Offical TL:DVD club selection and procedures

[IronDragon1]

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I started this last night but fell asleep less than an hour in. Plan to finish it tonight.

edit: Iron, think we could go ahead and get the vote rolling for the next one?

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I-or better yet Excel- will make the selection tomorrow.

I haven't gotten around to "La Dolce Vita" myself b/c I've been going through a lot of rough [censored] but should have it done by the end of the weekend.

[FortunaMaximus]

A bit late on the go, but I'll be, ahem, obtaining it within the next 24 hours. Will be watching it shortly afterwards.

[KOTLP]

Well La Dolce Vita was my first Fellini film, and it pretty much floored me. A bit exhausting, I need to time to digest and cogitate now. Diebitter, I think your general analysis is spot on, but feel there is a lot more depth here and it will take multiple viewings to fully appreciate this one. Will write more later.

[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] Frankie Stout

[diebitter]

Wondered what other DVDs people have watched lately? Im doing a lot of travelling by train lately, and have a trusty portable videoplayer to fill in the 3 hours of commuting...

so this week, it's been so far:

- Firefly (opening episode): Pretty darn good - sort of a space western/frontiersman sci-fi series. Nice setup, nice dialogue (a little cheesy here and there, but that suits me just fine), nice cast, nice premise, nice universe. Looking forward to seeing the rest of the series, and then the follow-up movie 'Serenity'.

- 'The Night Stalker' - Investigator Carl Kolchak investigating an apparent vampire in Vegas. It's an early 1970's TV movie, and probably one of the best TV movies ever made. Darren McGavin (looking like Tommy Lee Jones after ironing) is fabulous as the confident, smartalec, idiosyncratic reporter telling everyone their jobs and setting out what he thinks is going on with no regard to how people think of him.

- 'The Night Strangler - Kolchak again in a follow-up and slightly inferior TV movie to the first, this time investigating a possibly 'dead' strangler in Seattle. I thought I remembered this movie, but it was a shock to see the guy that become OScar Goldman in the Six Million Dollar Man as the bad guy. Worth a look if you liked the first one.


I have the Kolchak TV series to follow up after these two, BTW...


- The Descent - Very effective little horror from the director of one of my recent favourites 'Dog Soldiers'. It concerns a group of feisty young ladies who go caving in the Appalachians, and realise they are in a new system, and are lost in it. If that isn't bad enough, there's some very, very bad things down there with them, and the things have teeth... Gory, full on horror here. Recommended. (I might give this a full review very soon actually).

- Streets of Fire ('A Rock N Roll Fable') - sort of a fun 1980's film, made by Walter Hill (the director of the great 'The Warriors' and 'Southern Comfort'). It's sort of cool, like the 1950's filtered through the 80s, with bikers, Jim Steinman songs, Ry Cooder licks, and suchlike, but ultimately a bit of fluff. Good fight at the end between the head of the bikers (Willem Defoe) and our hero, where they start with jackhammers and end up with fists. The dialogue is deliberately stilted an cheesy, so be aware of that.

- Vamp - a very, very nice little 1980s horrorCom about college kids trying to get a stripper for a frat initiation, and ending up finding the strip club is a home for a vampre queen (fantastic casting of Grace Jones there). Liked this a lot, and the leads are young, energetic and very likeable characters. Lots of little touches here and there make this a much better movie than a casual glance would show. Oh, and Michelle Pfeiffer's little sister is hot. Recommended.

(would make a good double bill with Fright Night for lovers of that certain 1980's horror-comedy thing)

[katyseagull]

Finally got my copy of this. I'm going to try to watch it tonight. (although diebitter's review that it was vacuous and empty is not exciting me a lot right now)

[diebitter]

The film isn't vacuous and empty, what is shows is. But I think you meant that anyway. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[SL__72]

Well, if this is going to be the discussion thread, here are my thoughts.

First, I've been wanting to see this movie for a really long time. I'd never seen any Fellini's films and for some reason this one appealed to me more then 8 1/2, which I will probably now see soon.


I really liked this film.

RE: Diebitter's review

I thought it was a lot more then a bunch of disconnected episodes showing people with empty lives. These episodes showed a glimpse into Marcello's life as he searched for meaning in his work and in his life. He wants to be a serious writer, but is just floating through life writing meaningless journalism about people with empty lives. The difference between him and them, at least at the beginning, is that he is looking in on this lifestyle from the outside, his participation in it seems like the exception. At this point, he still has ambitions of living a more meaningful life.

The scene where Steiner has just killed himself seems to be the deciding point for him. He sees that his friend who is a serious writer was so afraid of the world that he killed himself and his children and basically gives up on his search for meaning.

In the final scene he has now become part of the society that before, he had been observing from the outside. When he sees Paola in that final scene, he is separated from her and can't hear what she is trying to tell him. She is young, innocent and full of life and he has become as empty as the people he once wrote about and loathes himself for it. He is completely lost and there isn't any hope or even desire in him now to live a meaningful, "moral" life.

There were a couple of things that I didn't really "get."

The second scene with Maddalena (and then the ghost hunt?) didn't make a whole lot of sense for me.

And there are two things I think I'm missing about the final scene. First, what did the dead (stingray?) represent? It had to be more then just a reason for them to go to the beach.

Second, are we supposed to take something specific from the final shot of Paola staring directly into the camera? Or is he just trying to show the beauty of innocence? The difference between her and Marcello?

[KOTLP]

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First, what did the dead (stingray?) represent? It had to be more then just a reason for them to go to the beach.

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I'll give this one a shot. Throughout the film, Fellini paints a distorted view of christianity - the Jesus statue being flown in during the opening sequence (with one helicopter stopping to flirt with girls), the false miracle, etc. The fish is, of course, a major symbol of christianity. Note that each episode starts in the evening and resolves itself at dawn. After a night of orgiastic partying, it's only fitting to end the movie with Marcello and the sweet lifers casually staring at a big, ugly, dead fish.

[diebitter]

I read it more like those seeking something better - and in a Christian society, finding Jesus would fit that bill - take on the attributes of what they seek; they are capable of being the fisher of men, like Jesus is said to be.

But these corrupt people - all they can fish for successfully are monsters - as they themselves are monstrous.

[KOTLP]

hmm, interesting. I didn't find them monstrous, just vacuous and confused.

Was just reading Ebert's re-review, and found this bit interesting:

"The famous opening scene, as a statue of Christ is carried above Rome by a helicopter, is matched with the close, in which fisherman on the beach find a sea monster in their nets. Two Christ symbols: the statue "beautiful'' but false, the fish "ugly'' but real. During both scenes there are failures of communication. The helicopter circles as Marcello tries to get the phone numbers of three sunbathing beauties. At the end, across a beach, he sees the shy girl he met one day when he went to the country in search of peace to write his novel. She makes typing motions to remind him, but he does not remember, shrugs, and turns away."

Not only is the symbol of Christ more "real" in the ending scene, the girl Marcello fails to communicate with is too. Marcello begins as a man idolizing false gods, with his perceived sweet life just out of reach. In the end, he's living that life, but no closer to happiness, and a genuine sweet life is further out of reach.