The 2020 H. P. L. Film Festival and Cthulicon is going to happen this year! It will be all-streaming this year because Brian and Gwen are very health conscious. I’ve been going for, oh geez, almost all 25 of them. It’s always wonderful and has taken the most progressive take I’ve ever seen on cosmic horror.
Currently live on Kickstarter.
I dunno if I can call it “good.” It was thought provoking in its flaws as much as its intention. It reminds me a bit of:
They are both movies that don’t really delve into the (very interesting) overall situation, the “world” the characters are in, and instead just focuses on the characters’ personal situations within those worlds. I am not sure that is bad, but it messes with people’s expectations enough to cause disappointment.
I liked them both enough not to care if they are “good” or not.
i thought tarkovsky’s solaris was much better than the one you point to and did a much better job of exploring the psychological ramifications of the phenomenon.
Yes, but the remake has George Clooney’s naked butt.
(Seriously, that’s how I sold a couple of my friends on going to see this movie.)
I like a lot about the remake actually.
If people like Solaris and, under the skin (creepy sci fi sex horror one by Malcolm Glazer with a Mica Levi score and starring Scarlett Johansson) I would like to recommend Clare Denis’ High Life with Robert Pattinson and la Binoche. Tindersticks score as usual for her.
I mean it does suffer from the beginning where he is bringing up a baby in space and both of those have kind of boring elements. But I loved all three.
Yeah, having already seen Tarkovsky’s and read the book, I didn’t find there was much for me in Soderbergh’s film.
Yes, but I think Tartovsky’s was about the phenomenon. It was more human than the book, but it was still deeply intent on exploring the philosophical environment of the phenomenon of Solaris itself. The psychological effects were, to me, symptoms of the phenomenon, not really exploring the characters themselves.
Kind of like Stalker, where we get some really interesting characters, but really it seems like they are devised to give different perspectives on the phenomenon, which is the star of the show.
The 2002 Solaris really wasn’t about the phenomenon at all. The phenomenon was motivation and complication in the personal story of the characters, like the emotionless society is in Equals.
Like I said, for those wanting to explore the very interesting phenomenon, it can be kind of a bummer. I just saw the 2002 Solaris as a different story entirely, and I enjoyed it a lot.
Butt aside, I will always love his performance in Burn After Reading. Brad Pitt, Frances McDormand, Clooney and J K Simmons were all perfect.
On a related note for the last film. The director was considered one of the most annoying comedians of the 1980’s
We’re watching this again – and with new ‘eyes’ – after a three year hiatus. Polish director Kieslowski’s 10-hour masterpiece. Ten stories. The films’ central conceit (themes based on the Ten Commandments) provides the skeleton onto which each story is hung, and does not seek to proselytize, but instead depict very human people under stress. The first story’s resonance had us (again) silently sitting through the Polish language end credits; that may tell you something.
I’ve been waiting decades for this next one to come out. A very Canadian film based on a true story. I’d wager that Richard Farnsworth fans will love it.
Watched the second film in the “Three Mother’s trilogy” by Dario Argento.
Just as gorgeous as Suspiria. The DVD was the most basic DVD I’ve ever seen. We put it in, and it just played the film. There was no disc menu at all.
What did you think of that Uncut Gems soundtrack?
Nice choices. The Grey Fox made it onto a commemorative Canadian stamp thanks to American Zoetrope.
Dekalog is a thing of beauty.
1 and 6 are my favourites if I remember correctly. Kieslowski changed the way people watched and respected TV writing.
Dekalog One still brings on great anxiety (and more) during the desperate search. Up to Dekalog Four now in our re-watch. I don’t immediately recall what’s in number 6, but we’ll get there!
I haven’t seen those, but I ‘know’ Inferno from its soundtrack… composed by my favorite prog keyboardist, the dear departed Keith Emerson. A bonus section on the soundtrack would have pulled me in.
Yeah, I noticed Emerson did the soundtrack! It was very good. Suspiria’s was composed by Goblin, and Simonetti also did the soundtrack for the last film:
Just checked out Goblin’s Suspira (live) on YT. Started out ‘cottagecore’/folksy that transitioned to synth-driven prog. It sounded very interesting, so I’ll now have to look into Goblin. (Friends and I listened to PFM – yet another Italian prog group – but I never ventured into Goblin; I’ll have to change that.) Mucho thanks!
Weird - I hadn’t thought about it very much, so I guess “unobtrusive”. But the pace (and the madness of Howie’s decision-making) kept escalating the tension almost unbearably, and that works only with right music.
That said, I just listened to parts of the soundtrack and was surprised I didn’t at least pick up the Aphex Twin track. So now I like it and it’ll go on my very late night ambient playlist.
