(2004) dir. Hayao Miyazaki
viewed: 06/17/05 at Loews Metreon Theatres, SF, CA
Hayao Miyazaki is one of the best things to happen to cinema. Not just animation, not just cel animation, but to cinema as a whole. He is a visionary auteur whose richly designed and developed fantasy worlds are utterly awesome and engrossing. [...]
Archive of entries posted on June 2005
Howl’s Moving Castle
Trouble Every Day
(2001) dir. Claire Denis
viewed: 06/29/2005
Trouble Every Day is like an “art film” version of an exploitation film, beautifully shot and paced, with some less than clear narrative elements. But it has a horror film’s true gore, in two graphic scenes of sex and cannibalism, added shock value for the art house circuit and even [...]
Sin City
(2005) dir. Frank Miller, Robert Rodriguez, Quentin Tarantino
viewed: 05/27/05 at AMC Van Ness 14, SF, CA
I just realized, looking at the list of films that I have seen in the theater, what a bunch of nerdy choices there are: sci fi, sci fi, comic book adaptation, anime…it’s kind of silly.
It has to be said that [...]
The Shooting
(1967) dir. Monte Hellman
viewed: 06/27/2005
Director Monte Hellman’s films, Cockfighter (1974) and Two-Lane Blacktop (1971) have earned him a strong and well-deserved cult following and were certainly my impetus to see The Shooting. It all especially fit together since I have been watching a number of Westerns lately. I have to also say that [...]
Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith
(2005) dir. George Lucas
viewed: 05/23/05 at Loews Metreon Theatres, SF, CA
I got to see this on the IMAX screen by accident. I scheduled my ticket around the play times and didn’t realize what I had gotten myself into. That said, it was pretty cool. It looked great on the large format. [...]
Red River
(1948) dir. Howard Hawks, Arthur Rosson
viewed: 06/18/2005
Howard Hawks is one of the directors around which the notion of auteur theory arose. That his films showed a consistancy of vision and themes and ideas, no matter which decade or genre in which he worked. This notion of the director as “film author”, the ability [...]
A Bug’s Life
(1998) dir. John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton
viewed: 06/27/05
I know I said that I hate this format, but at the moment, the VCR in the living room works while the DVD player is on the fritz.
I am enjoying the experience of getting to watch films with my soon-to-be 4 year old son. I get to introduce him [...]
The Wild Bunch
(1969) dir. Sam Peckinpah
viewed: 06/15/2005
One of the great movies of all time. I’d never seen it, holding out for a chance to see it on the big screen than on a little television screen, but finally I broke down and decided to watch it. And guess what? It’s a great movie.
Something that [...]
DiG!
(2004) dir. Ondi Timoner
viewed: 05/28/2005
DiG! is a documentary about the rise and fall of Anton Newcombe and The Brian Jonestown Massacre in contrast with the steady rise of their friend Courtney Taylor’s band, The Dandy Warhols. It’s a study in rock’n’roll of ego, purported genius, success and failure, and mental illness. Anyone with [...]
Velvet Goldmine
(1998) dir. Todd Haynes
viewed: 05/27/2005
Recommended to me by a friend, Velvet Goldmine fantasizes about David Bowie and Iggy Pop, as lovers, rock stars, and Glam Rock as a site of the blurring of gender. It’s hard to know where the blurred line between the facts and fictions of these fictionalized characters starts and ends [...]
