thanks for this nina - please also, what would you suggest as to some good websites in which i can try to comprehend what the hell Barney was getting at. i agree with you on the moments you like. Thanks again....sean

Cremaster 5 was just one long orgasm to me. The whole thing was just unbelievably gorgeous, and Ursula Andress overwhelmed me with each frame she was in. Every moment of C5 was beautiful to me, and the Bepler's soundtrack was just as great.

Other than that, for me the strong images in the other films made up for the weaker, more tedious moments. I loved Marti Domination in C1, and the saturated oranges, blues and pinks.

Baby Fay La Foe and Norman Mailer were great in C2, though I thought that one was great throughout - even the slower, more indulgent passages were effective to me because the mirrored landscape images were so beautiful. I liked the Gary Gilmore tie-in as well - so much, in fact, that I was inspired to read "The Executioner's Song" last summer - a read that was made that much more interesting after watching the film.

C3 might have been the most difficult of the five for me to get through - everything up until "The Order" was soooo repetitive and tedious. Pretty to look at, but at almost four hours, there's a point where you wanna throw your hands up and say "okay, we get it, elevator shaft + cement = testicle descending." The Order, though...wow. Just gorgeous.

C4 seemed like a prototype for the other films - it comes across as the most amateurish and least painstakingly detailed of the bunch. It still has a distinctive feel, but it's easy to gloss over this one. Loved the androgynous bodybuilder nymphs, loved Barney's make-up, loved the blue and yellow...beyond that, it came off as a little rough and not completely realized.

Anyway - it's been a while since I've seen all five Cremaster films...but these are the reflections I can remember.

great idea, Nina - it's hard to choose even just one moment in each film, but here goes:

- C1 doesn't seem to have a lot of fans, but the aerial shots of the figures creating the patterns on the football field while Marti Domination moved the grapes around in the airship was quite lovely to me (and reading back over that sentence reminds me how very strange it was ... )

- really loved Dave Lombardo's bee solo in the recording studio in C2.

- "The Order" is definitely the highlight of C3 (and of the whole cycle) - yes, it's absurd, but there's also an underlying structure to it that helped me to understand the cycle as a whole. i guess if i'd have to pick a favorite level (another thread perhaps?) in that it'd be the Order of the Rainbow for Girls - i've always been a sucker for precision tap dancing. the "parenthetical" scenes with the giant and the leprechaun at the beginning and end were weird and beautiful - that weird Celtic yodeling on the soundtrack still haunts me. but on the whole this was the most difficult for me to sit through - certain parts (esp. the Cloud Club sequence) seemed to drag on forever.

- can't say any part of C4 particularily stuck with me, though i really liked the costumes.

- C5 is indeed all about Ursula Andress. hers is the only presence that can compete with Barney's in the whole cycle (though Aimee Mullins comes close), and her "aria" gave me chills.

hmmmmmmm
C1: I think my favorite part is the wordless suspended anticipation of this one. You keep thinking that SOMEthing is going to happen but.... my favorite scene is when Goodyear picks at the little slit in the tablecloth and starts to steal grapes. also the stewardesses in Mizrahi looking out the windows, doesn't she light up a cigarette?
C2: My favorite bits are the reflected sideways mountain-range pans from the intros, etc., the part where the bees fly out of his cock, and those draped monster trucks at the end. and the connected Ford Mustangs.
C3:Fionn MacCumhail's Popeye-esque singing and the part where the entered apprentice wedges his shims into the elevator shaft altering the drones of the shafts.... ooooh i love that part!!! the helicopter shots of the columnar basalt formations are pretty cool too.
C4: when those gooey testicles climb out of the racers pockets, climbing through the vaseline tunnel and the Loughton Candidate, one of the most visually compelling characters ever.
C5:The Giant's floral leg-wrap-thing, the vaseline handcuffs, and when the Magician dives into the river.