October 7, 2015

The Last Ten Movies I Saw

By michaelgloversmith

1. Citizen Kane (Welles)
2. Daisies (Chytilova)
3. Far From Heaven (Haynes)
4. Spring Night, Summer Night (Anderson)
5. Goodnight Mommy (Fiala/Franz)
6. The Assassin (Hou)
7. Nahid (Panahandeh)
8. Women He’s Undressed (Armstrong)
9. L’atalante (Vigo)
10. The Rules of the Game (Renoir)

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About michaelgloversmith

Filmmaker, author and Film Studies instructor. View all posts by michaelgloversmith
This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 7th, 2015 at 1:38 pm and posted in The Last Ten Movies I Saw. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

4 responses to “The Last Ten Movies I Saw”

  • John Charet
    October 7th, 2015 at 6:21 pm

    Ah The Rules of the Game is simply a masterpiece 🙂 I single this one out because one can make comparisons between that and Robert Altman’s Gosford Park in terms of social commentary despite the fact that Park is not a remake of Game. On the side, I am so excited to see Crimson Peak and according to Jim, Maddie is in one of your classes 🙂 Tell her I said hello 🙂 Do you still see Yaseen this semester? Keep up the great work as always 🙂

    Reply
  • Mitchell
    October 8th, 2015 at 10:44 am

    Hi Michael,

    I am really interested in hearing you riff on ‘Daisies’. I watched it a few months ago and found it torture to sit through. It looked to me like a proto- ‘Celine and Julie’ but it wasn’t. Perhaps it was the forced whimsy that just became grating after a while. I understand the political content of the film, but man oh man, did I find it tedious.

    Would love to hear your take

    Reply
    • michaelgloversmith
      October 8th, 2015 at 8:01 pm

      I love DAISIES and showed it in a Global Cinema class where it went over very well. It’s definitely NOT a proto-CELINE AND JULIE so maybe you went in with the wrong set of expectations? For one thing, unlike Celine and Julie, the characters in DAISIES are not characters. They’re symbols. And of course there’s no story. Just a series of Dada-esque situations that are linked more by dreamlike logic than by narrative causality. As for “forced whimsy,” I agree about the “whimsy” but not the “forced!” I find the film is hilarious – a blast from beginning to end. It’s also consistently surprising – sometimes due to the content (what the girls are doing and saying) and sometimes do the form (color filters, crazy editing, etc.). But it’s definitely not for all tastes.

      Reply
      • Mitchell
        October 9th, 2015 at 2:12 pm

        A wonderful apology for the film. Definitely makes me inclined to watch it again. I am always so encouraged when you tell me that ‘challenging’ works like DAISIES go over well with your classes.

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