Last (x) movies you saw

Starcrash (infamous Italian Star Wars ripoff flick starring David Hasselhoff and Christopher Plummer): highly entertaining.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3Rh2pfdxPU

Really wanna see BOTSW but the minor critical backlash is already giving it the flavour of "this year's Precious."

wait waht

<3 star crash

xxxpost why only 2 out of 5 for Jiro Dreams of Sushi, polyphonic?

I really didn't like it as a documentary. The dude is great and his sushi looked delicious but it felt like a Ted talk or something, and there was very little content. Also hated the ridiculously portentous score. Seemed like a big missed opportunity.

Ultrasuede: In Search of Halston (2010) -- 3.5/5
The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 (2011) -- 4/5
The Soft Skin (1964) -- 3.5/5
The Big Bounce (1969) -- 2.5/5 (generous)
L'enfance nue (1968) -- 5/5
The Bride Wore Black (1968) -- 3/5
George Harrison: Living in the Material World (2011) -- 3.5/5
The Man Nobody Knew: In Search of My Father, CIA Spymaster William Colby (2011) -- 3.5/5
Take This Waltz (2012) -- 3/5
Neil Young Journeys (2012) -- 3/5

Looked at some reviews of the Halston documentary afterwards, and they weren't kind. The director's annoying (and rather inexplicable) ubiquity aside, I thought it was a pretty lively '70s film. And the music, along with all the disco, included the Stooges, Minor Threat (?!), and Dawn.

Richard III
Oslo, August 31st

The Shakedown (1929, W Wyler) 3/5
Alps (2011, Lanthimos) 3/5
Summer of Sam (1999, S Lee) 2/5
The Double Life of Veronique (1991, Kieslowski) 3/5
Man Bites Dog (1992, three Belgian guys) 3/5
Klown (2010, two Danish clowns) 2/5
Cure (1997, K Kurosawa) 5/5
Sacrifice (2010, Chen Kaige) 3/5
The Wanderers (1979, P Kaufman) 3/5
The Well-Digger's Daughter (2011, D Auteuil) 3/5
Elena (2011, A Zvyagintsev) 3/5
Knuckleball! (2012, baseball doc) 3/5

Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (2011) - 3/5
Eraserhead (1977; repeat viewing) - 4/5
To Catch a Thief (1955) - 3.5/5 for the movie, 5/5 for the blu-ray, which is stunning.
A Report on the Party and the Guests (1966) - 3.5/5
Shut Up and Play the Hits (2012) - 2/5
Woody Allen: A Documentary (2011) - 3/5
Neil Young Journeys (2011) - 2.5/5
If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front (2011) - 3/5
Weekend (1967) - 3.5/5
Miss Bala (2011) - 3/5

Here's what I watched in July. I'm sticking with my preferred letter grades. * denotes a re-watch.

Ace in the Hole (Wilder, 1951) B+
Wings (Wellman, 1927) B+
Super 8 (Abrams, 2011) C
*Rebecca (Hitchcock, 1940) A
*Everything You've Always Wanted To Know About Sex... (Allen, 1972) B
Anatomy of a Murder (Preminger, 1959) B+
Spirited Away (Miyazaki, 2001) B
Dangerous Liasons (Frears, 1988) B-
Death Wish (Winner, 1974) C+
Martha Marcy May Marlene (Durkin, 2011) D+
Hugo (Scorsese, 2011) D-
Take Shelter (Nichols, 2011) B
*The Dark Knight (Nolan, 2008) B

daughters of darkness (harry kumel, '71) 3.5/5
bad boy bubby (rolf de heer, '93) 4/5
comedy of power (chabrol, '06) 2/5
attenberg (tsangari, '10) 2.5/5
reflections of evil (damon packard '02) 3/5
what's the matter with helen? (curtis harrington, '71) 2.5/5
river of grass (reichardt, '94) 3.5/5
full circle/the haunting of julia (richard loncraine, '77) 3/5

Hannah and Her Sisters (Allen, 1986) A
Days of Thunder (Scott, 1990) F
Feed The Kitty (Jones, 1952) A-
To Catch a Thief (Hitchcock, 1955) C
The Age of Innocence (Scorsese, 1993) A-
The Adventures of Tintin (Spielberg, 2011) B
I Can Hardly Wait (White, 1943) B-
One AM (Chaplin, 1916) D+
High Steaks (Deitch, 1962) D+
Batman (Martinson, 1966) B-
Monty Python and the Holy Grail (Gilliam and Jones, 1975) B-

You didn't find Batman's shark-repellent gambit thrilling?

I dunno...the shark explodes and later a porpoise nobly hurls itself into the path of a torpedo to save Batman and Robin. This movie is hard on sea life.

Mesrine: Killer Instict (2008) B
Mesrine: Public Enemy No. 1 (2008) B-
Melancholia (2004) A-
Paranormal Activity 3 (2001) C+
Moonrise Kingdom (2012) B+
Drive (2011) B-
Drag Me to Hell (2009) C+
Galaxy Quest (1999) B+
The Candidate (1972) B-
Madagascar 3 C+

Oops, Melancholia and Para 3 are obviously 2011. Pardon the typos.

The Candidate is literally one of my 20 or so favourite films ever. I'd be interested in hearing your problems with it--to me it's a perfect film.

last two weeks or so

7th Voyage of Sinbad, the (1958, Juran) B
Mission Impossible III (2006, Abrams) B
Paul (2011, Mottola) B
Grey, the (2011, Carnahan) C-
Dark Knight Rises, the (2012, Nolan) B
Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008, Stoller) B
Brave One, the (2007, Neil Jordan) C+
J. Edgar (2011, Eastwood) D
Melancholia (2011, Lars von Trier) D
Greenberg (2010, Baumbach) C
Bronson (2008, Refn) A-
Big Trouble in Little China (1986, Carpenter) B

I'm completely with you on J. Edgar--thought that was as dreary a film as you could possibly make about such an immense and fascinating figure.

The Candidate is literally one of my 20 or so favourite films ever. I'd be interested in hearing your problems with it--to me it's a perfect film.

I dunno, felt glib. Peter Boyle is totally great and I'd tell anyone to watch the movie just for him, but the rest of it seemed pretty naive (or faux naive). This whole shocked, shocked view of power and corruption. And Redford didn't really know how to play it, imo.

I try to place the movie in the context of 1972, when things that are taken for granted today weren't then--The Selling of the President was only four years old--but even as judged against today, I'm continually amazed by stuff that happens which seems right out of The Candidate. (One example: I remember an early McCain ad in '08 that might just as well have been Crocker Jarmon.) But the same complaint was raised by Stanley Kauffmann at the time, so maybe it already was a bit dated. Still, I never get tired of it.

One AM (Chaplin, 1916) D+

jer, wtf

Outlander, thing about a space traveller landing in ancient Iceland and having to battle a creature that he'd transported.
He's along with a tribe (clan?) of Vikings and having to stave off attacks by a rival group that the creature had eradicated the village of.
Thought it was pretty good as a bit of hokum. Looking at IDBM it seems it had a far lower budget than it had expected to. I'd been wondering while watching it if it had been a theatrical release or made for TV or what since I saw it on Syfy.

Xpost

Well, it's not exactly the greatest Chaplin, is it? He's not really at the mercy of any external forces here, just his own drunkenness. Also, that's a pretty nice house--who wants to see Chaplin as some rich jerk?

saw 'beasts of the southern wild' last night and am mostly in agreement with admrl's assessment upthread

otherwise i think the only film i've watched recently is 'five easy pieces' which i really liked

The Raid Redemption: 3/5
The Doberman Gang: 3/5

killer joe (friedkin, 2012) 3.5/5
the naked kiss (fuller, '64) 3.5/5
rampart (moverman '11) 2/5
about cherry (stephen elliott, 2012) 1/5
peppermint candy (lee chang-dong '99) 2/5
je t'aime, je t'aime (resnais '68) 2/5

xxpost

Five Easy Pieces is one of those movies where the first time I saw it I didn't get what was supposed to be so great about it at all, but it's grown on me in tiny increments each time I've seen it. Not ready to declare it a masterpiece yet, but maybe after a few more viewings...

Johnny, didn't Rampart remind you of Altman at all?

u mean like in all the side characters? eh, they all felt v hollow, borderline stunt casting esp ben foster playing the wheelchair vet, eff that

reminded more of a less-skilled tony scott

je t'aime je t'aime => one of the most underrated films ever.

Nostalgia for the Light (Guzman, 2010) - Had a lot of things on mind when I caught this on Tuesday. Even so I am not going see a better film this year. I was dreading it because it hits a lot of my buttons: about the generally very apolitical scientific field (at least over here: sure a lot of profs I used to know know pretty much welcome/do not give a shit about the cuts in the humanities) in a place where politics has touched every corner of life and was then swept under to such an extent as to suppress public conversation. Then again its a Chilean film and the handful that make it over here are about the coup; and films from other countries about Chile also touch on it (Blame it on Fidel).

This ws something else: Guzman is the original coup chronicler in Battle for Chile; Chile's Atacama desert is a good point for obsering the stars - so many telescopes were built at that location (beginning in the 60s). The metaphor of astronomy as a tool to observe the past (light from years away reaching us now, giving us clues to what the cosmos might have been composed of thousands of years ago blah blah) in a country that represses its past comes off. In the end it was a way of sculpting the stories of people looking for remains in mass graves of loved ones, shot and buried away in the same desert: when one of the interviees says they should build a telescope to scan into the ground, you know that this is its core subject. So in someways I would reserve my comments, as I felt creeping lack of balance between gorgeous pictures of the stars and the horror of the camps and the coup. There are questions here of how much material he had in the first place and how much unconcious suppression of things that are too horrifying to see (cf the archival footage of the Katyn massacre in Makavejev's Sweet Movie).

Guzamn's voice is measured, the script had no fat - considerate to its subject, knowing its responsibilities.

The Dark Knight Rises, the latest Spiderman film, and Friends with Kids. This was an absoluetly hiralious rom com - often forget what a crazy genre this is...

When i went to see Nostalgia For The Light there was a guy's head blocking the first two words or so of the subtitles. Rather broke its spell

Why didn't you move seats? Was the cinema full?

yeah, it was a small cinema and it was a sell out

Nil By Mouth (Gary Oldman, 1997) 4/5
Goon (Michael Dowse, 2011) 3/5
Fahrenheit 451 (Francois Truffaut, 1966) 4/5
Freedom Writers (Richard LaGravenese, 2007) 3/5
The Burning Plain (Guillermo Arriaga, 2007) 2/5
God Bless America (Bobcat Goldthwaite, 2012) 2/5
California Split (Robert Altman, 1974) 4/5
Friends With Kids (Jennifer Westfeldt, 2011) 3/5

Three Women
Cabaret
Welcome to L.A.
Satantango
Week End
Paul Williams Still Alive
Shoah
Mulholland Dr.
Vivre sa vie
Breathless
Imitation of Life

I'll skip ratings so as not to agitate anyone by giving films I liked 4/5 instead of 5/5. The only one that most definitely wasn't for me was Cabaret, which I hadn't seen since soon after it came out. I did spot someone with another one of those Paul Ryan haircuts.

http://www.movieactors.com/freezeframes33/cabaret249.jpeg

Escape From New York - not half as good as I remember. Kind of bad, actually.
Big Trouble In Little China - This one is *still* a lot of fun.
He Got Game - occasional hints of a great movie buried under sledgehammer point-driving and some truly shitty acting.
Remorques - fantastic. I'm a recent convert to Gremillon.
Madame Bovary (Chabrol) - Aghh! could've been so great but not a patch on Renoir's amazing, bleak version. Huppert never more lovely, though.

Agree with you about Chabrol's MB.

Any discussion of A Separation anywhere?

there was some in the iranian film thread

S & D: Iranian film

Safety Not Guaranteed is a weird one--slight, precious at times, but pretty interesting. No point in tracking all the things that defy credulity. Great Facebook joke from the lead character's father.

- Johnny Carson: King of Late Night: really enjoyable. Nice overview of his career, a lot of good footage.
- The Descendants: I hated pretty much every character in this movie. But the scenery was great. Shrug.
- The Ballad of Genesis & Lady Jaye: More of a spectacle piece, there's not a whole lot of storytelling which is what I had hoped for. It almost felt like Genesis made it himself. Which is sad, it makes it kind of hard to recommend
- Godfather Part I- yay, of course
- Godfather Part II- yay of course

Rushmore
The Tree of Life
In The Mood For Love - saw this last night and was thinking about it all day at work. and wow it left a deep impression on me. the bit where they act out confronting their partners is so good.

I need to see In The Mood For Love again. Left zero impression on me when I watches it years ago and this is one case where I fully believe that the problem was me, not the film.

watched 'bachlorette' on vod (Leslye Headland, 2012) - 1/5 is so bad, esp as compared to bridesmaids; has like every conventional tic possible, idk, will prob be a big hit actually & we will have a nat'l debate abt cocaine use

'we won't grow old together' (pialat, 72) 3.5/5 & 'loulou' (pialat '80) 3.5/5 - are like skewed cassavetes & sorta painful 2 endure @ times but both p true & timeless

the medusa touch (jack gold '78) 3.5/5 - p good & suspenseful, telekinetic richard burton, what more do u need?

'cutter's way' (ivan passer '81) 3.5/5 - love the ambiguity, bridges is really handsome in this; heard has some cool scenes, perf is a lil ott

love "cutter's way" but , yes, a bit ott but somehow it works (?)

bridges is like a greek statue lit by its own rig of california sunshine in cutter's way. so pretty.

The Lodger (Hitchcock, 1929) - still getting into silent film language, so at this stage I'm trying to judge what is or isn't overacting. The last 10 mins were laughable in the way it went from witch-hunt to a happy ending but it has one of the great screen kisses.

Before Sunrise (Linklater, 1995) - great dialogue leaves you wanting more with the holes in intention of lack of that are left hanging and this had some of that. A bit like the Brief Encounter of that generation, which sounds much cornier than I want to. Love the final shots of Austria and all the places the couple walked by.

I am the Son of America...and I am Indebted to it (Alvarez, 1973) - propaganda document of Castro touring Cuba, giving speeches, mingling with the crowds and later meeting Allende. Ends with Allende's promise to be a martyr if that's what it takes. Ruthless in the effect it wants to create, yet there is room for the unplanned: Castro's imcompetence with the microphone that is exposed in Marker's Grin Without a Cat.