winter films

[Arcadia]

well, it´s the time of the year when I saw most of the films of the year! The difference is that this year the weather is spring-like (at least in the last days) with 24º C . I went to the best video-club here to know if I was still in their archives and... yes, I was!!!!! The also have a site, see it if you want: www.videotecarosario.com, www.videoteca.com.ar

. Tornatore´s "La desconocida" (in the cinema) so different to Cinema Paradiso and so sad & despite everything so tender at the same time.

. And thanks Dave! :

- Jarsmusch "Vacaciones permanentes" & "Stranger than paradise". Great films both, but I specially connected with the second one!

(to be continued)

[constantine]

haven't seen tornatore's new one yet, but i've seen most. i think he's the best director going, but i don't get to see many foreign films in dayton, oh. have to renew my netflix and start checking things out. talk soon. arcadia, check out tornatore's star maker - if you haven't already. i'd love to hear your reactions - i thought it was magnificent.

[Dave The Dov]

"Stranger Than Paradise" is partly a winter film literally. There's the "Lion In Winter" as well. But then again any movie were the temperature outside is not so good and you want to stay inside. Will be good no matter what.
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Acura ARX-02a

[Arcadia]

constantine: do you live in Gem city? . I had to google it, no idea! (we also have here "the silver cup city" and "the pearl of the atlantic city" )Yeah, it looks like a small city where Cargill and Monsanto are very famous, but sure it has a shiny side!!!!! so, no dvd-video clubs there, eh?. I´ll also googled "L´uomo delle stelle": I´ll try to see it and then let you know!, thanks!!!!!

dave: the black & white New York, Cleveland and Florida really looks like a continuum in that film!!, great effect!!! I wonder for the Budapest images!!!
But then again any movie were the temperature outside is not so good and you want to stay inside. Will be good no matter what. of course, dave!!!! but I can choose them!!!!!!!!

I had a free film with two rented, I choosed cuban Santiago Alvarez´s "Abril de Vietnam en el año del gato". It´s a film from 1975, documentary, long, somehow monocorde, socialist, starting with the bronze period, following with mongol, chinese, french and USA domination, but with beautiful vietnamese music. You can see in it how much involved where Cuba and the socialist countries in Vietnam´s rebuild: images of cuban obreros with vietnamese people building hospitals, routes and hotels, images of Hanoi, Saigón and Hue after the word, images of Fidel talking, the patriarcal Ho Chi Minh face, images of the jungle covering USA military rests, images of planes, airports & tanks (I never image that were so big...!), images of socialist solidarity and strenght (strangely everybody was smiling, nobody look like losing a near one...), the only images of violence were in the USA streets against the anti-war manifestantes... a typical raising the moral after a war, very interesting!!!!!!!

[constantine]

guilty as charged. why and how dayton, ohio has been nicknamed gem city is a conundrum wrapped in a biscuit. dvds, especially foreign cinema, are hard to come by but, with effort, i seem to find a way. by all means let me know your views on l'uomo delle stelle - i thought it was dense with poetic imagery, beautiful and sadly profound.

[Arcadia]

constantine: According to wikipedia is called gem city because is some sort of no germ-city!!! they say that it´s very clean!!! it sounds good for a city if they re-cicle!!!!!!. I´ll look for the film next time I go to videoteca!!!!!

Re-reading what I wrote yesterday I noticed "after the word", well, read if you want instead "after the war"!! (it seems that to write in a language that is not yours-yours is the most easy and at the same time hard job thing!!!!!! )

Kung Fu Panda: with my sobrino. I really enjoyed it!!!!!! Kung Fu movies, series and practices were very common and popular when I was a kid, it connected me with that somehow!!. He liked it too!!! (the option was to see this film or 100% lucha ... )

[constantine]

la sconoscuita - i've been meaning to see that. i saw the trailer; it looked dark and sinister - hitchcockian. a change in direction somewhat - though some of his films are very serious in nature - he's got a lot to say.

[Arcadia]

it´s basically a social drama related with inmigration in europe and prostitution. And it´s crossed by a love story. Hitchcock? well, it has carcoal stairs and people looking through windows and some suspense...maybe, I don´t know.

(no-films in these days, I´ll tell you if there are new ones in the next days! )

[Dave The Dov]

I saw that film about Hunter S Thompson last week on what would have been his 71st birthday. It was pretty good!!!!
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global recession

[Arcadia]

good dave, no idea about it!! . I only read "Rum diary" by him.

constantine: I saw last weekend L´uomo delle stelle!! (I found it in video format and I could discover that my videocasetera still works!!! ). Great film, kind of mix of Fellini & Taviani and B side of postwar italian cinema. What a character!!!!!! ...that "what a face..!!!" Morelli was really a good romani-roman-american catalyst that founded unexpectedly his own mirror in Sicily´s faces & stories!!. Sometimes funny & sad, as life. Thanks for your re-commendation!!!!!

Weird sincronicity, the day after seeing the film it happens to me to be in a bar with some friends and two cinema directors. First time I knew cinema directors before seeing their films!!. In fact none of the four non-cinema directors in the bar´s table hadn´t seen the films (in one of the cases it was a bit embarassing because it was a film made in rosario... but the director showing acid good humor told us that he could invite the group to see the dvd and rent a mini-bus to do a tour to the filming-zone ) . I arrived when the topic of the conversation was cinema director´s ethic both in fiction and documentaries. They were talking about a sindicato that was formed in a villa of buenos aires by actors that lived in there, about the compromise & delicate balance between director and non-professional actors and/or people filmed for documentaries, the sometimes not so direct relationship between art and social change, etc.. it was really interesting!!. Then we started talking about what the non-directors did as a living, then the directors told us what they did when the were not directors then we talked about the problems in our countries and then we all concluded that it was better to keep talking about cinema... .

I hope to see Amal Ramsis´s "Just dreams" in a muestra next september and Hugo Grosso´s "A cada lado" in dvd soon! . And of course I recommended them to see Tornatore´s film!

[Arcadia]

well, it don´t feel here now like winter-winter, but formally we are still in it!!!!!

Francesca- Sophia Loren in a Lina Wertmuller film (I know I saw other films by this director but I don´t remember them...! I´ll google her!). Nápoles, I guess between the end of SXIX and the begging of the sXX. The story is not at all surprising, but the dominatrix mother a la italiana caracther performed by Loren was interesting. Beautiful emerald sea shots (oddly, I only saw a similar color in Chubut) and interesting to know how were pasta-fabrics in Italy in those ages!.

Casandra´s dream - well, I have to say that the part of the film I saw was a little boring... even though I like Ewan ...! (I saw until the two sobrinos decided to help their uncle) then the dvd refused to keep going! I´ll have to rent it again in another place to know the end!!!!

[Arcadia]

I saw the second half of Cassandra´s dream: one of the most boring films I ever saw!!!! Woody... make me laugh or at least smile next time!!!!!!!