ph: Park Ji Hyuk
Saturday, February 23, 2013
Songs in the key of my life: John Cale - Sabotage
My German Rock-Lexikon set John Cale's album Paris 1919 on their list of the 100 most important albums in rock music. I got the album and my disappointment was immense: I expected a more aggressive effort from one the Velvet Underground's founders, but this was in my ears a very mellifluous work. This was in the 70s, and although I eventually did find appreciation for this album much later, I dismissed John Cale for the time being. However, a few years later, 1979 actually, one of my favourite radio jockeys, played Sabotage on his show, and this song really knocked me off my feet. Here you had a full force aggreesive song with messy cacophonous guitar lines and a militant message ("Read and destroy everything you read in the press Read and destroy everything you read in books"). In comparison most contemporary punk songs sounded lame. It took me decades to get the album on cd, but I had it on cassette, copied directly from that radio show. I've heard it numerous times, and for years it was also useful for scaring guests away.
Adams æbler (2005)
A neo-nazi sentenced to community service at a church clashes with the blindly devotional priest.
Remarkable parable successfully combining a serious examination of Christian issues with dark humor; Luis Buñuel would have approved.
Maltin **: "Ineffectual black-comedy allegory...Means to be profound, as it deals with the nature of good and evil, but it's merely overwrought."
Friday, February 22, 2013
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First Lines: Luigi Pirandello - One, No One, and One Hundred Thousand
"What are you doing?"my wife asked, seeing me linger, unusually, in front of the mirror.
Thursday, February 21, 2013
Dernier domicile connu (1970)
A tough, efficient policeman, has been sent to a second-rate police station after being reprimanded and given a female partner with an assignment to find a man whose evidence is instrumental in convicting a murderer.
Well-crafted policier which provides besides two great central performances a realistic, but bleak vision of 70s Paris.
Ondine (2009)
The story of an Irish fisherman who discovers a woman in his fishing net who he believes to be a Selke (a water nymph).
Likable love story set on a bleak Irish coast with some fairy tale allusions.
Maltin ***: "Writer-director Jordan deftly mixes dark reality into this fantasy-like saga. Diverting sequences between Farrell and Rea are a treat; newcomer Barry is a natural."
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Rising Sun (1993)
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At the offices of a Japanese corporation, during a party, a woman, who's evidently a professional mistress, is found dead, apparently after some rough sex.
Convoluted whodunnit with a sloppy plot, mildly entertaining.
On second view: badly dated and really not that entertaining.
Halliwell (no star): "Turgid thriller, revealing paranoid feelings about the Japanese in America but not much else to engage the interest."
Maltin **1/2: "Strppied-down version of Michael Crichton's detailed and controverial novel (adapted by Crichton and Kaufman) is alterbately compelling, confusing, obvious, and silly, with credibility strained to the breaking point."
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
First Lines: Ivan Bunin - The Village
The Krasovs' great-grandfather, nicknamed Gypsy by the servants, had borzoi hounds set on him by his master, Durnovo.
Tuesday, February 19, 2013
The Lovely Bones (2009)
A young girl is murdered and watches over her family - and her killer - from purgatory.
Although obviously made with a lot of talents involved the director overdid the phantasmagorical elements on the verge to kitsch.
Maltin **1/2: "Well-made, well-acted adaptation of Alice Sebold's bestseller suffers from overabundant, heavy-handed images of an Edenic afterlife that don't connect with the rest of the film."
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The Strangers (2008)
A young couple staying in an isolated vacation home are terrorized by three unknown assailants.
A standard horror film situation is done with style and some inventive and scary twists.
On second view: I still stand with my initial evaluation.
Maltin **: "Not terribly scary, in spite of insistent bursts of music and loud effects on the soundtrack...but even worse, it's pointless."
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