CINEMANIA:

Dogville (Denmark, 2004, Lars VonTrier) AKA The Passion of the Grace

Jesus, Mary and Joseph, where to begin? Dogville is a film that studies with cool Northern European pessimism the debasing effects of the social organization of human beings. Mixing mythological references (some of the character’s names: Olympia, Pandora, Diana, Jason, Athena, Grace, Thomas and Moses) with theatrical conventions, writer/director Lars von Trier has hammered together an unforgettable film that aims to make a profound statement about the terrible disease of being a social being in an often inhumane world.

He not only aims, he splits the arrow. Dogville is as deeply insightful as it is deeply disturbing, a movie that will challenge you intellectually and punish you emotionally.

Elephant (USA, 2003, Van Sant) AKA Life is Like a Box of Rancid Chocolates

Purportedly inspired by the Columbine massacre, and borrowing its title from the Hindu fable about a group of blind men who believe they know the true nature of an elephant, but are really only able to describe the one part that they are touching, van Sant’s film feels similarly disjointed and inconclusive.

My Walk in the Park: An Allegory

"Dance like no one is watching. Sing like no one is listening. Love like you've never been hurt and live like it's heaven on Earth"

--Mark Twain

I’ve noticed that a lot of folks who fire up weblogs feel the need to rationalize their site’s existence.

Playing Some More Catch Up

The Good Thief (England, 2003, Neil Jordan) AKA Christ, You Know it Ain’t Easy

The Good Thief keeps most of the best of the original Bob le Flambeur (France, 1955, Jean-Pierre Melville), and tosses in a few curveballs, some which break nicely into the strike zone, while others bounce wildly in the dirt.

My Fair Lady (USA, 1964, George Cukor) AKA Isn't She Loverly?

Another one I’ll be taking a more substantive swipe at over on Apollo Guide, it’s probably no accident that I watched this the day after catching all that French comedy of manners material and embarking on some sorta misguided rant on the theatrical slant of mid-20th Century French film.

Cinema Français AKA Les Twits Gallic

To be discussed:

Beauty and the Beast (France, 1946, Cocteau)

Les Dames du Bois Boulougne (France, 1945, Bresson)

Drole de Drame (France, 1937, Carne)

Well, I’ve just spent the day with some of the best that mid-20th Century French cinema has to offer, and with a renewed sense of joie de vivre, feeling ever so the bon vivant, but mixed with a curious sense of je ne sais crois, it’s all, in the words of the late and near-great 70s Canuck band The Stampede

TIME FOR SOME TELEVISUAL FEASTING

Six Feet Under (Season One) (2001, Alan Ball creator) AKA American Gothic Park

Okay, so I liked American Beauty well enough, despite some of the affectations of self-importance that threatened to sink the beast, to look forward to this here televisual feast. Of course, I wasn’t so eager to see it that I actually made a pt of catching it when it played on the tube.

What I’ve Been Knee Deep Up To

Shee-it. I’ve been writing some long-overdue reviews for Apollo Guide, that’s what. Here are some links to the films, with a little additional commentary for those who give a rat’s ass.

Quai des Orfevres

Actually, I wrote this review about three or four months ago, but forgot to send it in. Sorry ‘bout that, Brian.

Best of 2003: Finishing Up

Well, before the film festival so rudely interrupted and before I decided to write some long-overdue reviews for Apollo Guide, I was counting down my favourite films of ’03. Now, where was I?

The Man Without a Past AKA Being Jim Jarmusch

This straight-faced existential comedy offered up what was without a doubt the year’s best impression of a Jim Jarmusch film.

Catching Up

8 Mile (USA, 2003, Curtis Hanson)

AKA James Dean You Said It All So Clean

With a sleepy-eyed melancholy, Eminem (AKA Marshall Mathers) doesn’t exactly burst upon the silver screen, but rather pouts, smolders and broods like a roughed-up ghetto version of James Dean. As Jimmy "Rabbit" Smith, Mathers certainly has the street cred, if not the acting chops, to pull off the comparison.