Film Club Pacing

The Stray Dog month has been the most quiet of the Film Club months so far. I’m wondering why.

I would actually like to hear from both regular contributors as well as those of you who drop a line every now and then but might want to write more. Are we getting tired, are we all busy with our lives, or is it that Stray Dog just isn’t that good a source of discussion?

As I think that the film actually has quite a lot of discussion to it, I would imagine that the first two are the real reasons? Or, at least in my case, I had some film club fatigue earlier this month from Yojimbo, and after recovering from that I found myself extremely busy with my work and my social life. That is why I haven’t contributed all that much, although I would still like to write a couple of treatments on the movie, if only I find the time.

If it really is due to tiredness and/or lack of time, should we slow down the Film Club schedule and give each film, say, two months from now on? We certainly don’t have to rush anywhere. What do you think?

Any other thoughts regarding the matter?

b) who drop a line every now and then but might want to write more

b) busy with our lives

Indeed, I have one or two ideas to put on the Stray Dog topic but didn’t manage to re-watch it seriously yet.

I think that summer vacations are not very helpful, and that extending (temporarily or not) the duration of the club would be an excellent idea, in order to rub out any disadvantage on specific film, as far as the other (and main) discussion participants are stumbling on the same obstacle.

Where I fill some 30 pages worth of notes for other films, and writing up something that takes advantage of less then half of my notes. Stray Dog, even after 2 watches, fills less then 1 page of notes, and gives me no clue as what to write about, nor much motivation to write.

I also became addicted to the Olympics, I dont even like sports, but there some good stuff going on. By the way, it is really funny to see the Chinese take on the CCTV stations versus the American take on NBC, whenever America loses to China or vice versa.

The pacing, I am open to whatever, but I see a increased time period stretching the motivation that any one movie can produce too far.

I think its just an August thing, everyone is a bit busy or on holidays. I also think that maybe Stray Dog is not the sort of movie that provokes deep discussion – Didn’t Kurosawa himself say he didn’t find it interesting?

I’m with Ugetsu and Jeremy and Fabien–

Olympics, the particular film, and busy with our lives.

Like Jeremy I was addicted to the Olympics. It was the whole China-taking-center-stage thing, plus the Phelps thing (he trained here, and is a local hero). I don’t even like beach volleyball, and ended up watching every match I could. Ricidulous.

Ok, let us then proceed with the schedule as originally planned. After all, the Club moving onto the next film doesn’t mean that all discussion of the previous film(s) needs to stop. I might still write more about Stray Dog at some point.

As for the Olympics, I can honestly say that I saw practically nothing of the games. They are not quite my thing, especially after I had already spent three weeks watching the UEFA Euro 2008 in June! And the broadcast times were not all that good for European viewers.

Yet, even then, it was difficult not to hear about the unstoppable Phelps! Or his diet. Not least so, because he beat the Hungarian Lásló Cseh in three events, leaving him with three silver medals from these games.

Well, at least the Hungarians got their revenge in the water polo final, where they beat the Americans. That was actually the only event I watched — well, about half of it. Water polo is something of a religion in this country.