I've felt about Rashomon.

Not that it is a particularly important fact, but I love Rashomon. I've given it 9/10 on imdb. If I rated it on importance alone, I would have given it 10/10. I'm going to check later how many 10/10's I've given to Kurosawa and I'll post it.

However, it was also one of those I think suffered a bit from being a bit too cool/chilly/distant, kinda the problem I have with most of Melville's films.

Me too. I saw Army of Shadows and The Red Circle last year. Good films, but it seems I don't respond quite well to his 'detached' style of filmmaking. I do love his 'Le Samourai', though. One short comment on The Red Circle: its power has been diluted by countless other heist movies over the years. Which takes me to Seven Samurai. Many samurai films have been made after it. And despite that, his film still feels so fresh. For that alone Kurosawa deserves credit.

I can definitely see how it could be read as a strong anti-war statement, but I still feel like Mononoke and The Wind Rises are more substantial takes on that subject.

I understand. Howl is certainly a mess of a film, but it works beautifully for me nonetheless. My ratings for Mononoke and Wind:
Princess Mononoke 10/10
The Wind Rises 8.5/10

Thanks for your comments on these 4 films.

[Lord_Lyndon]

Kurosawa films I've rated 10/10:
Ikiru
Seven Samurai
Yojimbo
Sanjuro
High and Low
Ran

[Raxivace]

Kurosawa films I've rated 10/10:
Ikiru
Seven Samurai
Yojimbo
Sanjuro
High and Low
Ran

I do love all of these, though I also loved Rashomon and Dersu Uzala.

With High and Low though, I feel the second half isn't quite as good as the first half. I feel like the investigation into the criminal character just isn't as compelling as the dilemma the Mifune character faces in the first half. I think I would like it more if the actual criminal character felt like he had just a bit more to him- as it is though, with the second half ostensibly focusing on him he feels slightly underwritten to me.

How do you feel about Red Beard? I've seen a lot of people online consider it a masterpiece, but I've never thought it worked too well. I don't think Jimbo cared much for it either, and I'm not sure where maz stands on it.

[Eva Yojimbo]

I guess how you feel about Throne is always how I've felt about Rashomon.

Not that it is a particularly important fact, but I love Rashomon. I've given it 9/10 on imdb. If I rated it on importance alone, I would have given it 10/10. I'm going to check later how many 10/10's I've given to Kurosawa and I'll post it.

Kurosawa films I've rated 10/10:
Ikiru
Seven Samurai
Yojimbo
Sanjuro
High and Low
Ran

You're more liberal with your 10s than I am! Only Kurosawa films I've rated a 10 were Seven Samurai and Ikiru. 9.5s were the trio mentioned earlier. Then 9s are Yojimbo and High & Low (I'd probably bump Dersu Uzala to 9 with a Criterion release). FWIW, I've only given a handful of filmmakers more than two 10s (In fact, only two that spring to mind are Bergman and Hitchcock).

However, it was also one of those I think suffered a bit from being a bit too cool/chilly/distant, kinda the problem I have with most of Melville's films.

Me too. I saw Army of Shadows and The Red Circle last year. Good films, but it seems I don't respond quite well to his 'detached' style of filmmaking. I do love his 'Le Samourai', though. One short comment on The Red Circle: its power has been diluted by countless other heist movies over the years. Which takes me to Seven Samurai. Many samurai films have been made after it. And despite that, his film still feels so fresh. For that alone Kurosawa deserves credit.

Red Circle is the only (major) Melville I haven't seen. Of the others I probably liked his rather-unknown Leon Morin, Priest the best. In that film, the cool presentation reminded me a lot of Bresson and I actually thought it worked well. I also quite liked Army of Shadows but the others I've just respected the craft. I certainly agree about the difference between them and something like Seven Samurai.

[Raxivace]

I always highly recommend people watch one of Tarr's normal-length films first. His style is the same in all of them, so if you don't like one of his shorter films there's no reason to sit through one film that's the length of three long ones. Of his normal-lengths, I think Werckmeister Harmonies is the best, but Damnation is probably the film closest to Satantango. By the Turin Horse he really seems to be getting more metaphysical/Tarkovsky-esque compared to the socio-political leanings of Satantango.

Alright I'll try one of those shorter ones first then. I still probably will watch Satantango at some point though since a guy I used to know was really into it.

What's this Twitter blowup you refer to?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-ent ... 7e4b68c213

Criticizing Wayne for his terrible views is fine (Though I question how fruitful it is), but it got to a point where I saw people complaining that Stagecoach shouldn't even be in the Criterion Collection, that obviously none of Wayne's work has any artistic merit, that Ford's movies were all terrible and were clearly all Manifest Destiny bullshit because, obviously, all westerns are the same etc.

I don't visit Twitter very often for a reason.

Yes! THAT's the reason you watch The Fountain! In a way it reminds me of another underrated modern "experience" film like Into the Void.

Can't say I'm familiar with Into the Void. Sounds like a recommend from you though.

If your big problem with the themes is the one-dimensional presentation then I do have a feeling you'll like Mononoke more, as it's much more complex and nuanced in its interpretation. The "war" between the forest spirits/animals and the humans destroying their environment are both presented as being sympathetic, and the protagonist is trying to mediate between all while having his own shit to deal with. In that film, the real "villain" is mostly kept off-screen as just something people refer to.

Yeah that sounds waaaay more interesting to me than what I was seeing in Nausicaa. Hopefully I will be able to enjoy it.

I wouldn't say Grant is WORSE than Rains, but I do think Rains comes off a bit more sympathetic on the surface if you don't think about it too hard. He's clearly in love with Bergman and probably cares more for her than his organization and, if anything, seems to be another Hitchcock "villain" like Norman Bates who's just being suffocate by his mother. It's hard not to sympathize with the "betrayal" he feels at the end.

Ah okay, that's what you meant by sympathetic. It's interesting though that Rains is the one who can't seem to escape the confines of his organization (And his mother too I guess) while Grant is able to do so with the organization that's binding him.

Really good observation about the poisoned drink VS wine bottle. Never considered that, but I definitely think you're onto something!

Thanks!

I had your post about the wine bottles from a while back while rewatching the movie last, which helped me see the movie in a different way.

Not only that, but it seems to be suggesting that it's history repeating itself, that despite Mark saying he's trying to help Marnie, he's essentially done the same thing to her that the sailor did to her mother. This may seem like it's reading too much into one image, but this kind of doubling/mirroring between protagonists and villains is something that's all over Hitch's cinema; Spellbound, Strangers on a Train, and, as we discussed above, Notorious. So it's actually extremely likely (to me) that Hitch was intending us to draw the parallel between the sailor who raped Marnie's mother and Mark who raped Marnie. Then you try to read how much (if at all) the film justifies what Mark did only because he was trying to "help" Marnie. I think there's quite a lot of evidence that Mark is really just cloaking his lust and animal-like interest in Marnie under the guise of "helping her." The fact that he treats her like a caught animal is something she references and he actually acknowledges. Again with the mirroring, it seems like both Mark and Marnie have this thing with ownership-by-force; with Marnie it's literally stealing goods, with Mark it's ownership by manipulation, which is in itself indication that Mark is essentially treating Marnie as something less than human, as an animal or goods, as something to own.

I'd have to rewatch the movie to be certain, but this all fits so well that it would be weirder if it were some kind of coincidence to have that boat imagery in the ending associated with Connery's character.

Its certainly in line with what Hitch was doing in Vertigo just a few years earlier too even- perhaps you could even consider Mark to be the Scottie Ferguson character pushed to the next level. Maybe that's partially why I even took a negative reaction the first time- Hitch doing too good of a job with Mark lol.

One thing I love about Hitchcock's cinema--and it's very similar to Shakespeare's plays--is how they generally choose to dramatically present rather than to thematically editorialize. The fact that they just present these very fucked up characters that are neither wholly-good or wholly-bad, who do fucked up things to each other but often have their semi-sympathetic reasons for why they're doing it, without the films ever making any explicit moral condemnation beyond the general lingering feeling that not all's right with the world. Of course, I do think it's fine for art to take moral stances against things that need moral stances taken, but the real world is full of people and situations that contain a lot of good and bad mixed together, so we also need artists like Hitch and Shakespeare who are willing to present that mixed-the-fuck-uppery without moralizing all the time, and usually the work is all the richer because of it.

And like Shakespeare's plays, all of Hitchcock's films were actually made by the Earl of Oxford. As an undead lich man, he's been roaming the land for centuries now, secretly making great art but not taking credit for it.

Anyways I think I'm generally better now about being able to identity movies that "dramatically present" compared to when I first saw Marnie (Which according to my notes was all the way back in 2011- that's nearly a hundred years ago) and taking them on their own terms. As I get better about this thing though I get frustrated when online I see what feels like people moving into the opposite direction- some of that I just chalk up to how politically turbulent the last couple of years have been, though part of me wonders if there are generational differences or something in regards to art appreciation.

[Lord_Lyndon]

With High and Low though, I feel the second half isn't quite as good as the first half.

I loved the second part of High and Low because to me it is an aesthetic pleasure. It is brilliantly directed. And it rarely happens that so many images from film remain so vivid in my memory. I do agree that the first half is better. I love it because the dilemma Mifune's character faces is integrated in the visual narrative of the film. So in a way, it is a perfect marriage of form and content.

How do you feel about Red Beard? I've seen a lot of people online consider it a masterpiece, but I've never thought it worked too well. I don't think Jimbo cared much for it either, and I'm not sure where maz stands on it.

I haven't seen Red Beard. I was never much of a completionist, to be honest.

[Lord_Lyndon]

FWIW, I've only given a handful of filmmakers more than two 10s (In fact, only two that spring to mind are Bergman and Hitchcock).

I've given multiple 10/10's to Kubrick, Miyazaki, Bergman, Hitchcock, Godard.

[Eva Yojimbo]

What's this Twitter blowup you refer to?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-ent ... 7e4b68c213

Criticizing Wayne for his terrible views is fine (Though I question how fruitful it is), but it got to a point where I saw people complaining that Stagecoach shouldn't even be in the Criterion Collection, that obviously none of Wayne's work has any artistic merit, that Ford's movies were all terrible and were clearly all Manifest Destiny bullshit because, obviously, all westerns are the same etc.

I don't visit Twitter very often for a reason.

Can't say I'm surprised about Wayne's comments, though I am a bit surprised he was so open about them. People transferring their hatred of the actor onto the films they made is a pretty classical example of not separating the artist from the art, and makes even less sense given how little actors have to do with with a film's stories/themes or general "artistic merit." Even sillier that they'd start talking shit about John Ford.

Yes! THAT's the reason you watch The Fountain! In a way it reminds me of another underrated modern "experience" film like Into the Void.

Can't say I'm familiar with Into the Void. Sounds like a recommend from you though.

Ooops, realized I fucked up the title: it's "Enter the Void," the Gaspar Noe film. The "philosophy" in it is batshit silly reincarnation stuff, but it's quite original seeing the entire film from the perspective of a disembodied spirit, and the ending is equal parts beautiful and gross.

Really good observation about the poisoned drink VS wine bottle. Never considered that, but I definitely think you're onto something!

Thanks!

I had your post about the wine bottles from a while back while rewatching the movie last, which helped me see the movie in a different way.

Good to know!

I'd have to rewatch the movie to be certain, but this all fits so well that it would be weirder if it were some kind of coincidence to have that boat imagery in the ending associated with Connery's character.

Its certainly in line with what Hitch was doing in Vertigo just a few years earlier too even- perhaps you could even consider Mark to be the Scottie Ferguson character pushed to the next level. Maybe that's partially why I even took a negative reaction the first time- Hitch doing too good of a job with Mark lol.

Don't know if you saw my edit, but I'd completely forgotten that Mark's rape of Marnie actually happens on a ship (their Honeymoon cruise), so that connection between the original rapist and Mark makes even more sense. Can't believe I've spent all these years talking about the film and I'd forgotten about that! LOL

The Mark/Scottie comparison is interesting. I've never really thought about it before but there are definitely some interesting parallels and differences. Scottie is bewitched by a fantasy woman and then tries to forcefully remake the real woman into his fantasy only to relive his tragedy for real the second time. Mark is bewitched by a real but messed-up woman that he tries to forcefully remake into an ideal woman while making her relive the tragedy that messed her up to begin with. I always thought what was so haunting and even terribly pessimistic about Vertigo was the notion that even once we discover the truth and face our fears and disillusionment that we're still often powerless to change things; the nun that appears as the "shadowy demon" that causes Judy to fall is basically the embodiment of the "shadowy demon" that's hung over Scottie's head the entire film, with the Vertigo being a kind of defense mechanism from realizing the truth. Marnie seems quite similar but with the fantasy/reality dichotomy replaced with intent-to-harm/intent-to-help dichotomy. The shadowy nun from Vertigo becomes the harbor ship in Marnie.

And like Shakespeare's plays, all of Hitchcock's films were actually made by the Earl of Oxford. As an undead lich man, he's been roaming the land for centuries now, secretly making great art but not taking credit for it.

Anyways I think I'm generally better now about being able to identity movies that "dramatically present" compared to when I first saw Marnie (Which according to my notes was all the way back in 2011- that's nearly a hundred years ago) and taking them on their own terms. As I get better about this thing though I get frustrated when online I see what feels like people moving into the opposite direction- some of that I just chalk up to how politically turbulent the last couple of years have been, though part of me wonders if there are generational differences or something in regards to art appreciation.

Funnily enough, I've been revisiting this notion myself recently as I've discovered just how good Taylor Swift is, but have been really appalled at most of the criticism I've read, which mostly focuses on her life and her as a person rather than, you know, the actual music and the art of songwriting. I think there are several factors at play. One is, yes, there's a dearth of arts education in the country and people generally don't understand how art works creatively. Two is that the last really popular artistic movement "for/by the people" was Romanticism, and one of the hallmarks of romanticism was personal expression. So it became popular to conflate the art with the artist, or at least with it being their expression of themselves, their feelings, thoughts, and opinions. Three is that I think it's just generally easier to follow that line of critique because it's something all people naturally do living in society, in that we judge others for their thoughts/feelings/opinions. So if art is just a medium for those thoughts/feelings/opinions, then by judging the art as such it becomes a natural extension of something we already do.

The problems with that approach (at least, ONLY that approach) are too many to enumerate, but the two biggest ones in my mind are that, one, it can't account at all for art that does try to present rather than express, and two is that it essentially ignores the actual "art" part of the art. Music is the perfect example because any teenager can write their thoughts/feelings in a journal, but nobody cares unless they put those things to a good beat/melody... but if the only difference between the two is the beat/melody, then why do we suddenly care about the thoughts/feelings but don't discuss the thing that made us care to begin with? Seems like an utterly backwards way of looking at things.

[Eva Yojimbo]

FWIW, I've only given a handful of filmmakers more than two 10s (In fact, only two that spring to mind are Bergman and Hitchcock).

I've given multiple 10/10's to Kubrick, Miyazaki, Bergman, Hitchcock, Godard.

Not that I can blame you, but I try to spread my ratings out more, generally when I feel that X film is definitely "lesser" than a 10/10 film then I give it a 9.5 or 9. I just usually feel that once I've given a director one or two 10/10s that most of their other films are distinctly (even if slightly) inferior to those.

[Raxivace]

There was a Lost podcast I listened to back in the day that rated episodes on a scale of 0 to 1. If they liked the episode it got a 1 out of 1. If they didn't, it got a 0 out of 1. No in-betweens.

If I ever go back to rating movies I think that's the scale I'll adopt. None of this wizardry about .5's and ratings out of 10. It's madness I tell you.

[Gendo]

Yeah I've never attempted to give numerical rankings. I much prefer the imprecise summary of "bad", "meh", "ok", "good", "great", "excellent", etc.

[Raxivace]

Can't say I'm surprised about Wayne's comments, though I am a bit surprised he was so open about them. People transferring their hatred of the actor onto the films they made is a pretty classical example of not separating the artist from the art, and makes even less sense given how little actors have to do with with a film's stories/themes or general "artistic merit." Even sillier that they'd start talking shit about John Ford.

It particularly gets to me with Ford because even if you really didn't like his westerns with Wayne (And those I don't think should be so casually dismissed to begin with), he did so many other great films.

Regular folks being ignorant is one thing, but even cinephiles doing this nonsense gets to me. And I guarantee you that every one of those latter people love another director that was hugely influenced by Ford whether its Welles, Kurosawa, Godard, Leone, Scorsese, hell even Spielberg and Lucas.

Ooops, realized I fucked up the title: it's "Enter the Void," the Gaspar Noe film. The "philosophy" in it is batshit silly reincarnation stuff, but it's quite original seeing the entire film from the perspective of a disembodied spirit, and the ending is equal parts beautiful and gross.

Lol I didn't even realize the goof. I'll check out the movie though.

Don't know if you saw my edit, but I'd completely forgotten that Mark's rape of Marnie actually happens on a ship (their Honeymoon cruise), so that connection between the original rapist and Mark makes even more sense. Can't believe I've spent all these years talking about the film and I'd forgotten about that! LOL

Oh shit I missed that edit. Yeah the parallel is totally intentional, I'm convinced. There's just too much evidence that points to it.

Part of me wonders too how much of it is specifically playing off of Connery's recent star imagery as James Bond. I know maz mentioned some of the stuff in those first few Bond films in regards to depictions of women being troubling to him, but we do see similar things in Marnie with Mark.

Of course the Bond franchise owes a bit of a debt to Hitch...maybe this is Hitch's response to that?

The Mark/Scottie comparison is interesting. I've never really thought about it before but there are definitely some interesting parallels and differences. Scottie is bewitched by a fantasy woman and then tries to forcefully remake the real woman into his fantasy only to relive his tragedy for real the second time. Mark is bewitched by a real but messed-up woman that he tries to forcefully remake into an ideal woman while making her relive the tragedy that messed her up to begin with. I always thought what was so haunting and even terribly pessimistic about Vertigo was the notion that even once we discover the truth and face our fears and disillusionment that we're still often powerless to change things; the nun that appears as the "shadowy demon" that causes Judy to fall is basically the embodiment of the "shadowy demon" that's hung over Scottie's head the entire film, with the Vertigo being a kind of defense mechanism from realizing the truth. Marnie seems quite similar but with the fantasy/reality dichotomy replaced with intent-to-harm/intent-to-help dichotomy. The shadowy nun from Vertigo becomes the harbor ship in Marnie.

The idea of a boat being a sort of monster that follows you around is very interesting. The sea isn't safe, and even the land isn't quite safe either because sailors from the boat can still come and get you there.

As much as I like Vertigo I always felt the nun was kind of a weird note to end on, since IIRC she doesn't even appear in any other part of the film. The ship in Marnie sounds like a better integrated version of the same idea.

I really, really need to rewatch Marnie. Thankfully the blu-ray appears to be pretty cheap on Amazon.

Funnily enough, I've been revisiting this notion myself recently as I've discovered just how good Taylor Swift is, but have been really appalled at most of the criticism I've read, which mostly focuses on her life and her as a person rather than, you know, the actual music and the art of songwriting. I think there are several factors at play. One is, yes, there's a dearth of arts education in the country and people generally don't understand how art works creatively. Two is that the last really popular artistic movement "for/by the people" was Romanticism, and one of the hallmarks of romanticism was personal expression. So it became popular to conflate the art with the artist, or at least with it being their expression of themselves, their feelings, thoughts, and opinions. Three is that I think it's just generally easier to follow that line of critique because it's something all people naturally do living in society, in that we judge others for their thoughts/feelings/opinions. So if art is just a medium for those thoughts/feelings/opinions, then by judging the art as such it becomes a natural extension of something we already do.

The problems with that approach (at least, ONLY that approach) are too many to enumerate, but the two biggest ones in my mind are that, one, it can't account at all for art that does try to present rather than express, and two is that it essentially ignores the actual "art" part of the art. Music is the perfect example because any teenager can write their thoughts/feelings in a journal, but nobody cares unless they put those things to a good beat/melody... but if the only difference between the two is the beat/melody, then why do we suddenly care about the thoughts/feelings but don't discuss the thing that made us care to begin with? Seems like an utterly backwards way of looking at things.

I don't know much about music but this whole section is pretty good. The last couple of sentences in particular make me think about how it does seem to be harder to talk about form than content in art, even for critics...or apparently they focus on things that aren't even content in the art, like personal stuff about the artist that might not even be necessarily relevant.

It reminds me about a controversy a few years back about a Matt Zoller Seitz piece that went into this (Itself in response to an article about a Jazz critic taking issue with music criticism- you probably have a greater idea with what's going on with that part than I would). Some people seemed really offended- one film podcast I occasionally listen to even did an entire episode about the piece.

I think he's right- why talk about art at all on a higher level if you're not going to ignore the things that make it art to begin with? Even the Academy Awards initially tried to leave out presenting the awards for editing and cinematography for the 2019 ceremony- there was a backlash to that from people like Guillermo del Toro (Who rightly called those two things "the very heart of our craft"), and they ended up showing those awards after all.

This isn't all to say I'm some paragon when it comes to writing about form, I definitely have a lot of room for improvement. The trend is troubling though.

[Lord_Lyndon]

Funnily enough, I've been revisiting this notion myself recently as I've discovered just how good Taylor Swift is...

Kind of unrelated, but... I follow her on Instagram. Because I love her and all. Anyway... She went to see The Favourite last year with her dad and she loved it. That same movie Rax saw by that Greek filmmaker.
I also follow Doona Bae. I adore her. I know you've seen many movies with her. I generally love Korean girls and women. I follow nearly 100 of them (most are K-pop stars).

[Eva Yojimbo]

Yeah I've never attempted to give numerical rankings. I much prefer the imprecise summary of "bad", "meh", "ok", "good", "great", "excellent", etc.

You mean: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6?

[Eva Yojimbo]

Can't say I'm surprised about Wayne's comments, though I am a bit surprised he was so open about them. People transferring their hatred of the actor onto the films they made is a pretty classical example of not separating the artist from the art, and makes even less sense given how little actors have to do with with a film's stories/themes or general "artistic merit." Even sillier that they'd start talking shit about John Ford.

It particularly gets to me with Ford because even if you really didn't like his westerns with Wayne (And those I don't think should be so casually dismissed to begin with), he did so many other great films.

Regular folks being ignorant is one thing, but even cinephiles doing this nonsense gets to me. And I guarantee you that every one of those latter people love another director that was hugely influenced by Ford whether its Welles, Kurosawa, Godard, Leone, Scorsese, hell even Spielberg and Lucas.

Absolutely. Ford's declining reputation seems, again, to be something of a product of how little people really appreciate the art of direction. I can understand some not caring for his genre films, or even not particularly liking his non-genre films, but I don't think there's any way to watch them while understanding the history of cinema and what directors actually do and not marvel at his craftsmanship and artistry. It's why almost all the classic directors idolized him because they completely got it. Meanwhile, cinephiles can certainly love film without actually recognizing such things.

I've often said it'd actually be a good exorcise for anyone who really loves any medium to just try to attempt it, no matter how small. Love film? Go shoot a short film on whatever you have available (even a cell-phone). Love music? Buy a $100 keyboard/guitar, learn some chords, write a song. Love literature? Write a short novel or poetry. Not because you're going to end up doing it professionally or even as a serious amateur, but because it will give you some small understanding of what actually goes into doing it, and, if you put some effort into, a greater understanding of what goes into doing it well.

Part of me wonders too how much of it is specifically playing off of Connery's recent star imagery as James Bond. I know maz mentioned some of the stuff in those first few Bond films in regards to depictions of women being troubling to him, but we do see similar things in Marnie with Mark.

Of course the Bond franchise owes a bit of a debt to Hitch...maybe this is Hitch's response to that?

Yeah, I've even heard the theory before that Connery was chosen specifically because of that Bond persona, and it makes sense too. However, Marnie is a much stronger foil than most of the Bond girls (back then, at least) were, and Hitch is much more interested in the psychological dynamics between them rather than just the superficially sexy surface. I wouldn't be surprised if Hitch was, in some small way, responding to the Bond phenomena/persona.

As much as I like Vertigo I always felt the nun was kind of a weird note to end on, since IIRC she doesn't even appear in any other part of the film. The ship in Marnie sounds like a better integrated version of the same idea.

I really, really need to rewatch Marnie. Thankfully the blu-ray appears to be pretty cheap on Amazon.

Yeah, the nun does kinda come out of nowhere (literally and metaphorically!), but in a twisted way it works considering the thing that seems demonic ends up being (at least a symbol for) something holy. I've also wondered if Hitch was suggesting some kind of "stairway to heaven" thing with the bell tower. At the same moment you cross the barrier between illusion/reality, you cross between life/death, and the "fall to the death" echoes the "fall of man" (again, knowledge being the thing that ultimately leads there). Maybe the ultimate lesson is that humans need some useful illusions or else curiosity kills the cat? Dunno, I'm just spitballing here. I love doing that with Hitch films. Sometimes it spirals into something good.

I don't know much about music but this whole section is pretty good. The last couple of sentences in particular make me think about how it does seem to be harder to talk about form than content in art, even for critics...or apparently they focus on things that aren't even content in the art, like personal stuff about the artist that might not even be necessarily relevant.

It reminds me about a controversy a few years back about a Matt Zoller Seitz piece that went into this (Itself in response to an article about a Jazz critic taking issue with music criticism- you probably have a greater idea with what's going on with that part than I would). Some people seemed really offended- one film podcast I occasionally listen to even did an entire episode about the piece.

I think he's right- why talk about art at all on a higher level if you're not going to ignore the things that make it art to begin with? Even the Academy Awards initially tried to leave out presenting the awards for editing and cinematography for the 2019 ceremony- there was a backlash to that from people like Guillermo del Toro (Who rightly called those two things "the very heart of our craft"), and they ended up showing those awards after all.

This isn't all to say I'm some paragon when it comes to writing about form, I definitely have a lot of room for improvement. The trend is troubling though.

Man, that article hits the nail on the head harder than I ever have or could. I especially love what he says near the end: "Write about form. A little bit. Not all the time. Just whenever you see an opening; whenever you think it might make sense, and call attention to the fact that we don't just mysteriously, magically feel things while we're watching movies and TV shows: that the filmmaking is what made us feel those things." This is what I'm saying. Form should be a part--a significant one, IMO--of a critic's repertoire. Context is important, content is important, theme is important, but form is the thing that ties all this together and helps express and articulate it. You can write really insightfully about the former three, but it's possible to be completely off--to be missing a great many things--because you're ignoring the latter.

I didn't know about the Academy nearly ditching editing and cinematography, but yay for del Toro stepping in to correct them.

I'd also say you do just fine with talking about form when it's warranted. I also think form is easier to talk about if you've seen/heard/read something multiple times because form is something that tends to usually work under the level of consciousness as we process the surface aspects initially; and as those aspects become easy to recognize on rewatches we're freer to focus on the form. Most all of my longer reviews have come after rewatches and after I've had the ability to focus on form to some extent, and, especially in the best films, I tend to find I've missed a lot of what's "being said" in the formal language. A Brighter Summer Day is a perfect example of that, to use a recent masterpiece you saw.

Funnily enough, our discussion on this (even before your last reply) inspired me to write my first music review in years for Taylor Swift's last album, one that I feel's been grossly misunderstood because literally nobody (that I've read) has focused on form at all. As an example, THIS is a superbly, frustratingly written review; superb in what it does mention, frustrating in what it doesn't, which is mostly the music. When it does mention the music it's in brief nods to the genre Swift is attempting, vague qualitative criticisms, or mood sketches: "EDM-lite track," "huge hook with an obnoxious, stiff beat," "throwback vibe to the spacey production," "bruising wall of sound," "gospel-tinged, wobbly," "Wispy, sensual production helps along a gorgeous melody." etc. if anyone could imagine the music from these descriptions I'd be shocked. I actually think such briefly sketched descriptions can be powerful and even necessary at times (to describe every track of an album musically, like every sequence of a film, would be an epic waste of time); but not when you spend so much text discussing everything else but the music! By all means, throw in such formal sketches on occasion, analyze the lyrics, the context, even a little biography; but when the text spent on those things is a mountain compared to the molehill that is the music, then something's off.

I've made my own attempt, but it's really too long at the moment and I need to do some serious editing. Any constructive criticism would be helpful (particularly, I'm trying to figure out how to get the opening three paragraphs down to 2 or even 1, and perhaps finding some others to eliminate entirely or seriously trim).

Authenticity seems a near-universal criterion for positively judging music artists these days. We have no room for fakers, poseurs, actors, pretenders, phonies, and frauds. If you're not from the country, forget being a “true" country artist; and if you're not from the streets, forget being a “true" hip-hop artist. Hell, you'd think such charlatans believed that “art" and “artificial" share some commonality! You'd think that imagination and creativity implies some break, escape, or transfiguration of reality as it is!

“Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality." - TS Eliot

What Eliot said is largely true of the other arts as well. Yet, when it comes to artists, especially musical artists like Taylor Swift, the threats and accusations of being inauthentic seem omnipresent in criticism. Perhaps it's inevitable and natural when artists draw so much from their own life for inspiration; but the key to really understanding how art works and why we care at all is in the transformation of experience, emotion, and personality into art; whether those experiences, emotions, and personality are wholly, partially, or not-at-all those of the artists is, in my estimation, irrelevant to the success of that endeavor.

This preamble is unusually pertinent to an album that's built on the very notion of reputation, of how others see you and, in turn, conflate that perception of the person with the art. Even the stark, black & white cover echoes the lack-of-nuance that people have on the subject: this album either is Taylor or it's not. While the “old Taylor" of 1989 is “dressed up in pastel," (and perhaps “dead") this one's donning the seriousness of a reputable, monochromatic newspaper; or maybe it's so much fake news.

The opening track title even questions whether we're ready for the newness, even before we get the bass-heavy, three-note tonic synth-stomp intro of the music—sounding like a “ghostly phantom" of Beethoven's famous 5th Symphony fate motif, and already far heavier and earthy than anything on the light and empyreal 1989—and Taylor's quasi-rapped lyrics. The bridge introduces a higher 5th and a dotted rhythm, while the first major change happens in the chorus: the heaviness drops out, replaced by airy, echoing synths as the melody dances around in the higher 2nd to 6th degrees of the E-minor scale (compared to the 1st/lower-5th repetition of the verse) in Swift's head-voice, before plunging back into the opening.

This first song isn't a Taylor Swift masterpiece, yet it does, in its own way, reveal her approach to songwriting craft—a quality that's surprisingly almost always ignored in favor of analyzing Swift's lyrical content, or her “reputation." This is not saying that lyrics do not matter, but in my mind they only matter to the degree in which they inform (whether complimenting or contrasting) the musical choices, and again the opening song serves as an illustration.

Why the heaviness? Why the “rapping?" The opening lyrics are a clue: “Knew he was a killer first time that I saw him…" The hip-hop inspired rhythmic approach reinforces the mock-drama metaphor that Swift sets up in the intro: if he's going to be a killer, she can hardly be defending herself against such threats with weak, fluffy pop, now can she? Meanwhile, the introduction of the higher 5th (the “dominant" in musical terms) and dotted rhythm in the bridge is a favorite rhetorical device of Swift's, usually indicating some significant change: here it's her recognition and realization when she “sees" (the dotted 5th is on that word) “how this is gonna go." The chorus departs from the mock-combative “real" relationship into the fantasy: “In the middle of the night, in my dreams," and the music obliges by changing tone completely.

Most of the criticism I've read of this track detaches the music from the lyrics, the tone from the drama. The music is Swift feebly dabbling in hip-hop (and EDM); the lyrics are just about another relationship; the tone is Swift trying to be “hip" and “edgy" and “modern." The musical criticism is arguably true—Swift has never been an innovator on the “sound" side of music; the lyrical criticism is also true (and these lyrics are not interesting by Swift's standards); the tone criticisms to me are misguided as Swift will always be as hip as a mullet, as edgy as a Frisbee, and modern as an Atari. The drama—and by drama I mean the creative concept by which the song is crafted— is ignored entirely; and that's the shame, because it's really that element that informs everything else. Separate they're all fairly subject to negative critique, but together they make up something more than the sum of the parts.

On that level alone, Reputation seems a much more interesting album than 1989; note I say “interesting" rather than “successful." 1989 was almost perfect pop; the kind of album that only someone with Taylor Swift's preternatural melodic gifts could've achieved. Its one weakness was that its success as pop didn't always translate to its success as dramatic, artistic songwriting of the kind I described above. This was, perhaps, natural given it was Swift's first complete break from her country roots, so she played it a bit safe by doing what she did best.

The experimentation of Reputation is mostly with the “darker" sound introduced by …Ready for it? and is mostly contained to the album's first half. The only real failure here is the Ed Sheeren/Future collab “End Game" and continues the bad streak of her collabs. My hunch is that she tends to acquiesce too much to her collaborators, producing far inferior tracks than what she's capable of on her own (or with more supportive collaborators like Max Martin and Jack Antonoff). I Did Something Bad and Don't Blame Me are lighter-spirited versions of the “Taylor Swift as tough bitch/semi-villain" persona, both with their interesting touches; I especially like how the former's “I never trust a narcissist" quickly transitions into the narcissistic “I play 'em like a violin / and I make it look oh-so-easy" (with the last four notes a stand-out, whole-note march down the G-minor scale landing on the tonic). This kind of quick-turn hypocrisy is one clue that Swift is, at least on some level, being ironic, even if it's at the expense of herself.

In that vein, Look What You Made Me Do is the pièce de résistance of the album. A track universally mocked (even reviled) upon its release in my estimation because Taylor Swift pushed the sonic/dramatic irony to such an extreme that everyone felt the punch while the line went over their starry-eyed heads. The end result is one of those songs where good/bad qualitative judgments are trivial in comparison with artistic chutzpah on display.

From the opening chimes, pizzicato strings, and creepy classical vibe it should be clear that we're in the realm of fantasy—perhaps a dark, twisted one—already lending an ironic touch to the low-key, super-serious, almost spoken-word verses of Taylor “not (liking) your little games" (while humorously/hypocritically playing her own games in musical terms). The bridge speeds up the tempo with pounding keyboards and an almost shrilly-high vocal harmony building tension, anticipation, and energy with the Rocky Balboa-esque “But I got smarter, I got harder in the nick of time."

After that, one would expect the chorus to land with a triumphant, heroic boom, but instead it drops out with a Right Said Fred beat and the “look what you made me do" refrain. If there's every been a better bait-and-switch in popular music I can't think of one, and I've yet to figure out whether the musical joke (which I do feel is utterly intentional; the music video is the dead-giveaway), or the reaction to it—with so many taking it so seriously—is funnier. That Swift manage to take to ultimate tongue-in-cheek ode to narcissism (“I'm Too Sexy") and inject it into the middle of a hate-on-haters-verse to self-congratulatory-pump-up bridge is a kind of comic brilliance that mainstream pop hasn't seen or heard in decades, or perhaps longer.

Yet, for all the “newness" of this reputation (I was ready for it), the majority of the album finds Swift in more familiar territory and consistently succeeding at a remarkably high level. Delicate and Gorgeous are, appropriately, among the most delicate and gorgeous songs in Swift's discography; the former a cousin to a track like Red's Trecherous, the latter to a track like Enchanted from Speak Now. So It Goes and King of My Heart find Swift in a moodier, more atmospheric take on 1989's throwback 80s pop sound. Getaway Car is classic Swiftian storytelling, and Dancing With Our Hands Tied is classic Swiftian melodic/rhythmic progression; its higher/faster legato bridge lines transitioning into a sonic-change chorus—a big synth wash into a slowed down, staccato melody—that's as memorable because of its contrast to what came before as for the actual melody.

If the album's first half (roughly) is experiment, the third quarter (roughly) is tradition, the last quarter is a nice synthesis containing many of the album's best efforts. Dress in particular is a stunner. Not just because of Taylor's new-found lyrical sexuality (“only bought this dress so you could take it off"), but in the new-found musical sensuality to match it. The understated vocal/musical verse, so soft-spoken as to hint at a kind of nakedness itself, transitions to a brilliant bridge, highlighting the “pining and anticipation" with a steady quarter-note pulse in patterns of two-tonics (C) and a falling sixth (A) twice, and a single-C/A to close the measure; then finding minor variations on the pattern, with each change adding to the anxiety; before finally we get an ascending, half-whispered, half-orgasmically sighing “Ah" leading to the chorus, with its chiming background synths and the most ethereal vocals of Swift's career. Further on there's even the cute moment when the music momentarily stops after the line “say my name and everything just stops."

This is Why We Can't Have Nice Things is the most obviously ironic, obviously humorous track here It's playful tone on full display musically, lyrically, and vocally; from the syllabically detached “da-rling" (making the “da" sound like “duh!"), to the bass beat that rattles the chandelier on cue to the lyric, to the twisted reverb on “mind-twist you," to the elongated rubato on words like “shady," “baby," and “mama;" and the chorus-shouted “all that drama" and other bits; to, of course, the “I can't even say it with a straight face" spoken word break. Truth be told, I can't keep a straight face during the song either, donning a big, goofy grin every time I hear it.

The final two songs strip things back considerably and find Swift at her most lyrically mature, musically restrained, and tonally nuanced on the album. Call it What You Want is her best celebration of her new relationship. The only song here without an overt hook, with no flashy displays of new sounds, experiments, or rhetorical devices. So much it would be tempting to call it dull, yet the confidence not to over-do it perfectly matches the confidence she's found through her relationship in the lyrics, and the lyrics probably have more gems than any song on this album. I especially appreciate the progression from “My castle crumbled overnight" to “I'm laughing with my lover, making forts under covers;" suggesting that the love—not unlike art and music—will always be the ultimate sanctuary from every storm reality throws at us.

New Year's Day strips it back even further to just a piano. The song's lack of a slick production adding a hungover, sobered tone to what is a song about being hungover, sober, and reflecting on what's important in life; and, for all its cheese, it's hard not to buy wholesale the “hold onto the memories, they will hold onto you" chorus. It's a perfect closer for the album, and a tantalizing glimpse at what an entire album of Taylor Swift in folkie, indie (“records much cooler than hers"), demo-like mode would be like.

Swift's discography has thus far shown a three-album pattern of “tentative steps forward" (Debut/Red), “perfection of the new formula" (Fearless/1989), and “experimentation with the new formula (Speak Now/Reputation)." But even more so than Speak Now, Reputation really finds Swift trying to figure out ways to match new lyrical personas/dramas to new musical styles with new tonal possibilities. The combination of sonic-sounding seriousness with lyrical and musical hints at humor is, especially, one thing that makes this album more tonally interesting than 1989, and I dare say any in her discography; but it also may be the very thing that's prevented it from being appreciated. Too many have critiqued the actor, or perhaps the character, rather than the performance and the drama. In looking for the black-and-white answer to the question of whether the Old Taylor's dead, of whether this new Taylor is “really her," of whether she's being (or has ever been) “authentic," people have completely missed the kaleidoscopic colors and nuances in the art—namely the part where lyrics, music, and sonics come together to make something that's deeper and more vibrant than any simplistic notions of authenticity.

[Eva Yojimbo]

Funnily enough, I've been revisiting this notion myself recently as I've discovered just how good Taylor Swift is...

Kind of unrelated, but... I follow her on Instagram. Because I love her and all. Anyway... She went to see The Favourite last year with her dad and she loved it. That same movie Rax saw by that Greek filmmaker.
I also follow Doona Bae. I adore her. I know you've seen many movies with her. I generally love Korean girls and women. I follow nearly 100 of them (most are K-pop stars).

Ha, I don't have Instagram (or Twitter, or Facebook, or any social media, really)! Anyway, I attempted to review her last album above. As I said to Raxi, any constructive criticism (particularly on shortening it) would be appreciated. I'm not familiar with Doona Bae, but I have had some experience with J-Pop/K-Pop, especially after discovering the glorious weirdness that is Babymetal:

[Lord_Lyndon]

I'm not familiar with Doona Bae...

Surely you've seen Cloud Atlas? Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance? Air Doll? The Host?
I know you've seen Air Doll. I haven't seen it myself, but we are both big Koreeda fans. You must have seen it.

Oh... And Babymetal is great indeed. I discovered those guys about 2 years ago.

[Eva Yojimbo]

I'm not familiar with Doona Bae...

Surely you've seen Cloud Atlas? Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance? Air Doll? The Host?
I know you've seen Air Doll. I haven't seen it myself, but we are both big Koreeda fans. You must have seen it.

Oh... And Babymetal is great indeed. I discovered those guys about 2 years ago.

Oh, damn, I've seen all of those and had no idea it was the same actress in all of them! Color me dumb! I have seen Air Doll. Great film. Even wrote a review of it a while back (no idea if I could find it, though).

[maz89]

I have a lot to catch up on here - A LOT - and I probably won't have time for a while, but I just wanted to quickly express my appreciation for Jimbo's Reputation review. When LWYMMD came out, I couldn't believe that so many didn't realize the irony she was clearly going for (even after the video makes it dead obvious), how they often missed the humor and took her words at face value, completely ignoring the musical choices that gave such rich flavor to the 'drama'. There is absolutely nothing in your review that I disagree with - even the parts of each song that you highlighted is the stuff I immediately remembered liking about that track. Since you asked what you could do to make it shorter, I'd simply start from the TS Eliot quote and then head into the paragraph on criticism often leveled at Taylor about the source of her inspiration. I don't know what else you could cut, I quite liked reading all of it. Anyway, glad you've enjoyed her progression as much as I have. Didn't know you were a Swift fan, Jimbo!

[Raxivace]

Always great to see you back maz.

You mentioned it in the other thread, but you're playing Red Dead Redemption 2. Do you have any thoughts on why that game seems to be popular even though western films no longer seem to be?

[maz89]

Always good to see you, period, Rax.

Well, RDR2 is indeed set in the wild west, but it's also, at its core, a fun shoot-em-up with Rockstar's usual sense of zany and a richly rendered world, brimming with life and odd encounters - all qualities that are appealing to the mainstream. Rockstar could probably do this with any setting and make it work for gamers - too bad for them that CD Projekt Red beat them on picking the futuristic space setting. (Although it should be pointed out that it is funny that some of the criticism leveled at RDR2 has to do with the "excessive horse-riding", meaning if these players would have had a choice, they'd have preferred GTA VI because cars > horses.)

At the end of the day, it is also the format. If a western film made today featured a similar story and big name actors, it might do well at the box office, but probably would not be as successful or popular. RDR2's narrative isn't innovative and borrows from the genre anyway. So it really comes down to the idea that it's more interesting to control a person in the wild west rather than watch a film about it because the former has barely been done in games at this level of detail.

Speaking of western films, I saw Sweet Country the other day and fell in love with it. It's an "Australian" western film, if that counts, but it was gorgeously shot, often eerie, and gut-wrenching all at the same time.

[Raxivace]

I see, so it seems the western aesthetic is something only to be put up with for some gamers.

I'll make a note about seeing Sweet Country. I would consider "foreign westerns" to still be westerns, though I might be in the minority. I'm not big on tying the broader aspects of a genre to a specific nation- like to me Kurosawa's Dersu Uzala is still a western even though its set in Russia. It is still dealing with typical western themes (Man vs. nature, exploitation of people, "civilizing" the land and what that really means etc.), just in a Russian context.

I know some people even refer to the Mad Max films as westerns.

[maz89]

Actually, yes, when I was thinking of recent westerns, Mad Max came to mind! It is like a post apocalyptic western, in a way. But, yeah, I agree with you on how the genre shouldn't be tied to a specific country when the themes are the same. Did you see the latest from Coen yet?

[Eva Yojimbo]

I have a lot to catch up on here - A LOT - and I probably won't have time for a while, but I just wanted to quickly express my appreciation for Jimbo's Reputation review. When LWYMMD came out, I couldn't believe that so many didn't realize the irony she was clearly going for (even after the video makes it dead obvious), how they often missed the humor and took her words at face value, completely ignoring the musical choices that gave such rich flavor to the 'drama'. There is absolutely nothing in your review that I disagree with - even the parts of each song that you highlighted is the stuff I immediately remembered liking about that track. Since you asked what you could do to make it shorter, I'd simply start from the TS Eliot quote and then head into the paragraph on criticism often leveled at Taylor about the source of her inspiration. I don't know what else you could cut, I quite liked reading all of it. Anyway, glad you've enjoyed her progression as much as I have. Didn't know you were a Swift fan, Jimbo!

Thanks! If you head to the 80s Music thread you'll notice I mentioned I spent the last several weeks exploring the last ~20 years of pop. Swift was just another artist on my list along with *deep breathe* Avril Lavigne, Pink, Justin Timberlake, Beyonce, Demi Lovato, Rihanna, Kelly Clarkson, Maroon 5, Bruno Mars, Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Adele, Carly Rae Jepsen, *passes out, wakes up, another deep breathe* Lana Del Rey, Ariana Grande, Janelle Monae, Meghan Trainer, Elle King, Halsey, Billie Eilish, and Kacey Musgraves *exhales, breathes furiously.* Swift was the only artist here that ended up cracking my top 50 artists (I currently have her around 30, I think). So, yes, I'm a newly converted Swiftie. :)

I also posted the review on Sputnik and the first two replies recommended just not mentioning every track, so I think what I'll do is really just hit the highlights and cut a lot of stuff where I feel I don't say anything too interesting. Thanks for the advice on starting with the Eliot quote. I spent a while yesterday trying to figure out how to cut down those first several paragraphs and I think you gave me an idea of how I can condense them into one.

[Eva Yojimbo]

LOL, why is everyone here at 4AM? I mean, I fucked up my sleep schedule by staying up way late yesterday trying to edit that damn review, but that's my lame excuse. :p

[Raxivace]

Absolutely. Ford's declining reputation seems, again, to be something of a product of how little people really appreciate the art of direction. I can understand some not caring for his genre films, or even not particularly liking his non-genre films, but I don't think there's any way to watch them while understanding the history of cinema and what directors actually do and not marvel at his craftsmanship and artistry. It's why almost all the classic directors idolized him because they completely got it. Meanwhile, cinephiles can certainly love film without actually recognizing such things.

100% agreed with all of this. When I watch Ford at his best, I'm just absolutely dazzled.

I've often said it'd actually be a good exorcise for anyone who really loves any medium to just try to attempt it, no matter how small. Love film? Go shoot a short film on whatever you have available (even a cell-phone). Love music? Buy a $100 keyboard/guitar, learn some chords, write a song. Love literature? Write a short novel or poetry. Not because you're going to end up doing it professionally or even as a serious amateur, but because it will give you some small understanding of what actually goes into doing it, and, if you put some effort into, a greater understanding of what goes into doing it well.

I wonder if this really helps with people that weren't ever going to have solid critical acumen though.

Like I've known plenty of idiots who edit video essays on YouTube and never have anything worthwhile to say about film.

For people that would be good at writing/thinking about art then yeah, more information can only help.

Yeah, I've even heard the theory before that Connery was chosen specifically because of that Bond persona, and it makes sense too. However, Marnie is a much stronger foil than most of the Bond girls (back then, at least) were, and Hitch is much more interested in the psychological dynamics between them rather than just the superficially sexy surface. I wouldn't be surprised if Hitch was, in some small way, responding to the Bond phenomena/persona.

Yeah there's more to her character than any of the Bond girls seem to have.

Hitch I think is actually generally pretty good about having interesting female characters, something that I think gets lost in discussions about his work, even when it involves female characters in terms of violence and sexuality or whatever.

Yeah, the nun does kinda come out of nowhere (literally and metaphorically!), but in a twisted way it works considering the thing that seems demonic ends up being (at least a symbol for) something holy. I've also wondered if Hitch was suggesting some kind of "stairway to heaven" thing with the bell tower. At the same moment you cross the barrier between illusion/reality, you cross between life/death, and the "fall to the death" echoes the "fall of man" (again, knowledge being the thing that ultimately leads there). Maybe the ultimate lesson is that humans need some useful illusions or else curiosity kills the cat? Dunno, I'm just spitballing here. I love doing that with Hitch films. Sometimes it spirals into something good.

Indeed. Hitch is always interesting- there's always some new angle to find in his films that makes them continually interesting.

I can definitely see the nun being used to represent something like that (And it would sort of tie back to the discussion of ghosts and such at the beginning of the film)- her appearance is just so random otherwise, at least when only taken in terms of the literal plot.

I just think I would like her better if we had seen her once or twice throughout the movie. Maybe we do though and I just haven't noticed before- I'll have to pay attention during my next rewatch.

Man, that article hits the nail on the head harder than I ever have or could. I especially love what he says near the end: "Write about form. A little bit. Not all the time. Just whenever you see an opening; whenever you think it might make sense, and call attention to the fact that we don't just mysteriously, magically feel things while we're watching movies and TV shows: that the filmmaking is what made us feel those things." This is what I'm saying. Form should be a part--a significant one, IMO--of a critic's repertoire. Context is important, content is important, theme is important, but form is the thing that ties all this together and helps express and articulate it. You can write really insightfully about the former three, but it's possible to be completely off--to be missing a great many things--because you're ignoring the latter.

Yup. I can't really add anything else here lol.

I didn't know about the Academy nearly ditching editing and cinematography, but yay for del Toro stepping in to correct them.

Yeah its really telling that they almost did that. I don't take the Academy too seriously because of stuff like this, despite my epic quest to see every Best Picture winner, but man.

I'd also say you do just fine with talking about form when it's warranted. I also think form is easier to talk about if you've seen/heard/read something multiple times because form is something that tends to usually work under the level of consciousness as we process the surface aspects initially; and as those aspects become easy to recognize on rewatches we're freer to focus on the form. Most all of my longer reviews have come after rewatches and after I've had the ability to focus on form to some extent, and, especially in the best films, I tend to find I've missed a lot of what's "being said" in the formal language. A Brighter Summer Day is a perfect example of that, to use a recent masterpiece you saw.

Yeah its definitely easier when you don't have to spend the brain power following everything else. It would probably be better to watch a film 2-3 times before talking about it but that can be a struggle.

Funnily enough, our discussion on this (even before your last reply) inspired me to write my first music review in years for Taylor Swift's last album, one that I feel's been grossly misunderstood because literally nobody (that I've read) has focused on form at all. As an example, THIS is a superbly, frustratingly written review; superb in what it does mention, frustrating in what it doesn't, which is mostly the music. When it does mention the music it's in brief nods to the genre Swift is attempting, vague qualitative criticisms, or mood sketches: "EDM-lite track," "huge hook with an obnoxious, stiff beat," "throwback vibe to the spacey production," "bruising wall of sound," "gospel-tinged, wobbly," "Wispy, sensual production helps along a gorgeous melody." etc. if anyone could imagine the music from these descriptions I'd be shocked. I actually think such briefly sketched descriptions can be powerful and even necessary at times (to describe every track of an album musically, like every sequence of a film, would be an epic waste of time); but not when you spend so much text discussing everything else but the music! By all means, throw in such formal sketches on occasion, analyze the lyrics, the context, even a little biography; but when the text spent on those things is a mountain compared to the molehill that is the music, then something's off.

Yeah I have no idea what the album is supposed to sound like just from those descriptions (Perhaps I'll get a copy later).

If I'm being generous, maybe the writer is assuming a familiarity with Swift or the particular album for the audience of the piece? I'm not sure I've even heard a Taylor Swift song myself so I have no idea if something like "throwback vibe to the spacey production" means something more to an audience already familiar with what her music sounds like or not.

No idea what some of the political stuff the writer is talking about refers to either.

I've made my own attempt, but it's really too long at the moment and I need to do some serious editing. Any constructive criticism would be helpful (particularly, I'm trying to figure out how to get the opening three paragraphs down to 2 or even 1, and perhaps finding some others to eliminate entirely or seriously trim).

Sure. I think maz has the right idea about the opening. I'd probably rewrite it like this.

“Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality." - TS Eliot

Authenticity seems a near-universal criterion for positively judging music artists these days, yet what Eliot said is largely true not only of poetry but of music and the other arts as well. When it comes to artists, especially musical artists like Taylor Swift though, threats and accusations of being inauthentic still seem omnipresent in criticism (Such as the common accusations that those not from the country or not from the streets are not "true" country artists or are not "true" hip-hop artists). Perhaps it's inevitable and natural when artists draw so much from their own life for inspiration; but the key to really understanding how art works and why we care at all is in the transformation of experience, emotion, and personality into art; whether those experiences, emotions, and personality are wholly, partially, or not-at-all those of the artists is, in my estimation, irrelevant to the success of that endeavor.

This preamble is unusually pertinent to an album that's built on the very notion of reputation, of how others see you and, in turn, conflate that perception of the person with the art. Even the stark, black & white cover echoes the lack-of-nuance that people have on the subject: this album either is Taylor or it's not. While the “old Taylor" of 1989 is “dressed up in pastel," (and perhaps “dead") this one's donning the seriousness of a reputable, monochromatic newspaper; or maybe it's so much fake news.

I think the country/hip-hop thing is worth keeping in, though perhaps my version of the line should be changed to something closer to your own style.

I tried to keep the bit about "Authenticity" from the first line of the first paragraph in my revision of the second too, since I think the "rhyming" of "Authenticity" with "fake news" at the end your introduction is pretty cute (And then the whole review ends on it again). My revised paragraph might be a little clunky though, when moving into the second sentence.

The rest seems pretty good, very detailed, though again I haven't heard the album before.

Anyways feel free to use, ignore, or modify my changes.

[Raxivace]

LOL, why is everyone here at 4AM? I mean, I fucked up my sleep schedule by staying up way late yesterday trying to edit that damn review, but that's my lame excuse. :p

I fell asleep earlier than usual last night, so my brother ended up waking me up at like midnight. He's figured out that knocking on a specific wall will alert only me and somehow not wake up anyone else in the house, even though I'm upstairs and he lives on the first floor.

Anyways when this kind of thing happens its difficult for me to get back to bed.

[maz89]

Thanks! If you head to the 80s Music thread you'll notice I mentioned I spent the last several weeks exploring the last ~20 years of pop. Swift was just another artist on my list along with *deep breathe* Avril Lavigne, Pink, Justin Timberlake, Beyonce, Demi Lovato, Rihanna, Kelly Clarkson, Maroon 5, Bruno Mars, Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Adele, Carly Rae Jepsen, *passes out, wakes up, another deep breathe* Lana Del Rey, Ariana Grande, Janelle Monae, Meghan Trainer, Elle King, Halsey, Billie Eilish, and Kacey Musgraves *exhales, breathes furiously.* Swift was the only artist here that ended up cracking my top 50 artists (I currently have her around 30, I think). So, yes, I'm a newly converted Swiftie. :)

I also posted the review on Sputnik and the first two replies recommended just not mentioning every track, so I think what I'll do is really just hit the highlights and cut a lot of stuff where I feel I don't say anything too interesting. Thanks for the advice on starting with the Eliot quote. I spent a while yesterday trying to figure out how to cut down those first several paragraphs and I think you gave me an idea of how I can condense them into one.

Wow! I really admire your dedication! I haven't done proper marathon sessions for any of those artists, except maybe Avril Lavigne (teenage years) and Kelly Clarkson (I love her powerful voice), but yes, none of them have struck me as being as interesting musically and dynamic as Swift. Do you have any recommendations?

Aw, I loved reading about every track so don't skip out any of them. Try to condense it down, but don't cut - a suggestion from a fellow Swiftie. ;)

I skimmed the 80s thread. You picked my favorite track from 1989 to be your highlight. Another one of my absolute favorite tracks is All Too Well from Red. Maybe one of her all time best.

[maz89]

LOL, why is everyone here at 4AM? I mean, I fucked up my sleep schedule by staying up way late yesterday trying to edit that damn review, but that's my lame excuse. :p

I live on the other side of the world. It's only 2 pm here. ;)

[Eva Yojimbo]

Absolutely. Ford's declining reputation seems, again, to be something of a product of how little people really appreciate the art of direction. I can understand some not caring for his genre films, or even not particularly liking his non-genre films, but I don't think there's any way to watch them while understanding the history of cinema and what directors actually do and not marvel at his craftsmanship and artistry. It's why almost all the classic directors idolized him because they completely got it. Meanwhile, cinephiles can certainly love film without actually recognizing such things.

100% agreed with all of this. When I watch Ford at his best, I'm just absolutely dazzled.

I always think of this and I don't know why, but in How Green Was My Valley there's this shot, I think during/just after the funeral scene, where you see a character that's silhouetted in the distance next a tree in a long shot that Ford just holds on. Almost any normal director would've cut to close up to show the emotional response to empathetically elicit the same one from the audience. There's a real directorial genius in knowing how to get those same responses from images that otherwise wouldn't have that emotional charge.

I've often said it'd actually be a good exorcise for anyone who really loves any medium to just try to attempt it, no matter how small. Love film? Go shoot a short film on whatever you have available (even a cell-phone). Love music? Buy a $100 keyboard/guitar, learn some chords, write a song. Love literature? Write a short novel or poetry. Not because you're going to end up doing it professionally or even as a serious amateur, but because it will give you some small understanding of what actually goes into doing it, and, if you put some effort into, a greater understanding of what goes into doing it well.

I wonder if this really helps with people that weren't ever going to have solid critical acumen though.

Like I've known plenty of idiots who edit video essays on YouTube and never have anything worthwhile to say about film.

For people that would be good at writing/thinking about art then yeah, more information can only help.

You're probably right, but I do think my own artistic dabblings have prompted me to think more critically about what goes into creating art, even if I'm not very good at it myself. But that may just be because I have a naturally more critical mind to start with so I just think of that stuff anyway, lol. Of course, lots of reading about the arts has helped as well.

Hitch I think is actually generally pretty good about having interesting female characters, something that I think gets lost in discussions about his work, even when it involves female characters in terms of violence and sexuality or whatever.

Yes, and good female characters in the "strong characters, female" sense (I think I've showed you that article before).

I just think I would like her better if we had seen her once or twice throughout the movie. Maybe we do though and I just haven't noticed before- I'll have to pay attention during my next rewatch.

Yes, I do agree with this point, but Vertigo is so damn great I find it hard to complain too much. I do think it's the only time we see her as well.

Yeah its really telling that they almost did that. I don't take the Academy too seriously because of stuff like this, despite my epic quest to see every Best Picture winner, but man.

I've never really taken them seriously, but I generally think it's fun watching their nominated films as it's usually solid fare with only occasional real stinkers.

Yeah its definitely easier when you don't have to spend the brain power following everything else. It would probably be better to watch a film 2-3 times before talking about it but that can be a struggle.

One thing to do is just try to keep periodically noticing the form to see if anything interesting sticks out. I especially do this during sequences that are pretty simple story-wise. Probably a reaction to years of watching art-films where almost nothing happens story-wise!

Yeah I have no idea what the album is supposed to sound like just from those descriptions (Perhaps I'll get a copy later).

If I'm being generous, maybe the writer is assuming a familiarity with Swift or the particular album for the audience of the piece? I'm not sure I've even heard a Taylor Swift song myself so I have no idea if something like "throwback vibe to the spacey production" means something more to an audience already familiar with what her music sounds like or not.

No idea what some of the political stuff the writer is talking about refers to either.

You could be right about assuming familiarity, but the problem is that Reputation was a pretty different sounding album for Swift, with a generally much darker electronic vibe than the lighter electronics of her last album (not to mention her early country-pop stuff).

LOL, the political stuff is pretty hilarious. Basically, a spoof/parody lead to an alt-right conspiracy thory of Swift being an secret white nationalist/Aryan goddess who'd be bethrothed to Trump's son and end up as a queen. You can read about it here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technolo ... 97fe3d651e

Sure. I think maz has the right idea about the opening. I'd probably rewrite it like this.

LOL, our simultaneous rewrite of the first two paragraphs ended up being pretty close, but I did just remove the country/hip-hop reference. My thought was that anyone reading about accusations of inauthenticity would probably think of country/hip-hop (and perhaps metal) anyway since that's where I find those accusations are most prevalent in the music world. So I think those already in that world will get it without me spelling it out.

Anyway, I posted the review on Sputnik, so I'll just link to it there to avoid cluttering this thread: https://www.sputnikmusic.com/review/790 ... eputation/

I've basically taken it from the original 2200 words down to 1900 and now down to 1600. I feel like I'm hacking up my baby. During my second edit I thought about getting cute and getting the review to 1989 words exactly. I actually did that once for my review of Brakhage's 23rd Psalm Branch (23 paragraphs; 2300 words). Yes, I'm a dork.

[Eva Yojimbo]

Thanks! If you head to the 80s Music thread you'll notice I mentioned I spent the last several weeks exploring the last ~20 years of pop. Swift was just another artist on my list along with *deep breathe* Avril Lavigne, Pink, Justin Timberlake, Beyonce, Demi Lovato, Rihanna, Kelly Clarkson, Maroon 5, Bruno Mars, Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Adele, Carly Rae Jepsen, *passes out, wakes up, another deep breathe* Lana Del Rey, Ariana Grande, Janelle Monae, Meghan Trainer, Elle King, Halsey, Billie Eilish, and Kacey Musgraves *exhales, breathes furiously.* Swift was the only artist here that ended up cracking my top 50 artists (I currently have her around 30, I think). So, yes, I'm a newly converted Swiftie. :)

I also posted the review on Sputnik and the first two replies recommended just not mentioning every track, so I think what I'll do is really just hit the highlights and cut a lot of stuff where I feel I don't say anything too interesting. Thanks for the advice on starting with the Eliot quote. I spent a while yesterday trying to figure out how to cut down those first several paragraphs and I think you gave me an idea of how I can condense them into one.

Wow! I really admire your dedication! I haven't done proper marathon sessions for any of those artists, except maybe Avril Lavigne (teenage years) and Kelly Clarkson (I love her powerful voice), but yes, none of them have struck me as being as interesting musically and dynamic as Swift. Do you have any recommendations?

Recommendations... if I take out Swift my top 10 albums (from those artists) would probably look like this:

1. Janelle Monae - The ArchAndroid

-Actually really close with Swift's Speak Now as my favorite album from that marathon. Really awesome blend of Prince, Bowie, OutKast, and other odd touches like film scores, all in a science fiction-y concept album. Insanely creative. More sonically original than Swift, but the songwriting isn't quite as strong.

2. Beyonce - Lemonade

-Last two Beyonce albums shocked the hell out of me for how artsy they were. Lemonade is really a tour-de-force of different styles, moods, attitudes. Her Self-Titled album is nearly as good. Both are worth hearing and seeing in their "visual album" form (she basically made music videos for every track).

3. Lady Gaga - Joanne

Gaga really is a force of nature. It's hard not to admire her balls-to-the-wall confidence with everything she does. It's close between Joanne and Born This Way as my favorite from her, but BTW is her neo-disco/electronic mode while Joanne is more organic and varied, which I appreciate a bit more.

4. Pink - Try This

Besides Swift, the most consistently good of all those I've heard. Every album (minus her first) is excellent and can be listened to in their entirety. I love Try This mostly for it's rockier vibe (I think it suits her), but I'm Not Dead is probably her best pure pop album.

5. Adele - 21

The hype is real for this one. I wasn't as big a fan of her first and last albums, but 21 is just great neo-soul music.

6. Carly Rae Jepsen - E*Mo*Tion

The most perfect 80s pastiche album I've heard, and it's catchy as hell from beginning to end. It's a bit on the bubblegum side, but if you can tolerate that, it's a fun listen.

7. Ariana Grande - Dangerous Woman

Probably the best vocalist out of everyone I heard, but her albums are inconsistent. Dangerous Woman is her best, though. I'm actually going to see her in May. :)

8. Lana Del Rey - Ultraviolence

The most unique "sound" of anyone on this list. Actually, I say unique, but it's basically a modern-day take on Mazzy Star/Hope Sandoval. I have a feeling you'd really dig her (and Mazzy Star/Hope Sandoval) though. Listen to the track "Video Game" (which was her first big hit, and still one of her best)

9. Katy Perry - Teenage Dream

OK, this is a bit of a guilty pleasure. Katy Perry is about as superficial/frivolous/substanceless as it gets, but she has a buttload of undeniably catchy songs, and this is her best album... though her best song is Thinking of You, which is the only one she has that can get me emotional.

10. Avril Lavigne - Let Go & Under My Skin

First two albums are great pop-punk, but everything after is really mediocre. I'd rather listen to Paramore in general, TBH, but Avril did it first.

Aw, I loved reading about every track so don't skip out any of them. Try to condense it down, but don't cut - a suggestion from a fellow Swiftie. ;)

I skimmed the 80s thread. You picked my favorite track from 1989 to be your highlight. Another one of my absolute favorite tracks is All Too Well from Red. Maybe one of her all time best.

I think in the end the only track I ended up completely skipping was End Game just 'cause I didn't like it. You can read the revised version I linked above (got it down to 1600 words).

All Too Well IS Swift's best. My God that song is greatness. "You call me up again just to break me like a promise, so casually cruel in the name of being honest. I'm a crumpled up piece of paper lying here because I remember it all too well" is one of the greatest lyrics ever written, and that whole damn song is full of them. The fact that it hits the climax with the above is just perfect though. Watching her do it live on the Red Tour was intense as hell too. Cool thing about her live shows is that she often changes up her songs from how they are on the album, or mashes up a few together revealing certain thematic/tonal connections. I especially like her rock version of We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together:

Better than the original, IMO.

Also, check out the Reputation Stadium Tour on Netflix (or torrent it) if you can. It's really spectacular. Best concert release I've seen ages.

On a side note, I know I recommended Talk Talk to you ages ago. I don't know if you ever checked them out, but I just found out Mark Hollis died a couple of days ago. Really bummed about hearing that. I'll have to go through their stuff again next time I get a chance. Those last two albums and his solo album are among the most spiritually transcendent music I've ever heard in any genre.

[Eva Yojimbo]

LOL, why is everyone here at 4AM? I mean, I fucked up my sleep schedule by staying up way late yesterday trying to edit that damn review, but that's my lame excuse. :p

I live on the other side of the world. It's only 2 pm here. ;)

LOL, I know, I just thought it was funny as we're never all on here at the same time. :D

LOL, why is everyone here at 4AM? I mean, I fucked up my sleep schedule by staying up way late yesterday trying to edit that damn review, but that's my lame excuse. :p

I fell asleep earlier than usual last night, so my brother ended up waking me up at like midnight. He's figured out that knocking on a specific wall will alert only me and somehow not wake up anyone else in the house, even though I'm upstairs and he lives on the first floor.

Anyways when this kind of thing happens its difficult for me to get back to bed.

Pssh, that's what a stalker would say.

[Raxivace]

A stalker? Listen, do I look like I'm from the Zone? Do you see me moving shit with my mind?

[Raxivace]

I always think of this and I don't know why, but in How Green Was My Valley there's this shot, I think during/just after the funeral scene, where you see a character that's silhouetted in the distance next a tree in a long shot that Ford just holds on. Almost any normal director would've cut to close up to show the emotional response to empathetically elicit the same one from the audience. There's a real directorial genius in knowing how to get those same responses from images that otherwise wouldn't have that emotional charge.

Yeah, Ford was I think was really good about using nature to express things beyond itself. Its why I think he was able to make Monument Valley so mythic.

You're probably right, but I do think my own artistic dabblings have prompted me to think more critically about what goes into creating art, even if I'm not very good at it myself. But that may just be because I have a naturally more critical mind to start with so I just think of that stuff anyway, lol. Of course, lots of reading about the arts has helped as well.

Yeah I think you're the kind of person that would have been good at thinking about that stuff anyways, but have artistic experience gives your a further edge of insight.

Yes, and good female characters in the "strong characters, female" sense (I think I've showed you that article before).

Yup, you've shown me that before, and I've even shown it to others a couple of times myself. It's a good piece, with an unfortunate comments section.

When it comes to Hollywood at least, when do you suppose this trend started? Like a lot of things I blame the New Hollywood movement- or at least the auteurs that seemed to hyperfocus in on male characters.

Yes, I do agree with this point, but Vertigo is so damn great I find it hard to complain too much. I do think it's the only time we see her as well.

Yeah ultimately it doesn't matter too much as to why the movie is good, its just another weird part of a weird movie.

It kind of reminds me of the whole thing with "Madeline" vanishing from the hotel. I'm still not entirely sure what to make of that part of the movie.

One thing to do is just try to keep periodically noticing the form to see if anything interesting sticks out. I especially do this duringsequences that are pretty simple story-wise. Probably a reaction to years of watching art-films where almost nothing happens story-wise!

Yeah I do try and do that, though sometimes I'll forget to actually make a note of anything interesting (Or maybe not quite know how to lead into talking about it) which of course doesn't help.

You could be right about assuming familiarity, but the problem is that Reputation was a pretty different sounding album for Swift, with a generally much darker electronic vibe than the lighter electronics of her last album (not to mention her early country-pop stuff).

I see. I gathered it was different, but not that it was hugely different.

LOL, the political stuff is pretty hilarious. Basically, a spoof/parody lead to an alt-right conspiracy thory of Swift being an secret white nationalist/Aryan goddess who'd be bethrothed to Trump's son and end up as a queen. You can read about it here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technolo ... 97fe3d651e

Jesus. Never underestimate /pol/'s ability to be the dumbest fucks on the entire planet.

LOL, our simultaneous rewrite of the first two paragraphs ended up being pretty close, but I did just remove the country/hip-hop reference. My thought was that anyone reading about accusations of inauthenticity would probably think of country/hip-hop (and perhaps metal) anyway since that's where I find those accusations are most prevalent in the music world. So I think those already in that world will get it without me spelling it out.

Well you would know this audience better than I would lol. Your own version looks pretty good.

During my second edit I thought about getting cute and getting the review to 1989 words exactly. I actually did that once for my review of Brakhage's 23rd Psalm Branch (23 paragraphs; 2300 words). Yes, I'm a dork.

Pft, my single word reviews from back in the day are clearly a superior form of dorkiness. Why use 2300 words when you can use 2299 less words to convey something?

[Eva Yojimbo]

I always think of this and I don't know why, but in How Green Was My Valley there's this shot, I think during/just after the funeral scene, where you see a character that's silhouetted in the distance next a tree in a long shot that Ford just holds on. Almost any normal director would've cut to close up to show the emotional response to empathetically elicit the same one from the audience. There's a real directorial genius in knowing how to get those same responses from images that otherwise wouldn't have that emotional charge.

Yeah, Ford was I think was really good about using nature to express things beyond itself. Its why I think he was able to make Monument Valley so mythic.

And the list of the directors capable of doing that is pretty damn short. I mean, if we eliminate directors who made films set in very specific places that naturally lent themselves to conveying emotions tones (eg, Aguirre, Apocalypse Now, Lawrence of Arabia, etc.) and just consider those who can go from, say, a "normal" drama into a nature shot that has some emotional impact, how many names come to mind? For me, the first two names I thought of was Hou and Angelopoulos... probably why they're two of the more "obscure" directors that I adore.

Yes, and good female characters in the "strong characters, female" sense (I think I've showed you that article before).

Yup, you've shown me that before, and I've even shown it to others a couple of times myself. It's a good piece, with an unfortunate comments section.

When it comes to Hollywood at least, when do you suppose this trend started? Like a lot of things I blame the New Hollywood movement- or at least the auteurs that seemed to hyperfocus in on male characters.

"Good article with an unfortunate comment section" sums up most of the internet!

Good question. Until I read that article several years ago I don't think I ever thought about it much so I never really paid attention to the trend. New Hollywood might be a good starting point, as I can actually think of a number of really good films centered around strong female characters before then. About the only thing I disagree with that article on is the notion that, in the old days, women always played the damsels in distress. While there were an abundance of those types early on, I also think early cinema had arguably more and better strong female characters than much of what's come after. Pandora's Box springs immediately to mind, and that was a silent!

It kind of reminds me of the whole thing with "Madeline" vanishing from the hotel. I'm still not entirely sure what to make of that part of the movie.

Reverse Quantum Rei effect?

Pft, my single word reviews from back in the day are clearly a superior form of dorkiness. Why use 2300 words when you can use 2299 less words to convey something?

Shit.

[Raxivace]

And the list of the directors capable of doing that is pretty damn short. I mean, if we eliminate directors who made films set in very specific places that naturally lent themselves to conveying emotions tones (eg, Aguirre, Apocalypse Now, Lawrence of Arabia, etc.) and just consider those who can go from, say, a "normal" drama into a nature shot that has some emotional impact, how many names come to mind? For me, the first two names I thought of was Hou and Angelopoulos... probably why they're two of the more "obscure" directors that I adore.

None even immediately come to my mind.

Good question. Until I read that article several years ago I don't think I ever thought about it much so I never really paid attention to the trend. New Hollywood might be a good starting point, as I can actually think of a number of really good films centered around strong female characters before then.

If I were to make an educated guess, I think Hollywood before its new wave just made more of an effort to appeal to female audiences (Even if it was for purely commercial reasons), especially during an era like World War II where a lot of the men simply weren't in the country.

It seems like once the movie brats took over and started making their "personal films" about angry white loners and the like and those movies started making money, suddenly the idea of appealing to broader audiences was lost...

About the only thing I disagree with that article on is the notion that, in the old days, women always played the damsels in distress. While there were an abundance of those types early on, I also think early cinema had arguably more and better strong female characters than much of what's come after. Pandora's Box springs immediately to mind, and that was a silent!

Yeah I do find that part a little suspect, though I agree with the general notion that while the past obviously wasn't perfect (Just, for an example, the only women of these movies seemed to be straight and white), there still seems to be more nuance there then came after.

Pandora's Box isn't one I'm familiar with. After the silent era though I think there are a lot of movies to point to- like a lot of screwball comedies, melodramas, regular dramas, suspense films like Hitchcock's, even the femme fatales of noir etc.

Reverse Quantum Rei effect?

Actually that's probably what you're meant to almost think on a first watch, when the supernatural stuff seems like a possible direction for the movie to actually go in.

On rewatches, it almost seems like a locked room mystery that we just don't get the answer to.

Shit.

lol

[Derived Absurdity]

It's been a long time since I've seen Dogtooth, but I remember liking it a lot and currently have it on my list of favorite movies. What didn't you like about it?

I really hated The Lobster, though.

[Lord_Lyndon]

Saw some films:

The Flowers of War (2011; Yimou Zhang) 8/10
Hana and Alice (2004; Shunji Iwai) 8/10
Election (2005; Johnnie To) 7/10
Election 2 (2006; Johnnie To) 8/10
Harry Potter 1 (2001) 6/10
Harry Potter 2 (2002) 8/10
Harry Potter 3 (2004) 7/10
Harry Potter 4 (2005) 7/10
Harry Potter 5 (2007) 7/10
Harry Potter 6 (2009) 7/10
Harry Potter 7 Part 1 (2010) 8/10
Harry Potter 7 Part 2 (2011) 8/10

Decided to watch Harry Potter movies. Pretty decent series of movies with a rather memorable finale.

[Eva Yojimbo]

And the list of the directors capable of doing that is pretty damn short. I mean, if we eliminate directors who made films set in very specific places that naturally lent themselves to conveying emotions tones (eg, Aguirre, Apocalypse Now, Lawrence of Arabia, etc.) and just consider those who can go from, say, a "normal" drama into a nature shot that has some emotional impact, how many names come to mind? For me, the first two names I thought of was Hou and Angelopoulos... probably why they're two of the more "obscure" directors that I adore.

None even immediately come to my mind.

Maybe Malick would be another, but for him nature just seems to be another thing he throws into his perpetual montage blender these days.

If I were to make an educated guess, I think Hollywood before its new wave just made more of an effort to appeal to female audiences (Even if it was for purely commercial reasons), especially during an era like World War II where a lot of the men simply weren't in the country.

It seems like once the movie brats took over and started making their "personal films" about angry white loners and the like and those movies started making money, suddenly the idea of appealing to broader audiences was lost...

Yes, this seems like a very plausible theory. Would be interesting to try to do some statistical analysis on this, but it would be difficult. But I think of a director like Douglas Sirk who almost solely appealed to female audiences and how there's really no equivalent in New Hollywood.

Pandora's Box isn't one I'm familiar with. After the silent era though I think there are a lot of movies to point to- like a lot of screwball comedies, melodramas, regular dramas, suspense films like Hitchcock's, even the femme fatales of noir etc.

Definitely make Pandora's Box a priority. Louise Brooks is a force of nature in that film. But, yeah, you're also right about what came after.

Reverse Quantum Rei effect?

Actually that's probably what you're meant to almost think on a first watch, when the supernatural stuff seems like a possible direction for the movie to actually go in.

On rewatches, it almost seems like a locked room mystery that we just don't get the answer to.

I'd never really thought too deeply about that. Almost reminds me of the disappearing Rita in Mulholland Drive now that I think about it. You're definitely right that it plays into the "possible supernatural" angle of the first half.

[Eva Yojimbo]

It's been a long time since I've seen Dogtooth, but I remember liking it a lot and currently have it on my list of favorite movies. What didn't you like about it?

I really hated The Lobster, though.

It's similarly been a long time for me, but I remember just thinking that it was trying really, really hard to be edgy, dark, and funny, and I just found it ridiculous. I've said before that dark comedies, quirky films, and edgy stuff tend to be a love/hate thing with me. That one landed on the hate side, but I couldn't give a concrete reason why without rewatching it.

[Eva Yojimbo]

Saw some films:

The Flowers of War (2011; Yimou Zhang) 8/10
Hana and Alice (2004; Shunji Iwai) 8/10
Election (2005; Johnnie To) 7/10
Election 2 (2006; Johnnie To) 8/10
Harry Potter 1 (2001) 6/10
Harry Potter 2 (2002) 8/10
Harry Potter 3 (2004) 7/10
Harry Potter 4 (2005) 7/10
Harry Potter 5 (2007) 7/10
Harry Potter 6 (2009) 7/10
Harry Potter 7 Part 1 (2010) 8/10
Harry Potter 7 Part 2 (2011) 8/10

Decided to watch Harry Potter movies. Pretty decent series of movies with a rather memorable finale.

Besides the first two HP's I haven't seen any of these. I was going to wait until I read the other HP books before watching the rest but never got around to it. I never could quite get fully immersed into that world. Have you seen All About Lily Chou-Chou from Iwai? I remember loving that.