Last (x) movies you saw

In my case -- oh, give a guess. I actually haven't seen any movie in the theater this month.

I liked it but not as much as Svankmajer's older animated work (Jabberwocky, Punch+Judy, etc). His work is so visceral and material-oriented that the narrative/dialogue (dubbed in English unfortunately) almost felt like a distraction at times, like he was peppering the film with his favorite visual motifs but they didn't all merge quite right. I liked how non-sequitor it was though. I haven't seen Little Otik yet it looks like Eraserhead.

city of god: good but not as good as it thinks it is (just had an argt w.sistrah becky abt this) (involving joe strummer)

In the last week or two....

In theaters: The Smiling Lieutenant, One Hour with You, Design for Living, The Love Parade, Trouble in Paradise (all of those at the Lubitch festival at the Film Center), Take Care of My Cat.

On video: Description d'un combat, Letter from Siberia, Le vent d'Est (Godard's "Marxist Western"), Scarlet Diva (awful, I could barely finish it), Come Drink with Me (seminal wuxia film), The Long Goodbye (can't believe I'd never seen this), Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham

I really need to see Far from Heaven again before it disappears from theaters here.

Nordicskillz, was Far From Heaven really on at the LFF? I don't remember it, and the NFT are claiming to have the British premiere of it next month.

Martin: that's the one.

Watched Excalibur, Suspiria & The Stepford Wives on DVD last night.

In the theaters, I saw Chicago. It was OK, a bit too impressed with it's cynicism, in a way that seemed dated. Also, how can Catherine Zeta-Jones be so good when she's such a hideous celebrity and advertising spokesperson? She just can, I guess. She was the best thing about High Fidelity, too. Richard Gere is not convincing as a musical comedy performer.

Also--Gangs of New York Loved the outfits! Those striped pants-yeah! And the sets-it was Pirates of the Caribbean meets Satyricon on the rough-and-tumble streets of Boss Tweed-era NYC! DD Lewis was no big deal, I prefer him when he's soft-spoken. Nobody else made much of an impression.

The Hours-Solid, moving. Made me feel old and melancholy. I didn't think Nicole Kidman's performance was so mind-blowing. Also, what's with the Raging Bull nose? Virginia Woolf's nose always seemed rather elegant and large to me, not broken. I loved the supporting cast--good roles for Toni Collette and Claire Danes and Miranda Richardson-finally!

Catch Me If You Can-his most human film since Sugarland Express. I started out hating it, it's like Speilberg does retro-sixties lounge crap and it's so bad. But once he gets into the fucked up family dynamic, it's really good. For what's supposed to be, on a the surface, such a freewheeling go-go film, it's actually very sad. Christopher Walken was incredible.

Saw Possession on the plane back to LA. Not so hot. God, Gwyneth Paltrow is the most irritating actress alive. I've never seen any of the other Neil Labute movies, but the dialogue in this one was surprisingly bad. "I just want to find out if there's an 'us' in 'you and me' ". Also, he was really heavy-handed with the constant American-bashing. Did he have a bad year abroad or something?

Before that, um...But I'm A Cheerleader. Which is now my kneejerk response to "xXx is the best movie ever."

I think his humanity, which isn't mine, is all over his music.

Cinema:
Star Trek Nemesis

Telly:
Conspiracy Theory
FORTRESS!
Terminal Error
LogopolisGoldeneye

I might bring back the City Of God thread so I can hear the Joe Strummer argument.

now if they'd had dead or alive: final as the surprise then i'd tip my hat

the VHS at a friend's flat while we had a few beers before we went out:
armageddon [from about half an hour in]

Yeah, right.

I saw Jim (aka GOD) Jarmusch being interviewed at the LFF to promote Ghost Dog, and he said that the RZA would deliver his tapes for the soundtrack by pulling up on broadway in a van with tinted windows under cover of night.

twas very good. spent hours figuring out what the fuck happened though.

"Catch Me If You Can"
"Election"
"White Christmas" (starring Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye)
"Magnificent Obsession" (dir. by Douglas Sirk)

This film is the current candidate for most divided opinions. I've heard dribbling praise and acidic excoriations in equal amounts.

Signs
The Divine Secrets of the YaYa Sisterhood
National Lampoon's Van Wilder
Barbershop

Umm... Saw 24- Hour Party People last night and enjoyed it. Tonight will watch any special features.

i however will be at work booo

I Just can't stop this uncontrollable dancing" [not quite finished edit, screening at the director's house! thatbeing Campbell Walker - it has orig Loren Connors music on it!]

Roger & Me by Michael Moore, it was on telly

Dogs in Space hmmgh

Sweet Home Alabama [!!??HgghgHjmm]

Buffalo 66

Much of ILE liked Donnie Darko. I thought it was grebt fun if you don't take it too seriously.

Dick - Good characters, scenario etc but enough jokes. Though the central one more than makes up for that. And it's got Kirsten Dunst and Jen Dawson's in.

6:20 pm NFT1

Dick rocks. ALl The Presidents Men is on next week sometime for decent comparison Graham. Dick tells the story a lot better.

Knackers, in seminar at 6:20.

Goodness, what a mess! It's sooo French too - I don't just mean the Paris setting and the Aznavour/Karina cameos, but the plotting is typical 'policier' à la Diva what with all these sinister types menacing our heroine (when they're not chasing or squabbling with eachother, that is). Also, all the cast must have had ESP since they all managed to be in exactly in the right place at the right time. Nice sapphic undertones tho', and surprisingly light on violence, which made a nice change.

*as namechecked by Justin upthread

Imitation of Life
Chicago
Dogfight
Barbershop
Krush Groove
The Bourne Identity
24 Hour Party People (listened to commentaries while assembling CD rack)

Worth it to watch Meryl Streep, and Claire Danes is good but it's a small part.

Adaptation - s'okay; Nic Cage and Chris Cooper were great.

Confessions of a Dangerous Mind - Alot of fun. Gene Gene the Dancing Machine, plus Julia Roberts licking Sam Rockwell, plus Drew Barrymore looking fuckme adorable, plus RUTGER HAUER. The best Charlie Kaufman flick with Maggie Gyllenhaal to come out in the past year.

City of Gods - pretty damn good; a few shots were a little too flashy, and I can never judge a script well off of subtitles but it had an impact. I didn't think it was as relentlessly dark as some made it out to be, but I never thought gangsta rap was supposed to be dark or serious either.

25th Hour - I've mentioned this elsewhere; I cried my eyes out.

Last film that I walked out of halfway through: LOTR: The Two Towers

Last film that I got a nice big poster of: Vivre Sa Vie

"Dirty Pretty Things" last week - even better, a beautifully satirsfying and moving British film. Recommend hugely.

Chicago = great

I spy = okay

i wanted to see bergman's hour of the wolf today but was at work

should be watching 'persona' sometime this week.

I saw '6th Sense' when it came out, and like others here also guessed the twist ending abt 10 mins into the flick (this doesn't usually happen to me - I didn't suss the twist in 'Fight Club', for example, which other ppl have told me was equally obvious.) But re-watching '6th Sense' last night, without that sense of 'Is That All There Is?', I enjoyed it much more - the scene in the car w/ the mum and the little boy is incredibly manipulative/sentimental, but so well acted it nearly had me blubbing, all the same, and as a mood piece abt loss and letting go it works v. well (tho' I did wonder why, if the young girl was filming her mother poisoning her, she didn't actually do anything abt it). I also think Bruce Willis is really tremendous in it.

Today I saw: "Catch Me if you Can" = funny, underrated, enjoyable caper. balance has been restored! Hurrah!

yesterday I went across the road and watched Donnie Darko. I know there were threads on this so I might post.

Russian Ark - ohmigod this movie is so good

Talk to Her - s'okay

I saw the pianist recently, and it was good. i am planning on seeing "city of god" tonight.

Also saw About Schmidt, hated it. The way Payne poked fun at the crass aging hippie bohemian family was despicable. Really smug, I didn't sense any affection there at all.

I saw 25th Hour and 'Catch Me If...'
Thought 25th Hour was much better

Last weekend I watched The Man Who Wasn't There and Austin Powers II.

Also recently saw Ghostworld, was drunk, didn't enjoy it, know this is Very Wrong and must see it again.

Ah, and Bowling for Columbine. Everyone must see this. With a very open mind.

to see:
MST3K the movie
Battle Royale

last night i watched SHAKEDOWN with PETER WELLER and SAM ELLIOT in GRITTY 1988 NYC. terrible and often implausible and incomprehensible but totally fun to watch. obligatory action sequence on the cyclone!

i think alex in nyc would like this movie, though.

Film Comment-style, what are the last ten films you saw?

Nothing Personal (2009, Urszula Antoniak)
Sadgati [Deliverance] (1981, Satyajit Ray)
Get Out of the Car (2010, Thom Andersen)
Jews and Baseball: An American Love Story (2010, Peter Miller)
Poison (1991, Todd Haynes)
Bad Girl (1931, Frank Borzage)
Let Me In (2010, Matt Reeves)
Morning Glory (2010, Roger Michell)
The Tin Drum (1979/2010, Volker Schlondorff)
Summer and Smoke (1961, Peter Glenville)

Let Me In
Le Cercle Rouge
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 (I have an excuse)
The Secret of Kells
Alphaville
Straight Time
Sensation (Irish movie with no real release yet)

I'm drawing a blank beyond these 7, watched a lot of old/new TV dramas lately so not as many films.

Zatôichi (2003, Takeshi Kitano)
Day of the Dead (1985, George A. Romero)
Despicable Me (2010, Pierre Coffin & Chris Renaud)
The Legend of Drunken Master (1994, Chia-Liang Liu & Jackie Chan)
The Wrestler (2008, Darren Aronofsky)
Scanners (1981, David Cronenberg)
Nosferatu (1922, F.W. Murnau)

All I can remember too

The Project
Something Wild
When will I be loved?
Mulholland Dr
Scenes From a Marriage
Friday
The Sender
The Rachel Papers
Into the Night
Soul Kitchen

Two Mules for Sister Sara
Cosmotropia de Xam's SU (Surrealistica Uniferno)
Vincent & Theo
Lust for Life
Halloween III: Season of the Witch
Dario Argento's Inferno
Repo Man
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
Angel Heart
Simon King of the Witches

(no real dogs, except for Lust for Life)

mccabe & mrs miller
lift to the scaffold
les amants
le feu follet

this weekend saw

red desert
in the realm of the senses
the river
barry lyndon

all on a big screen

and

days of heaven
juliet of the spirits
the house of mirth

coming up next weekend. psyched, esp for my 1st big-screen malick.

Cropsey (2009, Barbara Brancaccio and Joshua Zeman)
The Social Network (2010, David Fincher)
Kings of Pastry (2009, Chris Hegedus and D.A. Pennebaker)
Catfish (2010, Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman)
The Town (2010, Ben Affleck)
About Last Night... (1986, Edward Zwick)
Whip It (2009, Drew Barrymore)
Mother (2009, Bong Joon-ho)
No Way Out (1950, Joseph L. Mankiewicz)
Runaways (2010, Floria Sigismondi)

Have been watching one a day: Dark Star, Assault on Precinct 13, Halloween, The Fog, Escape From New York
Tonight: The Thing
Tomorrow: Christine
Lined up for the days after that: Starman, Big Trouble in Little China, Prince of Darkness, They Live, In the Mouth of Madness, Village of the Damned, Escape from L.A., Vampires, Ghosts of Mars

(12 on DVD, 4 as avi)

I'm Gonna Explode (2009, Gerardo Naranjo)
The Boy With Green Hair (1946, Joseph Losey)
I'll Come Running (2006, Spenser Parons) - Left me freaked out because my best friend is a ringer for Melonie Diaz
Unmade Beds (2009, Alexis Dos Santos) - It falls apart when you think about it (homeless immigrants in London will likely not find themselves living out the hipster dream), but still exhilirating.
Marie Antoinette (1938, W. S. Van Dyke) - This movie should have lauched a thousand camp revivals by now.
Earrings of Madame De... (1953, Max Ophuls)

Nenette and Boni (Denis, 1997) (print)
I Can't Sleep (Denis, 1994) (print)
Where Does Your Hidden Smile Lie? (Costa, 2001) (print)
The Aviary/Nymphlight/Fable of Fountains (Cornell/Burkhardt, 1957-1970) (prints)
Dripping Water (Snow/Wieland, 1969) (print)
Straight and Narrow (Tony/Beverly Conrad, 1970) (print)
Razor Head (Tom/Ken Chomont, 1984) (print)
Dervish Machine (Er0s/Li0tta, 1992) (print)
Garden Path (Reed/ Brakhage, 2002) (print)
It Felt Like A Kiss (Adam Curtis, 2009) (.avi)

been hittin up the IFC Ctr, eh Colin?

For the Denis, yeah. I wasn't crazy about either of those, but there's some great stuff in I Can't Sleep. I'm really bummed I had to miss her Rivette doc. I've been trying to see that for years and something always intervenes. I'm going to try to catch No Fear No Die on Weds. Did you go to any of them?

no. and I have 'year-end' screenings Wed-Fri, and need to catch Pedro Costa and one of the Bruce Conner programs at FF the next 2 nights.

The Trojan Women
L'Avventura
Naked Lunch
Inside Job
Spanglish
Shutter Island
Howl
Step Brothers
Che
Please Give

Ne Change Rien is definitely worth seeing, but it's easily the weakest Costa, imo. There are a few incredible sequences -- mostly dealing with the Offenbach rehearsals, but the studio stuff can get very dull because Jeanne Balibar isn't a very interesting musician.

You can catch those Connors at MoMA like every other week!

"Standard Operating Procedure"
"Who is Harry Nilsson?"
"Barry Lyndon"
"Scott Pilgrim"
"Gold Diggers of 1933"
"Best Worst Movie"
"Wild Rebels" (MST3K)

The Kids Are All Right (2010)
Teen Wolf (1985)
U.S. vs. John Lennon, the (2006)
Thomas Crown Affair, the (1968, Jewison)
Born Yesterday (1950, Cukor)
Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970, Post)
The Mystery of Picasso (1956, Clouzot)
Return of the Living Dead, the (1985, O'Bannon)
I Know Where I'm Going (1945, Powell & Pressburger)
Circus, the (1928, Chaplin)

mostly netflix streaming

oooh, "the weakest Costa" is bad news in my book. not crazy about him tbh.

The Trojan Women

is this the one Kate Hepburn was in?

Yeah, she's the weakest thing in it: she's playing Eleanor of Aquitaine in a toga. I'm reminded again though that Genevieve Bujold is one strange, great actress.

I don't know, maybe you'll like it then? The narrative, as such, is more straightforward than the Fountainhas films, but it's still very him. Very dark image, long long takes of slight variations on the same action. It's closest to Hidden Smile, but instead of being about the fuckin Straubs, it's about a connected actress trying her hand at music.

x-post

Trying to think back on what I've seen this year was difficult enough that I've resolved to start keeping a film journal.

Tyson (2008, James Toback)
21 (2008, Robert Luketic)
Greenberg (2010, Noah Baumbach)
The Social Network (2010, David Fincher)
Four Lions (2010, Chris Morris)
Offside (2006, Jafar Panahi)
Exit Through The Gift Shop (2010, Banksy)
Macgruber (2010, Jorma Taccone)
Due Date (2010, Todd Phillips)
All Tomorrows Parties (2009, Johnathon Caouette)

harry potter and the deathly hallows (2010) - okay, kinda fun, kinda dreary
i'm still here (2010) - near great
centurion (2010) - a lot of fun for about an hour, then less so

oh, and winter's bone (2010) - excellent

El mariachi (Robert Rodriguez, 1992)
Zelig (Woody Allen, 1983)
Toy Story 3 (Lee Unkrich, 2010)
Corpse Bride (Tim Burton & Mike Johnson, 2005)
Zombieland (Rubin Fleischer, 2009)
Profound Desires of the Gods (Shohei Imamura, 1968)
An American Werewolf in London (Jon Landis, 1981)
Antichrist (Lars Von Trier, 2009)
Bird on a Wire (Tony Palmer, 1974)
Clerks (Kevin Smith, 1994)

I saw Due Date and Fair Game over the thanksgiving holiday.
Strange combo.
GOD were the two main characters in Due Date the most despicable people EVER.

Werckmeister Harmonies
The Piano Teacher
4 Months 3 Weeks 2 Days
Antichrist
A Man Escaped
Solaris (2003)
The Hurt Locker
The Consequences of Love
Jar City
Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole (fucking hell)

last film I saw was Thoroughly Modern Millie w/ Julie Andrews. Thought it was extremely entertaining. Before that:

Rock and Rule - talked all the way through this cause it seemed really boring/sexist after a few minutes. Cool animation though.
House (recent Japanese one) - meh.
MacGruber - was entertaining and funny enough. I always enjoy Val Kilmer.
The Signal - scary and unsettling. I recommend it highly.
Harold and Kumar - finally got around to watching this. It lived up to its hype.

Oh yeah and I saw Jojimbo at the local art house cinema. Its so fucking awesome! Loved it.

Avatar-awful, what is wrong with humanity.

err, more like "what is wrong with humanity?"

Who is Harry Nilsson?
Inside Job
Big Fan
The Insider
Fair Game
Due Date

xpost I know, the way they senselessly attacked those poor Na'avi! Fucking humanity!

Zero Bridge (2008, Tariq Tapa)
Cedar Rapids (2011, Miguel Arteta)
A Private Function (1984, Malcolm Mowbray/Alan Bennett)
Ministry of Fear (1944, Fritz Lang)
Doomed Love (1978, Manoel de Oliveira)
Potiche (2010, Francois Ozon)
The Time That Remains (2009, Elia Suleiman)
Kaboom (2010, Gregg Araki)
Broadcast News (1987, James L. Brooks)
The Leopard (1963, Luchino Visconti)

how was the ozon?

His worst that I've seen; flat, cutesy. I'm amazed Gerard Depardieu can still fit inside France.

Biutiful - Bardem the only upside, as expected

Atlantic City = great movie
The Road = not so great

Play Time (1967, Tati)
The Illusionist (2010, Chomet)
Les Enfants Terribles (1950, Melville)

jaws
the iron giant
devils on the doorstep
the runaways
kung fu hustle
animal kingdom
wolf creek
reprise
little big man

Ondine (2009, Neil Jordan)
Bombshell (1933, Victor Fleming)
Limitless (2011, Neil Burger)
Impostors (1979, Mark Rappaport)
Lord Love a Duck (1966, George Axelrod)
Red-Headed Woman (1932, Jack Conway)
Diary of a Country Priest (1951, Robert Bresson)
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010, Apichatpong Weerasethakul)
Asphalt (1929, Joe May)
Jane Eyre (2011, Cary Joji Fukunaga)

Public Enemies. Liked the actress in it and some of the grainy video stuff (only saw the DVD, its probably more impressive in the big screen). Other than that I just couldn't care less.

Watching 'Les Diaboliques' tomorrow.

How is Asphalt? xp

so far this year, rev. chron. order:

The White Ribbon (Haneke)
Rango (Verbinski)
For a Few Dollars More (Leone)
A Fistful of Dollars (Leone)
The Parallax View (Pakula)
Gandhi (Attenborough)
The Thin Red Line (Malick)
Bridge on the River Kwai (Lean)
Days of Heaven (Malick)
In the Realm of the Senses (Oshima)
True Grit (Coen bros)
Bonnie & Clyde (Penn)
Black Swan (Aronofsky)
Late Spring (Ozu)

Interiors (Allen, 1978)*
Short Cuts (Altman, 1993)
The Good Shephered (De Niro, 2006)
Mephisto (Szabo, 1981)
True Grit (Coen Bros, 2010)
I Love You Philip Morris (Ficarra/Requa, 2009)
Black Narcissus (Powell/Pressburger, 1947)
Zodiac (Fincher, 2007)
Hedwig and the Angry Inch (Cameron Mitchell, 2001)

* Only got 45 minutes through this before giving up.

Had hoped to see 'Submarine' this weekend but nearest showing is 30 miles away, so that will have to wait a while I think.

corey, Asphalt has some amazing shots, esp closeups of the badgirl vamp.

Never Let Me Go
An Unmarried Woman
Love & Other Drugs
Fantastic Mr Fox
Nowhere Boy
Red-Headed Woman
Dinner At Eight
Red
Silkwood
Tequila Sunrise

Our Hospitality (1923, Buster Keaton, Jack Blystone)
Curling (2010, Denis Cote)
The Driver (1978, Walter Hill)
Sailor's Luck (1933, Raoul Walsh)
Miral (2010, Julian Schnabel)
Cold Weather (2010, Aaron Katz)
Red Dust (1932, Victor Fleming)
Fish Tank (2009, Andrea Arnold)
Certified Copy (2010, Abbas Kiarostami)
Agitator (2001, Takashi Miike)

Last House on the Left, The (1972, Craven)
Dune (1984, Lynch)
Missing (1982, Costa-Gavras)
Incendies (2010) [missing the last minute]
Ghost Writer, the (2010, Polanski)
Robinson Crusoe on Mars (1964, Haskin)
Date Night (2010, Levy)
Joan of Arc (1948, Fleming)
China Syndrome, the (1979, Bridges)
Going My Way (1944, McCarey)

how is cold weather? i liked Dance Party USA

ive recently watched:

santa sangre
rubber
sorority row
monsters
the naked kiss
a wedding
distant voices, still lives
a new leaf

I was amused by Cold Weather in part bcz the plot features a mystery code that's based a certain branch of ephemera that I'm well-acquainted with. And the video lensing of Portland looks real nice. However, it's slighter than its champions seem to think.

abanana, who cut off the last minute of Incendies on you? sounds like Peter Cook in Bedazzled.

cold weather is a lot of fun, tho first 20 minutes are kind of insufferable bec of the dude's irritating fake naturalistic acting

Harry Potter/Prisoner of Azkaban
Going the Distance
Macgruber
Paul
Rango
Due Date
Up
Exit Through the Gift Shop
The Fighter

lol I am lame

according to Netflix:
Casino Royale (1967)
Robocop 2
The Stendhal Syndrome
The Hudsucker Proxy
Battlefield Earth
Shadows & Fog

Mah taste, she eez exquisite

in abt the order i liked them

youth in revolt
twisted nerve
time indefinite
bonjour tristesse
poltergeist
the small back room
the gambler
bugsy

Submarine (Richard Ayoade, 2010)
Micmacs (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 2009)
Last Picture Show (Peter Bogdanovich, 1971)
Robin Hood (Ridley Scott, 2010)
Radio On (Christopher Petit, 1979)
In the Realm of the Senses (Nagisa Oshima, 1975)
A Mighty Wind (Christopher Guest, 2003)
Source Code (Duncan Jones, 2011)
A Serious Man (Coen brothers, 2009)
Date Night (Shawn Levy, 2010)
Ondine (Neil Jordan, 2009)

The Conspirator
Scream 4 (FUCKING AWFUL)
Oldboy (omg loved this)

Into the Fire (doc on Toronto's G20 summit...illuminating, but I could do without idiots yelling "fascist!" at the screen)
Invasion of the Body Snatchers ('78 version)
American: The Bill Hicks Story
Barry Lyndon
Heart Like a Wheel
Il Posto
Night Moves (Penn series at the Cinematheque)
The Missouri Breaks
Mickey One
The Sugarland Express
The Heartbreak Kid ('72 version, of course)

That's 11, covering about a month. I probably missed something.

Burlesque
Black Swan (twice)
Double Indemnity

wait I rewatched Nightmare on Elm St 2 btwn BS and DI

Do you like NOES2 or am I the only one

Street Fight
Easy A
The Adjustment Bureau
The Expendables
The Runaways
I'm Still Here
Source Code
Cyrus
Chinatown
The Kid Stays in the Picture

Meek's Cutoff
The Night of the Hunter
Lost Bohemia
Source Code
Of Gods and Men
Showgirl in Hollywood
Exraordinary Stories
City of Life and Death
If I Had a Million
Tillie and Gus
The Beaver
The Arbor
Dog Day Afternoon
Hesher
True Grit (1969, Henry Hathaway)
His Kind of Woman
The Imperialists Are Still Alive!
There Be Dragons
Nostalgia for the Light

how was Hesher, Morbs?

blech

http://www.slantmagazine.com/film/review/hesher/5500

le plaisir
pretty maids all in a row
bridesmaids
an education
savage messiah
desperately seeking susan
kick-ass
the reflecting skin

Went the Day Well?
Vault of Horror
Jazz on a Summer's Day

I just saw "The Book of Eli". Surprisingly good for a hackneyed apocalyptic movie.

until the ending, right?

I have seen much worse (hi dere "Ultraviolet")

the ending of ultraviolet, i'm assuming, was the cast turning around to camera and en masse chanting 'lol u watched this far'

basically!

yeah, by the time i turned it off at 15 mins in i figured it would be something like that.

Harakiri
Le Beau Serge
Mysteries Of Lisbon
The Grey Man
The Mother And The Whore
The Song Remains The Same

fanny and alexander (after talking to alfred about it)
marwencol
the hangover (first time. it was okay...)
kung fu panda 2
still walking
summer war

The Runaways
Salt
MST3K: The Movie
Black Swan
Thor

I also saw The Hangover 2, which was exactly like The Hangover

The Killing of a Chinese Bookie
The Wages of Fear
Hesher
The Troll Hunter
Fish Tank
Lupid the Third: The Castle of Cagliostro
The Conformist
Mind Game
The Illusionist
Come and See
M
Mind Game

Speed Racer
Psycho
Spiderhole
Gainsbourg
Chico & Rita
Attack the Block
Peeping Tom
Morning Glory

Nostalgia for the Light

how was this, morbs? i have the battle of chile set ready to plough through but think this might be a gentler intro to guzman. it sounds great.

some recent things:
shara
le quattro volte (great!)
isle of flowers
animal crackers (which i forgot i'd seen, & can't imagine remembering well enough to negate the pleasure of rescreening)
correspondences (eugene green)
puppetmaster (don't want to start a revolt but actually sorta kinda underwhelmed?, i felt like it demanded a cinema viewing, & was sorta too much to take in at home; i'm still drawn to his more recent 'urban female' films, & will probably veer that way when catching up on his '80s stuff)

The Secrets in Their Eyes (Campanella, 2009)
Boogie Nights (Anderson, 1996)
Winter's Bone (Granik, 2010)
A Single Man (Ford, 2009)
Festen (Vinterberg, 1998)
Blow Out (De Capra, 1981)
Double Indemnity (Wilder, 1944)
Amelie (Jeunet, 2001)
The New World (Malick, 2005)
Thumbsucker (Mills, 2005)
Shanghai Express (von Sternberg, 1932)

Messiah Of Evil (dir W Huych & G Katz, 1973)
The Room (dir T Wiseau, 2003)
The Cremator (dir J Herz, 1969)
The Happiness Of The Katakuris (dir T Miike, 2001)
Wizard of Gore (dir Herschell Gordon Lewis, 1970)
The War Game (dir P Watkins, 1965)
Threads (dir M Jackson, 1984)
Rare Exports (dir J Helander, 2010)
Morgiana (dir J Herz, 1972)
Amer (dir H Cattet & B Forzani , 2009)
Thundercrack! (dir C McDowell, 1975)
Cult Of The Damned aka Angel Angel Down We Go (dir R Thom, 1969)
Penda's Fen (dir A Clarke, 1973)
Possession (dir A Żuławski, 1981)
The Stone Tape (dir P Sasdy, 1972)
Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny & Girly (dir F Francis, 1970)
Teorema (dir P P Pasolini, 1968)

Most of these have been film club type nights at ours, it's alarmingly rare we just stick on a DVD on a whim. Only a couple of those at the cinema too ('The Room' and 'Rare Exports').

Most of these have been film club type nights at ours, it's alarmingly rare we just stick on a DVD on a whim.

yeah i am this way all the time now. i find it harder & harder to watch films, i think because of the quicker-hit of episodic stuff, and the weird intimidation of knowing that if you start watching something at ten, when it's over it won't be long before you have to go to sleep. making it film night makes it formal & makes me get around to watching stuff that would be easier to postpone. we're watching perfumed nightmare, next, i think.

Funeral Parade Of Roses is next for us I think. Possession and The Other Side Of Underneath likely soon.

The Other Guys
A Nightmare On Elm Street
Hollywood Ending
Anything Else
Melinda & Melinda
Thor
Iron Man
Iron Man 2
The Incredible Hulk
Bridesmaids

It seems clear in hindsight that I'm trying to come back from a month of films like the just-mentioned Possession (seriously one of the best and most nightmarishly-overwhelming movies I've ever seen), Enter The Void, and multiple viewings of Eraserhead. I've maybe not been in the best place lately...

Oh, and after poring through the ILX thread yesterday, I'm determined to see a matinee of The Tree of Life tomorrow afternoon.

I wasn't manic for Nostalgia for the Light, but it's undeniably worthwhile, and perpetrates some visual coups that will be diminished on a home screen, alas.

I saw the Hangover 2 :(

The Last Man on Earth
Nowhere Boy
Red White & Blue
Theater of Blood
Bridesmaids
The Other Guys
Vampire Circus
Witchfinder General
Wet Hot American Summer
Marwencol

blank city
altman's popeye
the original arthur
the heartbreak kid remake
please give

haven't seen much in theaters lately, but tree of life will prob be my next one.

badlands
midnight in paris
date night
despicable me

Saw The Tree of Life, gushed excessively about it in its own thread.

Also somehow forgot to include The Cannonball Run in my list above. And Flight of the Navigator. No, I couldn't really tell you why.

mixture of cinema, blu-ray and dvd:

the town
monsters
x-men: first class
a swedish love story
blue valentine
laputa - castle in the sky
of gods and men
pina
13 assassins
departures

a swedish love story

is that the first, sorta-conventional-looking roy andersson? how is it, if so?

I wasn't manic for Nostalgia for the Light, but it's undeniably worthwhile, and perpetrates some visual coups that will be diminished on a home screen, alas.

ah, such a shame as i'll never get to a screening, here. i'll report back on the other guzmans when i'm an expert on chilean history.

>is that the first, sorta-conventional-looking roy andersson?

yeah - it got a recent DVD release (in the UK at least). I *loved* it. Not many hints of the visual style that he'd develop as he went on, but there's lots of dialogue which is uncannily like stuff from ...Second Floor etc ie. monologuing, despairing. It's shot almost documentary fashion, so there's a very appealing rawness and it does look beautiful - a glorious Swedish summer captured on film.

oh that's great. i'd wondered if it was a minor, hired-gun sorta studio thing, but reading up it sounds really interesting. i'll check it out.

just to continue to turn this thread into a personal q-&-a, how was Nowhere Boy, darin? it looked impossibly bad and yet i kept hearing good things about it.

The Upsetter: The Life and Music of Lee Scratch Perry
Rejoice & Shout
Tales from the Crypt (Amicus)
X Men First Class
Been Rich All My Life
Hiruko the Goblin

I failed to keep track for a couple of months, damn it. But the most recent batch includes
Night of the Hunter
Wise Blood
Night Train to Munich

Blue Valentine
Hobo with a Shotgun
X-Men: First Class
They Live
Thor
Fair Game
Bridesmaids
The Conspirator
Of Gods and Men
Slapshot

oh yeah, that reminds me, I saw Thor as well.

Was scrolling upthread and got a small lol from this:

Blow Out (De Capra, 1981)

duh, wishful thinking on my part, either that or a brainfart. He's not as good as Hitchberg.

Spielcock

my recent 'love film' rentals:

Minne & Moskowitz
The Queen of Spades
Tiger of Bengal/The Tomb of Love
Two in the Wave
Certified Copy

Last film I saw at the cinema - Renaldo and Clara!

going to Incendies later....

I saw "Went the Day Well" at Film Forum a couple weeks ago. A solid B sleeper. It starts out in light comedy/social satire mode, but then takes a hard dive into gritty thriller territory. Well-paced and entertaining throughout.

The Cave of Forgotten Dreams
The New World
Midnight in Paris
The Wild and Wonderful World of the Whites
Shock 'Em Dead
McCabe and Mrs. Miller
My Dinner with Andre
Step Up 3
Elizabethtown
Birdemic

Shoeshine (1946, Vittorio De Sica)
Cave of Forgotten Dreams (2010, Werner Herzog)
Vertigo (1958, Alfred Hitchcock)
Went the Day Well? (1942, Cavalcanti)
Le Rayon Vert (1986, Eric Rohmer)
Tuesday, After Christmas (2010, Radu Muntean)
Midnight in Paris (2011, Woody Allen)

three docs from the Human Rights Watch film fest:

Better This World (airs on PBS in Sept)
Love Crimes of Kabul (HBO in July)
You Don't Like the Truth -- 4 Days Inside Guantanamo

Minne & Moskowitz

i watched this at home, recently, too, and it blew my mind. mainly because of the contrast between hearing, almost incessantly, & practically knowing, that it was cassavetes' 'lightest', 'funniest' film, his romantic comedy, and then seeing the first forty five minutes.

and after the fact it turns out to be something not unlike that, but just after a circuitous journey.

it looks beautiful too.

renaldo & clara wasn't at the GFT, was it?

going to Incendies later....

tentatively psyched for this.

Watching a lot of old movies with my son, recently - stuff like North by Northwest, Man from Laramie or Quatermass and the Pit. It's a fantastic experience, his reactions made the films brand new to me too.

Casino
I Clowns
YMO:Propaganda
Horror Express

cave of forgotten dreams
dark habits
in the realm of the senses
hideaway
ishtar
penn & teller get killed
wild grass
nine

The Makioka Sisters
The Straight Story
Crossfire
On Dangerous Ground
Vampyr
Midnight in Paris
Meek's Cutoff
Thor
My Man Godfrey
From Here to Eternity

Cave of Forgotten Dreams
Massacre at Central High
Isle of the Dead
Midnight Movies
Human Desire
From Beyond the Grave
The Education of Shelby Knox

bigger than life
to be and to have
enemies: a love story
wax, or the discovery of television among the bees
max mon amour
water drops on burning rocks
threads
a generation
let's make love

last summer - this was incredible btw - (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_Summer)

wild at heart
the fighter
kanal
rolling thunder
high art
the yards
tie me up! tie me down!

I Clowns : Wow. Had never seen this one. Loved it.
Inception (2nd time. Hated it first time around in theatre.. Liked it much better this time)
The Brasher Doubloon: Cool slept-on old noir
The Tree Of Life: <3 x 1000
Syndromes And A Century
The Aviator (stopped about 90 mins in. Still awful.)
Werner Herzog 2010 UCSB Interview : (Cool 2 hour long intvw with WH found on the interwebs)

been wanting to see last summer for a while, seems like something criterion should tackle

lol @ the last movies I've seen in the theaters

x-men first class
green lantern
harry potter & dh pt 2
tree of life

Enter the Void - avoid.

Cross of Iron - on blu-ray. Haven't watched this since I was a kid, but a lot of it had stayed with me, and it was good to revisit after all this time. Many terrific scenes, but doesn't quite add up to a wholly satisfactory whole for some reason. Coburn - an actor who it feels has been overlooked somewhat - is solid, but the best scene is between James Mason and David Warner as demoralised German officers:
Mason: "What will we do when we lose this war?"
Warner: "Prepare for the next"

Burke & Hare - Landis, Pegg, Serkis. Mildly entertaining rubbish.

Winter's Bone - Not quite the misery porn I was dreading. Pretty decent.

Howl - Boring.

Inferno - Argento's messy headscratcher on blu. It's pretty bad, but a few brilliant and bizarre moments redeem it. The tales from behind the scenes are revealing (Argento didn't shoot the memorable flooded cellar scene - he was ill in hospital. And when the actress in that scene became ill herself, he hastily had her character killed off. Such anecdotes go towards explaining the disjointedness of the film).

Morning Glory - Quite enjoyed this. Rachel McAdams is ridic cute, Ford is ridic growly. It's fun.

Stanley Kubrick collection on blu-ray: 2001 and Barry Lyndon look so, so good. Blew me away. The only issue I have with Lyndon is the central performance. Ryan O'Neil just isn't believable, sympathetic or very interesting, imo (also see Tom Cruise in EWS). I didn't enjoy Full Metal Jacket all that much. The first half is really repetitive, the second half kinda empty.

skipping the real stinkers:

Billy Budd (1962, Peter Ustinov)
Born to Be Bad (1950, Nicholas Ray)
The Interrupters (2011, Steve James)
19 Buster Keaton shorts (1920-23)
Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life (2010, Joann Sfar)
Girls About Town (1931, George Cukor)
Union Depot (1932, Alfred E. Green)
Littlerock (2010, Mike Ott)
Waterloo Bridge (1931, James Whale)
The Optimists (2006, Goran Paskaljevic)
Four Adventures of Reinette & Mirabelle (1987, Eric Rohmer)
Weekend (2011, Andrew Haigh)
Happy (2011, Roko Belic)
Leap Year (2010, Michael Rowe)
Planet of the Apes (1968, Franklin Schaffner)
Terri (2011, Azazel Jacobs)
Momma's Man (2008, Azazel Jacobs)
The Tree of Life (2011, Terrence Malick)

Azazel Jacobs!

Littlerock!

what'd you think of Leap Year, morbius

pervy, good

Black Book (Verhoeven, 2006)
Bronco Bullfrog (Platts-Mills, 1969)
Mr Nice (Rose, 2011)
Trading Places (Landis, 1982)
Strange Powers:Stephin Merritt and the Magnetic Fields (Fix, O'Hara, 2010)
Attack the Block (Cornish, 2011)
Black Dynamite (Sanders, 2009)
Gainsbourg (Sfar, 2010)
Red (Schwentke, 2010)
The Cement Garden (Birkin, 1989)
The Guard (McDonagh, 2011)

Saw Thor and Super last night...

Thor was good...Super was depressing.

Horrible Bosses (crap)
Red State (crap)
Sense and Sensibility (love this, second time watching it)
Michael Clayton (ok)
Salvador (love this, second time watching it)

Since my last post in this thread:

Funeral Parade of Roses (dir T Matsumoto, 1969)
You, the Living (dir R Andersson, 2007)
Il Profumo della Signora in Nero (dir F Barilli, 1974)
The Night Of The Hunted (dir J Rollin, 1979)
Deep End (dir J Skolimowski, 1970)
Lake Mungo (dir J Anderson, 2008)
Vampyr (dir CT Dreyer, 1932)
The Day After (dir N Meyer, TV 1983)
When The Wind Blows (dir J Murakami, 1986)
Séance on a Wet Afternoon (dir B Forbes, 1964)
Last Night (dir D McKellar, 1998)
The Year Of The Sex Olympics (dir M Elliot, TV 1968)
Privilege (dir P Watkins, 1967)

Thinking about 'Footprints On The Moon' (1975), 'The Shout' (1978), Songs From The Second Floor (2000) for watching soon.

I'm on (mostly) low-brow overdrive of late:

Robocop
Total Recall
Baraka
The Song Remains The Same
The Kids Are Alright
Tango & Cash
Cobra
Our Idiot Brother
Hatchet
The Sentinel
The Legend Of Hell House
Dazed & Confused
The Terminator

(That's The Who's Kids Are Alright, for those who aren't in any way keeping score.)

midnight run
charley varrick
the sting

strip search ('04 lumet)
haywire ('12 soderbergh)
the hole ('98 tsai ming-liang)
eden lake ('08 watkins)
marriage material ('11 swanberg)
fahrenheit 451 ('66 truffaut)
the king's speech ('10 hooper)
inside daisy clover ('65 mulligan)

Adjustment Bureau (George Nolfi, 2011)
The Boyfriend (Ken Russell, 1971)
Kill List (Ben Wheatley, 2011)
Incendies (Dennis Villeneuve, 2010)
Gran Torino (Clint Eastwood, 2008)
Holy Rollers (Kevin Asch, 2011)
Deep Red (Dario Argento, 1975)

hey craigo, 'the year of the sex olympics' is written by nigel kneale, yes - is there a legit release?

most recent dvd i watched - carnal knowledge (never seen this before - think i'd built it up in my mind too much, cos i was a bit underwhelmed - the ending is esp dreadful - but would still like to see little murders, another film written by jules fieffer (some of whose comics i love, esp his great graphic nov Tantrum))

Ratatouille (Brad Bird/Jan Pinkava, 2010)
Moneyball (Bennett Miller, 2011)
Snowtown (Justin Kurzel, 2011)
Another Earth (Mike Cahill, 2011)
Potiche (Francois Ozon, 2010)
The Informers (Gregor Jordan, 2008)
Au Revoir Les Enfants (Louis Malle, 1987)
The Trip (Michael Winterbottom, 2010)

ratatouille ftw there

Haywire (Steven Soderberg, 2012)
Melancholia (Lars Von Trier, 2011)
Dangerous Liasons (Stephen Frears, 1988)
Belle de Jour (Louis Brunel, 1967)
Attack the Block (Joe Cornish, 2011)
Une Femme est un Femme (Jean-Luc Goddard, 1961)
Jules et Jim (Francois Truffaut, 1961)
The Tree of Life (Terrance Malick, 2011)
The Outsiders (Francis Ford Coppolla, 1983
The Innocents (Jack Clayton, 1961)
Le Cercle Rouge (Jean-Pierre Mellville, 1970)

ugh. Soderbergh.

Kind of guessing and working backwards here:

Gimme Shelter
Mr. Mike's Mondo Video
Wedding Crashers
The Descent
Carnage
Branded To Kill
Tokyo Drifter
Diabolique
Dark of The Sun
Rancho Deluxe
Rancho Notorious
Puncture

hey craigo, 'the year of the sex olympics' is written by nigel kneale, yes - is there a legit release?

Not a legit release sadly, yr bog-standard DVDr jobbie. The BFI put it out a while back didn't it? Think it's stupid money for a proper copy.

Essential Killing
Submarine
Hobo with a Shotgun
Animal Kingdom
Sucker Punch
Green Lantern
Meek's Cutoff
War Horse
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Fincher)
Margaret
Five Easy Pieces
Whisper of the Heart

mix of cinema and home, some for the first time.

>Tokyo Drifter

Would you recommend? I'm tempted to get the Criterion blu, have heard good things from a couple of friends.

Tintin : yeah it had ADD but I loved this.
Hamlet (Branagh) : Also kind of manic but I guess that's the point(?) Liked.
The Age Of The Medici
The Puppet Master
Habemus Papam
Sleeping Beauty (Leigh) : this was terrible

>Tokyo Drifter

Would you recommend? I'm tempted to get the Criterion blu, have heard good things from a couple of friends.

Yeah, I'd recommend it, although I'm more of a Branded... fan myself. When watching TD, take in the spectacle and don't worry about the story so much. I have the reissue DVD, which is gorgeous, but I've heard the blu is beyond stunning.

the mill & the cross (lech majewski): not sure what to make of it, some aspects of it were rly impressive tho

The Myth of the American Sleepover
Beginners
Meek's Cutoff
The first 40 minutes of The Help
Certified Copy
The Ides of March
Nostalgia for the Light
The Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Moneyball
Le Quattro Volte

Oh, and The Grey

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

The Face of Another

Submarine ('10 Ayoade) - hated this
Missile ('87 Wiseman)
The Great Santini ('79 Lewis John Carlino)
The American Friend ('77 Wenders)
Notebooks on Cities and Clothes ('89 Wenders)
Lightning Over Water ('80 Wenders/Ray)
Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory (Berlinger/Sinofsky)
Mon Oncle D'Amerique ('80 Resnais)
Tim & Eric's Billion Dollar Movie ('12 Tim + Eric)

>The Myth of the American Sleepover

saw this a month or so ago and several of the scenes have really stuck w/ me for some reason, like the older brother w/ the twins stuff

film socialisme
the valley of the bees
drive
vantage point
l'argent
ashes and diamonds
mongol
texas killing fields
transsiberian
jonathan meades on france x 3

How was Valley of the Bees?

very good, you should see it

fred camper describes the visual style as perfunctory, rather unfairly....it is v poised for vlacil, there is a sort of cold horror in both the hieratic confines of proto-state and the lawless hinterlands and consequently it's amenable to tendentious political readings (1968 and all that, tho it was made before the prague spring)

the teutonic knights are all haughty psychopaths with some interior religious frenzy, you'd never mistake them for the enterprising imperialists who begot the slow accumulation of a superstate

Been watching a lot of '68 - '72 stuff myself...

Death By Hanging - Oshima sets up an absurdist situ: man is hanged by the authorities, doesn't die and then has to be made to admit guilt again but, since he has lost his memory he must be made recall his crime so that he must be hanged again. In the process he must remember who he is and who are his masters (a Korean sinking in Japanese Xenophobia). Real sucker punch, no prisoners taken, pardon the pun n' all.

W.R. mysteries of the organism - formally unique: doc (made by makavejev himself) about nutso psychologist Wilheim Reich spliced with a purposefully thin story of a liberated woman's attempt to seduce a soviet 'people's artist' ice skater by the name of Ilyich. Really want to read Durgnat's bk on this.

Ecstasy of the Angels - a film about the inter-factional struggles of a terrorist cell: they argue with each other while fucking! One for the erotic thriller thread.

Nanami and the Inferno of First Love - this japansese new wave film kind of looks fwd to Blue Velvet in a story about a shy youth who dates a 'nude model' and gets entry into a seedy underbelly blah. But there are certain awkward twists, courtesy of a script by Shuji Terayama. There is a season of his films at Tate Modern in March so I'll get to find out more then.

Dillinger is Dead - would make a great dbl bill w/Death By Hanging, as both are cinematic absurdist plays in 'attack' mode. Michel Piccoli is manages to be utterly compelling as a man who spends much of the time saying 'nothing'.

Here and Elsewhere - Godard film from '74 on the Palestinian struggle...but its never straightforward, which is as it should be.

The Last Bolshevik - Chris Marker doc from the early 90s, using the films of Aleksandr Medvedkin as a jump off point on the (recently deceased) Soviet Union and its films.

loved dillinger is dead + remember almost nothing about it; feel like that's somehow suitable or specific to that film, that it's hazy somehow.

were you into WR? liked 'makavejev's switchboard operator & am p interested

Loved 'Switchboard Operator' (have it as a VHS but unfortunately I can't get my video to work dammit) but 'WR' buils on this, and is possibly better. One bcz the Reich story is so bizarre and two bcz of what he is trying to argue - that we should use Reich's ideas to revive the utopian dream, to somehow make communism more 'fun' - in a decaying Soviet set-up that has brutalised millions by that point...its barking mad, and yet I can't entirely dismiss.

'WR' makes more sense every time you see it, and the followup 'Sweet Movie' is one of my favorite films of all time. every single detail in the film that at first seems like simple surrealism ends up completely true, it is the exact opposite of a self-indulgent film

Harakiri
The Face of Another
Poto and Cabengo (finally on DVD!)
Pina (I fought this for the first 30 minutes, not that it was bad but I just wasn't in the mood, and then suddenly I wanted it to go on forever)

loooove poto

i only just watched routine pleasures, i think i'm in a minority of maybe preferring p&c overall. though still enjoyed a lot. k psyched for the third film, even though people aren't so into it.

Has anyone seen Robert Kramer's Ice?

Pina DID go on forever, MP.

She Married Her Boss (1935, Gregory La Cava)
Pretty Poison (1968, Noel Black)
Unfinished Business (1941, Gregory La Cava)
A Man Escaped (1956, Robert Bresson)
Of Time and the City (2008, Terence Davies)
Come Back, Africa (1959, Lionel Rogosin)
How Much Does Your Building Weigh, Mr Foster? (2010, Carlos Carcas, Norberto Lopez Amado)
Four Nights of a Dreamer (1971, Robert Bresson)
The Devil Probably (1977, Robert Bresson)
Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (2011, Nuri Bilge Ceylan)

how was 'the devil probably', that is scheduled 2 play near me in march

Pina DID go on forever, MP

cool opinions

it's good; not top-shelf R.B. for me but I usually find films about teenagers inherently less interesting. xp

ive enjoyed the pina trailer every time ive seen it, have no desire to see it at full length

Bombay Beach. Didn't like it.

On the '68 trail:

I am curious (yellow) - I really like the questioning of the leftie social democracy ideal (through the film within a film device that is taken to breaking point) which is, even now, highly praised in the non-scandinavian West.

But like W.R. there is the political, and then there is the personal too.

L'Amour Fou - Jacques Rivette, 1968, posted on his thread

Malina - had a look at the Isabelle Huppert thread and a notion did come up of parts that no one else could've played (exemplified by The Piano Teacher) and this is one more for that file. In fact it would be a terrific dbl bill. She nails the artful madness in this Werner Schroeter film. Werner has -- for the one other film and a cpl of shorts I've seen from him -- drawn on operas excesses and contrasted with a somewhat 'underground' aesthetic that foregrounds the rawness I always felt was contained by opera houses, and he brings this to bear on an adaptation of this novel (by poet Ingerbord Bachmann, which surely includes plenty of biog detail). But its tricky in the end bcz there is money in the production, hes got stylistic ticks he couldn't employ before so Huppert not only pulls off the mental anguish, but does so in surroundings she somehow finds a space to be 'comfortable' in whereas you suspect the underground muses that worked w/Werner might have stiffened up.

I think its true for the main actors on this. Their performances seem stiff because they had to work w/elemens he brings from his other work; and maybe their roles have less meat to them.

Let's Talk About Kevin. Just didn't click with me. Great idea, but somehow it lacked something.

Argila - Werner Schroeter short from '69

In a Year With 13 Moons - Fassbinder film from '78. V beautiful, make sure you see it at night.

A Valparaiso - Joris Ivens short film from '62, script written by Chris Marker dcoumenting the day-to-day of a Chilean coastal town. Beautiful shots taken from top of hill trains. Then pics of seagulls, fishing, a wedding veil blowing in the wind, a local council meeting

Battle for Chile - Patricio Guzman worked as an assistant on the Ives film, with Marker providing assistance. You know all the stories of the coup, the mytholgies and the basic facts but it doesn't make it any easier. Too much in here chills the bone: from speeches, to debates between comrades (many of whom surely perished?) to acts of kindness to incredibly prophetic remarks (one from a communist who took part in the Spanish Civil war).

Valparaiso makes an appearance, too, as a site where the army checks out the graves to see if any weapons were being stored - so there is an echo from that council meeting in that Ivens film...

The coup take place at the end of the 2nd part, with the the 3rd devoted to the good things that came out of Allende's time (creation of all kinds of support groups and organisations), but also a frustration sets in - they didn't get round to arming themselves.

Vital film and a very hard fkn watch. Not exactly a recommendation.

Idade Da Terra - Glauber Rocha's last film. Like this article says (scroll right at the end) its a toughie. Lots of beautifully shot images of favellas, carnivals, sunsets hitting modernist architecture with screaming matches between allegorical figures. Like nothing I've seen so go when it screens at yer neighbourhood art gallery or you'll need to wait another decade.

The Embassy/Sixth Side of the Pentagon - Two short films by Chris Marker. The latter was recycled in Grin Without a Cat documenting an anti-vietnam rally in '67. The former is his other fictional film. Take the sound out and its 15 people in a room sitting, eating, arguing, waiting, playing w/kids and watching TV. Turn the sound on to hear the voiceover and its a group who have gone to an embassy and are seeking asylum. Its Brilliant and there should be more films like it.

Black Panthers - Agnes Varda film from '68. Exactly what it says. She was away from Paris only in geographical terms.

If I had Four Camels - Chris Marker photo journey film from '66 and the exact mid-point between La Jetee and Sans Soleil. His photographs so pleasing to look at, his script so good, the voices he chooses to narrate are so correct and the music is spot on.

Cinema Paradiso (Giuseppe Tornatore, 1988)
The Descendents (Alexander Payne, 2011)
Little Children (Todd Field, 2006)
Before The Devil Knows Youre Dead (Sidney Lumet, 2007)
The Grey (Joe Carnahan, 2012)
Dont Look Now (Nic Roeg, 1973)
The Motorcycle Diaries (Walter Salles, 2004)
Depeche Mode 101 (D.A. Pennebaker, David Dawkins, Chris Hegedus 1989)

The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum (Volker Schlöndorff, 1975) 4/5
Morning's Tree-Lined Street (Mikio Naruse, 1935) 4/5
Four Nights of a Dreamer (Robert Bresson, 1971) 5/5
The Man from London (Béla Tarr, 2007) 4/5
Suspiria (Dario Argento, 1977) 4/5
The Mill and the Cross (Lech Majewski, 2011) 4/5
The Servant (Joseph Losey, 1963) 4/5
The Crucified Lovers (Kenji Mizoguchi, 1954) 4.5/5
Under the Blossoming Cherry Trees (Masahiro Shinoda, 1976) 3/5
The Smiling Madame Beudet (Germain Dulac, 1923) 4/5
Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (Nagisa Ôshima, 1983) 4.5/5
Southland Tales (Richard Kelly, 2006) 2.5/5

Went to the cinema for the first time in a while.

Saw Shame - wouldn't have known it was about sex addiction per se (and hilarious to read about this in the press) - just don't know much about it - but then again its so personlized to one man's situation; and its very depoliticised as an issue and never spelt out. I almost always like dramas where there is no reason for a characters actions (or little is given) and its all cold alienation, a private prison with no escape and redemption (reminded me a bit of Pavese's The Political Prisoner). The characters were so charmless too.

Ootoh they say too much, and sometimes Brandon feels through music, that doesn't quite sound right apart from when he puts on Bach when running. His boss felt unnecessary; the relationship w/his sister was a half-way, that argument toward the end wasn't needed.

Overall tho' - UK Film Council R.I.P.

silver bullets ('11 swanberg)
the alley cats ('66 metzger)
the savage is loose ('74 george c scott)
hausu ('77 obayashi)
last night ('98 mckellar)
demoniacs ('73 rollin)
koyaaniqatsi ('82 reggio)
guess who's coming to dinner ('67 kramer)
david and lisa ('62 perry)
dinner with andre ('81 malle)

Wnstanley - Possibly one of the best historical films I've seen, due to the really stunning B&W photography (the quality of fog, fire and light) and the reading from Winstanley's pamphlets, they form a poetry of sorts.

I Just Didn't Do it - whch is part of the Japanese fest going on at the ICA. More of a campaigning film, highlighting the mess that is the Japanese legal system. Could have been a documentary.

Far From Vietnam - segments by Godard, Resnais, Varda, Ivens, Lelouch on the then ongoing conflict.

Pina (I fought this for the first 30 minutes, not that it was bad but I just wasn't in the mood, and then suddenly I wanted it to go on forever)

Didn't fight, just wanted to go on - did you love the s/track as much as I did?

Robert Kramer's Ice, a fictional doc-drama on an insurrectionist cell plotting against a fascist US Govt blah, v '69. This is where I cry out for 'cinematic' moments, the grain of B&W wasn't right.

Extreme Private Eros - Kazuo Hara doc from '74 and a stone cold classic where he wants to make a film of his wife he has recently split up with "to be close to her" (and their son). So he watched her get into and out of relationships w/1) another lover in Okinawa, 2) a black GI soldier, whom she has another baby with, and 3) watches her give birth to this baby (soldier had run off by then) by herself in Hara's flat in Tokyo (this is an incredible 10 min sequence) and then 4) finally join a commune, where her kids are taken care of while she works nights in a strip club.

In between Kazuo starts an affair w/one of the crew working in the doc, and he makes her interview his wife, too. All v layered, and v sweet, as you can imagine.

Yellow Sky (1948, William Wellman)
The Purchase Price (1932, William Wellman)
The Man I Love (1929, William Wellman)
The Miners' Hymns (2011, Bill Morrison)
The Devil's Cleavage (1973, George Kuchar)
The Geisha Boy (1958, Frank Tashlin)
Two Rode Together (1961, John Ford)
The Fairy (2011, Dominique Abel, Fiona Gordon, Bruno Romy)
Satantango (1994, Bela Tarr)
Crash (1996, David Cronenberg)

Xpost

I think my problem was just not being in the mood for the Stravinsky warhorse, but once that dancer got on the tram with a big pillow I was fine with everything

Extreme Private Eros sounds incredible

Me and a friend have agreed to watch The Human Condition once a week for six weeks. First half of part 1 was brutal bt great. Have to wonder what they're saying when they translate words to 'leftist'.

Yeah it was a near 20 min sequence as I recall. Ws relieved (for my friend most of all) when that ended and you could have shorter bursts and the film settled into a mix of monologue and dance: she liked it v much.

Love to see Human Condition sometime...

Making my way through The Hour of the Furnaces, four hour doc from '68 by Fernando Solanas (he of 'Third Cinema' fame), a leftie no holds barred history of oppression of Latin America and her people(s).

Le Petit Soldat

Hadewijch.

how was the last?

Short post on the French film thread about this but I think its well worth watching - mixes politics and religion like nothing else I can think of. Goes too often for that arty provocation - both part of its flaw and strengths but I'm still trying to process it all. Wish I dragged a friend to see it but they might not have spoken to me afterwards :-)

Twilight of the Ice Nymphs (Guy Maddin, 1997) 4/5
The Earrings of Madame de... (Max Ophüls, 1953) 5/5
Perfect Blue (Satoshi Kon, 1998) 4/5
Pitfall (Hiroshi Teshigahara, 1962) 4/5
Sweet Movie (Dusan Makavejev) 3/5
Poison (Todd Haynes, 1991) 4/5
Bigger Than Life (Nicholas Ray, 1955) 5/5
Blithe Spirit (David Lean, 1945) 4/5
Hero (Zhang Yimou, 2002) 3/5

ratings a deeply practical but inevitably controversial last x movies thread addition. i wanna see sweet movie.

your screening choices are so badass xyzzzz!, you're so rigorous. is it in aid of anything you're thinking about/working on, or are you just watching bc you're interested? la petit soldat was always my fav godard, the iciest, sharpest of those early films.

Hard to hold Sweet Movie on the same rating system as other movies. It's definitely the strangest film I've seen.

oh really?? i'm p sure it was itt i was prodding xyzzzz for encouragement on watching WR, makavejev really spun out after switchboard operator huh

Movies I've seen in 2012:

Margin Call (Chandor, 2011)
The Artist (Hazanavicius, 2011)
A Separation (Farhadi, 2011)
Drive (Winding Refn, 2011)
The Descendants (Payne, 2011)
How to Die in Oregon (Richardson, 2011)

i can't remember the last time i watched a movie.

oh no, wait, i watched "orca: the killer whale" on wednesday, up to the accidental whale abortion scene, but then i fell asleep.

pardon me

Orca: The Killer Whale (Michael Anderson, 1977)

Some people like films.

i can't remember the last time i watched a movie

+1

i can't remember the last time i listened to an album

Last film I watched was Sat night showing Four Lions to a couple of mates who hadn't seen it. They loved it, but one mentioned it cribbed straight from a Thomas Pynchon novel. I'll txt him later and see which one he said, I can't remember cos it was late at night and I wasn't 100% compos mentis.

The one before that was Forbidden Games (Clement, 1954) which blew me away. Loved the kids following their id everywhere. I heard somewhere that the French New Wave where very down on this film - can any film study ILXors give me a rundown as to why?

your screening choices are so badass xyzzzz!, you're so rigorous. is it in aid of anything you're thinking about/working on, or are you just watching bc you're interested? la petit soldat was always my fav godard, the iciest, sharpest of those early films.

― john-claude van donne (schlump), Monday, 20 February 2012 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Thanks schlump! I spend time thinking about how film changed, and how that is tied to social change/political upheaval and I'm concentrating on the late 60s to the late 70s. Just a watcher but when I choose what I'll watch (apart from new releases) I have that on the back of my mind.

That Godard is great, there has been a tendancy to say that the Left Bank group is where its at in terms of progressive/political themes on film as oposed to the main Cahiers and while I'd agree this film does throw that off. But then its never straightforward as Godard is v clearly mixing the political and the personal (his love for Karina).

Le Petit Soldat feels a bit lost as a banned film, unfortunately, whereas it might be fruitful to contrast this to Hiroshima Mon Amour.

Last film I watched was Sat night showing Four Lions to a couple of mates who hadn't seen it. They loved it, but one mentioned it cribbed straight from a Thomas Pynchon novel.

Was confused for a second b/c I was thinking of

http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/secondhand_lions01.jpg

Valley of the Bees - phtography is great and the comparisons to Tarkovsky are justified in a way.
Gertrud - Ruthless, in every sense of the word.

Gertrud is so great

So great, absolutely can't wait for the Dreyer season at the NFT in March now.

Paradise Lost
Paradise Lost: Revelations
Paradise Lost: Purgatory
Seven Up!
7 Plus Seven
21 Up
28 Up
35 Up
42 Up
56 Up
Ronin
An Unmarried Woman
Tim And Eric's Million Dollar Movie

Did you really see 56 Up. It comes out this May.

Oh, dur. Meant 48 Up, obvs. Might watch To Live And Die In L.A. tonight!

Seven Samurai
Pulp Fiction
8 1/2

^^^ all Blu-rays SS was especially fantastic in this format.

Le Voleur (Malle)
Il Grande Silenzio
Divorce Italian Style

Are the Up films decent then? They look intriguing.

I watched all of them in like two weeks.

seven up!
7 plus seven
21 up
28 up

herb & dorothy
bill cunningham new york

twilight: breaking dawn pt.1 (so so horrible)
13 assassins (like seven samurai with all the interesting bits taken out)

had seen the ups, but my gf netflixed them. cool to revisit, but the repetition gets kind of crushing if you watch them all in a bunch.

so tragic that the buttsex scene was left as an outtake in 13 assassins. would have improved the movie 1000%.

The Up series was kind of fascinating, if only insofar as it's fascinating to see the span of a person's life fly by before your eyes. Most of the subjects aren't particularly fascinating themselves, but that's definitely one of the series' strengths, I think. It's a document of ordinary lives and the choices that inform them. I do wish someone would edit Neil's scenes into a single film, though, as he really stands out as someone who's been on a hard-won journey.

ha, i'm trying to write up a response to this but am struggling because i'd be trying to persuade you of stuff that you seem to already agree with. but the idea of excising neil's portions is crazy to me. they're obviously singular and particularly profound, but i think that's true of all of them, in different ways, without being proportionate to how distinctive or off-path their lives were. the thing that always made me saddest about the series was that a couple of the young public school kids dropped out - like i'm p sure one of them went on to be a documentarian for channel four; some of the participants seemed to have found the intrusion of the series really trying, but it's so incredibly valuable as a public resource - like how much it says by proxy about my family, me, britain today, etc, blows my mind - that it's surprising the guy would opt out.

I can understand why people would bow out at a certain point. Unwanted scrutiny and intrusion into their lives and whatnot. I read something about Neil's friend dropping out because he lost his job over having criticized Thatcher in one of the installments.

I should clarify: I was just hoping to find a YouTube-ish splicing of all the Neil scenes, not necessarily an official film. His last scene in the most recent film was really poignant and moving and I wanted to share it with some people who hadn't seen the films but then realized it was largely poignant because of his journey. And I thought it would be nice, rather than asking someone to make a 14-ish hour commitment to watching all of the films sight unseen, to present Neil's life in isolation. Not to diminish the lives of the other participants, but his story in particular is very inspiring in terms of pulling oneself back from the abyss.

That's exciting about 56 Up -- I hadn't realized it was already time for a new one.

you gotta just make the people make the 14 hour commitment. no i know. but i think i flinch at the idea of a reduced version of it; i don't know that i'm making a claim that the form is in some way critical to its success, more just that concision is only going to lose things. obv that's another debate if people are forgoing the whole thing, but there we are.

def excited about 56. iirc the bbc started a series in tandem, last time, like THE NEW CLASS, kinda. i just remember this sweet kid from salford in a manchester city shirt playing videogames. i'm struggling to believe this was seven years ago but i assume we'll re-up that, too.

really interesting note about neil's friend, wow. it's just unfortunate because the deal is sorta obviously that the project and its poignancy outweigh the effect on the individual participants. epitomised by how fascinating an insight it would have been to know the thatcher thing! the series is, in general, a pretty crucial document regarding her tenure i think.

mysterious object at noon (2000 weerasethakul)
the reckless moment (1949 ophuls)
caught (1949 ophuls)
the baby (1973 ted post)
compromising positions (1985 perry)
monsignor (1982 perry)
to kill a mockingbird (1962 mulligan)
fascination (1978 rollin)
silent running (1972 trumbull)
cyrus (2010 duplasses)

Both Ophüls are some of his best, curious about the Weerasethakul, and is Silent Running any good?

yea i liked the ophuls

like the concepts of 'mysterious object' & 'silent running' prob more than i was actually engaged by them; altho from the a.w., i def felt like i understand more what informs his other work better. i also watched the interview w/ him on the disc where he sez he doesnt consider that he 'directed' it, uses 'compiled' i think

Finally saw "If..." (1968 Anderson) last night. OMG.

The Artist - Saw Malcolm MacDowell in that, and everytime I do see him in anything that isn't If... I die a little as its almost always terrible. This was reasonable.

Woman in the Lake - film by appalingly neglected Japanese filmmaker Kiju Yoshida (maybe a bit strong, maybe its my fault I only got round to him last year). You can tell he loves Antonioni (and who didn't in '66) but his way of framing - 'architecturally painterly' (ugh sorry) like A but REALLY far away and still - is his own in this Kawabata story of an alienated, reluctant love - totally suits. Mariko Okada is a new old movie star crush.

Ordet

xps,

What did you think of Fascination?

not my fav of his (been maybe watching ~1/wk for a while now), tho the new blu looks wonderful, scene in the abattoir, scenes on the stone bridge; it does have a nice momentum/inevitability, which i think is also evident in many of his other stuff; also brigitte lahaie is gorg

Lahaie is amazing in that. I've been holding off on getting the blu-rays of his films in the hope that a good box set would come out but i might have to just pick up a few.

'the missing person', which is a michael shannon/amy ryan detective flick from a couple of years ago w/a typically weird and compelling shannon performance, a typically straightforward and compelling small role for ryan, and some ill-considered 9/11 stuff tacked on in the third act along with a child trafficking/child rescuing aspect of the mystery stuff that makes zero sense in the end.

http://www.ica.org.uk/31735/Film/Eye-of-the-Day.html

^anyone seen this? Thinking of going..

haven't read yet but just re: weerasethakul, christine smallwood's writing about him for n+1's generally p great film review:

http://nplusonemag.com/apichatpong-joe-weerasethakul

^ liked that a lot. i'm a fan of weerasethakul's work, but i've struggled really engaging with them in any typical critical way. i'm glad i'm not alone in finding them equally fascinating and sleep inducing.

Young Adult (2011)
Godzilla (1954)
Paris nous appartient (1961)
Ninotchka (1939)
Moneyball (2011)
Double Suicide (1969)
Three Outlaw Samurai (1964)
A Separation (2011)

Nice list Chris. Double Suicide is one of my very favourite movies from the last 3 months worth of watching.

Letter from Siberia + Description of a Struggle - Chris Marker should stop trying to suppress these, whatever his reasons, because from what I can tell they are really quite good. His 'style' was p much there from the beginning. 'Siberia' has some animation that jars against at times tho', but its fine really.

The Music - Yasuzo Masumara is one more for the Japanese films thread, and maybe the feminism(s) thread(s). Bit fucked-up tho', this is again produced by Art Theatre Guild collective. I need to read the Yukio Mishima story this is based on, about a woman who cannot 'hear music' (i.e. is frigid) because of various traumas with the oposite sex. She seeks the help of a psychoanalyst, who is becomes Sherlock Holmes to figure out her lies.

I think I've seen enough movies to constitute a short list, for the first time in awhile:

45365 - I was psyched prior to seeing, it was more generic than I expected, I think I just like the vicarious eye of watching documentaries, though. the filmmakers were funny, they kept pulling the FILM THE HANDS THEY'RE EXPRESSIVE move I guess they teach in documentary 101
we were here - good, v sad
bombay beach - this sucked, super condescending, weirdly misprioritised, reductive, one of those things I see & think that the world is going to hell because people are doing it wrong
a dangerous method - also blah
what's the matter with kansas - interesting. I loved the folk-artist sign-making guy. another staple of the weird-midwestern-christian-life-porn genre, cf Jesus Camp. I wanted to look up the PhD by the guy you see talking at the Creationist museum, for lols, to hear his 125000 word remix of the one sentence he spins about how science doesn't make sense without God & how we all just have different starting points. p distressing. kinda a weird companion piece to Citizen Ruth, which I watched & liked p recently.

i'm also rewatching Angels in America. loving Jeffrey Wright.

Castle in the Sky (Hayao Miyazaki, 1986) 4/5
Sisters of the Gion (Kenji Mizoguchi, 1936) 5/5
THX 1138 (George Lucas, 1971) 3/5
Suicide Club (Sion Sono, 2001) 2/5
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (Tom Tykwer, 2006) 3/5
Miss Julie (Alf Sjöberg, 1951) 4/5
The Only Son (Yasujiro Ozu, 1936) 5/5
Vivre sa vie (Jean-Luc Godard, 1962) 4/5
Babe: Pig in the City (George Miller, 1998) 4/5

50/50
Tiny Furniture

Tiny Furniture was okay, but it was basically just Me And You And Everyone We Know Redux with a more charming lead but similarly repellent supporting characters. I kinda can't think of faint praise that's more damning than a slightly favorable comparison to that execrable film. Sorry, Lena Dunham.

I'm beginning to lose all desire to see new or newish movies. Nobody seems to have a compelling reason for making a film anymore or a point of view that's in any way interesting. Ugh. Maybe I only ever see newish movies that aren't terribly good? I'm willing to accept that possibility.

Early Summer
Blank City
Marketa Lazarova
Three Lives And Only One Death
Treasure of The Sierra Madre (blu-ray)

In The Heat Of The Night
Ashes
Night of the Iguana
Under the Volcano
Far From The Madding Crowd with Julie Christie
Indiscretion of an American Wife

Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992, David Lynch)
The Star Witness (1931, William Wellman)
Reaching for the Sun (1941, William Wellman)
Last Days Here (2011, Don Argott and Demian Fenton)
The Salt of Life (2011, Gianni Di Gregorio)
When the Bough Breaks (2011, Ji Dan)
My Own Private River (2011, James Franco)
The Forgotten Space (2008, Allan Sekula and Noël Burch)
My Own Private Idaho (1991, Gus Van Sant)
All Watched over by Machines of Loving Grace (2011, Adam Curtis)

Yesterday: Vampire's Kiss and The Sentinel. The concept of "subtlety" has been scoured right out of my mind.

It seems like ilx has a low opinion of Miranda July that I've never understood. I loved the Future and enjoyed You and Me. What's the deal?

franco shouldve called that one 'my own own private idaho' what an idiot

it is kind of inconceivable that anyone could dislike Miranda July

I know! Maybe I'm wrong and have a misguided impression, but I remember a thread(s) where she was strong disliking towards her.

its inconceivable at least that anyone could dislike pooping back and forth, that bit killed

sorry about the mangled grammar

the Idaho remix is not at all idiotic, if neither fish nor fowl

Take Shelter
A Separation
Woman In Black
Manhunter
Book Of Eli

I'll be seeing Possession soon

What did you think of Forgotten Space, Morbius

I have a DVD of Robert Beavers films on the desk in front of me which I might watch when I finish working

Possession!!!! Brace yourself, admrl.

I have no real opinion of Miranda July per se. Because, frankly, I have zero interest in the rest of her work if it's anything like Me and You..., which was one of the most off-putting and charmless movies I've ever seen. Except for the pooping, a concept which she had the audacity to steal from my brother and me (although we referred to the imaginary practice as passing a turd back and forth, so we may still be able to sew up some IP rights there).

Uh oh...I'm inviting a friend I haven;t seen for a while to come and see Possession with me, bad idea?

It is beginning of Zulawski season, what else should I see?

http://www.cinefamily.org/films/the-unbelievable-genius-of-andrzej-zulawski/

Oh look, Jon Jost w/ Angel City, I hope to see that too!

The Third Part of the Night, On the Silver Globe, The Important Thing is to Love

blimey.

ok then

:)

I'm also hoping to see Bresson's "Four Nights of a Dreamer" this week.

I know, this thread is about movies you HAVE seen, but I started it so I can do what I want.

All I can say is that Possession is one of the most unnerving films I've ever seen. It's fantastic, but it's a rough journey.

OK that sounds fine.

Probably roughly equivalent to Inland Empire but with fewer placid moments and more bodily fluids.

OK that's a good rec, I think IE is one of the defining theater experiences of my life.

defining or definitive?

one of those

possession is so great! just be prepared to boggle your eyes a lot. same neil has never been more sam neil-y. and isabelle adjani, well, it just has to be seen. inland empire is a very good comparison point, btw (and "one of the defining theater experiences of my life", likewise).

recently:

cursed - wes craven/kevin williamson werewolf flick w christina ricci and the guy who invented facebook. starts out fun, then falls apart completely.

1409 - stupid stephen king adaptation w a perfectly good white boy. clever premise and a few effectively unnerving moments, but mostly awful. paranormal activity does a much better job w the same premise.

full metal yakuza - goofy miike flick about a reconstructed mobster on a revenge spree. some interesting psychosexual angles, but left a really bad taste in my mouth. fuck this guy and the rape/torture/murder of women as decoration. lol i'm getting old and sensitive...

Zulawski's my favorite

I have a DVD of Robert Beavers films on the desk in front of me which I might watch when I finish working

― dollar eye twinkling (admrl), Tuesday, 28 February 2012 03:50 (6 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

my local celluloid-store proprietor was enthusing about this guy, & the weird chronology of him eventually scoring his films, i would welcome some more endorsements if you're into it

I liked the scope of The Forgotten Space, even if it went to the edge of going too "far afield" now and then.

It did, Sekula's huge "Lottery Of The Sea" (maybe you saw it), sort of a lo-fi precursor to Forgotten Space, does that even more so. I maybe liked "Lottery" more but Forgotten Space had some great moments, the people living in tent cities near Long Beach sticks in my mind.

Watched The Lady Eve (1941), after reading this comment by Robin Wood -
Sturges’s masterpiece, from the long buildup to the most hilarious and brutal payoff in the history of Hollywood comedy - tho' even after screening/enjoying i'm not quite what Wood means by 'brutal payoff'... I was plesantly surprised by how 'modern' the film's take on infidelity and desire is - the script is littered with filthy entendres, and at one point Barbara Stanwyck (falsely) confesses to multiple adulteries while on board a roaring steam train, while Henry Fonda's constant pratfalling and 'innocent' ogling of female body parts acts as kind of displaced priapism. All of the supporting players are wonderful, tho' for sheer out-and-out FUN I still prefer the Palm Beach Story.

Aw, the Lady Eve is one of my all time favorite movies.

I prefer The Palm Beach Story too although The Lady Eve seems to be held in higher esteem generally. I think the fun goes out of the latter a bit once they leave the boat

I want another movie like KEY LARGO or CAPE FEAR (original).

KEY LARGO is one of my all time comfort movies.

It seems like ilx has a low opinion of Miranda July that I've never understood. I loved the Future and enjoyed You and Me. What's the deal?

You don't understand how ILX could be allergic to someone whose work codes (fairly or not) as precious/twee?

Does Miranda July live in Los Angeles? I feel like I saw her at brunch a few weeks ago.

I guess she could theoretically be visiting

WORK CODES

the people living in tent cities near Long Beach sticks in my mind

Yeah, that was a piercing segment. No prior exposure to Sekula.

I took a class with him, he is INtense. It was a globalization class that somehow went from the bailouts to screenings of Rohmer's "Perceval le Gallois" and the like.

Does Miranda July live in Los Angeles? I feel like I saw her at brunch a few weeks ago.

I guess she could theoretically be visiting

― dollar eye twinkling (admrl), Tuesday, 28 February 2012 14:56 (2 hours ago) Permalink

sf, iirc. & i loved the future, focusing on the 'twee' is so missing the ponit; so many really singular, cinematic sequences & otherwise so thoughtful.

I have a DVD of Robert Beavers films on the desk in front of me which I might watch when I finish working

― dollar eye twinkling (admrl), Tuesday, 28 February 2012 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Coming to the BFI. How did you enjoy the DVDs?

My latest lot is unified in its use of music in surprising ways.

Badou Boy - Mambety's featurette from '69. 'About' a boy on the run from a cop. Just uses music and soundtrack in such innovative ways. Sometimes Mambety is content to dub voices, disrupt any action w/music, and its v fkn funny. Need to see Touki Bouki sometime.

Red Psalm - Cracking stuff from Jancso, from '71. Basically a set of long takes of 'peasants' and 'soldiers' and the odd landowner and priest in a field with lots of folk music played and some nudism (its to distract the soldiers, natch, and it signifies FREEDOM). Mesmerizing in almost any mood.

The Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach - Finally caught my first screening of a Straub-Huillet. Repeat after me: MATERIAL MATERIAL MATERIAL. The music in the raw. The camera is all emcompassing, absolutely nothing outside the chamber. The myth of the artist is given short shrift: Bach is a man who made great art, but still a man - he is petty, craves favour, only wants to see his art made and children to be raised w/out a fuss (if they make it out of childhood alive, that is, which they sometimes do not). All told by his devoted wife in a fast fwd monologue.

Love the way this ws shot - v questioning of the way music is conveyed via the camera - reminds me of Berger's Ways of Seeing.

The Beavers films were excellent! Go and see them, I'd love to see good prints.

I want to see "Red Psalm" too - Jancso is great.

― xyzzzz__, you got a lot more out of The Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach than I did - can you elaborate a little on v questioning of the way music is conveyed via the camera ? i'm not disagreeing, just that my (rather sleepy) memory of the film is its very very raw quality, an austere record of performance happening in 'real time' w/ minimal edits or close-ups, complicated of course by the actual historical narrative framing/running alongside the musical narrative, which - because of this stylistic 'rigour' - feels like we have to accept as TRUTH abt bach (this truth being the de-mystification of heroic grandeur in favour of the collective sublime - all those choirs singing in unison.) i guess this is minimal cinema, of a sort, though in some ways the music is very very maximalist (or, you say MATERIAL, i say PROCESS :-))

and yeah, the Jancso DVDs issued (in Europe) by Second Run have been a in every sense an eye-opener

Oh look, Jon Jost w/ Angel City, I hope to see that too!

It's an amazing mess, but fun and fascinating. That brief, pre-Sundance '89 'new narrative' moment is really interesting -- the early Jost things, Mark Rappaport, the handful of Benning narrative films, and the first couple Yvonne Rainers. That stuff was a big deal at the time, but it seems like people would rather forget about it now.

Ward - I guess its in the way Straub frames somewhat matches an experience of actual sitting down and watching music in concert/venue: from one specific (most of the time awkward) angle, sometimes a close up or away from you (lean forwards or backwards, and this is done at points where music reaches a point of high emotion, say). It lets you study and contemplate the performance - how you'll see a few of the orchestra/chamber and sometimes others are simply obscured from your POV. This matches their almost obsessive aim to recreate performances by employing instruments that would have been used in the period, musicians that I guess would be willing to recreate an idea of Bach.

Contrast that with how things are done these days when you watch it on TV - for an orchestra its whoever has the meaty part at that moment is the one who has a close-up. Not to criticise, two different aims, but the film got to something v recognisible about watching concerts.

As a portrait of an artist it just seemed spot on as to what I think they are like - I loved the bit where Bach talks about his theory of music - how it must have god-like harmony not devilish droning and yet the music is so continuous and unrelenting that you'd feel Bach would hate this.

Maximalist => heard someone say this represented an arid and mathematical side of Bach. Can't say I know enough, but this film isn't scared to punctuate with pictures of waves crashing against rocks or this gorgeous duet playing against pictures of passing clouds. xp

See (if you can) S&H's Not-Reconciled — pretty much the definitive "difficult art film". The film is almost all ellipses — either to give a sense of time being "out of joint" or to let the viewer fill in the blanks in the action, like a negative space drawing. After seeing it once I'm not sure if I understand it completely, but it is hypnotic.

Pinocchio - hated this as a kid and now I know why. Truly horrifying and barely redeemed by its happy ending. I'm not kidding when I say that I was literally shaken up by watching this film. Wholly earns its reputation through the power of its images, of course; there is a great momentum to the storytelling that feels like a significant leap forward from the occasionally inert Snow White (I'm slowly going through the classic Disney canon, none of which I've seen as an adult beyond these two). But yeah, the common charge against Disney that the sanitize fairy tales has no ground to stand on with this one.

The English Patient - avoided this one for years due to its reputation as an undeserving best pic winner and for a long standing dislike for Michael Ondaatje (to be fair, never read this particular novel by him). Will say that there's a decent 90 minute pulpy 1940s studio b-movie in here somewhere, but the movie is far too stuffy and high minded to give into such pop pleasures. Dialogue is some of the most embarrassingly bad I've heard in recent memory, which I'm perhaps all too willing to attribute to the source material. Willem Dafoe's character by far the most interesting person in the film.

Moneyball - a baseball movie where the bulk of the action takes place in board rooms and on conference calls. Credit the filmmakers and writers (didn't need to be told that Sorkin worked on this) for making unfilmable material watchable and even interesting, but the film eventually feels rather thin and wholly lacking in drama. Pitt was fantastic though, and not having seen any of the other nominees yet I cannot say I would have objected at all to him getting n Oscar for this.

The Lineup - an early Don Siegal noir with Eli Wallach as the lead villain. Was apparently a spinoff from some 50s cop show that I couldn't tell you nothing about (the cops in the film are the least interesting thing about it). Not a helluva lot of weight, but fast moving and suspenseful with Wallach as a truly nasty bad guy; a scene where he destroys a little girl's doll while looking for drugs is hilarious and mean. Hardly a masterpiece, but I could watch this kinda thing all day.

Thanks tanuki -- I'll try and seek that out.

re: Red Psalm: there is this lenghty but more than worthwhile essay by Raymond Durgnat

Never on Sunday

Zooey Dechanel seems more precious/twee to me but she doesn't create films.

Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (Fritz Lang) - biggest lol in ages when Austin gets killed. That's about all I have. Oh, and I was thinking someone should program this in a dbl bill w/Oshima's Death by Hanging

Arrebato - this ws made by one time Almodovar collaborator Ivan Zuluetta. About a teen film-maker - and his relationship w/a director (he seems to be in the middle of a horror movie and at the end of a destructive relationship w/Cecilia Roth) he gets to know through his cousin. Really all about how things - movies, drugs, relatioships - can consume you.

He never made another film, which is a shame but understandable.

Tony Manero - I guess almost any Chilean film that gets in the West will be about the '73 coup in some way, huh? But this is artfully done - a film about a Saturday Night Fever obsessive getting by (w/murder and living in a 'subsersive' commune-like arrangement) in post-Allende Chile. The central performance is great, has a 70s Pacino like intensity.

Almost every film I see now has me thinking about double bills, even though they hardly ever exist nowdays.

i watched nobody's business by alan berliner last night. i can't remember where i heard about it. so good! what else is good by him? i'm searching ilx for previous mentions of the guy.

xyzzzz:I do the same thing! They do a classic movie thing at the Paramount in Austin over he summer and double bill, but yeah, that's it.
Double Billing Thread, teehee...so my mind can suddenly go blank.

tera - actually you reminded me that Riverside cinema in London often do dbl bills, its just that a lot of them are sorta dull and obvious.

Fox and His Friends - one of Fassbinber's best at times (the trip to Morocco). I can think of half a dozen I like more though. Impressive how every type of prejudice seems to have been inserted throughout the script. Which is part of the problem, its so damn obvious.

Secret Beyond the Door - another Fritz Lang. Psychoanalysis so cuckoo.

Shadows of a Hot Summer - Frantisek Vlacil film from '78.

Three Resurrected Drunkards (Nagisa Ōshima, 1968) 4/5
Make Way for Tomorrow (Leo McCarey, 1937) 4/5
Do the Right Thing (Spike Lee, 1989) 4.5/5
Onibaba (Kaneto Shindo, 1964) 4/5
Far From Heaven (Todd Haynes, 2002) 4/5
Lola Montès (Max Ophüls, 1955) 5/5
The Thief of Bagdad (Michael Powell et al, 1940) 4/5
Sukiyaki Western Django (Takashi Miike, 2007) 2/5
Dogville (Lars von Trier, 2003) 5/5
Shadows (John Cassavetes, 1959) 3/5