All Purpose NYC ILX Film Snob Thread

double dose of '70s Holmes revisionism tomw night

http://www.filmlinc.com/films/on-sale/sherlock-holmes-debunked

Mizoguchi in Astoria

http://www.movingimage.us/films/2014/05/02/detail/mizoguchi/

Mizoguchi Time!

I want to come back to what I was talking about above a bit. This isn't just a thing I get with the art house canon, I feel a similar disillusionment with culture in general, it's kind of like that Absurd Child Sydrome thing that was discussed in another thread, it's kind of a constant way I feel about most culture.
I think sometimes the critical assessment of some things need to be downgraded significantly. Especially when I'll admit even many of my favourite things are severely flawed and need to be recommended with major cautions and reservations.
My problem with hyperbole and words like "master" and "masterpiece" is that it creates totally unreal expectations with people who are unfamiliar with whatever genre/medium the piece of work is in and almost inevitably results in a bad comedown that can leave a sour taste that makes you reluctant to come back.
I think calling creators "a master" is particularly bad one because it suggests to me that a creator does something about as well as it could be done and rarely puts a foot wrong. I can't think of anyone in any medium who can live up to that. Even the very best of creators struggle to get their best results and it usually doesn't work out that well most of the time.

I can see how it might be a necessary evil to overrate things because I could imagine being a critic who thinks a director is extremely promising compared to most of the crap they have to sit through and would like more films like this but doesn't truly feel is the sort of revelation they say but maybe that is a white lie that is needed to push against the blockbuster fluff. But again I think it can turn people away from alternative cinema when you keep promising orgasmic epiphanies.

I'm not sure why films seem to me like more of a minefield than other things. Every now and then I'll be pleased about something like Piano Teacher, Page Turner, Innocence, The Hunt; some bits of directors like Fellini, Maya Deren, Brakhage, Maddin, Parajanov, Wim Wenders and Kim Ki Duk. But most of the time I feel like for the time and money is far more of a risk than music(probably the most rewarding, beautiful medium there is).

There is quite a lot of stuff I'm still curious about but I'm always tempted to spend the time/money on books instead. It's really daunting.

Can anyone recommend directors closer to pure visual pleasure without story concerns? Does Kenneth Anger fit that?

Who cares about your hypothetical straweveryman, doesn't he already have enough incoherent but easy to follow junk to gorge on?

manakamana was superb
it shifted to one of the shoeboxes btw

Sorry, not saying The Enterprise should be hauling garbage that everything out there is incoherent junk, some stuff might be coherent junk, some incoherent non-junk, some neither. Maybe I should ask, which exact masterpiece mavens are causing this alleged problem? Name names. Gavin Smith? Kent Jones?

RAG, you like Apichatpong Weeraseethakul?

Or more rambunctiously, Stephen Chow?

Gavin Smith is at p much every movie i've gone to this week

Ellen Burstyn did a v nice pre-film interview at Resurrection last night.

Ha, I used to see him all the time at screenings too.

The plentiful junk isn't something I enjoy and I don't know how I gave the impression I ever wanted that.
Name critics? Whoever's quotes cover the disc boxes. Obviously all sorts of films and books have unreasonably high praise covering them but I thought that better film labels would resist that.

Boonme and Tropical Malady are on my list.

The only Chow film I've seen is Kung Fu Hustle(some lovely moments but too much fakey special effects), but I didn't think he would be considered non-mainstream.

If you don't see a name you recognize who cares what the blurb says?

I know very few critics. Many of the people picking up these boxes won't know either. I think it's just kind of a natural assumption that a label that deals with higher quality films would want to be more fair and sensible about the quotes they use.
When you know more about the stuff you are buying, you tend to not even look at the blurbs.

I refer you to the thread title- this is the official NYC Film Snob thread, not the random timid seeker of challenging but not too challenging cinematic fare - challoptics.

But then the problem really isn't with critics but with marketing.

Boonme is the biggest masterpiece of the decade. Apichatbong Weeresethakul is a master who never puts a foot wrong. Well, except for Mekong Hotel. And Blissfully Yours is a bit long as well, though it's obviously a masterpiece.

True (actually I never noticed the NYC part before) but I'm fairly sure the the type of films I want to see are in this area and this might be a fine place to ask for recommendations. My favourite films are stuff like Inland Empire and Possession, so it isn't too far removed.

If you are looking for recs you've come to the right place and Morbius is your man.

I request recommendations for lush visuals and aesthetic power with the story/characters taking back seat. That's the sort of stuff I talked up in the animation snob thread because I love the expressive visuals and ambiguity that you can lose yourself in. Please.

Well have you tried Sweetgrass / Leviathan / Manakamana?

let me know when this guy's gone

Thanks Forksclovetofu, they look pretty good.

Morbius recommends I fuck off. I'll be quiet but I welcome any more recommendations.

Anything I may have recommended upthread I rerecommend.

this may have been posted here before but i'm happy to be on their mailing list now
http://www.screenslate.com/category/whats-showing-today
sort of a brooklyn vegan for film

I wish their updates were more regularly posted 3-4 days in advance, but that's life.

kicking whoever programmed China is Near at MoMA only during Ky Derby and 4:30 today.

https://mubi.com/notebook/posts/anti-art-extra-film-non-para-pseudo-semi-video-cinema-at-the-60th-international-short-film-festival-oberhausen

John Hubley animation the next 2 Tuesdays

http://www.filmforum.org/movies/more/john_hubley_two_centennial_tri

late-period Jerry Lewis this weekend, incl the amazing/trying WW2 comedy Which Way to the Front?

http://anthologyfilmarchives.org/film_screenings/series/42577

do we have a cannes 2014 thread?

http://ilxor.com/ILX/ThreadSelectedControllerServlet?boardid=40&threadid=99591

Nick Pinkerton on Marcel Hanoun, subject of an Anthology retro

http://artforum.com/film/id=46996

caught the last night of M de Oliveira's most recent, quite splendid.

NY Asian fest lineup, featuring a 3-hr Taiwanese baseball epic:

http://www.filmlinc.com/daily/entry/new-york-asian-film-festival-film-society-of-lincoln-center-lineup

Gebo and the Shadow? Yeah, that one is good, though also pretty extreme in a way. Really not that much variation.

oh I liked the visual 'minimalism' (like the setup that's 90% of the first half hour) plus a lot of the dialogue about "Good fortune is when nothing changes" struck me close given my ongoing life event.

People seem most divided about whether Ricardo Trepa is a bad actor or that's just the character.

Looking back on it, I really love the minimalism of it as well. But watching the film, and not knowing that much about de Oliveira, I was pretty shocked at how little happened. But it's good.

welll I think kind of a lot happens, w/out camera gyrations

for symmetry I saw Lonsdale tonight, 45 years earlier, in Marcel Hanoun's Le printemps

I might come out of the woods for the new Lav Diaz film later this month. Sad I'm going to miss Melancholia!

if yall snobs can stomach watching on vimeo, alex ross perrys impolex is up for a week -http://nobudge.com/main/2014/6/11/alex-ross-perrys-debut-impolex

in case you missed it, Guinness at FF

http://www.filmforum.org/movies/more/alec_guinness_100_festival

I didn't really 'get' Impolex and am told it's probably bcz I haven't read Pynchon.

Sat night, Hoberman does a dual projection, White House Butler Down at Light Industry.

http://www.lightindustry.org/hoberman

everybody go see the best movie about teenagers ever made SEVENTEEN, https://m.facebook.com/events/1430574573876670

I guess I have to see this latest Lav Diaz film, as it's a shortie for him (4 hrs)

also, '60s/70s Italian crime films at Anthology

http://anthologyfilmarchives.org/film_screenings/series/42737

NYC film snobs, should I go see Ida? Just now arriving in my flyover city.

There are better options

yeah for sure catch something else
i can't remember what the contemporary snobby nyc cinema listings site is but somebody should let you know

mad at this thread if you all didn't catch SEVENTEEN
but let us know how the diaz was if you catch it, morbius?

The Diaz is very good, though perhaps not quite the masterpiece the reviews from cannes sorta made it out to be. But go see it!

contemporary snobby nyc cinema listings site = http://www.screenslate.com/

I am down this week. Will see the Diaz, maybe Duncan Campbell at MoMa...what else is good?