Last week I was trying to fight off a cold so I laid on the couch with some coffee and watched Jules Dassin's Rififi.

"Rififi, shot on the rainy streets of Paris, is imbued with the same gritty realism that marked Dassin's earlier work in New York (The Naked City) and London (Night and the City). Jean Servais plays Tony le Stéphanois, an aging crook whose thin lips and tired, seen-it-all eyes give him a look somewhere between Humphrey Bogart and Harry Dean Stanton. Out of jail after a five-year stretch, he joins up with a couple of pals to pull one last heist: a jewel robbery that is portrayed in such detail (including tips on how to silence an alarm using a fire extinguisher) that the film was banned in several countries."



My favorite part of the film was the heist itself. During the entire scene (20-30 minutes) there is no dialogue. I also enjoyed Dassin as the Italian safecracker.

After watching the film, I was reading up on it online and found out the are planning a remake of it (2009). Its going to star Al Pacino and be directed by Harold Becker. I'm not a huge fan of remakes, but if done right maybe it will be ok.

I decided to start writing in my journal again since I have been watching lots of movies lately.

Yvonne and I started our 31 Days of Horror, that we do every October. So far so good. I think we are only behind one movie, which we will make up in the next week. I am going to see the Halloween Double Feature in the theaters on the 30th, they are playing Halloween 4 & 5. We also are getting our pumpkins this weekend.

We found Count Chocula, BooBerry and Frankenberry for a buck each! Yvonne quickly snatched up all three (she said this would make Lily jealous too). Mmmmm...cereal.

Below is the cover of Fulci's Zombie, which as a kid scared the hell out of me in the video store. I loved scary movies as a kid but always avoided this one because of the photo on the front. I think that attributed to me not watching it until I was in my late teens. Great movie though, one of my favorites.

Yvonne and I had movie night again tonight. Pizza, soda, Red Vines, Junior mints, the works. We watched a kung-fu film called Fearless Fighters. Fun times! Yvonne and I started talking about all the kung-fu and samurai films we have watched. Man, good stuff. I think we are going to watch some kung-fu and get chinese food soon. Anyone who wants to come over and have kung-fu movie is welcome!

Last night I watched David Gordon Green's George Washington. I was really impressed with the acting of the children. The film was made in a way that you almost forget that it is fictionalized and not a documentary.

"Over the course of one hot summer, a group of children in the rural south are forced to confront a tangle of difficult choices in a decaying world. An ambitiously constructed, sensuously photographed meditation on adolescence, the first feature film by director David Gordon Green features breakout performances from an award-winning ensemble cast."

Watched The Last Temptation of Christ the other day. This is one of the few Scorses films I have not seen all the way through until now. Great film with some powerful acting.

"The carpenter Jesus of Nazareth, tormented by the temptations of demons, the guilt of making crosses for the Romans, pity for men and the world, and the constant call of God, sets out to find what God wills for him. But as his mission nears fulfillment, he must face the greatest temptation: the normal life of a good man. At his execution, Jesus is tempted by an alluring image of a peaceful and pleasant life with Mary Magdelene to try to get him to refuse the sacrifice he must make.
At last, Martin Scorsese's most personal masterpiece can be seen outside of the controversy it engendered, and be seen for what it is: a l5-year labor of love. Nikos Kazantzakis' landmark novel comes to breathtaking life in this moving and spiritual film. The all-star cast includes Harvey Keitel, Barbara Hershey, Harry Dean Stanton, David Bowie, and Willem Dafoe as Jesus. Criterion is proud to present this cinematic treasure in an exclusive Director Approved special edition."



Yvonne and I also had movie night this weekend and I got some Zatoichi films in today. As a side note, I will not go to a Blockbuster on a Friday night to pass some time while we wait for our food. Bunch of jackasses.

Yesterday my cousin came over and the three of use made my famous homemade onion soup and watched A History of Violence. Great soup, great movie. I have heard great things about it from other people and was really looking forward to seeing it.

I am still going over the film in my head and I want to watch it again to take even more in. I started watching the making of documentary and other features.



Off to get some coffee and finish The Last Temptation of Christ tonight before we start our doc on movie editing and another on Fellini.

Tonight Yvonne and I decided to have a movie night. We got cheese pizza from Tony's, caesar salad, sodas and had homemade popcorn, red vines, raisinettes and twix for snacks. Total movie food. We started with drive-in advertisements and a cartoon before the main feature. After we ate we even played the "lets all go to lobby" cartoon when we made snacks. Lots of fun.

The main feature was Kamikaze Girls. This movie is the most fun I have had so far this year. The storytelling was fun and entertaining, the characters were great and the music was perfect for this film.

"Momoko is an ordinary girl, living an ordinary life. Ordinary, that is, if you define ordinary as wearing elaborate lolita dresses from the Rococo period in 18th Century France. A complete fish out of water in her rural and sleepy Japanese town, where everyone buys their clothes (and everything else) at the same store and no one understands her, Momoko's life is one of sugared sweets and frilly treats. Desperate to make some money to pay for her expensive indulgence, Momoko tries selling bootleg Ver*ace and Uni*ersal Studios clothes left over from her Dad's yakuza (gangster) days. However, when punk girl and self-styled 'Yanki' Ichiko comes calling, her days as 'ordinary' are most certainly numbered... Road movie, buddy comedy, deeply insightful and surprisingly touching, the surreal world only further highlights the all too real friendship that brings these two unlikely girls together."



We are going to try to do movie night at least once a week because we had so much fun. If you can check this movie out, you won't be disappointed.

We watched Walk The Line. The other day. Great movie and the acting was excellent.

"The story of how Johnny Cash became Johnny Cash traces from his childhood under a distant father (Robert Patrick) to his early attempts at a music career, during which he married his girlfriend Vivian (Ginnifer Goodwin). During a tour with the likes of Elvis (Tyler Hilton) and Jerry Lee Lewis (Waylon Malloy Payne), he encounters singer June Carter (Reese Witherspoon), and his love for her--and her rejection of him through the years--spurs him into drugs, drinking, and depression. As with most movies based on real-life singers, as his popularity grows, the women come a-flockin', and the childhood demons surface. Witherspoon, who matches Phoenix drawl for drawl, plays June both as a sassy spitfire whose charm breaks your heart, and as a sympathetic friend who tries to help Cash get over--well, her. The love story is what endures, but the movie comes most alive during its musical numbers, and even if you're not a country fan, it may just get you to run out and buy a Johnny Cash album."



I would have liked to seen Joaquin win best actor but I know what a good job Philip Seymour Hoffman did.

I also got my Buster Keaton box set in the mail. Yeah! What a movie nerd I am.

So Yvonne and I decided to crack open my John Waters box set and watch A Dirty Shame. It isn't my favorite John Waters film but it had its moments.

"Lust is in the air on Harford Road and Sylvia Stickles, a grumpy, repressed middle-aged Baltimorean, doesn't like it. Though Sylvia's handsome husband Vaughn still has marital urges, his wife could not be less interested -- she has more important things to do. Not only does Sylvia run the family's Pinewood Park and Pay convenience store, she's also responsible for watching over her exhibitionist daughter Caprice. A go-go dancer known to her adoring fans as Ursula Udders, Caprice and her stupendously enlarged breasts are currently under house arrest after several nude and disorderly violations. But Sylvia's world is turned upside down one day after suffering a concussion in a freak traffic accident. Sexy tow-truck driver Ray-Ray Perkins rushes to her aid, and the stricken Sylvia realizes he is no ordinary service man; he's a sexual healer who brings Sylvia's hidden cauldron of lust to the boiling point."



I did find Shampoo on DVD in the five dollar bin at Wal-Mart. Fuck yeah

Watched Maitresse yesterday with Yvonne.

"When he is implicated in the burglary of a Paris apartment, a young provincial (Gérard Depardieu) stumbles into the subterranean world of sadomasochism, becoming the upstairs lover of the apartment's mistress, who then finds the two levels of her carefully controlled existence beginning to interfere with each other. Barbet Schroeder's film examines the line between fantasy and reality, decadence and deprivation, and the distance one will go for love."



Anyways, I am off to watch Walk the Line. Drank too much coffee at the Revue.

I also got my John Waters box set in the mail today. Fuck yeah! Hopefully I will start Fellini this week. I also can't wait for teapots_on_fire to come to town so we can be movie nerds together.

On my day off I watched Do the Right Thing. Great acting, my favorite being Ossie Davis as Da Mayor. Also the cinematography is great.

"It's the hottest day of the year in the Bed-Stuy district of Brooklyn, and tensions are growing in this black ghetto area, with the only local businesses a Korean grocery and Sal's Pizzeria. Mookie, Sal's delivery boy, manages to always be at the center of the action."



The Criterion edition has some great extras on it. The making of documentary filmed in '89 on the set is wonderful. Spike Lee also revisits the neighborhood and gives a tour of the locations. Music videos, storyboards, video interview with the editor. Cannes press conferences and an introduction by Spike Lee.

I am a nerd for documentaries so we watched Easy Riders, Raging Bulls:How the Sex Drugs and Rock 'n' Roll Generation Saved Hollywood. Yvonne likes documentaries too and since we liked Decade Under The Influence we thought we would give it a try.



Check them both out, good stuff. Or be nice to me and borrow mine. Or or, be nice to me, come over, have me cook for you and watch them with us.

I watched a great documentary called Visions of Light. Anyone interested in film and film making will love this.

Experience the dazzling story of cinematography as seen through the lenses of the world's greatest filmmakers and captured in classic scenes from over 125 immortal movies. Discover Gordon Willis's secrets of lighting Marlon Brando in "The Godfather" and Greg Toland's contributions to "Citizen Kane." Hear William Fraker on filming "Rosemary's Baby," Vittorio Storaro on his use of color and light in "Apocalypse Now" and much, much more. From black and white to Technicolor, silent to "talkie," glittering Hollywood musical to film noir and art film to blockbuster, this critically acclaimed masterpiece presents movies in a new and unforgettable light!



Check it out. Now I say!

Yvonne and I watched Naked. This is one of my favorite films we have watched so far this year. The acting was amazing and David Thewis was remarkable. The film won many awards for Leigh and Thewis included best director and best actor in Cannes.

"One of the essential films of the 1990s, Mike Leigh's brilliant and controversial "Naked" stars David Thewlis as Johnny, a charming, eloquent, and relentlessly vicious drifter in London. Rejecting all those who would care for him, the volcanic Johnny hurls himself into a nocturnal odyssey through the city, colliding with a succession of the desperate and the dispossessed and scorching everyone in his path. With a virtuoso script and raw performances by Thewlis and costars Katrin Cartlidge and Lesley Sharp, Leigh's panorama of England's crumbling underbelly is a showcase of black comedy and doomsday prophecy, and was the winner of the best director and actor prizes at the 1993 Cannes Film Festival."



Check this film out if you have the chance. Really great stuff here. You might recognize Thewis as Professor Lupin from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.

I just watched Peeping Tom today.

"As a boy, Mark Lewis was subjected to bizarre experiments by his scientist-father, who wanted to study and record the effects of fear on the nervous system. Now grown up, both of his parents dead, Mark works by day as a focus-puller for a London movie studio. He moonlights by taking girlie pictures above a news agent's shop. But Mark has also taken up a horrifying hobby: He murders women while using a movie camera to film their dying expressions of terror. One evening, Mark meets and befriends Helen Stephens, a young woman who rents one of the rooms in his house. Does Helen represent some kind of possible redemption for Mark - or is she unknowingly running the risk of becoming one of his victims?"

The cast is amazing, especially Carl Boehm as the killer, Mark. The character of Mark is both victim and villain and the way he is played draws you in to his voyeuristic world.



The film only played for week in England before being pulled. It was panned by critics for its content, especially in 1960. Director Powell makes a cameo in some old home movies as Mark's father. One of the biggest controversies is Powell's son playing a young Mark along side his father.

This was Powell's last film in England, he left for Australia shortly after wards.

Watched 11:14 before we went out of town but didn't get to post it.

"Tells the seemingly random yet vitally connected story of a set of incidents that all converge one evening at 11:14pm. The story follows the chain of events of five different characters and five different story lines that all converge to tell the story of murder and deceit."



The movie is reminiscent of other films that use out of sequence of fractured storytelling. I did notice how some of these events happened in a short amount of time and I'm not quite sure if all the things the characters did could occur in the time given.

I did enjoy the film and after each characters story a bit more of the whole puzzle is revealed.

The movie played in certain select cities for a very short time almost TWO years after its release. It's a shame because Greg Marcks was a first time director and he did a fine job on this film. Too tired to write more. I will update more tomorrow.

I haven't watched much horror lately so we watched High Tension. I was a good throwback to 70's horror (which I love). Part Texas Chainsaw Massacre part Last House on the Left and dozens more.

At first I didn't know about the surprise near the end, but I am going to give it another watch and see how it holds up. Some people like it, some don't, some say if you watch it again it works.

The effects are great and very bloody and the movie doesn't pull any punches.

"Two female college students, Marie and Alexa, set off to Alex's parent's secluded homestead in the country to relax and study. Come nightfall, Hell pulls up at the front door when a mysterious killer breaks in and kills Alexa's father, mother, brother and pet dog. Alex is now bound and gagged, taken off by the killer, with Marie not far behind eluding the intruder. Can she save her friend's life in time? Or is everything all that it seems...?"



If you have seen it, what do you think?

I just finished my last Bunuel film That Obscure Object of Desire. This film is less surreal then his other ones, a pretty straightforward story of an older man pursuing a young woman.

The only different aspect is that he uses two actresses in the lead role. After a bit you can see a pattern and learn that one actress appears when she is making him happy and the other when she is making him mad. It actually helps you see the main characters mood and drives home the fact that his emotions go back and forth with this women.

"Luis Buñuel's final film explodes with eroticism, bringing full circle the director's lifelong preoccupation with the darker side of desire. Buñuel regular Fernando Rey plays Mathieu, an urbane widower, tortured by his lust for the elusive Conchita. With subversive flare, Buñuel uses two different actresses in the lead- Carole Bouquet, a sophisticated French beauty, and Angela Molina, a Spanish coquette. Drawn from Pierre Louÿs' 1898 novel, "La Femme et le Pantin," That Obscure Object of Desire is a dizzying game of sexual politics punctuated by a terror that harkens back to Buñuel's brilliant surrealistic beginnings."



I now need to get Belle de Jour on DVD. I'm still on vacation so I am going to start some Fellini or some Antonioni next. I'm also going to get some painting done soon.

I think that The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie is my favorite Bunuel film so far. His use of surrealism starts off slow and then increases with each interruption. His usual satirical targets are present: the rich, church, military. I enjoyed the subtle humor the most.

"A complex, shifting, virtually plot less web of dreams within dreams within dreams, centered around a group of six outwardly respectable upper-middle class members of society and their repeatedly thwarted attempts to have a meal together - the interruptions becoming more and more surreal as the film progresses."



Leave a comment if you have seen it, there is a lot to talk about with this one.
Gotta go, we are watching That Obscure Object of Desire tonight.

Yvonne and I finally watched Diary of a Chambermaid. I think this is Bunuels most linear film and I rather enjoyed it. Some parts reminded me a little of Gosford Park. All the characters were a little strange in their own way and made the film interesting.

"This wicked adaptation of the Octave Mirbeau novel is classic Luis Bunuel. Jeanne Moreau is Celestine, a beautiful Parisian domestic who, upon arrival at her new job at an estate in provincial 1930s France, entrenches herself in sexual hypocrisy and scandal with her philandering employer (Buñuel regular Michel Piccoli). Filmed in luxurious black-and-white Franscope, Diary of a Chambermaid is a raw-edged tangle of fetishism and murder-and a scathing look at the burgeoning French fascism of the era."



Tomorrow is The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie
I'm also on two weeks of vacation! Nice