Last (x) movies you saw

Notes Towards an African Orestes/Notes on India (Pasolini, 1975/1969). Gives an insight on Pasolini, who is in shit-head mode when asking a group of African students, after screening his essay on applying Oresteia to the anti-colonial struggle, what they think of this, or when it should be set 1960 or 1970? (Answer: who cares). I'm harshing on it but there were other good things: free jazz performance (audience reaction as that went on was a memory), and Pasolini's readings of the play.

Notes on India was flat-out great: poverty, the caste system, hardly much movement on that..

A Woman Ascends the Stairs (Naruse, 1960)

Steamboat Bill Jr. (Keaton, 1928) 5/5
A Monster in Paris (Bergeron, 2011) 2.5/5
Paris, Texas (Wenders, 1984) 5/5

Portrait of Jason was great and i saw it with the perfect, astonishingly old school ny audience: 10pm show in the west village with a pair of screaming, very drunk queens seated stage right, vociferous lesbians making one row in front of me and dude on the front row getting head from his date for half the film and then them ducking out twice, presumably to fuck in the bathroom.
film itself is just a knockout.

the effect of gamma rays on man-in-the-moon marigolds - directed by paul newman; this was v good, darkly comic but highly relatable, great dialogue (play won the pulitzer); joanne woodward is a tragic matriarch her heart is full, it all sorta made me think of grey gardens

An Innocent Man (Peter Yates + Tom Selleck) -- 3/5: Better than that in some ways, but some of the writing is terrible.
Koch -- 4/5
Joe Papp in Five Acts -- 4/5
The Friends of Eddie Coyle -- 4/5
Boogie Nights -- 5/5
Nixon -- 5/5
Bert Stern: Original Madman -- 3.5/5: Thought I'd like this more than I did. Stern is a little tiresome after a while; great photos, of course.
Taxi Driver -- 5/5
Light Sleeper -- 3.5/5: Some good things in there, but what an awful, oppressive score.

Badlands (1973; 3rd viewing) 5/5
Sound City (2012) 3/5
Tabu (2012) 3.5/5
Devi (1960) 4/5
A Well-Spent Life (1971) 4/5
Primer (2004) So damn confusing I have no idea what to rate it.

John Carter (2012, Stanton)
Hellboy (2004, del Toro)
New York, New York (1977, Scorsese)
Dark Shadows (2012, Burton)
Argo (2012, Affleck) that's it?
Broadway Melody, the (1929, Beaumont) very weak
Superman 2 (1980, Donner/Lester) [Donner cut]
Wings (1927, Wellman) had to fast forward through some parts

The End of Summer (Ozu, 1961)
Sisters of the Gion (Mizoguchi, 1936)
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Wiene, 1920)

These last few weeks at Copenhagen film festival:

Closed Curtain (Jafar Panahi)
War Witch (Kim Nguyen)
Post Tenebras Lux (Carlos Reygadas)
Like Someone in Love (Abbas Kiarostami)
After the Battle (Yousry Nasrallah)
The We and the I (Michel Gondry)
Smoking (Alain Resnais)
Pieta (Kim Ki-duk)
Inland Empire - More Things That Happened (David Lynch)
Germany Year 90 Nine Zero (Jean-Luc Godard)
The Science of Sleep - Version B (Michel Gondry)
Shanghai (Dibakar Banerjee)
Outrage Beyond (Takeshi Kitano)
Gold (Thomas Arslan)
90 Minutes (Eva Sørhaug)
The Land of Hope (Sion Sono)
In Another Country (Hong San-soo)
Night (Leonardo Brzezicki)
Harmony Lessons (Emir Baigazin)
No (Pablo Larrain)
The Plague (Neus Ballus)
Paradise: Love (Ulrich Seidl)
Paradise: Faith (Seidl)
Paradise: Hope (Yup, Seidl)
Night Across the Street (Raul Ruiz)
La Belle Noiseuse - Divertimento (Jaques Rivette)
Penance (Kiyoshi Kurosawa)
Benur (Massimo Andrei)
The Color Wheel (Alex Ross Perry)
Gebo and the Shadow (Manoel de Oliveira)
The Strange Little Cat (Ramon Zürcher)

Some of them were very good.

haha, that does sound ideal, forks.

Some folks find Jason probematic in terms of black/queer rpresentation by white filmmakers. I haven't seen it yet.

Inland Empire - More Things That Happened

That's pretty much the greatest title ever, at least until There Will Be Blood - Some Parts We Left Out comes along.

i can see the issues with Jason morbs but it's a film that felt really honest in its dishonesty if that makes sense

secret ceremony
privilege

A Married Couple (1969)

Wings (1927, Wellman) had to fast forward through some parts

blauuuughhhhh

Iron MAn 3 really enjoyed it. Pretty destructive, hadn't realised who Shane Black was until I looked him up.
Noticing people noting that it's become more of an action movie tahn a superhero one but noty sure taht exactly follows.
Anyway found it a lot of fun and it has a post credits scene if you haven't seen it yet. Plus some really great ending credits which reminded me of something out of Gerry Anderson especially the Captain Scarlett ones. Or some kind of 60s tv detective/crimefighter group credits.

MIght have to see it again and probably still need to see #2 propeerly. Caught the end of it a couple of weeks back and hadn't realised the Black Widow was in it.

abt to watch peter watkins's edvard munch

Looks like a good idea.

Fireworks (1947, Anger) 10/10
Meshes of the Afternoon (1943, Deren, Hammid) 9/10
A Movie (1958, Conner) 9/10
Harakiri (1919, Lang) 7/10
Trance (2013, Boyle) 4/10
Pushover (1954, Quine) 6/10
Human Desire (1954, Lang) 7/10
Side Effects (2013, Soderbergh) 5/10
Un Flic (1972, Melville) 7/10
The Brothers Rico (1957, Karlson) 7/10
To the Wonder (2012, Malick) 6/10
The Pruitt-Igoe Myth (2011, Freidrichs) 7/10
The Wandering Shadow (1920, Lang) 6/10
Upstream Color (2013, Carruth) 7/10

Early Summer (Ozu, 1951) 4/5
Battleship Potemkin (Eisenstein, 1925) 4/5
The Trial (Welles, 1962) 4.5/5
Daisies (Chytilova, 1966) 3/5

love love love 'meshes of the afternoon.' (and 'daisies')

The Sure Thing (3.3174/5)

Daphne Zuniga is fetching; the rest is from some world I missed by about seven years, though I will add it to my list of road movies. Doesn't anyone else on this thread ever watch stupid movies?

yes. I watched Trance.

Subway (1985, Besson) 2/5
The Wages of Fear (1953, Clouzot) 5/5
Italian for Beginners (2000, Scherfig) 3/5
Stroszek (1977, Herzog) 5/5
The Queen of Versailles (2012, Greenfield) 4/5
What Richard Did (Abrahamson, 2012) 4/5

A couple from the SFIFF:

The Act of Killing (2012): I found this incredibly disturbing and a bit morally questionable, but it was fascinating nonetheless. Also it made me painfully aware of how little I know about Indonesia and its history. 4/5

After Tiller (2103): Very good documentary about the four US doctors who provide late-term abortions, in the years after the murder of their mentor Dr. George Tiller. Surprisingly moving and well-made. 4.5/5

2013, not 2103!

saw the russian movie in the fog at the cinema tonight, anyone seen it? Wartime thriller about collaboration/resistance with like philosophy & that, pretty #slowcinema, started off with an incredible long-take scene at a hanging. I knew just from that that it was my kinda movie, drifted off for a bit but it was really good I reckon

Le Rapace
Colors
Gangs Of Wasseypur 1

Post Tenebras Lux 7/10
*This Is Not a Film 8/10
Something in the Air {Apres Mai] 7/10
In the House 6/10
*The Kid with a Bike 8/10
Four Around the Woman (1921, Lang) 7/10
Sorcerer (1977, Friedkin) 7/10
No 7/10
*Rebecca (1940, Hitchcock) 9/10
Portrait of Jason (1967, Clarke) 8/10

*rewatches

is Sorcerer worth tracking down? always been curious about it.

A Place Beyond the Pines (2013)
Rolling Thunder (1977)
48 Hours (1982)
Who'll Stop The Rain (1978)
The Lords of Salem (2012)

All great films save 'Salem' which is Rob Zombie's newie. Bailed an hour in, though.

Also, xpost, yes, Sorcerer well worth watching. Among Friedkin's best.

Cracks (2009)

Oblivion
Withnail & I
Groundhog Day
City Lights
Crumb
Chungking Express
Ordet
The Last Laugh

Sorcerer DVD due at year end

Saw "Fire Over England" (1937) on TCM the other day, great film about the Spanish Armada with Olivier and Vivien Leigh. Excellent period sets and costumes. Doesn't seem to be well loved or talked about much.

Lady and the Tramp (1955) first viewing since childhood -- i like the beginning where the dogs act like dogs. the 50s social mores are pretty WTF, like Lady's platonic friends almost proposing marriage after she leaves the tramp.
Killer Joe (2012, Friedman)
Alien 3 (1992, Fincher) ["Assembly Cut"]
Friday the 13th (1980, Cunningham)
Zero Dark Thirty (2012, Bigelow)
Django Unchained (2012, Tarantino)
Get Crazy (1983, Arkush) on youtube while distracted
Great Ziegfeld, the (1936, Robert Z. Leonard)
All the King's Men (1949, Rossen)
Around the World in 80 Days (1949, Rossen) rewatch -- at least i think i saw this before. early todd-ao photography is interesting. not much else is.

oops on 80 Days, that's '56, can't remember who the director is

yeah, michael anderson. he also did logan's run

The Godfather - 4.5/5
The Godfather Part II - 4.5/5
The Godfather Part III - First time watch, and, yeah, it pales in comparison to parts I and II. Andy Garcia and George Hamilton are no substitutes for John Cazale and Robert Duvall, and the film just doesn't have compelling enough characters, and the bloodbath set-pieces don't have the same power. But it's Pacino that is the biggest let down - so contained and intense in the first two, here he sleepwalks through, bleary-eyed with a Bart Simpson haircut. It's as if he had completely forgotten how to play the character. Otherwise, ah, it was okay if you view it as a standalone film, out from the shadow of near masterpieces. Coppola's audio commentary on this is basically a three-hour apologia for a film he openly resents. 2/5

Star Trek Into Darkness (Abrams, 2013) - it's one long sugar rush. Cumberbatch may be the best thing about it; the heavy-handed moments of pandering to the base, the worst. The film itself is mindlessly entertaining and bombastic, but it doesn't leave much of an impression. I preferred it to the 2009 film, for what it’s worth. 3/5
Iron Man 3 (Shane Black, 2013) - A strange mess of a film. I did enjoy Ben Kingsley's character, and the '80s action-series-style titles over the end credits. Enough, now. 2/5
Cloud Atlas (Wachowski's/Tyker, 2012) - I quite liked the novel, but here they took the book's 'eternal recurrence' gimmicky narrative device very seriously and it made the film very ponderous. All of the separate stories get short-changed, and the black/white/yellowface make-up and prosthetics were really distracting and argh... 2/5
The Place Beyond the Pines (Cianfrance, 2013) - Feels like it's cut from the same cloth as other indie-cop films like End of Watch and Copland; I didn't like this nearly as much, though. Bradley Cooper's good, and the middle-section focusing on his character is the strongest. Ryan Gosling needs to get a new schtick, though. 3/5

Killer Joe (2012, Friedman)

Friedkin

thx

black swan (aronofsky)
the second circle (sokurov)
zebraman; zebraman 2 (miike)

The Cat o' Nine Tails (Dario Argento, 1971) - watching American actors dubbed into Italian with English subtitles is disconcerting. (4/5)
In The Fog (Sergei Loznitsa, 2012) - pretty good; good acting, slow burning atmosphere etc but any film about the Nazi occupation of Belarus really has to be compared to Come And See, in the same way that any film about the water supply in California would have to be compared to you-know-what. And it's nowhere near, unfortunately. (3/5)

He Who Gets Slapped
Gangs Of Wasseypur 2
The Grandmasters
Today We Kill, Tomorrow We Die
The Place Beyond The Pines

A couple potentially controversial scores here:

Carnage 6/10
Ikiru 8/10
A Hard Day's Night 5/10
Lady and the Tramp 8/10
M. Hulot's Holiday 5/10
Plan 9 From Outer Space 6/10
Sea of Love 7/10

But it's Pacino that is the biggest let down - so contained and intense in the first two, here he sleepwalks through, bleary-eyed with a Bart Simpson haircut. It's as if he had completely forgotten how to play the character.

― DavidM, Monday, May 13, 2013 11:23 AM (6 days ago)

Exactly. It wouldn't be correct to say it's literally not the same actor, but in so many ways it's not.

how's The Grandmasters Jay Vee? Why didnt you like Hard Day's Night cryptosicko (i havent seen it myself)

Passion of Joan of Arc 5/5
City Girl 4.5/5
Greed 5/5
L'avventura 3.5/5
Dead Man 2/5
The Fireman's Ball 4/5
The Flight of the Red Balloon 4/5

The Grandmasters is the most languid and romantic Kung Fu flick I have seen.

cp I wasn't that fussed about Hulot's Holiday tbh. Maybe I haven't seen enough Great Silent Films Stars but it all seemed a bit broad for me