No Exit (1944)

Sartre's conception of hell: surprise, no red-hot pincers. More philosophically interesting and psychologically penetrating is a room with pleasant furnishing and two other likable people.

No Exit operates on a good premise and an obvious style, both of which clear some land for quality intellectual farming.
The genius with the wild eyes is not fully out to play-- his scary brainpower is restrained to a simple drama, a piece of theater stimulating and affecting. The Pillars of the Intellectual Earth are not upheaved, but Sartre contributes a play of buzzing energy and authentic worth. It's difficult to get out of one's mind.
I exit the experience (insofar as exiting is possible) wondering whether hell is the finite -- the imposing death -- or the infinite, the inescapable.
Of course, that suffering/chaos/wrongness is the rule for existence, the place to which all things return in time, is a mere proposition. I could claim as easily that in infinite time all things fall toward stability/harmony.
But I can comfortably assert that I don't want to be anywhere for infinity. Death as a release is probably among the greatest blessings the cold universe has ever given us.

Erik Satie

I'm quite intrigued by my first dip into the work of Erik Satie. He seems valuable for particular occasions... I am attracted to his refined French experimentalism--- do his short piano pieces not parallel wonderfully the films of the New Wave? I am interested in his musicality, and feel a physical interest in his sensual, sophisticated whimsy. I saw him frantic, pounding, lurching, wandering.... all with a distinct peculiarity, a distinct personality. I liked it; it cannot change me, cannot move me-- but I will learn for it.

A Ranking of My Favorite Stanley Kubrick Films

Having seen all of these in the last two years, and the essential ones recently, I feel I can now accurately rank the Stanley Kubrick films I've seen, in terms of my subjective favor.

1. 2001: A Space Odyssey

2. The Shining

3. Eyes Wide Shut

4. Dr. Strangelove

5. A Clockwork Orange

6. Full Metal Jacket

Actually, there has been much more inner conflict than expected. Do I really like this director? Can I even consider any but the 1st and the 4th good movies? Can FMJ really be that bad? I have a surprisingly weak hold on how I feel about Kubrick. I'd say, tentatively, that these are my quality-ratings of the films, chronologically:

Dr. Strangelove (1964): 3.5/4
2001 (1968): 4/4
A Clockwork Orange (1971): 2.5/4
The Shining (1980): 3.5/4
Full Metal Jacket (1987): 2/4
Eyes Wide Shut (1999): 2/4

Yet I call him a great filmmaker... I suppose for his artistry. Whether they're good films or not (and he has some definite ones) they have the element. I suppose I like the director a lot.

A Clockwork Orange

I'm not sure how good of a film this is. I generally enjoyed it. Ebert despises Kubrick for placing any shard of heroism on Alex, and for assuming that the audience will be pleased with the ending, the return to treachery. He wasn't. I was! Parts of this movie seem amazing; parts disgusting; and parts altogether weak, and boring, and without purpose. I'll call this a poor film but for its invention, namely visual style, musical element, and lingual brilliance by Burgess. I have read the book, and I do consider the language wonderful and fascinating. Kubrick's dealing of the first part of the movie is tremendous and innovative. The rest of it falls short, some of it tiring, most of it aimless. I didn't see much Kubrick in this film, unfortunately. There's the classical music and the grotesque and the pairing of the two, but I'd have taken pleasure in a stronger personal stamp from the great filmmaker.

My first experience of the film was magical. My second was gutwrenching and awful. My third - and here we are - was mildly amusing.

2/4, for the legend Kubrick's outfield project.

Well, Tracks Seems Like A Very Mediocre Movie!

Tracks seems like a very mediocre movie! 15 minutes in, and not even Wasikowska's bright and shining face can save this doomed biography!

(Biography has quickly become my most-despised genre; not because it produces the worst films, but because it is an inherent thwarting of some often -serious- filmmaking potential. Comparable is novel-adaptation and true-event-adaptation)

Quantum of Solace

FUCK everyone calling Quantum of Solace a crappy film! Can we really not differentiate expectations from experience? Imagine all of the endless flak these people have gotten, simply because this film has an older brother who excelled more.

I would threaten to call this a better Bond film than was Spectre, and probably Skyfall too. I don't need Oscar-winner-villains, not in the slightest; this film had pure government intelligence, action, a modest but effective villain--- this is real James Bond, not like the senseless one-upping of late. Skyfall and Spectre are on a substance-less and misguided mission to top everything that came before, and sacrifice a plain good film in the process. Quantum is a plain good Bond film, like Casino Royale, only the latter just had a greater villain, an awesome poker backdrop, etc etc....     The two share much, and, as I reflect more, I wonder why Casino Royale is the god and Quantum is the bastard child. I see them as two of the same sort, and it frustrates me that Quantum is so degraded. I love Casino Royale, love it to a distant end, but it is not an inherently better film than Quantum of Solace. It executes some classic Bond elements well, and has a better premise, but it was also the first in the series-- it had the whole world to work with. Quantum has to carry on the story and mood but with more limited material, and plus it has to traverse the awkward bridge to a new director... But it does it all well! It can't be better than its predecessor, but it's quite a valuable continuation of the former!

I thought that this movie gave a very solid experience. That last big scene, in the hotel in the desert... Absolutely tremendous!! If I'm not mistaken there's a moment when Bond accepts his coming death and decides to shoot his companion in the head! Are you kidding me?! This is after some spectacular fighting, some awesome environment destruction, which felt a whole lot less shallow than it does in most action films nowadays...

I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. I think it's probably more fulfilling than the two recent ones. It's obviously not perfect -- I didn't like how Bond had to have a fight scene in every possible mode of transportation, I didn't like the 2-second camera cuts, I didn't love the ending....  But I loved seeing classic old Bond.... And that's the core of this statement I'm trying to make, THIS is classic Bond, Skyfall and Spectre do not belong, but more importantly-- it is classic Bond which is most fulfilling to watch, and this film was more fulfilling to watch.

I loved the fighting, loved the intelligence, liked Olga a lot, loved seeing Bond young and rogue and clearly the best agent in the world. There's nothing more valuable.

Birdman

Birdman is, within my current realm of appreciation, easily one of the greatest films I have ever seen. A fourth viewing found me baffled, moment after moment after convention-shattering moment, as to how these writers possibly made this picture work, generating something so utterly perfect and beautiful. Every element is perfect, everything is cohesive, everything is meaningful, everything beautiful-- the greatest orchestration of a film I have ever seen.

Again, through my current critical eyes..... I think that this is the most perfect film I have ever seen.