Last (x) movies you saw

And now I'm re-watching John Carpenter's Prince of Darkness, which I find legitimately frightening for some reason.

It's spooky and underrated, despite being (or maybe because it is?) half-baked.

The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum (Mizoguchi, 1939)
The Machine That Kills Bad People (Rossellini, 1952)
Street of Sham (Mizoguchi, 1956)
Q Planes (Whelan, 1939)
Nosferatu the Vampyre (Herzog, 1979)
*The Fly (Cronenberg, 1986)
The Devils (Russell, 1971)

Midnight Special (Nichols, 2016) 5/10
*Suspicion (Hitchcock, 1941) 7/10
Everybody Wants Some!! (Linklater, 2016) 7/10
*Hugo (Scorsese, 2011) 4/10
45 Years (Haigh, 2015) 7/10
The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution (Nelson, 2015) 6/10
Zootopia (Howard and Moore, 2016) 8/10
*Pan’s Labyrinth (del Toro, 2006) 9/10
Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead: The Story of the National Lampoon (Tirola, 2015) 6/10
The VVitch (Eggers, 2016) 7/10
*Slumdog Millionaire (Boyle, 2008) 3/10

*rewatch

Julietta (Almodovar, 2016) - really good and I've a friend who looks like the lead (older versh, who happened to text me asking whether I wanted to see it while I was in the cinema).
El Sur (Erice, 1983) - loved the father's evasions.
Nathalie Granger (Duras, 1972) - the space, I mean the emptiness is half-way realised. Friend I was with rightly pointed out Depardieu's character was forced.

El Sur (Erice, 1983) - loved the father's evasions.

For some reason while watching this I kept thinking that the father (and the actor playing him) could've stepped in from a Jess Franco film, which gave the film a kind of Spanish Gothic edge throughout - that genre feeling, plus the stuff w/ the pendulum and that great scene when the father and the daughter were water divining. Think it's interesting how both of Erice's fiction films edge up to horror and the allure of the dark - all those shadows, dark costumes. Spanish cinema has a lot of houses, and they're all haunted.

Yes.

I was so tired I fell asleep at points..the allusions to the Spanish civil war were so litghtly worked over as if it was a pleasant dream you forget as soon as you wake up, rather than a horrifying nightmare you remember for years afterwards.

The final Father-Daughter conversation was just perfect.

Nina (Clarke, 1978) 7/10
Cafe Society (Allen, 2016) 5/10
Beloved Enemy (Clarke, 1981) 6/10
Hell or High Water (Mackenzie, 2016) 6/10
El Sur (Erice, 1983) 8/10
Psy-Warriors (Clarke, 1981) 6/10
Baal (Clarke, 1982) 6/10
Stars of the Roller State Disco (Clarke, 1984) 4/10
Contact (Clarke, 1985) 8/10

Watched MISHIMA: A LIFE IN FOUR CHAPTERS (Schrader, 1985) last night - really impressed with it. It didn't move me as such, but its art and its attempt to capture Mishima's complexity were pretty noble, and worked adroitly around some pretty . Having read some of the negative reviews I suspect you get from it what you bring to it in terms of understanding him, so maybe not a success in that aspect. But the novel excerpts were so vividly and beautifully staged, and the score is classic. I think Schrader confronted a few of his own dichotomies (esp words vs action, surely a driver for every writer) and was good enough to bring us along.

ack, "worked adroitly around some pretty tight restrictions from his widow", I meant.

I'm a huge fan of Joe Dante, but had never seen Looney Tunes: Back in Action. Maybe I expected the worst, but just watched it with my younger one and we has a blast. Made me laugh a lot, and the in-jokes are ace.

Was just talking to someone about Schrader this weekend. She had been unaware of his religious upbringing and said knowing that put American Gigolo in a whole different light.

Against all my better impulses I went to a free preview of war on everyone, it is sophomoric unfunny tryhard bollocks (I know, who could have predicted?). Difficult to believe more than 10 years have passed since the death of guy ritchie from syphilitic dementia and yet you still encounter these people who think it's like the coolest smartest thing ever to have all your characters randomly recite facts the screenwriter knows. Sample of "witty" dialogue from this film:

-- who's doing the pickup?
-- the artist formerly known as prince, how the fuck should I know?

^I'd have been embarrassed to write this line in 1993, let alone today. I was eight in 1993. I have learned my lesson at this point and will never watch a film by a person named mcdonagh again.

With the exception of 'Calvary' everything the McDonagh's have done is total bollocks

Going to see "The Lieutenant of Inishmore" in the Cork Opera House a few years ago has probably put me off going to the theatre for life

Lucky to catch a screening of "Dead Slow Ahead" tonight: http://cinema-scope.com/cinema-scope-magazine/two-years-at-sea-an-interview-with-mauro-herce/.

Hypnotic and spooky documentary about life aboard a freighter. The guy who introduced the film said he thought it had elements of horror, but I thought it was more existential. Gorgeous images.

the jerk (reiner '79) 9/10
Caligula (tinto brass '79) 2/10
white girl (Elizabeth wood '16) 8/10
portnoy's complaint (ernest lehman '72) 7/10
cockfighter (hellman '74) 5/10
gia (Michael cristofer '98) 4/10

Elle ( Verhoeven) 8/10 -- Twisted and funny. Isabelle Huppert nimbly carries the whold damn thing on her shoulders. She puts most current film actors to shame.

*The Front (1976, Ritt) 6/10
Paterson (2016, Jarmusch) 8/10
Dawson City: Frozen Time (2016, Morrison) 8/10
*Day for Night (1973, Truffaut) 7/10
The Last Sunset (1961, Aldrich) 6/10
Death Is a Caress (1949, Carlmar) 7/10
The Thief and the Cobbler: A Moment in Time (1993, Williams) 7/10
*Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (1970, Jireš) 6/10
Henry Gamble’s Birthday Party (2015, Cone) 5/10
Apache (1954, Aldrich) 6/10

One Sings, the Other Doesn't (Agnes Varda, 1977) - This is one of the very best re-screenings I'll attend this year. I loved how well-drawn the intimate friendship was (and how well that was played by the leads). This was surrounding the women's movement but it showed the inner-workings of a politics: what are the outcomes of living your life in that way. This is especially so when Pauline has a relationship with a Westernized liberal Iranian man - what attracts, repels, the choices there are made (and there are choices, no one is trapped into anything although there is duty, that balancing act is worked through). A great scene where Pauline, in Iran, is wearing the veil and feels "closer to her body than ever". Incredible thing to hear given the climate in 2016.

The songs were funny and Varda was at her documentarian best when getting reaction from the locals: a mixture of applause (but were they hearing what they were singing about?) and indifference.

I'm trying to watch a new (to me, obviously) horror movie every day in October, and while I'm two days behind thanks to, you know, life, I'm hoping to catch up over the weekend. So far, it's been:
The Guest (Wingard, 2014)- 3.5/5
Body Melt (Brophy, 1993)- 2.5/5
The Nightmare (Ascher, 2015)- 3.5/5
Slugs (Simón, 1988)- 1.5/5

And the tentative shortlist for the next week and a bit:
Baskin
The VVVVVVitch
Shakma
Torso
Magic
Requiem for a Vampire
Marebito
Toad Road
Argento's Dracula

Argento Dracula is hiiiiiilarious

Marebito is pretty decent.

Skeleton Coast (Cardos, 1987)
The Sugarland Express (Spielberg, 1974)
The Gray Fox (Borsos, 1983)
Pumping Iron II: The Women (Butler, 1985)
Mysterious Island (Endfield, 1961)

Got about an hour into Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Journey To The Shore and lost interest.

Thanks again to Chris L for identifying The Great Silence from my vague description of cowboys in the snowy mountains. It's pretty good. A mute hero Jean-Louis Trintignant, Klaus Kinski as the villain, lovely Morricone music. A bit of a downer (there was an alternate happy ending included on dvd, made for north American and Asian audiences)but still quite pleasant for the setting, music and love scenes. There is an incredibly stupid moment where the sheriff tries to punch Kinski and somehow forgets the prison bars between them and hurts his hand.

Kubo and the Two Strings (2016) 5

The Last Broadcast (1998) 3
“X” (Corman, 1963) 7
Zootopia (various, 2016) 7
Xanadu (1980) 5
*Big Top Pee-Wee (Kleiser, 1988) 4
Deadpool (2016) 3
Court Jester, the (1955) 4
Witch, the (Eggers, 2015) 6
It Came From Beneath the Sea (1955) 2
Attack of the 50 Foot Woman (1958) 3
Island of Lost Souls (Kenton, 1932) 6
Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors (1965) 4
Basket Case (Henenlotter, 1982) 6
Fright Night (1985) 5

Saw The Accountant this weekend. The "absurd coincidences" called out in the negative reviews I read are no weirder or worse than others in the genre - they're par for the course, in fact, and were telegraphed all the way along by the movie's parallel structure. And really, come on: If you're going to see a movie about a guy who's simultaneously a brilliant accountant and a super-assassin, you've already agreed to absorb a significant degree of implausibility. So the question isn't whether the movie is "realistic" - it's whether the movie is internally logical and consistent. Does it play by the rules it's set for itself? The Accountant does. So if you're in the mood for a high concept crime thriller, go see it.

No Home Movie (--)
American Psycho (6.5)
Fight Club (4.0)
Putney Swope (7.0)
Dr. Strangelove (8.0)
Fail-Safe (6.5)
The Game (5.5)
Mother, Jugs & Speed (6.0)
Eight Days a Week (6.5)
The California Kid (5.5)

what's the blank for NHM mean -- jury out?

I didn't get anything out of it. I balk at giving a film like that a rating for some reason.

Have you watched Akerman's other work? It might help. I watched No Home Movie after Jeanne Dielman, The Captive, and several other docs conditioned me to her rhythms.

Took three tries over a number of years, but I did come to like (if that's the right word) Jeanne Dielman, or at least loved talking about it with my grade 6 class that year; had an easier time with News from Home, and that's all I've seen. I respect how personal a film No Home Movie is, appreciate the extra resonance of her own death, and realize that it does exactly what it sets out to do. But the truth is I found it tedious.

You showed it to your kids? That's awesome.

No, no--just a four-minute clip, just to see what their reaction would be. It's been my experience the last few years that eleven-year-olds get restless watching Gremlins.

They do?! Man, eleven-year-olds have changed since I was eleven...

köpek (işik 2015, 5/10)
the ballad of genesis and lady jaye (losier 2011, 6/10)
avengers: age of ultron (whedon 2015, 5/10)
full moon over paris (rohmer 84, 8/10)
tout une nuit (akerman 82, 8/10)
what we do in the shadows (clement and taiti 2014, 7/10)
x-men (singer 2000, 6/10)
the misfits (huston 61, 8/10)
x2: x-men united (singer 2003, 6/10)
diva (beineix 81, 7/10)

I feel like with any other set of actors, The Misfits's screenplay would come across as heavy-handed, but Monroe's performance is just so poignant, and the concluding desert sequence has a nightmarish vividness.

Ingrid Bergman In Her Own Words (Bjorkman, 2016) 7/10
Bone Tomahawk (Zahler, 2016) 8/10
When Marnie Was There (Honebayashi, 2014) 7/10
Deadpool (Millar, 2016) 7/10
Jane Got a Gun (O'Conner, 2016) 6/10
Tale of Tales (Garrone, 2015) 9/10
Blair Witch (Wingard, 2016) 4/10

rw:
Down and Out in Beverley Hills (Mazursky, 1986) 5/10
Jaws 2 (Szwarc, 1978) 5/10
Psychomania (Sharp, 1973) 5/10
The Martian (Scott, 2015) 7/10

3 tens here. I'm feeling generous today.

Black Narcissus (Powell & Pressberger, 1947) 10/10
Johnny Guitar (Ray, 1954) 8/10
The Return of the Pink Panther (Edwards, 1975) 7/10
I Know Where I'm Going (Powell & Pressberger, 1945) 10/10
Great Expectations (Lean, 1946) 9/10
Network (Lumet, 1976) 10/10
Hard Eight (Anderson, 1996) 7/10
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (Reeves, 2014) 6/10
Mad Max: Fury Road (Miller, 2015) 8/10
Star Trek Beyond (Lin, 2016) 5/10

I think "Network" deserves a 10

Shakma (Logan & Parks, 1990) 1.5/5
Poltergeist ("Hooper," 1982) 3/5
Shin Godzilla (Anno/Higuchi/Onoue, 2016) 3.5/5

The Revenant - 7.81/10
Children of Men - 8.85/10
Deadpool - 6.65/10

"Queen of Katwe" (Mira Nair, 2016): I love movies like this, ostensibly for kids but not *just* for kids or compromised for kids. Also great to see a pretty much entirely African cast, with a couple of Oscar winner/nominee ringers (David Oyelowo and Lupita Wyong’o) alongside what must be newcomers and amateurs. Filmed on location in Uganda and South Africa, with all of Nair's vibrant colors fully resplendent. Formulaic based on a true story stuff? I suppose. But in its own way also pretty radical, especially for Disney. The perfect film to see with my two young girls.

The Man Who Left His Will on Film (3.5/5)
Upstream Color (4/5)
Sully (3.5/5)
Don't Breathe (3/5)
Hell or High Water (3.5/5)
Indignation (3.5/5)
Parallax Sounds (3/5)
Grin Without a Cat (5/5)

Some of the festival circuit stuff is finally making its way to Phoenix. Kate Plays Christine and Certain Women both open this week, looking forward to seeing those. Moonlight will in a few weeks too, they had the poster up at the expensive Scottsdale luxury art theater last time I was there.

glad to hear Queen of Katwe was good, I feel like filmheads just decided to stop caring about Mira Nair a decade ago

Talk about not caring, this is Lupita Nyong’o's first major role since winning an Oscar. Of all the actors who should be doing more than cartoon voices ...

she was really good in it

I saw it pretty much accidentally, I went to a preview knowing nothing about it and my heart kinda sank when I realised it was a kids' film and an inspirational underdog story to boot. It won me over by the end tho

Watched Bloody kids the 1980 Stephen Poliakoff film that I've had sitting around for the last couple of months. Think i saw it when it was first on tv and have half remembered bits of it since. Especially a scene with a bunch of youth on a bus. Way I remembered it from seeing it when i was a preteen wasn't the way it actually happened.
But interesting gritty teen drama set in some seaside town I think. Atmospheric I thought.
I grabbed this because I'd suggested it when somebody I know was looking for punk films, which this sin't really but it does have a lot of punks around in it.

Star Trek Beyond, got a decent version of this recently so finally got around to seeing it. It's ok. Kind of enjoyable I guess.

manchester by the sea - bit long, casey affleck is great
i, daniel blake - not a huge fan of ken loach but despite suffering from some of the things i bemoan in his other films - on the nose political messages, one-note gifted or saintly working class protagonists - there was something very austere and heartbreaking about this movie