World of Blue - Archived Forum 2007-2022

AXX°N N. wrote: ↑Fri May 07, 2021 2:29 pm Funny that Ivo deferred to Eno's clout but not Reznor's, ha.

Thanks for sharing the interesting 4AD knowledge, Henrys Hair!

Henrys Hair wrote: ↑Fri May 07, 2021 11:07 amBy strange coincidence, Fraser would later have a relationship with Jeff Buckley, son of Song To The Siren writer Tim Buckley. By even stranger coincidence, This Mortal Coil & Jeff Buckley would both cover Big Star's Kangaroo. The TMC version is the opening track on It'll End In Tears, the TMC album on which Song To The Siren appears. It's worth taking a listen to the two opening notes - which aren't a million miles away from opening notes of a theme tune to a tv show we all know and love...

Speaking of Jeff & Liz, just want to share this amazing demo they recorded together which is my favorite song of all time. That relationship was clearly something special not meant to last, not unlike Jeff himself unfortunately.

You're welcome AXXON N. Love that song btw!

Mr. Reindeer wrote: ↑Fri May 07, 2021 7:37 am (Frost also hated Mulholland Drive when it came out IIRC, but seems warmer to it in the Bushman book I think.)

This might be true in a sense, but if so, he hated it without seeing it.

Here it is from another thread:

Mastershake wrote: ↑Thu Jul 05, 2012 11:23 am A quote from an interview with Frost:

Luke: "Did you understand what David Lynch's Mulholland Drive was all about?"

Mark: "It started as a conversation David and I were having about a sequel to Twin Peaks. We wanted to take the Audrey Horn character, played by Cheryl, to Hollywood. I proposed Mulholland Drive, which I lived on, as a title. He sold it as a pilot to ABC and then convinced the French that if he shot 45 more minutes, he could make something out of it. I haven't seen it. I heard it was a mess. I knew that the pilot was a mess.

"David's strength and weakness is that he is often able to transcend story because he's such a master creating mood. His failing is that he's not a strong storyteller. He doesn't have a lot of interest in telling a story. He's not as interested in character as fragments of personality. He's a surrealist."

Luke: "He's got a great eye for hot looking women."

Mark smiles: "That was always one of his strengths. The mistake that people make about David is that they assume he's an ironist [saying the opposite of what he means]. He's not. He's a sincere simple guy. He doesn't work things out. He's not that good in logic. When people spend a lot of energy trying to figure out exactly what he meant by Mulholland Drive, I can assure you that he didn't know.

Meanwhile the film is number 28 on Sight & Sound's highly prestigious 100 Greatest Films of All Time.
https://www2.bfi.org.uk/greatest-films-all-time

What a blockbuster of a quote that was. Alone worth the price of Bushman's book.

Well, if nothing else comes out of this whole is-it-happening-again-or-is-it-not-Wisteria/Unrecorded-Night rigamarole, just seeing the Dugpa forum firing on all cylinders discussion-wise again makes all the aggravation worthwhile, that's for damn sure!

Jasper wrote: ↑Fri May 07, 2021 3:10 pm
Meanwhile the film is number 28 on Sight & Sound's highly prestigious 100 Greatest Films of All Time.
https://www2.bfi.org.uk/greatest-films-all-time

great list overall, nice to see Jeanne Dielman, Spirit of the Beehive, make the cut.

i haven't seen Godard's Histoire(s) du Cinema (1998) or The Colour of Pomegrantes (1969)

Agent Earle wrote: ↑Fri May 07, 2021 3:34 pm Well, if nothing else comes out of this whole is-it-happening-again-or-is-it-not-Wisteria/Unrecorded-Night rigamarole, just seeing the Dugpa forum firing on all cylinders discussion-wise again makes all the aggravation worthwhile, that's for damn sure!

Jasper wrote: ↑Fri May 07, 2021 3:10 pm Meanwhile the film is number 28 on Sight & Sound's highly prestigious 100 Greatest Films of All Time.
https://www2.bfi.org.uk/greatest-films-all-time

This is the only list besides AFI lists that I regularly check to see what should I watch. (I think the full list includes 250 films.) There are some inclusions that baffle me - like North by Northwest, which I hated - but overall it rarely disappoints me.

Stavrogyn wrote: ↑Sat May 08, 2021 1:54 am

Jasper wrote: ↑Fri May 07, 2021 3:10 pm Meanwhile the film is number 28 on Sight & Sound's highly prestigious 100 Greatest Films of All Time.
https://www2.bfi.org.uk/greatest-films-all-time

This is the only list besides AFI lists that I regularly check to see what should I watch. (I think the full list includes 250 films.) There are some inclusions that baffle me - like North by Northwest, which I hated - but overall it rarely disappoints me.

How/why?!

Metamorphia wrote: ↑Sat May 08, 2021 5:31 am

Stavrogyn wrote: ↑Sat May 08, 2021 1:54 am

Jasper wrote: ↑Fri May 07, 2021 3:10 pm Meanwhile the film is number 28 on Sight & Sound's highly prestigious 100 Greatest Films of All Time.
https://www2.bfi.org.uk/greatest-films-all-time

This is the only list besides AFI lists that I regularly check to see what should I watch. (I think the full list includes 250 films.) There are some inclusions that baffle me - like North by Northwest, which I hated - but overall it rarely disappoints me.

How/why?!

Haha, yeah, really! Even if you personally dislike it (impossible!), its reputation precedes itself. Its influence and its maker guarantee that it's going to receive numerous votes from a large body of critics. I think its part of one of the top 5 four-film runs in movie history: Vertigo, North by Northwest, Psycho, and The Birds.

The full list, which really is one of the few lists that matters, contains a lot more than 250 films as voted on by over 800 critics, scholars, programmers, etc.; and there's also a director's poll. You can find a page that contains every film that received at least one vote, and then click on it to see which critics or directors voted for it. I've mentioned here and elsewhere that Inland Empire is validated by its appearance on a whopping five lists just six years after its release. It's a good thing to know when you encounter clueless articles claiming its basically not a real film or was a critical and box office bomb.

JackwithOneEye wrote: ↑Fri May 07, 2021 6:07 pm

Jasper wrote: ↑Fri May 07, 2021 3:10 pm
Meanwhile the film is number 28 on Sight & Sound's highly prestigious 100 Greatest Films of All Time.
https://www2.bfi.org.uk/greatest-films-all-time

great list overall, nice to see Jeanne Dielman, Spirit of the Beehive, make the cut.

i haven't seen Godard's Histoire(s) du Cinema (1998) or The Colour of Pomegrantes (1969)

Histoire(s) is probably my favorite Godard. When it was still very scarce a French release with English subs came out, and the box itself is so cool that I still keep it even though a US release eventually came out on DVD. Color of Pomegrantes is another favorite, and that's out in amazing Blu-ray editions in both the UK and US (Criterion).

Eraserhead clocks in at #195 when you look at the sight & sound top 250.

North by Northwest - the build-up to the crop duster scene holds up, I like the compositions and awkward pauses on the bus stop.
that's superb.

it's funny how when Hitchcock made 'The Wrong Man' , he dispensed with gimmicks, government conspiracy, and focuses on the humanity of being
wrongly accused/ caught up in something you had nothing to do with, but it doesn't get much acclaim or traction long term as NxNW.

Rio Bravo is a bit of an odd man out on the top 100 for me, I enjoy the film, but I don't get how it's one of the best films ever made,
I'd have to watch it again I guess.

Lynch muses on the beauty of springtime in today's whether report.

It is, after all, the time flowering branches grow long and short.

Berlin Alexanderplatz clocks in at #209 on the Sight & Sound 250.

That was kinda like the Twin Peaks: The Return of it's day, 14 TV episodes by one director.

LateReg wrote: ↑Sat May 08, 2021 7:27 am

Metamorphia wrote: ↑Sat May 08, 2021 5:31 am

Stavrogyn wrote: ↑Sat May 08, 2021 1:54 am

This is the only list besides AFI lists that I regularly check to see what should I watch. (I think the full list includes 250 films.) There are some inclusions that baffle me - like North by Northwest, which I hated - but overall it rarely disappoints me.

How/why?!

Haha, yeah, really! Even if you personally dislike it (impossible!), its reputation precedes itself. Its influence and its maker guarantee that it's going to receive numerous votes from a large body of critics. I think its part of one of the top 5 four-film runs in movie history: Vertigo, North by Northwest, Psycho, and The Birds.

I can appreciate this, and am aware of Hitchcock's status, importance, and influence, but there are a few clear reasons why I dislike this film. (I watched it recently, last year, so it's not like my taste and judgment might have changed in the meantime.) The main thing is that I just don't like spy thriller / adventure films, especially not from the 60's (I'm talking specifically about American films of that genre from that period; it's not that I don't like 60's in general - there is so much to adore, just the French New Wave would be more than enough), and when these films are combined with comedy and romance, that makes it even worse. I am not trying to bash something other people might enjoy, and I know North by Northwest is regarded as a great film, but if I could use only one word to describe it, I would say it is just too silly. The film lost me in its first few minutes, at the moment when the bad guys manage to kidnap Cary Grant's character in the middle of a high-class club / bar - he should have just yelled "Help!", and that would be the end.

The fact that the film was so influential does not help either; I kind of blame it for that whole genre, the James Bond films, etc. Another example I can think of that really irritated me was Charade (1963), also starring Cary Grant... Give me black and white film noir intrigues from the 40's and 50's anytime, and spare me the goofy suspense thrillers from the 60's

À propos Alfred Hitchcock: I have seen around a dozen of his films - Rope (1948) is one of my all time favorite films, and I always liked Psycho - but generally he is just too plot driven for my taste. We mentioned Ingmar Bergman in another thread; now there is a director who is nothing like Hitchcock, but who may serve as a great example of the style, themes and "genres" I tend to lean to, as opposed to the more famous things Hitchcock did. (I might try seeing more of his earlier films.)

I would also like to hear which are, according to you, other 4 from the top 5 four-film runs in movie history. I'm guessing Stanley Kubrick and Francis Ford Coppola must be among them?

JackwithOneEye wrote: ↑Sat May 08, 2021 7:53 am Rio Bravo is a bit of an odd man out on the top 100 for me, I enjoy the film, but I don't get how it's one of the best films ever made,
I'd have to watch it again I guess.

Exactly! Rio Bravo, the same thing as North by Northwest, I just don't get what's so good about that film (except for Dean Martin, you gotta love The Rat Pack ).

On the other hand, High Noon I liked quite a lot, and consider it vastly superior to Hawks' and Wayne's macho cowboyish response.