[Shadow community thread, you may bring your snack ]

Heads up gentleman, the criterion collection is having a 50% off flash sale on their films. Could be a good opportunity to pick up a film you might want to share. Code: flashy



wurm said:

(even better if it's french since i need to practice)

Click to expand...

almost uploaded Série Noire but went with the other instead, next round I guess

Ok let's do this


I uploaded the best copy available but the quality is not optimal (dvd is a laserdisc transfer or some ****), bear with me.

Sound might be slightly out of sync, nothing VLC can't fix (shortcuts J and K keys).








Little Odessa
James Gray
1994


I've been meaning to watch this one for a while, I figured one stone two birds all that...





Context (quick and dirty)

James Gray occupies an interesting place in today's American cinema. Through his first three films (Little Odessa, The Yards and We Own the Night) he has developed a brand of (crime) filmmaking that's been alternatively referred to as European and classical (= classic Hollywood films), a rare occurrence in a landscape largely redefined by the genre-mixing, irony-laden, nonlinear narratives of Pulp Fiction (released a couple months before Little Odessa). In many ways, Gray is the antithesis of Tarantino. His films are restrained, full of contained tension, long takes...
More than classical, Gray's filmmaking continues the 'post-classical/New Hollywood' realism tradition of directors like Coppola, Scorsese, Lumet, Kubrick, Cimino...
Besides those inspirations, Gray draws heavily from literary (Dostoyevsky, Shakespeare) and theatrical (greek tragedies but also operas) influences to give a solemn and fatalistic atmosphere to his films.

“This is an operatic conception to some degree,” says Gray, “but it’s almost like the characters themselves are not truly in control of their own fates. It is, to my own taste, an elegant and sophisticated way to approach a movie, but not to everybody’s. It’s very frustrating to watch characters who are hostage to a larger system, a larger world order.

I think I’m a very American director, but I probably should have been making movies somewhere around 1976. I never left the mainstream of American movies, the American mainstream left me. Really what I’m doing is an attempt to continue the best work of the people I adore, Francis Coppola and Scorsese and Robert Altman and Stanley Kubrick and those amazing directors whose work I grew up with and loved. Because really American film was that! An American commitment to narrative with an interest in the creation of atmosphere that came probably from Japan or Asian cinema, with a commitment to thematic depth that comes from Europe... We lost that.



sipang said:

almost uploaded Série Noire but went with the other instead, next round I guess

Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure I have it on DVD somewhere, I need to check if my le choix des armes dvd has english subs, that'd be a pretty funny choice...

I like James Grey, good choice.

[I reserve this space for future edits]

4.4kb a sec!

[I reserve this space for future edits]

Don't think Dropbox shows the file until it is done syncing.

Should hopefully be able to watch the movie tomorrow evening . In the middle of a budget meeting this week. When do we start discussing on here?

Well as soon as you've watched it you can post your thoughts, praise/lambast me for my choice etc.

So excited! Should we do minimum 3-4 days after it was posted? I dunno.

edit: oh yeah lol forgot we have spoiler tags. I think this is the first time they will be used legitimately.

I'm starting now. Spoilers ahead.

Cool, I should be able to check it out tomorrow night.

Just a question for you all... would you guys be opposed if mine was 3 parts of ~700mb each? I have been trying to find a smaller version but haven't been able to

That's fine by me but I don't have a 4kb/sec speed (Teger, did you check the ul/dl rate and bandwith use in 'preferences').

Right know, the shared folder capacity is 4GB

Better be worth it though !

Fuuma said:

I'm pretty sure I have it on DVD somewhere, I need to check if my le choix des armes dvd has english subs, that'd be a pretty funny choice...

I like James Grey, good choice.

Click to expand...

I haven't seen le choix es armes, huge gaps in my film knowledge everywhere


James Gray seems to be better liked in France / Europe than in the US

sweet, i'm in. thanks for the invite sipang. it might have been posted earlier and i missed it, but is there a weekly schedule? i assume wouldn't be a super strict start and stop day for watching/discussing each movie but just so we keep to a 7 day rotation it would probably help to set a specific day of the week to change focus.