Movies Thread

[breepf]

I'll just toss this into the thread: I had reason to watch The Killing of a Chinese Bookie and Opening Night recently, and I finally feel like I have a handle on how Cassavetes approaches filmmaking.

 

[duluoz]

I'll just toss this into the thread: I had reason to watch The Killing of a Chinese Bookie and Opening Night recently, and I finally feel like I have a handle on how Cassavetes approaches filmmaking.

I watched Bookie about a year or two ago for the first time and loved it. Ben Gazzara, man. A couple great bit roles of his in Buffalo 66, and Happiness.

Still haven’t seen Opening Night, but Woman Under the Influence is an all-timer for me, and Shadows, Faces, Gloria, and recently saw Minnie and Moskowitz on a big screen in 35mm. Very big Cassavetes guy.

 

[duluoz]

Finally watched this. I was huge on Wes Anderson since I saw Bottle Rocket in a theater when it came out. Tenenbaums is a top 20, maaaybe top 10 for me all-time. But I’ve had Wes fatigue for a long while now.

For whatever reason, this one broke that streak. Really came together for me.

B+

 

[UNCatTech]

I recently watched:

The Substance: Get the hell out of here with that crap. I felt like the movie treated the audience with disdain. That is an effective choice in some circumstances but I felt like the director was doing some real try hard nonsense and completely crashed the plane on landing.

I tried to watch "The Substance". I gave up after the person came out of her back.

 

[breepf]

I watched Bookie about a year or two ago for the first time and loved it. Ben Gazzara, man. A couple great bit roles of his in Buffalo 66, and Happiness.

Still haven’t seen Opening Night, but Woman Under the Influence is an all-timer for me, and Shadows, Faces, Gloria, and recently saw Minnie and Moskowitz on a big screen in 35mm. Very big Cassavetes guy.

I like Minnie and Moskowitz quite a lot, though it feels like an adulterated version of Cassavetes inasmuch as it was greenlit as part of Ned Tanen's youth-cult push at Universal. Granted, Tanen also greenlit The Last Movie, which is maximalist Hopper.

I think Cassavetes make the most sense--in particular the two movies I listed--when you keep in mind that the goal is to produce a sort of "onstage" (onscreen) sense of dramatic truthfulness derived from American takes on Stanislavski and the like. In the case of Opening Night, this ideal makes sense of the poor framing, the out-of-focus shots, pointless dialogue, etc. Put those elements in a Malick movie (and add lens flare), and you've got the aesthetic of spontaneity, a sort of New Hollywood shorthand for the guiding presence of a filmmaker behind the camera. But put those same elements in Opening Night, a film about marginalizing the director, screenwriter, and producer responsible for staging a play, and you've got the techniques whereby Cassavetes presumes to show that the film director has created the conditions for truthfulness onstage/screen. In short, Cassavetes's camera struggles to anticipate the movements of characters because Cassavetes has ceded control over those elements to the actors themselves.

 

[Icky Mettle]

I watched Bookie about a year or two ago for the first time and loved it. Ben Gazzara, man. A couple great bit roles of his in Buffalo 66, and Happiness.

Still haven’t seen Opening Night, but Woman Under the Influence is an all-timer for me, and Shadows, Faces, Gloria, and recently saw Minnie and Moskowitz on a big screen in 35mm. Very big Cassavetes guy.

Ooh. Happiness. I’ll never forget going to see that in the theater. About midway through the movie, a woman sitting behind me stood up, yelled, “This movie is disgusting!,” and stormed out of the theater. When she yelled, “This movie is disgusting!,” she did it in a tone and manner as if she was chastising the rest of the audience for its depravity in continuing to watch the movie.

I watched the movie again several years later, and regardless of how well-done it might have been, it’s a movie I have no interest in ever seeing again, nor would I recommend it to anyone unless they are in search of a disturbing movie.