movies

[The Third Man]

Oh, I thought you were talking about getting it from Netflix. How much is that set? I'm wondering how many of those are included in The Art of Buster Keaton box set from Kino?

The Art of Buster Keaton
Looks like it includes the following shorts:
ONE WEEK (1920)
THE HIGH SIGN (1920)
THE GOAT (1921)
MY WIFE'S RELATION (1922)
THE BOAT (1921)
THE LOVE NEST (1923)
THE SCARECROW (1920)
THE PALEFACE (1921)
THE HAUNTED HOUSE (1921)
FROZEN NORTH (1922)
NEIGHBORS (1920)
THE BALOONATIC (1923)
THE ELECTRIC HOUSE (1922)
HARD LUCK (1921)
THE BLACKSMITH (1922)
THE PLAYHOUSE (1921)
COPS (1922)
CONVICT 13 (1921)
DAYDREAMS (1922)
and a bunch of other stuff on a DVD called Keaton Plus. Looks like the set you mentioned has a lot of the earlier stuff but I think a lot of that might be with Fatty Arbuckle (I know Coney Island is) and may be available on these Kino discs Buster Keaton & Fatty Arbuckle. If I remember correctly, the Kino box has all of his shorts and the others are probably with Arbuckle, which I'm not sure who directed.

Yep, I checked up on it and several of the early ones are Arbuckle (those were directed by him, btw). The set is region-2, so I don't know if your player is capable of playing it, but if it is, the set is about $37 before shipping on Amazon.co.uk - a steal considering the quantity. And Masters of Cinema, the line that put out that set I posted, is excellent - sort of like Europe's answer to the Criterion Collection, with loads of extras and super-detailed booklets included. I have their DVD of Murnau's Sunrise and it's fantastic.

I don't own any Kino, but I'd like to pick up their new edition of The General sometime soon, which I've been dying to see. I've only seen Sherlock Jr. of Keaton's work, but I loved it to death.

oooh.. nosferatu and the last laugh are 2 of my favorites.. that's a tough choice..
the last laugh has movie's best facial hair ever..

I've wanted to see both for a long time, especially the former. Silents are a big hole for me.

[Richie Allen]

Yep, I checked up on it and several of the early ones are Arbuckle (those were directed by him, btw). The set is region-2, so I don't know if your player is capable of playing it, but if it is, the set is about $37 before shipping on Amazon.co.uk - a steal considering the quantity. And Masters of Cinema, the line that put out that set I posted, is excellent - sort of like Europe's answer to the Criterion Collection, with loads of extras and super-detailed booklets included. I have their DVD of Murnau's Sunrise and it's fantastic.

I don't own any Kino, but I'd like to pick up their new edition of The General sometime soon, which I've been dying to see. I've only seen Sherlock Jr. of Keaton's work, but I loved it to death.

More incentive to seek out an all-region DVD player. Kino DVDs are great too. Maybe just a notch under Criterion. They did a great job with Keaton. They did cheapen the box set a bit going to the slim cases but I don't think I mind. I definitely want to get a hold of the Sunrise version you mentioned because that's a tough one to find (Stupidest promotion of all time, IMO, requiring you to buy How Green Was My Valley and others and send in proof of purchase to qualify) and the ones on Ebay are typically Asian crap.

BTW, The General is continually fighting it out with The Third Man, Seven Samurai, Vertigo and The Passion of Joan of Arc for my favorite film of all time. Sunrise isn't far from making it into that group either.

[ghostrunner]

The Fire Within



This has been sitting unwatched on my shelf for two months while others passed it by, and I finally got around to it.

Seems weird to say this took a while to get going since it moves at a fairly slow pace anyway, but it was hard to hold on for the first 20 minutes or so. After that the dialogue more engrossing and there's a lot to chew on. I had the thought it's almost like a reverse of It's a Wonderful Life.

The dinner party at the end is really intriguing. Even though it's filmed in third person, it doesn't flow like a party normally would. The characters move and talk sort of abruptly and you feel like conversations are started halfway in. So even though it's not filmed from the main character's point of view, it's almost written like you're drunk and only catching parts of conversations the way you might when your consciousness drifts in and out. Then they overtly go for the effect with the editing afterwards.

I've only seen bits and pieces of The Lost Weekend with Ray Milland, but it put me in mind of that as well.

Also, there's no way I'm committing suicide with the kind of women this movie is stocked with. There's one woman who gets out of a cab and you see her for like 20 seconds. Wow.

[omaha_red]

The Fire Within



This has been sitting unwatched on my shelf for two months while others passed it by, and I finally got around to it.

Seems weird to say this took a while to get going since it moves at a fairly slow pace anyway, but it was hard to hold on for the first 20 minutes or so. After that the dialogue more engrossing and there's a lot to chew on. I had the thought it's almost like a reverse of It's a Wonderful Life.

The dinner party at the end is really intriguing. Even though it's filmed in third person, it doesn't flow like a party normally would. The characters move and talk sort of abruptly and you feel like conversations are started halfway in. So even though it's not filmed from the main character's point of view, it's almost written like you're drunk and only catching parts of conversations the way you might when your consciousness drifts in and out. Then they overtly go for the effect with the editing afterwards.

I've only seen bits and pieces of The Lost Weekend with Ray Milland, but it put me in mind of that as well.

Also, there's no way I'm committing suicide with the kind of women this movie is stocked with. There's one woman who gets out of a cab and you see her for like 20 seconds. Wow.

oh.. just wait til JL gets here..

[omaha_red]

.

I don't own any Kino, but I'd like to pick up their new edition of The General sometime soon, which I've been dying to see. I've only seen Sherlock Jr. of Keaton's work, but I loved it to death.

oooh.. nosferatu and the last laugh are 2 of my favorites.. that's a tough choice..
the last laugh has movie's best facial hair ever..

I've wanted to see both for a long time, especially the former. Silents are a big hole for me.

"the general" will blow your mind with all the stunts keaton does.. i haven't done a ton by
him but what i've seen is great.. have you done much harold lloyd?

[omaha_red]

Pineapple Express - I'm not sure if anyone on the board recommended this but it could've been the biggest piece of crap I've seen all year. Even for a stoner movie it was awful and knew that's what it was going to be going in. It was just terrible.

i honestly can't believe it.. i really can't.. but i really liked "pineapple express".. it's 100%
not my kind of movie.. but i chuckled the entire time.. and it kills me to admit that because
i refuse to let myself like that crew.. but they're growing on me damnit..

[Jocephus]

i loved when rogen called his g/f and was crying and wanting to get back together and she agreed, and then he immediately realized it was a bad idea

[JL21]

The Fire Within



This has been sitting unwatched on my shelf for two months while others passed it by, and I finally got around to it.

Seems weird to say this took a while to get going since it moves at a fairly slow pace anyway, but it was hard to hold on for the first 20 minutes or so. After that the dialogue more engrossing and there's a lot to chew on. I had the thought it's almost like a reverse of It's a Wonderful Life.

The dinner party at the end is really intriguing. Even though it's filmed in third person, it doesn't flow like a party normally would. The characters move and talk sort of abruptly and you feel like conversations are started halfway in. So even though it's not filmed from the main character's point of view, it's almost written like you're drunk and only catching parts of conversations the way you might when your consciousness drifts in and out. Then they overtly go for the effect with the editing afterwards.

I've only seen bits and pieces of The Lost Weekend with Ray Milland, but it put me in mind of that as well.

Also, there's no way I'm committing suicide with the kind of women this movie is stocked with. There's one woman who gets out of a cab and you see her for like 20 seconds. Wow.

oh.. just wait til JL gets here..

Yeah, I love that movie in just about every way. The jump-cuts that you're talking about, mid-conversation at the dinner party, are a perfect example of Malle employing New Wave stuff for effect only (i.e. he doesn't hammer you with it in seemingly every scene the way Godard does). The same notion applies to the scene at the café when the guy falls off the wagon. The camera is following action all over the place- young girls, café patrons, waiters/waitresses, cars passing by- in an almost dizzying way. There's life buzzing all around... but there's Alain Leroy, pasty, sweaty, and nearly dead to the world, trembling and about to take his first drink since "taking the cure".

And how about the perfectly disjointed, perfectly minimalist Erik Satie soundtrack?

The beauty of the first 20 minutes, too, is that it sets the tone without using a ton of dialogue. He's sober and he's bored. He's also seeking order, rearranging everything in his room. Menacing him in the mirror are multiple articles about death, Marilyn Monroe's suicide, and the circled specter carved into the mirror- 23 Juillet (July 23), the day that he's set to kill himself.

Then it launches into a totality of despair. Other people taking the cure can't help him. His boring, middle-class Egyptologist former drinking buddy can't help him with his "mediocre certainties". The Bohemian, shallow starving artist crowd can't help him. The people he used to hang out with provide him no solace. His old flames give him nothing, nor does the upper class (at the party). That middle hour basically hows you just how alone and out of touch he feels... while also making you feel sympathetic for him. You don't feel sympathetic for him because of his behavior, but rather because everybody around him cares so much about him.

It's my favorite movie.

[omaha_red]

i loved when rogen called his g/f and was crying and wanting to get back together and she agreed, and then he immediately realized it was a bad idea

i don't know what it was.. but everything about it made me laugh.. and i never
laugh at those guys..

[cardinalkarp]

Pineapple Express - I'm not sure if anyone on the board recommended this but it could've been the biggest piece of crap I've seen all year. Even for a stoner movie it was awful and knew that's what it was going to be going in. It was just terrible.

i honestly can't believe it.. i really can't.. but i really liked "pineapple express".. it's 100%
not my kind of movie.. but i chuckled the entire time.. and it kills me to admit that because
i refuse to let myself like that crew.. but they're growing on me damnit..

I mean I laughed at certain parts but I've thought every Seth Rogan movie done prior to this one was much funnier. I thought the whole premise was just dumb.