Last (x) movies you saw

the constant gardener
about half of kitano's "dolls" (bf couldn't handle it)
vicky cristina barcelona
the others

i never get to choose the movies nowadays.

i couldn't even remember that i'd watched the others. i had to look at the "recently watched" on netflix to remind me. this is depressing.

The Watermelon Man
Framed
Les Idoles

I've been mostly watching through Twin Peaks as lovefilm has it streaming. But these are the films I've watched in the last 3 weeks.

Irma Vep
Before Sunset
To The Wonder
The Gospel According to St. Matthew
M
Man of Steel
Letter From an Unknown Women

World War Z (Forster, 2013) 6/10
West Side Story (Wise and Robbins, 1961) 9/10
The Purge (DeMonaco, 2013) 4/10
The Big Sleep (Hawks, 1946) 6/10
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (Spielberg, 1982) 9/10
Meatballs (Reitman, 1979) 4/10
My Bodyguard (Bill, 1980) 8/10

Everything non-theatrical a re-watch, though E.T. was the first time since childhood, and Meatballs and My Bodyguard the first time since my early-adolescent crush on Chris Makepeace.

Eye on the Prize (1987) 10/10

Did you know about this, cryptosicko?

http://tiff.net/filmsandschedules/tiffbelllightbox/2013/2550009086

Ages ago, before a Mean Streets screening at the Cinema Lumiere on College St., I went up to Kate Lynch in the lobby and quoted one of Murray's mock-stupid lines to her (forget which one). Don't remember her reaction--smiled and backed away slowly would be my guess.

Kinda wish I could justify going to this...

- 56 Up (Apted, 2012)
- The Darjeeling Limited (Anderson, 2007)
- Fårö Document 1979 (Bergman, 1979)
- The Incredible Shrinking Man (Arnold, 1957) - it took me a week to remember where I knew that opening theme from (sampled by Gastr del Sol)
- The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (Powell/Pressburger, 1943) - rescreen. The 2011 restoration is spectacular, and the beauty and sadness in the script have had me on the edge of tears twice now.
- Diary of a Shinjuku Thief (Oshima, 1968)

Dog Day Afternoon *
Blue Velvet (1986, Lynch) *
Upstream Color (2012, Carruth) very good
A Fistful of Dollars (Leone) how many dollars are in a fistful? it does not sound like very many. /pedant
Master, the (2012, Paul T. Anderson)
Silver Linings Playbook (2012, Russell) no

*repeat viewing

WilliamC, what's the Gastr Del Sol track?

"Our Exquisite Replica of Eternity," on Upgrade & Afterlife

Fårö Document 1979 (Bergman, 1979)

how is this

i watched 56 up just recently also. i want neil to get a gf/wife!

also some french filums

masculine feminine (godard, 66)
le combat dans l'ile (cavalier, 62)
merci pour le chocolot (chabrol, 2000)

Fårö Document 1979 (Bergman, 1979)

how is this

― johnny crunch, Friday, July 19, 2013 11:23 AM (6 minutes ago)

It wasn't astonishing in any way, but it was good, and gave a good sense of place for anyone wanting to understand Bergman's Sweden better. I haven't seen Fårö Document (1970), but this is a follow up to that one. The first one was alarm bells, apparently -- "our young people are leaving this important place" -- but this return look 10 years later is more hopeful. There's one old farmer Bergman returns to in several almost wordless segments that are very striking -- the guy working like a dog all day, every day, just to get by. Even cleaning fish and frying them for his dinner is an extended grind. No time for pleasure.

Lets see here, I average about one flick a week thanks to living 5-10 minutes walking distance away from the best beer & pizza cheapie theater in Portland.

Marathon Man, '76 (last night). [wow]
Pacific Rim, '13 [fuck yeah]
Berberian Sound Studio, '13 [pretty good tho I'm not a giallo fan]
Bullitt, '68 [had completely forgotten the entire airport scene which is so hilariously anachronistic. Pan Am!]
Spring Breakers, '13 [Kids + Drive + digital video]
Jason & the Argonauts, '67 [shot and lit more like an ep of Star Trek than I would have anticipated]
Oblivion, '13 [yknow what's a great movie? Moon. Moon was a helluva great movie]
Fast & Furious 6, '13 [stuPENdous. The Rock needs to be in everything]
Star Trek Into Darkness, '13 [bleah. Star Trek for Star Trek haters. a Star Wars movie in a Starfleet uniform]

This Is the End (3/5)
His Girl Friday (4/5)
The Front Page (1931--3/5)
Red Road (4/5--Scottish, baffling for a while, really liked it in the end)
Stranger Than Paradise (4.5/5)
My Life As a Dog (5/5)
Bitter/Sweet(2/5--don't watch DVDs because of the actress on the cover)
Watching the Detectives (2/5--don't watch DVDs because of the actress on the cover)
The Bling Ring (3/5)
The Ice Storm (5/5)

Hadn't seen His Girl Friday in ages. The best parts are really great (Billy Gilbert!), but I saw it on the back end of a double-bill with the stagy original, and the carryover interfered a bit.

the conformist (bertolucci, 1970) rewatch 5/5
down terrace (wheatley, 2009) 4/5
kill list (wheatley, 2011) 4/5
a field in england (wheatley, 2013) 3/5
match point (allen, 2005) rewatch 3/5

scott pilgrim vs. the world (distracting non-chin: 5/5)
prometheus (fun and good looking but so stupid: 2/5)
skyfall (done with this spy superhero bullshit: 0/5)

Pillow Talk 8/10

fantastic cast chemistry only slightly marred by an ending that's just one step too far down the path of unbelievable (which, considering the rest of the movie, is a feat)

Before Midnight (2013) 4/5
A Band Called Death (2013) 3.5/5
The Blues Accordin’ to Lightnin’ Hopkins (1970) 4/5
Le Pont du Nord (1981) 3.5/5
Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me (2012) 3.5/5
Days and Clouds (2007) 4/5
Spring Breakers (2013) 3/5

Computer Chess (2013, Bujalski) 7/10
Dirty Wars (2013, Rowley) 7/10
*Babette's Feast (1987, Axel) 8/10
Rosalinda (2011, Pineiro) 6/10
Viola (2012, Pineiro) 7/10
*Doctor Zhivago (1965, Lean) 8/10
Laurence Anyways (2012, Dolan) 6/10
*Life Is Sweet (1990, Leigh) 9/10
A Hijacking (2012, Lindholm) 7/10
Museum Hours (2012, Cohen) 8/10
Big Wednesday (1978, Milius) 6/10

*rewatches

Computer Chess had me puzzled at the end,

Let me finish that thought sometime in the next five minutes.

Ginger and Rose 4/10
I'm So Excited 7/10
The Mirror 6/10

(xpost)...so there's something there; puzzlement is good. But I really didn't enjoy it. Didn't like the look, even though I understand what they were after. I would have preferred something less austere and more grounded in the moment--some attempt to get at the excitement and momentousness of what was unfolding. That, or a documentary. I recognized the Henderson character but couldn't place him: Gerald Peary, who I saw speak about a year ago.

I thought it was triumphant on its own terms, and enjoyed it. Don't quite get the over-the-moon raves, unless these critics are code monkeys.

I laughed at the WTF moment near the end.

On its own term, yeah, it succeeded, but they seemed like such limited terms to me. "Austere" was the wrong word--makes it sound like Bresson or Bergman. "Flat" is more like it.

You mean the last shot of the film, before the singer? I had a few WTF moments.

Been flying a lot recently, gave me a chance to catch up on the films that everyone else saw and I didn't. All seen on planes over the past two weeks:

Lincoln 7/10
Side Effects 5/10
Django Unchained 8/10
Robot and Frank 7/10
Argo 7/10
The Place Beyond The Pines 8/10

Just saw Admission. thought i might like it because tina fay and maybe it was a romcom. but instead it was about feminists secretly need a man and women need babies to feel whole. ack

oh yes also it is about bad nepotism in college admissions (you know someone besides tina fay) vs. good nepotism (tina fey thinks you might be related to her).

Recently watched awesomeness:
L.A. Story (re-watch)
Sweet Smell of Success
Cape Fear ('62)
The Lady Eve
Goin' Down The Road
Raiders of the Lost Ark (re-watch)

Recently watched meh-ness:
Picnic
Body Heat
J. Edgar
G.I. Joe: Retaliation
Friends with Money

Recently watched and regretted:
A Good Day to Die Hard

drug war is alright but i was hoping for something a bit meatier

Night Across the Street (7/10)
The Scarlet Empress (rescreened: 6/10)
Conspiracy (8/10

filly brown is so ridiculously bad.

Docks of New York (8/10
Early Spring (8/10)
The Prisoner of Shark Island (6/10)

Pacific Rim (del Toro, 2013) - hated this so, so much
White Dog (Fuller, 1982) - good despite terrible acting from MacNicol
Certified Copy (Kiarostami, 2010) - devastating

The Enigma of Kasper Hauser (Werner Herzog, 1974) - awesome to see this at the cinema
Land of Silence and Darkness (Werner Herzog, 1971) - Herzog don't make 'em like that no more..
Wadjda (Haifaa Al-Mansour, 2012) - lots of processes filmed here: the crushing of kindness amidst a climate of oppressive compliance, the misreading of book's musicaliy, how that influences thought and actions...
The Lower Depths (Kurosawa, 1957) - a heavy-going (as it should be) piece of photographed theatre, some awesome angles in confined spaces, the script and performances find humour in bizarre ways. This + any Brit kitchen-sink classic could be an interesting dbl bill. Got three more on this box set I got given for my bday.
Before Midnight (Linklater, 2013) - really the best, this series takes yer Eric Rohmer on with awesome results. I really hope there are more installments, as tricky as that could be...
Frances Ha (Baumbach, 2012) - really funny, love how the Paris trip was the financial crisis in LOL microcosm, remarkably even on the banker fella. Not sure how Frances wasn't eating out of a trashcan by the end, but if you suspend disbelief its diverting enough.

On TV: Red Dragon (just love the stuff around 'becoming...'), the first two Bourne films (never seen 'em before).

Blue Velvet (1986, Lynch) *
Upstream Color (2012, Carruth)
A Fistful of Dollars (1964, Leone)
Master, the (2012, Paul T. Anderson)
Silver Linings Playbook (2012, Russell) fuck this movie
Dinosaur (2000, various)
Quartet (2012, Hoffman)
Wizard of Oz (1939, Fleming et al.) * starting to see many flaws in this. e.g. not only is dorothy's lesson speech ("won't look any further than my own backyard" etc) not supported by anything shown in the movie, it's also gibberish -- a bunch of words that sound nice but don't mean anything.
Wreck-it Ralph (2012, Moore)
Intouchables (2011, Nakache & Toledano) wtf imdb
Man with the Iron Fists, the (2012, RZA)
Jurassic Park (1993, Spielberg) *
Santa Sangre (1989, Jodorowsky)
Lincoln (2012, Spielberg)

* seen previously

Silver Linings Playbook (2012, Russell) fuck this movie

god this film induces such a visceral reaction

Rushmore (5/5--first time in a theatre since it came out)
Murder in the First (3/5)
Iceberg Slim: Portrait of a Pimp (3.5/5)
A Civil Action (3.5/5)
Good 'Ol Freda (4/5)
Tiny Furniture (4/5--still mulling this over; maybe a notch higher or lower)
Frances Ha (4/5)
Trick Baby (3.5/5)
Terms and Conditions May Apply (3.5/5)
A Brighter Summer Day (3.5/5--like Yi Yi better)

* = rewatches

this is 40 8/10
berberian sound studio 6/10
the worlds end 8/10
the hunt 9/10
*forrest gump 6/10
*super 8/10
black god white devil 9/10
the tourist 5/10
evan almighty 4/10
*planes trains and automobiles 10/10
*this sporting life 10/10
the break up 6/10
orphan 5/10
sightseers 8/10

Europa Report: 4/10
Elysium: 5/10
Repo Men: 3/10
Dreyer's Ordet, but with the subtitles turned off and very high: 10/10

day for night (truffaut 73) 4/5
the wild child (truffaut 70) 3/5
the l-shaped room (forbes 62) 4/5
the swimming pool (jacques deray 68) 4/5
l'avventura (antonioni 60) 3.5/5
falling angels (scott smith 2003) 4/5
the hunger (tony scott 83) 2/5
little white lies (canet 2010) 2.5/5
after life (koreeda 98) 3/5

Someone was watching TCMs Truffaut Fridays last month, I take it. I PVRd quite a few of the ones I haven't seen (DfN included) but haven't watched any yet.

sure was; avoid 'the woman next door' imo

Haven't seen that one but didn't PVR it cause a) I'd never heard of it and b) my queue is getting insanely bloated.

the l-shaped room (forbes 62) 4/5

thats a very under-rated movie. TCM in the US seems to be of a much higher standard than in the UK/Ireland. We seem to get nothing but B-grade Westerns on TCM here.

someone needs to write a defense of those late Truffauts -- ugh

Only late Truffaut I've seen is The Last Metro, which ain't bad, but which I have a hard time remembering now only five or six years after seeing it.