Tagged by DBD, so here we go:
Total Number of Films I Own on DVD And Video:
A lot. The number of DVDs I have that are still in shrinkwrap is embarrassing.
The Last Film I Bought:
Henri-Georges Clouzot's Wages of Fear. My justification was that the Criterion edition just went out of print. (This wasn't as extravagant a transaction as the Poeta's purchase yesterday of that Kurosawa Criterion box set.)
Five Films Which I Watch a Lot / Mean a Lot to Me:
This is a hard one, because they're two separate categories, but the first one is easier to figure out:
- Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now
Regular readers of this blog would know that I write about the film often; it still can't let me go.
- Hayao Miyazaki's My Neighbor Totoro
Because it's one of Izzy's favorite films, I've seen it more times than I can count, but that's not the only reason it's on my list; I can't think of any other film that communicates childlike wonder, the realities of adulthood, and the connectedness of life on earth in such a simple, funny and spiritually transcendent fashion. In fact, I'd go out on a limb here and say that Tonari no Totoro is just about perfect.
- Nicolas Roeg's Don't Look Now
While I could write that it's a haunting meditation on loss and memory, blah blah blah, Roeg's film is a genuinely unsettling, brilliantly edited horror flick that just happens to star two great performers -- Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie -- and is ostensibly about a serial killer in Venice. (Only Peter Weir's Picnic at Hanging Rock comes close in terms of evoking similar feelings of dread.)
- Wong Kar-Wai's In the Mood for Love
At Angkor Wat they sell rubbings of the many intricate temple carvings for tourists. Wong's film functions in the same way: it's comprised of visual and aural traces and wisps of an affair, in one of the most palpably gorgeous and ethereal films I've ever seen. (The crumbling majesty of the temple complex figures prominently in a scene that almost makes me misty-eyed every time I watch it.) I set aside time to watch the movie once a year, and it's probably not enough.
- John Woo's The Killer
Blood and guns in slow-motion, a body count probably in the hundreds, and loyalty and death writ large in all its terrifying beauty -- what more do you want?
(Three) People I'm Passing the Baton to:
Three Bay Area cities: Fremont (enough of this Oaktown stuff), Albany, and Daly City.
ha! when have i ever denied my fremont-ness? well, there was that one time that lame asiaphile guy wanted to know where i was *from* cuz i was with a vietnamese man in an irish pub.
Posted by: poeta on July 31, 2005 08:29 PMJust finished "Wages of Fear" -- great flick, one of those I can't believe I've never seen before.
Of course, a quick check online shows that a completely remastered version is coming out in October. Grrr! That means I'll be selling it on eBay only to the spine completists in a few years...
Posted by: the wily filipino on July 31, 2005 11:20 PMDude, Wily, that was hard...there are now a pile of films on the cutting room floor. But it also made me start a list of DVDs to acquire--Wong Kar-Wai, here I come--and my next b-day will probably be a good time to ask for them. Hahahaha!
Posted by: Gladys on August 1, 2005 12:01 AMdone! but unannotated.
Posted by: poeta on August 1, 2005 09:39 AMJust borrowed a friend's copy of Totoro today!!! (Actually, it was my friend's four-year-old sister's copy, but she said OK!) I also borrowed Kiki and Castle in the Sky...I'm going to have a little Miyazaki fest in the next couple of days...
Posted by: Gladys on August 1, 2005 11:10 PM