NEEDLING

THE LAST TEN MOVIES I’VE SEEN AT THE THEATER FROM THE LAST TO THE FIRST

La Mémoire du tueur (De Zaak Alzheimer) de Erik van Looy
On this second viewing, the clichés of the genre really popped out at me. I didn’t mind them, though. Like so many other things donned automatically negative, clichés aren’t necessarily bad, they’re just a quick way in story-telling to get from A to C zapping by B. As long as that’s not all there is. And this movie has got so much else going for it, like Jan Decleir for example, who has got one great gueule, that I for one can forgive a few clichés.
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La Grande séduction de Jean-François Pouliot
Saw this one with AMK, I only mention this because I usually go to the movies alone, and she kept elbowing me every time I laughed a little too hard. I’m all for this working class / regional sentimental comedy stuff, wish there was more of it. Fun movie.
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Mariages ! de Valérie Guignabodet
Easy laugh. Nothing spectacular. At a wedding everybody drinks a little much and all the hidden truths / secrets et cetera start coming out. Who has slept with whom kind of story. Nothing new, no great twists… easy entertainment…
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Coffee and Cigarettes de Jim Jarmusch
Jarmusch called his buddies over the years, put them in various coffee shops and bars around coffee cups and too many cigarettes, and then he got his camera crew to shoot them, to see what might happen. Sometimes it works, most of the time I’m wondering what the hell I’m doing in this theater watching these people. Certainly not a movie, and hardly a series of short films. What’s the point? Took me half the movie to get into the format and not be angry at it. But who am I to critique?
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Metropolis de Fritz Lang
First time for everything. Need to see it again before they take it out of the theatres. The kind of film which needs several viewings and several years of digesting. I saw it after six hours at the hotel on only a few hours of sleep, and the constant music added to the dreamy images kept putting me in a trance, I’d close my eyes and the movie mixed itself with images in my head… sometimes it was me with those machines… and what an android! They don’t make them like that anymore…
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La Mémoire du tueur (De Zaak Alzheimer) de Erik van Looy
I like the film-noir / detective genre. And it’s rare that good quality films come out in this genre. Typical two cop team. One is a sports fan, a little trigger happy, the other is an intellectual who wants to understand why. They fight the system which works against them. The killer is always one step ahead. The killer is the best part.
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Le Convoyeur de Nicolas Boukhrief
Since I’ve seen Irréversible, I’m a little weary about going to see a Dupontel movie. No problem here, classic good guy turned bad guy looking for revenge. Very violent in the sense that all the characters are regular joes doing a dangerous yet regular job. Violence is easier to watch when it’s cartoon-like and we know the characters aren’t real in any way, like in Kill Bill I, but these guys could be any burned out blue collar workers. Lots of greys and blues. Cement and parking lots. Joints and beers. Cold hard movie
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The Brown bunny de Vincent Gallo
I really liked the van, wish I had one just like it. I could have done without the movie, though. Who gave who the money to make this? How does this kind of stuff get distributed? Internationally? Gets accepted into the biggest festivals? Who paid who how much? There’s the real story. Cause there certainly isn’t any story on the screen worth two hours of my time anywhere in this movie.
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Monty Python’s Life of Brian de Terry Jones
First time I’ve seen any Monty Python on the big screen. I want to see more, More, MORE.
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Les Dames du bois de Boulogne de Robert Bresson
What’s at stake here is a little passé. Anyway... I was enjoying this movie anyway, but this lady sitting behind me kept kneeing the back of my seat. I looked at her with those stop jerking my seat please look, to which when I turned back to the movie she told me in an uppity pretentious voice, “you should learn to sit properly, young man.” It took all the reserve I had to not turn around and tell her what I thought of her remark. It took a lot of energy to be able to concentrate back on the movie. One of reasons I like to see movies in the morning or in the early afternoon when there are little or nobody in the theatres. I was half sprawled out on my seat, covered with my jacket, as it was cold in the theatre, but there was nobody in front of me that I was bothering with my knees.
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