Which non-indian film u saw recently has made u post here???

[Nerd]

How can people sleep through MiP but endure Tarkovsky et all?

[kid-glove]

Yeah, I slept through, or maybe 'in', Anatolia, Turin Horse. But OTOH Mip just cut out my consciousness. But I'm aware the problem is mine.

This is like asking how you didn't sleep through a test, but slept through a late night t20. It happens yeah.

---

Let me explain.

You have this montage of Paris. Maybe I've seen quite a lot of Ligue Un football, discussed with Algerian immigrants in Twitter, or maybe watched Point blank the night prior. It just bothered me that Paris was projected as this exotic, romantic haven. Cleansed out of poverty, and other day-to-day dangers. Know it's wrong, it's a WA film. And I'm seeing Paris as Owen Wilson's character saw it. In rich residential areas & posh cafes/restaurants. Travel & living style. Mind still drifted back to multiple universes within 'Paris, je t'aime', trying to recollect exact places and if there were any montages at all in that anthology used like this.

The montage didn't work as in Manhattan, maybe it's the distant cousin to the montage(s) in ESYILY (there it was used in conjecture with the changing seasons, in tune with the changing moods - didn't come out well though. ), we see Paris in that film too, no?

Then it's cut to..

Restaurant/food - check
Rich wife/in-laws - check
Slightly deluded ( not particularly successful, content) writer in urge of existential adventure - check
Slightly polarized (to-be)couple - check
Encounter with another couple, friction - check
The second couple perfect on outside - check
Wife of other couple not particularly good-looking, invariably the husband tries to impress rich Mrs. - check
Dick measuring intellectual contest between men - check
Distrust, ego, and polarization from one's (people &) reality - check

Then the car arrives. Heavy name-dropping, dense dialogues, all meta- of course. But my mind warped out to the black woman in the car, smoking cigarette with rich good-looking white men, and then he goes on to another bar(?!) where we see more rich white people, well dressed & enjoying cocktails. Couple of Extras from The Help, in posh period costumes. It seems WA is aware of criticism & made a few superficial touches. Suppose it could be construed to be ironic. At the time of watching it on laptop screen, to even think of historical/political terms in a surreal sequence, I don't know maybe something's wrong with me. Strangely for a WA film, it produced a variety of thoughts without engaging on its own. The period change, etc were OK. The moments, characters & conversations were all deja-vu galore (As you know, WA film, we sign up for it.) But for variety of reasons, it induced sleep. I mean, as someone who actually saw Resnais 'Duelle' twice within a week, it's a bit much. But that was sleep-inducing ride, at a more implicit level. This, I'm sure, when I watch it completely, I'd be more appreciative of the narrative tool employed by WA. But for the first act, for the first time I watched it, in aforementioned state, I was drifted out of it, not with it.

[kid-glove]

Completed MiP. Niiice. Excellent transitiveness and it all came out well.

X-Men. 1st class. 1st rate for Fassbender alone. This man's going to be the next big thing. [uh, I didn't see Shame yet]

[AravindMano]

Doc - thanks. The Skin I Live In i saw last year and admired. I started reading We Need To Talk About Kevin, it was terrific but had to return the book before I could finish it. Will watch the film definitely.

Nerd - Anxiety that you don't understand Tarkovsky will never let one sleep

[kid-glove]

Haywire : Terrible lead performance (Spies are supposed to be good at deception, I thought) in a ridiculously dire plot, but it had to be that way I suppose. She also runs Damon close in playing 'blank', though M.Kane is no J.Bourne. But this isn't really about her, it's about subtle camera movements, near-static set-up & defined geography. Fassbender would make a good Bond Ewan Mcgregor tries to instill oxygen into unidimensional character. We also see M.Douglas, Banderas, Channing Tatum.

The Girl with the dragon tattoo - Here's a filmmaker who could actually do with a spy movie. You almost forget this is at outset, a detective thriller, a whodunit. A psycho-sexual old-new investigative procedural. It's the cinematic equivalent of a page-turner. Despite being long, it prods along nicely. Didn't stutter. As for sexual violence itself, extreme disgust apart, Rooney Mara (a perfect one-note, actually now you realize that the hardened cipher of Noomi rapace is a necessary cop-out for the Swedish film) & direction didn't come off as titillating. Fincher frames her like a rodent, and Mara does produce an impressive animalistic performance. The chemistry & relationship does seem like an ideal male-fantasy in all adaptations. The romantic effusiveness aside, the relationship itself is as cryptic as Norton-Bonham Carter. Daniel Craig is persuasive as idealized journalist, best of intentions, wrongly disgraced, and Plummer could exude paternal grace, warmth & sadness in his sleep. Robin Wright seems a bit tired, Skarsgard produces an obvious performance in the pivotal role. The family & the island - I still believe Polanski would have done a far better job. The 'incident' being played back & forth, the photos put together in a film, multiple angles assembled etc - all in Fincher's ballpark, but didn't particularly have much for him to play around. In comparison to Graysmith in Zodiac & non-resolution, one would be more engaged by the contrast of Blomqvist to Salander & resolution to the different plots. Personally, I find it to be weakest of all the SK films, it has easy answers, and the questions not particularly interesting. (Fascism, New Sweden vs Old Sweden, Religion etc). But then that's no fault of Fincher, it's the source material.

[kid-glove]

A Better Life

- Demian Bichir, Che's own Fidel Castro, is like a Mexican De Niro here. Terrific. Like Clooney in Descendants, the emotional 'high's were well placed, to bait any jury.

Also we've known how independent films on immigration get a nice buildup in awards season. I could think of Jenkins in Visitor.

In some ways though, this is like this year's Biutiful. Very well played role, but the role itself is ready-made for the emotional purging.

[kid-glove]

Elena

- What a film! With that, I hope all the Tarkovsky parallels (well earned by Return & Banishment) are put to bed. And he truly exposits as much with the dead Tarkovskian symbol.

[ajithfederer]

For groucho bro, from AN fb page.

[kid-glove]

Saw "Take Shelter", what a gripping performer is this Michael Shannon. Jeff Nichols tops his earlier 'Shotgun stories'(Shannon excellent here as well) in lofty ambitions of post-apocalyptic 'indie flick', and he pulls it off. Quite subversive in its mini-genres. In fact, it's a film that transcends that limiting term 'genre'. Jessica Chastain, enchanting, beautiful & talented.

[groucho070]

Thanks Stan, nAn antha scene-a thAn sonnen. It was cut out of the original, and I didn't like it appearing in Redux. Originals are perfect no matter how the original director tries to tinker with their old products ( I am looking at you George Lucas, mavanE!)