Last (x) movies you saw

Summer Wars is nutjob crazy; major climax is a virtual hanafuda card game... with THE HUMAN RACE AT STAKE
great animation, solid voice acting and a fun film overall tho

watched Marley last night - lots of good footage

Crank
not seen it before but one of first things that occured to me was 'did somebody see Speed and think they could use the same idea' but instead of using a bus we'll use a person and instead of him taking speed we'll use another drug.
Very B but pretty watchable I guess, I don't think the sequel or 2 was as watchable if I remember it right.
But watching the guy chasing half way across LA or wherever that was with his ass hanging out of a hospital gown without him being stopped by the law seemed dubious. As did him being able to get across town still wearing the hospital robe but now riding a stolen police motorcycle. Even after he's crashed it into a restaurant table.
I do expect some concession to reality from my B movies, I mean.

Detropia is well worth seeing; nicely balanced look at a city on the brink. Would've liked another two hours of it for greater depth and exploration but excellent for what it was.

Crash (3/5)
Guerrilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst (4/5)
Martha Marcy May Marlene (3.5/5)
Free Angela Davis and All Political Prisoners (4/5)
Alex in Wonderland (2.5/5)
Manhunter (3/5)
Fallen Angel: Gram Parsons (4/5)
The Color of Money (4/5)
From the Other Side (3/5)
Playtime (#43 on the Sight & Sound list)

Crash was as cumbersome as I'd remembered, especially the last 15 minutes, but I still found the scene where Matt Dillon rescues Thandie Newton very moving, and there are other good moments here and there.

A New Leaf (1971, 3.5/5)
Sleepwalk with Me (2012; 3/5)
Real Life (1979; 3rd viewing; 4/5)
The Descendants (2011; 2.5/5)
Genius Within: The Inner Life of Glenn Gould (2009; 3.5/5)
Seven Men From Now (1956; 4/5)
La Promesse (1996; 4/5)
Man on Fire (2004; 2/5)
The Master (2012; 3.5/5)

xp, Clemenza yr spot on about the rescue scene in Crash; I'm not much bothered by the rest of it but that bit is terrific.

Killing Them Softly - I'd give this a solid 8/9 out of 10. The plot's pretty threadbare and seems to only really exist as something to hang the characters and setpieces from, but some great dialogue and surprisingly funny throughout. As a whole it's more of a return to Dominik's style in Chopper than ...Jesse James, and it looks fantastic esp. in a series of choreographed sequences that pepper the film. Prob worth noting that it's *very* violent in parts.

Salmon Fishing in the Yemen (Hallstrom, 2011) C-
The Cold Light of Day (El Mechri, 2011) C
Ted (MacFarlane, 2012) C+
Leaving Las Vegas (Figgis, 1995) B
Kafka (Soderbergh, 1991) B
Mirror, Mirror (Singh, 2011) C+
Lifeboat (Hitchcock, 1944) A-
Avengers Assemble (Whedon, 2012) C

Intolerable Cruelty (title sums it up)
Life Aquatic (average)
Stalker (best film ever)
Spirited Away (crazy)

Intolerable Cruelty is hilarious and underrated.

that's an interesting run of films!

This appears to be a spiritual sequel to Intolerable Cruelty. Looks horrible too

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBkR43TSzZ4

The Bourne Legacy, thought it was pretty decent as a runaround thriller. Maybe didn't need the reminders that it supposedly fit into an existing story.
I did spend an age at the beginning of the film trying to remember which superhero film I'd seen the guy in. Took me way too long to get it.

But did enjoy it, now got to remember what I saw her in. Wasn't a very B space opera or something? She does look a bit like both Famke Jansen and I think Margot Kidder too.

A Swedish Love Story (Roy Andersson, 1970) - So this is what summer looks like. A languid, tender film of young love in the hazy shimmer of a Swedish summer. 5/5.

Moonrise Kingdon (Wes Anderson, 2012) - Kara Haywood looks like a cross between Lana Del Ray and Kristen Stewart. 4/5

Lawless (John Hillcoat, 2012) - The craziest thing about this is that Shia LaBeouf may well be the best thing in it. 3/5

The Prince of Darkness (John Carpenter, 1987) - Carpenter's final wave to his fans before sinking below the sands of mediocrity. 3/5

Dredd (Pete Travis, 2012) - Zarjazz. 4/5

Total Recall (Len Wiseman, 2012) - 1st half: Blade Runner with the Total Recall script. 2nd half: generic, noisy action scenes. The Bryan Cranston/Bill Nighy showdown is a particular letdown. 2.5/5

London Belongs to Me (Sidney Giliat, 1948) - Great performances from Richard Attenborough and Alistair Sim, but an uneven film. 3/5

Holy Motors - It doesn't all work but it's terrific fun. I seemed to be the only one laughing though

Killing Them Softly - All over the place. The pared-down robbery sequence at the start is terrific but all the over-stylised stuff (complete with incongruous pop soundtrack) later on is basically Guy Ritchie level

The French Connection - better than i remembered

Suspicion - Didn't work for me at all. You never actually believe Cary Grant as a potential killer and the cop out ending confirms it

I Confess - Cool use of locations. The contrast between Montgomery Clift and O. E. Hasse's performances is pretty jarring.

Strangers on a Train - Classic obv. Robert Walker is amazing

archangel (maddin)
samsara (fricke)
steamboy (otomo)
zéro de conduite (vigo)
the hunger (t. scott)
a corner in wheat (griffith)

The Waiting Room is a documentary (likely soon to be on PBS based on the funding) that shows 12 hours in an Oakland ER waiting room and is one of the more affecting and effective films I've seen this year. Really powerful and moving, non-didactic and apolitical except insofar as it levies the damning truth that this system is broken. Also functions as an excellent and eloquent response to Mitt's blase and foolish comment that "all Americans have health care, they can always go to the emergency room".

I want to see that ^ doc.
Frederick Wiseman's Hospital (1970)
The Letter (2012)

Hospital is fucking amazing
can anyone recommend a good resource (karagarga or similar torrents withstanding) for Wiseman? None of the streaming services have his stuff and netflix has fuck all.

I liked Hospital (I did too), try to see Welfare--one of the greatest films I've ever seen.

Should say "If you liked..."

Moneyball (Bennett Miller, 2009) - left me wanting more more. I think (said think here) I got that the quality of baseball being played by Oakland was not that great to watch but effective. I wanted a flavour of that by the actions carried out on the field.

About Elly (Asghar Farhadi, 2009). The script is masterful in its literary manipulation. Great to see this while reading some Henry James - both about concealement, women's indepedent actions and thoughts in a male led society that disapproves of them, etc.

People at work are trying to drag me to see Taken 2. I must get out of it.

taken 2 taken 2

the last films i watched were

the passenger
white material
sans soleil
cosmopolis

idk about his old films but right now david cronenberg is the worst name director working

i could watch sans soleil every day of the year

seen it several times but i think i have seen it enough now, the first half an hour or so is seared into the retina

the passenger i have seen before and i didn't like it quite as much this time either

tho both of them have 'virtuoso sequences' that will never not be astonishing

actually one thing that intrigued me this time is how japanese people received sans soleil, if they did at all, but i couldn't really find any anecdotes about this

Drive
Cabin In The Woods
Marwencol

I'm on a pretty good run.

Smokin Aces which is a Guy Richie like cornucopia of cameos by somewhat interesting characters. Thing about a contract being put out on a cocaine headed egotistical Las Vegas magician with mob connections.
Somewhat watchable I guess, some laughs and pretty violent.

Getting reshown quite frequently on ITV4 or something. thankfully they're not cutting films up as much as they used to on the terrestrial channel some years back. Story wouldn't have made any sense if they did that though, bit confused as it was.

Haven't seen Common act before, have a cd from him from 10 odd years back with cameos from some odd choices like Laetitia Ssadier etc.

Compliance (Craig Zobel, '12) - The events depicted in this film are so outrageous and implausible that they could only be true. 4/5

Looper (Rian Johnson, '12) - The second-best time travel movie Bruce Willis has ever made. 3.5/5

Cosmopolis (Cronenberg, '12) - Pity the poor #TeamEdward members who turned up to this out of loyalty. 2.5/5

Premium Rush (David Koep, '12) - Entertaining, uncomplicated chase movie. Michael Shannon is really good.

The Unbookables - Documentary thing that follows a group of drunken stand-up comics as they travel in their battered RV from dive venue to chicken-wire protected stage dive venue in the US. Grippingly awful. 4/5

Indie Game the Movie - I know about indie music, but I don't know a thing about indie games, so I wasn't sure if any of this would make sense to me. Early on, though, someone says "I just do what I do, and if anyone else likes it that's a bonus" (or words to that affect), so I knew I was going to be okay. 4/5

marwencol is great

Seconded.

precious (lee daniels, 2009)
dawn of the dead (zack snyder, 2004)...this is a great zombie movie
once upon a time in anatolia (nuri bilge ceylan, 2011)....fell asleep watching this one
this must be the place (paolo sorentino, 2011)....pretentious tosh
metropolis (fritz lang, 1927)
man with a movie camera (dziga vertov, 1929)....this is amazing
the king speech (tom hooper, 2010)....a pleasant sunday evening movie, nothing fantastic though
ondine (neil jordan, 2009)....mediocre
howards end (james ivory, 1992)
hot tub time machine (steven pink, 2010).....i love this movie
triumph of the will (leni riefenstahl, 1935)

North By Northwest (good clean fun)
The Prestige (also good clean fun)
Ed Wood (same again, loved landau)
The Fly (awesome)

once upon a time in anatolia (nuri bilge ceylan, 2011)....fell asleep watching this one

prob the best new film i've seen this year (only Turin Horse comes close)

Tales of the Night is lovely animation, terrible translation/voice acting/script

Cabin In The Woods (rollicking)
Moonlight Kingdom (kind of alright if edging on the parodic)
Martha Macy May Marlene (could've been better)
Take Shelter(very good)

loved anatolia
still think about the scene in the dark room w/the candle
& still think about the costumes. beautiful smalltown village mayor clothes, woollen hats.

Anna Karenina
very good looking, highly stylised film scripted by Tom Stoppard which can be a good sign.
Interesting use of narrative technique I guess, was kit based on a stage play or did the idea of using a theatre set like that come independently?

Anyway, kind of went to see it largely because they had a couple of screenings of films per day this week in the Luxury Screen which I've never been in for the normal price rather than the hiked one. Normally €6 more to see things in there, I guess the seats are a little more comfortable & have the option of being wider if there's not a full audience.
Might be bothered to go to Taken 2 in there over the weekend since there are showings at 11.40 each day.

Go see some films day:
Samsara - I might've dozed through a bit of the early parts of this, but it's a decent companion piece to Baraka. A little surprised by the reviews saying it was pretty but no message - it seemed to be clearly saying "Here is the state of humanity in 2012: Better luck next time, eh?"

Brave - I'm amused by the challop that it fails the Bechdel test, largely because it also is the Bechdel test incarnate. And a decent Pixar film as well.

Resident Evil Retribution - I'd (re/)watched and generally enjoyed the earlier films on my iPhone earlier in the month - this was actually the first one that actually felt like it would have a video game adaptation, which is not a good look for the series. Also too much Aliens in its DNA.

The Queen of Versailles - I liked that this was largely amoral on the stars - meaning that they damned themselves out of their own mouths by and large. That said, one of the shots caused a noise of disapproval such as I have never heard from a theatre.

Killing Me Softly - I'm surprised that none of the reviews I've seen have mentioned the Coens - apart from anything else, Richard Jenkins was both A+++ and reminded me of JK Simmons in Burn After Reading - except here everyone except Brad Pitt is a dope.

Stars in shorts: ugh. What was I thinking?

Assault on Precinct 13 the '05 remake.
sort of well done but nowhere near as atmospheric as the John carpenter original.
& I was wondering on the idea of original when I watched this last night. Is the Carpenter a translocation of an earlier Western or not?
Have always wondered if it was just a 50s film about a fort & Indians replayed in the modern day with gang members played as the faceless horde that would have been Indians in the original?

'05 now recasts gang as bad cops if that ain't too much of a spoiler.

it's a loose remake of Rio Bravo

Taken 2 (who cares who directed this, 2012) - I can't imagine Liam Neeson beating up anybody. Neither was his sense of direction in anyway convincing, just a way to cut down the hunt for bad Turks and the runnng time so maybe not so bad.

The trick with the shoelace and map was neat, but then you think this was some MacGyver that some idiot thought fit to bring back.

Spartacus (Kubrick, 1960) - From Stanley's best period. Love the lack of action, choosing to focus instead on comradeship and love. Lots of great scenes illustrating this, doesn't flag.

Old Boy (pretty unpleasant)
Kes (fantastic)
Contraband (so bad lol)
Lolita (good..but still processing)

Spartacus still not fully "Kubrick's" movie, it chased him outta H'wood.

Glen and Randa (1971, Jim McBride) 4/5
Moonrise Kingdom (2012, Wes Anderson) 4/5
Family Name (1997, Macky Alston) 4/5
Henry Fool (1997, Hal Hartley) 4/5
Red Rock West (1993, John Dahl) 3/5
Queen Margot (1994, Patrice Chéreau) 4/5
Magic Mike (2012, Steven Soderbergh) 3/5
Radio Unnameable (2012, Paul Lovelace and Jessica Wolfson) 3/5
Francine (2012, Brian M. Cassidy and Melanie Shatzky) 2/5
Seven (1995, David Fincher) 4/5

I had been half considering going to see Taken 2 cos of the cheap tickets to the luxury screen deal over the weekend. I then looked it up on Rottentomatoes and their totting up lead to 19% on the critics front. Seemed to have better responses from audiences though.

Not sure whether it is at all worth seeing from what you say. Shopuld I go with the critics assessment?

Did hear that they'd reversed the story from the original where he a well trained ex-Intelligence guy is ruthlessly going after his daughter who's being sold into white slavery. Which warranted a 15 certificate or wahtever the 2nd highest is these days . & instead they had him being taken and her coming after him following his instructions for which the certificate is now 12A.
Just rewatched the first one a couple of days back too, which might have led me to bothering to go to the cinema but what I'm hearing/reading makes that sound far less enthusiastic.

love henry fool

the master <-dope
the expatriate <-boilerplate
cosmopolis <-a huge disappointing turd