Last (x) movies you saw

Right Now, Wrong Then? Lucky sod.

I know Cannes isn't just about realism, what I'm saying is that its part of their make-up: a realist film beating a more artful one isn't a surprise.

But what I'm also saying is that you can argue for pretty clear reasons as to why this has won that have nothing to with discrimination against femake filmmakers.

I know you meant to say female but "femake" sounds like a remake trend.

Yeah, xyzzz, as a matter of fact you can do that for all of the 70 editions that has now gone by without resulting in a solo woman Palm winner, it even makes a lot of sense that Jane Campion had to share it in 93, Chen Kaige is good as well, and Fifth Generation Chinese Cinema deserved a palm. But there's a pretty obvious pattern of discrimination there, as well as in what's included in competition to begin with, and at some point it's just too much. A pretty big reason is probably that just 3 out of the 17 Jury Presidents this century has been women, for instance.

Yup, Right Now, Wrong Then. CPH:PIX begins thursday, where I'll watch the new Eugene Green, and then there's Lav Diaz, Alain Guiraudie, Joao Pedro Rodrigues and a bunch of others. Will post a bit :) Has been watching a few of the older Hong Sang-soo films, Power of Kangwon province and Virgin Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, and what struck me is that they're kinda cool. Which seems totally weird for Hong Sang-soo. I love his films, but it's mostly digital images of drunk people in ill-fitting sweaters I think of when I think of him. Virgin is filled with black and white images of people playing badminton at night, and it's amazingly beautiful, but also kinda wrong...

Lol, the new Ghostbusters should so clearly have been called 'Ghostbustesr: The Femake' or 'Ghostbusters: Feboot'. Fequel. Frequel.

as a matter of fact you can do that for all of the 70 editions that has now gone by without resulting in a solo woman Palm winner

No you can't.

Lol, I'm not gonna write 70 defences to prove my point, do you have any you want to point to as indefensible?

My point is Loach's win is perfectly defensible.

Yeah. But almost every individual act of discrimination is defensible. There's still an obvious pattern of discrimination.

Even indefensible qualitative decisions like putting Jimmy's Hall in main competition, and Amour Fou in Un Certain Regard, can be defended on the grounds that Loach is a much bigger name. And of course, Loach made his name in an era of even shittier discrimination - his breakthrough Cannes year, 1990, where Hidden Agenda won the Jury Award, was another year without any women at all in competition, even though an impressive five women were included in UCR. And there was some SHITTY films in competition at Cannes in 1990. But hey, who ever heard of Ann Hui, right?

"almost every individual act of discrimination is defensible."

Most aren't. But Loach's win is not discrimination

You're wrong. And you're wrong. And also, you're not bringing anything to the table, other than that you like this film so everything else doesn't matter. So goodbye.

Another film critic bites the dust!

My Scientology Film (Theroux/Dower, 2016) - the squirelling was diverting, slapstick-like fun (the cameraman who is being asked to film-stalk must be putting his kids through college with all of the jobs he gets) although I didn't get what role scientology was playing, like what was it giving those people, who in turn gave so much of their lives to it. Power, community, control over chaos, certainties are all answers, but why this and not Christianity or Buddhism or another form of spirituality or cultism?

There seemed to be a draw for actors (and pictures of Hubbard directing films had its fascination), a weird crossover into Hollywood/LA life that was built-on (the re-enactments) yet skirted around..then again Theroux is not that kind of doc maker.

My Twilight Time Blu-Ray of Runaway Train arrived today. I remember liking this movie 25 years ago or so; gonna see how it holds up next to Unstoppable.

*Children of Men (Cuaron, 2006) 9/10
The Nice Guys (Black, 2016) 7/10
The Immortal Story (Welles, 1968) 5/10
*Cat People (Tourneur, 1942) 7/10
Val Lewton: The Man in the Shadows (Jones, 2007) 7/10
The Good Dinosaur (Sohn, 2015) 4/10
*Pink Floyd The Wall (Parker, 1982) 6/10
The Bad Seed (LeRoy, 1956) 4/10
Chungking Express (Wong, 1994) 5/10
No Way Out (Donaldson, 1987) 4/10
*Blood Simple (Coen, 1984) 8/10
*Breathless (Godard, 1960) 6/10

*rewatches

Re-watched Scanners last night. I'd forgotten how much that movie is a thriller, not a horror flick; it's all shootouts, car chases and bureaucrats arguing in conference rooms.

but head asplode

I've been off my game lately while I rewatched all of Deadwood.

L'Eclisse (Antonioni, 1962)
Jack Reacher 2 (Zwick, 2016) (I'm not renouncing action trash altogether, but I'm done with this series – 1/10)
The Beatles: 8 Days a Week (Howard, 2016)
Equinox Flower (Ozu, 1958)

Deadwood is better than most movies.

Kiss Me, Stupid (Wilder, 1964) 5/10
Christine (Clarke, 1987) 9/10
Road (Clarke, 1987) 7/10
Elephant (Clarke, 1989) 9/10
The Bloodstained Butterfly (Tessari, 1971) 6/10
Electra, My Love (Jancso, 1974) 8/10
The State of Things (Wenders, 1982) 7/10
Killer's Moon (Birkinshaw, 1978) 5/10
Nightmare Alley (Goulding, 1947) 8/10
Deadpool (Miller, 2016) 5/10
Transfer (Cronenberg, 1966) 3/10
From the Drain (Cronenberg, 1967) 3/10
I, Daniel Blake (Loach, 2016) 9/10
Stereo (Cronenberg, 1969) 4/10
The Day the Earth Caught Fire (Guest, 1961) 7/10

just watched the old artificial eye jean vigo collection: a+

5/10 for Chunking Express is some bullshit imo.

I mean his... 4th? best film still merits an 8 at least

handmaiden wasn't very good 6.5/10

5/10 for Chunking Express is some bullshit imo.

― Jonathan Hellion Mumble, Tuesday, 1 November 2016 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

cryptosicko likes Deadwood, which I believe is television.

Chungking Express looks gorgeous, but really acts up my twee allergy.

The Brigitte Lin story isn't so twee.

The whole first half of the film definitely worked better for me, yes. If I hadn't been watching it in a class, though, I woulda abandoned it the first time someone started talking to their furniture.

Anyone watched Aquarius yet?

documentaries:

Holy Hell (Allen, 2016) 7/10
A Place In The Sun (Stevens, 1951) 5/10
*Slacker (Linklater, 1991) 8/10
*Jeremiah Johnson (Pollack, 1971) 8/10
Mascots (Guest, 2016) 6/10
Deep Web (Winter, 2015) 5/10
HyperNormalisation (Curtis, 2016) 7/10
Weiner (Kreigman/Steinberg, 2016) 7/10
Return of The Secaucus Seven (Sayles, 1979) 6/10
Doctor Strange (Derrickson, 2016) 7/10
Everybody Wants Some! (Linklater, 2016) 5/10

wait on, not all of these are documentaries, well maybe "everybody wants some" is

45 Years. Not as good as I'd read, but of the two of us who watched it, I liked it more.

Sausage Party (2016) - not sure why no review i read of this mentioned the non-stop "ironic" racist stereotypes. this movie is nothing but lazy stereotypes. yes, the Mexican is a drunk tequila bottle. yes, the irish guy is a potato. yes, the Chinese guys are boxes of rice. yes the wise spiritual leader of the film is a talking redfaced pack of American Spirits. there is an atheist message in here that is as leaden and awkward as a 15-year-old summarizing "God Delusion" on reddit for the first time. the rest of it is sub-Family Guy Edgelord comedy. if you think saying the word "Bro" is funny this will leave you in stitches.

Alice Through the Looking Glass (2016) - gave this a shot cos i found the first very visually entertaining even though it had sucked all the wonder out of Wonderland. man, this was bad. if you have ever wanted to see The Mad Hatter depressed cos he thinks his parents are dead, this is the film for you. it's almost incredible how much this movie stretches to actually ruin the story of Alice in Wonderland. like now we have an in-universe explanation for why the Mad Hatter's tea party always thinks it is one minute to tea time, and it's even stupider than midichlorians.

I got about a half hour into the first Burton Wonderland movie before shutting it off in disgust. What really sucks about these films, though (aside from a generation of kids growing up associating AiW with Johnny Depp), is that the Burton of the 1980s could have probably done something great with them.

Anyone seen My Feral Heart? Looks like kind of a typical brit realist film but it's apparently got a light supernatural aspect to it.

The Lady and the Beard (Ozu, 1931)
La Notte (Antonioni, 1961)
Punch-Drunk Love (Anderson, 2002)
The Lovers (Malle, 1958)
No Home Movie (Akerman,2015)
Ornette: Made in America (Clarke, 1984)
Ingrid Bergman: In Her Own Words (Bjorkman, 2015)
The Floorwalker (Chaplin, 1916)
Adventures on the New Frontier (Pennebaker/Maysles/Stilson/Leacock, 1961)

From CPH:PIX:

The Girl, The Mother & The Demons (Osten)
The Son of Joseph (Green)
The White People (Achan)
Being 17 (Techiné)
Right Now, Wrong Then (Hong)
Soy Nero (Pitts)
The Woman Who Left (Diaz)
The Yard (Månsson)
Paviliion (Sutton)
Cemetery of Splendour (Weerasethakul)
Parents (Tafdrup)
Staying Vertical (Guiraudie)
The Ornithologist (Rodrigues)
Raw (Ducournau)
Anti (BH)
Nocturama (Bonello)
The Eremits (Trocker)
Godless (Petrova)
Shambles (Lemiux)
Sand Storm (Zexer)
Swiss Army Man (Scheintert & Kwan)
Scarred Hearts (Jude)
The Last Family (Matuszynski)
El Futuro Perfecto (Wohlatz)
Aloys (Nölle)
Stories of Our Lives (Chuchu)
Neon Bull (Mascaro)
Hedi (Ben Attia)
The Death of Louis XIV (Serra)
In the Last Days of the City (El Said)
Shelley (Abbasi)
Certain Women (Reichardt)
Mimosas (Laxe)
37 (Grasten)
The Island Funeral (Towira)
A Quiet Passion (Davies)
Illegitimate (Sitaru)
Park (Exarchou)
Zoology (Tverdovsky)
Clair Obscur (Ustaoglu)

The Death of Louis XIV (Serra)

How was this? Hoping to catch a Scottish screening later in the month

His most focused film so far, there's a dramatic backbone to all of it, that hasn't been there in the past. Beautiful, of course, wonderful mood. There's not that much in it, though, and of sickbed films, like Cemetery of Splendour and Scarred Hearts, it's the least fantastic.

Encino Man (Mayfield, 1992)
Heavyweights (Brill, 1995)
Son In Law (Rash, 1993)
The Pacifier (Shankman, 2005)
O Brother, Where Art Thou? (Cohen, Cohen, 2000)
Llyn Foulkes One Man Band (Halpern, Quilty, 2014)

amour (2012 haneke) 8/10
joy (2015 Russell) 1/10
arrival (2016 Villeneuve) 8/10
American pastoral (2016 McGregor) 5/10
the goodbye girl (72 ross) 5/10
complete unknown (2016 josh marston) 4/10
mamma rosa (62 pasolini) 7/10
weiner (2016 josh kriegman & elyse Steinberg) 8/10

Supersonic (Whitecross, 2016) 8/10
Holy Motors (Carax, 2012) 7/10
Bobby Fischer Against The World (Garbus, 2011) 6/10
American Honey (Arnold, 2016) 9/10
I, Daniel Blake (Loach, 2016) 6/10
*Millers Crossing (Coen, 1990) 8/10
The Neon Demon (Refn, 2016) 6/10

Another Woman (Allen, 1988)
A Poem Is a Naked Person (Blank, 1974/2015)
Dr. Strange (Derrickson, 2016)
*Blood Simple (Coen/Coen, 1984)
Basquiat (Schnabel, 1996)
Violent Cop (Kitano, 1989)
Code Unknown (Haneke, 2000)
Every Man For Himself (Godard, 1980)

McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971; rewatch) 10/10
Arrival (2016) 6/10
Into the Inferno (2016) 7/10
Moonlight (2016) 9/10
Young Frankenstein (1974; rewatch) 9/10
Supersonic (2016) 8/10
Lisa and the Devil (1973) 6/10
No Home Movie (2015) 7/10
Love Streams (1984; rewatch) 8/10
Jack Reacher (2012) 6/10

Always feel McCabe & Mrs Miller should be docked half a point for Julie Christie's terrible cockney accent (tho' I concede that might be the deep point - ie Mrs Miller is faking it)

la creme of my exile:

*Hustle (1975, Aldrich) 8/10
Sieranevada (2016, Puiu) 7/10
From the Notebook of… (1971/1998, Beavers) 8/10
Staying Vertical (2016, Guiraudie) 8/10
*North to Alaska (1960, Hathaway) 7/10
The Silent Partner (1978, Duke) 7/10
Elle (2016, Verhoeven) 9/10
A Quiet Passion (2016, Davies) 8/10
Tell Me Lies (1968, Brook) 7/10
*Blazing Saddles (1974, Brooks) 7/10
Tower (2016, Maitland) 9/10
*The Terrorizers (1986, Yang) 8/10
*A Taste of Honey (1961, Richardson) 8/10
The Mad Fox (1962, Uchida) 7/10
The Handmaiden (2016, Park) 8/10
A Bloody Spear on Mount Fuji (1955, Uchida) 7/10
*Emperor of the North (1973, Aldrich) 9/10
A Fugitive from the Past (1965, Uchida) 8/10
*Le Plaisir (1952, Ophuls) 10/10
Twilight Saloon (1955, Uchida) 7/10
A Generation (1955, Wajda) 8/10

At least the sound is bad, so it's hard to hear it. xp

Emperor of the North is an insane movie more people should know about. Lee Marvin as the "A no. 1" hobo taking on Ernest Borgnine as a sadistic train conductor. In the Secret History of Twin Peaks, part of the backstory of Harry Dean Stanton's character from Fire Walk with Me is being a stuntman on that movie.

it's a shame the original title, Emperor of the North Pole, wasn't retained

Ugh, I was so disappointed by Staying Vertical. Sloppy, weirdly predictable, and with such a diminished sense of place compared to L'Inconnu.