A British Netherlands Luxembourg German drama directed by Peter Greenaway, starring Toni Collette and Amanda Plummer.
An old woman dies, leaving her husband and son together after the funeral. Being astronomically wealthy, hey decide to build a harem for themselves and collect women who sign contracts to be their concubines.
Excellent! I would put this in a folder with La Grande Bouffe (1973) and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998), labeling it "too much of a good thing". The plot took a little while to develop clearly, but it definitely got interesting. I liked the middle section most, which is weird because I usually like film beginnings most. The characters weren't that great, but this was more about plot anyway. Amanda Plummer played Lydia in The Fisher King (1991), Yolanda/Honey Bunny in Pulp Fiction (1994) and Claude's mother in Ken Park (2002) (one of my more popular posts). Toni Collette played Princess Yum Yum's Nanny Witch in The Thief and the Cobbler (1995), Mandy Slade in Velvet Goldmine (1998) and Lynn Sear in The Sixth Sense (1999). Video all looked good. I liked how each section started with script text. There were also manufactured earthquakes which looked convincing. An odd note, this movie about sex has no graphic sex scenes. Audio was terrible. Everything except the helicopter landing was really quiet. The father spoke mostly in whispers. I'm rating this awesome because it's a keeper. If you like the weird, but coherent stuff like I do, this would be a great choice. Watch it.
A Danish French Italian Netherlands Spanish Swedish comedy drama directed by Lars von Trier, starring Nikolaj Lie Kaas, Dogme #2 and second film in Lars von Trier's Golden Heart Trilogy.
A group of people pretend to be mentally disabled until one of them freaks out for real and another is taken away by a family member.
Amazing! I was laughing through the whole first hour. I know it's currently not politically correct to make fun of retards. In this film, everyone there would have been in on the plan though, so it became more of a situation making fun of people making fun of retards, which makes it o.k., right? There was nudity, sex and foul language. Being Dogme #2, it was saturated in Dogma 95 style. Seeing as this style is documented better elsewhere, I don't feel the need to explain it. The plot began hilariously. I realized the joke at 0:5:00, began laughing at around 0:7:30 and didn't stop until 1:15:47. The characters fit very well because the "leader" was kind of an egomaniac with an assorted group around him. If we can call Karen the main character, she fit her role very well too. I can't wait to watch Dancer in the Dark (2000) and may recommend these films as a series to those who don't mind reading subtitles to see better movies. I rate this best. Watch it!
A British Austrian Netherlands documentary directed by Sophie Fiennes, starring Slavoj Zizek.
Slavoj Zizek explains his views on how psychology relates to film with examples from famous movies.
This is part of my research into movies about movies. I realized that I had seen so many films and was getting to the end of my university education that I needed to learn about film from a perspective outside the classroom and the screen itself. Slavoj may not be the best teacher in this field, but I think that his wild style and "outside the box" ideas make him a good teacher for me. I grasped his ideas on Freudian psychology immediately. I could see how the Marx brothers and the levels of the house in Psycho relate directly to the Id, the Ego and the Super-Ego. I also think that I understood his discussion of a "gaze" being returned by inanimate objects. His flower comment questions a long-standing universal opinion by pointing out the blatantly obvious. He went into discussions on fantasy vs. reality and borders between spaces. I had to watch this twice because of his frenetic pace and the depth of material that he covers. I wish my professors would discuss ideas and theories at this level. Overall, this is something that folks will understand or not. Those that get it will find a wealth of knowledge and probing questions. Those that don't get it will call it crazy and stupid trash, projecting their own stupidity upon the thing that pointed out their lack of intelligence. I rate this awesome and am about to begin watching the sequel on ideology.
