Last (x) movies you saw

I liked it a lot! No other coherent thoughts on it than that, really. This bit from Alfred's review -- "He doesn’t know how to frame an uninteresting shot. His rhythms are impeccable." -- is OTM.

Never Let Me Go (7.0)
Ida (6.0)
Old Enough (6.5)
Palo Alto (6.5)
Deal (3.5)
A Short Film about Killing (6.0)
Pather Panchali (10.0)
Aparajito (8.0)
The World of Apu (9.0)
Stonebrook (4.0)

Je t'aime, je t'aime (1968; 4.5/5)
The Wrong Man (1956; 4/5)
Gimme the Loot (2012; 3.5/5)
A Field in England (2013; 2.5/5)
Obvious Child (2014; 3.5/5)
Harry Dean Stanton: Partly Fiction (2012; 3/5)
They Came Together (2014; 3.5/5)
The Unknown Known (2014; 2.5/5)
Quay des Orfevres (1947; rewatch; 4/5)

*The President's Analyst (Flicker)- one of my favorites; I am unshakeable in my belief that this is an unfairly neglected classic
Top Secret! (Zucker/Abrahams/Zucker)- how can the people responsible for Airplane! have made this wretched thing
*A Hard Day's Night (Lester)
Les Dents du Singe (Laloux)
Les Temps Morts (Laloux)
*Les Escargots (Laloux)

The President's Analyst is an all time great

The Happening (deleted scenes on the DVD are good)
The Dance Of Reality
Restrepo

*The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! (Zucker)
*Ravenous (Bird)
*Dr. No (Young)

Mahler by Ken Russell. Good fun, I thought this was going to be one of his more straight films.

And it's not? That's heartening, especially since it's one of the unannounced films floating around on Criterion's Hulu channel (crossing my fingers for a rerelease soon)...

I would say Women In Love, The Rainbow and Altered States are his straight films. I thought Mahler would be like that but it has lots of comedy, but there is beautiful moments too.
It did look like it needed a restored edition though, a slightly rough print. I'd imagine the Criterion version will do that.

Manji by Masumura. Quite strange and interesting but I didn't really buy the passion and obsession of the characters, the whole thing just didn't seem that convincing, but I lost track of a lot of the plot quite early. I liked Blind Beast way more even if the evolution of the girl's feelings in that was a bit questionable too.

The DVD had a trailer for Pistol Opera, which looked pretty good.

Smiles of a Summer Night (Bergman, 1955)
The Great Beauty (Sorrentino, 2013)
Yoyo (Etaix, 1965)

*Alien (Scott) (original theatrical cut)- It's Alien, what else do I need to say? It's been a while, though, and I forgot just how graceful and spooky Goldsmith's score is, or those roaming borderline Kubrickian Steadicam shots early on. Good stuff.

Batman (Burton)- technically I have seen this before, but it was as a five-year-old during the original theatrical run so I count it as a first watch. I LOVE THIS BIG DUMB MOVIE. So many great little things- Miller from Repo Man as the Joker's number one guy, the museum sequence with Prince's "Partyman" and the Bacon screaming pope, some fucking weird dialog (the aforementioned NUMBER...ONE...ah-GUY, "Never rub another man's rhubarb," "LET'S GET NUTS," Robert Wuhl's "I am too a 40's newspaperman you guys" voice). Love it to bits.

Mikey and Nicky (May)- My first Elaine May film except for, as it turns out, Labyrinth (she's an uncredited co-writer; I'm not sure if that's a full collaboration or as a script doctor). Not a million miles off from the Cassavetes films I've seen (Faces and Shadows), which is hardly an accident, though more purely entertaining than either thanks to a plot and a really well-matched pair of central characters. I will always enjoy watching Cassavetes be a total bastard, and Peter Falk just being Peter Falk. The Philly location didn't do as much for me as I'd hoped (it's during the Rizzo years in parts of South Philly I'm not familiar with, though I recognized street names), though the mob hitman's gripe that there's no parking anywhere in the city got a laugh from the audience. And for a movie that went this far over budget from a director with such a reputation as a perfectionist, you'd think the sound mixing wouldn't be borderline inaudible most of the time...

*Aliens (Cameron) (original theatrical cut)- The best big dumb superficial popcorn movie of all time. There's not a lot going on upstairs, but it respects the original film and its audience, which is stupidly rare for a big-budget sequel. And for the designated "action movie" entry in the series, I find the sequence in the infirmary with the two loose facehuggers the most outright scary thing in any of the movies.

*Kwaidan (Kobayashi)- One of my favorites, but seldom rewatched because one, it's long as hell, and two, it always takes me a while to get into this movie's headspace- I think it's an odd choice on Kobayashi's part to start the film with the most static, least colorful segment. But everything else is wonderful, especially those matte painting skies in "The Woman of the Snow" and the sea battles and biwa in "Hoichi the Earless."

*From Russia With Love (Young)- I had thought of this as my favorite Bond film, but it might be slipping, somehow. For whatever reason I enjoyed Dr. No more on this latest round of rewatching- probably because for all its budgetary limitations, it gives the production designer Ken Adam more to do instead of relying on (admittedly gorgeous) location photography of Istanbul. It does still have one of the best sets of villains in Bond history, between the unseen Blofeld, Kronsteen, Rosa Klebb (homophobia aside; Lotte Lenya tho) and Donald Grant.

Alien 3, or Alien Cubed or whatever (Fincher) (original theatrical cut)- I kind of liked this? I feel guilty saying it, since the script is a total hash, Fincher stopped giving a shit at some point, and it blatantly cheats the audience (how did that egg get on the Sulaco? when did Ripley get impregnated with the queen?) before promptly punching it in the dick with the deaths of Newt, Hicks and Bishop, but it's so downtrodden and miserable and resolutely final (of course that didn't last) that I can't help but admire the good ideas and performances that did make it through. And anyway I have a thing for girls with shaved heads, so I'll spot it a half point for that.

*Batman (Tim Burton commentary)- Tim Burton is a twitchy, mumbly weirdo, surprise surprise. An awfully nice-seeming one, though, and he doesn't seem to buy into his own hype or his increasingly-curdled brand of kitschy, whimsical shit (I think this was recorded in the early or mid-2000s; the disc doesn't say)- this is mostly down-to-earth stuff about the realities of a big studio production and detail-light chat about the collaboration with the production team and directing actors (and the second or third story I've heard from a film professional about being scared shitless by an inexplicably hostile Jack Palance).

Mikey and Nicky needs to become available so I can finally see it. I love Peter Falk being Peter Falk.

*On Her Majesty's Secret Service (Peter R. Hunt, 1969) - Aside from the plank-like charmlessness, Lazenby isn't bad enough to ruin an intriguing, if slightly uneven and occasionally potty installment to the franchise. And, queasy sexism aside, Diana Rigg's character is one of the stronger Bond girls. 7/10

Seven Samurai (Kurosawa, 1957) - Perfectly paced, surprisingly light-hearted and thoroughly gripping. The eventual battle sequences, kinetically filled with spattering mud and glinting rain, are brilliantly staged. 10/10

*Gravity (Curon, 2013) - "You gotta admit one thing - you can't beat the view" 7/10

Bonjour Tristesse (Preminger, 1958) - The film excels with Preminger's graceful shots of the wonderful landscape of beaches, woodland and the dazzling blue of the Mediterranean. Despite that it's all about sex, the film just isn't sexy. The ending is beautifully bleak, but the rest is campy melodrama that hasn't aged well. 6/10

X-Men: Days of Future Past (Singer, 2014) - I want the red jacket Michael Fassbender wears. 6/10

The Right Stuff (Kaufman, 1983) - I like that it was filmed like a western. Nicely undercuts its own patriotic soaring grandeur with flip humour and a satiric edge. 8/10

Late Spring (Ozu, 1949) - "Why can't things stay as they are?" 9/10

*Scanners (Cronenberg, 1981) - My head hurts. 7/10

Edge of Tomorrow (Liman, 2014) - The most consistently entertaining blockbuster of the year, so far. The marrying of the Groundhog Day concept to Starship Troopers and Aliens, giving the film a beat-the-video-game feel, works well. 7/10

*Do the Right Thing (Lee, 1989) - I could have done with more of the three middle-aged guys sitting under the parasol trash-talking one another. 7/10

White Dog (Fuller, 1982) - Lurid but effective. 7/10

*Gregory's Girl (Forsythe, 1981) - The film's setting of a newly-built housing estate in the late 70s/early 80s, with its clean, freshly tarmacked roads and lines of thin, newly planted saplings is very familiar to me and did set off all sorts of nostalgia alarms. That helped the film endear itself to me some more, but in the end the film is gentle, sweet, but perhaps just a bit too slight. 6/10

*Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (Stephen Herek, 1989) - A bodacious on screen portrayal of Napoleon, or the MOST bodacious on screen portrayal of Napoleon? 8/10

*The Lost Weekend (Wilder, 1945) - One of the best things about the Masters of Cinema Blu-ray release is that you get Alex Cox introducing the film in the style of his old Moviedrome episodes. 9/10

Wake in Fright (Ted Kotcheff, 1971) - Question: Which film contains the most beer drinking? Answer: This one, probably. Really striking Aussie psychodrama, and it made a nice booze-fuelled tailspin double bill with Lost Weekend. The Blu-ray restoration is top notch, and does justice to the film's vivid colour palette of burnt orange, deep sky blue and ochre. The sweat, dust and dizzying heat and light are palpable. 9/10

A Story of Children and Film (Cousins, 2014) - Mark Cousins sleepily narrates his way through a great selection of movie clips to show how children and their lives have been well served by cinema, all over the world. 6/10

Sullivan's Travels (Sturges, 1941) - Not sure if the odd mix of light screwball romantic comedy, very broad pratfall gags and gloomy social statement blended together perfectly. Veronica Lake is great, though. 6/10

Lifeboat (Hitchcock, 1944) - Hitch's best and cleverest cameo. 7/10

Wake In Fright is amazing.

Telephone Thing- I finally watched Perfume Of The Lady In Black, but I written about it in the old horror thread.

Glad you enjoyed it. I really need to catch up on that thread; the post-2006 thread kind of lost me because I don't go out to wide-release movies very often and it takes FOREVER for new stuff to hit Netflix, or even a reasonable $1.99 rental through Amazon.

That tracking shot stuck out at me as well, along with one other detail that really bothered me- in the scenes where the "conspirators" are disembarking from cars at the abandoned tunnel mouth, they're lit by an incredibly obvious spotlight that's just so jarringly unnatural I have to assume the director and DP meant for it to stick out like that. So weird.

*Naked Gun 2 1/2: The Smell of Fear (Zucker): 's ok
*Alien Resurrection (Jeunet): shit sandwich

Camille Claudel 1915 (Bruno Dumont, 2013) - Catholicism, long takes, the struggle of the inner mind. A tough watch -- mentally ill 'actors' were (ugh I can't find a better word right now) 'deployed' to effect but there is a sensitivity on hand too.

Possibly the only director in France doing something interesting these days (apart from JLG)

Golden Eighties (Chantal Akerman, 1985) - this was a musical, w/not much irony that I could detect. She does tap into the raw emotions of relationships that drives the romantic stories that form the basis of the musical. Some of the music is good (oh the much maligned genre of French pop needs a revisit!) and the gags work. Odd lull aside when there didn't seem to be a song for about 20 mins, seemed unbalanced, not that I was timekeeping.

Akerman had to get away from Jeanne Dielman but its complicated. There is a scene where the girl dragged by her mum does not want to buy a dress and wants to keep wearing jeans instead (echoes of Chantal). A scene with the phone has echoes of Toute Une Nuit. One the storylines reunites a couple who fell in and out of love and are now older (and perhaps) wiser.

Bought Blu-Rays of two of my favorite Walter Hill movies, Hard Times and Southern Comfort, so watched those this week. Hard Times is so minimal it barely exists as a story—guy comes to town, makes some money punching people in the head, gets his patron out of trouble, leaves town. Southern Comfort is almost as stripped-down. A bunch of National Guard buffoons head into the Louisiana swamps to play Army, get into some shit with the locals and are hunted and killed for 90 minutes. But Hill's ability to understand male group dynamics in all their fucked-upness without romanticizing or condemning them is both underappreciated and rare. Plus, his efficient, minimalist style perfectly serves his material; he never over-stylizes a shot when he can just show you what's happening and have that be more than enough. The Southern Comfort Blu-Ray actually has an interview with Hill, which is extremely uncommon—he supposedly hates talking about his past work. I'm definitely gonna check that out.

The Naked Gun 2 1/2: The Smell of Fear (Zucker)- The very last decent Zucker/Abrahams/Zucker film, and even then a pretty big step down. The one where Leslie Nielsen starts pulling exaggerated reaction shots and mugging for the camera.

Prometheus (Scott)- This movie has an unbelievably poor script for such a high-profile release (fuck you, Damon Lindelof) and the otherwise magnificent visuals are let down by some really heavy-handed color correction (though at least blue and gold is slightly more tolerable than orange and teal; still an appallingly lazy way to construct a color palette) but I can't help but like it a little anyway despite almost everything about it. Mostly Fassbender, I think; that opening section where he's the only one awake on the spaceship is easily the best part of the film. I could go talk about this movie's woes for ages, but there are two things I have to say: Charlize Theron's character is almost comically pointless, and Guy Pearce is terrible at playing old (not that he's helped by a terrible makeup job). For fuck's sake, why not just hire an older actor? Young Weyland doesn't even appear in the movie proper, just in a promotional video, and even then they could (should!) have just hired a different, younger actor and accomplished the illusion of them being the same person with fucking acting. Argh.

*Planete Sauvage (Laloux)- One of the best science fiction films of the seventies, and one of my favorite animated movies ever. It's a real shame Roland Topor didn't work more in animation, because his designs are so striking and so wonderfully executed here. And Alain Goraguer's soundtrack is one of my favorite film scores of all time.

Flesh for Frankenstein (Morrissey)- On the one hand, it's a lumpy script, the locations (or at least how Morrissey used them) look undeniably cheap, the tone wanders all over the place, and while it's not really fair to judge them in the context of a home DVD screening, almost all of the obvious 3D effects shots are pointless even for 3D effects. On the other hand, Udo Kier. Screaming tantrums, YOU FILTHY THING!, the infamous gall bladder line, the way he pronounces "zumbie," everything. And since it was produced in Italy, there's Nicoletta Elmi as a creepy child.

Fast Company (Cronenberg)- The earliest of all "I wish he'd go back to horror" Cronenberg movies, though it's a much bigger outlier than his later films. His enthusiasm for motorsports really shows, which helps draw in viewers like me who couldn't possibly give less of a shit, there are some interesting close-up shots of engines and drivers in goggles and filter masks, and an early mildly kinky sex scene with two hitchhikers and a can of motor oil, but it's thoroughly minor Cronenberg. If this wasn't so very Canadian I would expect to see Roger Corman's name in the credits somewhere.

*Scanners (Cronenberg)- This is more like it yes. There's a good deal of complaining online about the new color timing on Criterion's release (some people are going the George Lucas/Steven Spielberg hyperbole route, though I think the most accurate comparison would be what William Friedkin did to the original blu-ray of The French Connection) but it looks wonderful, and barring a comparison to the original prints, which I'm probably never going to see (who revives Scanners in 35mm anymore?) the best it's ever going to look.

I very near picked up Scanners when I was browsing at the B&N 50% off sale the other day. Might still get it.

Just to clarify: I don't think the Scanners situation is like the French Connection debacle at all (that film was legit ruined), I just meant it was the right kind of comparison, not the Star Wars special edition/ET rerelease hyperventilating I've read.

on preview: You should totally do it! The lack of a commentary is disappointing, since Cronenberg does it so well and he's been game on previous Criterion releases, but the other extras are really well-produced, especially the documentary about the practical effects.

I just got Scanners in the mail, along with Alex Cox's Walker and Revenger's Tragedy. Gonna watch one of those tonight for sure.

flesh for frankenstein is incred

Spring Breakers (Korine 2012)
Attack of the 50 Foot Woman (Juran 1958)
Last Year at Marienbad (Resnais 1961)
*A Hard Day's Night (Lester 1964) - the one I did pick up at B&N
Good Morning (Ozu 1959)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cp8IU1PcThQ

I haven't seen this talked about yet. Roughly 10min Cronenberg film on youtube (fully authorized) for a limited time. Body horror in the form of one conversation about getting a breast removed for an odd reason. Cronenberg plays the doctor.

I think it's fine. Not much to say about it.

I haven't watched it yet (probably will tonight, thanks for the reminder) but it's worth remembering that it's not really a complete thing in and of itself- it's a prequel/teaser for his debut novel out in a few months.

Guy Pearce is terrible at playing old (not that he's helped by a terrible makeup job). For fuck's sake, why not just hire an older actor? Young Weyland doesn't even appear in the movie proper, just in a promotional video, and even then they could (should!) have just hired a different, younger actor and accomplished the illusion of them being the same person with fucking acting. Argh.

The script had scenes with young Weyland that got removed after production began.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes (Rupert Wyatt, 2011) - on tv last night. Meant to enjoy the 'NOOO!'. There should've been a commie salute inserted somewhere too as I detected a revolutionary situ coming along...come on apes, arms held straight and out, fists closed..lets have a sense of humour about it all.

Maybe that Cronenberg novel is the Fly sequel that was being talked about?

Caught (Ophuls) - 8/10
Trance (Boyle) - 2/10
La vie est un roman (Resnais) - 7/10

Camille Claudel 1915 (8/10)

Spring breakers (Korine, '13) 8/10
Bedevilled (chul-soo jang, '10) 8/10
Where Adam stood (Gibson, '76) 6/10
The Armstrong lie (Gibney, '13) 6/10
*Dazed and confused (Linklater, '93) 9/10
*American graffiti (Lucas, '73) 8/10
The cook the thief his wife and her lover (Greenaway, '89) 8/10
Wake in fright (Koetcheff, '71) 9/10
Meeting people is easy (Gee, '98) 6/10
Avenge but one of my two eyes (Mograbi, '05) 8/10

*rewatch

Supermench - the legend of Shep Gordon. There were only 3 people in the audience including me.

*Dazed and confused (Linklater, '93) 9/10
*American graffiti (Lucas, '73) 8/10

Back-to-back? They make for a great comparison...throw in Fast Times at Ridgemont High for a triple-bill.

Actually, as much as I didn't like it myself, you could probably add Spring Breakers from your list too. That'd cover the '50s, '70, '80, and '10s; need the '60s, '90s, and '00s for 70 years of teenagers.

*Dazed and confused (Linklater, '93) 9/10
*American graffiti (Lucas, '73) 8/10

Back-to-back? They make for a great comparison...throw in Fast Times at Ridgemont High for a triple-bill.

― clemenza, Monday, 21 July 2014 00:35 (39 minutes ago) Permalink

Film 4 showed both movies back to back late one night. So similar in many ways besides the obvious high school nostalgia. One thing that struck me was that while the kids in American Graffiti are living in more conservative times; their rebellion is quite out there. I mean they destroy cop cars and have life threatening drag car races whereas the 70s kids smash a few postboxes and smoke weed.

Thief (Mann, 1981)
Jaws (Spielberg, 1975)
In Order of Dissapearance (Molland, 2014)
Mon Oncle d'Amerique (Resnais, 1980)
*Sherlock Jr (Keaton, 1924)
A Sunday in Hell (Leth, 1976)
Play (Östlund, 2011)

A Sunday in Hell is a famous Danish documentary on the Paris-Roubaix race. It is absolutely awesome. Play is also an amazing film, filmed a bit like Stray Dogs. Can't wait to see Force Majeure, Östlund's latest.

Norte, The End of History (Lav Diaz, 2013) - lot to say, for me it was nice seeing it in a sold out screening (the small room at the ICA, very stuffy due to heat that we took a break in between, but still) and going off home at 11.30 and perceiving the world to be just that little different than it was before you went in.

Might need to follow this up w/the Transformers movie to regain a bit of balance.

La Pointe Courte (Varda)- Easier to admire than to like- it's a clever structure and there are some beautiful, breathtaking compositions in the "actorly" half, even if it feels like some of them were a little tongue in cheek, like the scene inside the boat hull. Most of this just comes down to me having little to no enthusiasm for neorealism or the non-Italian films the neorealists influenced.

Carrie (De Palma)- Instant favorite. I was wondering just how much De Palma there would really be in this (not to mention how it would play out knowing basically everything about the film from the plot outline down to certain famous phrases, gestures and shots) but it's flawlessly put together and full of De Palma flourishes, from one of my favorite uses of split-screen so far in his work to that amazing long take where Carrie and Tommy are dancing while the low-angled camera circles them faster and faster in the opposite direction. And it works both as camp (Piper Laurie's St. Sebastian/Jesus death pose, most of her performance really, the after-school detention scenes with Nancy Allen's queen bitch character) and as a deeply empathetic film about a miserable, abused outcast kid. De Palma's first work with Pino Donaggio, too, which is worth noting, especially that weirdly triumphal theme when the Whites' house collapses at the end.

*The Whip and the Body (Bava) (Tim Lucas commentary)

*Goldfinger (Hamilton)- A step down not just from From Russia With Love but from Dr. No as well. Ken Adam makes it visually interesting (that Fort Knox set with the grille in the floor and those angular shadows from the bars is something else, as is Goldfinger's Kentucky ranch house) and Gert Frobe and Harold Sakata are wonderful but it's hard to really enjoy a plot that hinges on what basically amounts to Bond's magic penis, and if you follow the obvious reading (or going on what I remember from the more clumsily explicit book, 15+ years ago) corrective rape of a lesbian character. Really, really icky even for the Bond franchise. The pervasive misogyny in this one is really something else- the Mastersons' subplot just drops off the face of the earth, for one, and more importantly, this is the first Bond film where every single woman on screen is cast and framed to be ogled at or for Sean Connery to casually swat her on the ass. I'm glad that the series goes back to Terence Young for Thunderball, which I've never actually seen in its entirety.

Oh man, and speaking of the visuals in Goldfinger- the costumes for Goldfinger's army of, let's face it, yellow peril are fucking ridiculous, both from a story perspective (why aren't they disguised at the end?) and from a design standpoint. It's obvious the costume department couldn't think of any way for them to read as Chinese other than slippers and giant yellow sashes and it's just insulting and borderline racist caricature.

And while I'm piling on, sure, the title song is one of the best Bond themes, but "Diamonds Are Forever" is a million times better. Not saying that about the movie, you understand (the homophobia in Goldfinger is at least just implicit) but the song is just fantastic.

Thunderball is the most boring of the early Bonds

Jesus, I need to edit these before I post. Strike one "something else" of your choice, I guess.

Re: Thunderball, that's a shame, but at least there's a couple of minutes of lung-busting Tom Jones at the top. Full confession: I tried to use one of those Youtube dubbing sites to combine the opening sequence from "Die Another Day" with "Sex Bomb" to see if there was a notable improvement but was stopped not by a sudden attack of taste, or shame, but by the site refusing to work.

yeah Thunderball is suuuper boring

From Russia With Love is so great, Goldfinger is visually cool but so hard to watch for so many reasons

yeah 'from russia' is the best one all around. kind of like 'dr no' a lot too, something so charmingly laidback and silly about it compared to the others.

hv never found Goldfinger hard to watch. all those other elements are in the first two, pick yr poison.

'from russia' rips off North by Northwest a tad much for my taste

fight scene on the train is all-time

xp agreed; they're both tedious