11:58pm: Metallic Attraction: Kungfu Cyborg
Messy film billed as a Chinese Transformers is a actually a messy Romance comedy action film about a cop showing a cyborg the world. The cyborg falls in love with a female cop and well...stuff happens. Its a mess. There are some great bits (some of the romance, the robots questioning their creators as we question god) but after 100 minutes I still don't know what I saw or why.Its not the Transformers despite several sequences of Transforming. Not worth the effort to review.
7:43pm: Great screen comedy in New York
Two programs worth seeing on the big screen between now and Christmas NYC
First up is a two week run of Jacques Tati's masterpiece M. Hulot's Holiday at Film Forum. Its where Hulot was born and the world of screen comedy changed.
Tati made 4 Hulot features and a short and changed the way people look at whats funny. Holiday is a series of sketches about the title. Its a sweet little film that is often hysterically funny. I saw it and I was doomed.
Next was My Uncle. its Hulot vs modern life. The film won the Oscar. I'm not a fan of it. I find it more clever than funny.
PlayTime followed almost ten years later. Its an odd film that must be seen multiple times to be appreciated. I was cold towards it but I find it funnier on each viewing. Hulot is almost a secondary character to everyone else in it. The trouble is the jokes are rarely in the foreground and you have to watch this as big as possible to see them. The film effective ruined Tati.
Some where in here was a short, which I haven't seen.
Lastly if Trafic (yes one f). I love this film.Its an amusing jest of a film as Hulot has to deal with getting a car to a car show. Many people hate the film because its atypical Tati and Hulot. I love the film because its the most human.
Anyway Holiday starts a two week run tomorrow.
Upcoming is a three day double feature at Lincoln Center of City Lights and Modern Times. Chaplin on the big screen is reason to rejoice, more so the choices. They run the 20th to the 23rd of December. I'm going to give hulot a shot. Its too early to know if I'll make the Chaplins.
6:00pm: John Woo's Red Cliff opens this weekend
Its in some theaters and on pay per view on cable.
PLEASE remember if you see this version its missing 2 hours and 10 minutes or so of running time. Half the movie is gone- and from what I understand its all the exposition.