Archive for May, 2009

  • 31 May

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    The Stewardesses – Unseen Movie Marathon

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    unseenmovies

    This is the second of at least 224 planned posts in which I shall slowly work through my DVD collection. The reason for doing this is first and foremost to admit that I have a problem. I buy way too many DVDs that I want to watch but never watch. On the morning of May 24th, 2009 I owned 224 DVDs which I have never seen. I have never seen them theatrically, on television, on VHS, on Beta or even by means of the DVD which I own and possess on the shelf. My plan is to watch at least one of these each week. If I’m lucky I will see more than one but to keep this reasonable considering my time restraints one a week is pretty good. I will write up my thoughts on each movie.

    This weeks (or half week) review is of the 3d version of The Stewardesses, I watched it in honour of the new Pixar movie Up which I watched earlier in the evening in 3d also.

    The Stewardesses

    The Stewardesses 3dI put up a post about talking to people about movies that deal with sex and how it is hard to talk about them because you never know if you will offend people and how there is a double standard when it comes to violence. There is a lot of cinema which has graphic sex in that is truly great cinema. Unfortunately, The Stewardesses is not one such film. I ended up purchasing it back when I was in Toronto because I was interested to check out the first 3d x-rated film. I had checked on Wikipedia and it was actually the highest grossing 3d film at the time. I’m sure this is no longer the case even when inflation is taken into account. I figured I was in for a light sex farce or romp that would make me laugh a few times while it tried to titillate me with fairly mild sex compared to today’s x-rated movies. I figured I’d end up with something like American Pie or of similar vein. Instead of this I ended up with a very dry movie about a group of stewardesses who go on some dates and end up having sex. The sex is fairly tame when compared to what is in adult films today so I was right on that account although there is some full frontal nudity but it never actually occurs during the sex scenes. In between the sex though I sat bored as the rest of the movie had terrible dialogue, no humour and no real sense of pacing or any feeling that it was going anywhere. I even thought that they had forgotten to finish off one of the storylines and was about to write off the movie as a complete waste of time when they went back to the stewardess that seemed to be the main character. This is when the movie took a dark nasty turn that just didn’t feel like it fit either. The only reason I’m giving The Stewardesses one star is not because I liked the ending, in truth I thought it was extremely painful and hard to watch. It was hard to watch not because of how dark it is nor because of how it is able to change things up and at least make the ending interesting but simply because it must have taken some guts to go the route that it did.

    Overall, I wish that I had picked a better movie to talk about when it comes to the whole sex in film as there really is no reason why I would ever want to bring this film up during a discussion unless it was about bad movies that I have seen that are so bad they are just boring. As a final note I should mention that I watched half the movie in black and white 3d and the other half in color. If you are watching an old style, with the blue and red glasses I would recommend watching the black and white version. The effect is much better and you don’t get any glowing spots from certain colors. 3d has really come a long way from where it was and it is unfortunate that we still can not use the polarized RealD glasses that are available in theatres when at home.

    If you own this one and haven’t watched it I suggest just passing it on to someone else unless you are just being a completionist and have to see it for some reason.

  • 29 May

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    Boobs or Bullets

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    The Stewardesses 3dI was asked a couple of times at work what my plans were for this weekend and I told everyone that I was seeing Up tonight and Drag me to Hell tomorrow. What I did not mention was that I plan on continuing my Unseen Movie Marathon with a 3d screening (in honor of Up which I’ll be seeing in 3d also) of The Stewardesses. Its not that I’m embarrassed by the fact that I’m going to watch an old 3d X-Rated movie but I was worried that I might offend someone at work or that it might lower their opinion of me and since I have to work with them I don’t want to deal with that.

    The thing is though I would not have a problem with telling them I was going to go watch some ultra violent gorefest but as soon as sex and nudity come into the equation I feel that I need to be careful what I say. I really hate it. I’d love to recommend movies like The Isle, Silip, In the Realm of the Senses, Intimacy, and The Dreamers just to name a few.

    There is really something messed up in our society when violence is just accepted, ignored and almost welcomed. How many movies would be considered boring if it weren’t for the huge explosions and people getting killed. I know this is nothing new to consider but my own “covering up” of watching an X-rated movie is bothering me somewhat. I’m curious, would you talk about “sex” movies with people who are not close friends.

  • 28 May

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    Finite Focus: Walk Hard (Point Blank)

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    pointblank-onesheetNobody does man-on-a-mission-badassery quite like Lee Marvin. Yet this can be even further amplified by a director who knows what he is doing on the style front. John Boorman may not have had an extensive resume in 1967 when he put a healthy European styled stamp on American cinema with Point Blank, but looking back at the mans work, he has visual charisma to spare. I would not be the least bit surprised by his influence on modern pastiche stylists like Brian DePalma, Quentin Tarantino and Steven Soderbergh (the latter of which does commentary duty with Boorman on the DVDs chatter-track). And this film is being quoted extensively in reviews as an influence for Jim Jarmusch‘s The Limits of Control (most likely from the writer/director’s not-so-subtle tipping of the hat via his one-off production company for Limits, named PointBlank Films).

    OK, now that we have the influence out of the way, let us focus on the framing, and shots of this segment. It is that strange mix of momentum and meditative waiting (see The Limey or the sex scene in Out of Sight) that is rare and thrilling. Taking full advantage of the medium, Boorman uses echoing bootsteps as a metronome to an eventual encounter. Marvin’s face is determined, Sharon Acker who plays his wife here, previously stole his share of the loot and ran off with his best friend at a crucial point in the films opening robbery, is shown in cramped quarters, pampered and made up. Marvin relentlessly thumping through spacious corridors almost plays like a hallucinatory guilt trip to her ill gotten excesses. While seemingly blissfully unawares, and having herself primped at the beauty shop, she is soon shown to be a broken, unfulfilled shell on a collision course with her cold and hardened Ex. The pay off to the scene off is both explosive and futile, sort of the point of the film in general. You’ve gotta love art-house genre flicks.

  • 28 May

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    Bookmarks for May 27th through June 8th

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    What we’ve been reading – May 27th through June 8th:

  • 28 May

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    Cinecast Episode 123 – All the Negativity in this Town Sucks

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    cinecast_promo.jpg Matt Gamble

    Episode 122:
    After taking last week off we are back, but a mite surly. Gamble & Kurt are united this week in dumping on T4 and celebrating The Limits of Control but then go to their corners with a disagreement on Brothers Bloom. Andrew goes gaga over The Girlfriend Experience but otherwise keeps the children from pelting each other too much this time around. Enjoy
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    Click the Audio Icon below to listen in:

    Cinecast Episode 123 [ 0:01 | 83.81 MB ] Play Now | Play in Popup


    show


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    show Notes…
    » Read the rest of the entry..

  • 27 May

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    Review: The Limits of Control

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    Jarmusch Limits of Control

    Director: Jim Jarmusch (Stranger Than Paradise, Dead Man, Broken Flowers, Coffee and Cigarettes)
    Writers: Jim Jarmusch
    Starring: Isaach De Bankolé, Tilda Swinton, Bill Murray, John Hurt, Gael García Bernal
    MPAA Rating: R
    Running time: 116 min.

    (4.5/5)

    In my experience, the greatest films tend to be those I didn’t see coming, and in many of these cases only after a second or third viewing do they begin to resonate in my bones. They exist on the periphery of what I know or think I know, they taunt me with revelations that I maybe never considered or experienced before. I believe Jim Jarmusch’s The Limits of Control could be one of these films, a masterpiece until proven otherwise. I remain dazzled by things I cannot account for, and while this could be a sort of self-delusion or con of art, I think something big happened here.

    The Limits of Control operates on the premise of show not tell, and even though there are scenes where characters divulge exposition, nothing is quite what it appears to be. The film is a richly layered frenzy of semiotic images and linguistic turns of phrase that pose more than enact a narrative and in their flirtations with the audience they take us deeper down the rabbit hole. To call this meta would be an understatement, and while it is definitely swimming in the ether of Lynch’s Mulholland Dr, its less about mood and psychology so much as it is about ideas, and in this respect probably owes more of its lineage to the works of Godard.

    Jarmusch Limits of Control

    In the representational component of this abstract painting we encounter a Lone Man (played stoically by Isaach De Bankolé) who intermittently drinks espressos, passes secret messages between contacts, takes in the sights and sounds of Spain, and refrains from having sex with a naked brunette. Espionage intrigue is clearly a veneer in this film, as is virtually everything in frame at every moment. While the film flirts with the dreadfully pedantic cipher-cinema of Godard’s Alphaville, Jarmusch allows his images to breathe in that Jarmuschian way; less about the need of deciphering to understand the loaded images, The Limits of Control requires you to perhaps sense in a more immanent way the essence of the ideas its collage effect serves. » Read the rest of the entry..

  • 27 May

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    Bad Lieutenant 2: A Trailer for the Ages

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    Full disclosure: I haven’t seen Abel Ferrara’s Bad Lieutenant but if it’s anything like this, I’m going to have to check it out.

    In a few hours time the thing will disappear and we’ll be slapping our knees that some poor schmuck with too much time on his hands took a bunch of Nicholas Cage movies and cut together a trailer. But then there’s the fact that we haven’t heard these lines before. And wait, isn’t that Val Kilmer? They’ve never been in a movie together…

    Yes, it’s here and it’s glorious. I mean glorious. This trailer is so cheesy and over the top that it reaches proportions of awesomeness. Werner Herzog is going all out parody here and it’s the greatest thing I’ve seen this year. When’s this movie coming out?

    Written by William M. Finkelstein, whose previous writing credits include a number of TV cop dramas, has put together this script which features Cage as a crack addicted cop. If that’s not good enough, how about instantly quotable lines like “You don’t have a lucky crack pipe?” (I’m not kidding) and gems like “What’s this fucking iguana doing on my coffee table?”

    Aside from Kilmer and Cage Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans also stars Fairuza Balk, Eva Mendes, Jennifer Coolidge and Xzibit. At the moment, it has no US distributor but I’m assuming that may change soon.

    Enough words. Check it out: (Update: YouTube trailer is no longer available. Here is a replacement)



    Kudos to Drew McWeeny for the find.

  • 27 May

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    Pippa Lee’s Private Lives on Display

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    The Private Lives of Pippa Lee Movie StillI’m not familiar with Rebecca Miller’s work but I appreciate that she’s a talented writer and director who has gained wide acclaim for both her films and her books. Her second film Personal Velocity: Three Portraits won the Independent Spirit John Cassavetes Award and though she’s only made one film since that win in 2002 (though that too won some accolades) she’s one of these female directors to watch.

    Her new film The Private Lives of Pippa Lee, an adaptation of her first novel, stars Robin Wright Penn as Pippa Lee, a woman married to a much older man (Alan Arkin) who begins re-evaluating her life when her husband decides to move them from the city and into a retirement community. In her re-evaluation, she thinks back to her turbulent youth as a 17-year old, pill addicted teen and how her life unfolded, getting her to where she is today. Along with Arkin and Penn, the film also stars “Gossip Girl” Blake Lively as the young Pippa Lee, Maria Bello, Monica Bellucci, Julianne Moore (triple threat!), Winona Ryder, Mike Binder and Keanu Reeves.

    Though I’m not particularly interested in this story (the trailer doesn’t even appeal to me), there are a whole lot of factors urging me to see this: the cast which features quite the collection of female actresses (it’s nice to see films with great casts like this), then there’s the Keanu factor but trumping all is Miller’s track record which, from the surface, suggests mainstream films with legs. I’m willing to find out; I’ve added her previous films to my DVD queue.

    The Private Lives of Pippa Lee will play the Edinburgh Film Festival on June 18th and will open in the UK on July 10th. I can’t find details on a US distributor but the film has been picked up for Canadian distribution by Maple Pictures. I expect we’ll have a chance to see it later this year.

    The Secret Lives of Pippa Lee [ 0:01 | 4.18 MB ] Play Now | Play in Popup

  • 27 May

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    Bookmarks for May 27th

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    What we’ve been reading – May 27th:

  • 27 May

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    Cameron Frye’s House for Sale

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    That’s right, for a measley $2,300,000, 370 Beech St can be yours. Otherwise known as the Ben Rose Home, it is more infamously known as the home that housed Cameron Frye’s father’s 1961 Ferrari 250 GT California. Still not ringing a ring a bell with you? Then you’re not a child of the 80′s. And you’re culturally illiterate. Maybe this will ring a bell…

    Bueller Ferrari

    At any rate, before purchasing this gorgeous house for me, you should definitely check out more images of the house from the realtor via Gizmodo.

    benrose-house

  • 27 May

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    Mamo #140: Un-Memoriable

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    Mamo!

    That wet, slurping sound you hear is the sound of the Memorial Day weekend sucking. Terminator Salvation and Night at the Museum 2 brought the yawn – what happens when none of the movies are good? And what does a disappointing May do for June?

    Mamo #140: Un-Memoriable [ 37:29 | 29.97 MB ] Play Now | Play in Popup
  • 27 May

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    New Site Feature: Recommended Links

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    We’ve added a new feature to RowThree – a sidebar section and recurring post where we’ll link articles, posts, and sites around the web that we’re reading and finding interesting, but don’t merit a full post. These are likely to be articles that we think might be interesting to our readers, but that we just want to point out without adding a lot of commentary ourselves.

    You can see the list of latest links in the sidebar. I threw most of those in today while I was testing and tweaking the display, but testing or no, I did pick articles I found interesting. If you want to see more of what we’re bookmarking or search our bookmarks, click the link at the bottom of the section – it’ll take you to the RowThree Delicious account, where all our bookmarks will be stored.

    In addition to the sidebar section, which is updated basically in real time, there will be digest post every couple of days with the links added since the previous post. So if you follow us via RSS, don’t worry about coming to the site to check out the latest links – they’ll show up in your RSS feed within a day or two. We’ll tweak how often and how large the digest posts are as we go.

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