|
|
Posted by GPR79 on 09/13/05 17:09
- Payment via bank transfer preferred, then cheque, cash, PO.
FS: Today's Specials - Loin (André Téchiné) £13, Alfie (2004) £5 &
Confidence £6
**Buy Loin and one of the others take £2 OFF, buy all 3 take £3 OFF!**
Loin (André Téchiné) R2 France
Cover: http://www.boomspeed.com/gpr79/loin.jpg
"Andre Techine is among the most fascinating figures of the post-New
Wave generation of French filmmakers. Like his seminal predecessors,
Techine began as a critic at Cahiers du Cinema, and his work has often
explored moviemaking as a means of executing the theoretical concepts of
his writing. His best films ("The Wild Reeds," "Thieves") have a poetic
beauty and a novelistic construction with shifting points of view and
fractured time, suggesting the influence of William Faulkner.
His new feature, "Loin," shot on digital video, has an extraordinarily
vibrant and voluptuous physical texture, it is a solid, moving piece
that traffics in the director's trademark themes: family relations,
irreconcilable sexual entanglements, the allure of criminal activity.
The film is told in three "movements"; set over three days in Tangiers,
the sections marked by chapters. The typically romantic, stylized
setting has been stripped down to its purest form, a squalid,
nightmarish milieu of drug dealers, black market operatives, travelers
and expatriates. Like "Wild Reeds, " the essential story is a triangle,
though the sexual and personal dynamics have been altered. Serge
(Stephane Rideau) is a truck driver who imports cloth to Morocco and
delivers high priced, stylish luxury clothes to France. The movie opens
with his return to Tangiers, where he succumbs to the seductive criminal
subculture, dangerously agreeing to smuggle hashish out of the port
city.
Serge's return ignites his smoldering, complicated relationship with
Sarah (Lubna Azabal), a beautiful, independent young woman mourning her
recently dead mother who operates a small hotel. Her successful brother,
a Canadian emigre, has dispatched his wife (the playwright Yasmina Reza)
to help her close the hotel and resettle in Canada. Sarah agonzies over
the decision because of her inchoate, irrational attraction to Serge.
The third dominant character is Said (Mohamed Hamaidi), Serge's
companion and a worker at the hotel. A former street performer, Said
desperately seeks to escape his restricted background and avidly longs
for the possibility and intrigue of life beyond Africa. The closing of
the hotel only intensifies his need to begin anew.
With "Loin," Techine tactfully renders the confusion and desperation
occasioned by these personal dilemmas into a larger canvas of cultural
dislocation, identity and friendship. He makes explicit that personal
destiny, freedom and happiness are a function of choices made and
ignored. In moving between the stories of his three principle actors,
Techine and his collaborators, writers Fraouzi Bensaidi, Michel
Alexandre and Mehdi Ben Attia, establish both an emotional immediacy and
painful confusion that shrewdly captures the intensity of feeling
between them.
Techine gives the movie a fantastic conclusion, a quiet, devastating
image of release and exultation--mixed with uncommon sadness. "
Excellent anamorphic transfer, French language with optional English
subtitles.
&
Alfie (2004) R2
Cover: http://www.boomspeed.com/gpr79/alfie.jpg
"Jude Law's Alfie, much like Michael Caine's in the 1966 original, is
what you'd call an unrepentant womanizer. He beds 'em but never weds
'em, and New York provides ample opportunity to continue the
process--until reality slaps him in the face. Because Jude Law is, well,
Jude Law, you can see why he gets away with it as long as he does, and
the actor also pulls off the usually awkward trick of narrating directly
to the camera. The film, meanwhile, is a bit soft around the edges; the
whole thing would have more resonance if it wasn't quite so intent on
watching the unrepentant repent. Regardless, it's a surprisingly
thoughtful diversion, and there's fine work from Marisa Tomei, Nia Long,
and Susan Sarandon as the women who understandably make Alfie reconsider
his ways."
&
Confidence R2
Cover: http://www.boomspeed.com/gpr79/confidence.jpg
"Bathed in self-conscious cool, Confidence is a heist caper in which the
heist is unimportant. As you might expect from Glengarry Glen Ross
director James Foley, this pulpy concoction is more interested in giving
good actors a lot of hip, salty dialogue as they scheme their way to the
royal scam. It's a poor man's Ocean's Eleven, just as enjoyable in its
own way, beginning when con artist Jake (Edward Burns) discovers he's
accidentally stolen from an eccentric crime boss (Dustin Hoffman, oozing
threat in a fine character turn). Promising to make amends by pulling
the biggest con of his career, Jake adds a feisty pickpocket (Rachel
Weisz) to his crew, which includes scene-stealer Paul Giammatti and Andy
Garcia as a dishevelled FBI agent (or is he?). With a cast like this you
can't go wrong! "
Special Features:
Anamorphic, 5.1, etc
Directors Commentary
Writer Commentary
Cast Commentary
Interviews With Dustin Hoffman Andy Garcia Ed Burns Rachel Weisz And
Director James Foley
Deleted Scenes
Anatomy Of A Scene By The Sundance Channel
--
Posted via Mailgate.ORG Server - http://www.Mailgate.ORG
Navigation:
[Reply to this message]
|