Last (x) movies you saw

Also DVD extras involving the author, though I'll prob just watch the brief doc about the Pacific Coast Trail.

Pacific *Crest* Trail sorry!

Watching the doc now: actually it goes from Canada to Mexico, about 21/2 times her ideal distance. I'd like to go maybe 15 miles, over several days.

docette.

Over the Edge (1979) : Incredible performances, very-well made. It's like "Kids" but made 20 years earlier. Kurt Cobain's favorite movie. Some incredible landscape shots of 70s suburban wasteland. Only anarchist movie I've ever seen staring kids. Art school teacher rolling her eyes at the cops.
Die Hard (1988) : Classic classic classic. They don't make them like they used to. I like the hierarchy of law enforcement, from John McClane's lone wolf who doesn't play by the rules to Reginald VelJohnson as good guy cop who gets snubbed by ineffectual LAPD big brass, who in turn gets snubbed by equally ineffectual FBI ("My name is Agent Johnson, and this here is Agent Johnson, no relation.") The 80s was the high point of pulp and one-liners.
Why Don't You Play in Hell? (2013) : Japanese movie about a renegade film crew getting drafted by the yakuza to film an insanely bloody feud. Lots of fun!

Ex Machina (6/10)
A Tout Allure (6/10)
Jupiter Ascending (5/10)
Confucius (7/10)

watching Chow Yun Fat play Confucius is o_O

Drug War (To, 2013) 8/10
Bernie (Linklater, 2011) 6/10

White God (Mundruczó, 2015)
Hugely entertaining shaggy dog story about a dumped mixed breed dog called Hagen who becomes the leader of a dangerous anti-human dog militia on the streets of Budapest. The dog gangs running through the city scenes are rendered beautifully for such a low budget movie.
The Tribe (Slaboshpitsky, 2015)
A young pupil joins a boarding school for the deaf that is involved in organised crime and prostitution. There is no spoken dialogue, all interaction is in un-subtitled sign language. It is an unusual experience when the only audio track is footsteps, doors opening and shutting and people getting their heads bashed in.

No Regrets for Our Youth (Kurosawa, 1946)
Too Much Johnson (Welles, 1938)
Night Moves (Penn, 1975)
Samurai Rebellion (Kobayashi, 1967)
Le Silence de la Mer (Melville, 1949)
Voyage to Italy (Rossellini, 1954)
Journey Into Fear (Foster, 1943)
La Pointe Courte (Varda, 1956)
Picnic at Hanging Rock (Weir, 1975)
Mad Max: Fury Road (Miller, 2015)

Saw Mad Max: Fury Road and Slow West yesterday. Hated the former, liked the latter a lot.

Please explain! Our expectations usually match (I liked it fine, no masterpiece or whatever).

Um, let's see...they could have just named Charlize Theron's character Maxine and left Hardy out of it entirely (which I'd have been fine with, both as a movie and because I fucking hate Tom Hardy). More than that, though, the worldbuilding was utterly nonsensical (how'd the villain get a giant metal bank-vault door up the side of a mountain? How come all these people are incapable of farming or doing any other survival-type activities, but have endless hours to customize their cars? What do they eat? When/where do they shit?), to the point that it made me wonder how come they don't put Matthew Barney movies in multiplexes if people are so willing to gobble down this kind of jabbering nonsense as long as it's superficially pretty and has girls 'n' cars 'n' guns. (It was only just barely pretty to look at, by the way, and yeah, fine, there were actual cars moving down an actual desert "road," but they were basically painted into such an absurdly fake background landscape half the time—shit, that fucking storm looked like something out of Sin City, and so did the "GasTown" and "Bullet Farm" villains, while I'm on the subject—so half the physicality was lost on me because my brain was going, if the colors are this phony, how can I trust any of the other shit I'm seeing?) It's gonna take a lot of re-viewings of The Road Warrior—which at least looked like it took place in an actual world actual people actually lived in—to scrub the taste of this one away.

Yeah, but even watching Hou films I wonder when and where people shit.

xxxxp

WilliamC have you watched Kobayashi's Harakiri as well? It is a reet good movie.

Yes, I love Harakiri -- one of the most powerful films I've ever seen. 11/10

there's a Kobayashi retro in NYC right now, that actor from Human Condition and Harakiri is doing appearances at screenings.

Our Neighbor, Miss Yae (1934, Shimazu) 6/10
*Pather Panchali (1955, Ray) 9/10
*Macbeth (1948, Welles) 7/10
Two Shots Fired (2014, Rejtman) 6/10
Clouds of Sils Maria (2014, Assayas) 4/10
Think Fast, Mr. Moto (1937, Foster) 5/10
*Wife! Be Like a Rose! (1935, Naruse) 7/10
*A Day in the Country (1936/46, Renoir) 9/10
*Mikey and Nicky (1976, May) 10/10
Beggars of Life (1928, Wellman) 7/10
Ride the Pink Horse (1947, Montgomery) 8/10
Shockproof (1949, Sirk) 7/10

The Glamourous Life of Sachiko Hanai (Meike, 2003) 4/10
Miss Bala (Naranjo, 2011) 6/10
Charlie Casanova (McMahon, 2010) 4/10
*Garage (Abrahamson, 2007) 8/10

Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)
Get Hard (2015)
The Land Unknown (1957)
Horror Express (1972)
Village of the Giants (1965)

Mad Max ruled, I want to see the originals again now. Get Hard was shit, complete shit. I think Will Ferrell movies are written out as outlines on napkins but I had to see this cos we were at a drive-in and Mad Max was afterwards. The Land Unknown was a pretty bad b-movie with rubber monsters and stuff. Horror Express RULED Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing AND Telly Savalas on a train in Siberia fighting Rasputin and a body-jumping demon. There was a Dr. Who episode a few seasons ago where they did the same story. Village of the Giants was pretty funny, Ron Howard as a little kid inventing miracle grow substance that turns everything into a giant bluescreen composite. It was utterly shameless in being 60s exploitation, like in under 1 minute the movie has a bunch of teens freaking out to garage rock from Beau Brummels. By the time they were in a rock club with the band playing and two giant ducks taking up the dance floor it was late and I fell asleep.

love Horror Express unreservedly.

Shalcken the Painter (Megahey, 1979) - 7/10
Winstanley (Brownlow/Mollow, 1973) - 8/10
Killer's Kiss (Kubrick, 1955) - 5/10
Enemy (Villeneuve, 2014) - 5/10
Ex Machina (Garland, 2015) - 7/10
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (Buñuel, 1972) - 5/10
Mad Max: Fury Road (Miller, 2015) - 8/10

rewatches:

Mad Max (Miller, 1979) - 8/10
Mad Max 2 (Miller, 1981) - 8/10
The Killing (Kubrick, 1956) - 8/10
Kill Bill vol.1 (Tarantino, 2003) - 6/10
Prometheus (Scott, 2012) - 5/10
Society (Yuzna, 1989) - 5/10

* The Trial (1962, Welles) 8/10
* Broadcast News (1987, Brooks) 7/10
The Blue Room (Amalrick, 2014) 6/10
Chinese Roulette (Fassbinder, 1976) 4/10
The Secret of My Success (Ross, 1987) 4/10

Caught in the Draft (1941, Butler/Bob Hope) 5/10
*Night Moves (2013, Reichardt) 7/10
A Walk Among the Tombstones (2014, Frank) 7/10
No Down Payment (1957, Ritt) 6/10
*The Cat and the Canary (1939, Nugent/Bob Hope) 6/10
While We're Young (2014, Baumbach) 5/10
*Aparajito (1956, Ray) 10/10
Silvia Prieto (1999, Rejtman) 7/10
The Comfort of Strangers (1990, Schrader) 7/10
The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972, Huston) 6/10
Charlie Victor Romeo (2014, 3D, Berger, Daniels, Michelson) 8/10

Man Of The Year (Levinson, 2006) 4/10
*Adam and Paul (Abrahamson, 2004) 7/10
Alarm (Stembridge, 2008) 7/10
Mad Max: Fury Road (Miller, 2015) 7/10
My Darling Clementine (Ford, 1946) 9/10

Stardust
Moulin Rouge
The Exorcist
Copycat
Under the Tuscan Sun
this amazing movie with Queen Latifah and Holly Hunter that i can't remember the name of
and THE FIRM

In the Name of My Daughter (Techine, 2015) 7/10
Les Biches (Chabrol, 1968) 5/10
Les Cousins (Chabrol, 1960) 7/10
There Was a Father (Ozu, 1942) 7/10

Performance. Even stranger than I anticipated.

omg what is that

Mick Jagger, pouting satanically.

ohhh

this amazing movie with Queen Latifah and Holly Hunter that i can't remember the name of

Living Out Loud? Haven't seen it since it was new, but remember really liking it.

it. was. wonderful.

and yes, thank you for the title. critics' choice awards tonight!

oh but wait that's television oops

Chimes at Midnight (Welles, 1965)
Magnificent Obsession (Sirk, 1954)
Othello (Welles, 1952)
Mr. Turner (Leigh, 2014)
Adieu au Lanagage (Godard, 2014)
Five Easy Pieces (Rafelson, 1970)
A Well-Spent Life (Blank, 1971)
Paul Robeson: Tribute to an Artist (Turell, 1979)
*The Lady from Shanghai (Welles, 1947)

Avengers: Age of Ultron (Wheedon, 2015) 5/10
The Tribe (Slaboshpytskiy, 2014) 8/10
The Clouds of Sils Maria (Assayas, 2014) 6/10
The New Girlfriend (Ozon, 2014) 6/10
The Connection (Jimenez, 2014) 6/10

Tiresia (Bonello, 2003) 7/10
The Tin Star (Mann, 1957) 6/10
The Queen (Frears, 2006) 5/10
Hour of the Wolf (Bergman, 1968) 7/10
Two Tons of Turquoise to Taos Tonight (Downey, 1975) 6/10
Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me (DeNicola, 2013) 7/10
The Virgin Spring (Bergman, 1960) 8/10
Through a Glass Darkly (Bergman, 1961) 7/10
The Death of Mr Lazarescu (Puiu, 2005) 8/10
The Milky Way (Bunuel, 1968) 7/10

Stray Dogs (Tsai, 2013)
Timbuktu (Sissako, 2014)
Phoenix (Petzold, 2014)

xxxps

talking of Queen Latifah I thought she was ace in that HBO Bessie Smith biopic.

what'd'y'think of stray dogs xyz

Gates of Heaven (Morris, 1978) 6/10
Girlhood (Sciamma, 2014) 6/10
The Way He Looks (Ribeiro, 2014) 9/10

schlump - watched it a couple of weeks ago and feel a bit too far from it now to comment in the detail I want to. Certainly had a craving to watch it again as soon as it ended. The ending and cabbage fucking are all classic Tsai moves (man I could have the last 15 mins over and over), its always great to see Tsai refining his thing and watching that...faith someone has in what he or she does. No regrets, no doubts. Haven't even read much about it, which I should.

It was nice to watch it in a small cinema/room with about 15 people on a Sunday morning and the woman behind me emit a 'thank god' at the end of the film. That's the #magicofcinema for you.

How was Girlhood crypto or anyone else? Went to watch it with a friend but screen was sold out so after going all no way Jose @ Mad Max we watched Timbuktu which was the right move.

My favorite film of the year to date.

I was really set to love Girlhood, and for about the first half of the film I did. The lead and her friends dancing to Rihanna's "Diamonds" is an instant classic scene, and has been acknowledged as such by both Armond White and our very own Sotosyn (I especially recommend checking out his review). When the film moves away from the group of friends and towards a kind of downward spiral of bad-girl behaviour, though, I lost interest. To its credit, the film avoids easy cliches, and isn't at all exploitive (well, depending on how you view one somewhat transgressive instance of nudity), but I still felt a bit too much like I'd been down this road before. Or, I just liked the scenes with the friends so much that I wanted them to be the whole movie. Tentatively recommended, then, but I still wish that I liked it better.

Did you write any posts about it schlump? As Morbius would say, its from 2013. I need to look in the archives. xp

it's up on netflix instant and i wanna watch it

hey ty for that xyz. i only saw it last month myself, at a retro, but it's funny, i caught myself thinking the same too far out thing a couple weeks later, trying to remember how i felt about it. i liked it, i thought it was very strong. i think it maybe had a more direct, ever-so-slightly-less lyrically-open-ended effect on me than his others; i found it so sad, like a very urgent, well-crafted rendering of something so sad, tsai working in social ... non-realism. when i think of those kind of romantic films of the '00s, what time is it there?, i don't want to sleep alone, i think they're getting at something quite open and present-moment, tsai making these really inventive, sorta lubitschian minor gestures that express loneliness, anomie in ways that feel fresh & indirect & so which shortcircuit the standard grammar usually leaned on to convey that kinda thing. & i think the energy of this was more straightforwardly tragic, colder still. the shots of lee holding the sign culminating with the close-up, & just the sense of lee's body, so heavy. even the cabbage felt sad, honestly, as a kind of downgrade from the watermelon you'd expect in a tsai film. i'm still having a really hard time watching filmmakers i love - eugene green, andrew bujalski today - switch to digital, & i held my breath a little, thinking so much of tsai is contingent on the classic kind of still, suspended, sealed timeframe that's stretches & hangs in the air on celluloid & doesn't on digital. but i thought he slowed it down as much as anyone has, & the image-making was really strong, & that to watch lee is just as affecting as always (like bresson's beautiful with all the movements he does not make (could make)). so i liked it. i actually watched five minutes of the newest walker, the one that just surfaced on youtube, & it looked super engrossing, so i hope i can sit with it sometime. i think inasmuch as it is a refinement of his thing, it's still as big a leap as he's made for a while.

I've probably said it before, but Tsai Ming-liang is the most important creator of digital imagery atm imo. Stray Dogs especially is a milestone.

I've seen a bunch of stuff, most of it to write about other stuff. Five Loach and eight Ozon, for instance. Saw Costa-Gavras Section Speciale tonight, that was cool. Better than expected, loved the whole pragmatic aspect of it. I could easily imagine it'll be my favorite CG, most of the others seem more traditional thriller/melodrama.

schlump - thanks for the write-up. That bought back some good memories. Agree on the image making: I didn't think that much as to whether it was digital or not, and yes he is a master at capturing that brand of urban loneliness among the ruins of life.