tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8347718.post3703554647473119414..comments2024-03-28T02:21:05.851-07:00Comments on VINYL IS HEAVY: Viewing Log #43, SFIFF53 #4: The word happy is sad [4/26/10 - 5/2/10]Ryland Walker Knighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09233954424885027837noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8347718.post-83959292553985489852010-05-06T20:46:07.884-07:002010-05-06T20:46:07.884-07:00Woa I never paid Walsh much attention, but in that...Woa I never paid Walsh much attention, but in that sequence he sorta beats Sam Fuller at his own tight-closeup game. Or just had a better editor. It builds and then pops, mercifully without the usual jingo-parade music. I saw To Die Like a Man at NYFF and can see the war-movie intent, in retrospect. There are some cuts that land like Walsh's grenades, usually the ones of pneumatic or sagging "female" body parts.<br /><br />Saw two thirds of White Material also at NYFF, before running to another screening. Agree that it stews in its juices a bit too much, but so has every Denis film I've seen. She leans on her ability (usually with Agnes Godard's low light and shallow DOF, but here with another shooter) to render flesh tones and silently smoldering moods in something like 3-D. I would like to see her hitched to a propulsive, commercial narrative, some stray genre behemoth. Her Dark Knight would have mad $2 but it would have ultimately influenced a generation of dunderheads who can no longer see/read faces enough to appreciate the power of something like that Objective Burma scene. (Ho'wood needs the French, their bluesy way with plot and character but so far it jjust import their action meathead directors, shepherded by auteur turned franchise proprietor Luc Besson. But I digresss....)<br /><br />Wild Grass. The only thing that interrupted my infatuation with that movie was falling in love with Love Streams a few weeks ago.Steven Boonehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10533736956366847765noreply@blogger.com