Last (x) movies you saw

Was going to defend Beat Girl but to be honest I think a score in the middle is about right - I do like 50s/60s juvie exploitation films but they're not actually often (ever?) good films.

I loved the sets; '50s Soho streets and coffee bars and all that. And the slang-heavy dialogue, delivered by the well-spoken 'delinquents', was straight from the fridge, daddy-o. The story was really run-of-the-mill, though, and felt dated and a bit naff, even for 1960.

barbara (petzold, 2012) 7/10
a good old fashioned orgy (alex Gregory + peter huyck, 2011) 8/10
green room (saulnier, 2016) 7/10
the bad news bears (Ritchie, 1976) 7/10
the gambler (wyatt, 2014) 3/10
11 minutes (skolimowski, 2016) 4/10

Tokyo Drifter (Suzuki, 1966)
The Assassin (Hou Hsiao-Hsien, 2015)
Captain America: Civil War (Russo Bros., 2016)
Jauja (Alonso, 2014)
*The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (Greenaway, 1989)
Arabian Nights, Vol. 1: The Restless One (Gomes, 2015)
The Forbidden Room (Maddin, 2015)
Sex and Broadcasting (Smith, 2015)
The Saddest Music in the World (Maddin, 2003)
Jeremiah Johnson (Pollack, 1972)

Zootopia 8/10
Total Recall (Verhoeven) 7/10
Mon Roi 7/10
The Source (Beat Generation docu) 6/10
Cosmos 7/10
Alice In The Cities (9/10)*
Five Women Around Utamaro* (9/10)

xxpost Too bad that new Skolimowski's supposedly a chore. What're your thoughts, johnny crunch?

xpost Cosmos is Zulawski not Sagan

yea it surprised me to learn he wrote it also for its relative lack of depth

nice 2 see a high score on alice in the cities, that ones been sitting on my dvr for some time now

Heart of a Dog (Anderson, 2015) - A film by someone who has lived a long time. Laurie chews over lots of Western and Eastern modes of philosophy, music, art and encounters. This is a mix of film, biography, documentary, animation, with her dog in the middle (although idk how much that also stands for Lou Reed). A lot of it is clumsily done, she hasn't got many filmmaking chops (the snow falling on trees just didn't have kick at all), but there are moments here and there, but a lot of it is undermined.

Ivan's Childhood (Tarkovsky, 1962) - It was all there from the beginning.

heart of a dog is so audio/voiceover-intensive, i think would work better as a radio documentary. some touching shots (and interesting/moving thoughts on death) of the dog, but otherwise, no, shes no filmmaker, not on this evidence anyway.

saw Big (1988)

was not as mindblowing as I remembered...

sorry you guys are bananas on HoaD

Are you really sorry?

deeply

The Other Side (2015, Minervini) 9/10
Seed (1931, Stahl) 8/10
Eden (2014, Hansen-Løve) 5/10
Le Silence de la Mer (1949, Melville) 8/10
Nella città l'inferno aka ...And the Wild, Wild Women (1959, Castellani) 7/10
*Empire of the Sun (1987, Spielberg) 10/10
*Valley of the Dolls (1967, Robson) 3/10
*The Act of Killing (2012, Oppenheimer) 8/10
Private Lives (1931, Franklin) 7/10
*Rachel, Rachel (1968, Newman) 6/10

Public Enemies* - 6/10 - just as bad as i remember
Chronicle Of A Summer - 9/10
Hitchcock/Truffaut - 4/10 - wasted opportunity. Where was Truffaut? Watching Fincher (jeeeez) and James Gray speak has had an adverse effect as well.

Land of Silence and Darkness (1971) 8/10
Handicapped Future (1971) 7/10
Far from Vietnam (1967) 7.5/10

the gift (edgerton, 2015) 6/10
the phantom of liberty (bunuel, 1974) 6/10
wild bill (fletcher, 2012) 7/10
*excalibur (boorman, 1981) 9/10
10 cloverfield lane (trachtenberg, 2016) 7/10
beasts of no nation (fukunaga, 2015) 5/10

The Decline of Western Civilization Part III (1998) Part I was a (near-?) contemporary report on early West Coast punk etc bands, Part III moves among "gutter punks," homeless teens, squatting and partying and panhandling ("Spare change sir? C'mon, save an old lady from gettin' mugged, spare change, spare change? Fuckit then." Theft is mentioned, but not shown; ass-peddling is neither. Lots of brief interviews, checking back in with several, in various settings (not too various, but some kids are more candid alone with Spheeris and her camera in a quiet side room, others as couples or in groups, relaxing in the latest living room or fave patch of sidewalk/alley.
They make it into some shows, incl. a band proudly claiming to be homeless too, which may (been a while) be the same one with a practice space in the random living room of a member's mom, a hoarder. Another band, Naked Getail, I think, is proudly Musical as hell, yet raw enough in sound design to get unreserved gutter punk response.
Fatalism for the most part, surprising optimism from a few ("I'll try to---I *will* get a job," though camera pulls back to show his friend rolling on the pavement with laffter). Death by misadventure, discussed at end, then credits and a final note that one of the kids is now in jail for fatally stabbing boyfriend (a fairly mellow couple onscreen). Currently on YouTube, though I saw it On Demand in weathered Suburbia: not so much a home invasion as a wall suddenly decaying again.

The Danish Girl: should have been plural, because Alicia Vikander's character and portrayal are upfront, nuanced and crucial: she has to adapt to Einar-->Lilly's journey from the past to previously unknown possibilties, the edge of the future--sorry to get b-movie Science Fiction about it, but that's right, as shown in a gradually emerging, quietly eerie way: two painters in familiarly cinematic-painterly settings, having to push beyond. So even Redmayne's big-toothed smile/grimace, which for a while seems too relied on, comes to seem like his character's reflexive defense, a mask, but also armor, pushing, willing, through the bounds, from waaay in the isolation of past boondocks Denmark, present cosmopolitan Paris, and everywhere, really, despite loyalty of wife, childhood friend, and doctor.

Carol: by far the most sustained Haynes film I've seen, though Carter Burwell's treacly scoring is really hard to take on headphones. Title character seems too growly a cougar at first, but then a great scene where she's nervous on the way to an obligatory social disfunction with hoity-toity people she's too familiar with, yet seeming like the self-conscious teen outsider, though she'll put up a polished front. Must read the book, for contrast of tone, (gotta be since, it's Highsmith),

This whole idea that Vejle is isolated 'past boondocks' is so ridiculous. It's a prosperous little harbor town, pretty much dang in the center of Denmark. Many famous and important people come from Vejle, including should've-been-a-nobel-laureate poet Inger Christensen, current prime minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen, and my grandparents. There's also no mountains around Vejle, nor in Denmark at all. The whole thing is a farce of misrepresentation, and that's even without looking at the iffy way it deals with gender and sex.

Grumble grumble.

But Einar/Lilly *felt* isolated, in the family as well as town, describing being caught by father kissing his childhood friend, for instance. As for sex/gender, Redmayne said his transgender friends related very much to some passages in the memoir (from diaries), other parts not at all. Results may vary.

*Meet the Feebles (Jackson, 1989)
Belladonna of Sadness (Yamamoto, 1973)
The Girl on a Motorcycle (Cardiff, 1968)
Purple Rain (Magnoli, 1984)
Hi, Mom! (De Palma, 1970)
Begotten (Merhige, 1991)
Aguirre: The Wrath of God (Herzog, 1972)

How did you like Belladonna of Sadness?

Mothlight (Brakhage, 1962)
Europa 51 (Rossellini, 1951)
Horrifying_death_Baby_dies_after_children_left_home_alone_place_her_in_oven (Tomo News, 2015)

You see one dead bairn you've really seen em all, wouldn't say the say the same of Rossellini movies though!

The Damned: Don't You Wish That We Were Dead (6.0)
Palo Alto (7.0)
Truth (6.0)
Nobody Walks (6.5)
The Wrong Man (7.0)
The Nice Guys (5.5)
Passengers (5.0)
Midnight Special (6.5)
Reality Bites (6.0)
Lovelace (6.5)

How did you like Belladonna of Sadness?

Absolutely loved it. It gets a lot of mileage about the combination of limited animation (mostly still frames, really), with a lot of weird pattern/decorative stuff that plays with the 2D film frame in a way that reminds me of Klimt and Schiele. Sounds pretentious as shit, I know, but I think there's something there.

Just be aware that if you see it, the devil is shaped like an evil penis and people will giggle.

january 1st thru may 29th this year, only movies i saw theatrically

The Danish Girl
Concussion
The Revenant
Anomalisa
13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi
Dirty Grandpa
45 Years
Hail, Caesar!
The Lady in the Van
Zoolander 2
How to Be Single
The Witch
Deadpool
Son of Saul
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot
Zootopia
10 Cloverfield Lane
The Brothers Grimsby
Knight of Cups
Hello, My Name is Doris
My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2
Eye in the Sky
Harold and Maude*
I Saw the Light
My Golden Days
Everybody Wants Some!!
The Jungle Book
Demolition
Miles Ahead
Elvis & Nixon
Purple Rain*
Louder Than Bombs
Sing Street
Keanu
The Family Fang
The Meddler
The Man Who Knew Infinity
The Angry Birds Movie
The Lobster
X-Men: Apocalypse

favorites so far:

THE LOBSTER
ZOOTOPIA
EYE IN THE SKY
THE ANGRY BIRDS MOVIE
DIRTY GRANDPA

Absolutely loved it. It gets a lot of mileage about the combination of limited animation (mostly still frames, really), with a lot of weird pattern/decorative stuff that plays with the 2D film frame in a way that reminds me of Klimt and Schiele. Sounds pretentious as shit, I know, but I think there's something there.

Just be aware that if you see it, the devil is shaped like an evil penis and people will giggle.

― You guys are caterpillar (Telephone thing), Monday, 30 May 2016 04:47

I seen a few years ago on youtube. You're right about the Klimt and Schiele thing, I don't think that observation will be even in the top million pretentious things said about films this year.

so we saw andrei rublev this evening on the big screen

would give it a solid 8/10. like hoisting a bell out of a pit for three hours, in all the best ways

Dante's Inferno (Russell, 1967) 7/10
Sicilia! (Straub-Huillet, 1999) 8/10
Green Room (Saulnier, 2015) 6/10
Everybody Wants Some!! (Linklater, 2016) 5/10
The Hateful Eight (Tarantino, 2015) 8/10
Penda's Fen (Clarke, 1974) 7/10
Johnny Guitar (Ray, 1954) 8/10

Tomorrowland (Bird, 2015) 6/10
*Death Becomes Her (Zemeckis, 1992) 7/10
She's Beautiful When She's Angry (Dore, 2014) 6/10
*Purple Rain (Magnoli, 1984) 3/10
The Forbidden Room (Maddin and Johnson) 7/10
Spotlight (McCarthy, 2015) 7/10
*Roxanne (Schepisi, 1987) 5/10
The Hateful Eight (Tarantino, 2015) 7/10
Creed (Coogler, 2015) 6/10

and not a movie but my most enjoyable (and bittersweet) (re)viewing of the year...

*The Larry Sanders Show (1992-1998) 10/10

Room (Abrahamson, 2015): living in and to different degrees as a series of rooms, eerie adjustments of the continuum, o shit, easy now, oops, oops, oops, o shit, therrre (courtroom and other still ahead). Clueless-at-best, insensitive questions of TV interviewer, though certainly to be found in Comments sections, seemed a bit like too-easy demonization of The Media in trad form, but, since I was already wondering about how this situation might be handled in the near future, if Trumps gets in and lets the Values voters go hither and yon, in a collateral way, incl. bleeding through the median or normal view, such questions might well be expected in prime time. Anyway, great job by all. (I'm not claustrophobic at all, but had to had to had to get out of there immediately)

would give it a solid 8/10.

really, you think 20% of films are better than Andrei Rublev?

Maybe if the screen was bigger that would come down to 17.5%

you guys :D

fine, 9. great but obviously an early-career effort. stalker might be the best film ever.

i think u mean The Mirror

yeah

when in doubt about decimal points start scrubbing the living room floor at the 2.5 hour point.

4Real!

Lost Lost Lost (Jonas Mekas, 1976) - I like how he becomes this professional avant-garde film dude after years of amateurishly pointing his camera at Lithuanian girls and at protests.
The Band Wagon (Vincent Minelli, 1953) - really liked this but walked out 10 mins before the ending (the Tripltes number was genuinely hilarious)
Love and Friendship (Whit Stillman, 2016)

Triplets

would give it a solid 8/10.

really, you think 20% of films are better than Andrei Rublev?

Morbs, I don't understand this question at all. If I were to give a film points on a scale of 10 (which I rarely do), I wouldn't be ranking films against each other, it would be a ranking against a hypothetical perfect film. Your number for a film is its rank against other films? Have you ever seen a long run of good films that caused some other film's number to drop?

Anyone seen Rhymes For Young Ghouls? Not a horror film. Looks interesting.

just playfully suggesting AR is not merely an 8, Wm

jungle fever (91 lee) 6/10
bully* (01 larry clark) 10/10
the lobster (16 lanthimos) 5/10
paper towns (15 jake schreier) 4/10
butterfly (82 matt comber) 4/10
an oversimplification of her beauty (12 Terence nance) 5/10
everybody wants some!! (16 linklater) 6/10
digging for fire (15 swanberg) 7/10
a bigger splash (16 guadagnino) 8/10
the riot club (14 lone scherfig) 3/10
the carter (09 adam bhala lough) 8/10

why so down on an oversimplification of her beauty?

Chevalier (2015, Tsangari) 6/10
The President (2014, Makhmalbaf) 5/10
Girl with a Suitcase (1961, Zurlini) 6/10
Impulse (1990, Locke) 7/10
Salomé (1923, Bryant) 5/10
*Tale of Cinema (2005, Hong) 7/10
Lost in the Mountains (2009, Hong) (31m) 8/10
Virgin Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors (2000, Hong) 8/10
The Power of Kangwon Province (1998, Hong) 7/10
The Day a Pig Fell into the Well (1996, Hong) 5/10
Sunset Song (2015, Davies) 9/10
Back Street (1932, Stahl) 8/10
The Lobster (2015, Lanthimos) 8/10
Buck and the Preacher (1972, Poitier) 6/10
Love & Friendship (2016, Stillman) 7/10
l'Amore (1948, Rossellini) 8/10
Afraid to Talk (1932, Cahn) 6/10
Laughter in Hell (1932, Cahn) 7/10

The Nice Guys (2016, Black) 8/10 - started off really strong, I saw it bc of a recommendation from a friend who said it was like The Long Goodbye/Chinatown/Inherent Vice for the multiplex... sorta lost me 3/4 thru but still great. loved the art direction and wardrobe. Gosling frequently hilarious, & loved the very mean sense of humor.

Weiner (2016, Kriegman & Steinberg) 7/10 - had high hopes, heard lots of great things from Sundance, but it felt a little flat, and yeah, it's pretty excruciating spending an hour and a half with this guy. Easy to imagine the panoply of medications Huma Abedin has to take to deal with being around him. Best moment is at the end when the cameraman asks Weiner "why are you letting me film this?"

Dial M for Murder (1954, Hitchcock) 9/10 - gripping, saw it in 3D, was a bit nervous at first but it looked fine. Ray Milland is a centipede. I was locked in.

'bully' a masterpiece?