Viewing Log #31: Foam forts make islands, traps [1/25/10 - 1/31/10]

by Ryland Walker Knight

• Casa de Lava [Pedro Costa, 1994] # I'm about to start it. Seems fitting, given the Tourneur I watched and the box set coming out soon, about which I hope to say more when the time comes. Until then, I'll enjoy this masterful other mode he worked with first. And Inês de Medeiros. What a babe.
  
• Band of Brothers "Crossroards" Episode 5 [Tom Hanks, 2001] The most theoretical episode so far with Winters literally writing history and bullets becoming letters at one match sound cut. But, as ever, the pathetic appeal is always thick, even in this quieter and calmer and altogether well constructed cliffhanger. Biggest surprise of this episode was easily Jimmy Fallon showing up for about five seconds of screen time.
  
  
• Youth Runs Wild [Mark Robson, 1944] After a fabulous collage opener, all kinds of headlines and newsreels jumbled and layered, it got kinda boring. And I fell asleep. Shucks.
  
• I Walked With A Zombie [Jacques Tourneur, 1943] # Stunning on such a screen despite the scratchy print. Despite all the murk moving, it's a crisp picture. More Monday.
  
  
• Scarface [Brian De Palma, 1983] # Watched the first half. It starts so well, actually funny and wild and silly, but it quickly takes on Tony's worst qualities and does its own tailspin. Or so it seemed as I gave up and went over to watch the Warriors lose to the Bobcats.
  
  
• The Informant! [Steven Soderbergh, 2009] # Still my favorite American film of last year. Precisely because it's so American, and funny. Lots there I'm not going into here. Maybe later, but probably not; probably, if you're really curious, you should just ask me about it. UPDATE: Actually, I'll probably publish some thoughts on it at the newly-launched website Thought Catalog, where I will join fellow VINYL-head Daniel Coffeen to contribute pieces on somewhat of the regular.
  
  
• Band of Brothers "Replacements" Episode 4 [David Nutter, 2001] Nicely coiled episode that keeps things contained to one "Bull" character getting left behind, or having to stay behind, enemy lines after an ambush. That said, the same manipulative stuff irks me, and I'm mostly intrigued by Winters' calm ascent more than anything. I'll keep watching, of course, to see more visceral action scenes (but why the wash out standard, Steve and Tom?) and to see who all the old guys from the preludes are in this grand-scale re-enactment.
  
• Casino [Martin Scorsese, 1995] # Finished it, as I tweeted, and boy does it drive itself down. A lot of scenes are hilarious, and others would be if they weren't so brutal. It shows life as perpetually preposterous, spectacle of death to the end one bloody baseball bat at a time. And, to reiterate my tweets, the cinema-as-a-gamble thing is crazy despairing, however beautiful, and I don't want it to make as much sense as it does.

Viewing Log #30: Color cannot clean a canting [1/18/10 - 1/24/10]

by Ryland Walker Knight

—Sat behind Godard.

• Casino [Martin Scorsese, 1995] # Like for the first time. I'm blown away. This is the ur-Scorsese picture. Everything's dialed up delirium, all the colors and lights and camera movements. For such a sad and scary movie, it's damned fucking giddy. I'm publishing this as I'm watching it, so my giddiness is sure to wane as these fools keep fucking up their silver lined lot.
  
• Californication [Most of the third season] It was way too easy to do errands and little writing projects and just plow through this in one day. Rain played a part, but, also the sex.
  
  
• Playtime [Jacques Tati, 1967] # Yes, the best. Really: the best.
  
  
• The Seventh Victim [Mark Robson, 1943] # I tweeted a hash tag (#bestmovieever?) that gets at how powerful this thing is for me, especially at this stage in the game, with its weight and frisson of social anxieties. More Monday.
  
• Cat People [Jacques Tourneur, 1942] # Simon Simone's nose, let me tell you, can do things to a boy. Also, Tourneur's pace is all wonky: a real jam of angles keeps this from slipping down easy. More Monday.
  
  
• A Letter to Uncle Bonmee [Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2009] Watched on The Auteurs for free (click here) and then wrote this little nugget about it.
  
• "Parisian Goldfish" by Flying Lotus [Eric Wareheim, 2009] Watched at the behest of Danny while talking Coachella. It's really something. Watch it here. It's very NSFW. It's weird: how much is celebratory? How much is a joke? Can it be both? I'm continually flabbergasted by the audacity of T+E.
  
  
• Band of Brothers, "Currahee" Episode 1 [Phil Alden Robinson, 2001] Halfway decent, but a lot of it is what I hate about war movies and World War II movies in particular. I appreciate that generation, of course, since it gave us its youth in ways I can't imagine, but I'm pretty sick of it getting called "the greatest" all the time. Weird to see so many British actors playing Americans, including Simon Pegg of all people.
  
• The Sopranos "Live Free or Die" (S6,E6) [Tim Van Patten, 2006] # The world opens for one man, for a bit, in the form of a vase and a bed & breakfast. Too bad you know this natural can't escape that hateful haunting in his history. There's more Paulie's than Tony's in this world. Even with Bacala's dunderheaded "Well we can't have him in our social club no more; that I do know."
  
• The Sopranos "Mr. & Mrs. John Sacramoni Request..." (S6,E5) [Steve Buscemi, 2006] # A devastating episode of perceptions: misinterpretation abounds, even from the people fearing it the most (ie, Tony). Then again, the biggest perceptive revelation—Vito's true identity, as a gay man, um, coming out into view—is deferred an episode by Tony's misguided attempt to reassert his power. Oh, man, men make bad choices.