Last (x) movies you saw

I'm watching Embrace of The Serpent tonight, liked The Measure of a Man very much; it grew in the mind.

Ward - a jaded viewing but looking at your post you are totally right re: Measure of Man. The long-ish scenes where dialogue is stretched beyond a point of no return: the first meeting with the woman who tries to convince the man to sell his home (v well contrasted with the 2nd wheres she gives him that loan after he gets a job). The Skype interview was horrifying but works on you.

aren't there some deep soundtrack heads around here? id rec seeking this out by any means nec'y; the skronky jazz/noize sections were amazing

It's out on vinyl from Finders Keepers! It's gorgeous, too, I just can't be importing records right now :/

Just a few this time:
Dogtooth (Lanthimos, 2009) Really disturbed by this, more than I was expecting. Not just the content, too; the framing of important characters at the edge of frames or off screen entirely just put me on edge. Thoroughly unpleasant, highly recommended if you're an idiot like me who hasn't seen this yet.
Valley of the Dolls (Robson, 1967) Watched this basically as homework for a podcast discussion (comic artists/critics Katie Skelly and Sarah Horrocks's Trash Twins, a round table on this, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls and Kyoko Okazaki's manga Helter Skelter). Enjoyable, though the total lack of any counterculture presence in the movie was deeply weird- all the pop culture and SHOWBIZ! in the movie is the squarest, boringest warmed-over 1950s shit you can imagine. Too much distance between high points (roughly in order: "SPARKLE, Neely, SPARKLE"; "Boobies, boobies, boobies!"; The Snatching of the Wig)
The Neon Demon (Refn, 2016) WHAT THE FUCK. I greatly enjoyed this; wasn't quite the camp masterpiece I was hoping for but it is definitely funnier than you'd expect. It also takes a hard, hard swerve from suggestion and vaguely Zardoz-y trippiness into full-on Drive/Only God Forgives/giallo-esque nastiness, so be prepared for that. The friend I saw it with almost puked.

embrace of the serpent - 7.5/10
one floor below - 6/10
aferim - 8.8/10
fire at sea - 5.5/10
the cockettes - 7/10
little dieter needs to fly - 8/10
wings of hope - 8/10
three exercises of interpretation - 6.5/10

Also, THE EXQUISITE CORPUS. 9/10

watched North by Northwest with the kids last night. they dug it. the DVD we watched looked amazing. man, those colors. those red caps. those taxis. eva's hair on the train. so shiny. very mesmerizing.

oh, 9/10

did they like the closing train-in-tunnel joke?

yeah, i don't think they really caught that.

definitely a movie that is even better than you remember if you haven't seen it in years.

North by Northwest was my fave Hitch when I was a kid (maybe still is), so its kid-appeal makes perfect sense to me. There's a wit and a precision to it that make it enjoyable for kids to follow even when they don't totally understand what's going on, and Grant seems to be playing it as at least 3/4 comedy. Also, "You're no fake, you're a genuine idiot" made/makes me LOL at any age.

just entertaining fluff though, no?

so many great images. you could blow up stills from that movie and hang them in a gallery.

"just"

Also, "You're no fake, you're a genuine idiot" made/makes me LOL at any age.

one of the better representations of screen embarrassment, and I love how the scene's irony depends on thinking Cary Grant would know exactly how to conduct himself in such settings.

this never fails to make my jaw drop:

https://freaksreviews.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/large_north_by_northwest_blu-ray2.jpg

NO, StillAdvance, you're thinking of the James Bond films that ripped it off for 50 years.

here: http://www.slantmagazine.com/film/review/north-by-northwest

i had a lot of fun watching it (i went to an OAP screening so was surrounded by 100s of excited pensioners). but i was struck that if that film were made today, it would prob... well i dont need to finish that sentence. but idk, when i think of hitchcock's greatest, i dont really think of northwest. but maybe im selling it short. its a great example of what hollywood does/did brilliantly. pure, frothy entertainment.

actually one of the weird things i noticed while watching it was how his 'gentlemanly innocence' is celebrated, or seen as a virtue. today, that would be a source of endless mockery.

Pretty strong froth tho, and best-remembered bits mock "strong" too, like Cary Grant starts strutting around like Popeye, and talking outta the side of his mouth, and clambering all over the mighty Rushmore headz of dead Prezez. But also, the ambush by the plane, in the middle of nowhere---what's he doing there, anyway? Is it a nightmare? No explanation that I recall. Lodged in the mind as a great set piece, and suspect it would even if (as may be) it's presented as plausible in context of thriller chess game. Who cares: awesome sauce.

i need to see more Eva Marie Saint films

O hell yes. Was gonna add: Social and psychological commentary, even attitude (mocking "strong," for inst) are just some of the ingredients (along means to the ends---even characters can be macguffins---for this creative showman and dealer in visual marvels.

aborted paren was going to mention visual marvels there

"No explanation that I recall."

there is an explanation.

i need to see more Eva Marie Saint films

― StillAdvance,

she was only in a few good ones

Eva Marie is still with us at age 92, nearly, and her DVD supp interviews are always fun and smart

i mean it makes no sense but there is an explanation. the bad guys send him there to supposedly wait for the mythical secret agent. even though the bad guys think that HE is the mythical secret agent.

at least she wasn't in The Fury :)

xxp

i mean i kinda love that they could just kill him in chicago but send him out to the middle of nowhere for no reason. it's my kinda nonsensical.

"a libation!"

xxpost Of course, the visuals wouldn't work as well if he didn't tap into his own sense of and need for dread, or that's the way it comes across.

"Truth iz/Thuh pur-fect/Diz-guise."---Kristofferson

the lack of coherence is pretty WTF, but it gets away with it, for reasons i cant totally remember, or maybe because it seduces you into wanting to let it get away with it (or just cos its hitchcock, and we are meant to do this)

he called coherence expecters "the Plausibles"

Never knew that, but I can hear it: "The Plohh-zibuhlz"

Maybe it did come from a dream originally---reminds me, Francis Coppola told an interviewer that he sold some early movies that way---Dementia 13 came from that pond dive, then he figured out a story to put it in. And David Lynch would ask his friends, "What would you think if you saw this (scene, image, text and/or storyboard) in a movie?"

Entertainment (Alverson, 2015)
Glory (Zwick, 1989)
Mouchette (Bresson, 1967)
*Blow-Up (Antonioni, 1966)
Phoenix (Kinoshita, 1947)
Wings (Shepitko, 1966)
A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence (Andersson, 2014)
Woman (Kinoshita, 1948)
Mysterious Skin (Araki, 2005)
The Snow Flurry (Kinoshita, 1959)
13 Assassins (Miike, 2010)

Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark (original--6.5)
Transcendence (5.0)
American Dreamer (6.5)
Casualties of War (10.0)
Sing Street (7.5)
Gone Girl (7.5)
The Secret Disco Revolution (5.5)
The Pulitzer at 100 (7.0)
Ginger in the Morning (3.0)
American Hustle (7.5)

Lots of great clips in The Secret Disco Revolution, but the narration and framing device are hopelessly awful.

weird batch here

nasty baby (silva 2015) 7/10
who took johnny (sukie hanley, Michael galinsky, david beilinson, 2014) 7/10
belladonna of sadness (eiichi samamoto '73) 9/10
the intruder (david bailey '99) 5/10
the grim reaper (bertolucci '62) 6/10
bus stop (josh logan '56) 6/10
break point (jay karas 2015) 8/10
camp xray (peter sattler 2014) 5/10
cheap thrills (e.l. katz 2013) 7/10
equinox flower (ozu '58) 8/10
gunshy (jeff celetano '98) 5/10
sleeping with other people (leslye headland 2015) 0/10
weapons (adam bhala lough '07) 6/10
girl on the motorcycle (Cardiff '68) 5/10

watched this a couple of days ago when i heard that he died. it's very cool! 8/10

r.i.p. peter hutton

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVnMguuS3vM

Oh my god the Spanish film ma ma (Penelope Cruz gets magic cancer) is so excruciatingly terrible

Carol (Haynes, 2015) 5/10
*Secret Admirer (Greenwalt, 1985) 4/10
The American Friend (Wenders, 1977) 6/10
Billy Boy (Mizer, 1970) 6/10
Where to Invade Next (Moore, 2015) 5/10
*The Opposite of Sex (Roos, 1998) 8/10
X-Men: Apocalypse (Singer, 2016) 5/10
The New Girlfriend (Ozon, 2015) 7/10
*Sunset Blvd. (Wilder, 1950) 9/10

Oh my god the Spanish film ma ma (Penelope Cruz gets magic cancer) is so excruciatingly terrible

I was minutes away from seeing this then checked the reviews, which are not generally the outright barometer for me, but you can't argue with like 20%. I love PC, but this looked woeful.

Symptoms (Larraz, 1974) 7/10
The Old Dark House (Castle, 1963) 5/10
Embrace of the Serpent (Guerra, 2015) 7/10
Rams (Hákonarson, 2015) 6/10
Tale of Tales (Garrone, 2015) 6/10
The Measure of a Man (Brizé, 2015) 8/10
Beat Girl (Gréville, 1960) 5/10
Last Train from Gun Hill (Sturges, 1959) 7/10

Central Intelligence 8/10
Our Kind of Traitor 6/10
Swiss Army Man 7/10

No Home Movie (Akerman, 2015) - film of the year.
Fear Eats the Soul (Fassbinder, 1972) - first time watching on the big screen where the framing of the camera is matched by distanced, cold, hateful gaze. More mirrowing -- a chill to see the racial hatred, talk of immigrants and 'all their rapes' from the mouths of the characters being aped by politicians today. Hits home.

*Jodorowsky's Dune
Lemonade
Tickled
The Last Detail
*Harold and Maude
M. Hulot's Holiday
*The Stunt Man

Those last four with my parents visiting for the long weekend; surprisingly, all but The Stunt Man were hits.

No Home Movie (Akerman, 2015) - film of the year

I would agree; this was devastating, and would have been even if it weren't, sadly, a coda to Akerman's work. It makes me especially want to see Dis-moi which seems to prefigure it in a lot of ways. How many filmmakers can convey such powerful sadness and unease with long still shots of empty rooms?

Kid Blue (1973, Frawley) 6/10
Private Property (1960, Stevens) 7/10
Cry ‘Havoc’ (1943, Thorpe) 5/10
*All Quiet on the Western Front (1930, Milestone) 9/10
*Right Now, Wrong Then (2015, Hong) 7/10
Nuts! (2016, Lane) 6/10
Raising Cain (1992, De Palma) 6/10
*The American Friend (1977, Wenders) 9/10
The Witness (2015, Solomon) 6/10
*Arabian Nights: Volume 1, The Restless One (2015, Gomes) 7/10
*Last Night At The Alamo (1983, Pennell) 8/10

lord of the rings fellowship 9/10
LOTR two towers 7/10
LOTR return of the king 7/10
already tomorrow in hong kong 7/10
the chosen ones (2015) 6/10
the jungle book (2016) 4/10
to the wonder 10/10
eternal sunshine of the spotless mind 7/10
tree of life 8/10
in the mood for love 8/10
knight of cups 6/10

*Last Night At The Alamo (1983, Pennell) 8/10

YAY! There's a benefit screening of the restoration here on Thursday, but tickets are $40 (and up). So I'll hold onto my bootleg DVD and continue to cherish my memories of seeing The Whole Shootin' Match in 2008 w/a panel discussion between Sonny Davis, Lou Perryman (RIP), and Kim Henkel before a small audience consisting of myself, a few Rice film students, and Davis' assorted siblings and nieces and nephews.