Saturday, May 12, 2007

What's In the Netflix Queue #5

I've been busy and missed putting one of these up last week.

1. Time To Leave- Francis Ozon's latest, this guy has to be one of the most prolific directors in France. I think there's only 1 or 2 of his I haven't seen. While not all of them are great, they always surprise me.
2. Dune: Extended Edition- Ok, ok.... I've only seen bits and pieces of this through the years because, growing up, I never really liked science fiction. It didn't appeal to me as a kid upon first release and the rumors of how screwed up it is as an adult have kept me away from it. Still, it's Lynch, so I'm willing to give it a shot. And (maybe someone can help justify it?) it's the extended edition and more in line with Lynch's original vision right!???
3. The Wire Season 3 disc 1- And so season 3 begins. I can't wait.
4. Salvatore Giuliano- I've been catching up with Francesco Rosi's films. In the downtime between my last post of queue lists, I've seen his "Hands Over the City" which is a pretty damn good film in its own right. I've heard this is not your usual look at the mafia- its much more oblique and complicated in its views of Italian life and it eschews any real action.
5. Twin Peaks, Fire Walk With Me- The last Lynch film I've never seen. I own the first season of "Twin Peaks" on DVD and with the release of season 2 a couple weeks ago, this should be a complimentary feature.
6. The Other- If anyone has ventured over to Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule they'll see a write up from Dennis about a Los Angeles film festival entitled "The Good, The Bad and the Strange" that'll make any film lover drool because they don't live in L.A. This film is a part of that festival and Dennis has been a strong supporter of this 1972 psychological horror film. I look forward to sinking my teeth into it as well. I'd never heard of it before Dennis kindly brought it to my attention last October during my "Favorite Horror Films" blog-a-thon. Let's just hope other readers of Dennis' blog don't hog the film for the rest of us. I have very few "long waits" in my queue, but this could turn out to be one of them.
7. Pusher- I've been looking for this film for years since it got a few nice words in film publications back in the last 90's. Director Nicolas Winding Refn has since completed 2 more "Pusher" films to complete his trilogy and they are not far down the queue list. I understand this is a pretty bleak, violent look at Denmark drug dealers. We all love bleak films about Denmark low-life!
8. Who's Camus Anyway?- Fellow blogger Peter Nellhaus wrote about this film here recently. This was a "Film Comment" fav not to long ago.
9. Christ Stopped at Eboli- Another Francesco Rosi.
10. The Wire Season 3 disc 2.

And finally, if anyone is interested in becoming a "Friend" on Netflix and sharing queues, let me know. It'd be interesting to see what others are renting and open my horizons even more. And I promise I won't tell if your queue is filled with Emmanuel films and "Wild Orchid".

7 comments:

Adam Ross said...

I also took Dennis' advice with "The Other," and it's one helluva movie. If you're having trouble getting it on Netflix, they do show it sometimes on Fox Movie Channel and you can buy it for $10 at BestBuy.

Joe Baker said...

Thanks for the advice, Adam. So far, its status is still available so I'm crossing my fingers. Or I could just move it to the top of my queue.

Evan Waters said...

The extended version of DUNE was actually put together without Lynch's supervision or consent (it's officially an Alan Smithee film.) There's a lot of extra footage, which is nice, but the editing is much sloppier, the music got horribly jumbled, and some footage of a spaceship landing is recycled over and over again because someone thought it hugely important to show whenever somebody came to or left any given planet. It has a very awkward feel to it.

Joe Baker said...

That's disappointing about "Dune". I'm contemplating not even watching it now. The only real draw was that it's a Lynch film, but based on what you say Evan, I don't know if the 3 hours is worth trudging through.

Evan Waters said...

The theatrical cut is worth seeing- Lynch was obligated to keep it a certain length, but he did do the final edit.

PIPER said...

I shouldn't like Dune the way I do, but I do.

And I've seen Fire Walk With Me about half a dozen times. I still don't get it all but always want to keep watching it.

Chris Gaubatz said...

I was tempted to see the extra Dune footage, but I'll pass now. Until a Dune project gets a "Lord of the Rings" budget, the film version will never compare to it's literary counterpart.