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This week's Staff Pick is: Cemetery of Splendor (2015) [or Splendour if you're feeling saucy] Directed and Written by: Apichatpong Weerasthekul Cinematography by: Diego Garcia Edited by: Lee Chatametikool IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2818654/ Summary: "A group of soldiers in a small town on the Mekong River in northern Thailand are struck with a bizarre sleeping illness." Weerasthekul's films are contemplative and beautifully shot, utilizing their sparse settings to explore interpersonal relationships and societal ills. The pace is glacial, as a warning; from the films I've seen, they owe a heavy debt to Tsai Ming-Liang's style of reserved filmmaking which highly accentuates the passage of time you experience by simply watching them. I haven't seen Splendor yet because it was sold out almost immediately when it came to a festival near me about a year ago, but I have seen a few of his other films. I've heard nothing but fantastic things about his latest and have been meaning to watch for a while, so what better time than Wrestlemania weekend? Cemetery of Splendor is available for rental on Amazon, YouTube, iTunes, Vudu etc. --- From the Staff Picks Archives January 31st, 2017: Cure February 7th, 2017: Westfront 1918 February 14th, 2017: John Wick February 21st, 2017: Red Sorghum February 28th, 2017: God of Gamblers March 7th, 2017: The Autopsy of Jane Doe March 14th, 2017: Perfect Blue March 21st, 2017: Spring Breakers
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# ¿ Mar 29, 2017 15:34 |
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# ¿ May 3, 2024 21:38 |
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I haven't watched this yet...tomorrow for sure hopefully.
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# ¿ Apr 4, 2017 00:57 |
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After a brief hiatus staff picks returns: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3817796
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# ¿ Apr 20, 2017 16:14 |
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Palpek posted:When it comes to new Thai cinema the latest Thai film I watched was Suwichakornpong's Mundane History and it was amazing. It was the one of two movie experiences where I went through actual katharsis in the theatre. A huge recommendation but you'd have to watch it on a bigger screeen with good sound because without surrounding music it won't work. This woman has a second feature that I missed at a recent festival but it's screening this weekend so I'm going to check it out. It sounds very interesting: "In the beguiling, mysterious second feature by Thai director Anocha Suwichakornpong, the story of a young film director researching a project about the 1976 massacre of Thai student activists at Thamassat University is just the beginning of a shape-shifting work of fictions within fictions, featuring characters with multiple identities. " The only other thai director I know any films of is Weerasethakul. I love Syndromes and a Century the most of what I've seen, good films in the loooong take, contemplative realm where you become incredibly aware of time passing slowly before your eyes
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# ¿ Apr 20, 2017 16:19 |
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I did! There was very beautiful images, and the structure mirrored something like Syndromes and a Century, with cyclical revisions/returns to previous encounters with varying degrees of tweaks and presentational differences. The central character is writing the film you're watching so it's got a lot of shifting definitions of reality and what not. It's also a story told in a few different time periods so it all can be a bit overwhelming. I liked it but I also felt like it wasn't particularly cohesive, like the net was cast a bit too wide in swapping between a structuralist narrative approach, and conflicting chronologies, and dreamstate interruptions. There lacked a central heft or purpose but there's some good long take windy hand cam shots. It was also kind of a unique theatre experience for me because it was the second time that I can ever remember where I was the only person in the movie theatre. The other being the last weekend run of Red Eye like 12 years ago
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# ¿ Apr 27, 2017 12:51 |