Again, this is probably Craig Keller/evillights. His prose style is very unique, one could say.domino harvey wrote:Holy cat, what happened here?
Dear MoC, we love you but...
- EddieLarkin
- Joined: Sat Sep 08, 2012 10:25 am
Re: BD 96 Youth of the Beast
- MichaelB
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Re: BD 96 Youth of the Beast
Not just slightly unique?
- EddieLarkin
- Joined: Sat Sep 08, 2012 10:25 am
Re: BD 96 Youth of the Beast
Unique enough to be recognisable. I don't have a problem with it myself.
- domino harvey
- Dot Com Dom
- Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2006 2:42 pm
Re: BD 96 Youth of the Beast
"Unique" can't be qualified was the point
- EddieLarkin
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Re: BD 96 Youth of the Beast
Ohhh. Damn I went and did it twice!
- Roger Ryan
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- Location: A Midland town spread and darkened into a city
Re: BD 95 I clowns
There's also this film and this more recent film, both entitled CARNY, that use the term to evoke an unsavory character or characters specifically found at carnivals, not circuses.EddieLarkin wrote:Certainly twilight denotes an ending more than evening does yes, so I'd say that's a better fit if afton carries similar connotations. Carny is a slang term for a person who works at a carnival or fair, as opposed to a circus, and is definitely not something that is used interchangeably with clown or jester. It typically carries a negative connotation; for me a carny is a shady type who runs a crooked game of chance at a carnival. But that's probably just because of that one Simpsons episode.
- jsteffe
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Re: BD 95 I clowns
How about Jesterdämmerung?ola t wrote:Well, it's really hard to translate anything into a language that's not your first one, and besides I'm not too familiar with the word carny. I'd say the literal translation would be The Evening of the Jesters. The word gycklare can be used derogatorily to refer to the whole circus troupe, not just the clown(s), and that's probably the case here. If carny is not too modern then it's not a bad translation at all, though it loses the resonance with the corresponding verb, gyckla, which can mean "to ridicule (someone/something)". The title itself implies that those good-for-nothings who spend their days making fun of us hardworking decent people will nevertheless, somehow, have their evening. Afton carries all sorts of poetic associations about things coming to an end, as I'm sure evening does, but maybe twilight does that even better.
- feihong
- Joined: Thu Nov 04, 2004 12:20 pm
Re: BD 96 Youth of the Beast
I've always felt that the "youth of the beast" title referred kind of directly to the Tamio Kawaji character, who is both younger than the other gangsters and something of a beast in the story.MoC wrote:A kaleidoscopic fantasia that contains "youth" and "beast" onlly insofar as 1963 pop/youth culture was that violently upstart thing, not unlike the yakuza?
- whaleallright
- Joined: Sun Sep 25, 2005 12:56 am
Re: BD 96 Youth of the Beast
there's long been something comically self-serious about the tortured prose in MoC booklets. whenever I read the boilerplate about incorrect aspect ratios that "travesty the integrity of both the human form and cinematographic space" I imagine it to have been originally uttered by someone with a monocle (who is not Fritz Lang) and/or one of the chattering intellectuals from Five Easy Pieces.
the Youth of the Beast copy seems to be what happens when this prose style lets its hair down.
the Youth of the Beast copy seems to be what happens when this prose style lets its hair down.
- Sloper
- Joined: Tue May 29, 2007 10:06 pm
Re: BD 96 Youth of the Beast
Yes, I adore MoC but this is a long-standing problem that seems to be getting worse. (Jō Shishido doesn't look too happy about it either.)jonah.77 wrote:there's long been something comically self-serious about the tortured prose in MoC booklets
- Gropius
- Joined: Thu Jun 29, 2006 5:47 pm
Re: BD 96 Youth of the Beast
I think Comrade Evillights (who we assume writes all this stuff) models himself on a caricatured image of the ardent French cinephile of the Cahiers era, straining so hard to convey his exceptional passion for the minor works of great auteurs that it comes across as camp and ridiculous.
I'm reminded of that Maureen Lipman character in Educating Rita, who opens the door and sighs 'Wouldn't you just die without Mahler?'.
I'm reminded of that Maureen Lipman character in Educating Rita, who opens the door and sighs 'Wouldn't you just die without Mahler?'.
- Finch
- Joined: Mon Jul 07, 2008 5:09 pm
- Location: Edinburgh, UK
Re: BD 96 Youth of the Beast
While I agree that the blurbs for this and for I Clowns are terrible, it's not as though Nick had a flawless track record with those either: I always found the description of L'Enfance Nue (it's a powerful film, absolutely) as "earthshattering" a bit hyperbolic.
- whaleallright
- Joined: Sun Sep 25, 2005 12:56 am
Re: Dear MoC, we love you but...
the "travesty..." line certainly seems like he's imitating the high moral dudgeon of Rivette's Kapo reviewI think Comrade Evillights (who we assume writes all this stuff) models himself on a caricatured image of the ardent French cinephile of the Cahiers era, straining so hard to convey his exceptional passion for the minor works of great auteurs that it comes across as camp and ridiculous.
- zedz
- Joined: Sun Nov 07, 2004 7:24 pm
Re: BD 96 Youth of the Beast
Unless you're reviewing a cosmic calamity, 'earthshattering' is always going to be a wildly hyperbolic adjective, but the addled brain salad we're looking at in these recent blurbs goes way beyond simple hyperbole.Finch wrote:While I agree that the blurbs for this and for I Clowns are terrible, it's not as though Nick had a flawless track record with those either: I always found the description of L'Enfance Nue (it's a powerful film, absolutely) as "earthshattering" a bit hyperbolic.
- Koukol
- Joined: Thu Jan 17, 2013 8:31 pm
Re: Dear MoC, we love you but...
I CLOWNS is definitely one of Fellini's lesser works if I do say so myself.
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- not perpee
- Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 3:41 pm
Re: BD 96 Youth of the Beast
HHHHHEEEEEEYYYY!Finch wrote:While I agree that the blurbs for this and for I Clowns are terrible, it's not as though Nick had a flawless track record with those either: I always found the description of L'Enfance Nue (it's a powerful film, absolutely) as "earthshattering" a bit hyperbolic.
Monsieur Keller did that one, and all the Pialats. He'd been doing about half the blurbs for a long time before I left. I did temper his wilder flourishes at times, and I think that brought about a balance that worked.
Is my track record now flawless again?
- Finch
- Joined: Mon Jul 07, 2008 5:09 pm
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Re: Dear MoC, we love you but...
Oh, the Pialat blurbs were Craig's as well? Hope you accept my apologies, Nick.
- Gregory
- Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 4:07 pm
Re: Dear MoC, we love you but...
I like the sentence in the MoC booklets about how the stretching or cropping a 1.33:1 image to fill a widescreen display results in images that "travesty the integrity of both the human form and cinematographic space," because I think that's completely true, and while "travesty" as a verb is much less common than the noun form, it's a perfectly standard usage. (I don't know if that was part of the issue for anyone.) I suppose I also just appreciate seeing a "public service announcement" that contains actual factual information that many surely were not aware of. Some zoom or stretch the image on their widescreen intentionally, but others are unaware of the settings, and it can be a matter of learning to see the problem with changing the picture that way. To me, the sentence doesn't seem overemphatic.
- EddieLarkin
- Joined: Sat Sep 08, 2012 10:25 am
Re: Dear MoC, we love you but...
They're a bit pointless though when used in the booklets that come with Blu-ray only releases of 1.66/1.78/1.85 films. No one is accidentally going to watch a 16x9 Blu-ray squashed into 4:3 on their HDTV.
- rspaight
- Joined: Tue Jun 05, 2012 10:18 am
Re: Dear MoC, we love you but...
I'm also a fan of the admonition to turn the damn motion smoothing/soap opera effect off.
- swo17
- Bloodthirsty Butcher
- Joined: Tue Apr 15, 2008 10:25 am
- Location: SLC, UT
Re: Dear MoC, we love you but...
Hopefully at least these obvious errors get corrected in the blurb for Thief of Bagdad:
"multi-hypenate"
"it was one the costliest films"
"Carl Davies"
"multi-hypenate"
"it was one the costliest films"
"Carl Davies"
- Gregory
- Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 4:07 pm
Re: Dear MoC, we love you but...
While they're at it, there's a usage error in "Baghdad's premiere plunderer" (should be "premier").
- swo17
- Bloodthirsty Butcher
- Joined: Tue Apr 15, 2008 10:25 am
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Re: Dear MoC, we love you but...
So I have Youth of the Beast in hand. Someone has edited the blurb on the back cover, but something tells me that it wasn't domino...
Also, Carnies' Twilight is no more.
Also, Carnies' Twilight is no more.
- Gregory
- Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 4:07 pm
Re: Dear MoC, we love you but...
Is it still described as having been shot with a hermaphroditic telephoto lens?