Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Celluloid #111


In Theaters

Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2011) Weerasethakul - In a Thai film, you come to expect a very slow pace and very lush beautiful scenery. Uncle Boonmee doesn't fail to deliver on those expectations, but also goes somewhere very strange...This film not only includes ghosts (that don't seem to be a big deal), but black Chewbacca-like creatures with red glowing eyes, bestiality, and general permeation of the supernatural. What is initially comically shocking eventually becomes commonplace, and while this essentially plays like a series of dreams, I really ended up enjoying it. 4/5

In Home

Performance (1970) Roeg - Roeg always does an interesting job at incorporating rock stars into his films (Bad Timing with Art Garfunkel, Man Who Fell to Earth - with David Bowie), and this time Mick Jagger gets a fair amount of screen time. A British gangster gets himself into a position where he needs to hide out - and what better place to hide than an apartment full of bohemians. He's freaked out by their free love and drugs, and initially the hippies don't really like him either. That is until they feed him some special mushrooms. Fun and one step above a B-movie. 3.5/5

Who's That Knocking On My Door? (1967) Scorsese - Early movie by Scorsese starring a very young and handsome Harvey Keitel. Mostly a love story between J.R. and a girl he meets on the ferry. However, things go sour when she reveals that she was a rape victim. The movie draws great attention to the gender double standard (he doesn't want to believe her and certainly doesn't want to date her, despite the fact that he has slept around plenty). J.R. wants to make an unfair classification of "broads" vs. "girls you marry." If gender issues doesn't make you interested, there are also a lot of really sexy make-out scenes. 4/5

1 comment:

Roman said...

dude, i really wanted to see Uncle Boonmee when it was playing at the Kabuki-- where did you see it?