Movie Recommendations - Page 2

Jeff Coleman · 02-09-2009

Cyril Tourneur · 02-09-2009

The Hour-Glass Sanatorium

The Hour-Glass Sanatorium (Polish: Sanatorium Pod Klepsydrą) is a 1973 Polish film directed by Wojciech Has. It is an adaptation of Bruno Schulz's story collection Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass (Sanatorium Pod Klepsydrą). The film won the Jury Prize at Cannes in 1973. It is also known as "The Sandglass" in English speaking countries.

here's a short scene...

here are some more scenes... (don't want to post all these youtube links)
YouTube - festungpolen's Channel

and an essay

The Hour-Glass Sanatorium essay

Jeff Coleman · 02-09-2009

When I saw Cyril Tourneur's recommendation of The Hour-Glass Sanatorium (a film I didn't know existed until now), I was reminded of the film The Saragossa Manuscript, which I watched a few years ago and loved. It turns out that they were directed by the same person.

Jeff Coleman · 02-09-2009

"If a Keystone Kops film were written by William S. Burroughs, peopled with characters from George Grosz by way of Russ Meyer and directed in a style that suggests Jean-Luc Godard on speed, you would have a movie with the style and mood of 'Terror 2000.' "

- Stephen Holden

The rest of Stephen Holden's review is here: http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/revi...52C1A962958260

I highly recommend Terror 2000. I don't know if it is out on dvd yet, but it is worth tracking down a vhs copy if it seems like the kind of thing you would like. Terror 2000 is my favorite movie starring Udo Kier.

The trailer (in German):

Jeff Coleman · 02-09-2009

I should mention that the review of Terror 2000 I linked to eventually panned the movie.

Near the end of the review Stephen Holden wrote: "Spoofing Nazis is a tricky business, since treating hatemongers as absurdist buffoons makes them seem harmless. The social climate that 'Terror 2000' addresses is anything but benign. That's one reason why 'Terror 2000,' despite its frantic style, has no satirical bite. It is a shapeless, hysterical mess."

I guess this shows that I am not on the same page as Holden. I don't really care whether Terror 2000 succeeded as a social commentary or not. I am interested in the gradual breakdown of the character Peter Korn, as he gives in to and embraces the ugliness everywhere around him and within him, and his relationship with his counterpart Jablo. The plot about the murder of the social worker and the rise of neo-nazism seemed to be in the background, serving to build the hysteria that drives Peter Korn.

I have trouble explaining why a certain work of art appeals to me.

What I want to say is: maybe Stephen Holden missed the point? Or maybe, there is just not much for him in Terror 2000, but there is more for me, and maybe you?

Here is another critically panned movie I love:

Jeff Coleman · 02-10-2009

The American Astronaut

Ligeia · 02-22-2009

In the hands of experimental Japanese filmmaker Nobuhiko Obayashi, the tale of seven "unmarried" young high-school girls who, during a school break, travel to a spooky, remote hilltop house to visit the reclusive, mysterious Aunt of one of their fold only to be consumed one at a time by the Ghost-House/Aunt in increasingly novel ways, is escalated into a spastic, phantasmagorical confetti burst of avant-garde techniques and tonalities. Not a minute goes by without some kind of imaginative and spirited experimental visual manipulation or interjection; from kaleidoscopic color schemes, to frame and time altering collage montage, to wild, high-concept mixed media integration (animation, mattes, props, sets, etc), to mini-movie injections (lovingly parodying/mimicking everything from silent film stylistics, to romantic fantasies to obligatory action scenes). Any and all workings of the film form are here incorporatedly warped; from imagery and editing to music and sound to content and presentation. Even the sketches of characters and their respective performances by the actors are hemmed in time with the overall off-the-wall configuration. (Example: Each girl is intentionally drawn with their stock personalities (the musician, the over-weight eater, the athlete, etc) novelly paraded in gleeful iconic irreverence.) The moods and tones of the film are equally melodic in their own discordant tangential way; seamlessly walking the line between comedy, horror and the deadpan aloof. It all adds up to a whole lot of fun. Where else could you see a girl eaten by a piano, an upright Bear helping cook dinner at a roadside noodle-stand or a man turned into a pile of bananas because he doesn't like melons!? With all its packed in candy-colored confections and novel door prizes, "Hausu" is a cinematic surprise party all in one.

Ligeia · 02-22-2009

In this ravishing film of mystical beauty, master animator Kihachiro Kawamoto’s tour de force adventure tale tells the story of a young noblewoman in 8th-century Japan who leaves her home to follow the apparition of an executed prince.

The Book of the Dead takes place as Buddhism is being introduced to Japan from China. Iratsume, a woman of noble descent, becomes obsessed with this mysterious new religion. One night, in a rapturous trance, she sees a luminous vision that she believes to be the Buddha, compelling her to leave home and journey to a sacred temple. Once there, she sees Otsu, a young prince who was executed 50 years earlier. While Iratsume mistakes the prince’s spirit for the incarnation of the great Buddha, the ghost mistakes Iratsume for the last woman he saw at the moment of his death. As an act of great devotion, she decides to make a giant shroud for the prince to heal his soul, after which he begins to haunt the young woman and those around her. The pair embark on an impassioned battle of wills, one longing for the material world, the other striving for the spiritual.

This strange story of otherworldly romance is the work of stop-motion animator and puppet-maker Kihachiro Kawamoto, a former student of the master Czech animator Jiri Trnka. Already a legend in his own right, with The Book of the Dead he has created an intricately detailed magnum opus, a summation of the themes explored in all of his work: the transience of existence, the ambiguity of human behavior, and the search for perfection and beauty in an imperfect world.

One final note for animation buffs: The film also features work by the acclaimed Russian animator and director Yuriy Norshteyn, who was involved in The Book of the Dead as a “guest animator.”

Odalisque · 02-22-2009

I've just posted one of my Amazon reviews to another thread. It's reminded me that I gave five stars to this film:

Nude On The Moon [1960] [DVD]

Dvd ~ Marietta
Price: £16.59

Availability: In stock

Possibly the worst film ever made -- but a lot of fun, 24 Jul 2008

I'm not sure that it's possible meaningfully to award stars to this film. The only possibilities are one or five stars and, since the other two reviewers have opted for one star, I've gone for five.

This may possibly be the worst film ever made -- I think that it's worse than "The Wild Women of Wongo". And yet... I've watched it three times, and enjoyed it more each time. There are so many open mouthed moments. The most audacious may be when the astronauts are on their way to the rocket launch site. They drive past a cinema showing another Doris Wishman film. The younger one says that he'd been to see the film the night before. When his older companion sensibly suggests that he should have had an early night, the reply is "It was well worth it!"

En route to the moon, the earth is mirror imaged. Landing on the moon, they find large chunks of what they say is pure gold (it doesn't look much like it). But the sensible older astronaut says that it may be reduced to "worthless dust" during their return voyage to earth. (Leaving me wondering what forces capable of reducing gold to "worthless dust" would do to human bodies.)

The Moon turns out to have a population of girls wearing knickers and head antennae, but no bras. (No one is actually nude, but this was made pre- Trade Descriptions Act.) What was presumably still risque in 1960 is now just silly. But silliness has its place.

Included as an extra is a cosmic striptease short, which is at least as jaw-dropping as "Nude on the Moon" itself. Well worth watching.

The whole package is a lot of fun and has given me more hours of viewing pleasure than most of the DVDs I own. On reflection, it is worth five stars.

I might add that one of the people to whom I've shown this film (on DVD) is the TLO's own beloved Des Lewis.

;)

No one has yet (on Amazon) voted the review to be helpful. ;)

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