Have to admit, I thought that too when I saw it. I’d quite like another crack at it though anyway, at some point.
Alphaville has a very fascinating start but it eventually flattens to basic Godard stuff: talky, boring and pointless.
Had this in my watchlist for months. Yeah think I’ll remove it now.
One-Armed Swordsman (Chang Cheh / 1967)
The wife has started going to a choir on Tuesday nights so this will now be my Tuesday film night where I watch all the films I have piled up that she has no interest in seeing. This will mostly be a father/daughter thing until my youngest goes back to university in September so we kicked it off with some chop sockey action and a Shaw Brothers classic. Chang made some better films as the years went on but this one is still a Hong Kong classic and we both thoroughly enjoyed it.
Life lesson learned from this film: Never trust a woman. She’ll most likely lop your arm off when you’re least expecting it.
Haven’t seen the original but the remake Dao from 90’s was insanely stunning.
Excellent film.
I agree, start is not bad, about ten fifteen minutes.
One more thing about Alphaville: the voice of the supercomputer. Absolutely ridiculous and annoying to listen to. In combination with repetitive obnoxious soundtrack this movie is pretty anti-audience.
Funny enought the soudtrack of Alphaville is from Paul Miraski, better know for his jazzistic Swinging scores, but in Alphaville there are some nice tracks like Valse Triste (sad valse)
Alphaville isn’t the most annoying work of Godard, I once had to endure Prénome Carmen in the big screen till the end.
Saying this I always liked his films with Belmondo, my favourite work still Une femme est une femme.
To understand in full or at least try to, Godard’s cinema I think the best film to watch is Tout va bien, the problem with Godard is that this can be said of any of his films
Videodrome (Cronenberg, 1983)
Couldn’t remember if I finished it many years ago, although an indistinct feeling of boredom interconnected with this movie suggested that I gave up half through. So I had to try again. Funny enough, the indistinct feeling was right. One of the most tedious Crony’s movies I’ve seen. But for some great visuals and interesting ideas I give it 3/5. It is certainly better than Alphaville, but definitely not one of the best sf movies.
- Hilbard: Der må være en sengekant! 7/10
- Stiller: Gösta Berlings saga 8/10
- de Toth: Ramrod 5/10
- Ôbayashi: Hausu 7/10
- Colizzi: God Forgives… I Don’t 8/10
- Metzger: The Private Afternoons of Pamela Mann 6/10
- de Toth: Day of the Outlaw 9/10
- LaVoo: A Dog Year 6/10
- Cocteau: Orfeus 6/10
- Martino: All the Colors of the Dark 7/10
I like Videodrome. I find most of Cronenberg’s work overrated, not because it isn’t enjoyable, but simply because people take it too seriously. Even Cronenberg himself seems to take it too seriously in interviews, trying to make it seem more intelligent than it really is. Videodrome, however, is pretty original with a good story and special effects. It looks like a masterpiece next to Scanners, which is far more corny and honestly feels like a student film with a budget. However, I do prefer it to garbage like Crash.
never saw this corny Crony, elusive movie
this is quite famous movie, but plot didn’t interest me so I never made the effort
Also, not sure why they made such a fuzz about History of Violence, seemed to me pretty average. Eastern Promises bit better.
Anyway, The Fly and Naked Lunch seemed most interesting to me, but haven’t seen them in a while…
Never understood the praise either. People just seem to mainly talk about his ‘body horror’.
Poor Cronenberg
Naked lunch is not a bad movie taking in account how difficult it must have been the adaptation to cinema.
The Dead Zone is a great film one of my favourite’s from DC
It seems Scanners was a difficult film to make, but as far as I remember it wasn’t so bad with some sort of social comentary in it, not bad for an “art student” film.
Videodromme was great, and for Crash I’ve yet to confirm if it stood the test of time.
Cronenberg films are unique in a way or another with a distintive cold toutch
Forgot about that one, yes, pretty good and also one of best King’s adaptations.
I went to check out that Grindhouse cinema Top 20 via a thread which showed up here few days ago. Haven’t seen almost anything of this list, Master of the Guillotine caught my eye. I found then a watchable copy on you tube and with the help of fastforward I watched it. Good soundtrack. I think my grindhouse cinema tour is over.
Rolling Thunder is a must watch!
Same thing can be said about most Godard movies. I still like A’ Bout de Souffle, at least to some extent, and can still watch Le Mépris, but most of his work is boring stuff. Pretentious and often empty-headed
But is it really pretentious? It seemed to me kind of genuine. Boring as hell, but genuine. On the other hand, this is only Godard’s movie I’ve seen.