Monday, January 05, 2009
films i watched in the last week of 2008
uncharateristically of me, i watched quite a lot of dvds in the last week of 2008. first i watched the openly gay director gus van sant's very good gay themed film my own private idaho. i'm 110% hetero but i absolutely have nothing against gays and lesbians and as long as a film is good i don't care if it's a gay themed film or a gangster movie or a comedy or whatever. and by sheer good luck i saw andrei tarkovsky's 1974 sci-fi classic solaris in the bargain bin at my usual pirate dvd store and watched this several days ago. the film was based on a book of the same title by the polish writer stanislaw lem . this moody and complex film moved me to go and dig stanley kubrick's classic 2001: a space odyssey for an encore. although this film was made in 1968 the special effects still doesn't look dated. the film was based on the book by arthur c clarke.
on the last day of 2008 i watched a very good film the assassination of jesse james by the coward robert ford. based on the book of the same title. easily one of the best films of 2008 in my book and the last minutes of 2008 went by without me noticing it. what a boring life. i spent my last day of 2008 sitting at home watching a pirate dvd rather than popping all those fancy pills and screwing around in sex parties like some people apparently did.
watching a good old western movie led me to dig old cowboy movies and i revisited an old favorite , the wacky sergio leone's the good the bad and the ugly. and after that the lawrence kasdan's wyatt earp and last night watched the recent ed harris quite funny cowboy movie appaloosa based on a novel of the same name. and so i thought that's enough of westerns for a while and so i picked something quite different. i chose modigliani a film about this famous painter. i had a special affinity with modigliani not least in the sense that his is one of the first art books i ever bought. when i was a young student many years ago i bought modigliani and the painters of montparnasse. it was on 27 December 1979.
modigliani is a very captivating film despite what the critics say. uncharateristically 'tomatometer' in rotten tomatoes only gave a very low 5% approval rating. the lowest i've ever seen for a movie in this movie review site. but this is totally rubbish. modigliani is fantastic , at least up to the first 30 minutes of the film.
i can't watch the film beyond that because my stupid pirated dvd just got stuck there. that's one of the setbacks of buying pirated dvds from china. some are ok and some can be played half way. and so i did the next best thing. download it using ares but again, bad luck. the one i downloaded had no subtitles and the language is french. and i download again, this time i make sure it has english language. bad luck again, this , the only one in english has a very poor connection. the download goes nowhere. so i am stuck.
and then i turned to youtube. and found this. this clip of paintings by modigliani has a fantastic and moody music by Pasquale Catalona. a complete unknown to me. it is a soundtrack from a 2004 italian film le conseguenze dell'amore. i need to go and look for this film. and for pasquale catalona.
on the last day of 2008 i watched a very good film the assassination of jesse james by the coward robert ford. based on the book of the same title. easily one of the best films of 2008 in my book and the last minutes of 2008 went by without me noticing it. what a boring life. i spent my last day of 2008 sitting at home watching a pirate dvd rather than popping all those fancy pills and screwing around in sex parties like some people apparently did.
watching a good old western movie led me to dig old cowboy movies and i revisited an old favorite , the wacky sergio leone's the good the bad and the ugly. and after that the lawrence kasdan's wyatt earp and last night watched the recent ed harris quite funny cowboy movie appaloosa based on a novel of the same name. and so i thought that's enough of westerns for a while and so i picked something quite different. i chose modigliani a film about this famous painter. i had a special affinity with modigliani not least in the sense that his is one of the first art books i ever bought. when i was a young student many years ago i bought modigliani and the painters of montparnasse. it was on 27 December 1979.
modigliani is a very captivating film despite what the critics say. uncharateristically 'tomatometer' in rotten tomatoes only gave a very low 5% approval rating. the lowest i've ever seen for a movie in this movie review site. but this is totally rubbish. modigliani is fantastic , at least up to the first 30 minutes of the film.
i can't watch the film beyond that because my stupid pirated dvd just got stuck there. that's one of the setbacks of buying pirated dvds from china. some are ok and some can be played half way. and so i did the next best thing. download it using ares but again, bad luck. the one i downloaded had no subtitles and the language is french. and i download again, this time i make sure it has english language. bad luck again, this , the only one in english has a very poor connection. the download goes nowhere. so i am stuck.
and then i turned to youtube. and found this. this clip of paintings by modigliani has a fantastic and moody music by Pasquale Catalona. a complete unknown to me. it is a soundtrack from a 2004 italian film le conseguenze dell'amore. i need to go and look for this film. and for pasquale catalona.
