Psycho

Gus van Sant remakes Psycho the only a remake should be made, shot by shot, with the same score, performed by Danny Elfman, but in colour and great photography by Chris Doyle, and actors saying the exact same lines, but acting slightly differently. It would be great to see both versions side-by-side. There are some slight differences, and a couple of additions expecially the 3 shots during the murder scenes (cloudy sky during the shower scene, and a starnge naked but masked woma, and a cow? on a raod during the Arbogast murder on the stairs), but in fact mentally the viewer who has seen the original runs it mentally in parallel. A great homage, and in fact it shows how great is Hitchcok's Psycho and his direction amazing.

The River

Tsai Ming Liang's usual actors play a family although it takes time to understand this, as there is so little dialogue. The son develops a weird disease (acting as a floating corpse in a film directed by Ann Hui), the father meets up guys in saunas, the wife is having an affair with some kind of porn film dealer. Their bonds are reinforced as the son's weird disease progresses, and there is water falling from the flat above. A weird, slow, difficult but magnificient film.

Nightmare Alley

A cultish, dark film noir, with Tyrone Power as the carnival/circus operator, whoo become a famous mind reader and falls from the top to be a freak or 'geek'. it is noir and grim, and very stylised, with lots of source lightning and shadows abound, but it is more so a psychologic drama than a film noir per se, with a non-typical script, and a great symetric structure.

The Tales of Hoffman

Great production, sets, make-up and costumes, in particular the 2nd tale in Venice (and the first one with the dolls). But ultimately the constant singing and poor acting skills from the main male lead makes it a tad dull (his nemisis on the other hand is very good, as are Moira Shearer and Ludmilla Scherina)). It truly looks great but it's too long and difficicult to get truly involved in 9at least on first viewing, but it is a rather abstract film.

In & Out of Fashion

William Klein's relationship with fashion throughout his career, the documentary includes long extracts from his films, including Polly Maggo, Mr Freedom, The Perfect Couple (a big brother style program shot in 1976!) and Mode in France (very 80's with JPG, Montana, Alaia, Grace Jones, etc). A good intro to his work in fashion.

La Flibustiere des Antiles

(Anne of the Indies) from Jacques Tourneur, a classic pirate film in Technicolour, ideal for a cold sunday afternoon. Jean Peters plays the tough Cpatain Providence, protegee of Black Beard, blinded by love for Louis Jourdan and who wants revenge and ultimately dies on board of the her ship the Sheba Queen.

Une partie de campagne

A short masterpiece from Renoir, an homage to his father, and a very bittersweet story. Very sensual, light at the beginning but in fact much deeper under the simple surface. Most of Renoir's themes are here, from social classes to love and nature.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

It started very well, the first half hour is very impressive and funny, but once we move into the factory, it becomes seriously dull, despite all the CGI effect. The squirels are cool, and the colours bright, but there is not much substance and it drags on. Once Willy Wonka and Charlie go outside the nice tale takes over again. Great looking film, but a bit over-blown.

Ninotchka

Lubitsch directs Garbo in her first comedy. Set in gay Paris with a bunch of Russian delighted to be on a mission taking them away from depressing Russia. Garbo is the tough envoy who is seduced by a charming count. Not Lubitsch best film but rather pleasant and an amusing handling of ideological differences between communism and the West.

Queen Christina

A big romantic drama from Rouben Mamoulian, which surprisingly ends up tragically. Garbo plays Queen Christina, who falls for Antonio the Spanish envoy, but faces opposition from her people, and the nasty count Magnus. Instead of marrying a man she doesn't love she abdicates to go away with Antonio, whoi is kill by Magnus and she ends alone on the boat. Lots of talking, but some great scene and the ending is relly quite sad. Garbo is still a stiff actress, but one can see why she became a big star with this film.

Sword of the beast

Wicked chambara from Hideo Gosha, ronins, samurais, clans, honor, pride, friendship and hatred, all the ingredients are here for a great film, a relatively simple structure with a couple of flashback, and great swordsplay.

La gueule ouverte

I was dreading watching this film, but it was not as horrible as I thought it would. It is certainly not cheerful and it's not a big surprise it failed commercially. A beautiful film on death (and life), largely autobiographical and very moving.

War of the worlds

Visually good and a couple of good ideas, such as the aliens sucking all the blood, but pretty dumb with very basic characterisation. A blockbuster with a very negative view of human nature, all in all pretty scary.

Last Days

It has its merits and Van Sant and Savides are obviously skilled at creating an atmosphere, but it is a difficult film to get into. Michael is actually very good as the grunting, and mumbling Blake. None of the characters talk much throughout the film, which is a characteristic of Van sant's last 3 films, although i felt this one was slightly less compelling.

Samurai spy

A cool 1965 chambara from Masahiro Shinoda with a great score from Toru Tokematsu. Lots of spies and double crossing, a few ninjas great cinematography. It is quite complex with lots of characters and various clans and people whose name is mentioned but never appear on screen, confusing but good,

Ugetsu Monogatari

Mizoguchi mastefully intertwines reality and fantasy. Although not my favorite Mizo, it is still shatteringly beautiful. As in most true classic 50s films there is a strong moral message the fantasy aspect makes it very deep and multi layered. It's a great film to understand Japan, its people (and ghosts) and culture in just over 90 minutes.

Vernon, Florida

Errol Morris films a bunch of old dudes in that little town in South Florida. All of them crap on about things for less than an hour, and that's long enough. The turkey hunter is quite funny, he is so into his passion and the gobbling and shotting, I guess he is not married. The old guy with the weird pets is quite good and spiritual, the dumb cop who spends the day in his carry waiting for some baddies sums it all up, the funny thing is that he got shot at once, for no particular reason.

Rumble Fish

"The motorcycle boy reigns". Time is running off for Rusty James, as illustrated by the numerous clocks Coppola planted throughout the film. Great cinematography, great music, and very good acting. The short making off shows that this film was a continuation of Coppola's experimentation with what he called electronic cinema. It does look like a long video clip, but has quite a bit of depths and a very emotional ending.

The body snatcher

To wrap up the Lewton box, Robert Wise directs Boris Karloff as a grae digger working for a teaching doctor who needs fresh cadavers to teach real medicine. The highlight is Karloff strangling Bela Lugosi. A great atmosphere in this film set in Edimburgh in 1831.

L'Enfance Nue (+ L'amour existe)

Pialat's first feature film, about a really nasty abandonned kid who lives in foster families. He drives the fisrt one insane, and kill their black cat, then goes to a second one, a couple of old folks and a cute grandmother, but then behaves badly still. It is set in the north of France, so it's pretty bleak. Pialat's style is already apparent, the film start in an unusual way, i.e. in the midle of the story, there jumps in time with no indication of how long has passed, and all the actors are amateurs. All this deemonstrate a great sense of reality. L'amour existe is a great short film, also bearing Pialat's style, about life in the poor suburbs of Paris in the eraly 60's.

Vengeance is mine

Ogata Ken is scarily psychotic. Imamura's first narrative film after a 10 year hiatus filming documentaries is a bleak harsh description of a serial killer on the run, who despise his father and should kill him but instead kills various people for no particular reason. Dark, cold and great.

The White Stripes

Live at Alexandra Palace. Rockin! It took a little while for Meg and Jack to get going, but the second half was great. I am amazed at how uncompromising and unmainstream they are, yet popular.

I walked with a zombie

One of the most beautiful opening scene of all time, the heroin walking with Carrefour, on a Caribean beach, while her voice over claims I walked with a zombie, and a short laugh. Only filmed on the RK0 set, Tourneur creates a wonderful atmosphere. The walk in the sugar cane field on the way to the voodoo area is chilling and beautiful. Pure cinema.

Your vice is a locked room and only I have the key

Another Sergio Martino giallo, this time set in a big rotten mansion, lots of depraved characters and a crazy nasty black cat. Fairly entertaining and well crafted but nothing more. Seen after the Argento, this pales in comparison.

Star Wars Episode 3: revenge of the Sith

Almost as rididculous and pointless as the previous 2. It looks great, but the dialogues are truly lame, and of course the ending is predictable. As Lucas has promised for years it is a much darker episode and thus slightly more interesting. The last third is ok, but to reach that point is painful and sleep-inducing.

The bird with a crystal plumage

Argento's first film, a now classic giallo, all with black leather gloves, sharp blades, and good twist. Despite having seen a few years ago, the final stillsurpeised me. All the elements are here, in a more serious way than what Sergio Martino would produce later, helped by some better actors and a great sense of direction for a first feature, in particular the scenes in the art gallery, and showing an unusual Rome, not the touristic one.

Vendredi Soir

I am a big fan of Claire Denis and all her recent films are great, but not this one. A kind of in the mood for love, but during a huge traffic jam in Paris. Valerie Lemercier is not Maggie Chung and Vincent Lindon is not Tony Leung though, and that was it for me. It's about passion, but these 2 do not come across as passionate at all. Interesting cinematography and editing as usual, but ultimately a let down.

Shivers

Slightly less good than Rabid, and a bit cheesier, still that early on most of Cronenberg is already here, parasites, trnasformed bodies, weird sexual stuff, all in a Ballard-type luxury appartment building. The ending in the swimming pool is sublime.

Rabid

For his second commercial feature film, Cronenberg plays on a variation of the vampire theme, already developing his favourite themes of mutation of the body, sex, spreading of a disease and the ultimate destruction of the originally infected body. A Z serie when it was released, now a minor classic.

Bedlam

Karloff, Lewton, London in the 18th Century and the Bedlam asylum, with lots of loonies. There is lots of talking for a Lewton film and got a bit boeing and is far less tight than the other Lewton's I have seen. The ending is good though but it drags on a bit to reach it.