DVD-time, and Time's list
It's been a night cycle all over again, so not much has been happening on any front. But we have been catching some decent films in recent times, primarily as a result of finally buying the DVD player and the not-so-infrequent visits to the Zone.
We saw Kiarostami's Ten and Tarkovsky's Solaris. Finally. Both. Also caught Y Tu Mama Tambien (fantastic) and Fight Club, again. Ozu's Floating Weeds was full of scratches and wouldn't run on our player, and Motorcycle Diaries only had Swedish, Norwegian and Finnish subtitles. Have got both replaced now though.
Hit the Zone again yesterday, and picked up another set of movies I've wanted to watch for a long, long time. There's Almodovar's All About my Mother, which I've heard of so much, but never got a chance to watch (heck, haven't seen anything by the supposedly great man); Amores Perros, another film I've just heard so, so much about; the Director's Cut of Blade Runner; Antonioni's Blow-up (which I saw part of ages back with Jabberwock); Dogville (another one I've been trying to catch for so long now); The Bicycle Thief (saw ages ago in Calcutta - at Nandan, of course); and Carl Dreyer's The Passion of Joan of Arc.
Now, I wanted to pick The Passion... ahead of a few other really tempting options primarily because of all the great things I've heard about it, primarily from Mrinal Sen during one of my interviews with him. The repeptitive old fart couldn't help gushing about the 'contemporaneity' of the film, when I'd gone to interview him during one of my trips to Calcutta. I've wanted to watch it ever since, primarily because despite being the most mediocre filmmaker ever, you can't help admitting that Sen' pretty much all there as far as his theoretical foundation is concerned. So, why not?
PS: The Apu Trilogy, Pyaasa and Nayakan figure in the Top 100 films of all time according to Time. Heck, Time sucks! Of course lists will always be open to debate and dissection, and going through the Time list, I couldn't find one film (at least of the films I know of, have seen, or have read about) that shouldn't be there. But I have a problem with the Indian films, and that might well be symptomatic of some of the non-English films they have put in the list.
We saw Kiarostami's Ten and Tarkovsky's Solaris. Finally. Both. Also caught Y Tu Mama Tambien (fantastic) and Fight Club, again. Ozu's Floating Weeds was full of scratches and wouldn't run on our player, and Motorcycle Diaries only had Swedish, Norwegian and Finnish subtitles. Have got both replaced now though.
Hit the Zone again yesterday, and picked up another set of movies I've wanted to watch for a long, long time. There's Almodovar's All About my Mother, which I've heard of so much, but never got a chance to watch (heck, haven't seen anything by the supposedly great man); Amores Perros, another film I've just heard so, so much about; the Director's Cut of Blade Runner; Antonioni's Blow-up (which I saw part of ages back with Jabberwock); Dogville (another one I've been trying to catch for so long now); The Bicycle Thief (saw ages ago in Calcutta - at Nandan, of course); and Carl Dreyer's The Passion of Joan of Arc.
Now, I wanted to pick The Passion... ahead of a few other really tempting options primarily because of all the great things I've heard about it, primarily from Mrinal Sen during one of my interviews with him. The repeptitive old fart couldn't help gushing about the 'contemporaneity' of the film, when I'd gone to interview him during one of my trips to Calcutta. I've wanted to watch it ever since, primarily because despite being the most mediocre filmmaker ever, you can't help admitting that Sen' pretty much all there as far as his theoretical foundation is concerned. So, why not?
PS: The Apu Trilogy, Pyaasa and Nayakan figure in the Top 100 films of all time according to Time. Heck, Time sucks! Of course lists will always be open to debate and dissection, and going through the Time list, I couldn't find one film (at least of the films I know of, have seen, or have read about) that shouldn't be there. But I have a problem with the Indian films, and that might well be symptomatic of some of the non-English films they have put in the list.
posted by Black Muddy River at 10:43 am
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