Totally agree. I just saw it today and while I enjoyed it, my expectations were not met.

Also saw it recently and would probably give it the same rating ... I really liked the Miss Keener actress tho

Taxi Driver

I started to watch Brick, but realized I was not feeling it. So, why not watch Taxi Driver...again?

I have seen Taxi Driver probably twenty times, maybe more, yet somehow find myself amazed at its awesomeness every time.

Taxi Driver never disappoints for me. I think it might be because I grew up in the 70's, traveling into Manhattan a lot, and the film is just amazingly able to depict that time and place about as well as I have ever seen.

Of course, above and beyond that is, well...everything else. I cannot find a single flaw with the film. The writing is obviously awesome. The directing is obviously awesome. The acting is obviously awesome. The score is obviously awesome.

But ultimately, if I had to choose, I guess it's the writing. Paul Sharader (check out Affliction as well, which he both wrote and directed) just nails the thing. It is so artfully crafted, and he apparently did so while in the midst of serious personal suffering, which is all the more remarkable, given the technical genius of the thing.

Of course, his state better explains his ability to show us a character so desperately lonely and confused, who is such a product of both his own demons and the world's demons.

This last is part of what makes the film so fascinating. It's clear Travis is a bit of a "character," notably "unwell," but it seems his response to the world around him is not unjustified.

In fact, if you think about it, his hero status at the end is the product of Travis' own ineptitude to

1. Kill Palantine, and
2. Kill himself.

Maybe he would have gotten around to "saving Iris" at some point, who knows? But as it rolls out, he does so only as Plan B, on a whim, because he failed to properly execute his plan ("there never has been any choice for me...").

And I love how this tormented soul cannot help but be drawn to the amazingly gorgeous Sybill Shepherd, in spite of the fact that they may as well be from different planets. It is a worthwhile confirmation of Hannibal Lecter's point about what we covet.

Anyway, go watch it again.

I was delighted to see several of Ken Loach's movies appearing on YouTube recently (officially). Several are really good, but for me he only has one masterpiece:

Kes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2WzJKAyanc&feature=fvsr

Hadn't watched it in a few years and was worried I'd be disappointed because my memoires of it are so fond. No fear. The movie is just beautiful. And so many classic scenes: the title sequence, the dance hall scene, the football match (looool) and of course the extraordinary caning sequence. It is still shocking to watch. And of course the characters: the amazing lead, his appalling brother, the sports teacher, the mother, the headmaster. A joy from beginning to end. And I should also mention the photography: I'd forgotten what a visually stunning movie it is and should be somthing the buffs will love.

One caveat: I suspect many people will find the accents extremely hard to follow. Dunno, maybe not, but part of the fun is trying to unpick the dense dialect. It's so a part of the universe of the movie that it just adds to the whole experience.

big fan of Kes

Excellent decision. And actually watching Brick made me feel it even less. Another flavor of the month not worth its salt.

What the hell? Brick is one of the best film of the decade. I love it so much. It is the best neo-noir to come out in decades.

puerile affected trash

Seemed to be the case. I got through about thirty minutes before I realized I couldn't have cared less about any of it (which is rare for me...I will generally NEVER turn something off or walk out).

Meanwhile, I also re-watched Candy recently, which I would highly recommend. I have never understood why this film was not more appreciated. The great thing about the movie is the fact that the relationship between them is so much like the relationship between a junkie and dope, and it's all so ultimately sad.

Again, highly recommended.

His strong Calvinist upbringing coming up against his own coming of age story in the big city really infused his character of Travis Bickle with strong feelings and conflicts. Do listen to his commentary and supplemental features on the DVD, if you haven't already.

Some are quite chilling. He says he gets confronted by young men sometimes who are a little deranged and confused, some who are a bit threatening. He tells as an example of a guy who came into his office, I think, and said, "How did you know about me?" To which Schrader responded, in essence, "It's about a pretty messed up part of life, and maybe stage of life." The guy says, "No, but how did you know about ME?" He thought Schrader was magically tapping his brainwaves or telling his life story or something. We all know how this movie has had such a strong effect on people that it has become part of an internal narrative that leads them to violent acts.

It's very powerful. Very lonely. I love how badly he messes up with Shepherd, how awful his loneliness is there. Absolutely gripping and near painful to watch. I loved how he became so socially maladroit that he couldn't even recognize it himself, though others, like the taxicab old hand who tells him to take it easy, are seeing it maybe even more than he does, and earlier. That latter brings home the point that Bickle isn't unique; his type has been seen before, and people have been seen falling that way, just falling, falling. They're invisible, and falling all the time.

When the movie came out, Pauline Kael disparaged it for its supposed negativity, as did many movie critics then. She pointed out the uncommented on pedestrian ranting past Bickle's cab, "I'm gonna kill that bitch. I'm gonna kill that bitch!" That kinda stuff isn't really representative of real life, she said/implied, but is sort of an unseemly grubbing about for dramatic effect. Bullsh*.

I've heard exactly that from passersby on the street myself. In fact, one night I heard a guy going on for a couple of hours, shouting out the same thing in the parking lot across from my apartment. You know what's really weird? The next night I heard it again, only this time it was a different guy! I was like, WTF, Taxi Driver squared?

"One day a real rain will come, and wash all the scum off the streets." Spalding Gray as the horrified senator overacted a bit there, but it was a great line indicative of the disturbing way Travis was lapsing into conceiving of the most elemental violence as a way of making sense out of a world that didn't seem to have any correspondence with his ideas and desires.

Rushmore

Have you seen king of comedy?

It's like Travis went unnoticed, then decided to become a comedian. Good movie.

This is odd. There's no way Spaulding Gray was in Taxi Driver, even uncreditedly. I'm sure I would have noticed.

Otherwise, yes to everything you've said.

As for the general tone, good lord, yes, most of NYC was teeming with imminent danger at all times during that period. To claim otherwise is just not right.

Also, as you likely know, Shrader wrote Travis as very much more racist originally (which of course is likely artistically preferable, but ultimately too unpalatable for most).

PS If anyone doesn't think the ranting and/or menacing street guys didn't/don't exist, you really haven't been around enough. I think it's entirely laughable that a critic would open herself up to such ridicule, commenting on a place she has never been.

Yes, I love it.

I might have mentioned a thousand pages ago in this very thread, but here's a nice piece of synchronicity:

In the scene in Taxi Driver where Travis is driving past the headquarters, noticing that Betsey is not at her desk, the crew is clearly visible in the reflection of the window.

In the scene from The King of Comedy where Rupert is thrown out of the studio when he has come by to see Jerry Langford, you guessed it...the crew is clearly visible in the reflection of the glass door as they eject him.

It's a curse. I got a million of 'em.

Pauline Kael was deliberately provocative and often sold a lie to make her point (and often those points were more about her than the movies she talked about)

Kael hate itt

Watched a pretty interesting doc last night on the netflix instawatch called We Live in Public, if you have netflix here's a link to it http://www.netflix.com/WiMovie/We_Li...?trkid=1211018

It's about Josh Harris, one of the dotcom boom guys in the 90s and his radical (and true) ideas about where the internet was going.

The core of the doc is about this 'experiment' he held underground in New York for a month where people lived in 'pods' and every moment of every day was recorded for them and others to see.

Interesting sociological topics to think about.

The problem with her is she had some talent as a critic but she was intellectually dishonest (god I hate I had to resort to that politard phrase). The best critics, like Ebert and Kermode, are never dishonest.

Check it out. He is the horrified senator.

Re street creeps, in many of the neighborhoods they infest, they lend a feeling to ordinary city life as gothic as anything you'll see in a Dracula movie. And they bring in and amplify so much negativity that they can truly cast a pall over other people's lives and make a neighborhood feel all but hopeless. People who live more protected lives, in my experience, have often wanted to assert that such things don't exist in their world, or that they are an exaggeration or inconsequential part of it. I've heard that quite a lot, in various forms. I think that's because I look like a normal middle class person, and when being talked to be another person of that social class or higher, that person generally doesn't want to think bad things could happen to someone like him. It's like telling him monsters are real and instantly shooting him back to a childhood spent afraid of the dark.

Like what?

I almost watched this the other day, but then wondered what the point was. The experiment sounds more like a stunt to me, like some no-talent magician would do. What was beyond that?

This is all very true.

Or, put into Jeffery Beaumont's terms, "Why are there people like Frank?!"

Meanwhile, please describe the scene to which you refer. I am virtually positive this cannot be true, this Spaulding Gray sighting, but now, of course, I have to go look.

"Horrified senator?" The only scene possible would have to be the scene where Palantine gets whisked away because Travis is going to, you know, murder him.

I see no Spuddy.

The scene is the one in the taxicab where Travis picks up the Senator, and he and his buddy are jawing in the back seat. They then go slumming to get the opinion of the common man, who turns out to be Travis Bickle. When they find out that the common man's take on things sounds apocalyptic violence fantasies, they wind up finding the common man a bit more than they asked for.

I could be wrong, of course. But it sure looked like Spaulding Gray to me.

Remember those nit-curses I mentioned earlier?

No, that's not Spaulding Gray.

But if it's any consolation, I really appreciate your commentary, because it strikes me as being spot-on. If I expressed myself better, I might have said what you said.

Saw Exit Through the Gift Shop the other night...

A sort of documentary about Street Art. Whether it was intended to be a scathing commentary about selling out in Street Art, a jab at rich people buying up Street Art pieces, or a genuine documentary about an interesting character...i liked it a lot

The beginning and ending are a bit light in terms of showing spots being tagged, but there's still plenty of footage of pieces going up (my favorite part).

If you're at all into graffiti/street art/Banksy I think it's worth the time to head down to your local indie theatre while it's out there

I am dying to see this. The history of it is really fascinating.

Cape Fear- Sweet thriller from the 60's that relies on realism and simpler things to get under your skin. The villain isn't super evil, merely Robert Mitchum who is off his rocker, doesn't really give a damn and wants some cold revenge. Mitchum is the star and caries the movie. He is really mean, nasty and demented. Just shots of him looking with disgust at someone he tossed down the river and is about to charge again, or staring down a little girl, are all pretty menacing. A lot of great tension in this movie. I thought Gregory Peck lacked personality a bit, seemed too glum at times. Director relied on visual trickery a bit too much, where just simple tension would have sufficed. Very good score by Bernard Herrmann. A lot of nice close ups of faces to create tension, excellent uses of shadows and light too; very good cinematography. A-


Atlantic City - I'm not really a fan of Atlantic City, but I have to admit it does make for a good setting for a movie. There is a certain charm to it, maybe its uniqueness. Directed by Louis Malle, this movie exhibits its peculiarity rather well. All the little seedy elements that make up and create the atmosphere of such a city are richly captured. From coked up card games in hotel rooms, general emptiness and degeneracy of the casino environment, to broke neighborhoods and people who live in them, you get a very well constructed portrait of a city. As usual, Louis Malle's characters are very interesting and fun. They are not stupid, broke down and degenerate, but small time, interesting people, with pretty believable flaws. Some are has-beens, some who never made it and others who never will. The characters flaws sort of turn you off at first, but then it turns out that a lot of the the flaws perhaps were not really flaws, but just traits which you end embracing at the end. Burt Lancaster brings a lot of class to a character that is pretty nondescript. His presence really helps to project the nostalgia that his character feels. The good old times time when gambling in AC was underground, everything was less casual and more fun and even the Atlantic Ocean was better. Susan Sarandon plays a ditsy small town Canadian with big dreams, trying to make it by dealing cards. Sarandon is pretty charming and has magnificent boobs, which are nicely featured in this movie by Malle. Malle is just a great director; makes someone dismantling a lemon look like a very curious and engaging activity. This movie is a great combination of very good characters, director who has a lot to say about his subject and a very simple and effective story. There are also crime, violence and suspense that are nicely worked in the story too. Really a big fan of Malle now. He has won me over with every movie I've seen. A-


Diary of a Mad Housewife - This is a small scale family drama directed by Frank Perry. I am a big of of David and Lisa, the only other movie I've seen by Perry, so it is odd that I took so long to check out another movie he directed. The movie tells the life of what seems like an upper middle class housewife, from her point of view. Perry does a very fine job showing the ups and downs of her life. Mostly downs, as she really is struggling what seems to be expected of her. Perry shows well how overwhelming ordinary things can be. This movie reminded me of some of the family dramas by Fassbinder. Perry is just as detailed at showing many different aspects and dynamics of family relationships. How they intertwine and affect the people engaged. How parents behavior affects kids, how kids affect their parents, how people often take a lot for granted and how people can just develop a huge gap between them. At times the points he is driving at may seem pretty straight forward, but I think the simplicity worked very well. A


The More the Merrier - Right off the bat the movie wins you over with adorable Jean Arthur trying to adjust to equally adorable Charles Coburn moving into her apartment. They work very well together and their comedy and banter is great. The movie takes places during housing shortage in DC while the ww2 is ongoing. Coburn decides to let an engineer played by Joel McCrea move in with him and attempts to fix him up with Jean Arthur. The plot is kinda silly, it is full of laughs and quirky situations that three strangers living closely together in the 40's might find themselves in. At times it gets pretty tense between McCrea and Arthur for a 40's romantic comedy, they had pretty decent chemistry together. The story might have been a bit simpler, as the Arthur's other interest was not that convincing, but still this movie is just too much fun not to like it. B+


Boyfriends and Girlfriends - IMO Eric Rohmer is a lot like David Lynch. Only instead of using odd images and eerie music, he uses a lot of dialogue and pretty mundane scenes and instead of making you feel jittered and aghast, Rohmer makes you feel warm and fuzzy inside. Boyfriends and Girlfriends focuses mostly on one girl that seems out of place in a big city, new people she meets up and the relationships she develops with them. As usual, every person and every relationship in Rohmer movie is a sort of a puzzle. Puzzles that get more clear and enjoyable as the movie goes on. Rohmer makes a couple of young adults interacting with each other pretty fun and interesting thing to observe. The way the characters really are, the way they really feel about things, is all cleverly and deliberately revealed. Story is pretty simple and despite a lot of french dialogue, you can easily follow it along. The dialogue is casual and ordinary, as people discuss their relationships and their feelings. Characters are very ordinary people, but do not feel flat and dull. Scenes focus on events that drive the story; one events leads to another, one chance encounter leads to another. Pretty impressive how much you end up liking the characters when the movie is all over. A-