Last (x) movies you saw (II)

Zama (Martel): This was really cool
Voyage of the Rock Aliens: I recommend this if you like b-movie musicals like Rocky Horror, The Apple, etc.

May 2021

Cruel Story of Youth (Oshima, 1960) 8/10
The Friends of Eddie Coyle (Yates, 1973) 8/10
*Escape from New York (Carpenter, 1981) 8/10
*Touch of Evil (Welles, 1958) 8/10
Crock of Gold: A Few Rounds with Shane McGowan (Temple, 2020) 7/10
Mayor (Osit, 2020) 8/10
One From The Heart (Copolla, 1982) 8/10
*The Outsiders (Copolla, 1983) 7/10
*Hard Boiled (Woo, 1992) 8/10
National Gallery (Wiseman, 2014) 6/10
*LA Confidential (Hanson, 1997) 8/10
*The Elephant Man (Lynch, 1980) 7/10
Drifters (Grierson, 1929) 8/10
The Club (Beresford, 1980) 8/10

The Virginian (Fleming, 1929)
The Lost Special (MacRae, 1932)
Unknown Blonde (Henley, 1934)
Devil and the Deep (Gering, 1932)
The Tong Man (Worthington, 1919)
Arabian Tights (Roach, 1933)
The Man in the Hat (Warbeck & Davidson, 2020)
King Kong Escapes (Honda, 1967)
*Mabel's Dramatic Career (Sennett, 1913)
*Dog Shy (McCarey, 1926)

Army of the Dead was...well, pretty much exactly what I expected it to be, right down to its 2 1/2 hour running time (Zack Snyder, y'know). Not a spoiler, really, but you know how you're supposed to tuck your pants into your boots when walking in tick-infested areas? Well, maybe when you're going to run through an army of zombies, you should wear a shirt with sleeves. Just a thought. Also, the dorks complaining that Tig Notaro looks excessively punched-in are only saying that because the movie's advance marketing material tipped them off that it happened. If they hadn't said anything about it, and the "story" was reduced to Chris D'Elia tweeting, "WTF? I was *in* that movie, I swear!", no one would have noticed because the whole goddamn thing is a CGI cartoon anyway. When 85% of your movie is green screen already, jumping that up to 87% is Not A Big Deal.

Signed up for HBO Max and finally watched The Conjuring, which I've been meaning to check out for a while. James Wan speaks the language of horror cinema better than almost anybody around right now; I expected lol70s cheese, but this thing is no-fucking-around scary. If you're in the mood for old-school horror (I strongly suspect more of the effects were practical than digital) with really good performances all around, especially Lili Taylor, it's kind of a must-see. The most genuinely frightening horror movie I've seen since Prince of Darkness.

The Kiss Before the Mirror (Whale, 1933)
Black Panthers (Varda, 1968)
Big Time Or Bust (Newfield, 1933)
The Woman Accused (Sloane, 1933)
Fighting With Kit Carson (Schaefer & Clark, 1933)
Saute Ma Ville (Akerman, 1968)
Riders of Justice (Jensen, 2020)
The Frozen Ghost (Young, 1945)
Do Me a Favor (Chase, 1922)
*An Eye for Figures (1920)

Klute (Pakula, 1971) 8/10 BLU-RAY
All That Jazz (Fosse, 1979) 7/10 DVD
Hue and Cry (Crichton, 1947) 7/10 DVD
The Return of Frank James (Lang, 1940) 7/10 DVD
Nurse on Wheels (Thomas, 1963) 4/10 TALKING PICTURES TV
The Ghost of St Michael's (Varnel, 1941) 5/10 VIMEO (Will Hay, Charles Hawtrey in Scotland)
Born in Flames (Lizzie Borden, 1983) 8/10 MUBI
Oasis of Fear (Lenzi, 1971) 6/10 DVD
A Bay of Blood (Bava, 1971) 7/10 DVD
Island of Death (Mastorakis, 1976) 6/10 DVD
Donovan's Reef (Ford, 1963) 5/10 DVD
Axe (Friedel, 1974) 5/10 DVD (aka Lisa, Lisa aka California Axe Massacre)
The Old Dark House (Whale, 1932) 9/10 BLU-RAY
The Spy Who Loved Me (Gilbert, 1977) 7/10 DVD
Dead & Buried (Sherman, 1981) 8/10 DVD
Man of the Moment (Carstairs, 1955) 5/10 DVD (Norman Wisdom's 3rd feature film)
The Black Room (Neill, 1935) 8/10 BLU-RAY
The Man They Could Not Hang (Grinde, 1939) 6/10 BLU-RAY
Moonraker (Gilbert, 1979) 7/10 DVD
The Funhouse (Hooper, 1981) 6/10 BLU-RAY
Aurora (Puiu, 2010) 7/10 DVD
Morocco (Von Sternberg, 1930) 8/10 BLU-RAY

bmud 'nikcuf ooooos saw TENET was sooooo fuckin' dumb

Lymelife (7.0)
The Eyes of Laura Mars (3.5)
Sons of Sam (6.0)
Best Friends (5.0)
Suspect (6.0)
Them (Season 1 - 6.5)
Stories We Tell (7.0)
Beautiful Girls (5.0)
Georgy Girl (6.0)
Little Fires Everywhere (Season 1 - 7.0)

I liked most of Little Fires Everywhere a little more than that, but the final episode got hysterical towards the end.

The Last Unicorn (Rankin-Bass, 1982) 5/10 better than any of their stop-motion movies
Weekends (Jimenez, 2017)
Anemic Cinema (Duchamp, 1926)
The Last Detail (Ashby, 1973) 8/10
The Mitchells vs. The Machines (Rianda, 2021) 7/10 jokes about parents not understanding the internet are tied to a very specific era that's on its way out
Light is Calling (Morrison, 2004)
Bill & Ted Face the Music (2020) 6/10
Remain Seated Please - The Hoot and Chief Story (the defunctland guy, 2019)
*Jesus Camp (Ewing and Grady, 2006) 7/10
Dodsworth (Wyler, 1936) 8/10 the best wyler i've seen. not saying much.
Feels Good Man (Jones, 2020) 8/10
Army of the Dead (Riefenstahl, 2021) 3/10
Us (Peele, 2019) 7/10 potent imagery but the overly literal explanation doesn't work this time
Mean Girls (Waters, 2004) 7/10 one of those cultural touchstones i had avoided. it has some good tina fey jokes.

feeling good about Feels Good Man feels so bad since Furie went NFT

also lol leni

Riefen-Stall The Footage As Much As Possible

Had to check; Zack Snyder not a Jew actually.

True Confession (Ruggles, 1937) - 5/10
…And Justice for All (Jewison, 1979) - 6/10
Picture Mommy Dead (Gordon, 1966) - 4/10
The Projectionist (Ferrara, 2019) - 7/10
*A Married Woman (Godard, 1964) - 8/10
Manhandled (Dwan, 1924) - 8/10
Source Code (Jones, 2011) - 8/10
*Rio Bravo (Hawks, 1959) - 10/10
Election (To, 2005) - 8/10
*My Darling Clementine (Ford, 1946) - 10/10
*The Merchant of Four Seasons (Fassbinder, 1971) - 10/10
*Love is Colder Than Death (Fassbinder, 1969) - 8/10
The Woman in the Window (Wright, 2021) - 7/10
Switchblade Sisters (Hill, 1975) - 10/10
Four Sons (Ford, 1928) - 8/10
Fassbinder in Hollywood (Fischer, 2002) - 8/10
P.T.U. (To, 2003) - 8/10
A Couch in New York (Akerman, 1996) - 5/10
Trash Humpers (Korine, 2009) - 9/10
The Sweetest Thing (Kumble, 2002) - 3/10
*Mulholland Drive (Lynch, 2001) - 10/10
Scoop (Allen, 2006) - 6/10
Syndicate Sadists (Lenzi, 1975) - 7/10
The Specialists (Corbucci, 1969) - 8/10
When a Woman Ascends the Stairs (Naruse, 1960) - 9/10
*Young Mr. Lincoln (Ford, 1939) - 10/10
*Through a Glass Darkly (Bergman, 1961) - 10/10

The Battle of the Sexes (Griffith, 1928)
Woman Unafraid (Cowen, 1934)
The Man and the Moment (Fitzmaurice, 1929)
Manhandled (Dwan, 1924)
Cult of the Cobra (Lyon, 1955)
The Speedy Marriage (Ludwig, 1925)
Plagues And Puppy Love (Semon, 1917)
*Her First Flame (Becker, 1920)

Daughter of the Nile (Hou, 1987)
L'Infer (Bromberg, 2009)
Touchez pas au grisbi (Becker, 1954)
Kung Fu Master (Varda, 1988)
The Structure of Crystal (Zanussi, 1975)
JFK (Stone, 1991)
La Notte (Antonioni, 1961)
Jerichow (Petzold, 2008)
The Joker (Phillips, 2019)
Appropriate Behaviour (Akhavan, 2014)

Just saw In The Heights, In The Theatre. First movie going experience in a year and a half? Something like that. It was a fundraiser, and the (small) theatre was privately rented out, but mostly full, so it was more or less a familiar movie going experience. Pretty enjoyable movie, too. Perfectly timed for a post covid (relatively speaking) coming out.

Peking Opera Blues (1986) 4/5
Gypsy 83 (2001) 1/5
A Week's Vacation (1980) 3.5/5
The Celluloid Closet (1995) 3/5
Kelly's Heroes (1970) 3/5
La Piscine (1969) 4/5. First repertory screening in a theater since late 2019.
* The Blade (1995) 5/5
The Great McGinty (1940) 3.5/5
When Pigs Fly (1993) 3/5 - Robby Müller winter photography is the draw here.
Destry Rides Again (1939) 4/5
Nobody (2021) 2.5/5. Bob Odenkirk doing Death Wish is intriguing to me. Bob being a John Wick clone from the beginning of the movie is a bridge too far.

Some shorts:
A Day in Barbagia (1958) 4/5
The Dick Tracy Special (2009) - Warren Beatty cobbled together Leonard Maltin and some 2000s-era improv performers as a flimsy excuse to retain his rights to the character (while trying to appear self-effacing).
The Human Voice (2020) 2.5/5 - Tilda is not very good here.

The Devil Is Driving (Stoloff, 1932)
Henry the Ache (McCarey, 1934)
The Reformers (Griffith, 1913)
On the Front Page (1926)
Heads We Go (Banks, 1933)
The Way of Lost Souls (Czinner, 1929)
How to Make a Monster (Strock, 1958)
Alibi (West, 1929)

Flight (Robert Zemeckis, 2012)
Predators (Nimród Antal, 2010)
The Limey (Steven Soderbergh, 1999)

Murder at the Vanities (Leisen 1934)
The Fall (Glazer 2019)
A Story Well Spun (Guy 1906)
Mabel's Strange Predicament (Normand 1914)
Miss Dundee and Her Performing Dogs (Guy 1902)
Cowards Bend the Knee (Maddin 2003)
Day of Freedom (Riefenstahl 1935)
Teorema (Pasolini 1968)
Christmas in July (Sturges 1940)
A Loft (Jacobs 2010)
Dementia (Parker 1953)
Ballet Mécanique (Léger 1923-1924)
The Palm Beach Story (Sturges 1942)
Unfaithfully Yours (Sturges 1948)
Hail the Conquering Hero (Sturges 1944)
The Beguiled (Coppola 2017)
Duel at Diablo (Nelson 1966)
*Hellraiser (Barker 1987)
Blood of a Poet (Cocteau 1930)
Fall of the House of Usher (Harrington 1942)
Sworn to the Drum (Blank 1995)
The Men (Zinnemann 1950)
Virtue (Buzzell 1932)

The Master Mystery (King & Grossman, 1918)
All Night Long (Edwards, 1924)
The Marines Are Coming (Howard, 1934)
La Piscine (Deray, 1969)
Curse of the Undead (Dein, 1959)
Third Time Lucky (Forde, 1931)

Halston (7.0)
Versailles '73: American Runway Revolution (7.0)
The Handmaid’s Tale (S4 – 6.0)
The Love Machine (5.5)
Pose (S4 – 6.0)
Flack (S2 – 4.5)
American Boy (6.0)
Straight, No Chaser (7.0)
Valley of the Dolls (5.0)
Bliss (4.0)

the Carey adap?

I'm not sure which of the above that refers to, so I'm guessing the answer is no.

The 1985 Bliss, adapted by director Ray Lawrence and Peter Carey from Carey's 1981 novel. (bcz it's better than Valley Of The Dolls imo)

No--new thing on Prime with Salma Hayek and Owen Wilson. Tense opening scene, waste of time after that.

The Life and Death of 9413, a Hollywood Extra (Florey 1928) expressionist short
Black Sabbath (Bava 1963) 5/10
Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (Meyer 1970) no rating
*Tales of Beatrix Potter (Mills 1971) 9/10
Escape Room (Sony co., 2019) 3/10
Raya and the Last Dragon (Disney co., 2020) 5/10
Luca (Pixar, Disney co., 2021) 6/10

Laurel & Hardy:
Way Out West (1937) 6/10
The Bullfighters (1945) 5/10

Marx Brothers:
The Cocoanuts (Florey 1929) 5/10 incompetent filmmaking, but the bros. are good
Animal Crackers (1930) 7/10
Monkey Business (McLeod 1931) 5/10
Horse Feathers (McLeod 1932) 6/10
*Duck Soup (McCarey 1933) 7/10 probably their best, but their treatment of the lemonade stand guy is really mean
*A Night at the Opera (Wood 1935) 7/10
*A Day at the Races (Wood 1937) 7/10
Room Service (McCarey 1938) 4/10 not a terrible script, but only groucho comes off as himself
At the Circus (1939) 7/10 with some gags by buster keaton

incompetent filmmaking

there was no such thing as competent sound filmmaking at the time tbf! I love that the newspapers are sopping wet bcz 1929 microphones couldn't handle sounds as harsh as "paper."

Duck Soup definitely their best - nearly all of Thalberg's influences in making the filmmaking more competent are good ones, except the romantic / emotional throughlines never work because it's some utterly wet rando, and Duck Soup had JUST proven that lols, more lols, and snook-cocking was all a Bros film needed to work. (Duck Soup cocks its snooks at something important, which also helps - Horse Feathers has almost got the formula down, but college football is so pointless and incomprehensible a target.)

no rating for BTVOTD on a first view because you're still processing, or you don't think it deserves to be rated as a film, or...?

The Driller Killer (1979) 3.5/5
Born in Flames (1983) 2/5
Summer of Soul (2021) 3.5/5 - very entertaining talking head music doc with some great reminiscences by the performers and attendees. I'll never look at the Fifth Dimension the same way again.
* Goodbye Dragon Inn (2003) 4/5
The Gambler (1974) 3/5
* Wise Blood (1979) 3.5/5

short:
Meeting the Man: James Baldwin in Paris (1971) 3/5. A weird one; Baldwin is captivating as usual here but he has to spend most of the short runtime arguing with the obtuse documentarian.

I'll never look at the Fifth Dimension the same way again.

That was one of my big takeaways, too. I reviewed the movie for Stereogum.

The Gambler definitely a little self-serious (James Toback...), but I do like it for Caan; that scene where he listens to the Lakers lose is great. Stay clear of the terrible remake.

The incompetent filmmaking that I remember most is the choreographed number where girls sat down and waved their hands around, and the worst door gag bit ever.

BVD is memorable and also has a lot of offensive stuff. Beyond ratings, like an Ed Wood film.

There's good stuff in every one of those Marx bros. movies and I don't regret watching any of them except maybe Room Service. I don't think they ever made a movie where everything worked.

Duck Soup is pretty close to a perfect comedy. The only Marx that I’ve seen (which is most of them) that i thought was completely useless is Go West.

30 years ago, a local station ran Laurel & Hardy movies late at night for a time; loved Way Out West and Sons of the Desert, not sure how I'd feel today.

Chico plays the piano with an orange in Go West

Shopping with Wifie (Stafford, 1932)
The Danger Girl (Badger, 1916)
The Face on the Barroom Floor (Chaplin, 1914)
Autumn Mists (Kirsanoff, 1929)
The Girl From Calgary (Whitman, 1932)
The Sultan's Wife (Badger, 1917)
The Lost Shoe (Berger, 1923)
Hotel Imperial (Stiller, 1927)
Time Walker (Kennedy, 1982)
Boobley's Baby (Drew, 1915)
Behind the Screen (unidentified Universal crew, 1915)
*West of Hot Dog (Rock & Pembroke, 1924)

Sons of the Desert has some hilarious moments. Stan Laurel has some amazing reaction shots. then it ends with spousal abuse.

The one thing I remember, clear as day decades later, is when the wives go to the movies and L&H show up in the newsreel report on the convention they're attending--and how they get into the shot two or three times!

In June I mostly watched the Euros, but also:

The Man With Nine Lives (Grinde, 1940) 6/10 BLU-RAY
Before I Hang (Grinde, 1940) 6/10 BLU-RAY
Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and the Band (Roher, 2019) 6/10 BBC4
The Devil Commands (Dmytryk, 1941) 7/10 BLU-RAY
Hellgate (Levey, 1989) 6/10 DVD
WR: Mysteries of the Organism (Makavejev, 1971) 7/10 YOUTUBE (uncensored version)
The Boogie Man Will Get You (Landers, 1942) 5/10 BLU-RAY
Body Puzzle (L. Bava, 1992) 5/10 BLU-RAY
*The Black Belly of the Tarantula (Cavara, 1971) 7/10 DVD
Saint Maud (Glass, 2019) 7/10 AMAZON PRIME

Slide, Babe, Slide (Stoloff, 1932)
Just Pals (Stoloff, 1932)
Midnight Warning (Bennet, 1932)
Sinners in the Sun (Hall, 1932)
The Devil Horse (Brower, 1932)
Jaws (Spielberg, 1975)
She-Wolf of London (Yarbrough, 1946)
Fragment of Seeking (Harrington, 1947)
Picnic (Harrington, 1949)
On the Edge (Harrington, 1949)
The Assignation (Harrington, 1953)
The Wormwood Star (Harrington, 1956)
Usher (Harrington, 2000)

JUst got through half of Panique before the film froze. I was quiite getting into it but can't have transfered it fully.
Do like the tone of cynicism running throug the french films I've watched this week.
& did France not adopt some version of the Hayes code. Possibly not if the language is not going to be one that a US mainstream audience is goingto be watching and therefore not likely o effect sales etc. Or is the idea that that might be one reason other film making countries would self censor unlikely.
Will get back to it later.

Le Chiene Jean Renoir 1931
wonder if this would be more understated if made elsewhere.
Think I need to watch more Renoir.
Think I recognised a couple of the faces not sure though

Le Corbeau
shows the population of a small town in a decidedly unfavourable light. Brilliant film . Is the comncluding sentiment supposed to be life goes on. France was under Nazi occupation at the time surely so wonder how that effected things.

Chulas Froneteras Les Blank
1976 film on Mexican population in Texas and Tejano music. I see that the s/trk was released on cd combined with another releated film, need to see if i can get it.
Also think I will be picking up some Flaco Jimenez

Eyes Without A Face
Interesting idea seems to have been made o a pretty much B level and bts of it seem a little unfinished.
Has some pretty memorable bits though.
Dr looks like a human owl though so wonder if that was intentional.

I thought the guy playing Hire and the mark in Le Chiene looked oddly similar but there's 16 years between the 2 and he looks younger as Hire. I guess actors and makeup or something. It's the same guy I think he's supposed to look more beat down by life in Le Chiene though.

La Chienne and Michel Simon.

A Man escaped
Minimalist story about a Resistance lieutenant trying to get out of a detention centre

both A Man Escaped and Le Corbeau are great movies. There is always something a bit haunted about movies made in occupied Europe but the latter has some real hard boiled dialogue and is quite darkly amusing in places.

His New Job (Chaplin, 1915)
Nana (Renoir, 1926)
The Fall of the House of Usher (Harrington, 1942)
The Four Elements (Harrington, 1966)
You Never Know Women (Wellman, 1926)
Buster's Big Chance (Corby & Meins, 1928)
*Back Stage (Arbuckle, 1919)

Buster Keaton:
The Rough House (1917)
The Scarecrow (1920) great first half
College (1927) 7/10
The Cameraman (1928) 7/10
Film (written by Beckett, 1965)
Notfilm (2015) 4/10 as a film

Harold Lloyd:
Over the Fence (1917) poor
Take a Chance (1918)
That's Him (1918)
Billy Blazes, Esq. (1919)

Marx Bros:
Go West (1940) 4/10
The Big Store (1941) 4/10 hays code was fine with racism huh
Brain Donors (1992) 5/10 a remake of a night at the opera with john turturro in the groucho role

Laurel & Hardy:
*The Music Box (1932) great

The Lodger (Hitchcock, 1927) 5/10
*Brute Force (1947) 7/10
Daisies (Chytilová, 1966) 7/10
Putney Swope (Downey Sr., 1969) 6/10
*The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (1976) 8/10 shame about that train climax (also used in Go West)
Asparagus (Suzan Pitt, 1979)
I Know Who Killed Me (2007) 2/10
Cans Without Labels (the Ren & Stimpy guy, 2019)

La Belle et le Bete Jean cocteau.
pretty otherworldly in places plus some near slapstick humour in the mundane world.
Great imagery, I kept wondering if certain shots had been used for other things.
Also wonder how aesthetically influential it is.
Enjoyed deeply.

Black Widow
Great action film tying in with other stories in the MCU.
Do wonder what is likely to spin off this film. Could see a couple of things.
Enjoyed the post credits scene but slightly miss the 2 that used to pepper the credits sequence what appeared to be traditionally..
I had just seen Midsommar a couple of weeks ago so interesting to see Florence Pugh turn up as costar.

saw a few minutes of the Tomorrow War but wasn't in the mood.