What MOVIE(s) have you been....seeing? watching? ARCHIVE

I've got the three disc Canadian release of the picture, it's well worth getting if you like the film. It has all of the extras, documentaries, and a French-language commentary.

Michael Barnes wrote:

Watched BROTHERHOOD OF THE WOLF (LE PACT DES LOUPS) last night for the first time in a couple of years.

I _adore_ this movie, and I can't believe there are people who hate it. It's brilliant, a shouldn't-work cross between Hammer horror, a HK movie, and James Fenimore Cooper.

I love that the hero is an 18th-century naturalist with an Iroquois sidekick. I love that it's about the Beast of Gevaudan. I love that it has an anti-religious subtext. I love the fighting, I love the mix of serious French court drama with customized weapons and werewolf movie tropes.

It's such an amazing combination of high art and low trash, and the filmmakers were totally aware of that and that really captures that Hammer element of Very Serious austerity mixed with pure camp and melodrama in a way that imitators like SLEEPY HOLLOW completely missed.

It's a shame Christopher Gans hasn't done much after...SILENT HILL was his last feature, I think.

I've been a fan of this movie since I saw it in the theatre and agree with most of what you said. I also have that three-disc Canadian release and watched every extra.

If you enjoyed Brotherhood of the Wolf, you might also enjoy a French action movie called Vidocq, starring Gerard Depardieu. The plotline is a bit muddled, possibly due to translation errors, but there are some good action sequences, and the overall look of this film is quite unusual. Somehow the amber lighting effects give the movie the look of Renaissance artwork in motion. Because the movie does a poor job of properly introducing Vidocq, I assume that he is a historical figure, or at least a well-known fictional character in French stories. There was bonus material on the DVD, but it was all in French, so I was lost.

VIDOCQ is kind of interesting, the only copy I've seen was a REALLY bad bootleg DVD though so some of the visual impact was diminished. And since it's a purely visual film, a lot was lost. But I could tell it had a unique look and it has a very French comics-style story.

It was directed by Pitof, who worked with Jeunet et Caro...after VIDOCQ he went to Hollywood and CATWOMAN.

I never saw the movie, but quite liked the comic book (bande dessinee) series. I don't get the renaissance reference though. It plays in Napoleonic Paris, doesn't it?

Jur wrote:

I never saw the movie, but quite liked the comic book (bande dessinee) series. I don't get the renaissance reference though. It plays in Napoleonic Paris, doesn't it?

I'm definitely not an expert on art history, but I think the art of the Renaissance was the first time that realistic perspectives were the norm. And yet the colors seemed off, a little too vivid for reality. For example, look at El Greco... his stark use of light and shadow gives his work an unearthly glow. Likewise, the movie Vidocq had that unearthly glow, at least in the outdoor scenes, so it looked like Renaissance art to me, even though the movie is set in a later period. You are probably right that it was the Napoleonic era.

I'll see if I can get my hand on this. I remember being perplexed by Blueberry, which is so far off the original comic book series that I wonder why it was called Blueberry. Somehow, Europeans can't do decent movies about comic book heroes. Maybe the Bilal movie, Immortal. Anyone seen that?

I'm very picky about seeing movies in the theater these days. Maybe once or twice a year I will actually see one on the big screen. So I heard lukewarm things about the second and third movies in the Pirates of the Caribbean series and decided to rent them later. Later turned out to be this week.

They were okay. It's a neat trick how Disney managed to do enough things right, at least visually, so that these movies still feel like pirate movies, despite the absence of blood or even foul language. Lots of attention to details in costuming and sets, and some skilled character actors who tap into excellent pirate archetypes. And I really appreciate the odd mixture of grim atmosphere and playful comedic touches. Depp's nuanced performance as Jack Shandy is outstanding and novel, making the standard treacherous pirate captain also a mincing dandy despite bad teeth and filthy hygiene. I also liked the cameo appearance by Captain Hook at the pirate conclave.

But the entertaining first installment ran a little too long, and the second and third movies definitely would have improved by leaving another half hour each on the cutting room floor. Certain setpiece battles were unreasonably long, especially the battle on and inside the mill wheel in the second movie. There was too much of everything: too many characters, plot twists, dialogue, names, places, etc. There were even three separate animal characters: the key dog, the wiseass parrot and the undead monkey.

So despite the warnings, why did I watch the second and third movies anyway? Well, I do like pirates, and the first PotC movie was great. But more to the point, I recently discovered that the upcoming fourth PotC movie has the intriguing name "On Stranger Tides." It is definitely going to be based on one of my favorite books, "On Stranger Tides," by Tim Powers. It's about time, because the first three movies shamelessly lifted ideas from that book, and Powers is long overdue for movie treatment of at least one of his better books. Obviously, there will be changes. The story is a little too gory for Disney, the new heroine can't be named Elizabeth, and with Depp returning, there will be some rearranging of the main characters.

This past monday night, I went and saw It Might Get Loud. My two favorite bands are U2 and The White Stripes, and I hear good things about this Led Zeppelin band.

It was quite good for those who already care a lot. I have a very strong personal attachment to two of the three musicians, and a lot of respect for the third, so I already had interest going in. I think that if someone went in with no background, it would probably be really boring. It was very fascinating to see how the electric guitar shaped the three musicians, and how they shaped (or are shaping) it.

Yeah, it's on my to-see list. Hopefully I'll get around to it

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

Went to the Vancouver film festival this week-end and was lucky enough to get in to see Gilliam's new flick (although many people are thinking of it as Heath Ledger's final film), and it was completely worth the time.

It is a much softer film then Tideland, probably most comparable to Fisher King. The film revels in imagination, like most of his films. Probably the most effects heavy film he has done since Baron Munchausen. Christopher Plummer is fantastic in the lead role and Tom Waits version of the Devil is great. Pretty mcuh every actor involved in the film does a great job with the exception of Verner Troy who seems to be simply reciting lines without much conviction. The signature Gilliam widescreen low vantage point shots are there but not as often as in Tideland... he seems to have calmed down some of his visiual flair in an attempt to make a more palatable movie. It mostly works too. I would highly reccomend this film to any Gilliam nerds.

Heath Ledger shows up in the film more then you might think. There are plenty of scenes with him and he is very charming throughout the film. The replacement scenes with Depp, Law, and Farrel are very brief. They must have been mostly done shooting when Ledger died.

The nice thing about the film is that it gets back to Gilliam's roots in some ways, it is funnier then many of his recent films have been but still shows that he has grown as a director. He is repeating many of his messages (and had been doing so for over twenty years) but constatnly finding new ways to express them. I usually wish that he would shop out his scirpts like he did with Brazil, Stoppard's contribution to the film really helps elevate it into something more then it could have ever been with just a Gilliam/Mckeown sciprt, but the Gilliam/Mckowen team does a better job then usual penning the entire sciprt alone.

As a big Gilliam fan I was not dissapointed, this is no Brothers Grimm, this is a great film and I hope a success for the doomed director.

Anyone see the Coen's A Serious Man this week-end? I'm probably going to watch it this week some time.

Thanks for the advance on that- looking forward to seeing it.

Jur mentioned BLUEBERRY. That is a FUCKED UP movie. In the US it's called RENEGADE, which doesn't made less sense, since the character's name is Blueberry. I really, really like a lot of things about it- I like that it's the classic revenge narrative so common in Westerns but the idea is that he's got to kill the guy's soul to get vengeance. I like that it has a psychedelic, metaphysical angle. But it's just so awkward and kind of ramshackle. I've not read the Moebius books it's based on, but I got a sense that it didn't really have much to do with it.

I've been re-watching the Fulci canon...finally got the nice edition of THE BEYOND that came out earlier this year, that's definitely the best of his films. And even then, it's still kind of crappy. Fulci's odd, there's something very, very singular about his pictures and there are some really great exploitation elements (his eye for gore and abiilty to make an audience flinch even with the cheapest effects are unparallelled)but there's so much crippling the films...like that weird blow-up doll scene in CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD or the impossibly bad dubbing of "Bob" in HOUSE BY THE CEMETARY. One thing I really like about his zombies is that they're almost always unexplained and more supernatural. I also really dig the grim nihilism of his horror vision, as well as the more baroque Italian gothicism that pervades his work.

The beginning of THE BEYOND should be required viewing for any Lovecraft fan...anyone who's ever said that Lovecraft couldn't be filmed should start there. It totally captures certain elements of the style even though it isn't directly based on anything.

Michael Barnes wrote:

Thanks for the advance on that- looking forward to seeing it.

Jur mentioned BLUEBERRY. That is a FUCKED UP movie. In the US it's called RENEGADE, which doesn't made less sense, since the character's name is Blueberry. I really, really like a lot of things about it- I like that it's the classic revenge narrative so common in Westerns but the idea is that he's got to kill the guy's soul to get vengeance. I like that it has a psychedelic, metaphysical angle. But it's just so awkward and kind of ramshackle. I've not read the Moebius books it's based on, but I got a sense that it didn't really have much to do with it.

I missed that. Small post so no wonder. I have read and enjoyed the comics throughout the eighties and into the ninties and heard about this movie being made but then never heard anything after that. Maybe it's called Renegade here in Canada too. I'm defintely going to check that out. Good or not I'm just curious.

I always thought that Blueberry was a cool name for the character. Strangely appropriate but still light enough to calm down the proceedings a little bit.

Watched Sin Nombre on saturday. Not as great as City of God but still great anyway.

wasn't that movie amazing?! I loved Sin Nombre but yeah City of God is better. Still Sin Nombre is a solid 9/10. I want my cousin to see it cuz she's been seduced into a gang these days and it's hard to convince her how bad that is