I've been on a good streak at Cinema 21 lately. A pack of free tickets stays clipped to my fridge all year round but their finitude makes me even more risk averse to new features than if I were paying cash. I stop and read the super poorly photocopied A.O. Scott review hung in the window ("spell-binding, heart-rending, richly-woven," WITHOUT FAIL) and give it a serious thought before cashing in one of those tickets. But the last two have been really intense movie watching experiences: Into the Abyss and Melancholia.
Into the Abyss is the new Herzog documentary about two young guys serving life / death sentences for their part in a senselessly grisly murder that profited them only a single day's ride in a shitty 90s-era red Camero. He patiently pulls apart all of the painful relationships and hard luck personalities involved and gives everyone their chance to explain themselves in their own way. I love how unconcerned it is with aesthetics and even how relatively unconcerned with some dark personal philosophy, which is officially new ground for his films. He doesn't even use a voiceover! You can almost hear how badly he wants to, but he doesn't. Super painful experience but very feeling and humane and contemplative about the complexities around murder and state sanctioned death.
And hoo-boy. Melancholia. Has anyone else seen it? I have such a difficult time with Lars Von Trier! I thought Dancer in the Dark was so transparently manipulative and egotistic! But I found Dogville completely engrossing even thought it shares so many of the exact same flaws. I won't see Antichrist because I know they cut up their own genitals and shit and I'm just not going to spend MY free tickets on that. But Melancholia, it's all of the best AND worst of Von Trier. The first half of the film is a dead-on portrait of a very depressed woman trying to endure her own very public wedding. It's like a horror-film for introverts, and it's conveyed in such a subjective way that you feel condemned by it. But then the second act arrives and he decides to send his characters to war in the service of his own silly fucking IDEAS ABOUT STUFF. They lose their inwardness and reality and all become mouthpieces for a depressed Danish man. Which is less interesting. But then the sci-fi-sh premise is actually kind of amazing and it's enough to rescue the film. WORTH IT. Only minimal self-mutilation. Check it out.
Also I have to watch the second half of Werckmeister Harmonies. The whole movie is comprised of only like 20 shots! I feel asleep!
I would see Melancholia, even though I fucking loathe von Trier's films and him as a human being. I would see Abyss even though it sounds soul-crushing.
I think your reviews of these two films are really good. Much better than fucking A.O. Scott.
I really liked Melancholia. It was like "Last Year at Marienbad" + "2001" + "Solaris (original recipe)" + Bill Viola + Lars Von Trier. Regardless of how meaningful the allegory of the first chapter is, it engaged my thinking mind as I tried to figure out what all of the people and actions symbolized. Then the second chapter just built so nicely and I was freaking out by the end.
A movie I really want YoursTruly to watch is "The Girls of Pleasure Island," which I stumbled onto on Netflix Instant. It's WWII and three young British girls and their stuffy father are living on a colonial island paradise, when all of a sudden 3,000 AMERICAN MARINES (more specifically, their penises) arrive and threaten not only the girls' innocence but also their use of proper English.
So many times during this film I pictured YoursTruly jumping up from her seat and saying "WHAT!?"
It was made in 1953. I don't think I'd call it a B movie. It's your classic Technicolor 50s film. Stoked to read your report if you do watch it (YOU MUST).
Comments
I've been on a good streak at Cinema 21 lately. A pack of free tickets stays clipped to my fridge all year round but their finitude makes me even more risk averse to new features than if I were paying cash. I stop and read the super poorly photocopied A.O. Scott review hung in the window ("spell-binding, heart-rending, richly-woven," WITHOUT FAIL) and give it a serious thought before cashing in one of those tickets. But the last two have been really intense movie watching experiences: Into the Abyss and Melancholia.
Into the Abyss is the new Herzog documentary about two young guys serving life / death sentences for their part in a senselessly grisly murder that profited them only a single day's ride in a shitty 90s-era red Camero. He patiently pulls apart all of the painful relationships and hard luck personalities involved and gives everyone their chance to explain themselves in their own way. I love how unconcerned it is with aesthetics and even how relatively unconcerned with some dark personal philosophy, which is officially new ground for his films. He doesn't even use a voiceover! You can almost hear how badly he wants to, but he doesn't. Super painful experience but very feeling and humane and contemplative about the complexities around murder and state sanctioned death.
And hoo-boy. Melancholia. Has anyone else seen it? I have such a difficult time with Lars Von Trier! I thought Dancer in the Dark was so transparently manipulative and egotistic! But I found Dogville completely engrossing even thought it shares so many of the exact same flaws. I won't see Antichrist because I know they cut up their own genitals and shit and I'm just not going to spend MY free tickets on that. But Melancholia, it's all of the best AND worst of Von Trier. The first half of the film is a dead-on portrait of a very depressed woman trying to endure her own very public wedding. It's like a horror-film for introverts, and it's conveyed in such a subjective way that you feel condemned by it. But then the second act arrives and he decides to send his characters to war in the service of his own silly fucking IDEAS ABOUT STUFF. They lose their inwardness and reality and all become mouthpieces for a depressed Danish man. Which is less interesting. But then the sci-fi-sh premise is actually kind of amazing and it's enough to rescue the film. WORTH IT. Only minimal self-mutilation. Check it out.
Also I have to watch the second half of Werckmeister Harmonies. The whole movie is comprised of only like 20 shots! I feel asleep!
I think your reviews of these two films are really good. Much better than fucking A.O. Scott.
A movie I really want YoursTruly to watch is "The Girls of Pleasure Island," which I stumbled onto on Netflix Instant. It's WWII and three young British girls and their stuffy father are living on a colonial island paradise, when all of a sudden 3,000 AMERICAN MARINES (more specifically, their penises) arrive and threaten not only the girls' innocence but also their use of proper English.
So many times during this film I pictured YoursTruly jumping up from her seat and saying "WHAT!?"