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This is a intresting game , did ytou make it to the end ?

I have been trying to get an original widescreen DVD of this film for ages. It's on Film4 a lot, but the quality is terrible and only in 4:3., and if you zoom it up the quality is even worse. I don't understand why it's taken so long to bring out a version that shows what it was like to watch this film in the cinema when it was originally released. There are plenty of films of this year and era that are in fantastic condition, and a lot of 50's and early 60's film in Technicolour and Panavision are far superior quality than films today.

Oh dear, shame, but I still want it, if the quality is good, compared to what I have now and Film 4, then I can zoom it and watch it, I hope in it's original condition. It has to better than what I have now. At least then I can watch it on my 32" HDTV in 16:9 or even 14:9 which I find is the correct aspect for 4:3 films.

Competent but skewed
This is a well-photographed, at times interesting collection of stories about chorus members in the San Francisco Opera. The emphasis is on homosexual members. And a good many issues are ignored, including the formal education and training of chorus members and the economics involved. One of the most amusing scenes is of the wealthy patrons lining up at the opera house door to be photographed. This film is strictly for opera lovers.

It seems that Netflix DOES have an agenda to promote homosexuality as much as possible. It has been very difficult to figure out how to block the offering of movies in this category. It's funny that they list 'Gay and Lesbian' as a genre for browsing and then hide it under 'Cultures' when you are searching to block it. Since when is your sexual preference a culture like being a Hispanic, Jewish, or African-American? Why do they make it so easy to find 'Gay and Lesbian' movies to watch and so hard to find the genre to block? It's because Netflix and Hollywood are trying to shove 'Gay' down our throats!
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Dear Netflix and Hollywood... I'm NOT gay... I'm NOT going to turn gay... Those of us who don't live in Hollywood, aren't in movies, aren't actors, aren't dancers or artists don't know a huge percentage of gay people. Get over it already. I think it's time for 'Homosexuals' to start being tolerant of us 'Heterosexuals'!!! Tolerance should be a two-way street!

Okay - I'm a USAian, and not particularly ashamed of it. I like my movies with characters I can care about, a story that interests me, filmed in a visually pleasing fashion.
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A side note to European filmmakers - symbology is representative. Symbols can be a marvelous way to enhance storytelling, but they are never, in themselves, the story.

I'll give it a 4 for visual interest and the bit of dramatic tension that was achieved, and remain mystified as to why anyone would consider this masterful film-making. I guess I'm just a Philistine.

I think it's time for 'Homosexuals' to start being tolerant of us 'Heterosexuals'!!! Tolerance should be a two-way street!

It could also be that this was such a perfect vehicle for his talent that expectations were too atmospheric to be adequately met.

knives wrote:I don't see what's wrong.That's how he introduces every film. As far as the pronunciation thing. With AK I think I'll give the man a pass.

ozukarodzi wrote:

knives wrote:I don't see what's wrong.That's how he introduces every film. As far as the pronunciation thing. With AK I think I'll give the man a pass.

What is wrong? Just to name a few:

1. The name is Abbas Kiarostami and not Abasee Kiearotami.
2. He was born in Tehran and not Teeran.
3. He never established no film department, he made educational children film for the ministry, The Bread and Alley (1970) is a short and not a feature film.
4. Taste of Cherry won Palme d'Or in 1997 and not 1977, that is 20 years apart.

Martin Liebman wrote:Cera's got this routine down pat, so down pat that his alter ego in Youth in Revolt doesn't really work. A different actor in the alter ego role would have worked much better, as it has in other movies of recent vintage; here, Cera's alter ego is, well, Cera, only with a mustache and a cigarette. He's less stiff in his movements and he manages to change his cadence, but otherwise, it's little more than a costume change, and not even as dramatic as the transformation in something like SHE'S ALL THAT.

And then there are those shorts best left dusty and hidden, forgotten somewhere in one’s personal vault. There is Wedlock House: An Intercourse (‘59), which captures Brakhage and his first wife arguing and sexing; Window Water Baby Moving (‘59), a record of his first child’s birth; and the most disturbing inclusion, The Act of Seeing with One’s Own Eyes (‘71), which consists entirely of autopsy footage.

Bauer's films, with their predatory, managing women and their weak, hedonistic men, suggest a homosexual sensitivity, but he is too modern in outlook to be categorized.

With Sjöström, he is the only director of the teens of the twentieth century whose work can still be watched with satisfaction and enjoyment.

knives wrote:Someone got paid to write this for the Brakhage set. [quote=""pro-critic""]That is what he did and these are his films. And they’re groundbreaking and experimental and avant-garde...But, readers, it is all so boring and pretentious, really little more than a massive collection of blobs, blurs, scratches, flickers, scribbles, distortion, fuzz, and skat, found aesthetically something-or-the-other only to those who think it hip to do so.

ozukarodzi wrote: What is wrong? Just to name a few:
3. He never established no film department....