L_CELINE

I first heard of this film when Scorcesse mentioned it on his documentary, "A Journey Through American Cinema"...always wanting to see something new, I found a copy of it at work and took it home....WOW!!! This is one of the greatest low budget thriller/melodramas I have ever seen...definately up there with Jacque Tourner's "Cat People" and Edgar Ulmer's "Detour"...Daves conjures up a moltov cocktail of sexual frustration, psychological S&M, and pubescent curiosity that seems primed to explode at any minute, and the volatility of it all is what keeps you in suspense. Even if you do figure out the secret of the red house half way through (I did), the performances of everybody involved (especially Edward G Robinson) keeps your eyes glued to the screen from beginning all the way to the bitter and somewhat ironic end....if you ever run across it, please check it out....sadly, the prints that are available are a bit scratchy at best (which is what happens when a film is forgotten), but the film is an experience everybody should see for themselves.....

OK, Joe Strummer plays a hit-man, the Pogues are Banditos, Elvis Costello's their butler, and Courtney Love dies a violent death....what more could you ask for?

When one watches "City Of Lost Children", one is compelled to call it a masterpiece....the visuals are striking.....the actors are amazing.....when I see a masterpiece, I'm compelled to own it....I wasn't sure whether it really was a work of genius like, say, "Citizen Kane", "The 400 Blows", or the teams very first effort, "Delicatessen", yet I went ahead and spent $25 to get it....after watching it a couple times, I realized why I was so apprehensive.....the plotline (if you can call it that) seems to exist solely to propell another really cool visual (and brilliant those visuals are)....this has been the same reason why I think David Lynch is an Over-rated Fellini wanna-be, why I think Hal Hartley's films (other than "Amateur") are over-rated pieces-of-doodoo, and why Ken Araki's films should have the negatives burned....one watches these films and thinks of those whiny pretensious f**$s that go to college and major in Theatre and Art and think they're better and more important that everybody else in the whole world because they read Samuel Beckett or can quote Shakespeare without understanding what either one were trying to say in the first place....though my vitriol is nowhere NEAR extreme with Jeunet and Caro, sadly, I have to say for "City", for all it's sheen veneer, I felt like I just ate a big chocolate bar ....it might've seemed like a good idea at the time, but I felt empty afterwards....