SCREENING LOG - HIGHLIGHTS FROM MAY, 2005

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YES

Esther Kahn (2000, Arnand Desplechin) - This movie exuded a vibe that I just couldn't shake -- his camera and editing is as hypnotic as Scorsese's or Ophuls', constantly shifting its focus to suggest an off-kilter view of the world, not quite fitting in, which is precisely Esther Kahn's predicament. The title character seems like such a nimrod, to the point that it challenges the plausibility of the story, but I have to give big props to Summer Phoenix for making her utterly compelling, a person so compelled to resist everything around her that she ends up resisting us.
From Beijing With Love (1994, Stephen Chow, Lee Lik Chi) - One of the first and most distinctive instances of Stephen Chow's ability to smash genres together to forge his own deranged reality, where comedy, melodrama, Eastern and Western culture, absurdist parody and sincere feelings blend in all kinds of strange formations.
The House is Black (1963, Forugh Farrokhzad) - Part documentary and part poetic meditation, it turns footage of a leper colony into a prayer on human suffering. It has my vote for greatest voiceover of all time. Thanks Fesch for making this available to me.
Portrait of Jennie (1948, William Dieterle) - Bizarre and eerie and yet as charming as a fairy tale, encroaching on Powell and Pressburger territory. Unforgettable.
Little Toys (1933, Sun Yu) - Ruan Lingyu singlehandedly carries this movie into greatness with a performance that embodies the instability and hope of pre-revolutionary China.
Love Affair (1939, Leo McCarey) - When I think about this movie I can only associate it with sapply melodrama -- but actually watching it is another story. There's something strangely mystical about the romance in this picture; romantic love is treated as something akin to being in touch with God (the moment Boyer really falls for Dunne happens in a chapel) that the vicissitudes of everyday life viciously tear us away from. The feeling of subsequent bitterness and resentment is chillingly genuine and makes the emotional payoff that much more potent.
Monkey Business (1952, Howard Hawks) - BRINGING UP BABY remade by the same guy, this time older, wiser and married. A remarkably wise movie about the need to rekindle the innner child in order to sustain adult relationships.
Rio Bravo (1959, Howard Hawks) - said plenty enough on this one.
Stars in My Crown (1950, Jacques Tourneur) - Who would have thought the director of I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE would make a movie that could easily play in evangelical churches across the country? A lovely cross between HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY's loving sense of small-town community and FLOWERS OF ST. FRANCIS' pastoral spirituality.

The rest --

yes
The Big Sleep (1946, Howard Hawks)
The Black Cat (1935, Edgar G Ulmer)
China Gate (1957, Sam Fuller)
Clans of Intrigue (1977, Chor Yuen)
El Dorado (1966, Howard Hawks)
Going My Way (1944, Leo McCarey)
Oily Maniac (1976, Ho Meng Hua)
The Raven (1934,
Rio Lobo (1970, Howard Hawks)
The River of No Return (1954, Otto Preminger)
Running Out of time (1999, Johnny To)
Saving Face (2004, Alice Wu)
Second Circle (1990, Aleksandr Sokurov)
Straight Shooting (1917, John Ford)
We Jam Econo: The Story of the Minutemen (2005, Tim Irwin)

mixed
High Noon (1952, Fred Zinnemann)
The Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005, Garth Jennings)
The New Babylon (1929, Grigory Kozinstev)
The Ox-Bow Incident (1943, William Wellman) - anyone else think that RASHOMON owes a lot to this movie in terms of tone, character treatment and moral indignance?

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