The devil is a woman

Amazingly directed and photographed by Von Strenberg, set in Spain and Dietrich is the femme fatale driving men crazy. The costumes, lightning, art direction, camera angles are superb and apparently it was Dietrich's favorite film as she thought she looked at her most beautiful.

Walk the line

Started bad, and then became very good. Witherspoon is awesome, and Joaquin Phoenix looks like Cash. It's a typical Hollywood biopic, with ups and down, but very well made and intelligent and moving, especially considering Johnny and June stayed together until her death and he died 4 months later.

The Last Round

Luc Merenda is a great bad guy, is character is completely evil and Carlos Monzon is surprisingly good. Great score by Bacalov. A good little Italian B film.

Tokyo-Ga

Wenders travels to Tokyo, as a Ozu fans. His encounters with a few key Ozu collaborators are interesting as is his view of Tokyo 20 years after Ozu's death, even if he gets side-tracked a little.

Late Spring

A father wants to marry her daughter, who doesn't really want to get married and would rather keep living with her father whereas her aunt is desperately trying a find a suitable party. Typical Ozu film, slowly paced, deep and bittersweet and beautifully shot.

Gold Diggers of 1935

The best Busbey Burkley so far. The story is a bit more elaborate than in the other ones, set in a grand hotel during the summer season, and some great numbers.

Dames

Another Busby Berkeley film, once again rather disappointing, the story is ok, but once again about putting a show together, and only a couple of spectacular numbers at the end. They are great, but not enough.

The Killing of a Chinese Bookie

The 1978 edit is 35 or so minutes shorter than the 76 cut which completely bombed. It is obviously tighter, with a couple of scenes which were not in the 76 version. I actually prefer the longer cut, as it captures the mood better and allows to drift in the world and frame of mind of Cosmo Vitelli.

Brass Unbound

JVdK on brass instruments in Nepal, Surinam, Ghana and Indonesia, well filmed but pretty dull. Temps/Travail is a short 1o minute compilation of people working, made for pompidou, better.

The man who fell to earth

Roeg's film is very strange, mixing genres and styles to tell a story of alienation, and experienced from an alien's point of view. Visually striking, it could have been better musically (e.g. with a score from Bowie), and it's a very disorientating film - in particular characters age a lot, but not the environment, clothes etc - but also the story is quite complex, with lots of jumps in time and space. A bit long, but a worthwhile experience.

Toute une nuit

An experimental Akerman film, almost no dialogues, various couples meet and separates, dance and walk around in a hot Brussels night. apparently influenced by Michael Snow, good to fall asleep to.

Torremolinos 73

A door-to-door salesman of encyclopedias becomes a porn director in early 70s Spain. It's quite amusing at the beginning, then gets a bit boring.

Portraits d'Alain Cavalier

Watched 4 more of these, about brodeuses, a dame-lavabo (or pipi), 2 relieuses and one bistrote, all incredibly good and touching.

Golden Eighties

A Belgian musical! Set in a small shopping mall, between a hairdressing salon, a 'mature' fashion strore and a snack bar, it's about love, life, relationships, very eighties in style, but that's a good sign. The Cahiers dvd also features long extracts of Les Années 80, which was rarely seen, and is a prototype for Golden Eighties (it is more arty though).

Touche pas a la femme blanche!

Not surprised it was a huge commercial failure after the controversial success of La grande bouffe. The idea is quite crazy, to do a western in the middle of Paris, with indians and US military. It has a lot of political and sociological content, but i didn't get into it so much.

La grande bouffe

Food, sex and death, in a surrealistic film from Ferreri, with great actors. Ultimately a rather depressing film.

Paranoia Agent Ep 11-13

More weirdness, and it turns out that Shonen Bat was linked to the cute creature/character Maromi, and some kind of mental creation from the designer. A very good show overall.

Paranoia Agent Ep 8-10

Shonen Bat is back, first in a weird episode where a young man, an old man, and a little girl want to commit suicide, then a bunch of snoopy housewives share stories about shonen bat, and the last one is about anime crews, weird but good.

L'Enfant

My first Dardenne film, and I was very impressed. They film the Belgian 'underclass' struggling the way they would a thriller. Interesting to note that these people are completely obsessed with money, except the young mother. Also compared with Louis Malle for whom I found all of the main characters to be really difficult to like, Bruno, well played by Jeremie Regnier, is not really likeable but still we feel for him.

Au revoir les enfants

I don't have much to say on that one. It is not bad, but just not great. Carmen calls it a Sunday night movie. A nice story, basically told, like reading a straightforward novel.

Talk to her

The story is not particularly believable, but I really liked it, very restraint and quite beautiful at times, a great Almodovar.

The Fearless Freaks

Very good documentary about a very special band. Lots of interviews and super 8 footages showing how far The Flaming Lips come from and how they have developed throughout the years, fascinating and quite emotional.

Paranoia Agent Ep 5-7

It gets even weirder and a bit more difficult to follow, but an interesting way to take the story further and intriging.

Paranoia Agent Ep 1-4

From the appearance of Shonen Bat to his arrest, it gets progressively weirder, the intros for each show are very intriguing, and the whole thing sounds and looks inspired by Lynch. Great show from Satoshi Kon so far.

Lacombe Lucien

It is always quite difficult to enjoy a film in which the main character is so blatantly un-sympathetic as his the case here. The film is quite good, although it drags on a bit and would have benefitted from being shorter.

Fists in the pocket

A fantastic first film from Marco Bellochio with a great performance from Lou Castel as the matricide and fratricide epileptic. can be seen as a full attack on traditional family values when the Italian New Wave was in full swing. Also a great minimal score by Morriconne.

OSS 117, Le Caire Nid d'Espions

Saw it at Le Royal in Pont-Audemer! A good pastiche of spy films sets in the 50s in Cairo, with OSS 117 well played by Jean Dujardin, as the spy who is in the closet. There some funny bits, the art direction is very good and overall very entertaining.

Portraits d'Alain Cavalier

I watched the first four of these. The first serie was made for TV in 1987, all following the same format of 12 minutes, lots of close-ups on hands and Cavalier asking these women about their trade/skills and their lives. Beautifully shot and very touching.