Taipei Story

Nice deck!

Anyway, I’ve seen several (two? three?) of Yang’s movies the last year, and I’m rather unimpressed. But this one seems less bad. So far.

I don’t really know what this movie is going to be about yet, and I like that. It’s got a somewhat Rohmeresque thing going on…

It’s the album all the DJs are playing — the D. J. Dance Music album.

Anyway, Yang is a respected director (or rather, he was), but I just don’t quite get it. He was extremely influenced by various European arthouse directors, but to my eye, his movies seem like failed pastiches, really. They’re more about making a movie than having something to make a movie about.

I.e., the opposite of, say, Bergman.

So I wonder where the Yang cult is coming from — there’s so many interesting directors, and Yang’s movies are just so… just… there.

That’s the harshest review of this movie on Rotten Tomatoes.

Not Duran Duran Duran?

Dance party!

This is definitely the best of the Yang movies I’ve seen. It’s still not… all that great.

Taipei Story. Edward Yang. 1985. ⚃

Time Bandits

This is a Criterion 4K release — and I didn’t quite expect that to happen. I mean, I saw this movie on VHS back in the 80s, and I remember thinking it was kinda lame? But I remember no details beyond that.

Heh heh, such social satire.

Oh yeah, parody game shows were big back then… before all those parodies became actual game shows.

Whoa. Or rather, I can see how they wanted that to be a “whoa” scene, but it wasn’t quite…

Into the custard!

Whoa.

It’s Napoleon, see?

Gilliam goes for “zany” mixed with “satire” a lot, and neither actually translate to “funny”… But it’s amusing for sure.

Oh, I thought this was a flop? But nope — it was a box office success. I’m probably getting it mixed up with the Munchhausen thing…

See? Zany. But pretty amusing.

Are all the Monty Pythonses gonna make cameos in this?

There’s so many shots like this — where the framing is really uncomfortable, as if the cinematographer has been given no choice but to film like this, possibly because of issues with constructing the sets? So many shots have this cramped, amateurish quality about them — you could just sort of imagine one of the American post-Spielberg directors doing this movie? Like Joe Dante. And it’d be one of “those 80s movies” instead of being this odd thing…

Yes, it’s Sean Connery for a couple of scenes.

These two are the best characters in the movie.

I can totally see somebody having this as their favourite movie ever. It’s just overflowing with oddball ideas and weird settings. And there are some pretty good jokes in here, too. But to me it didn’t quite work? All the famous people cameos, the squishy sets, the off-kilter cinematography… It just left me being bored a lot.

Time Bandits. Terry Gilliam. 1981. ⚃

Hudutların Kanunu

Yeah, I can see what they mean… difficult restoration. But you’d think they could do something better with AI restoration now (although with an increased likelihood that random faces are replaced with Nick Cage).

Aaah! Now those pants make sense.

Odd hairdo… is that a little wig on the back of her head there?

I have to admit that I’m not quite sure what’s going on here. There’s possibly a dozen different characters, but I’m not quite sure? And there’s a lot of shouting and drama, but I have no idea what it’s all about…?

It’s something to do with herding some sheep across a mountain…?

Very small tables?

I HAVE NO IDEA

The casting director goes for a certain type, I guess.

But I think I’m starting to understand what it’s all about… Smugglers who are being encouraged to take up farming and stuff.

This movie is well-made on a shot to shot basis — we get one striking shot after another. It’s just hard to try to keep paying attention — the characters are so under developed, and things seem to happen with little motivation.