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Post by Shep on May 13, 2012 5:56:31 GMT -5
Film 4 over here in the UK recently screened a couple Kelly Reichardt films--"Meek's Cutoff" and "Old Joy."
I enjoyed "Meek's Cutoff" (plays out like a classic short story) but I really loved "Old Joy."
Is anyone familiar with Reichardt's work? If so, any recommendations, etc? (MJ mentioned "Wendy and Lucy" as being a good film I recall )
Thanks, Shep
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Post by Mighty Jack on May 13, 2012 15:34:28 GMT -5
Yup, I love Wendy and Lucy and thought Michelle Williams gave the performance of her career. It's my favorite of Reichardt's work.
A warning to anyone wanting to check these out. She's very, very dry and you'll not get a traditional narrative story. These are rather neo-realistic character pieces.
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Post by Shep on Mar 3, 2013 5:58:39 GMT -5
Yup, I love Wendy and Lucy and thought Michelle Williams gave the performance of her career. It's my favorite of Reichardt's work. Recently saw this. Wonderful! This and "Old Joy" are fantastic imo.
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Post by Mighty Jack on Mar 6, 2013 0:50:18 GMT -5
Glad you finally got to see it, and enjoyed it. It is indeed 'wonderful'.
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Post by Satchmo on Mar 6, 2013 21:23:33 GMT -5
I enjoyed Wendy and Lucy. It's simple and very minimalist, but it works very well. That being said, I positively loathed Meek's Cutoff. While the minimalist approach in Wendy and Lucy transferred to emotional and thematic rawness, making for a film that felt very "real", in Meek's Cutoff, it merely transfers to dullness. It feels like a short film that someone expanded to feature length without expanding the script. On top of that, some of the scenes are shot appallingly badly. Early in the film, there's a scene where two characters are spew exposition that's shot more than fifty feet away from any character, I'm not sure if it was miced at all; I could barely understand anything they said. It felt pretentious to me, and it never became as good as it thought it was. So I guess the jury's out for me with respect for Reichtardt's films. I think she's creative and has a lot of promise, but I think, oddly enough, that she desperately needs to be a little more conventional. It's great to do things that other filmmaker's rarely do, but some things aren't done because they're bad ideas. Like- y'know- shooting dialogue so that no one can hear it.
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Post by Mighty Jack on Nov 18, 2014 2:53:01 GMT -5
I just watched Night Moves. Which I liked better than Meek's Cutoff, but not as much as her earlier work. She's moving from straight character studies, to more plot driven works and I don't think she's as successful with them.
For one, the ambiguity doesn't work as well for me in her plot driven tales. While I thought Night Moves was superb at the start, I was disappointed by its final act because I needed more clarity. Also Reichardt is not real proficient in staging action oriented scenes. There's an act of violence/confrontation that just doesn't look convincing. (and and damn, we need subtitles on her discs. I could not make out some lines of dialog. It was supposed to be CC, but I couldn't get them to work)
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