Movies: The Official "Movie of the Week" Club Thread IV
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KallioWeHardlyKnewYe
Hey! We won!
- May 30, 2003
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What a Way to Go!
Thompson (1964)
“I think I may be a witch.”
Louisa May’s a small town girl, living in a lonely world … because fate keeps killing her husbands and making her progressively richer. She’s no black widow. She wants love, not money, and while at least some of her partners start out wanting the same, they pretty much all turn greedy, ambitious and dead. She tries to give her $211 million to the US government — if the gag probably is not that she want to kill the government but part of me wants to pretend it is which is funny. Deemed crazy, she’s sent to a psychiatrist to whom she shares her life story … the cruel small town king, the ambitious shopkeeper, the tortured artist, the depressed businessman, the hungry dancer. None is right for her and fate acts appropriately. Is she destined to be alone? Not if the psychiatrist can help it! He tries to seize on the opportunity without getting the gist of this particular curse. Men! They never listen. Luckily, in perfect bubble gum 60s fashion, a surprise suitor emerges and everything is happily ever after.
This is a total Cinemascope trifle. Colorful. Silly. Basic morals placing love and simplicity above avarice and ambition. I’m not totally sure poor Robert Mitchum deserves his fate but otherwise there’s some old fashioned entertainment in watching this parade of stars work their way from appealing to awful. It’s kinda fun to see generally serious men like Paul Newman and Mitchum give straight comedic turns. Neither should’ve quit their day jobs, but Newman acquitted himself humorously. There’s a similar fun in watching Gene Kelly move from charming to a bit of a shit. Shirley MacLaine is pretty winning throughout (though she squeals a bit much).
The movie is at its best when it takes its dream dips into other styles be it silent film, French New Wave or classic technicolor musical. I wish there was more of that though I suppose that’d be a momentum that would be hard to maintain.
Though I typically don’t love stylistic flourishes with movie titles like weird capitalization or punctuation marks, I feel like this one at least earns the exclamation point.
I’d never seen this before. Honestly never HEARD of it until very recently. There were two drivers for picking it. Heard it come up in a discussion about Paul Newman and the concept and structure, while a little frivolous, was intriguing. The other was director J. Lee Thompson, a journeyman who had quite the journey. Most famously he directed The Guns of Navarone and the original Cape Fear (just a few years before this). After a few Planet of the Apes sequels, he’d eventual become an 80s hired gun cranking out morally mushy Charles Bronson and Chuck Norris flicks. His last movie was Bronson's Kinjite: Forbidden Subjects, which is about trafficking teenage sex slave. That, it must be said, is not A Way To Go!
A good career? Maybe, maybe not. But sort of a fascinating one to me.
Thompson (1964)
“I think I may be a witch.”
Louisa May’s a small town girl, living in a lonely world … because fate keeps killing her husbands and making her progressively richer. She’s no black widow. She wants love, not money, and while at least some of her partners start out wanting the same, they pretty much all turn greedy, ambitious and dead. She tries to give her $211 million to the US government — if the gag probably is not that she want to kill the government but part of me wants to pretend it is which is funny. Deemed crazy, she’s sent to a psychiatrist to whom she shares her life story … the cruel small town king, the ambitious shopkeeper, the tortured artist, the depressed businessman, the hungry dancer. None is right for her and fate acts appropriately. Is she destined to be alone? Not if the psychiatrist can help it! He tries to seize on the opportunity without getting the gist of this particular curse. Men! They never listen. Luckily, in perfect bubble gum 60s fashion, a surprise suitor emerges and everything is happily ever after.
This is a total Cinemascope trifle. Colorful. Silly. Basic morals placing love and simplicity above avarice and ambition. I’m not totally sure poor Robert Mitchum deserves his fate but otherwise there’s some old fashioned entertainment in watching this parade of stars work their way from appealing to awful. It’s kinda fun to see generally serious men like Paul Newman and Mitchum give straight comedic turns. Neither should’ve quit their day jobs, but Newman acquitted himself humorously. There’s a similar fun in watching Gene Kelly move from charming to a bit of a shit. Shirley MacLaine is pretty winning throughout (though she squeals a bit much).
The movie is at its best when it takes its dream dips into other styles be it silent film, French New Wave or classic technicolor musical. I wish there was more of that though I suppose that’d be a momentum that would be hard to maintain.
Though I typically don’t love stylistic flourishes with movie titles like weird capitalization or punctuation marks, I feel like this one at least earns the exclamation point.
I’d never seen this before. Honestly never HEARD of it until very recently. There were two drivers for picking it. Heard it come up in a discussion about Paul Newman and the concept and structure, while a little frivolous, was intriguing. The other was director J. Lee Thompson, a journeyman who had quite the journey. Most famously he directed The Guns of Navarone and the original Cape Fear (just a few years before this). After a few Planet of the Apes sequels, he’d eventual become an 80s hired gun cranking out morally mushy Charles Bronson and Chuck Norris flicks. His last movie was Bronson's Kinjite: Forbidden Subjects, which is about trafficking teenage sex slave. That, it must be said, is not A Way To Go!
A good career? Maybe, maybe not. But sort of a fascinating one to me.
KallioWeHardlyKnewYe
Hey! We won!
- May 30, 2003
- 15,809
- 3,887
Gonna make everyone get Weir'd with me with Peter Weir's Fearless.
Guess what was next on my list....once again.
What a Way to Go! (1964) Directed by J. Lee Thompson
Shirley MacLaine is cute in a sexy cute way and she has great legs. So there's that. What else? Factoid time: she is Warren Beatty's older sister. Factoid two: she started out as a dancer, not an actress. Okay, let's see, what else? The most noteworthy thing about this tepid farce is Edith Head's costume designs because Shirley has more costume changes in this movie than a flamingo has feathers. Edith Head's brand is the only known instance of a Hollywood costume designer having serious name recognition and a name in demand because she is associated with quality of the highest order. What next?. Let's grade the actors, all of whom are just cashing a check. I'll go with one word descriptions. Paul Newman--miscast; Robert Mitchum and Gene Kelly--professional; Dick Van Dyke-ham; Robert Cummings--phony; Dean Martin--unconvincing. And MacLaine, outside of cute--game.
There is one nice dance number choreographed by the great Gene Kelly. I always thought of Kelly and Astaire as a sort of ying and yang of Hollywood dance icons. Astaire was impossibly elegant, a champagne-sippping, well-tailored aristocrat in tap shoes--so aesthetically pure as to be more wraithlike than human. Kelly was the alter ego, down-to-earth, a guy's guy you could have a beer with--I could see him playing second base for the Yankees really easy. Astaire was the greater dancer, but, when it came to others, Kelly was the greater choreographer. The movie's dance sequence is not among his best, but it will do, especially as I was starved for something, anything fun to occur at this point. Plus, there are those nice legs.
There was no earthly reason for What a Way to Go! to be made, other than maybe as a tax rebate. There never was an audience for it, despite the glitzy cast. It went nowhere at the time. There was no earthly reason to see this movie when it came out, and there is no earthly reason to see this movie now.
KallioWeHardlyKnewYe
Hey! We won!
- May 30, 2003
- 15,809
- 3,887
What a Way to Go! (1964) Directed by J. Lee Thompson
Shirley MacLaine is cute in a sexy cute way and she has great legs. So there's that. What else? Factoid time: she is Warren Beatty's older sister. Factoid two: she started out as a dancer, not an actress. Okay, let's see, what else? The most noteworthy thing about this tepid farce is Edith Head's costume designs because Shirley has more costume changes in this movie than a flamingo has feathers. Edith Head's brand is the only known instance of a Hollywood costume designer having serious name recognition and a name in demand because she is associated with quality of the highest order. What next?. Let's grade the actors, all of whom are just cashing a check. I'll go with one word descriptions. Paul Newman--miscast; Robert Mitchum and Gene Kelly--professional; Dick Van Dyke-ham; Robert Cummings--phony; Dean Martin--unconvincing. And MacLaine, outside of cute--game.
There is one nice dance number choreographed by the great Gene Kelly. I always thought of Kelly and Astaire as a sort of ying and yang of Hollywood dance icons. Astaire was impossibly elegant, a champagne-sippping, well-tailored aristocrat in tap shoes--so aesthetically pure as to be more wraithlike than human. Kelly was the alter ego, down-to-earth, a guy's guy you could have a beer with--I could see him playing second base for the Yankees really easy. Astaire was the greater dancer, but, when it came to others, Kelly was the greater choreographer. The movie's dance sequence is not among his best, but it will do, especially as I was starved for something, anything fun to occur at this point. Plus, there are those nice legs.
There was no earthly reason for What a Way to Go! to be made, other than maybe as a tax rebate. There never was an audience for it, despite the glitzy cast. It went nowhere at the time. There was no earthly reason to see this movie when it came out, and there is no earthly reason to see this movie now.
After giving you two rough picks in a row, I'm comforted that you were also pondering Fearless. That way if you don't like it, you'll have yourself for partial blame.
Edit: Ooof THREE. I sold you on Spartan in the general thread too.
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Jevo
Registered User
- Oct 3, 2010
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- 406
I haven't been able to locate a copy of What a Way To Go, so I'll have to sit this one out unfortunately.
What a Way to Go! (J. Lee Thompson, 1964)
I liked exactly three things in What a Way to Go! 1) Looking at Shirley MacLaine for nearly two hours 2) The set and production design and Edith Heads' exquisite costume design for Shirley MacLaine 3) When it veered into fun parody of silent films, French new wave, and Hollywood musicals.
Aside from those three things, I hated this film so much. Despite an all-star cast, the film was absolutely phoned in by everyone involved - and I don't blame them! Cash that cheque. Lowest common denominator type of comedy full of cheap thrills and empty calories. A very forgettable film, I actually watched it a few days ago before writing this review and I'm struggling to write because so much of the film has already left my memory.
One thing that I did enjoy was my stray thought of Paul Newman's American ex-pat artist character living in Paris in this film encountering his ex-pat musician character from Paris Blues and trying to decide who would think the other is the bigger phony.
I liked exactly three things in What a Way to Go! 1) Looking at Shirley MacLaine for nearly two hours 2) The set and production design and Edith Heads' exquisite costume design for Shirley MacLaine 3) When it veered into fun parody of silent films, French new wave, and Hollywood musicals.
Aside from those three things, I hated this film so much. Despite an all-star cast, the film was absolutely phoned in by everyone involved - and I don't blame them! Cash that cheque. Lowest common denominator type of comedy full of cheap thrills and empty calories. A very forgettable film, I actually watched it a few days ago before writing this review and I'm struggling to write because so much of the film has already left my memory.
One thing that I did enjoy was my stray thought of Paul Newman's American ex-pat artist character living in Paris in this film encountering his ex-pat musician character from Paris Blues and trying to decide who would think the other is the bigger phony.
KallioWeHardlyKnewYe
Hey! We won!
- May 30, 2003
- 15,809
- 3,887
The Goalie's Anxiety of the Penalty Kick (1971) Directed by Wim Wenders
The movie starts like it is going to be an offbeat comedy about a goalkeeper. Joseph Blauch (Arthur Brauss) is a professional goalie for an unnamed European soccer team. The movie opens with shots of him casually milling about his goal before the action shifts his way and he is instantly scored on before he can react. A droll and funny moment. Then we follow Blauch around as he has several days off and an injury to nurse before his next game. He aimlessly strolls around the town, picks up a girl, goes to bed with her, says goodbye in the morning. His actions are as random as any character in a Camus novel; he goes where the wind takes him. Eventually he picks up another girl and spends the night with her and after breakfast, for no reason whatsoever, he strangles her. And then....life goes on. He continues his haphazard journey as if nothing has happened, and the movie just sort of tags along for the ride. There are only three very oblique references to the murder the rest of the way, and the main reference comes right near the end of the movie when in the final scene it appears that his crime might be catching up with him. Or maybe the stranger he is talking to really is a salesman.
When I first saw this movie in 1971, it blew my mind. The Goalie's Anxiety of the Penalty Kick is set up to be a murder procedural but that doesn't happen because Wenders wants to take us in a totally different direction. Rather The Goalies's Anxiety of the Penalty Kick is an exercise in existential randomness and how it is impossible to understand what is going on in other people's minds--it just may be that everyone's intentions and motivations are ultimately impossible to read accurately. The first time I saw the movie, I kept waiting for this movie to turn into something it was never going to be, and I was utterly dazzled when it didn't. Near the end there is a great piece of dialogue about how a cop can tell what foot a criminal will favour to run away from being apprehended. The cop goes on to explain several maddenining permutations based on the notion that the criminal might try to swithch things around on the cop because he knows the cop knows what he might do. So each will try to outsmart the other... and the argument becomes the rhetorical equivalent of a dog chasing its own tail. In the end, one doesn't know which way the other is going, and besides it is all random anyway. Life is but a guess based on insufficient information.
The virtually unknown Arthur Brauss provides a note-perfect performance. His goalie doesn't seem like a bad guy....er, except for that one thing. He has several more brief encounters with women in the movie and never threatens them in the least. Yet his character also seems unmoored, adrift, just moving from one moment to the next with no clear rhyme or reason why he does so. His killing the movie cashier girl is just another random act in a life full of random acts. In true existential fashion, The Goalie's Anxiety of the Penalty Kick doesn't make a distinction between this and his other actions in the movie. From one perspective, they are all random and whether one act or another is good or evil depends entirely on one's personal point of view. The actions, whatever they may be, are merely things that happen during an aimless life in an absurd universe. Director Wim Wenders manages to create an atmosphere in his moive that makes all this seem not only perfectly plausible but pretty much how life just is.
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Jevo
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- Oct 3, 2010
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The Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick (1972) dir. Wim Wenders
Josef Bloch is a goalkeeper. During a match he gets sent of for dissent. He leaves the stadium before the match is finished and checks into a hotel in town. He drifts around for a couple of days before he goes on a date with a cinema cashier. For no discernible reason, he kills her in cold blood. Afterwards he goes on the lam towards his home region, although in his own calm way.
Josef Bloch is a weird character. Is he a serial killer, or someone who get spurred in the moment? He's without any visual indication that he's at all affected by the killing. Even when a sketch that looks very much like him appears in the paper, his voice doesn't change at all. He's clearly sociopathic, but what actually goes on inside of him is almost impossible to tell. He's very fond of the US after his team did a Tour there, and will happily tell others about it and his admiration for America.
The movie in general just seems to drift along in its own little way, just like life. From the movie's point of view, Bloch's murder seems like just another little meandering of a stream, not any more not worthy than morning coffee. The movie kinda goes along in the same fashion. Quite often characters will start conversation with sentences that sound like they should be coming in the middle of the conversation, instead of the beginning. Adding to the randomness that sort of defines the movie.
It's a fun existentialist exercise, but I never really manage to get into the movie on a deeper level. While Arthur Brauss plays the role of Bloch perfectly. I never really get very interested in Bloch and what he's up to. But Wenders does show that he has a real flair for the craft, and you can see how this movie is a stepping stone towards the great movies he would make later in his career.
Josef Bloch is a goalkeeper. During a match he gets sent of for dissent. He leaves the stadium before the match is finished and checks into a hotel in town. He drifts around for a couple of days before he goes on a date with a cinema cashier. For no discernible reason, he kills her in cold blood. Afterwards he goes on the lam towards his home region, although in his own calm way.
Josef Bloch is a weird character. Is he a serial killer, or someone who get spurred in the moment? He's without any visual indication that he's at all affected by the killing. Even when a sketch that looks very much like him appears in the paper, his voice doesn't change at all. He's clearly sociopathic, but what actually goes on inside of him is almost impossible to tell. He's very fond of the US after his team did a Tour there, and will happily tell others about it and his admiration for America.
The movie in general just seems to drift along in its own little way, just like life. From the movie's point of view, Bloch's murder seems like just another little meandering of a stream, not any more not worthy than morning coffee. The movie kinda goes along in the same fashion. Quite often characters will start conversation with sentences that sound like they should be coming in the middle of the conversation, instead of the beginning. Adding to the randomness that sort of defines the movie.
It's a fun existentialist exercise, but I never really manage to get into the movie on a deeper level. While Arthur Brauss plays the role of Bloch perfectly. I never really get very interested in Bloch and what he's up to. But Wenders does show that he has a real flair for the craft, and you can see how this movie is a stepping stone towards the great movies he would make later in his career.
KallioWeHardlyKnewYe
Hey! We won!
- May 30, 2003
- 15,809
- 3,887
The Goalie’s Anxiety at the Penalty Kick
Wenders (1972)
“One egg, one roll, one coffee aren’t enough for me anymore.”
Bloch gets tossed from a soccer match, which sets him off on an existential walkabout of sudden violence and attempted (?) self destruction. (Me, Hollywoodizing up the plot description).
It has the languid energy of a reluctant detective novel. There’s no mystery to solve. But it feels like neo-noir. We’re tracking a murderer here, not a crime solver. But the murder itself isn’t really that important. It’s something that happened. Other things happen too. That’s the nature of things. Is he going to be caught? Does he want to be caught? Does he even know? You never really notice something until you do, like the play of a goalie in a soccer match. The title comes around as a nice little metaphor in the end.
Arthur Brauss (who looks like someone melded the faces of Daniel Craig and Henry Silva together) is Sphinx-like as Bloch. Is the name Bloch a reference to writer Robert Bloch most famous for the novel Psycho? There is a similar placidity to the respective lead characters here, though their motives for killing are different. I was most reminded of Patricia Highsmith’s Tom Ripley — a character Wim Wenders would tackle directly just a few years later with The American Friend. This feels like a bit of a thematic test run. Another literary comp that sprang to mind? Camus’ The Stranger for the lead’s general indifference to life’s events.
There’s a cool monotony here. Cool as in chilly, removed, not as in rad. It’s not mysterious (in a direct sense) or really thrilling. It's a film that almost goes out of it's way to NOT be interesting and manages to keep you interested. I LIKED that. It is still bouncing around my head for just how unconventional its conventions are.
Plus it beats Jeanne Dielman to the contemplative peeling of fruits and vegetables by three years!
Wenders (1972)
“One egg, one roll, one coffee aren’t enough for me anymore.”
Bloch gets tossed from a soccer match, which sets him off on an existential walkabout of sudden violence and attempted (?) self destruction. (Me, Hollywoodizing up the plot description).
It has the languid energy of a reluctant detective novel. There’s no mystery to solve. But it feels like neo-noir. We’re tracking a murderer here, not a crime solver. But the murder itself isn’t really that important. It’s something that happened. Other things happen too. That’s the nature of things. Is he going to be caught? Does he want to be caught? Does he even know? You never really notice something until you do, like the play of a goalie in a soccer match. The title comes around as a nice little metaphor in the end.
Arthur Brauss (who looks like someone melded the faces of Daniel Craig and Henry Silva together) is Sphinx-like as Bloch. Is the name Bloch a reference to writer Robert Bloch most famous for the novel Psycho? There is a similar placidity to the respective lead characters here, though their motives for killing are different. I was most reminded of Patricia Highsmith’s Tom Ripley — a character Wim Wenders would tackle directly just a few years later with The American Friend. This feels like a bit of a thematic test run. Another literary comp that sprang to mind? Camus’ The Stranger for the lead’s general indifference to life’s events.
There’s a cool monotony here. Cool as in chilly, removed, not as in rad. It’s not mysterious (in a direct sense) or really thrilling. It's a film that almost goes out of it's way to NOT be interesting and manages to keep you interested. I LIKED that. It is still bouncing around my head for just how unconventional its conventions are.
Plus it beats Jeanne Dielman to the contemplative peeling of fruits and vegetables by three years!
Funny thing, I had exactly the same idea. Only I thought Brauss' face was a melding of Mads Mikkelsen and Jack Palance. I think both mine and yours work, oddly enough.
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Pranzo Oltranzista
Registered User
- Oct 18, 2017
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Haven't seen it in probably 25 years, but liked it enough back then to watch it a few times.
KallioWeHardlyKnewYe
Hey! We won!
- May 30, 2003
- 15,809
- 3,887
I've had Henry Silva stuck in my brain for some reason. But ... Craig and Palance ... I think that's the combo.
Jevo
Registered User
- Oct 3, 2010
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Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (1988) dir. Robert Zemeckis
In alternate reality Hollywood private detective Eddie Valiant is hired to get dirt on Jessica Rabbit, the wife of toon star Roger Rabbit, who's in a slump due to thinking about his wife too much. Valiant has a great dislike of toons, but takes the case because he's dead broke. He gets pictures of Jessica Rabbit playing patty-cake with Marvin Acme, the owner of Toontown. Not long after Marvin Acme is found dead with a piano dropped on his head. Everything points to Roger Rabbit as the culprit, and Judge Doom of Toontown is quick to send his veasels out to look for Roger. Valiant isn't so sure, and when Roger takes up hiding at Valiant's office, Valiant reluctantly sets aside his hate for toons to help Roger.
Who Framed Roger Rabbit is a great neo-noir comedy. It hits all the right marks for a noir with the deadbeat detective who the antagonist thinks they can swindle, the femme fatale, a great mystery and even a grand conspiracy. Bob Hoskins looks like he has walked straight out of The Maltese Falcon. But he's also loveable and charming enough for the comedy part of the movie. He's really perfect for the role, and plays it great. I was just waiting for someone to say 'forget it Eddie, it's Toontown'.
I think part of what makes the movie work well is that it's clearly been made with a lot of love for noir and classic american cartoons. It emphasises what makes these genres great and how they can play together in a way to enhance each other. It also isn't trying to push known popular characters, instead focusing on new characters while Looney Tunes and Disney characters are cameos. This leaves more room for crafting an interesting story, instead of being forced to work around known characters and their tropes. This is probably one reason why this movie works well, while something like Space Jam doesn't really. I don't know quite how, but in this movie I never really get tha uncanny valley feeling when Toons are interacting with humans and the real world, which is quite an accomplishment, because that hardly ever happens in this type of movie. The movie manages to give the Toons the feeling of having weight when they interact with the real world, and that makes them seem more real.
If you are a little bit nostalgic for noir and classic cartoons, then Who Framed Roger Rabbit? is a lot of fun, and even if you aren't it's still fun I reckon.
In alternate reality Hollywood private detective Eddie Valiant is hired to get dirt on Jessica Rabbit, the wife of toon star Roger Rabbit, who's in a slump due to thinking about his wife too much. Valiant has a great dislike of toons, but takes the case because he's dead broke. He gets pictures of Jessica Rabbit playing patty-cake with Marvin Acme, the owner of Toontown. Not long after Marvin Acme is found dead with a piano dropped on his head. Everything points to Roger Rabbit as the culprit, and Judge Doom of Toontown is quick to send his veasels out to look for Roger. Valiant isn't so sure, and when Roger takes up hiding at Valiant's office, Valiant reluctantly sets aside his hate for toons to help Roger.
Who Framed Roger Rabbit is a great neo-noir comedy. It hits all the right marks for a noir with the deadbeat detective who the antagonist thinks they can swindle, the femme fatale, a great mystery and even a grand conspiracy. Bob Hoskins looks like he has walked straight out of The Maltese Falcon. But he's also loveable and charming enough for the comedy part of the movie. He's really perfect for the role, and plays it great. I was just waiting for someone to say 'forget it Eddie, it's Toontown'.
I think part of what makes the movie work well is that it's clearly been made with a lot of love for noir and classic american cartoons. It emphasises what makes these genres great and how they can play together in a way to enhance each other. It also isn't trying to push known popular characters, instead focusing on new characters while Looney Tunes and Disney characters are cameos. This leaves more room for crafting an interesting story, instead of being forced to work around known characters and their tropes. This is probably one reason why this movie works well, while something like Space Jam doesn't really. I don't know quite how, but in this movie I never really get tha uncanny valley feeling when Toons are interacting with humans and the real world, which is quite an accomplishment, because that hardly ever happens in this type of movie. The movie manages to give the Toons the feeling of having weight when they interact with the real world, and that makes them seem more real.
If you are a little bit nostalgic for noir and classic cartoons, then Who Framed Roger Rabbit? is a lot of fun, and even if you aren't it's still fun I reckon.
Jevo
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- Oct 3, 2010
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I'm possibly starting Who Framed Roger Rabbit a bit early, but I'm leaving on holiday for three weeks on friday, so I thought I'd get my review in now. I'll catch up when I'm back home.
My next pick will be Rashomon.
My next pick will be Rashomon.
The Goalie’s Anxiety at the Penalty Kick / Die Angst des Tormanns beim Elfmeter (Wim Wenders, 1972)
Based on the title, I was very ready to blindly recommend this film to my friend who is a goalkeeper. Outstanding title for a soccer film. After the first scene, about a goalkeeper half paying attention to the play and letting in an unguarded goal that he claims is offside, resulting in a red card - hilarious, began texting "check this film out" to my friend. But then the film went on and quickly became nothing about soccer and rather about a man aimlessly drifting around, doing murder - out of boredom?, for the thrill of it?, just to feel something? - before wandering around aimlessly again for an hour of screentime. My friend already makes fun of me for recommending art house films to him, and this film certainly wouldn't improve my recommendation credentials to him.
To be clear though, I loved The Goalie’s Anxiety at the Penalty Kick. I love how it plays with the viewers expectations. I kept waiting for him to get caught or the mystery to be solved of why he did it, and the pay off never came or even really explored. Like its like Wenders is as disinterested in the murder as the protagonist. Rich existentialist themes to chew on, and despite the aimlessness, I was never bored and was deeply engaged.
I see a lot of comparisons to Chantal Akerman's Jeanne Dielman due to the rhythm of the film and the languidness (although I would argue this film is not nearly as slow), but another comparison that comes to mind for me is some of the early films of Aki Kaurismäki. Perhaps this is because I've been watching a lot of Kaurismäki's works recently, but his films and The Goalie’s Anxiety at the Penalty Kick (and I'd argue many of Wenders films) share a reverence for Americana. I see it in the soundtracks that are full of 1950/60s rock and roll music ( The Goalie’s Anxiety at the Penalty Kick famously wasn't available for three decades due to rights issues for the soundtrack featuring Elvis and the Rolling Stones), the costumes, the consumer products, The Goalie even describes how he loves America after going on tour there. I would also say that Wenders shares a lot of the black comedy of Kaurismäki, such as that opening scene.
Very cool film and one I haven't stopped thinking about since I watched it a few days ago, although not one I would recommend to my art house hating goalkeeping friend.
Based on the title, I was very ready to blindly recommend this film to my friend who is a goalkeeper. Outstanding title for a soccer film. After the first scene, about a goalkeeper half paying attention to the play and letting in an unguarded goal that he claims is offside, resulting in a red card - hilarious, began texting "check this film out" to my friend. But then the film went on and quickly became nothing about soccer and rather about a man aimlessly drifting around, doing murder - out of boredom?, for the thrill of it?, just to feel something? - before wandering around aimlessly again for an hour of screentime. My friend already makes fun of me for recommending art house films to him, and this film certainly wouldn't improve my recommendation credentials to him.
To be clear though, I loved The Goalie’s Anxiety at the Penalty Kick. I love how it plays with the viewers expectations. I kept waiting for him to get caught or the mystery to be solved of why he did it, and the pay off never came or even really explored. Like its like Wenders is as disinterested in the murder as the protagonist. Rich existentialist themes to chew on, and despite the aimlessness, I was never bored and was deeply engaged.
I see a lot of comparisons to Chantal Akerman's Jeanne Dielman due to the rhythm of the film and the languidness (although I would argue this film is not nearly as slow), but another comparison that comes to mind for me is some of the early films of Aki Kaurismäki. Perhaps this is because I've been watching a lot of Kaurismäki's works recently, but his films and The Goalie’s Anxiety at the Penalty Kick (and I'd argue many of Wenders films) share a reverence for Americana. I see it in the soundtracks that are full of 1950/60s rock and roll music ( The Goalie’s Anxiety at the Penalty Kick famously wasn't available for three decades due to rights issues for the soundtrack featuring Elvis and the Rolling Stones), the costumes, the consumer products, The Goalie even describes how he loves America after going on tour there. I would also say that Wenders shares a lot of the black comedy of Kaurismäki, such as that opening scene.
Very cool film and one I haven't stopped thinking about since I watched it a few days ago, although not one I would recommend to my art house hating goalkeeping friend.
Chili
Ramble On!
- Jun 10, 2004
- 8,888
- 5,103
Noticed that the first of the four Movie of the Week threads was archived, so checked out the Wayback Machine. Don't know if all pages are accessible but was able to read the first two, if it interests anyone:
Movies: The Official "Movie of the Week" Club Thread - HFBoards
Movies: The Official "Movie of the Week" Club Thread - HFBoards
Wow, Chili. Great discovery. I thought they were lost forever. It will be fun to go back in a time machine and read some of those reviews.
Chili
Ramble On!
- Jun 10, 2004
- 8,888
- 5,103
I was able to access pages 1 to 5 and page 7. Don't know if there are any others (checked 1 to 10). I hope there are others, there are a number of web captures of the site url from 2012 to 2018 but sadly that could be it. Which would be a shame because you folks reviewed a lot of great films in that first thread.Wow, Chili. Great discovery. I thought they were lost forever. It will be fun to go back in a time machine and read some of those reviews.
Edit: Found two more partial pages: 39 (only the first two posts) and page 40 (some good posts there)
Movies: The Official "Movie of the Week" Club Thread - Page 40 - HFBoards
. Page 40-The Official "Movie of the Week" Club Thread Entertainment
web.archive.org
I didn't check all pages, if anyone wants to see if there others available, there is a Wayback Machine box at the top of the page with the url hfboards.hockeysfuture.com/showthread.php?t=1110923&page=40, just need to change the page number from 40.
Edit 2: Most of page 14 is available
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