I have had a couple days at home alone, after taking Kris and Max to Omaha. I’d scurry about during the day to do all this end-of-year crap I need to get done, then come home and see stuff I normally wouldn’t have the time or space to see–maybe things a bit more violent than Kris would ever want to watch (and by “bit more” I of course mean “excessively, ridiculously, extravagantly more”). I can turn up the volume, go nuts.

What follows are a couple of strong recommendations and others just to be recorded. There’s a loose running issue in my responses about the ways they depict violence. But mostly it’s just a quick set of recs: (more…)

The Cinematheque recently ran a 2 week program of films called Angry Young Cinema: The Original British New Wave. The full list of the films can be seen here. I managed to see none of the films, despite working literally across the street from ther excellent Hollywood theater, The Egyptian.

I won’t list all of the film that played - the link above will let you see that - but I hope some here will check out the films that played and recommend a few in comments. They sound interesting, and I plan to rent a batch of them, though several have not been released on DVD. (more…)

Okay, so I’m going to riff inadequately on a stray revelation Gio noted in her last Da Vinci post–and I’m not sure where/if I can go with it–but I just watched Sang-soo Im’s The President’s Last Bang, and it’s the most effective piece of political filmmaking I’ve seen in a while. (more…)

…or Ferpect Crime is a low-rent blast, starting out as a sleek sort-of-obvious satire about a department-store Lothario but slowly creeping toward Grand Guignol black comedy and finally ending in a garish burst of surrealist comedy. This ain’t for everybody. But it looks grand (director Alex de la Iglesia got an initial boost from Almodovar, and they share an eye and taste for the cartoonish taken seriously–or vice versa). Its meanness is slowly sapped away by an obvious love for those “freaks” and “uglies” it mocks.

I’m having trouble nailing it down, but it was fun. Imagine if Daffy Duck and Bugs Bunny got caught up in a bleak noirish erotic thriller, and then had it out for one another. I’m rushing to my queue to line up some more of his stuff.

i have neither read nor seen the da vinci code. until i saw, and, for a change, paid attention to a trailer of the film earlier this week (i space out during trailers), i had no idea what the big brouhaha about DVC was. one more conspiracy film about the vatican? big deal. you must by now know what the heresy of DVC is. if you don’t [SPOILER], here it is: jesus and mary magdalene got married and had children; this fact was concealed by the church through systematic erasure of evidenciary documentation. i think it’s pretty much it, though i’m not sure. as i said, i haven’t read the book. (more…)