in which the whole thing collapses

Went to the SAM film series to see How to Steal a Million, an utterly harmless caper film, starring Audrey Hepburn and Peter O'Toole. Lovely set design by Alexander Trauner.
final shot: the protagonists drive offscreen, accompanied by a crane shot.
Spent five days babysitting my Fake Niece and Fake Nephew. Among our entertainments were a Three Stooges program at the Grand Illusion: three in a row are about enough for me, and 8 was too many for my Fake Niece, but there was enough hilarity to make it worthwhile. One other kid there, and she and her dad left midway through the 2nd short: they were expecting Shemp, maybe? (Who was actually featured several shorts later, to the puzzlement of my Fake Relatives.) Otherwise, the audience, as usual, consisted of several single men sitting by themselves, and apparently content to let us do all the laffing. The kids did not show an increased tendency to poke one another in the eyes afterwards.
Also went to NWFF to see Bazi (translated as "The Play" although I think simply "Play" would be more accurate). The Fake Nephew was enthralled; the Fake Niece was slightly more concerned with her lack of popcorn. We sat way in the back so that I could read the subtitles to the Fake Niece, but a man sat one row in front of us and was treated to my interpretive performance. There was an astonishing shot of a game of catch played over a wall, shot from directly above. My Fake Nephew let out a gasp, as he is really into point-of-view. Great performance from an enchanting little girl.
Final shot: close-up of protagonist.
We also indulged in many episodes of wartime Looney Tunes (a budget DVD that also contains a Tex Avery Hollywood star parody, for which I had to explain virtually every gag--who knew Garbo was famous for having big feet?), Season 2 of Gilligan's Island, and some absolutely dreadful King Features' Popeye cartoons, which I finally allowed to be played only when I was making dinner or taking a bath--I'd brought them some Max Fleischer Popeyes some months back, which were a huge hit, and their mother bought them a 3-disc set of these things, thinking they were All the Same.
Also saw Lemming at the Varsity...and here I left off writing on the 9th of August, and can no longer remember what I was going to say. I liked Lemming. Wish I remembered what I was going to say about it....This is exactly why I'm supposed to be doing this thing, so I don't let these movies vanish in the recesses of my brain. And the final shot thing--it's like the punch line of a joke. If I have that, then I can work backward and recreate the whole thing (or reimagine it better); without it, the whole thing disappears. I'll try to get this going again soon.

in which I read about a dictionary

Saw an advance screening of The Descent last night. Very efficient. No CGI. Went with The Consultant, who was also a fan of the director's previous movie, Dog Soldiers. I'm not so much, because when you put boys in uniform, I can't really tell them apart, especially as this director doesn't invest a whole lot in characterization. With the All Girl cast of The Descent, I could at least tell who was getting eaten at any given time, but I couldn't tell you much about any of them. But the movie has a palpable sense of panic to it, and, little as you know about most of the character's lives, you know a great deal about how they are feeling from moment to moment. The tenuousness nature of trust is examined from every angle. Great, inevitable penultimate scene. Scary monsters, treated as dangerous animals and not as supernatural killing machines--the movie even takes a moment to show them as capable of feeling emotional pain. The movie creates rules for them, and then sticks with those rules. It's in the Straw Dogs genre: the protagonist finds untapped depths of savagery within herself, and comes to embrace her animal nature, only to get a comeuppance at dawn. The set-up is great, and entirely unexpected. The ending is effective, and not as cliched as it seems at first glance: she's actually replaced one set of ghosts with another. So far, this guy's two movies are much more impressive than Peter Jackson's early films (although I wish he had more of a sense of humor)--I hope he goes on to great things, and continues to lay off (as Jackson didn't) the CGI.
Final shot: close-up of eyes.

Read Defining the World : the Extraordinary Story of Dr. Johnson's Dictionary, by Henry Hitchings. Very entertaining. It's curious that Hitchings is impressed with how Johnson, in his Lives of the English Poets, insists on not reading biographical elements into his analysis of the poetry, keeping the poems and the lives strictly separate; Hitchings' whole method is to read biographical elements into the Dictionary! It's a successful strategy and he does it convincingly, almost creating a narrative out of a non-narrative work. It's full of anecdotes about Johnson and about language, both fascinating to me. Favorite quotes (only tangenitally related to the Dictionary, but clearly too tempting for Hitchings not to include): when faced with a fancy violin solo, Johnson says, "Difficult, do you call it? I wish it were impossible." And, about my least favorite vegetable: "A cucumber should be well sliced, and dressed with pepper and vinegar, and then thrown out, as good for nothing."

Also finished a volume of Kitchen Sink Press' Li'l Abner series. I wish I had 'em all, but I've only got random volumes of the 27 or so that they got around to publishing. This volume detailed Abner's exploits as a radio Superman, and various near escapes from various femme fatales. As usual. I love this stuff.

in which I can't stop complaining about Tim Roth

Saw Mongolian Ping Pong at the Varsity. Two other people in the audience. (In yesterday's catching-up post, I neglected to mention that there were only three other people at the Wassup Rockers screening, all women, which is very rare; and only four other people at the Shipwrecked screening, all men, which is not rare.) This was a much better film than I'd anticipated, as too many reviewers had felt the need to compare it with The Gods Must Be Crazy, so I'd expected a slightly condescending tone. Instead, it's respectful and stunningly beautiful. It has a languid pace, with many scenes in long shot with figures lost in a landscape, or multiple actions occuring across the screen. Many scenes are sharply truncated, with the expected resolution of the scene being recounted in the following scene--a wonderful way to keep a viewer focused. I love the three younger boys who periodically appear, carefully watching the three older boys (in admiration? with disdain? They don't give up their secrets). I loved the carnival scene where the boys attack the master of the Game of Chance for not allowing them to claim their prize, and the futile attempt to have him arrested. And there's a single shot of the central character and his grandmother, in a vivid red jacket, walking back to their yurt as a storm approaches--one of the greatest compositions I've seen all year. I'm very sad no one is going to this movie, because I can't think of anyone who wouldn't love it.
Final shot: close-up, epiphany, and an especially impressive one.

At home I watched the documentary Alan Clarke, Director, included in the DVD box set. Brief, and it whet my appetite for more of his work. I'd forgotten that Rita, Sue, and Bob, Too was his. That was great, as I remember. I'm afraid that all the stuff they could reasonably expect Americans to buy is in this box, which is too bad, as I'd love to see Penda's Fen, Psy-Warriors, Contact, Billy the Kid and the Green Baize Vampire, his theatrical adaptations Danton's Death and Baal (starring Bowie--I hadn't known that was Clarke's! I have the soundtrack), and most especially Christine, which I think is the only thing he wrote himself. The latter sounds like it could be as great as Elephant--it's just about the simple drudgery of a junkie's life, without the downward spiral motif so common to these things, particularly made-for-tv work. This documentary had far too little about how he worked--it spent more time on recounting scenes from the movies, and providing testimonials. Maybe there's more on the commentary tracks, but I don't feel like listening to them. Lots of people talking about how great Tim Roth is in Made in Britain. I just don't buy it. I don't see the intelligence in this skinhead they all keep talking about; or, I do see intelligence, but I see the intelligence of a bright young actor playing the role of his short, sheltered lifetime. It has none of the complexity of Ray Winstone in the two Scums or dear Gary in The Firm. Or even the much dimmer Russell Crowe in Romper Stomper. It's simply acting school stuff, and it sounds like Clarke is largely to blame--I think he was more focused on experimenting with the Steadicam than keeping the boy on track. That said, anyone who finds the young, bare-chested Tim Roth extremely hot will probably not understand what my problem is.