The IFFR: quick round-up (final update 2/2)

Done. Over. Finished. 34 films in 10 days. I’ll post an overview tomorrow, and hopefully (if my editor allows it) some more in depth pieces in the near future. Further info on the films can be found here.

The Great, at last: Naissance Des Pieuvres/Water Lilies (Céline Sciamma, 2007)

The Surprisingly, and Quite Stunningly, Good: Margot At The Wedding (Noah Baumbach, 2007)

The Fun & Touching: The Band’s Visit (Eran Kolirin, 2007)

The Quiet & Lovely: La Maison Jaune (Amor Hakkar, 2007)

The Should Be a Revered Classic: Der Verlorene (Peter Lorre, 1951)

The Reason I Love Older Movies: Phase IV (Saul Bass, 1974), The Honeymoon Killers (Leonard Kastle, 1970)

The Simply Fun: Estomago (Marcos Jorge, 2007), Un Baiser, S’il Vous Plait (Emmanuel Mouret, 2007)

The Not Joining the Crowd, but not Joining the Dissenters either (aka the Fun, but Not Amazing): Juno (Jason Reitman, 2007)

The Fun & Well-Acted, but Somewhat Superficial: Tiramisu (Paula van der Oest, 2008)

The Entertaining Despite Flaws: True Stories (David Byrne, 1986), 3 Days to Forever (Riri Riza, 2007), End of The Line (Gustavo Steinberg, 2007), The King of Ping Pong (Jens Jonsson, 2007)

The Absolutely Nuts, but Impressive and Fun: the 1 take Still Orangutans (Gustavo Spolidoro, 2007)

The Truly Clumsy, but Not Entirely Without Charm: Pure Coolness (Ernest Abdyjaparov, 2007)

The Worth it For the Music and Atmosphere, if not the story: Burned Hearts (Ahmed El Maanouni, 2007)

The Competent & Well-Made, yet not exceptional: Cordero De Dios (Lucía Cedrón, 2008)

The Understandably Disliked, but Quite Enjoyable to Me: Les Amours D’Astrée et de Céladon (Eric Rohmer, 2007)

The Disappointing, but Still Pretty Good: Paranoid Park (Gus van Sant, 2007)

The Odd, but Oddly Charming: Die Stille Vor Bach (Pere Portabella, 2007)

The Demanding, not Necessarily Rewarding but B&W Beautiful: The Man From London (Béla Tarr, 2007)

The Not as Great as Rumored but B&W Beautiful: Persepolis (Marjane Satrapi & Vincent Perronaud, 2007)

The Fascinating Experiment in B&W Animation: Fear(s) of the Dark (various directors, 2007)

The Entertaining but not Quite Satisfying; Uno de los Dos no Puedo Estar Equivocado (Pablo Llorca, 2007)

The Interesting Experience: Wadley (Matias Meyer, 2008)

The Operatically Strange, Somewhat Intersting: The Cabinet of Dr. Ramirez (Peter Sellars, 1991)

The Interesting Concept that unfortunately peters out: Le Tueur (Cédric Anger, 2007)

The Interesting Concept that doesn’t really add up to anything besides crying men: Men’s Group (Michael Joy, 2008)

The Unfortunately Quite Dull (and Lacking in Film Clips): Un Lugar en el Cine (Alberto Morais, 2007)

The “I wish I liked this more than I did”: Wanda (Barbara Loden, 1971)

The Not-For-Me: Hafez (Abolfazl Jalili, 2007)

The Simply Boring: Marrakesh Inshallah (Steffen Fisker Pierce & Christian Pierce, 2006)

The Highlight of Saturday:

The IFFR

The festival has begun. So far, I’ve seen 4 movies, slept barely 6 hours, and I’m preparing myself for today’s program. Tomorrow’s my most anticipated day already, with Juno, The Man From London, and Persepolis, but today I already get to see Paranoid Park. For those of you who can read Dutch, you can keep up with my adventures (and those of fellow iffr-visitors Kaj and Thijs) here. For the others, I’m afraid I can’t do more than post a snippet every once in a while, a stray observation, a tally. Right now, the only one that occurs to me is that is was really, really cold last night, and that I need to buy some deodorant because I forgot to pack it.

The tally so far? I disliked one film, liked two despite their obvious flaws, and liked one reasonably well. I’m hoping the truly good movies are just around the corner.

Coen Night #3: Fargo & The Big Lebowski

The Blurbs:

FARGO

When your father-in-law refuses to give you money, maybe the wisest way to respond is not to hire two thugs (Steve Buscemi & Peter Stormare) to kidnap her and ask for ransom. Because as can be seen in Fargo, that can end badly. Very badly, indeed. Still, it’s what Jerry Lundegaard (the male half of the celebrity power couple known as Filliam H. Muffman) does, and when bodies start cropping up, very pregnant Marge Gunderson (Frances McDormand) is put on the case. That’s when blood really starts staining the snow-covered North-Dakota landscape. It’s gruesome, it’s funny, and it’s maybe the most Coen of movies. If you haven’t seen it, you should, and if you have, I have no doubt you’ll want to see it again.

THE BIG LEBOWSKI

Yet again, the Coens followed up a succesful thriller with a somewhat less succesful comedy. However, despite rather disappointing results at the box-office, the Big Lebowski went on to develop a huge cult following later on, and deservedly. The story of ‘the Dude’ is actually best when you don’t try to follow the story, and just let yourself be swept along by the absurdity: by the bowling-alley dreams, the nihilists, the kidnapping plot gone awry – yes, again. Filled with Coen regulars – John Goodman, Steve Buscemi, John Turturro) and virtuoso camerawork, this is, above all, a film that’s still funny (if not funnier) the fifth time you see it. So join me for my sixth, and see if it still holds true.

The Reviews:

Heath Ledger, yet another casualty.

Wow. I was actually writing a post about Coen night #3 when a friend told me about this.

I really don’t have much to say, except that it kind of breaks my heart. I first developed a crush on Heath Ledger in 10 Things I Hate About You, and lately he seemed to be gravitating towards really interesting roles, not just in high profile movies like Brokeback but also in more obscure ones: his supporting part in Lords of Dogtown was great. Watching him in the new Batman movie will be a strange experience.

I hate that Hollywood is such a destructive environment. He didn’t even reach thirty…

Rest in Peace, I suppose.

The Oscar circus – UPDATED

Evil, evil Craig has lured me into the Oscar game. I figured I might as well post my predictions for all the main categories here, too. I’ll update tomorrow afternoon when it will have become obvious how misguided and wrong I was.

Best Picture (4/5 correct)

• No Country For Old Men
• Juno
• There Will Be Blood
• The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
• Atonement
• I missed: Michael Clayton

Stardust

I know, I know, there are so many masterpieces I still have to watch, so many potential 2007 top 10 contenders to catch up with… and yet I watched this piece of fluff. In my defense, I intended to watch Atonement, but suddenly remembered that my mom still wanted to see that with me in the cinema sometime soon. But yeah. I could have watched Rescue Dawn. I could have watched Half Nelson. I could have watched one of the dozen DVD’s I have but haven’t watched yet. Instead, I watched this little fairytale.

For Your Consideration

I know, I know, I generally stay away from awards hoopla. And really, I have long ago stopped really caring about the Oscars. But I’m facing a lack in content (my editor reminded me that since filmtotaal gives me the opportunity to go to screenings, I should write about them there, first, and much as I hate to admit it, he has a point there), and I’m afraid that the AMPAS will do what it always does, and leave out some of the worthier candidates.

I know, I know, nomination ballots are in already, but hey, it’s not like my little blog was going to have any influence, anyway. And I’m not saying the people and films mentioned here should win. But I think they definitely deserve a nomination, and will almost certainly be overlooked. One per category.

Coen night #2: Miller’s Crossing, Barton Fink & The Hudsucker Proxy

Click here for the blurbs.

It’s funny what happens when you see so many (5) films by the same director(s) in such a short time (1.5 weeks). You start seeing patterns, recurring motifs. The movies stay separate, each in their own neatly defined little period of history, each built on the foundations of a different genre, but through them you start seeing the brains at work.

Miller’s Crossing takes place during prohibition. Barton Fink in 1941. The Hudsucker Proxy in 1958. The former is a pretty straightforward (at least for the Coens) variation on the lone-guy-playing-two-crime-syndicates-against-one-another story – as seen in Yojimbo & A Fistful of Dollars, but truly going on the way back to two Dashiell Hammett novels, Red Harvest & the Glass Key. Barton Fink is almost a horror film, creepy and with a grand apocalyptic finale, a tale about writing and pretension. The Hudsucker Proxy is kind of a screwball comedy. Still, I don’t really want to discuss them one by one as separate, free-standing entities. Instead, I want to talk about the echos and reflections I saw.

IFFR Preview #2: Le Voyage du Ballon Rouge

I should have loved this film. Let me count the ways:

• it takes place in Paris, and until the end doesn’t resort to the corny tourist shots of famous sights
• it stars Juliette Binoche
• it’s a quiet slice-of-life thing with beautiful piano music in the background
• it has some gorgeous shots of a balloon wandering over Paris
• etc.

So why didn’t I, and did I even start twitching in my seat, anxious for the end? Part of it might be that I have a cold and just in general didn’t feel too good. But mostly, I think I blame it on the length (almost two hours), and on the lack of an arc. It just goes and goes until it stops, without any modulations. And the balloon, which I found one of the most, if not the most, interesting character, is barely in the film. After a wonderful initial sequence, it leaves for about an hour, and it’s sorely missed.

I haven’t seen the short this is based on. But if it’s anything like the shots featuring the balloon in this film, well, then I think that I could love. This, alas, I cannot.

Superbad

I’m sorry. I mean, I tried. I tried with the 40 year-old Virgin. I tried even harder with Knocked up. And now I tried with Superbad, and I can’t escape the inevitable conclusion any longer. I’m sorry. I just can’t get on the Judd Apatow bandwagon.