That’s a lot of producers…

Oh, right! There was a section in the documentary Varda made about herself (I think) about his — Varda got a whole lot of money to do this movie (after the success of Jaquot de Nantes), and it features Marcello Mastroianni, Alain Delon, Anouk Aimée, Robert De Niro, Gérard Depardieu… and everybody else. And if I remember correctly, it absolutely bombed at the box office, and Varda never got financing to do a “real” movie ever again. I guess The Gleaners and I is the closest, and that’s a documentary of sorts…

I may be confabulating, though; my intelligence is very artificial. Let’s see…

Wow. Just a single review? And what did it say?

And it’s from a blog! How useless! Nobody reads blogs!

There were apparently real reviews, but nobody at Rottentomatoes have bothered to integrate them:

Variety’s Lisa Nesselson gave a mixed review: “Agnes Varda, who has been making movies for 40 of the 100 years that motion pictures have existed, has put everything she knows about filmmaking and much of what she loves about the cinema into A Hundred and One Nights [sic]. But despite a star-decked cast and manifest good intentions, Varda’s self-described ‘divertimento’ soars in only a few spots.”

OK, let’s watch this thing…

That’s Mastroianni…

I’m quite enjoying this so far — it’s very whimsical, but it’s centred: It’s all about movies.

So I’m wondering whether that’s how it was sold to the investors — as a cross between 8½ and Cinema Paradiso: Broadly sentimental and amusing about being really into movies.

All of a sudden everything turned really boring… Dunno why.

Oh my god! Varda brought Sandrine Bonnaire’s character from Sans toit ni loi back from the dead! *sniff* I’m kinda tearing up…

Le bonheur…

Heh. She’s doing a nuit americaine with an American actor… how appropriate…

It’s brimming with Easter eggs — tiny references to other movies. But sometimes it seems like Varda doesn’t trust the nerdy audience to get the references. Like, in one ten second scene, a guy in 50s clothes and his boy shows up and steals a bike. That’s a fun reference to the de Sica movie, right? But then it’s spoilt a few scenes later when the guy goes “Italian neorealism strikes again”.

And, yes, it bombed.

I really enjoyed this movie. It’s so playful and amusing, but is also affecting. It’s almost, almost a masterpiece — but some of the scenes (especially some of the scenes with the most famous people (de Niro, Delon, Depardieu)) fell flat. (OK, the Delon scene was amusing.)

So I’m going with:

Les cent et une nuits de Simon Cinéma. Agnès Varda. 1995. ⚄

The extras are fun, too.

I’ve never seen a movie by Winding Refn before (but I’ve seen his Mysterious Five adaptation now). I’m not at all sure why I bought this bluray — while his movies seem to look quite stylish and all, the hyperviolence of it all didn’t really seem my like cup of chamomile tea.

And, yes, this looks really stylish.

“It’s a sin”. The soundtrack is fun. And I’m enjoying this movie, but it’s like… it’s not as good as it thinks that it is? I may be totally misinterpreting it, and it’s all just a goofy goof, in which case: Mission accomplished. (But with extra violence.)

I suspect that Winding Refn didn’t quite have the budget to achieve the film he wanted, though. Let’s see…

Ouch. That’s a smaller budget than I guessed — I was thinking like $1M. In which case: Kudos; it looks more expensive than it is. And it raked in 10x the budget!

This guy is amazing.

It’s a compelling movie, but it does get bogged down in parts. It’s also kinda like somebody who only knows exploitation movies had seen one Godard movie and decided to make an art film? I wonder what the critics thought…

OK, pretty well-liked, but not universally so — I guess that’s what I expected.

I think… without an actor as committed as Tom Hardy was, there isn’t much of a movie here. I mean, I could see other actors in that part, but Hardy goes well beyond — and he manages to make this guy interesting without suggesting that he has any hidden depths? It’s an interesting performance.

But, like… I didn’t think it was totally successful, either.

Bronson. Nicolas Winding Refn. 2008. ⚃

Is this CGI?

It seems like the sun is directly outside these windows, no matter what angle the camera is shooting at? And it kinda looks fake, but then most films do these days, due to excessive colour grading…

Anyway, this is a Walter Hill movie? I guess I bought it because it features Sigourney Weaver, because she often picks fun movies to be in.

Hm. I thought this was somebody else? But who am I thinking of? Oh!

Walter Hill, Michael Mann… same same…

Walter Hill produced Alien and stuff. Hm…

Oh!

OK, then I guess I do remember who Walter Hill is.

Was this a really low budget movie?

Yeah, I guess. I mean, not super duper low, but…

Is that Sigourney with a beard? Everything here looks so fake…

Perhaps we’re supposed to notice the fake beard and it’s a plot thing?

I guess it isn’t Sigourney after all? But she’s accused of heinous human experiments, so perhaps this guy is an experiment? So far I’m liking this movie, even if everything looks so odd.

The oddest thing about this doctor is that she applies mascara to her patients.

Housekeeping!

Oh, it wasn’t Sigourney, it was Michelle Rodriguez! Plot twist!

Oops, spoilers.

As revenges go, it seems pretty elaborate — Sigourney (mad doctor) made a hitman into Michelle Rodriguez as revenge for killing her brother or something. It seems like a pretty large expenditure… and is that really an effective revenge, anyway?

Hey! Is this like a send-up of a thriller? That makes more sense…

Yeah… they’re just having fun with clichés and an absurd plot? And it is indeed pretty entertaining.

It’s an odd movie. Sigourney Weaver has a tendency to pop up in these movies, but I wonder how this movie came to be. It’s a low budget oddball movie, and even from the script it must be obvious that it wouldn’t have much of a general appeal.

And indeed, few people liked this movie:

“The Assignment” is an embarrassment all around, a murky, regrettable piece of gutter cinema. Next year’s Razzie Awards race starts here.

But no — it’s to odd to land on the Razzie Awards, too.

I liked it! I thought it was interesting, and both Rodriguez and Weaver are great here. It needed a higher budget, because that awful fake beard (and other er fake bits) gave away the gag straight away. But I like that somebody would put in this much work on a doomed film.

The Assignment. Walter Hill. 2016. ⚃