Terry Gilliam - C/D, S/D

but i found parts of it a lot more grating and draggy than i remembered

this sums up my rewatch of Brazil a few years ago, but I can't remember which version I watched...

Those without tolerance for Gilliam’s flights of fancy won’t find themselves as new converts, though it is of a somewhat darker hew than some of his past work.

well, i caught this line, but it's nevertheless a rather surprising claim. i mean, gilliam's got one of the bleakest, most death-haunted and fatalistic filmographies i can think of - especially relative to other contemporary commercial directors. sadistic, even. the gilliam films that do permit a ray of light (the fisher king, the brothers grim) are the exceptions, and stingy with it besides.

i'm just taken aback by the idea that parnassus might seem exceptionally dark in relation to, say, tideland and brazil. (setting aside, of course, the small matter of its star's untimely passing...)

I suppose by "surprising" I meant that it's not nec. in line with the movies it most resembles, esp. Munchausen & Time Bandits, which are both tidier movies from what I recall.

Confession: I've never seen "Tideland," but from what I've read it's always seemed like a bit of an outlier in terms of approach.

in other news, Robert Duvall has just been cast as Quixote.

that's not a good sign

I still love Time Bandits and Brazil and Munchausen especially

http://blogues.cyberpresse.ca/moncinema/siroka/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/54724722_h15633137.jpg

u r kidding

My memory of Time Bandits is just so fantastic and awesome. Kind of scared to rewatch it. Like contenderizer I 'consider' it one of my all time favorite films.

HATED HATED HATED fisher king at the time, but I was almost delusionally depressed at the time so maybe a rewatch is in order after these 18 years.

Pretty psyched for Parnassus-- I love a mess.

he's crouching in that photo.

Not massively keen on Duvall as Quixote. He seems slightly too old and not...troubled looking enough, or something. That said: great actor, could pull it off.

This is a gilliam production, so Duvall might GET troubled soon enough...

my first thought on hearing that Duvall was cast as Quixote "oh shit, Robert Duvall is gonna die soon"

Lisa Kudrow cast as Quixote

so this is out now?

Out and good.

Parnassus? It's deece.

feeling older...

http://mubi.com/notebook/posts/2559

Good at blaming other people for stuff, isn't he?

Visionaries don't have time for nonsense like budgets and schedules and TIME I mean

"Imaginarium" was really pretty wonderful, aside from the Colin Farrell parts. I recently saw "Fisher King" for the first time and greatly enjoyed that too. Kinda get the feeling he keeps remaking the same story over and over - misfits triumphing against an insane world.

well, not in Brazil so much

Fisher King is allright except for the middle-third love story which comes out of nowhere and is just terrible (and then entirely abandoned for the final third)

just like irl tbh

awww

Well,, yeah Brazil is debatable because the ending is so open-ended. But you could argue that Sam ends it completely free of the Orwellian nightmare by escaping into permanent hallucinatory madness. The whole film was about him wanting to live out his dreams and the real world constantly interfering. So maybe - in his mind at least - he's won.

Yeah, I've heard Gilliam make that argument... He never had to sell that to a general audience.

I seem to recall "triumph" being a relative term in the new one as well?

I love Fisher King, top to bottom...including the love story even. I saw Munchausen for the first time earlier this year and really loved it. I haven't seen Imaginarium...I dunno, I'm kind of afraid of it.

dont be, imo. Pleasantly surprised by it

Munchausen, Brazil and Time Bandits are all the business. quality varies thereafter - am seriously trepidatious about the Imaginarium

a mixture of trippy and bodacious? Fitting, imo.

um

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/trepidatious

ur middle name ought to be 'understanding of wordplay'

actually, that is the definition of "mo"

understanding of wordplay money understanding of wordplay problems

dont talk shite

see, you just don't understand wordplay

Parnassus was indeed great, but I liked Tideland too so

(really just made that post in order to throw Tideland into the mix and see what happens)

In future I really am not going to bump the thread of a guy who hasnt made a good film in a quarter-century just bcz he turned 70.

yes you will

But you alerted me to Quixote's funding going arse-up so completely worthwhile bump imo xp

totally dug imaginarium which i just saw last weekend. brazil is dope but too long. is fisher king with robin williams? i guess i have to put tideland on my netflix queue . . .

Fisher King Robin Williams, yep.

btw did that film disappear without trace? I've not seen it available anywhere in at least a decade.

I have Tideland and that's another that I've been a bit twitchy about watching.

It's incredibly fantastic but it's also very very confrontational and self-indulgent and monologue-heavy and just weird. But incredibly fantastic.

hurm....

I want to say more but there's so much to spoil.

spoiler:

horrid

That's def a good start.