Rachel Getting Married
Happy-Go-Lucky
Repulsion
The Yakuza
Changeling
La Rabbia di Pasolini
The Duellists
5 stars (very good):
Burn After Reading
The Draugthman's Contract
Wall-E
Young Frankenstein
Persepolis
4 stars (good):
- Conte de Noel
- Orlando
- Cul-de-sac
- Blue
- The Tragedy of Macbeth (Polanski '71)
- The Wind and the Lion
- American Gangster
- Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
- Looking for Richard
- Der Amerikanische Freund
- The Remains of the Day
- Ratatouille
- Cronaca di un amore
3 stars and 1/2:
- Le Scaphandre et Le Papillon
- Vogliamo anche le Rose
- Klute
- Runaway Train
3 stars (rather good):
- The Offence
- Angel (Ozon '06)
- Tropic Thunder
- Out of Rosenheim
- 007 - Goldeneye
- 007 - The Living Daylights
- Mamma mia!
- Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
- The Killer's Kiss
----------------------------------------
2 stelle e 1/2:
- Paris, Texas
- 007 - Quantum of Solace
- Michael Clayton
- Velvet Goldmine
- The Savages
- The Orphanage
2 stelle (mean):
- The Whales of August
- Ocean's Thirteen
1 stella e 1/2:
- Miracle at Sant'Anna
- Righteous Kill
1 stella (bad):
- Broken Flowers
- Fireflies in the Garden
° (the worse):
- Vanilla Sky
- The Narnia Chronicles - The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
-Re-seen-
- Blade Runner * * * * * +
- To Live and Die in L.A. * * * * * +
- Spirited Away * * * * *
- Dirty Harry * * * *
- The Aristocats * * *
Bye!
Tommaso
... a lot of things has happened. A lot of movies seen, a lot of books read, a lot of exphosals visited, even some theatre.
I'm going to a psychologist 'cause I'm consumed by something.
I'm not making projects longer than a week (or less) and it's going well. Except for the change of "hospital activity" and a movie festival.
That's great: last august, Tilda Swinton (with Marc Cousins) opened a festival in her hometown, Nairn (Scotland): the Ballerina Ballroom Cinema of Dreams festival. A weird, indie festival, without red carpet, in which tickets can be paid with homemade sweeties. There Tilda founded the State of Cinema. One of her collaborators, Stephen Smerdon, contacted me and I'm going to write on the festival's blog (opening soon) and maybe I'll bring a short movie of mine.
This summer I shot a movie with my friend and boss Gabriele. Maybe we'll shoot a new one in february.
Thanks to M. (and congrats, she's a 110 Philosopher!)
Bye!
Special mention
seen before 2007 but re-seen in new cuts, positively:
Blade Runner - The director's cut
Scarface (1983)
Yes
To Live and Die in L.A.
The Prestige
Casino Royale (2007)
Love in the Afternoon
Citizen Kane
Letters from Iwo Jima
The Man who would be King
Gone with the Wind
What's new, Pussycat?
The Gauntlet
Infamous
Breakfast on Pluto
The Ipcress File
Hot Fuzz!
Sleuth (2007)
Shining
The Face
My Fair Lady
Paths of Glory
Notes on a Scandal
The Wind that Shakes the Barley
The Killing
Tight Rope
The Tall Men
Serpico
The Golden Compass
Zodiac
Saturno contro
Miss Potter
Maybe
Atonement
I cento chiodi
The Life of the Others
In memoria di me
Invasion
The Canterbury Tales
Two for the Road
The Illusionist
Any which Way but Loose
Elizabeth - The Golden Age
La masseria delle allodole
Downfall
The Fury
Brannigan
Bullet to Bejing
The Rains of Ranchipur
No
Unforgiven
La ragazza del lago
Inferno
Under the Tuscan Sun
The Forgotten
Running with Scissors
29 yes, 22 no or maybe... actually, I do think that good movies are less than bad ones, but due to time and money I gotta choose. But there's always the "Open Minded" way of life.
Bye!
Yesterday my dad is dead by infarct, 57 years old. Painter, poet, intellectual, great man. I had just refound him and I was going to visit him again. I havent' cried. I hope he knew that if he would have called me, I'd been running to him, I've had demonstrated it and he was happy of it.
I don't know it is luck, someone in the high ranges who helps me or just coincidences.
Yesterday in Cold Case there was an episode directed by Emilio Estevez. Characters were watching The Breakfast Club at the TV. That's no coincidence. In the afternoon I've read of a King Lear version directed by Jean-Luc Godard with Molly Ringwald. That's a coincidence.
Greeting of sooooooooooo many lucky coincidences!
the afternoon Blade Runner - The Final Cut, at Apollo cinema (a wonderful multiplex - they gave it just in Milan, Turin and Rome all around Italy...). Changes are the results of a work begun in 2000, are cut of Deckard/Ford's off-voice, less hoping final, tecnichal improvement (digital, fantastic). A must (since august I got the poster in my room). Bitter and sweet, poetic and strong (even the most didascalic thing, the apparition of the dove in the climax, seems in the right place), violent and delicate: a visual machine that involve the spectator in an incredible human adventure, a worrying interrogation 'bout what is human and what no that give attention to the importance of emotions and memories.
the evening, Tight Rope: Clint Eastwood is Wess Block, a New Orleans policeman who inquiries on a maniac who kills hookers and wonder 'bout having his same pulsions (just the sexual ones). The "elder" daughter of him is played by Clint's real daughter, Alison (now working on her directing debout). Nice, interesting the sequence in which the police elicopter enlighten now Block now the killer, highlighting the confusion between them.Nice.
Selah!
Last week:
-Are you a priest?
- No, I'm a librarian of the hospital.
- Yes, I understand. Are you here for the blessings?
- No, excuse me, I'm no priest, I'm a librarian of the hospital.
- Ah, alright. Could you confess me?
- Good evening, do I disturb? Hi, I'm here for the free books loaning. Are you interested in it?
- [without leaving the look from a gossip magazine] No.
- OK, sorry for bothering you. Good evening.
silence.
- Good evening, do I disturb? Hi, I'm here for...
- NO.
- OK, sorry for bothering you. Good evening.
silence.
And this evening? I just hope there will be that nice nurse.
Selah!
Horror afternoon yesterday; my parents, Dario Argento's fans, has seen the Inferno DVD I've given them after my most recent journey in Milan. The 2nd episode of the Hell trilogy: between Suspiria's Mater Sospirorum ("Whisper Mother") in Friburg and The Third Mother's Mater Lacrimarum ("Tears Mother") in Rome, the Mater Tenebrarum ("Gloom Mother") in New York: the beautiest and cruellest. Blood, blood, blood. Then blood, blood, blood. So blood, blood, blood. And why not, blood, blood, blood. Blood, blood, blood. Pretty is the beginning with the subterranean-subacquatic voyage; nice the shooting at the interphones, when the metallic cages are now plats now wide dependig to the distance of the camera; nice the shooting following the sound, waving. But to much blood for nothing (original title of a dIRE sTRAITS song, changed in Money For Nothing to avoid quarrels). But the lame who hates cats is like the blind fired for his dog in Suspiria; the ants like the worms in S.; the voices in the air like the voices in the air in S.; the flames at the end like in S.; the shooting at the moon like hundreds of horror movies; nice the citation from The Exorcist (the intermittent light). Like Nonhosonno is a copy of Profondo Rosso - let's call it remake. W Mak von Sydow! (in fact, the exorcist)!
But let's pass to the true horror: the Mothers are 4. The most terrible of them resides in Brianza, her door between Hell and World is in the freezing Comotti condominium in Paderno d'Addda: she is the MATER SPETTEGOLARUM, ("Chatting Mother"), queen of all the province gossipers... and this is the awful guardian of her Door:
The Horror, the Horror. Hammer Horror. Babooshka, Babooshka ya-ya. Papè Satan, Papè Satan Aleppe. Abracadabra.
Selah!

Sunday afternoon I took the train to Monza to see Elizabeth - The Golden Age. Megaplex (2 theatres) Capitol (with my parents I've been 2 times to the Teodolinda in the last months), spectacular entry, little screen but nice seats, little but confortable. I saw the trailer in Osnago before the presentation at Rome Festival and I was surprised by the visionarety: lights, tapestries, glass windows... I was worried by the rethoric, but a so visual film couldn't not interest me. So here I am in the theatre, a little puzzled. It starts with fake glass windows and goes on with the promised lights, cathedrals, tapestries, huge costumes, spectacular scenes, lutes. Embarassing the contrast between the characters, Elizabeth so human vs. Mary Stuart and Felipe of Spain so inhuman, she so beauty (when she hasn't greasepaint and wig - a pair of minutes...) and they so similar to grubs, she always in light, they always in the darkness, Mary in the disquieting scottish castle, Felipe in the enormous cathedral (altough he says "I'm the light, Elizabeth is the darkness"). The scene in which Elizabeth, like a Lady of Avalon, watch inebriated the burning Armada is cretinous (but not as the fascist screams - "Death, death, death!" - in The Lord Of The Rings) as disturbing is the pleased constatation of the economic spanish ruin compared to the english wellness, but let it go. Wonderful the floor-map. When Kapur make some evolutions with the camera, he isn't inspired (as when he jump from behind to in front of Elizabeth on the throne) but he always exploit the beauty of the scenes. What a cast... Geoffrey Rush! Rhys Ifans! Blanchett (I adore her I adore her I adore her) is perfect and finally Clive Owen is affirmed as one of the true actors of his generation (together to Craig and Jackman - is that a return to the good times when O'Toole was Henry II and Burton Thomas Becket?), playing proudly the intrepid Wlater Raleigh. I expected something more, a visual delirium like Boorman's Excalibur (I've already seen these red -as her hair- flags...) and here we are we Elizabeth call for John Dee's help: alchemist who served in Magic Prague. The film's good.
Selah!

than that:

but I'm a moralist, for example I'm one who would send in prison prostitutes' customers instead of them. I've been told that I'm abnormal, if every one would be like me humanity stopped to exist.
IF NORMALITY IS WHAT I KNOW, I'M PROUD TO BE ABNORMAL.
(why is possible to say that asexuals must be treated, butr if someone just jokes 'bout queers there's a revolution?)
And I think is a good thing that people isn't like me: no omologation.
Anyway Juliette I value you too. Caché is one of my favourite movies. I'm sorry for Country Of My Skull in which you played for my favourite director, but it wasn't worthy of both's careers.
Today is Halloween; I don't celebrate it and I hope (for them) that no kids came ringing at my door (one time I opened and said "Sorry, there isn't anybody home" - zut! In this condominium everyone can enter) but I greet everyone who celebrate it STAYING AT HOME:

The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain
The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain
The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain
The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain
The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain
The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain
The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain
The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain
The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain
The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain
The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain
The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain
The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain
The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain
The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain
The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain
The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain
The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain
The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain
The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain
The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain
The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain
The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain
The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain
The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plan
The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain
The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain
The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain
The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain
The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain
The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain
The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain
The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain
The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain
The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain
The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain
The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain
The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain
The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain
The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain
The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain
The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain
The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain
The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain
The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain
The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain
The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain
The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain
The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain
The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain
The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain
The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain
The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain
The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain
The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain
The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain
The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain
The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain
The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain
The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain
The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain
The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain
The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain
The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain
The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain
The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain
The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plan
The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain
Why not... elegant? Smart? Fair? Good actress?
Once actor and actresses were:
a- nice
b- good
c- nice and good
now just "sexy". But there are yet big actors... Daniel Craig and Hugh Jackman have impressive acting skills and Theron is a good and smart actress. But they're considered just "sexy".
I hate sex.
Selah!
Now I'm back working in a factory, IHI (car components). I'm still studing but I've stopped going to university lessons. Next year, I'll try to become Police Inspector.
Selah!
Selah!
Great movie yesterday in my beloved S. Luigi cinema in Osnago: Breakfast on Pluto, great movie which has gained less attention than it deserved. Is more than a transexual history (satured topic), is the vision of great Neiul Jordan on his world - even if is screenwriting is based on Patrick mcCabe's (co-screenwriter) book. Great cinema's essay: the starting and ending sequences with the chatting robins (funny, they quote Wilde!) whose flying 'round the church (willing of getting higher than the province?) are underlined by an amazing are high-level metacinema. Great irish actors: FATHER Liam Neeson (why I'm not a sosia of him?), Ireland's face from Boorman's irish Excalibur (in which Jordan was art director) to Jordan's Michael Collins; jordanian Stephen Rea; boormanian Brendan Gleeson; great Cillian Murphy, "irish" as in the great The Wind That Shakes the Barley. Good Brian "Casanova" Ferry's cameo, whose character speak 'bout ("slave of") love but isn't romantic. And Patrick-Patricia's humour is great. (S)he reminds me of this song, inspired according by the author by "a girl who crossed a door instead of opening it":
Selah!
Tonight there's Serpico on the italian TV but I've seen it some days ago: my mum has bought the DVD. Her pacinian fanatism has given a good result. Dark cinematography, stressing atmosphere, nearly pinterian with the policemen who would kill Frank Serpico but don't do it, at first try to seduce him then warn him gently then undergo him then mistreat him - or, they would 'cause he doesn't let them. Like in Pinter's Birthday Party or the serial The Prisoner. The director is Sidney Lumet, whose 12 Angry Men was remade for the TV by the pinterian (see Birthday Party) Friedkin (linked to Pacino by Cruising 'bout another policeman in hostile waters, but in this case the man in the target was the director). Al Pacino is strong. Strange that Francis Murray Abraham, at that time unknown but in an important part, is uncredited. Selah!
http://www.la7.it/blog/default.asp?idblo
relazioni.pubblico@esteri.it
Selah!
Thomas Sean "Big Tham" Connery
Sailor, truck driver, milker, body builder, actor, poet and documentary director (77th);
and
Mel Ferrer
my rival in love (90th).
Selah!
A few times it has seemed to me to go so close to the essence of the Myth of the 7th Art, over all the first time I saw Million Dollar baby at the cinema: Clint's legend, old-style movie, off-scene voice, topòs of an America remained to the Depression with boxe, blues and tough guys, being in a megaplex so remember the enormous cinemas which are in old movies or of old ambientation. Though the eternal athred 'bout Hollywood, the museum celebrate the hollywodian stars, giving fashion to it but thinking alos to indipendent and/or european cinema (a few of Asia).From this day over my desk there is:

The evening I saw What's New Pussycat and in my sexuophoby (pardon the outing) I've adored the movie called from U.S.A. critics "decadent and immoral". It was 1965: such a pastiche could have success just then. In 1990 Tune in Tomorrow was a flop; now a bizzare movie would be a disaster, everything have to be linear (I can't think the destiny the delirant - but rational, cold in its take itself seriously - Boorman's Zardoz would have today) and a similar cast (Allen, Andress, Sellers was also in the 1st Casino Royale, the non-official 007 parody with David Niven as James Bond and Orson Welles as LeChiffre) is hard to find (great the Richard Burton apparition!). Clive Donner is a pinterian director, but I don't wonder if he worked in such a british movie. Woody Allen's script is elaborated, rational ("Shut up while you're screaming at me!") but everything ends deliriously: in the hotel sequence, when everybody is whorried 'bout the police arrival, look at Romy Schneider (I know, you've looked her all the movie): she can't not to laugh.Selah!
Seen yesterday The Tall Men (they didn't cast me 'cause I wasn't already born in '55). Waitin' it I've seen 15 minutes of the german soap opera Love Storm which make it the best day in my life. Great the guy who should repair a lifter who gave a torch to the hotel owner (or the opposite?) saying "Take, it will light your mind.". Another great lines is said in the movie by Robert Ryan: "People envy success people, not loosers." I DIDN'T KNOW IT. Movies teach a lot of precious things. But very good movie and Clark Gable (whose chest is wider than Jane Russel's) is really "The King of Hollywood": Tall, Dark and Handsome. And solid, rocky and strong.Selah!
Excuse me if I haven't posted nor commented your blogs, but phone line has collapsed and the techincian has arrived yesterday. Gotta a lot of things to write, tomorrow I'll start.
Selah!
... about any trumpet playing band, it ain't what they call rock'n'roll (taratara-tatta-ta-ta-ta)... and the Sultans (ta-ta-ta-taaaaa)... yeah, the Sultans, THEY PLAYED CREOLE!
Seen saturday Gone with the Wind. I've seen it on the tv, so it was dubbed... terrrible. Dubbing is good 'cause it bring job, but sometimes it's terrible. If you watch Excalibur in english it deserves * * * */5, in italian * * *. But italian old dubbing is famous and it's part of the fashion old movies have here: exagerate, pathetic, like old-fashioned acting. I've lived the emotion public had at these time: a great, huge show. Love, death, abandon, tears... in Italy this is called "telefoni bianchi" cinema (eng.: "white phones"), referring to veeeeeeeery sad italian movies of '30-'40s, in which women were always talking at white phones. But GWTW is great, so Clark Gable, a very fascinating, strong man, a true star.
Selah!
- Mood:
nostalgic - Music:Max Steiner: "Gone with the wind" theme
14 july 1918 - 30 july 2007
Seen sunday this legendary movie:
Rudyard Kipling (author of the tale which inspires the movie) meets in India two british sergents, masons like him, who wants to conquer an asian country. He say's they'll die tryin' it, but fascinated he signs as witness the contract with their rules.
Huston gives more attention to the screenplay than to the directing, maybe thinking that landscapes and actors are enough (and they are); the results is a combination of smart, amazing gags.
In those years (this movie is of '75) Connery was trying movies to escape from Bond's character (Boorman tells that in '73 while going out to Dublin's stadium people screamed "Looks! Here's James Bond!") by playing in movies which revutionalized the way of re-reading english literature: in '74 Boorman's Zardoz united Eliot's Waste Land, Baum's The Wizard of Oz and Nietzsche's theory 'bout the Superman; in '76 Robin & Marian (with Audrey...) by lisergic Richard Lester (already entered in british art's history with Beatles movie) gave a final to Robin Hood's legend with a cast of british cinema-theatre legend (Nicol Williamson, Robert Shaw, Richard Harris, Ian Holm, Denholm Elliot).
Great reading of british imagery: sense of adventure (Kipling...), courage, friendship, heroic rememberings, camarade hymns... Caine and Connery themselves are part of it.
Related to Connery and 007: Daniel Craig confirmed Bond for next 2 episodes, in which will play the comic side of the agent. His cachet rises: for 1st movie he took 6 millions of £, for the 2nd will take 7.5, for the 3rd 12. Not very honest, but in today's mainstream is few... and he's 39 years old, at his carrier peak. Have a good job, Daniel.
(Connery gave ALL his Diamonds Are Forever cachet to charities and shares of others movies; he and Caine took 250K £ for The Man Who Would Be King).
Selah!
- Mood:
amused - Music:Emmylou Harris & Mark Knopfler: "Beachcombing"
please Don, excuse me if I'm late and happy birthday!

Shantih
- Mood:
happy - Music:David Bowie: "Stay"
WILLIAM FRIEDKINGot his autograph on a book 'bout him:
Best regards
William Friedkin
6/29/07
Very kind. Also posed a question to him:
"You've directed Al Pacino and William Petersen, actors who are became symbols of violence, the first for Scarface, Heat, your own Cruising, the second recently for the telefilm C.S.I. ... are you more interested to represent violence or violent people?"
He answered that I was thinking to him tirtyfive years ago, now he isn't interested to represent violence 'cause he knows more things than when he was young. I've became the second star of the debate (really!).
Got the autograph and shook hands with an Academy Award winner. I'm in heaven.
Shantih
- Mood:
ecstatic - Music:Mike Oldfield: "Tubular bells"

Shantih
- Mood:
curious - Music:everything from Mark Knopfler and dIRE sTRAITS
Such a good update!
http://64.34.236.214/blogs/news/archive/2
10 september Mark Knopfler will release his new album, Kill To Get Crimson. The title perhaps come from his desire, as a boy, to have a red Fender Stratocaster like his myth Hank Marvin - he painted his one 'cause he couldn't afford a Fender.
Very-very-very-very well!
Shantih
- Mood:
ecstatic - Music:Mark Knopfler and dIRE sTRAITS: everything
Great shakesperian episode of Midsomer Murder yesterday on La7 (italian little but pretty channel): the son of a businessman angry with his mother 'cause her, just widow, marry the dead man's brother; a woman fallen in love with him like Ofelia; a businessman saying: "he's putting poison in their ears"; Barnaby's daughter playing in Shakepeare works (she did it in other episodes, but it never received the attention it do this time). Wonderful.
Shantih
- Mood:
artistic - Music:Pink Floyd: "Time"
Yesterday is finished my 5 nights experience as guardian in a car officine... from 7:30 PM to 7:30 AM. Amusing. It made me think 'bout future.
While doing it, I've decided to open an italian new blog:
http://outofthevortex.splinder.com
don't worry, thomaspendragon goes on.
Shantih
Sunday I've gone to Milan in the afternoon with Luca and his university fellow C. to listen in Saint Carlo (a few metres after the famous Dome) to a concert of new, experimental religious music and reading of Boccaccio and Dante. The concert began at 3:45 PM; we got in it at 4:45 PM 'cause a friend of Luca told us it would have began at 5:30 PM. So we listened a few music and "just" the XXXIII chapter of Dante's Paradise. They say it's been a luck we got in it late, 'cause it's nice but boring music... I was fascinated by it... really, most by the church.
Sunday was Luca's birthday... HAPPY BIRTHDAY, dear "old" fellow of mine!
At evening we rent a DVD chosen by mom: Pan's Labyrinth. They loved it, but found it too much violent and strange. I love strange movies, but there was really too much violence... sorry, Spain under fascism was a sad place. It's a good movie, I like fantasy movies for adults like The Company Of The Wolves... I think they're similar, child phantasies translated in adult language. It was very smart, and the labyrinth was sooooo fascinating, since I was a child I dream of similar places.
"Like the spanish city to me
when we were kids"
(I'm always obsessed by these band, in these days I'm obsessed my this song, like first days after I listened it for the 1st time)
Shantih
- Mood:
artistic - Music:dIRE sTRAITS: "Tunnel Of Love"
...already sold a PC!
Shantih















