Last (x) movies you saw

i mean, i know that's the CW on the film, but it's true, especially in the here and now

>i've seen him in three films now, and he's played the same bizarre, quasi-autistic cipher in each of them. soulful, romantic vacancy in lars and the real girl, pick-up-artist with a heart of gold vacancy in crazy stupid love, and homicidal, romantic vacancy in drive. it's fucking bizarre.

I'm not getting a buy in for the (almost) universal bromantic feelings for Ryan G from this post :D

I rly enjoyed Lars and it just felt like a sweet little film to me, didn't get a witless cutie-pie vibe at all but our mileage clearly varies.

Ryan departs from the template in Blue Valentine a bit, but not enormously. When I saw that I clocked his receding hairline in the first reel and figured that the T-1000's weakspot had been identified, but in fact he'd just had it cut to look like he's losing his hair, the bastard.

is carnage the one about parents?

yeah

I really loved Blue Valentine, the space love hotel scene was great, and the ending was sort of devastating, it left me in tears.

Feel like I should watch it again - I might not have been in the right frame of mind for it, but didn't *quite* connect with it emotionally. The love hotel scene does stand out, and it was gorgeously shot throughout - remember the ending being almost excessively pretty to look at, and then the ace credit sequence.

saw blue valentine, completing my journey into the heart of gosling. liked it, though with reservations. took me nearly an hour to get on board, as the opening act felt a bit too "on the nose", as the brits say (overstated prettiness of the cinematography, all that blue, mom arriving just as the daughter's performance ends, gosling's dwell-perfect decoration of the old man's room), but the first date sequence sold me completely. LOVED the song & dance number, the dirty joke, the chemistry. and yeah, the final moments were quite moving - after the disappointingly overstated workplace dustup, anyway.

also, agree w bill that gosling's (finally) playing a more fully-rounded, credibly human character here. nice to see. shades of david arquette or jason lee, but without the jokes. a good performance if not a great one.

the brits don't say "on the nose".

there you go. a number of ILXors seem to use the phrase to mean "too predictably *significant* in construction". being unfamiliar with that usage, i assumed it was a UK thing. if not, then not.

huh: according to the internet, it's an americanism. well i never.

contenderizer otn

The Lady and the Tramp (Clyde Geronimi, Wilfred Jackson, 1955) 4/5
Velvet Goldmine (Todd Haynes, 1998) 3/5
Grand Illusion (Jean Renoir, 1937) 4/5
Naked Lunch (David Cronenberg, 1991) 4/5
Crazed Fruit (Ko Nakahira, 1956) 3.5/5
Gypsy (Mervyn LeRoy, 1962) 3/5
In the Realm of the Senses (Nagisa Oshima, 1976) 4/5
Osaka Elegy (Kenji Mizoguchi, 1936) 4/5
Antichrist (Lars von Trier, 2009) 5/5
Boom! (Joseph Losey, 1968) 5/5
Savage Messiah (Ken Russell, 1972) 5/5
Repulsion (Roman Polanski, 1965) 5/5

Saw the 1963 film of Lord Of The Flies last night. Hadn't thought I'd seen it before but I knew the ending. Of course we did it at school 30+ years ago but I thought I'd only seen clips in something else.
Was surprised on looking the film up on IMDB that it seems most of the actors only made that film since I thought I recognised a couple of faces. Though the change from prepubescent to adolescent to adult often winnows people out of singing/acting since voices change somewhat unpredictably & people get spotty.
I think it was pretty well done.
Director did the Marat/Sade in '67 and Mahabarata in the late 80s. I hadn't previously known those 2 were linked at all. Had thought that was an Indian series the BBC bought in. But didn't watch it so can't tell. Think the version I'm thinking of ties in with other things I was doing at the time so should be the right one though.
Looks like he, Peter Brook did a lot of work in France too.

Then semi watched the '67 Franco Zeffirelli version of The Taming Of The shrew this afternoon. Hadn't been aware of it before. Stars Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Michael York, Michael Horden etc.
Looks pretty lavish but I'm not completely sold on the ending. Ultraconservative gender politics, presumably has been usurped in various productions in various ways. Not going to please the feminists.
Methinks Will should rewrite. hoho.

How was In the Realm of the Senses?

I thought highly of it, though it does take a bit of endurance to get through. It is one of the most well-photographed films ever, imo.

tristana (bunuel 70)
the isle (kim ki-duk 2000)
attack the block (cornish 2011)
we need to talk abt kevin (ramsay 2011)
glen and randa (mcbride 71)
the devil, probably (bresson 77)
natural enemies (kanew 79)
letter from an unknown woman (ophuls 48)

what can you tell me about "the isle"?

it's not too far from your above comment re: 'in the realm..'
didnt 100% work for me but it's p admirable & interesting

what can you tell me about how you got through we need to talk abt kevin?

i guess stubbornness?
i agree, it's p dire, tho tildas good

I loved Decasia. Boo all the rest of you.

― emil.y, Monday, March 12, 2012 9:47 AM (1 week ago)

I'll rep for decasia, I guess I can see ppl taking issue with it being schematic or a one trick pony or not very subtle in its message, but there are still sequences that are flattening with hallucinogenic power

I'm a big fan of korean movies, which are often not for the squeamish, but I've never been able to dig those early kim ki-duk films. similar to gregg araki, it felt like the guy was trying too hard for some shock cinema brass ring. his later, quieter stuff like 3-iron was an improvement, but he's still in a like-not-love category.

They Drive By Night (Walsh, 1940)
Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (Park and Box, 2005)
Easy A (Gluck, 2010)
Animal Crackers (Heerman, 1930)
Sullivan's Travels (Sturges, 1941)
Adam's Rib (Cuckor, 1949)
All Quiet on the Western Front (Milestone, 1930)
Midnight in Paris (Allen, 2011)

All Quiet... was my clear favourite of that lot, with Adam's Rib and Midnight in Paris close behind. Liked/would recommend all of them though, with the exceptions of They Drive By Night and Easy A.

A Dangerous Method (Cronenberg, 2011) - comments on thread
Teorema (Pasolini, 1968) - v funny and awesome, had a coke afterwards.
Narita: The Peasants of the Second Fortress (Shinsuke Ogawa, 1971) - in the Japanese films thread.
Pastoral Hide-and-seek (Terayama, 1974) - also on that thread.
The Eel (Shohei Imamura, 1997) - this ws ok (my library had it for some reason), can't really muster enthusiasm for his films for the most part - although I'd like to re-watch Profound Desire of the Gods again. I guess its the lack of new-waveness that grates, and when its famed like that I can't see the fuss. Its just some crime non-thriller, so what?

framed, I mean.

love The Eel's old-waveness

lol guess the lack of 'action' and its quirks are 'new wave' ingredients. Overall tho' I kept thinking Imamura = Chabrol.

Towelhead
Hook, Line and Sinker

Watched Paper Moon last night, what an awesome movie.

Anybody here on http://letterboxd.com/ ? Social network thing for films, where you can do what we basically do here: list watched films, give ratings, reviews. Also you can make lists, follow friends, etc.
It's still in beta testing, and you'll need an invite to join - I have an invite going spare if anyone's interested in checking it out (that person will then receive 3 invites of their own to send out). It's much, much better than Flixster of what-have-you. It's a nicely designed, easy to use site, imo. Anyway, holla if you want the invite.

I'm : http://letterboxd.com/davidm2000ad/ btw

Boom! (Joseph Losey, 1968) 5/5

Really want to see this - not a failure at all then?

I thought it was slightly short of being sublime — amazing photography, hysterical and surreal dialogue (and costumes), and an absolutely stunning setting. The stars are the only thing that keep it from being more widely recognized as a masterpiece, imo — but they are a huge part of the reason it is so great.

great, thx for saying a bit more.

haha, I saw Boom! in a beautiful print at Lincoln Center about 5 years ago. It's dreadful, but not boring.

xyzzzz, i agree w/ you about the eel - i remember it being a bit baggy and all over the place - but really enjoyed a recentish home viewing of his vengeance is mine, which is a lot more 'together', even p exciting in places, and yet still has a 'sociological' emphasis on poverty, prostitution etc. i saw imamura's remake of the ballad of narayama many years ago, and the only thing i can recall now is a scene where an old woman smashes her own teeth out, deliberately (for reasons i can't recall!)

Yeah think I saw that years ago, totally forgot about it till now and it was p solid iirc.

On the theme of poverty/prostitution I'd like to see The Pornographers, looks promising.

it's not great

Distant Voice, Still Lives (1988, Terence Davies) 4/5
trilogy (1976-83, Terence Davies) 2/5
Keyhole (2011, Guy Maddin) 3/5 (tentative)
The Deep Blue Sea (2011, Terence Davies) 3/5
Queen of Diamonds (1991, Nina Menkes) 3/5
Attenberg (2010, Athina Rachel Tsangari) 4/5
La Terra Trema (1948, Luchino Visconti) 4/5
Reenactment (1968, Lucian Pintilie) 4/5
That Most Important Thing: Love (1975, Andrzej Zulawski) 2/5
Salmon Fishing in the Yemen (2011, Lasse Hallstrom) 1/5
The Oak (1991, Lucian Pintile) 4/5
Detachment (2011, Tony Kaye) 1/5

Henry Poole was Here
Muppets Take Manhattan
Doctor Zhivago
Fools Rush In

Adam Bruneau: When I saw Paper Moon as a kid on VHS I kept rewinding to the part where they make change for $10. I wanted to learn how to do that swindle and make so much money, ha!

Kuroneko
Apollonides (sp?)
Un Ete Brulant

Have been watching a lot of pulpy things recently.

The Oregonian 3.5/5
Possession 5/5
Dale & Tucker vs Evil 3/5
Don't Torture A Duckling 3/5
Lizard In A Woman's Skin 4/5
Night Of The Hunted 4.5/5
To Live & Die In LA 5/5
Miami Vice 4/5
S. Darko 4/5
Paris Is Burning 5/5
The Shrine 2.5/5

How was Kuroneko?

Night of the Hunter
Brute Force

Wuthering Heights (Andrea Arnold, 2011)
The Awakening (Nick Murphy, 2011)
Paris, Texas (Wim Wenders, 1984)
The Hunger Games (Gary Ross, 2012)
The Devils (Ken Russell, 1971)
Tabloid (Errol Morris, 2011)
The Mosquito Coast (Peter Weir, 1986)

http://letterboxd.com/davidm2000ad/

The Knack... and How to Get It (1965)-really enjoyed this film!

Mexico: the Frozen Revolution (Raymundo Gleyzer, 1973) - doc detailing the history from the Mexican revolution and how that ws suppressed by the emergent middle class culminating in the '68 student murders. Its a familiar story, leaves wanting more details and questions...

Salaam Dunk (David Fine, 2011) - as part of the Human Rights fest at the ICA. A heartwarming story around the university's Iraqui Women's basketball players and their American coach - can't doubt the personal good intentions, unfortunately had to ask myself if this wasn't using culture to build bridges and 'civilise'.

Enchanted Earth (Glauber Roach, 1967) - drama of another revolution betrayed. Its told with a really unique style -- wilful obsfucation of plot satifyingly replaced with powerful allegory matched by pristine cinematography. A film where risks are truly being taken.

High School (Frederick Wiseman, 1968) - fine and watchable but I'm hardly going to get behind someone that accepts the manipulative nature of docs by piling more of it. Easy answers.

@tanuki "Kuroneko" is a beauty.

Ronin - Finally saw this. Was fun. Blu-ray looks amazing.

The Prowler

Rockers

Great Expectations (David Lean, 1946) 3.5/5
Withnail and I (Bruce Robinson, 1987) 5/5
A Dangerous Method (David Cronenberg, 2011) 4/5
Butterflys Tongue (Jose Luis Cuerda, 1999) 4/5
Parked (Darragh Byrne, 2011) 1/5
The Firm (Alan Clarke, 1989) 4/5
My Beautiful Laundrette (Stephen Frears, 1985) 3/5
The Sleeping Voice (Benito Zambrano, 2011) 3/5

The Long, Long Trailer