Last (x) movies you saw

Marketa Lazarová (František Vláčil, 1967) - stunning recreation of the Middle Ages. Rivals Andrei Rublev for sickening violence. 1 point taken off for largely impenetrable plotting. (4/5)
The Ear (Karel Kachyna, 1970) - paranoia seeps out of the screen. Walks a fine line between black comedy and tragedy. Both of these films are more goodness from Second Run DVD. (4/5)
The Bird With The Crystal Plumage (Dario Argento, 1970) - probably the biggest damp squib of an ending I've ever seen. Awesome Morricone soundtrack. (4/5)
La Antena (Esteban Sapir, 2007) - Argentina's answer to Guy Maddin. Slightly too arch for its own good. Entertaining but needed a stronger narrative. (3/5)
Red Angel (Yasuzo Masumura, 1966) - the travails of a Japanese nurse in WWII. Things don't go well. Like a more violent Mikio Naruse. (4/5)
Blind Beast (Yasuzo Masumura, 1969) - sexual obsession, masochism etc. A bit dull. I didn't like Ai No Corrida either fwiw. (2/5)

Salome's Last Dance (Ken Russell).

I had heard a lot of mixed things about this but I thought it was bloody brilliant! It's a play happening within the film, so a lot of the artificiality works a bit easier. It's funny. It has Wolf from Gladiators. Ken Russell has funny acting parts.
Imogen Millais-Scott was fantastic, she has such a great voice. She hasn't acted in much, it seems that she's been plagued with health problems. Apparently she was nearly blind when she filmed this.

It was a Italian DVD copy, thankfully it was also quite cheap.

1989 (Østergaard & Rácz, 2014)
Tomorrow is Always Too Long (Collins, 2014)
Visitors (Reggio, 2014)
The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On (Hara, 1987)
The Lanthanide Series (Espelie, 2014)
The Reunion (Odell, 2013)
Battle for Ukraine (Konchalovsky, 2012)
The Postman's White Nights (Konchalovsky, 2014)
Monsoon (Gunnarson, 2014)
The Iron Ministry (Sniadecki, 2014)
Nitrate Flames (Stopar, 2014)
Maidan (Loznitsa, 2014)
The Second Game (Porumboiu, 2014)
Cern (Geyrhalter, 2014)
Scenario (Widmann & Krause, 2014)
Journey to the West (Tsai, 2014)*
Songs for Alexis (Lind, 2014)
Concerning Violence (Olsson, 2014)
The Newsroom – Off the Record (Krogh, 2014)
The Look of Silence (Oppenheimer, 2014)
The Gold Bug (Sandlund & Moguillansky, 2014)
Storm Children – Book One (Diaz, 2014)
Sauerbruch Hutton Architects (Farocki, 2013)
Olmo and the Seagull (Glob & Costa, 2014)
Episode of the Sea (van Brummelen & de Haan, 2014)
The Fortune You Seek is in Another Cookie (Gierlinger, 2014)
Actress (Greene, 2014)
The Lack (Masbedo, 2014)
Horse Money (Costa, 2014)
The 3 Rooms of Melancholia (Honkasalo, 2004)
Portrait of Jason (Clarke, 1967)
The Corral and the Wind (Hilari, 2014)

Shorts
Moments of Silence (Bigert & Bergström, 2014)
The Mad Half Hour (Brzezicki, 2014)
The Land of Seven Sheep (Szymanska & Boege, 2014)
Beyond Zero 1914-1918 (Morrison, 2014)
Making Money Religiously (Prouvost, 2014)
Things (Rivers, 2014)
Reduit (Skoog, 2014)
Vampires of Poverty (Mayolo & Ospina)
Imagining Emanuel (Østbye, 2011)
Out of Norway (Østbye, 2014)

Yoyo
L'Aggression
The Inheritance
Guardians Of The Galaxy

first time watches:
Open Windows (Nacho Vigalondo, 2014). 4/10 - Rear Window on a laptop!
Too Late Blues (Cassevetes, 1961). 7/10 - Bobby Darin surprisingly effective as a peevish, self-destructive beat jazz guy. Inessential but still underrated early Cassevetes.
Oculus (Mike Flanagen, 2014). 8/10 - Preferred Absentia, but was surprised how much I dug this.
Theatre of Blood (Douglas Hickox, 1973). 7/10 - Entertaining audio-commentary by the League of Gentlemen on the Blu-ray.
We Are the Best! / Vi är bäst! (Lukas Moodysson, 2014). 7/10 - Smells like teen spirit.
Listen Up Philip (Alex Ross Perry, 2014). 6/10 - Preferred The Color Wheel. This was too much Max Fischer grows up to be a cartoonish, one-note shithead.
Interstellar (Nolan, 2014). 6/10. Outer... spaaaaace... !
The Wages of Fear (Clouzot, 1953). 8/10
Red Shift (John Mackenzie, 1978). 7/10 - British '70s creepy-vibe Play For Today drama from the writer of The Owl Service and the director of The Long Good Friday. Let down by the horribly overwritten dialogue.

rewatches:
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Leone, 1967). 10/10
The Terminator (Cameron, 1984). 8/10
Alien (Ridley Scott, 1979). 10/10. - Nice to see this on the big screen. Ian Holm's freakout then headsmash is still amazing.
Return to Oz (Walter Murch, 1985). 6/10 - Oddly drab.
Picnic at Hanging Rock (Weir, 1975). 8/10 - Sofia Coppola really did steal a lot from this for Virgin Suicides, didn't she?
The 'Burbs (Dante, 1989). 7/10 - Shame about the ending which legitimises being an interfering busybody and being suspicious of non-confromity.

Wow Frederik B, you see a lot of movies - how was the Costa?

Huh, didn't know anyone had made a film of Red Shift, I can't imagine it working too well on screen.

Yeah it doesn't quite, but it is an intriguing bit of folk horror with the '70s TV production values adding a further layer of weirdness.

Wow Frederik B, you see a lot of movies - how was the Costa?

― sʌxihɔːl (Ward Fowler), 18. november 2014 20:35 (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

That was a festival-haul, I do not watch that many films normally. Also, it was way too many and bad time-planning, so take what I say on the later films with a pinch of salt, might have gotten them wrong. But I wrote about Horse Money a bit: http://centrifugue.blogspot.com/2014/11/cphdox-day-9-lack-horse-money.html

Short version: Not as good as Colossal Youth. Lack of Fontainhas and more use of studious is felt, makes the whole a bit lifeless. And it isn't as epic. But it's beautiful, and obviously worth seeing.

have you seen Albert Serra's Story of My Death?

Yeah, wrote it up last spring: http://centrifugue.blogspot.com/2014/04/cphpix-day-7-small-homeland-quiet-roar.html

I still remember quite a lot of details from it, actually. Sign of a good art-flick, for me. Would really like to go to another screening of it, though, but that's probably years away. Sigh.

I'm getting very frustrated because there clearly is not enough time to see "everything" once.

No! I've had to cut out basically all of the oscar-nominees from my viewing. Which... is one of the easier cuts, I guess.

Probably won't have a chance to watch anything else before I hit the road tomorrow for a couple of weeks, so the latest batch:

A Canterbury Tale (Powell/Pressburger, 1944)
Love Affair, or the Case of the Missing Switchboard Operator (Makavejev, 1967)
A Hen in the Wind (Ozu, 1948) Ozu's usually all about the still waters and the depth beneath, which makes the scene of real serious violence near the end shocking as hell.
Interstellar (Nolan, 2014)
Lost in America (Brooks, 1985)
The Bad Sleep Well (Kurosawa, 1960)

That looks like a great weeks worth of engagement there. Is, as it looks, Interstellar the odd man out?

Yeah, I remember clutching the pearls during that moment in the Ozu.

Non-rating WmC: wanted to know what you thought of Lost in America. (In expressing your feelings, you have permission to say "nest egg" as many times as you feel necessary.)

Normally I have difficulty with nebbish comedy (I'm not a huge fan of Woody Allen either), but I'm going through a similar "sell everything, run away and join the circus" angst party myself, so this one was pretty effective. It got a few bitter chuckles of recognition out of me. I did like a lot of the cinematography -- the tracking shots following Brooks through the rat-maze of the ad agency offices, that extremely long shot at the end, a lot of the landscapes in Arizona. Julie Hagerty as a degenerate gambler was pretty funny.

Interstellar was def the 600 lb. weakling in that group, and A Canterbury Tale my favorite. My wife demonstrated once again that she still doesn't know me very well after 30+ years together by being surprised that I like ACT at all.

At that moment in the Ozu, I was like "...holy shit... (realizes that that's an actual person, not a dummy)...holy shit!"

haven't seen A Hen in the Wind... on YT and Hulu i note.

Daisies (Vera Chytilová, 1966)
Watched this last night, after having wanted to see it for a long time. One of my art school friends had an icon for a while of one of the girls' severed heads floating during the cut-up sequence and it always intrigued me. It was amazing! Very silly and hyperactive and full of lots of effects and weird sounds and film treatments. I love how the movie uses color! Parts were in black and white and parts were tinted and then some parts had this crazy tri-color processing. The actors were lots of fun too.

great film

'daisies' is an all-time top 10 pick for me

I have trouble sitting through "Daisies". Will try again.

I'm pretty interested in "The Fruit of Paradise" as well, by the same filmmaker. Look at this (NSFW) intro:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vE4eDHu9sCw

The ending of "Daisies" was pretty amazing. Def gonna have to see it again.

Interstellar (Nolan, 2014) 5/10
*Key Largo (Huston, 1948) 7/10
*Psycho (Hitchcock, 1960) 10/10
*Down Terrace (Wheatley, 2009) 8/10
Meantime (Leigh, 1983) 8/10
The Stag (Butler, 2013) 5/10
*Calvary (McDonagh, 2014) 8/10

The Babadook (Kent, 2013) 6/10
Mr Turner (Leigh, 2014) 7/10
Leviathan (Zvyagintsev, 2014) 7/10
Goodbye to Language (Godard, 2014) 8/10
Interstellar (Nolan, 2014) 5/10
Winter Sleep (Ceylan, 2014) 8/10

Stolen Kisses (Truffaut, 1968) 8/10
Fanny & Alexander (TV version) (Bergman, 1982) 9/10
The Aviator's Wife (Rohmer, 1981) 7/10
Amarcord (Fellini, 1973) 7/10
Bend of the River (Mann, 1952) 6/10
Man of the West (Mann, 1958) 7/10
Ride the High Country (Peckinphan, 1962) 8/10
Breaking the Waves (Von Trier, 1996) 6/10
Vampyr (Dreyer, 1932) 8/10
Spirited Away (Miyazaki, 2002) 6/10
I Confess (Hitchcock, 1953) 7/10
Seven Men from Now (Boetticher, 1956) 6/10

Norte, End of History (Diaz, 2014) 8/10
Citizenfour (Poitras, 2014) 7/10
Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (Jackson, 2002) 6/10
Twice in a Lifetime (Yorkin, 1985) 4/10
Test (Johnson, 2014) 7/10

Decalogue 3 & 4 (Kieslowski, 1989) - Saw a lot of these about 20 years ago, now being re-shown at the ICA. The latter was so engrossing - a story where paternity is questioned, provoking a change in the father/daughter relationship (which actually is more than hinted at in the first scenes of quasi-sexual play) and are then given expression in the next hour, in all its strangeness. Their conversations -- how do we sort this out? -- are powerful and sensitively played. There was an awful intro given at the beginning. I would've loved to know what the reception to this was in Poland at the time but no...

Winter Sleep (Ceylan, 2014) - we know Ceylan can do landscape and he does much of that here but I also loved the cosy rooms, where the very long conversations took place, with its harsh and cold statements. Comes with classic Chehkovian humour too (think its based on one of his stories).

Ping Pong Summer (Tully, 2014) 2/10
Strangers on a Train (Hitchcock, 1951) 8/10

Adieu au langage (Godard, 2014): 9/10
Museum Hours (Cohen, 2012): 8/10
Frozen (Buck & Lee, 2013): 5/10

during November

Other Guys, the (2010, McKay) 3/10
St. Vincent (2014, Melfi) [first hour only, power outage]
All of Me (1984, Carl Reiner) [open matte] 8/10
Interstellar (2014, Nolan) 7/10
Wide Awake (1998, Shyamalan) 2/10
Prince and the Showgirl, the (Olivier, 1957) 4/10
Wet Hot American Summer (Wain, 2001) 3/10
Hateship Loveship (Lisa Johnson, 2013) 4/10

Bird People (Ferran, 2014)
In the Basement (Seidl, 2014)
Anticipation of the Night (Brakhage, 1958)
Manufactured Landscapes (Baichwal, 2006)
Holy Motors (Carax. 2012)*
Phoenix (Petzold, 2014)
A Christmas Tale (Desplechin, 2008)
Interstellar (Nolan, 2014)
Apocalypto (Gibson, 2006)

Shorts:
Satellit (Sørensen, 2013)
Puff Puff Pass (Daneskov, 2013)
Daimi (Grahtø Sørensen, 2012)

Chilly Scenes of Winter (1979, Micklin Silver) 7/10
Actress (2014, Greene) 8/10
Leo the Last (1970, Boorman) 5/10
*David Holzman's Diary (1967, McBride) 9/10
Sex and Broadcasting (2014, Smith) 6/10
*The Lost One (1951, Lorre) 8/10
*Vampyr (1932, Dreyer) 10/10
Burroughs (1983, Brookner) 6/10
Pulp: a Film About Life, Death & Supermarkets (2014, Habicht) 5/10
The Imitation Game (2014, Tyldum) 5/10
Angel and the Badman (1947, Grant) 7/10
The Lighthouse Keepers (1929, Gremillon) 8/10
Little Lise (1930, Gremillon) 8/10
National Gallery (2014, Wiseman) 8/10
*Le Jour Se Leve (1939, Carne) 7/10
*Gueule d'Amour (1937, Gremillon) 6/10
*The Sacrifice (1986, Tarkovsky) 9/10
The Rover (2014, Michôd) 6/10
My Girlfriend's Wedding (1969, McBride) 7/10
Bad Hair (2013, Rondón) 7/10
*Paris, Texas (1984, Wenders) 7/10
Mommy (2014, Dolan) 4/10
The Last Wave (1977, Weir) 7/10
Miami Blues (1990, Armitage) 8/10
Remorques (1941, Gremillon) 7/10
*Mon oncle d’Amérique (1980, Resnais) 9/10
Countdown (1969, Altman) 5/10
The Americanization of Emily (1964, Hiller) 6/10

*Paris, Texas (1984, Wenders) 7/10

Ah, just saw this last night. I could have sworn I'd seen it before in the late 80s but I didn't have any memory of any of the scenes so I guess not.

Dressed To Kill (8/10)
Violette Noziere (8/10)
Le Camion (6/10)
McCullin (8/10)
Nightcrawler (7/10)

Decalogue 5 & 6 (Kieslowski, 1989) - pretty inspired of the ICA to screen these. They have cinematic qualities (the yellow filter in five as an example) and they are so interestingly told, so how does the lawyer, a wondering youth and a taxi driver come together? Well you can imagine it easily but there is plenty of distance set-up at the beginning.

Loved how Kieslowski's need to maintain a balance in the world led to strange paths and taking risks w/plot and script. So in six the woman would surely call the police on her stalker, but balance must be achieved -- she must return that blank pure infatuation, these things can happen to all of us at any age, not just male youths lusting after the unattainable -- so I certainly went a bit easier on it than in any other set-up by another director (you can imagine how awful this would've been if that was a Brit).

los angeles plays itself (2003, thom Andersen) 4/5
force majeure (2014, ruben ostlund) 2.5/5
la belle noiseuse (91, rivette) 3/5
the to do list (2013 Maggie carey) 2.5/5
august: osage county (2013 john wells) 3.5/5
the one I love (2014, Charlie McDowell) 4/5
the color of lies (99, chabrol) 2.5/5
the kings of summer (2013, Jordan Vogt-Roberts) 5/5
scarecrow (73 schatzberg) 1.5/5
that awkward moment (2014 tom gormican) 1/5
a night in old mexico (2013 Emilio aragon) 1.5/5
they might be giants ('71, Anthony Harvey) 3/5
happy Christmas (2014, swanberg) 4/5

Welcome Home, Roxy Carmichael (7.5)
JFK (7.0)
Bad Company (6.0)
Numéro deux (???)
Nightcrawler (6.5)
Fantastic Voyage (6.0)
The Love Machine (6.0)
White Heat (9.0)
Reservoir Dogs (9.0)
Barry Lyndon (10.0)
The Turin Horse (7.5)

Model Shop

scarecrow (73 schatzberg) 1.5/5

I like it, but you definitely need a high degree of tolerance for every kind of '70s self-indulgence imaginable.

it's just a wtf when put next to

august: osage county (2013 john wells) 3.5/5

which requires a high degree of tolerance for every kind of contemporary 'prestige' botch imaginable

*Parked (Byrne, 2010) 4/10
Out Of Here (Foreman, 2014) 7/10
Dallas Buyers Club (Vallee, 2013) 6/10
Two Days, One Night (Dardennes Bros., 2014) 7/10
Cube 2: Hypercube (Sekula, 2002) 3/10
Killer Of Sheep (Burnett, 1977) 7/10
*A History of Violence (Cronenberg, 2005) 10/10

scarecrow is junk, h8 when movies treat their blank stock deadbeat characters w/ such undeserved sympathy and reverence

i could see ppl argue that hackman and pacino redeem it from that criticism, but theyd be v wrong, and projecting from their other, better performances

Nuit et Jour (Akerman, 1991) - great screening tonight. Introduced by Olaf Möller, a critic I don't know of but who gave pretty much the best intro a film could have. Funny, sharp, got people to focus on what mattered, didn't spend anytime mechanically giving away the plot, some killer background detail (a proper cinephile), just the right length. Loved his description of catching this film, attending it as the only person in a screening on its one week run in his native Cologne. Touched on the colours (he got a boner over the oranges; I like the light blue coloured pillows a bit more), and I'd add that I loved how Akerman uses colour to point to a crucial change of feeling in Julie's attitude at the very end.

Also possibly interesting to compare this to La Mama et La Putain, which I'm sure Akerman was aware of. There are way more differences than the similarity, which is an inversion of the same plot, i.e. a threesome with the woman in the middle.

Agreed with almost all of what Möller said. Other things that set you on speculation: for the first time I was perhaps made aware of a De Sadean type streak in her. Drama in a confined space, characters are sort of cardboard cutout who spew these quasi-philosophical matter to try to make sense of (in this instance) their in relationship feelings. Her interests in Bausch and her macabre dance sorta works its way through in here.

Great way to end cinema in 2014. May catch Solaris but I've seen that.

The Trip To Italy : (2/10 for the scenery) My God this shit was an unfunny and annoying waste of time. No, haven't seen the first one. Was wishing Coogan and Bryden (or whatever his name is) would drive off one of the many picturesque cliffside roads.
Passion (DePalma) : 7/10. I like that BDP can still do freaky when he wants to/can. He can still do wonders with the crappiest/hammiest acting and some remarkable set pieces.

wonders, huh

If he can keep me watching Rachel McAdams' high school drama class stylee because his mise en scène and editing etc is so badass then - yes- wonders...