Last (x) movies you saw

I'm thinking Baumbach needs Greta Gerwig around or in his films.

As someone who doesn't find the art world intrinsically interesting, Baumbach didn't do much to show me why I should care about it, so most of the stuff about the father's career seemed a bit perfunctory. There are enough whimsical set-pieces and A-list acting chops to keep the thing chugging along though.

A Ghost Story (Lowery, 2017) 6/10
Chinatown (Polanski, 1974) 9/10
Personal Shopper (Assayas, 2016) 7/10
The Passenger (Antonioni, 1975) 7/10
Point Blank (Boorman, 1967) 8/10
Ugetsu (Mizoguchi, 1953) 7/10
Memories of Murder (Joon-Ho, 2003) 7/10
Paths of Glory (Kubrick, 1957) 8/10
The Naked City (Dassin, 1948) 6/10
A Brighter Summer Day (Yang, 1991) 10/10
Terrorizers (Yang, 1986) 9/10
On Body and Soul (Enyedi, 2017) 7/10
Lucky (Lynch, 2017) 6/10
The Lobster (Lanthimos, 2015) 5/10
Suspicion (Hitchcock, 1941) 6/10

I need to watch Chinatown again soon. Perfect autumn movie for me (for some reason)...

Wonderstruck (Haynes, 2017)
Bumping Into Broadway (Roach, 1919)
Broadway Ballyhoo (Mack, 1935)
Marie Galante (King, 1934)
Officer O'Brien (Garnett, 1930)
Tonka of the Gallows (Anton, 1930)
Bad Girl (Borzage, 1931)
The Royal Bed (Sherman, 1931)

Tried to watch The Purge: Election Year and bailed after 20 minutes. The writing and acting were roughly on the level of a mid-'90s Wicked Pictures production (say, the one where Jenna Jameson plays a firefighter).

An American Werewolf in London (1981) 2.5/5
Raw (2016) 3/5
Kill Baby, Kill (1966; rewatch) 3.5/5
The Seventh Victim (1943; rewatch) 3.5/5
Bedlam (1946) 3/5
Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers: Runnin' Down a Dream (2007) 3.5/5
Blade Runner 2049 (2017) 3/5
Wuthering Heights (1939) 3.5/5
Heat (1995; rewatch) 4/5

Boy in the World
My Life as a Zucchini
Miss Hokusai
April and the Extraodinary World

(all good. all Gkids animation now on Netflix)

Days of Heaven* - 8/10
Viceroy’s House - 5/10
Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House - 4/10
Blade Runner 2049 - 9/10
Lucky - 7/10
Possession* - 6/10
The Florida Project - 7/10
Victoria & Abdul - 7/10
Goodbye Christopher Robin - 6/10
Suburbicon - 8/10

that's the first positive review of suburbicon i've seen

it was great. SO much darker & more twisted than advertised. it was obvious why the Coen abandoned it, the story was a dry run for Fargo. it's flawed by a racial subplot that does not connect to the main story at all in any meaningful way and could be cut without making the movie any less coherent, but the meat of the movie is really nice and pulpy and realllllllly fucking evil. I understand why it got trashed, especially by audiences: people generally hate movies with misleading advertising, especially when the movie is much bleaker than the studio let on. I love that shit though. I mean, even minor Coens is better than 80% of the shit currently in theaters at any time.

that trailer looks like trash mate

also fuckin clooney's cutesy aping of their style--blegh

yeah i saw the trailer a few times, makes the movie look like a tame Burn After Reading/A Serious Man repeat, but man, you gotta see it to believe it. It is SO fucked up. and the evil is compounded by the very colorful & straightforward & welcoming mise en scène, unlike the vast desolation & permafrost & realistic presentation of Fargo. re: Clooney aping their style - well, it is from their script, so I didn't care. I think it's a really strong Coens b-side, and definitely worth seeing if you're a fan.

ok, i will watch it if it's on an airplane or something. for you

thank you. that is pretty much exactly what this movie deserves

*The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Wiene, 1920) 8/10
Born Yesterday (Cukor, 1950) 7/10
The Changeling (Medak, 1980) 6/10
Baby Driver (Wright, 2017) 5/10
Peeping Tom (Powell, 1960) 7/10
The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (Argento, 1970) 7/10
The Blackcoat's Daughter (Perkins, 2016) 4/10

i must quarrel w/ Peeping Tom getting less than 10

I'm genuinely wondering if part of my reaction isn't just "NO WAY is this the equal of Psycho!" That said, the neighbor's persistent ignoring of red flags did stretch credibility for me (Psycho, and Taxi Driver, for that matter, have more believably swift heroines), but I'm willing to concede that this might grow on me with a second viewing. Which it'll likely get; at the very least, I'll be checking the DVD out of library again to hear the Laura Mulvey commentary.

at home the last month or so-

Putney Swope - 10/10
North by Northwest - 8/10
Rosemary’s Baby - 10/10
RoboCop - 8/10
Love Liza - 9/10
3 Women - 9/10
Notorious - 8/10
Psycho - 7/10
Repulsion - 3/10
Persona - 8/10
Blade Runner: The Final Cut - 4/10
The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) - 8/10
All That Heaven Allows - 10/10
Dont Look Back - 9/10
Ali: Fear Eats the Soul - 9/10
Zelig - 7/10
Cries and Whispers - 10/10
Strangers on a Train - 9/10
Picnic at Hanging Rock - 5/10
Shadow of a Doubt - 10/10
Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! - 8/10
Saboteur - 8/10
Wild Strawberries - 9/10
His Girl Friday - 6/10
Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown - 8/10
Cat People - 8/10
One Hour With You - 7/10
Belle de Jour - 9/10
All That Jazz - 10/10
Eating Raoul - 10/10

great month!

Charaluta (Ray, 1964) 8/10
The Stone Killer (Winner, 1973) 7/10
Le Trou (Becker, 1960) 9/10
Get Out (Peele, 2017) 8/10
The National Health (Gold, 1973) 6/10
A Day in the Death of Joe Egg (Medak, 1972) 5/10
The Square (Ostlund, 2017) 6/10
Wanda (Loden, 1970) 9/10
On Her Majesty's Secret Service (Hunt, 1969) 6/10
Three Colours: White (Kieslowski, 1994) 7/10
Blade Runner 2049 (Villeneuve, 2017) 6/10
The Death of Stalin (Iannucci, 2017) 7/10
Diamonds are Forever (Hamilton, 1970) 5/10
Thor: Ragnarok (Waititi, 2017) 7/10

Repulsion - 3/10

Damn.

that's an awesome selection of movies, fb. are they all first viewings?

Except Dont Look Back and Women on the Verge..., yes. Having a ball

Alien (director's cut) - 9/10

i don't know what's different from the regular one, seemed like they showed the alien more idk

/Repulsion - 3/10/

Damn.

Psycho - 7/10

the Van Sant version?

nope, Hitchcock's. Unfortunately through cultural osmosis, the shower scene's impact & unusual structure that followed was totally blunted for me. The interminable expository monologue at the end by the attorney explaining Bates' condition was grating, but I understand that it was necessary for audiences in 1960. One thing that lost none of its power through cultural omnipresence was the incredible score.

Cat People and Blade Runner:TFC scores got reversed lol?

ha, no- i was not into Blade Runner at all, which was surprising... I'm a huge PKD fan, and while Do Androids... isn't one of my favorites, not even in my top 15, I thought I would like the movie for its Dickian atmosphere... I just didn't dig it at all, beyond a few perfect details (the pneumatic empathy machine in the beginning, the cityscape, the sound design), I thought it was tedious and surprisingly devoid of action...

Cat People was great, that one was a birthday present. maybe a 7 though. also lol don't know why i said 7 for Zelig, that shit was a 5 or 6

Alien (director's cut) - 9/10

i don't know what's different from the regular one, seemed like they showed the alien more idk

― brimstead, Wednesday, November 1, 2017 4:18 PM (forty-five minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

iirc the differences are they show the colony at the beginning and Newt's dad getting facehugged, there's the automatic guns set up to guard the tunnel, and there's more near the beginning w/Ripley getting acclimated to having returned (finding out her daughter has died and so on, etc...)

so, wait, you saw Aliens, not the first one.

Psycho is a whole different deal on a big theater screen btw, much more than many of his other films

hang on i never even realized there was an ALIEN director's cut

it was def the first one, there was no "game over, man"

Psycho is a whole different deal on a big theater screen btw, much more than many of his other films

― ice cream social justice (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, November 1, 2017 1:11 PM (five minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I can see that - whenever a Hitchcock screens in town, I'm there, no matter how minor.

biggest difference with alien (singular) director's cut is that it has the cocoon scene. doesn't quite make sense in the place it's inserted into.

Insiang (Brocka, 1977)
Two in the Wave (Laurent, 2010)
*Head (Rafelson, 1968)
Teeth (short - Brown, Gray, 2015)
Tord and Tord (short - Von Bahr, 2010)
Gap-Toothed Women (short - Blank, 1987)
The Seventh Continent (Haneke, 1989)
Doodlebug (short - Nolan, 1997)
The Edge of the World (Powell, 1937) 9/10, amazing photography of the Hebrides
A Woman Is a Woman (Godard, 1961)
The Sacrifice (Tarkovsky, 1986)

The Old Dark House (Whale, 1932)
Variety (Dupont, 1925) **
*A Page of Madness (Teinosuke Kinugasa, 1926) **
The Lost World (Hoyt, 1925) **
Strike (Eisenstein, 1925) **
*The Gold Rush (Chaplin, 1925)
How Stars Are Made (Blystone, 1916)
Her Anniversaries (Drew, 1917)
Rowdy Ann (Christie, 1919)
Her First Flame (Becker, 1920)
A Thrilling Romance (Robbins, 1926)
The Butcher Boy (Arbuckle, 1917)
The Rough House (Arbuckle & Keaton, 1917)
His Wedding Night (Arbuckle, 1917)
*Coney Island (Arbuckle, 1917)

** Accompaniment by the Alloy Orchestra

Okja (2017, Bong) 7/10
*Ghost World (2001, Zwigoff) 8/10
*Far from Heaven (2002, Haynes) 10/10
*The 10th Victim (1965, Petri) 6/10
Ikarie XB 1 (1963, Polák) 7/10
Bend of the River (1952, Mann) 7/10
Winchester ’73 (1950, Mann) 9/10
God’s Own Country (2017, Lee) 7/10
*The Errand Boy (1961, Lewis) 7/10
False Faces (1932, Sherman) 6/10
Wonderstruck (2017, Haynes) 5/10
Faces Places (2017, Varda, JR) 7/10

Lady Bird (Gerwig, 2017) 8/10
Wonderstruck (2017, Haynes) 6/10
Lucky (2017, Lynch) 5/10
Meantime (1983, Leigh) 7/10
Late Chrysanthemums (Naruse, 1954) 8/10

i found Nocturama underwhelming

Shoot; that's about my favorite movie I've seen all year.

MUBI:
Under the Sign of Satan (Pialat, 1987)
Making Plans for Lena (Christopher Honore, 2009)

Cinema:
Floating Clouds (Naruse, 1955)

Wild Life (Kahn)
Marguerite & Julien (Donzelli)*
The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum (Schlöndorff & von Trotta)
The American Friend (Wenders)
Wings of Desire (Wenders)*
Faraway, So Close! (Wenders)
Christiane F - We Children of Bahnhof Zoo (Edel)
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (Tykwer)
Made in U.S.A. (Godard)
La Chinoise (Godard)
Tout va Bien (Godard)
Numéro Deux (Godard)
Monty Python’s Meaning of Life (Jones)*
The Square (Östlund)
My 20th Century (Enyedi)
Winter Campaign (Enyedi)
The Magic Hunter (Enyedi)
Simon, The Magician (Enyedi)
On Body and Soul (Enyedi)
Damnation (Tarr)*
The Age of Innocence (Scorsese)
The Lobster (Lanthimos)*
The Killing of a Sacred Deer (Lanthimos)
Lumumba, The Death of a Prophet (Peck)
The Young Karl Marx (Peck)
Human Flow (Ai)
Eruptia (Ciulei)
The Danube Waves (Ciulei)
Forest of the Hanged (Ciulei)
The Shining (Kubrick)*

I've never seen an Enyedi film. Anything worthwhile?

My 20th Century is kinda incredible in it's own way, black/white counter narrative of the 20th century which includes digressions told by a chimpanzee or two stars in the sky. Winter Campaign is a really strange experimental documentary which is worth seeing if you can find it. On Body and Soul is fine for what it is, not the best Golden Bear winner ever, but a sweet art film with beautiful imagery. Avoid The Magic Hunter, even though it was executive produced by David Bowie.

Streaming:

Requiem for a Village (David Gladwell, 1975) - has elements of film, doc and a curious use of slow-motion. There is a reclamation of a radical English countryside here. I loved the two sequences, one after another: 1) a colonel agitating the elderly troops in a church followed by 2) villagers rising up from their graves. Politics and magic side-by-side.

Film:

Still Life (Shoaib Shahid Saless, 1974) - saw it in a retro yesterday and its an increadible work. This is a year before Jean Dielman and there are connections to be drawn in the static shots of a very sterile domesticity that is transformed under the microscope. What is underneath is never far away, the outside world is never kept fully out - and when this hits a rupture is created. The last shot is unforgettable.

Requiem for a Village is on youtube as well, getting good Le Quattro Volte vibes from that opening sequence.

It's very good so far, but the grave stuff reminds me of those appalling Stanley Spencer paintings.

Never come across them before..