August 2003 - zorn-list - mailman.xmission.com

Re: Foreign/cult films
by francko.lamerikx＠philips.com 05 Aug '03

05 Aug '03

What a great subject, especially since I watch about 200 movies a year... > I thought Visitor Q was an almost complete misfire, interesting only for > inverting the usual that outsider-family subgenre (Teoreme, Boudou Saved > from Drowning). Didn't care much for Fudoh either. Much better--and > conveniently both just released on US DVD though I haven't seen those--are > City of Lost Souls and Dead or Alive which rework yakuza/crime films > through culture clashes (and anybody who says they expected the ending of > Dead or Alive is a liar). Way way over the top is the flabbergasting Ichi > the Killer, even in the slightly censored Hong Kong DVD. Audition is good > in a what-is-reality way like Polanski's Repulsion but not quite as > "unwatchable" as its reputation. I'm hoping to get around soon to > Happiness of the Katakuris, Miike's musical remake of a Korean film (no > really). Having seen a couple of Takashi movies, I can understand why he takes such a foremost position in the discussions on contemporary Japanese cinema, but he really isn't my favorite director. I would definitely recommend "Visitor Q", "City of Lost Souls", and "Happiness of the Katakuris", though. They are simultaneously completely avant-garde, and completely commercial. "Audition", of course, will go into the history books as a classic, but it is not a typical Miike Takashi movie in the sense that it almost feels too composed, too focused on a single theme, whereas most of his other movies are post-modern romps through ten different genres in a single movie, from the famous CGI Matrix-spoofing cockfight in "City of Lost Souls" to the musical themes of "Happiness of the Katakuris". > Other current Japanese directors worth checking out are films by Kiyoshi > Kurosawa (especially Cure which I think is one of the best films of the > 90s), Sogo Ishii (Angel Dust is pretty easy to find but don't pass up the > dark satire Crazy Family), Sabu (the peculiar DANGAN Runner) and Shunji > Iwai. Shinya Tsukamoto is well-respected but has always seemed pretty > trite to me. I'd guess all Zornlisters already know about Seijun Suzuki > and Takeshi Kitano. And I'd rate Hayao Miyazaki as one of the best > filmmakers anywhere. I must agree on Kiyoshi Kurosawa, he's my favorite contemporary Japanese director. If you like "Cure", which definitely is one of the best films of the 90s, you'd better also check out his "Kairo" ("Pulse") which is just as good. I would also recommend the made-for-TV "Kourei" ("Seance"), while I still have the DVD of "Charisma" lying at home waiting for me to watch it. There's a small fragment of Kurosawa's "Barren Illusion" that shows up in the latest Olivier Assayas movie, "demonlover" (which I found a complete disappointment). I definitely agree to the recommendation for "Irma Vep" found in another mail in this thread. Sogo Ishii is great as well, though I would want a DVD release of his cult classics "Crazy Thunder Road" and "Burst City". His "Electric Dragon 80,000V" is so energetic and over-the-top that it almost manages to blow Shinya Tsukamoto's "Tetsuo" out of the water. Another favorite contemporary Japanese director is Hideo Nakata. His "Chaos" I find one of the best thrillers of recent times, and his "Dark Water" I find on par with "Ringu", arguably the most important horror movie since 1990. Both are scheduled for Hollywood remaking, but please do yourselves a favor and check out the originals. Great cult movies I've seen this year: * "The Last Great Wilderness" (David MacKenzie). Turns from a Scottish roadmovie into a David Lynch-inspired nightmare. Might be the most interesting movie I've seen all year. I'm definitely up for a DVD release. * "Dracula: Pages from a Virgin's Diary" (Guy Maddin) Beautiful ballet-like evocation of Bram Stoker's novel, shot in black-and-white. I have not seen any of his other work, unfortunately. * "Leak" aka "Mystics in Bali" (H. Tjut Djalil) This is what World Horror Cinema is all about. The defining movie for the more than excellent Mondo Macabro label. Weird beyond weirdness. A must-see for any horror movie fanatic. Now, bring on the Pakistani vampire flick "The Living Corpse"... * "Gerry" (Gus van Sant) Beautiful movie about two guys called Gerry getting lost in the desert. Beautiful. * "Ju-on" aka "The Grudge" (Takashi Shimizu) The umpteenth J-horror movie following the success of "Ringu", but this one is genuinely scary and very, very well-done. Awaiting an American remake, as ever. Frankco

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Audition, Fukosaku, and pedophilic undertones (overtones) [semi-tones]
by ahorton 04 Aug '03

04 Aug '03

I don't see any difference between "Audition" and films like "Memento" or "The Sixth Sense" - it's a film built around a gimmick that has since become the film's entire reputation - "dude, wait until THE BIG TWIST AT THE END!!!!!!!!!!!", which destroys the entire point of there being a twist, since everyone knows that there's a "big, wacky twist" coming going into it. That aside, it's a one-trick pony that simply doesn't hold up to repeated viewings and just feels like an excuse to tack on "shocking" violence. The "wacky violence" at the end doesn't redeem the rest of the milquetoast production. All that aside, what does everyone think of Fukosaku's "Battle Royale"? Sure, it's a dumb action splatterfest, but I love the concept and think it's 18 times better than any given american action movie of the past 20 years. Androo

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(no subject)
by Tosh 04 Aug '03

04 Aug '03

>Why no one wrote about Olivier Assayas' "Irma Vep"? >The final moment of the film is like a John Zorn Naked City composition but >with images on the screen. This final sequence is an hommage to Lettrist films (like so much in Irma Vep references earlier films) but goes beyond just that. I don't think it is a homage to the Letterists, but to Stan Brakhage. -- Tosh Berman TamTam Books http://www.tamtambooks.com

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Summer Reading List
by Mark Saleski 04 Aug '03

04 Aug '03

Talk To Me - Anna Deavere Smith part memoir, part editorial....hmmm, kinda hard to describe. (though i do wish i could find a recording of the first thing i ever heard ms. smith doing: being pretty much a master of vocal mimickery (is that a word?) i heard her singing mcdonalds jingles in the voice of billie holiday. Seabiscuit: An American Legend first non-fiction book i've encountered that read like an action-adventure novel Rebel Heart - Bebe Buell ya, it's trashy, it's poorly written. but it's fun. Reefer Madness - Eric Schlosser the author of Fast Food Nation ties together the shadow economies of migrant workers, pot growers and porn. scary. Stephen King - Dreamcatcher more icky stuff from mr. king. Epicurean Simplicity - Stephanie Mills another in a series of neo-luddite stuff i'm kinda hooked on Rescuing Patty Hearst - Virginia Holman a memoir of madness in the 70's (cripes, did that sound like a fricken' blurb or what) Nothing On My Mind - Erik Fraser Storlie yet another memoir. the subtitle describes it pretty well: "Berkely, Lsd, Two Zen Masters and a Life on the Dharma Trail Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone - Rowling a friend of mine wanted to know what all the fuss was about...he had read this and thought it was 'derivative', 'nothing special', etc. i thought it was kinda fun. High and Mighty - Keith Bradsher subtitle also explains it: SUVs -- The World's Most Dangerous Vehicles and How They Got That Way there was a lot of interesting information here but the editor could have been a little more involved...there was way too much repetition of themes that's it... i'm currently reading Neil Peart's Ghost Rider...an account of the time after losing both his daughter and wife (car crash, cancer).. yikes, it's good by kinda heavy.... next up is something light....so it's either: Peter Guralnick's Last Train To Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley Vol. 1 or Alice Sebold's _The Lovely Bones_....i actually knew nothing about that book but while on vacation i saw a panel discussion on cspan2 (which me & the wife like to call "nerd tv") of literary critics...man, they were all _so_ snotty about this particular book that i decided i had to read it out of spite ** -- Mark Saleski - marks(a)foliage.com | http://www.foliage.com/~marks "Nothing in the world is more haughty than a man of moderate capacity when once raised to power." - Baron Wessenberg

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Re: Foreign/cult films
by Perfect Sound Forever 04 Aug '03

04 Aug '03

Many thanks to all who responded here! One I forgot was Guy Maddin- a brilliant Canadian director, esp. with Careful (though I heard good things about Tales from the Gimli Hospital. Sets his films in the style of other early silent films but with psycho-sexual undertones. Now that I think of, sounds kind of like Todd Haynes I guess. Another favorite Canadian director is Atom Egoyan. His latest, Ararat from last year, is one of the best of his I've seen. He loves playing with history and narrative, all of which confuse and confound the characters in his stories. Best, Jason Perfect Sound Forever online music magazine http://www.perfectsoundforever.com

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Re: RE: RE: Foreign/cult films
by Steve Smith 04 Aug '03

04 Aug '03

>Then why did they let Joel Schumacher near it, not once but twice? You took the words right out of my mouth...

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Svankmajer goodness
by Chris Selvig 04 Aug '03

04 Aug '03

I see Greencine has DVDs called "Collected Shorts of Jan Svankmajer," Volumes 1 & 2. I had the good fortune of seeing "Alice" in a local cinema when I was an impressionable teen, and I can't recommend this guy's work highly enough. The BBC documentary, "Animator of Prague," is on Vol 2, and there's a VHS called "Scenes From the Surreal" with numerous shorts & the BBC doc. Chris Selvig

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Even MORE on guitarists (guitarist albums)
by Michael Howes 04 Aug '03

04 Aug '03

The guitarist thread has been very fun....especially since I've spent the last 2-3 years trying to learn how to play. There have been a couple guitar albums recently that have blown me away. last year Cuneiform release a comp called "156 Strings - Nineteen Totally Original Acoustic Guitarists" I really think it's an amazing disc. The arists on this disc.... Gyan Riley (who first disc on New Albion I loved!!), Michael Glezian, Roul Bjorkenheim, Richard Thompson, Fred Frith, U Tin, Peter Lang, Henry Kaiser, Jean-Paul Bourelly, Janet Feder (love her CD and saw her play at Mills...amazing!), Richard Leo Johnson, Duck Baker, Rod Poole, Mike Keneally, Nels Cline, Scott McGill, Miroslav Tadic, Shanw Persinger is Prester John (I was really disappointed by an album I bought of his but I love this track), and Steffen Basho-Junghans. The other comp, which came out recently on Locust Music called "Wooden Guitar" the artists on this comp are Tetuzi Akiyama, Steffen Basho-Junghans, Sir Richard Bishop, and Jack Rose A recent comp on Ambiances Magnetiques with Antione Berthiaume, Fred Frith and Derek Bailey and Henry Kaiser seems to have recently gotten busy again...he sent some radio only/promo only disc to the station I DJ at that is a double CD with nearly 30 tracks of his work called "Payola" I recently listened to a very unique disc by a woman named Kaki King. She's somewhere between an improviser, jazz player and hard, percussive folk player like Ani Difranco, cept it's all just her and her guitar. I did love Gyan Riley's debut disc called Food for the Bearded on New Albion I'm not really listing these as favorite players, just some recent guitar based albums that i've really liked. I haven't seen Eugene Chadbourne on many peoples list....he's way up on mine and I do like Joe Morris I didn't see anyone list the guys from The Ex....I really love their playing.... and a million metal guitarists :) any other guitar records that I should check out, not by individual artists but comps that cover lots of ground? and on and on and on.... mike

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Re: cult films/svankmajer
by ericksna＠umich.edu 04 Aug '03

04 Aug '03

You can definitely count me in as a fan of svankmajer. I've seen them all, and would add that my favorites are by far four or five short films that he did very early in his career. I dont know if they are available anymore or not, but at one time you could find them on vhs under the titel "Tales of the Surreal" or something of that sort. They were much, much more political in nature than any of his later stuff, and pretty overt too, I remember being pretty surprised that he was able to make them in czechoslovakia at the time. I do know that they have released a compilation (2 volume set) of his stuff on dvd sometime in the past year- I would check to see if the tales of the surreal shorts are on either of those. As far as other cult foreign movies, I've probably too many to think of off hand, but would start with all of the Tarkovsky films, which are some of the only ones i've revisited numerous times. (don't know if they are of cult status though- anyone who is a fan of the original Solaris happen to see the remake/comments?)

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Re: RE: Foreign/cult films
by Steve Smith 04 Aug '03

04 Aug '03

On the other hand, I mostly loved 'Requiem' for its visceral evocation of the actual physical sensation of drug abuse -- those close-ups of pupils dialating and blood vessels constricting, etc., plus the very different ways that the experience of time was depicted for the son on heroin and the mother on diet pills. Despite the skeevy ending (yes, the Jennifer Connolly bit was a sad gross-out), you couldn't help feeling tremendous sorry for everybody even as you knew that the pain was all self-inflicted. The connection to TV and self-help advertorials as alternative addictions was obvious, but no less welcome for that. Anyone heard any news about Aronofsky's Batman film? Steve Smith ssmith36(a)sprynet.com NP - Don Preston, "Ode to the Flower Maiden," 'Transformation' (Cryptogramophone)

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