Rebel Without a Cause

This is going to be a busy weekend, but I'm still looking forward to it. We're having a big fundraising event at work that I'm going to be working at until 10pm tomorrow night and all day on Saturday. It's going to be exhausting but good, I think. I don't have to be at work until a little later than normal, so I'm excited to sleep in a tiny bit and get some movie watching done in the morning tomorrow.

Today I watched Rebel Without a Cause directed by Nicholas Ray in 1955. I actually haven't ever seen the whole movie - I've watched parts of it in film classes, but never the entire thing. It's pretty good, although, as Ebert even points out, it didn't age well. What's cool, though, is as it got older, some of the weird, creepy issues in it are more obvious, which gives the movie some new dimension and meaning. The movie is most known for James Dean's great acting, who had died in a car crash before the movie had even premiered. Definitely a tragedy.

A Prairie Home Companion

So, before this project, I don't think I ever saw Robert Altman movie before. This is shameful because after seeing a number of his films now, he's for sure on my list of top directors. I love his style. He's got a great sense of character, and seems to be able to bring out these insanely good performances out of his actors. I love that he often goes against typical genres, and makes something really unique as well. His style really works for me, and I was excited to see today's movie because I've grown to like him so much.

Today I watched A Prairie Home Companion, which he directed in 2006. I remember hearing of it, but I guess the title always put me off because it sounded boring. I was sort of anxious about watching it because it's about a real radio show, as well, and I worried that I wouldn't understand any references it might make to actual facts. I was relieved that you could be totally ignorant and still enjoy this movie. I found it really funny and charming, and I had a great time watching it tonight.

Playtime

It was nice to have today off for some relaxing. I didn't get as much done as I hoped that I would, but I really needed a break from life for a day, and I was glad to get it. I feel like between my normal life, the movie project, and work, I don't have much time for myself anymore to just read or write, or do something nice for myself. I pretty much just get up early, go to work, come home, try to shove down dinner while I watch my film, write about the movie, and then go to bed. So to put it lightly, today was really nice. :)


I watched Playtime today, directed by Jacque Tati in 1967. Like his other movies, it has Mr. Hulot in it (that angular looking guy who always has a raincoat, too short pants, and a pipe), although much less so than his other films that I've seen. I really liked the movie - funny, but not laugh-out-loud sort of funny. It's subtle, all strange and fascinating things that happen in the background that always seems so, well, playful and funny. I really enjoy that, though. It's not a conventional comedy but I find it rather delightful.

Pixote

Just a short post about yesterday's movie, since I have a lot of stuff I need to take care of today. I'm going to be really busy the rest of this weekend and I have to work all weekend, so I want to take care of whatever I can on my day off.  Sort of wish I was just sleeping or relaxing, instead, but I guess that can come...some other time.

Yesterday and today I watched Pixote, directed by Hector Babenco in 1981. It's a tough movie to watch, focusing on the lives of homeless kids in Sao Paulo. As much as I enjoyed it, it might not be a movie I watch again (or often) because it's so sad and difficult to see. I think that's why it's great, though, and important. I always find it harder to write about movies like this, ones that are difficult to watch but incredibly good, since it seems so contradictory.

The Phantom of the Opera

I think I have car fever. It's becoming difficult to focus on anything other than reading car reviews and looking up cars in my price range. I'm in love with one car, but I want to take some time to test drive some other ones that are around the same cost. I don't know too much about subcompact cars, but I really like them, and I think that they'd be a perfect fit for me - good commuter cars that are low on gas. Blah blah blah cars cars cars. I've learned more about cars this last week than I've probably known my whole life. That's how bad I've got it. I want to test drive more cars tomorrow, and if it goes late, I might not be able to post about tomorrow's movie. We'll all survive, right? Right.

Enough about me. Today I watched The Phantom of the Opera, directed by Rupert Julian in 1925. I'm not a huge fan of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical. I mean, I hate it - the movie version and the actual musical itself. The music is really basic and boring and the more recent movie version is all kinds of  awful. Maybe I loved the silent version because it wasn't...that one. I also really love silent movies, and this one was really cool looking. The sets and makeup were really cool, and the music in it wasn't stupid and dumbed down. I liked it much more than some of the other Phantom movies that I've seen, personally, but I'm pretty unpleasant.

Paths of Glory

I keep not writing this post because I'm pretty distracted by a bunch of things right now. Had some fun going out and looking at cars today, and now it's really hard to stay on this tab instead of flipping around and reading about the car I really liked. I thought I'd make it to bed before like, 4am, today but that's not looking like a reality. I shake my fist at myself for making myself so tired.

After being out all day, I came home and started today's movie - Paths of Glory, directed by Stanley Kubrick in 1957. I never really heard of this movie, which seems sort of surprising. I guess I just assumed that all Kubrick movies are well known. Maybe this is well known and I'm just real dumb...always a possibility. Either way, I was excited to watch it for the first time. It was pretty great. It was fantastic at capturing how awful and nightmarish war can be, and I loved how hard and cold it felt. It was a really well-directed movie, and I'm so happy that I was able to see it - I don't think I ever would have thought about it if it wasn't for this project.

Disqus

So, I installed Disqus on my blog for a new and hopefully better way to comment!

First and most awesomely, you can now directly reply to comments, so we can actually have discussions if we want to! I think you can also get notified if you get a response to your comment, and see cool stuff like reactions that other people have had. You can also share your comments on Twitter and all sorts of stuff.

You also can comment using a whole myriad of different accounts - Google, Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo, etc. It's much more intuitive to use than how Blogger normally is. I also think you can comment without an account, but then you get James Spader as your picture. Although I think everyone has that as their picture right now because of how importing the comments works. Yay!

I know that a lot of people who comment online might already be familiar with Disqus, since it's used on a lot of popular websites like Wired and stuff. Other actual news website use it too, but uh, I don't read those at work so I don't really know anything about that.

It's not so scary anymore and it seems pretty nice so far, so I hope you guys play around with it and stuff - feel free to post dumb comments on this post and mess around here so you can see how it works and let me know what you think!

Pan's Labyrinth

I think I am going to switch to that new commenting system, I'll try to get it up and running tomorrow and post about all the fun new features that you'll get to use. I hope that it will be much nicer and easier to use. Other than that, I am so happy that it's finally the weekend and I can relax and get some much needed sleep! Although I'm not doing that right now, at all. Hard to break habits like this, yes?

Ok, since it's so late I'll try to keep this post a little shorter. I love today's movie - Pan's Labyrinth, directed by Guillermo del Toro in 2006. It's got a great blend of fantasy and reality, and is one of those really special movies that is about a child but not at all for children. I always find films like that to be really powerful, especially if they are the least bit good at capturing what it felt like to be a child. I don't think I've watched this movie since I first saw it, and it was so awesome to watch it again. I think I was able to focus more on the individual stories and less on the way that they were told, if that makes any sense. I just appreciated the film so much more.

Out of the Past

I'm thinking of trying a new commenting system on my blog, called Disqus, that allows you to actually reply to other people and get notified if your comment is responded to. I hate how the comments on Blogger work, and I feel like it probably keeps some people from speaking up sometimes. I want to read more about it this weekend, but I'll let you know if I actually switch over.

So, today I watched Out of the Past, directed by Jacques Tourneur in 1947. When I started, it felt like I had seen it before, but I couldn't place the plot or anything. I finally, slowly, started to remember that I had watched this a while ago in a film noir class. How did I forget it? Once I recalled it, I remembered loving it. Watching it again, I felt the same way. I love Robert Mitchum. He's so weirdly attractive and so perfect for this role, for film noir. I think the story is fantastic, and is one of my favorite plots from any noir. Just an all-around great movie.

Ordet

There are a lot of things that are clearly good about this movie, but unfortunately I wasn't up for understanding them or really noticing many of them. I hate it when my mood or tiredness affects how I perceive a film, but it's really unavoidable. This project takes up so much of my time (at least 3 hours a night, if the film is an average length) and it's really tough to do that non-stop. It affects a lot of different parts of my life, because so much of it revolves around the project. One of those things is that I'm often tired, because some nights I'm not home until 8 or 9 and I find myself facing a 2 hour movie and a blog post. It's like a part-time job, or grad school (probably way easier though)! I don't get nearly as much sleep as I would like, and it really does wear down on me. I'm obviously not making an excuse, because I still have been watching and writing. I guess I'm just trying to explain how involved and difficult this really can be at times. This week I have really been running on empty, and it was almost impossible for me to settle down for today's movie - Ordet, directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer in 1955.

Nanook of the North

Today's movie was really interesting, but maybe only to me. I watched Nanook of the North, directed by Robert J. Flaherty in 1922. It's got to be one of the first documentaries. It's silent, about an hour long, and it's so fascinating. It reminded me of an old book. I've got one at my desk with really cool binding, actually, that I keep meaning to pay for so I can just take it. See, I love old books. Often I don't read them, because I'm lazy and currently I have zero time to read. I have a bunch, though, and I have like, a fetish for them - I love going through them and looking at any annotation, bookplates, pictures, etc. I like them because I feel extremely connected to history when I look at them or read out of them.

This film was sort of like that. It wasn't really like, "an honest and excellent" documentary or something, but it was interesting. When I watched it, I could almost see the director filming it, and see the wonder that he felt for his subjects. It wasn't shot particularly well, but I was so interested in it. Interested in how this director navigated this territory with really, no rules or other films to guide him. I just liked thinking about it, and I felt that sort of connection to it that I do when I flip though an old book.

My Man Godfrey

I have the worst sweet tooth today. I demonstrated amazing self control at work by not going to our bakery to have some fresh cookies or hand-made chocolates (mmm, the peanut butter cups are so good!). Not so much now - I had to have Anthony run out and get me a hot chocolate, which is probably really unhealthy but sounds healthy than a like, a piece of chocolate.

Now that I've got my fix, I can actually write. Today I watched My Man Godfrey, directed by Gregory La Cava in 1936. I thought it sounded pretty boring - the title is pretty unexciting and bland. But it was a great little comedy! It was short and sweet, full of great little moments and witty dialogue. This seems like what people think of when they say they just like any old movies - you know, the type who stay up late watching something they never heard of on TCM? I like those people. :)

My Fair Lady

I think I'm having a delayed allergic reaction or something, and I've been feeling pretty out of it all day. Tried to chase away my throat pain with some tea, and it seemed to help. As a celebration, I'm going to have some tea and whiskey, which always seems to help stave off a cold (er...or at least I don't mind so much that I have cold or allergy symptoms).

Today I watched My Fair Lady, directed by George Cukor in 1964. I wasn't really feeling up to watching such a long movie today. I thought it was like, two hours max, but this is a pretty epically long musical. I sort of like this movie and I sort of don't. It's hard because I get it - I like the story sort of a little, I like the acting a little, and I can leave the musical numbers. I sort of get the humor, but I sort of bristle at it still. I don't really know how I feel about it. It's good, but it's not really for me, maybe? I have a really hard time pinning down my feelings about movies like this, because on one hand, I sort of enjoy them, but on the other, I find them frustrating and boring to watch.

Moolaade

Since I didn't watch last night's movie because I was hanging out with my co-workers, I thought I would watch it today. Of course, I ended up sleeping in, then going out and running errands for way too long, and I didn't get home until about 8. If I can't squeeze it in tomorrow, I'll bump it to the end.

So, today I watched Moolaade, directed by Ousmane Sembène in 2004, I movie that I had never heard of before until today. I didn't really know what to expect. I looked up a short blurb on IMDB and I worried it might be sort of a tear-jerker. I was really pleased that it wasn't. For dealing with a subject as serious as female genital mutilation, this is a bright, moving film. It was just so well made. It didn't focus on the horrors of the subject matter, but more on the characters and how they responded to it. It was quite good, and honestly I guess I feel a little surprised I've never heard this movie talked about before. But I also hear a ton about German and French (and so on) cinema, but not so much (er, not anything) about African cinema. So that could be the problem right there.