Last (x) movies you saw

The Green Room is v good, Truffaut's best work as an actor too

Damm, for some reason there's no Region 2 DVD of Green Room

alfred, i know you're a jamesian - have you seen The Green Room (I haven't)? i've read 'the altar of the dead', which in memory seems to be one of those late, inner-directed james short stories like 'the beast in the jungle' - ie p unfilmable

Yes, in the late nineties. I wasn't too impressed with Truffaut the actor: so damn soft. But I remember watching the movie alongside the other late seventies fluff. I'd give it another shot.

Elysium: 2/5
Amer: 4.5/5
The Act of Killing: 4/5
Pain & Gain: 4/5

Born to Win (1971, Passer) 6/10
Taking Off (1971, Forman) 7/10
The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell (1955, Preminger) 7/10
Ice (1970, Kramer) 7/10
The Last Christeros (2011, Meyer) 6/10
Le Train (1973, Granier-Deferre) 7/10
The Gardener (2012, M. Makhmalbaf) 8/10
Drug War (2012, To) 7/10
*Seconds (1966, Frankenheimer) 8/10
The Happy Sad (2013, Evans) 3/10
Le Beaute du Diable (1950, Clair) 7/10
Off Label (2012, Palmieri, Mosher) 5/10
*L'avventura (1960, Antonioni) 9/10
*Stars in My Crown (1950, Tourneur) 10/10
Alexander the Last (2009, Swanberg) 6/10
*True Confessions (1981, Grosbard) 7/10
Lovelace (2013, Epstein, Friedman) 4/10
Kill Your Darlings (2013, Krokidas) 5/10

*rewatches

Agree with Morbs re: Truffaut as actor in TGR. He was very good as a subdued obsessive type - or at least a "highly dedicated" type - when he took on those sort of roles.

Una Noche - Great for a first film but weirdly rushed. That lady is a helluva filmmaker but I'm looking forward to the next film more than celebrating the first
The Big City (Satyajit Ray) - Interesting! Mostly about how society changes in the hothouse of urban settings. Gorgeous lead actress don't hurt.

had a double feature w a friend where we went to see frances ha & then came home & watched showgirls

i like the former far more than the latter.

Ain't Them Bodies Saints is pretty by the numbers.

er, sorry: latter more than former.

Was gonna say, "Are you NUTS?!"

Showgirls is sad garbage for the post-everything age. what a "rediscovery."

I already knew you're nuts.

happy people (herzog)
amour (haneke)

How is the former? Big Herzog fan but he's got way more out there than I'll ever have time to watch.

i loved it. probably on par with "wheel of time" for me as far as his docs go. oddly, or perhaps not oddly, similar in spirit to that film as well.

Nice! I'll keep an eye out for it.

Haven't done a roundup in a while (but haven't been watching as many movies lately as prep for the fall semester becomes a priority), so:

*The Player (Altman, 1992) 10/10
Day for Night (Truffaut, 1973) 5/10
*Jurassic Park (Spielberg, 1993) 8/10
Stories We Tell (Polley, 2012) 7/10
Mel Brooks: Make a Noise (Trachtenberg, 2013) 8/10

*rewatches

i liked wheel of time A LOT more than happy people. worth bearing in mind that he didn't do any of the filming, just the narration and editing.
i'm not repping for showgirls, last saw it in college. but ANYTHING is better than francis fucking ha.

Calvaire (The Ordeal) (Du Walz, 2004) 8/10
Gozu (Miike, 2003) 8/10
The Imposter (Layton, 2012) 6/10
Magic Mike (Sodergergh, 2012) 8/10
Restrepo (Hetherington, Junger, 2010) 7/10

gozu is fuuuuucked

it sure is! i love miike

gozu is fuuuuucked

watched this last night.

damn i did not expect that.

still dont really know if i enjoyed it.

Some reviews compare it to the "Orpheus and Eurydice" myth.

Gozu IS fucked but you should try Visitor Q sometime

yeah no, my bf has told me enough abt it

that's the breast milk one, yeah

Herzog's best nonfic film (keeping it to, y'know, ones he actually directed) is The White Diamond

i saw that recently, & strongly disagree

given that it's about 40 mins long I spose the one w/ the burning oil fields is a contender.

i prefer little dieter personally

Walking and Talking (Holofcener, 1996): 4/5
The Wolverine (Mangold, 2013): 3/5

Grizzly Man, or does that count as something he didn't actually direct?

I love The Great Ecstasy of Woodcarver Steiner. Haven't seen The White Diamond, will do.

happy 71st birthday werner

Grizzly Man, or does that count as something he didn't actually direct?

uh he totally directed that

Wasn't sure if it was gonna be argued that he more "assembled" it or not.

truly the bear is the auteur

Beautiful Kate (7/10)
Your Friends & Neighbors (7/10)
Auggie Rose (Beyond Suspicion) (6/10)
Extract (7/10)
Lucky You (6/10)
City of Industry (6/10)
The TV Set (7/10)
Mystic River (7/10)
Conspiracy Theory (6/10)
True Crime (5/10)

I've been plowing through stuff at home all summer. By the time I finish the 10th, the first four or five have blurred together.

Period of Adjustment (1962) Jane Fonda and Jim Hutton are sexy gorgeous in this...
Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) The NYC I wanted to see that was featured in this film, I feel I found in Baltimore, MD last year. Loved seeing this again.
A Life of Her Own (1950) Loved the dialogue
PeeWee's Big Adventure (1985) Truly love this movie the older I get

The Great Beauty (Sorrentino, 2012) - i get why it gets compared to La Dolce Vita but its a much, much better film, although I am sure it will strike a few bum notes with many (the first affair was *the one*/the ennui only well paid hacks seem to feel/the journo who could've made immortal art and instead settles to scribble ephemeral thrash) but you know this starts with a quote by Celine - can't even remember the line, but that's perfect in intention. And Celine was a writer who feels throaway a lot of the time.

Onto the party and its magnificent series of shots, movement and moves, an ott intro to the main cast of character that almost (the transition from the Japansese tourist visiting to the party doesn't quite do it) but somehow doesn't fall on its arse.

Never thought he'd make a good film after Il Divo. Pulls it off with room to spare, although I wouldn't say its any comment on Berlusconi's Italy. Nothing like that, more a bunch of people having a good and getting tired of it. You'd say bullshit but try it after 40 years.

rewatched a.i. (spielberg) — 's been probably about 10 yrs since i last saw it. i remember liking it, but now i just feel angered and repulsed by it.

The mark of a vital film.

nb: "alternative" music 300 years in the future will still sound like shitty ministry ripoffs from 1995

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcByE-q9Al8

sounds like 80s tangerine dream!

the only thing i remember about AI is that near the last fifth of the film, there's a pause and a narrator intones "and so, a million years passed" and I believe i started laughing in the theater
that's always going to be my gold standard for poor plotting, when you need to jump forward a million years to get to the next scene

It was 2,000 years. Your laughter was for nothing, loser.

2000, 1mil, whatever's clever

It's a fine line between 2,000 and 1,000,000.

what's a millennia between friends
so my silver standard for poor plotting is when you need to jump forward two thousand years to get to the next scene