Alejandro González Iñárritu

Started by NEON MERCURY, August 01, 2003, 04:45:05 PM

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NEON MERCURY

I have not seen the segment for 11'09"01  September  ..nor have i seen the short (BMW)?   Hire-The Powder Keg...all I have seen  is Amores perros...I do not know how much longer  21 grams releases (which i am hoping ang the way the films have been so for this year)  this will be  best one this year...i think it is supposed to come out in the 2004....One way i describe  his filmaking still is like riding  shotgun in a sports car without your anti-anxiety medication while an escaped crack head drives  the car  you are riding in and flees for freedom...........ENERGETIC~FAST~UNRELENTING.....So hence his introduction for a subject in this forum.

modage

21 Grams opens November 14th, 2003 (NY/LA)
Christopher Nolan's directive was clear to everyone in the cast and crew: Use CGI only as a last resort.

Pubrick

i tweaked the spelling of his name in the title, also it's very important to note: he can kick all ur asses.
under the paving stones.

MacGuffin



The title of Alejandro González Iñárritu's Oscar-nominated debut feature Amores Perros roughly translates to "Love's a Bitch." The same could be said for life in his new movie, 21 Grams. The film takes its name from the subtle loss of weight that occurs as a body passes from life into death, although no such levity can be found in the heavy way the director has chosen to tackle the issue of mortality.

21 Grams assembles a top-notch cast including Sean Penn, Benicio Del Toro and Naomi Watts in a grave examination of the most challenging obstacles that may face modern man: the unexpected death of loved ones, substance abuse, vengeance, loss of faith and a heart transplant that the body won't recognize. Such downbeat subject matter positions González Iñárritu 's English-language debut as the polar opposite of your typical Hollywood feel-good movie, but that's a very conscious decision on the director's behalf.

This is, after all, the same filmmaker who documented his response to the terrorist attacks in 9'11"01 and managed to refashion his BMW short-film installment from being a straightforward car commercial to a striking political statement. Gonzalez Inarritu is a man on a mission - a director devoted to the search for honesty on film -- and here he recognizes five human dramas that have captured that spirit.
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Code Unknown
(2000; dir: Michael Haneke, starring: Juliette Binoche, Thierry Neuvic)
I like the way the stories [of the different characters in Code Unknown] are told with this uncompromised relation between one another. The relations are not very obvious. They are only subtly interconnected, and I find that very beautiful. It's a very honest and powerful look at the real, ordinary European life of Paris, taken apart from the romantic view of Paris as the "City of Love" and all that. Haneke takes you to the bone of what it's like to live there, for a native and a foreigner, just how hard that is. The way he goes in and out of scenes shows a lot of guts. There's one scene where a woman who is a beggar is being taken back to her country, and suddenly there's a cut to the door of an airplane. Nothing happens for the first minute or so -- you don't know what that means because it's in the middle of the movie -- and then you watch from behind as this woman goes into the plane. You can't see her face or tell if she's crying. She just goes inside, and then the policemen close the door of the plane. It's a very moving scene, and the way that it's shot and edited is really impressive.

Breaking the Waves
(1996; dir: Lars von Trier; starring: Emily Watson, Stellan Skarsgard)
Breaking the Waves was another one of those films that really struck me. The realism and the honesty of the story -- even when it gets so hard -- was so beautiful and human. The movie is about a very complex and contradictory love, a beautiful story in pain. To tell you the truth, normally, I like sad things. I like sad music better than happy music. (I also like happy things, but the problem is that they tend to be very frivolous and stupid.) That doesn't mean that sad things are all deep, profound and interesting. No, there are stupid sad things, too. But I naturally tend to prefer nostalgic, melancholic and sad things because sometimes sad things make me happy. I don't know. I work by opposites, and I like to explore the big questions: why this happened. I like directors and films that trust me and show me some respect for my time, films that don't treat me like an idiot and don't try to preach to me. I just like improvised things, so I think films like that are smart, entertaining, beautiful and human. They make you feel, make you think.  

The Ice Storm
(1997; dir: Ang Lee; starring: Kevin Kline, Sigourney Weaver)
It doesn't have anything to do with 21 Grams, but I felt that The Ice Storm was a piece of film that inspired me a lot with the story of this young kid and these silly adult lives, how these adults are even more irrational than the kids. And then the confrontation with death of the young boy, how this is presented and how cold and how heavy and at the same time how ordinary it is. He's dead, but life's gone on, and Kevin Kline doesn't know what to do. I think the final moments of that film are very powerful. [When dealing with a similar crisis in 21 Grams,] I try to be present in the moment and just let the emotions honestly come. Just let her be honest with that thing, and if she's honest and she connects that to something personal, then she can get that. That's what it is because you cannot plan how somebody will react. Everybody reacts differently in such an emotional moment, so you have to trust your actress, in her quality and her range and all her virtues, and you just have to encourage her in just being honest.

Happy Together
(1989; dir: Wong Kar Wai; starring: Leslie Cheung, Tony Leung Chiu-Wai)
I think Wong Kar Wai's Happy Together really is a masterpiece. It's a homosexual love story that is told in such a wild style without care for any judgment and in such a raw way that you forget about the same-sex issue. You are just looking at a beautiful, powerful love story beyond any prejudice. Suddenly, you are watching two human beings loving each other with the same deep connection between them of jealousy and love and passion and inspiration. It's so powerful and so unique, the risk of taking these characters to Argentina. It's such a weird movie, everything about it. If you told me the plot, I would say, 'Well, this will be like a cartoon,' but the way he mastered that team and those actors, it's like a beautiful Baroque piece and very, very moving.

Once Upon a Time in America
(1984; dir: Sergio Leone; starring: Robert De Niro, James Woods)
I haven't seen it in a long time, but the memory I have of Once Upon a Time in America is a beautiful reflection of betrayal and friendship and how all of our actions mean something for us. Even when we are old and think we have escaped the things we hid, all those things can still return to life and get you. There's something about Sergio Leone's Italian point of view in America that makes it so poetic, so big and so epic that it's almost like a novel. Another movie I saw when I was very young was Midnight Cowboy. That film changed my life. When it finishes and Hoffman is dead on the bus, I didn't know what to feel. I was 13 or 14 years old, and I was so disturbed that even now, I can't identify what I was feeling as I watched it. It's one of those unique emotions that I haven't felt again in my life. The emotion was so big that I just couldn't handle it, and that is a kind of ending that every film should achieve. It's not a happy ending, it's not a sad ending, it's not a message. It's just f---ing life.
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


Skeleton FilmWorks

godardian

So nice to see Happy Together getting its due respect...

Everyone has got to see 21 Grams. There are problems with the story(s). Those problems don't matter. The execution absolutely and irrevocably overcomes them. It's one of the best movies of the year.
""Money doesn't come into it. It never has. I do what I do because it's all that I am." - Morrissey

"Lacan stressed more and more in his work the power and organizing principle of the symbolic, understood as the networks, social, cultural, and linguistic, into which a child is born. These precede the birth of a child, which is why Lacan can say that language is there from before the actual moment of birth. It is there in the social structures which are at play in the family and, of course, in the ideals, goals, and histories of the parents. This world of language can hardly be grasped by the newborn and yet it will act on the whole of the child's existence."

Stay informed on protecting your freedom of speech and civil rights.

Pubrick

i'll be the first to admit it, he talks like GT.
under the paving stones.

Ghostboy

Yeah, but doesn't he have the English as a second language excuse?

Jeremy Blackman

Quote from: godardianEveryone has got to see 21 Grams . . . It's one of the best movies of the year.

I can't wait.

Also, Amores Perros reminds me somehow of Lars von Trier on crack.

QuoteThe Ice Storm
(1997; dir: Ang Lee; starring: Kevin Kline, Sigourney Weaver)

That's not fair. The kids made that movie.

modage

Quote from: Alejandro González IñárrituOnce Upon a Time in America
(1984; dir: Sergio Leone; starring: Robert De Niro, James Woods)
I haven't seen it in a long time,

it must've been a REALLLY long time, that movie blows.
Christopher Nolan's directive was clear to everyone in the cast and crew: Use CGI only as a last resort.

molly

Quote from: Jeremy Blackman

QuoteThe Ice Storm
(1997; dir: Ang Lee; starring: Kevin Kline, Sigourney Weaver)

That's not fair. The kids made that movie.

It was so sad when that kid died. He was my favourite.

NEON MERCURY

Quote from: molly
Quote from: Jeremy Blackman

QuoteThe Ice Storm
(1997; dir: Ang Lee; starring: Kevin Kline, Sigourney Weaver)

That's not fair. The kids made that movie.

It was so sad when that kid died. He was my favourite.

frodo.... :(

Sleuth

ICE STORM SPOILERS



Quote from: NEON MERCURY
Quote from: molly
Quote from: Jeremy Blackman

QuoteThe Ice Storm
(1997; dir: Ang Lee; starring: Kevin Kline, Sigourney Weaver)

That's not fair. The kids made that movie.

It was so sad when that kid died. He was my favourite.

frodo.... :(

:evil: spoiler warnings
I like to hug dogs

Slick Shoes

Very cool that he acknowledged Happy Together. I have always felt that this film has been sort of overlooked by a lot of people because the two lead characters are homosexual men. But the film isn't even about homosexuality!! As is the case with many of Wong Kar-Wai's films I was able to find so many things to admire -- the cinematography, the use of music, the acting, the compositions... the list could go on and on.

godardian

Quote from: Slick ShoesVery cool that he acknowledged Happy Together. I have always felt that this film has been sort of overlooked by a lot of people because the two lead characters are homosexual men. But the film isn't even about homosexuality!!

:yabbse-thumbup:
""Money doesn't come into it. It never has. I do what I do because it's all that I am." - Morrissey

"Lacan stressed more and more in his work the power and organizing principle of the symbolic, understood as the networks, social, cultural, and linguistic, into which a child is born. These precede the birth of a child, which is why Lacan can say that language is there from before the actual moment of birth. It is there in the social structures which are at play in the family and, of course, in the ideals, goals, and histories of the parents. This world of language can hardly be grasped by the newborn and yet it will act on the whole of the child's existence."

Stay informed on protecting your freedom of speech and civil rights.

Gold Trumpet

Quote from: Pi'll be the first to admit it, he talks like GT.

I see what you mean, but he isn't as bad as me. For much of it, he is able to still relay how the films affected him personally. I'm as hard as a rock.

Quote from: GhostboyI'm an idiot.

Yes, yes you are. In this day and age, though, you can still dream of being President.