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domino harvey wrote:At some point you should definitely go back and rent Brigitte and Brigitte (or just pick up the Region Free French Moullet box, the disc you got is a direct port) and trawl YouTube for some of his shorts, many of which star Moullet himself

Both of the other discs from the boxset are in my Netflix queue. I would go out and buy it based upon what I've already seen, but without a teaching assignment yet for the Fall, I'm saving my money wherever I can.

Well, whenever you get around to 'em, I think you'll be surprised at how varied his output runs!

More viewings today:

Gumshoe (Stephen Frears 1971) Reminiscent of Benton's the Late Show in that it initially presents a somewhat arch take on noir conventions while gradually reducing the tonal aloofness until the film finally transforms into the very thing it was winking at. The joke of Benton's film of course is that its noirish plot unfolds almost absent of genre trappings, whereas Frears goes in the opposite direction, leaving behind all in-jokes as it nears the end and just having Albert Finney suck himself into the mindset of a Chandler hero, a vortex so strong that seemingly everyone he encounters then reciprocates in kind. The dialog is often too good, with the overwritten barbs bouncing back and forth so fast that they eventually dull the senses. While Gumshoe is a film where a character's imitation spontaneously generates sincerity of purpose, I'm not quite sure the same can be said about the film proper-- though lord knows the pic has a lot of fun trying!

the Suckers (Stu Segall 1972) / the Love Garden (Mark Haggard 1971) Having delved into all of the assorted volumes of the 42nd Street Forever series, I picked up some random exploitation/grindhouse-y films just to quell my curiosity / test the waters a bit. First up for this list is this Vinegar Syndrome "sexploitation" double feature. I guess I thought "sexploitation" meant something more like the Christina Lindberg Thriller (Conventional narrative film punctuated by several scenes of sexuality), not, you know, porn. But the Suckers is basically porn with the penetration shots removed, and if you ever watched the Most Dangerous Game and thought "Gee, this would be a lot better with fifty minutes of porn attached to the front," then good news! I found the first 2/3 of the film dull but functional-- I have no available tool box or perimeters for appraising porn, so I guess if you find these actresses attractive and want to see them almost have sex, it's effective? The only girl that I found cute got paired with a dude who looked like Michael Jeter, so pretty much nothing about this experience went my way.

It only gets worse though as the plot kicks in for the last thirty minutes and it turns out all the models and photographers invited to the secluded "ranch" (filmed with no establishing or exterior shots) for a hunting session are in fact the hunted. And by hunted I mean someone with a gun or knife will walk up to one of the women and then rape them in scenes given as much leering nudity and sexuality as the earlier sequences before their naked bodies are splashed with stage blood and left out in the open for more leering. Repulsive, &c.

The Love Garden-- which features no garden literal, symbolic, or otherwise-- fares better, though by mere close association to the Suckers anything would. I might even go as far as to say I liked it, a little. The film at least attempts some social commentary on changes attitudes towards women in the Lib days and features a John Ford-loving, Norman Mailer-reading male lead who looks like Bob from That 70s Show and goes about seducing a lesbian in probably the least-threatening, passive-aggressive way possible. The film seems mostly built around its 20+ minute lesbian sex scene, and again, if that's going to get your motor running, then it's there for 100% masturbatory purposes only.

I guess at least there's something to be said for the innocence of the depicted sex in films like these (well, minus the back end of the Suckers), which at least treat sex as potentially erotic and not just mechanical circus acts as in modern clinical adult entertainment.

Serious question: Are there any good film-specific academic analyses of pornographic films? Not societal critiques or histories but actual critical examinations of a pornographic (or near-pornographic) film as a film? I'd be very curious to see approaches to a film product where the primary function is so wholly subjective.

domino harvey wrote:the Suckers (Stu Segall 1972) / the Love Garden (Mark Haggard 1971) Having delved into all of the assorted volumes of the 42nd Street Forever series, I picked up some random exploitation/grindhouse-y films just to quell my curiosity / test the waters a bit.

I've mentioned it in a previous thread, but as far as I'm concerned, The Candy Snatchers, Bonnie's Kids and Fight for Your Life are the three films I'd put in a time capsule to define the 70s grindhouse experience.

I actually already have Bonnie's Kids in my ridiculous unwatched pile thanks to the A+ tagline in the trailer. I remember the Fight For Your Life trailer/discussion from the Video Nasties set and I strongly recall thinking "There's no way I ever want to see this," so sorry on that front. I just went through all my unwatched discs and culled together my 70s films yesterday, thinking maybe I had a couple dozen. More like a couple hundred I had better use my summer wisely!

A New Leaf (Elaine May 1970) We may never see May's intended version, but what we do have is wonderful and other than a somewhat understated send-off for a character Matthau's character kills in May's preferred cut, nothing really seems amiss in the final Robert Evans version. Matthau built a career out of wizened wiseacres but this is the funniest performance I've seen him give by a country mile, with a foppish tuft of hair on one side and an impenetrably shitty attitude exerted outwards at all who cross his path. The film unabashedly allows Matthau to be wickedly awful for the length of the film, and its refusal to apologize for his truly horrid behavior (the scene of him destroying the flower girl at the wedding is a masterpiece of unsympathetic character work) makes the emotional payoff of his gradual softening all the more effective. This is definitely making my list.

H.O.T.S. (Gerald SIndell 1979) The prospect of a female-centric Animal House ripoff at least seemed promising in offering a different perspective on the typical late 70s/early 80s teen sex romp-- it was even written by two women! But the whole experience is just weird, and not in a good way. The premise concerns a group of "outcasts" who form their own titular (pun definitely intended and reinforced throughout the film) sorority in response to being snubbed by the snobby Phi sisters. However, the film undermines any attempts at sisterhood or women's lib, however fleeting, by constantly poking fun at the one fat member and at one point sending off a group of perfectly attractive potential pledges off to the plastic surgeon! All that's left is a series of kooky adventures wherein Our Heroines find excuses to disrobe and fend off a gaggle of suitably generic and ineffectual male suitors. Also included at no additional cost: Two borscht belt gangsters, a moonshine-drinking bear, a trained seal, a sassy black house mom, hot air ballon as one character's chosen mode of transportation, Danny Bonaduce rendered impotent by saltpeter, and a painful-looking topless football game where the poor girls hold their chests as much as possible while running for obvious reasons.

the Romantic Englishwoman (Joseph Losey 1975) Handsomely shot and well-acted but to what end? Glenda Jackson is wife to jealous Michael Caine, who fears she may or may not have had an affair with gadabout "poet" Helmut Berger. But the film can never decide which avenue of this basic story to pursue, and the end result is a listless mush.

Small Change (Francois Truffaut 1976) I was naturally skeptical of any late period Truffaut film being good, but enough people who know better seemed to really like this one. It even sounds good: A loosely connected series of vignettes depicting young children in their day-to-day experiences. But unfortunately most of the film is a failure, with the so-called observations and insights running the gamut from lazy and nondescript to shrill to frankly embarrassing (the little kid falling out of the window, or the final speech by the teacher, cringe-inducing in its tone-deafness). The film worked for me twice-- in one scene, a little girl left alone at home as punishment cons her apartment building into providing her food and sympathy, and in another a clueless boy is gradually shifted out of a double date at the movies (a sequence intercut with a hilariously weird fake newsreel about a whistling superstar)-- but that's about seven or eight minutes out of a hundred-plus.

Last time I watched Small Change, I liked more segments than you did -- but the ending is indeed devastatingly awful.

I've seen three of those titles in the past (all except the Losey) and agree with your interpretation of A New Leaf and H.O.T.S.. I had no idea that May had assembled a different cut (the existing one is great as it is) and that the latter film was written by a pair of women since it came off as bizarre misogynist nonsense. However, Small Change is probably my favorite film by Truffaut at that stage of his career. It's been well over a decade since I've seen it, so I can't comment on individual scenes, but I think fondly of what I do remember.

It's '80s, but I found Truffaut's last film to be surprisingly good considering his average. I think what works so well about A New Leaf is that the film doesn't even give Matthau a 'gradual softening' so much as it reveals that he has some basic human consideration (though I suppose that is softening to some extent). He's so foppish and self absorbed that he just has to keep himself in damnation. He's only self-aware enough to accept the Catch-22 he lives in.

Director's Guide Part 2

John Huston
Wise Blood (1979)------Criterion R1
The Man Who Would Be King (1975)-----Warners Blu RA
The MacKintosh Man (1973)-------Warners R1
The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972)---------Warners
Fat City (1972)------------Sony R1 (OOP)
The Kremlin Letter (1970)----------Eureka R2

Dom said before something along the lines of Huston being an inconsistent director, but I'll have to respectfully disagree to the point of believing that what's kept him from the critical acclaim he so deserves is that in spite his versatility he is so consistent a director that his accomplishments can be easily taken for granted. Just look at something like The Kremlin Letter which as an entry in the slow burn spy genre a near miracle, but in Huston's career just what is expected. I suppose the same can be said of Fat City, but Keach's performance and the grime Huston builds off of it are such a total shock to the system, personally, that it shines as something special counter to the episodes of the life it details. Keach again, this time in one of the best cameos of all time, takes a great movie and runs away with it. That's not to say The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean isn't great independent of him. In fact it might be the best of the revisionist western of the decade because of how inescapable it knows the myth is from the truth. The film just increasingly becomes more of a fantasia until it breaks away to the unbelievable ether. Luck's not as great with Huston's subsequent pairing with Paul Newman which is just an alright entry in it's genre with none of the spectacular little performances that Huston built this decade on working. That's just a temporary slip toward his best film of the decade, The Man Who Would Be King which is the most beautiful Ealing film never made. Between Connery and Caine's Thomson and Thompson routine and the ground literally swallowing the film whole is one of the most poignant tales of camaraderie and hubris I've witnessed. Wise Blood doesn't quite have that emotional depth, but as a film of small performances punched straight through the brain this is his masterpiece.

Michael Ritchie
An Almost Perfect Affair (1979)-----Paramount R1 (OOP)
Semi-Tough (1977)----------MGM R1
The Bad News Bears (1976)-------Paramount R1
Smile (1975)---------------MGM R1
The Candidate (1972)------Warners
Prime Cut (1972)-------Paramount R1 (OOP)

Ritchie's a bit of a pet director for me and this decade of output is almost exclusively why. No one has cataloged the pain of winning and the joys of the fight better than him. Here's somebody who appreciates the psychology of a loss so much that even test audiences turned their back at the suggestion of a win. Though these questions aren't really the ones posed in Prime Cut which even in the shadow of Point Blank is an astounding accomplishment of physicality and horror. The Candidate is his real thesis statement though and what is, barring All is Lost, the best use of Redford ever. In fact the performance here and the context it is driven from should have killed Redford's persona. There are fewer more powerful final lines in any artform. Peter Boyle, in what is basically the Gene Hackman role, also has never been better being slimy in a way that you only see in real life. That's not even getting into how wonderful the whole political aspect is. Better move on, but I feel like I could write a book about this film. With such great heights there's only down to go to so tremendous strength Smile exudes is a triumph in itself. The movie with it's emphasis on traveling in and out of the stories its ensemble presents leaves the taste of a small scale Nashville which I hope is all of the selling I'll need to do. With two sequels, a failed television show, and a remake I probably don't need to evangelize The Bad News Bears. Still though it is the best encyclopedia of insults and child endangerment you'll see legally. It's no wonder that Ritchie took a break from the sport genre for over a decade after Semi-Tough because it really is the final word on what pre-occupies Ritchie with these figures. It's also just damned fun to hang out with Kirstofferson and Reynolds as they let their neuroses eat them alive. An Almost Perfect Affair is so small that it was never going to come across as one of the greats, but it still accomplishes what it aims for by leagues.

Louis Malle
Pretty Baby (1978)-----Paramount R1
Black Moon (1975)-------Criterion R1
Place de la République (1974)-----Criterion R1
Humain, trop humain (1974)-------Criterion R1
Lacombe Lucien (1974)-------Criterion R1
Murmur of the Heart (1971)------Criterion R1

Dear lord, I don't care how much Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach plead Murmur of the Heart is an awful movie and no matter how cute and cheeky the ending is the rest of the film is proto-Miramax bore with possibly the most obnoxious protagonist in any film ever. Lacombe Lucien is a million times better even if it is still directed with all of the stiffness of late '90s oscar bait. Malle thankfully dips back into documentary after this and puts out probably his best work of the decade offering the sort of humain work he does best (though to be a total schmuck the work here as cinema isn't much better than your average PBS doc). Black Moon is pretty awful, but it is so ambitiously and uniquely misfired that is winds up being rather admirable. Pretty Baby though is straight up and up success with painterly direction and a dynamic character relationships. Even Malle's flirting with bad taste works well here for a more meaningful connection with the characters in the face of whatever bad behavior they visit or are visited.

Paul Bartel
Cannonball! (1976)-------Blue Underground R1
Death Race 2000 (1975)------Shout Blu
Private Parts (1972)------Warners R1

Hopefully now being Criterion approved will burn the spot light on Bartel's insanity a little better than before. Nothing here is as good as that film, but it is still aces even disregarding whatever handicap New World Cinema films need. Private Parts may be a shade too serious for its John Waters type characters and presentation but Bartel's skill is enough to get a dark enjoyment out of it. Despite being jobs only for hire the subsequent racing pics really give to fruition in feature the complex relationship Bartel has with bad taste and high comedy. Death Race 2000 is a pretty straight forward satire of our violence obsessed culture that really stands as something different from similar films for how the humour works against this from becoming a critique. Cannonball! is where things become a major critique though not on violence so much as Death Race 2000. It's a down right mean case of audience shaming with the ending having none of the winking that characterizes the rest of Bartel's output. I recognize how this could frustrate some, but I think it ultimately works as a great prank.

Once again, I respectfully degree with your rankings: if The Kremlin Letter isn't Huston's best film, it's certainly in his top three. The ultimate "deglamorized" spy film, with all traces of nationality, ideology, morality and identity slowly dissolving away in the face of the subterfuge and deception necessary to the occupation.

I respectfully agree with your disagreement. It might not make my top five spy films and certainly wouldn't make my top three Huston's but the way that Huston just grinds the mechanics of the spy game is marvellous. Outside of those Guinness films I don't think we've gotten anything closer to John le Carre in the movies and some of those cameos by the old horses are perfect examples of what I was getting at. I guess what I was getting at, perhaps ironically given the open, is that even if it is great cinema it isn't great Huston to me.

Cold Bishop wrote:Once again, I respectfully degree with your rankings: if The Kremlin Letter isn't Huston's best film, it's certainly in his top three. The ultimate "deglamorized" spy film, with all traces of nationality, ideology, morality and identity slowly dissolving away in the face of the subterfuge and deception necessary to the occupation.

Amen to that.

Cold Bishop wrote:Once again, I respectfully degree with your rankings: if The Kremlin Letter isn't Huston's best film, it's certainly in his top three. The ultimate "deglamorized" spy film, with all traces of nationality, ideology, morality and identity slowly dissolving away in the face of the subterfuge and deception necessary to the occupation.

Just to replicate our discussion in the 60s thread perfectly, I absolutely agree.

Viewing Log:

Distant Thunder (1973, Satyajit Ray): I wasn't expecting much given how many of the other films in Ray's body of work garner more attention. However, I was delightfully surprised at how good this was. I should have known better coming from Ray, though I have seen a few thoroughly mediocre films from his late period. The film tells the story of a young Brahmin couple who take up residency in a poor Indian countryside before the great famine of 1943 and charts the slow decay of their village as their friends and neighbors search for rice, fish, anything to survive the week. Beautifully shot and emotionally driven, this is another great find.

Perceval (1978, Eric Rohmer): I've contemplated purchasing the OOP Wellspring DVD on Amazon for years, but it was always too pricey. Thankfully, I managed to track down a copy through my library. Rohmer's film tells a highly stylized story of the legend of Percival in his journey from an adventure hungry youth to a knight in Arthur's court. I've never seen a film that looked or sounded quite like this, with the set pieces constructed to resemble colorful props cut out from a medieval tapestry and much of the dialogue sung in the fashion of its day. This is a film stylistically unlike any other that I've seen from Rohmer, but still touches on the same themes of virtue and faith that permeate many of his other works. Viewing it was a wonderful experience, but I'm still a bit mystified by the detour into Sir Gawain’s story that took up so much of the last third of the film. Even the washed out visuals on the OOP disc couldn't diminish my enjoyment of it, but I couldn't help but think that this could look stunningly gorgeous with a full restoration in 1080p.

Reason, Debate, and a Story (1974, Ritwik Ghatak): This was only the second of Ghatak's films that I've seen (the very good The Cloud-Capped Star being the other, although I would love to find a copy of A River Called Titas for the project), and I was quite impressed. Ghatak plays a version of himself, a disillusioned and alcoholic intellectual wandering the countryside of India in search of meaning. There's a good deal going on in the film that requires a deeper knowledge of Hindu mythology than I have, but what I did gleam from it was marvelous. It definitely merits a second viewing before I vote.

The Spider's Stratagem (1970, Bernardo Bertolucci): Some time ago I stupidly passed up the chance to watch this on VHS thinking that DVD release was inevitable. I've always regretted that, but thanks to a recent article from The AV Club I've finally managed to catch this masterpiece from Bertolucci on Youtube. Giulio Brogi does an admirable job in dual roles here as both a father and his son as a sinister fascist plot ensnares them both. This fills a major gap in my knowledge of Bertolucci's career, but I just have to wonder why no one has ever released this on DVD. Are there rights issues? Does anyone know?

Ten Days Wonder (1971, Claude Chabrol): The general consensus seems to be that this is a minor work by Chabrol. I have to agree. Chabrol has made some excellent murder mysteries, but this one often seemed ponderous and leaden despite having the wonderful Orson Welles and Tony Perkins as father and emotionally disturbed adopted son. There a good deal to enjoy here, but too much of the film comes off as too silly for it to have any real impact as a thriller. However, it did suggest a new career path for me: philosophy professor/homicide detective. Seems totally natural.

Perceval is great though there are a few films similar to it. I'm particularly thinking of The Satin Slipper which takes a lot of those aesthetic elements and pushes them as far as they'll go.

knives wrote:Perceval is great though there are a few films similar to it. I'm particularly thinking of The Satin Slipper which takes a lot of those aesthetic elements and pushes them as far as they'll go.

Good to know. I'd love to hear more recommendations.

bamwc2 wrote: The Spider's Stratagem (1970, Bernardo Bertolucci): Some time ago I stupidly passed up the chance to watch this on VHS thinking that DVD release was inevitable. I've always regretted that, but thanks to a recent article from The AV Club I've finally managed to catch this masterpiece from Bertolucci on Youtube. Giulio Brogi does an admirable job in dual roles here as both a father and his son as a sinister fascist plot ensnares them both. This fills a major gap in my knowledge of Bertolucci's career, but I just have to wonder why no one has ever released this on DVD. Are there rights issues? Does anyone know?

Apparently there are. I know that Arrow tried to get it but couldn't.

bamwc2 wrote:

knives wrote:Perceval is great though there are a few films similar to it. I'm particularly thinking of The Satin Slipper which takes a lot of those aesthetic elements and pushes them as far as they'll go.

Good to know. I'd love to hear more recommendations.

I want to say that Ruiz did something similar, but for the life of me I can't think of what I'm thinking of. It really is a great design though that I wish was more common.

bamwc2 wrote:I would love to find a copy of A River Called Titas for the project

It was released by the BFI, and is still in print and available from Amazon UK.

knives wrote:

bamwc2 wrote:

knives wrote:Perceval is great though there are a few films similar to it. I'm particularly thinking of The Satin Slipper which takes a lot of those aesthetic elements and pushes them as far as they'll go.

Good to know. I'd love to hear more recommendations.

I want to say that Ruiz did something similar, but for the life of me I can't think of what I'm thinking of. It really is a great design though that I wish was more common.

Monteiro's Silvestre:

I wish that damned set was easier to get. That's bloody gorgeous.

Most of the film is much more prosaic than that (though still highly stylized).

And the set is still going ridiculously cheap from fnac.

In terms of 70s films, Paths is in a similar vein (but set in real, sometimes spectacular locations), and will be in consideration for my list.

zedz wrote:Most of the film is much more prosaic than that (though still highly stylized).

And the set is still going ridiculously cheap from fnac.

I know, but none of my cards will go through. I'm considering getting a working one just to be able to bite. I have the shittiest luck.

zedz wrote:In terms of 70s films, Paths is in a similar vein (but set in real, sometimes spectacular locations), and will be in consideration for my list.

Do you mean Monteiro's Veredas/Trails?

zedz wrote:It was released by the BFI, and is still in print and available from Amazon UK.

Thanks. I knew about it already. I have their other Ghatak and used to own the dreadful homage to him that they released as well (My first Beaver review!). I supposed that I used the wrong verb since I know where to find it. But with money being tight, I hope to be able to purchase and see it before the end of the project.

Seeing the trailer for Shûji Terayama's Throw Away Your Books, Rally In the Streets has left me desperate to track it down. Youtube has the second half of it up...and nothing else. Does anyone know where the full film can be found? Hell, if anyone can point me to any more of Terayama's films aside from Pastoral: To Die In the Country (Sure to be in my top ten for the project) and the truncated Grass Labyrinth from Private Collections, then I would be eternally grateful.

Edit: I see that there's a 3 BD set in Japan without English subs. Perhaps a someone in the US or the UK could do their own release.