Yet more Criterion-whoring. Honestly, they should just put me on their payroll. I highly doubt that anyone else in the state of Arizona more relentlessly whores their stuff out than I do.
Saw this last night. The verdict: I liked it, didn't love it. My big beef with the film is its pacing. I don't mind slow films (I admit that I'll start getting all fidgety while watching an Antonini or Fellini film, but I'll still enjoy it), but this film was starting to push me. My problem was the overuse of narration from the lead character. I would have liked more dialogue that revealed plot points, that articulated his epiphanies, rather than the constant exposition coming from the narrator and not through character interaction. Show, don't tell. At this point, it's a critical cliche, but still a valid one. The best scene in the film is when one character playfully accuses Louis (monsieur le narrator) of being a killer. Instead of the usual over-explaining narration, we just get the actor's response to the query. Its handled very subtly, and is a delight to watch.
Is the film worth owning? Yes. The perks: Dennis Price as the murderous Louie. If Oscar Wilde were a serial killer targeting the aristocracy, he would have been just like Dennis in this movie: cool, collected, full of savage dry wit, and matter of fact about his homicidial tendencies (the film's most reliable source of black humor comes from Louie's total blase attitude about his killings). Alec Guiness pretty much makes the whole film. He plays all 8 members of the clan our hero is targeting. His performances remind me of the novel Battle Royale: just as in Royale, many of Guiness' characters are only briefly on screen, introduced one minute only to die in the next two, but like the students in Battle Royale, Guiness makes those briefly lived characters intensely memorable. Frankly, had the director hired different actors to play each nobleman, it wouldn't have been half as good a movie as it was.
Its the kind of movie that I'm glad that I watched once. I'll enjoy having it on the shelf inbetween Jules et Jim and King Kong, but I'll doubt I'll be watching it over and over again. Its the kind of film that I love watching alone, but I'm completely mortified watching it with over people. Towards the end of the film, my room-mate came by with a lady friend and they chilled out on the couch, watching the film (after I did a brief synopsis of everything-up-until-this-moment that happened in the flick). I have this trait I gleamed from my family, a certain European obsession with being a good host. Actually watching the film with others made me feel embarassed about the film's slow pacing, as though I were personally to blame for making them watch a film that wasn't moving fast enough to entertain them (they did crack up over the ending, which was pitch perfect; couldn't have possibly ended that film in a better way). So in other words: only watch around fellow film buffs. I did luck out though: I played the DVD on my PS2, which occasionally fritzes out and causes the disc to skip like a stone across a lake. I had no problems with my movie, but as soon as my room-mate popped up in Shaun Of The Dead, it skipped like mad half way through. Damn shame, too... love that movie (actually got to attend a Shaun test screening at Arizona Mills, with the cast and writers in attendace).
In other news (nothing personal, folks, this ain't LiveJournal): finished reading Choke (not as good as Lullaby) and I started + finished Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential yesterday (awesome book). I just started on Fight Club today. Once I'm done with that, I'm going to embark on a mission I set for myself a while ago: bone up on the classics. On my plate in the near future: The Brothers Karazamov, Count Of Monte Cristo, Don Quixiote, Faust, and Ulysses.
And on that note, I'm going to pour myself something cold and crisp, kick back and relax, and kill a couple of hours before work.
Saw this last night. The verdict: I liked it, didn't love it. My big beef with the film is its pacing. I don't mind slow films (I admit that I'll start getting all fidgety while watching an Antonini or Fellini film, but I'll still enjoy it), but this film was starting to push me. My problem was the overuse of narration from the lead character. I would have liked more dialogue that revealed plot points, that articulated his epiphanies, rather than the constant exposition coming from the narrator and not through character interaction. Show, don't tell. At this point, it's a critical cliche, but still a valid one. The best scene in the film is when one character playfully accuses Louis (monsieur le narrator) of being a killer. Instead of the usual over-explaining narration, we just get the actor's response to the query. Its handled very subtly, and is a delight to watch.
Is the film worth owning? Yes. The perks: Dennis Price as the murderous Louie. If Oscar Wilde were a serial killer targeting the aristocracy, he would have been just like Dennis in this movie: cool, collected, full of savage dry wit, and matter of fact about his homicidial tendencies (the film's most reliable source of black humor comes from Louie's total blase attitude about his killings). Alec Guiness pretty much makes the whole film. He plays all 8 members of the clan our hero is targeting. His performances remind me of the novel Battle Royale: just as in Royale, many of Guiness' characters are only briefly on screen, introduced one minute only to die in the next two, but like the students in Battle Royale, Guiness makes those briefly lived characters intensely memorable. Frankly, had the director hired different actors to play each nobleman, it wouldn't have been half as good a movie as it was.
Its the kind of movie that I'm glad that I watched once. I'll enjoy having it on the shelf inbetween Jules et Jim and King Kong, but I'll doubt I'll be watching it over and over again. Its the kind of film that I love watching alone, but I'm completely mortified watching it with over people. Towards the end of the film, my room-mate came by with a lady friend and they chilled out on the couch, watching the film (after I did a brief synopsis of everything-up-until-this-moment that happened in the flick). I have this trait I gleamed from my family, a certain European obsession with being a good host. Actually watching the film with others made me feel embarassed about the film's slow pacing, as though I were personally to blame for making them watch a film that wasn't moving fast enough to entertain them (they did crack up over the ending, which was pitch perfect; couldn't have possibly ended that film in a better way). So in other words: only watch around fellow film buffs. I did luck out though: I played the DVD on my PS2, which occasionally fritzes out and causes the disc to skip like a stone across a lake. I had no problems with my movie, but as soon as my room-mate popped up in Shaun Of The Dead, it skipped like mad half way through. Damn shame, too... love that movie (actually got to attend a Shaun test screening at Arizona Mills, with the cast and writers in attendace).
In other news (nothing personal, folks, this ain't LiveJournal): finished reading Choke (not as good as Lullaby) and I started + finished Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential yesterday (awesome book). I just started on Fight Club today. Once I'm done with that, I'm going to embark on a mission I set for myself a while ago: bone up on the classics. On my plate in the near future: The Brothers Karazamov, Count Of Monte Cristo, Don Quixiote, Faust, and Ulysses.
And on that note, I'm going to pour myself something cold and crisp, kick back and relax, and kill a couple of hours before work.
What I always found so intriguing about Bester is that his protagonists are complete bastards. The main characters in each of the aforementioned books are terrible, terrible people, and yet he makes them compelling and makes you want to root for them. The whole idea in Demolished Man of a man willing to shatter a utopian society just because he's annoyed at not being able to do whatever the hell he wants (i.e. kill a man) is a great one. If anything, Bester fucks around with cliches. Stars is a revenge story, Monte Cristo-style, where the avenger is A) pretty crazy, and B) not exactly in the right. Ditto for Stars, where the utopian world, instead of being some gray Huxley/Orwellian nightmare, isn't a bad place to live. That's what appeals to me about Bester's writing: he takes staid and conventional and predictable stories and he puts an unconventional spin on things.
In regards to his short stories: is there a good collection you recommend?