Last (x) movies you saw

anna karenina. complete garbage.

i saw the devil is good tho.

I liked Anna Karenina.

Rashomon (Kurosawa, 1950) - I get that its important and all but I didn't enjoy it.
Heat (Mann, 1995) - Eh. I don't know what I was expecting really.
The Squid And The Whale (Baumbach, 2005) - Decent.
Sunrise: A Song Of Two Humans (Murnau, 1927) - A joy and a delight. Perfect.

Joy Ride (3/5--early A.I. Joseph Ruben film; bonus for great ELO soundtrack)
Barton Fink (3.5/5)
Gregory J. Markopolous (Swain/Ming Green/Through a Lens Brightly/Sorrows/Gilbert & George--some underground American films I've liked a lot, but I didn't get much out of these)
The Master (3.5/5)
Malcolm X (4.5/5)
The Hot Rock (3.5/5)
Inventing David Geffen (4/5)
The World Before Her (3.5/5)
The Fruit Hunters (4/5)
Color Me Obsessed: A Film About the Replacements (3.5/5)

grave of the fireflies and spirited away
loving these miyazaki double features

I watched My Neighbour Totoro today!

i think it's a top five film for me.

Grave of the Fireflies is Studio Ghibli but not directed by Miyazaki.

always love the fact that grave of the fireflies and totoro were released as a legit double-feature in japan. nothing like watching the most joyful film ever made followed by a film that takes your heart and crushes it as if it was soap bubble.

emotion (ôbayashi)
the future (m. july)
letter not sent (kalatazov)

I liked Anna Karenina.

― Pat Finn

I liked it, too. Lurkers unite!

I admit I'm not sure how much of that was the book (which I love) shining through, though.

Yah, i know dasher
Ifc is doing the yearly ghibli retrospect and i have been to a lot
Next up: pom poko and my neighbors the yamadas
Then laputa and porco rosso

xp i deny pleasure to none, o but it was so so bad. what with the theatrical staging, thisthenthatthenthis and the trembly-lipped knightley of it. such joy to see that final, ice-bound engine appear.

gonna go see holy motors in the theater this week. woots.

such joy to see that final, ice-bound engine appear.

Haha! I'm dying to see Holy Motors, but it will never play near me.

Habemus Papam (2012, Nanni Moretti) - Michel Piccoli, who once played a young playwright in Godard's Le Mépris, where he was buckling under the pressure to become somebody he wasn't, now in his 80s is playing a similarly conflicted man, only here he's expected to be the leader of the worldwide Catholic Church as opposed to a hack screenwriter for Hollywood. 4/5

ParaNorman (Chris Butler, Sam Fell, 2012) - It's no Coraline, but it's a fun mix of The Frighteners and Scooby-Doo. 3.5/5

Rasputin: the Mad Monk (Don Sharp, 1966) - Hammer's typically OTT take on Russia's greatest love machine. Christopher Lee barges his way through the film with gusto. Great fun. 4/5

Electrick Children (Rebecca Thomas, 2012) - Mormon girl gets pregnant by listening to a mixtape and runs away to Vegas to find the singer. Sweet, strange, gauzy indie, with an eye-catching performance from Julia Garner. 3.5/5

Holy Motors (Leos Carax, 2012) - Fairly tedious, but it has its moments. Good music, though. 2/5

Rust and Bone (Jacques Audiard, 2012) - In the end, I was interested in Marion Cotillard's character, but not at all in Matthias Schoenaerts'. 2/5

Singin' in the Rain (Stanley Donen, Gene Kelly, 1951) - This film gives you no quarter; it explodes with a pure, unalloyed, life-affirming joy. 5/5

The Color Wheel (Alex Ross Perry, 2012) - Packed with aggressively snotty, awful, argumentative people, and messily filmed. But something about it won me over in the end. I think it was the heart-skippingly attractive Carmen Altman whose gives a vulnerability to her flinty, smartmouthed character. A painful and funny comedy of discomfort. 3/5

21 Jump Street (Phil Lord, Chris Miller, 2012) - Cop buddy movie and a high school comedy rolled into one, with a very self-aware take. Really loses it in the final third, but some decent laughs. 2.5/5

Real life has been getting in the way lately, but in the last week:
- The 400 Blows
- Three Colors: White (last night, prompted by the ilx thread)

tess (79, polanski) 3.5/5
breathless (60, godard) 3.5/5
green (2012, sophia takal) 2.5/5
the zone (2011, swanberg) 3/5
night and day (08, hong sang-soo) 3/5
lost horizon (37, capra) 3/5
georgy girl (66, silvio narizzano) 2/5
4:44 last day on earth (2012, ferrara) - only watched like half of this, is horrible idk -60/5

baby of mâcon
institute benjaminta

inception (nolan, 2010) secondtime around, a bit silly but its gripping and full shit-your-pants awesome imagery 4/5

the wicker man (hardy, 1973) third or fourth time watching this. probably my fave horror movie ever. could you even call it a horror movie though? 4/5

out of the blue (hopper, 1980) wanted to see this for a long time and it didnt disappoint. 4/5

breathless (60, godard) 3.5/5

file under "i can see why this important, but please dont make me watch it"

gonna see Rabbi's Cat tonight, pretty psyched

breathless is riotously entertaining

yeah i mean i let myself prefer bande a part but breathless is fun, it's belmondo ffs

I watched Breathless a few weeks ago and had a hard time getting past how amazingly ugly Belmondo was. He looked like Rondo Hatton, but at least Hatton had acromegaly as an excuse.

yeah, belmondo's one of the all-time gallic uglies

...

u are both crazy..er, I mean, CRAY

Alps (Yorgos Lanthimos, 2011) - this one's a grower, the same droll comedy as Dogtooth but less shock tactics. The cunnilingus scene is a winner! (4/5)

Elena (Andrey Zvyagintsev, 2011) - oddly disturbing. The enigmatic closing shot is a "thing" these days isn't it? (4/5)

L'Argent (Robert Bresson, 1983) - can't help feeling he was getting a bit too "Bressonian" by this stage. I mean it's not quite self-parody but I didn't find myself caring about what happened much, unlike in his best films. (3/5)

The Hunt (2012, Thomas Vinterberg) - not enigmatic enough! The inevitable Hollywood remake will surely have more fistfights and emotional crescendos. OK I guess, just a bit pointless. (3/5)

Huh, lately I think L'Argent is the best Bresson I've seen.

ditto

The phrase "first among equals" may have never so clearly applied, tho.

I watched Breathless a few weeks ago and had a hard time getting past how amazingly ugly Belmondo was. He looked like Rondo Hatton, but at least Hatton had acromegaly as an excuse.

― WilliamC, Tuesday, December 11, 2012 4:31 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it's interesting though. my grandfather was a really big raymond chandler fan, real big fan of humphrey bogart. he'd always say he couldn't figure out what it was about bogart - like, funny voice, peculiar looking compared to some of his peers. it's like being the same distance away from a regular singing voice that billie holiday was - just like this strange other tangent. belmondo's remarkable looking. i never saw that melville movie in which he's a priest but the images are so arresting, he really pops:

http://dryden.eastmanhouse.org/media/leonpri.jpg

nb upon googling i am compelled to disagree way more aggressively with your original premise

Belmondo is ugly-beautiful i.e. classic film face

Besides Diary of a Country Priest L'Argent was the only Bresson available on videotape in the nineties, so my regard is tinged by the fact that it was the second I saw...and now it's hard to find on DVD.

gonna see Rabbi's Cat tonight, pretty psyched

― THE NATIONS YOUTH DANCED TO THE MACARANA (innocent) (forksclovetofu), Tuesday, December 11, 2012 12:55 PM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Oh man jealous!!!

it's at IFC jon! i can get you a ticket sometime if you wanna.

Breathless is important and fun.

sunset boulevard

my fav thing about 'mondo is that when he got old he turned into a cheesy french george hamilton

alfred otm about belmondo, in some shots he's absolutely beautiful and in others he looks like a gargoyle

but yeah, diving into the history of french new wave in film school, i was pretty much convinced that france was a land where impossibly beautiful women routinely hooked up with garden gnomes.

im still convinced of that tbh

maybe it's time for me to finally return to my ancestral homeland

http://www.ladysenea.com/images/plop/.jeanne_moreau_dans_le_mythique_jules_et_jim_reference_m.jpg

lol

delon is the necessary counterpart to belmondo, impossible beauty vs bordelais rough trade

belmondo won his three official fights according to wikipeda but i guess he lost enough other ones

I would so do Belmondo but he probably reeks of Gauloises.

I would so do Belmondo and he probably reeks of Gauloises.

I would so do Belmondo; he probably reeks of Gauloises.