MOVIES!

A whole lot of Raul Ruiz lately. Kind of obsessed.

Cela S'appelle l'aurore - pretty straight yet entertaining Buñuel set in some backwatery French island. The straightforwardness makes the occasional Surrealist touches that much more intense.

Dr.M - Weird 90's Chabrol take on "Dr. Mabuse" with Jennifer Beals, Alan Bates, some hammy German actors and Andrew McCarthy in an awesome cameo. Pretty rad if u stick with it.

Les Noces Rouge (sp?) - Early 70's Chabrol with Piccoli and Audran gettin' all amor fou n' shit. Excellent.

Persecution (Chereau)
Tearoom; Massillon; Finished; v.o. (Wm E Jones)
Hausu (blah, too cute)
The Runaways
Anvil: The Story of Anvil
Generale Della Rovere (Rossellini, 1959)
Lonelyhearts (M Clift)
La Captive (Akerman)
The Prowler (Losey)

It was good. I liked the "vacation" joke.

― kind of shrill and very self-righteous (Dr Morbius), Saturday, March 27, 2010 1:12 AM (19 hours ago) Bookmark

it was so participatory; while there was this beeline towards an inevitable dreyer moment, in the back of your mind you were separating out all the stratas of pilgrims, deserving and undeserving, reverent or misguided, etc, correlating the different connections between people and events. i feel like the main story made it seem one dimensional, but it was so communicative. seemed like a french analogue for recent 'world' stuff too; relatively strict like 4 months, calm and ambiguous like martel.

also i did not recognise elina lowensohn.

La Captive (Akerman)

how was this?

just watched mirror

I liked La Captive -- it reminded me in its dreamlike ambience and sneaky humor of Eyes Wide Shut, which C.A. mentioned in an interview on the disc. (modern adap of Proust vs Schnitzler)

i love you phillip morris ~ gay romcom by luc besson & the bad santa authors, starring jim carrey & ewan mcgregor. entertaining, even amusing imo. cant wait to hear the resident film snobs take on this ; o

been looking fwd to that since I saw the trailer, like, a year and a half ago.

just saw diary of a wimpy kid with my daughter and her cousin. my wife loved it. i was . . . less impressed. the main character was a vain, social-climbing jerk who had virtually no regard for his best-friend. eventually, he supposedly redeems himself, but it felt like too little, too late. also, i guess there are some kids that could endure that kind of social abuse and keep coming back like the lead-character here, but it didn't ring true to me. (n.1)

___________________________________
(n.1) as i told my wife when we left the movie, in jr. high and HS, i was a toxic combination of Rowley's looks and demeanor, and Greg's luck. probably not much better now, but there you have it.

http://www.musicomh.com/films/images/cracks.jpg

Cracks - the debut film by Jordan Scott. It reminded me an awful lot of the French film, Innocence, as well as just about every other gals at boarding school movie.
Eva Green somewhat over-eggs her portrayal as an exotic, boho teacher (who doesn't appear to actually 'teach' anything, unless you count getting her class high-diving into the lake at any given opportunity, and telling romantic tales of her travels), she looks great though. As does everything else - especially the Spanish actress who plays the new girl.

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Observer/Pix/pictures/2009/12/4/1259933629728/cracks-girls-valverde-001.jpg

The whole thing is a bit silly and predictible, but not a bad contribution to the haunting, dreamlike, sexual and otherwise awakening of lissom school-girls sub-genre.

i liked the white ribbon quite a bit

Godfather Pt. III - not as bad as i was expecting, especially the last hour or so, but Sofia Coppola and Andy Garcia (and their characters) were p pretty awful
Fantastic Mr. Fox - rubbish
Before Sunrise - lots of very 90s dialogue
A.I. (for the first time since I saw it in the cinema just after 9/11) - beautiful film, loved it so much

dvds i got at the yard sale next door this morning. dollar a piece.

underworld - rise of the lycans (classic!)

what dreams may come (pothead's delight!)

hero (quentin tarantino presents)

the legend of boggy creek (double classic!)

underworld (way classic!)

the village (i don't know if i can watch it! i've avoided it, thus far.)

ultraviolet (truly, milla's finest moment. jovoclassic!)

escape from l.a. (watching this every day this week. probably.)

troy (looking forward!)

sky captain and the world of tomorrow (the world will tremble!)

mortal kombat (lest we forget one of the pioneering films of modern film history. it shaped a nation.)

quills (quills!)

planet of the apes (2-disc extra marky mark special edition)

van helsing (van awesome is more like it!)

starship troopers (every generation gets the citizen kane it deserves.)

angel heart (reminding me that i still need to get dvd copy of jacob's ladder and wonder how i ever lived this long without one.)

the skeleton key (don't really want to watch this. i might have to force myself.)

apocalypse now redux

mystery science theater 3000 volume 7 four disc thing

i watched the coal miner's daughter and was disappointed it was not about coal mining

Awesome scores/lol list, scott
Hahaahaaa @ 'quills (quills!)'

I saw Crazy Heart on the plane :)

star trek: generations
casino royale (remake)
the incredible hulk (gave up halfway through; bruce banner looks like ice_craem.)
now watching the x-files: i want to believe

cat sitting!!

o brother, where art thou - so great

99p rental on uk itunes btw

Five Mack Sennett comedy shorts from 1926

(one featured a cat chasing a mouse up both of Vernon Dent's pants legs)

Cargo - 'Switzlerland's first science fiction film' - total love letter to 70's science fiction film plots, looks beautiful, but in the end is ripping off so many earlier films that the plot really just falls apart at the end, still hope it finds US distribution

Punishment Park - pretty amateurish production & annoying improv acting, but I got over wanting the activists to sound less incoherent & naive while they were 'on trial for their lives' by the end -- I kind of have endless patience for this kind of 1971 time capsule. Glad I saw it, but this is the lefty 1971 equivalent of Glenn Beck's new book -- except that no one saw this film when it came out, and I don't even want to know how many copies Beck is selling

The Interior Scar: Philippe Garrel, Nico and Pierre Clementi in the desert. Wackiness ensues.
Excellent Corpses: Judges are being assassinated in 1970's Italy so Lino Ventura investigates. Then Alain Cuny and Max Von sydow show up and things get heavy. Great flick.

going to see Human Centipede tonight.

ohman I really want to see that and I also really don't!

it was not as disgusting as i thought it would be!
the lead does a pretty incredible job tbh. and there are plenty of lols.

oh good! I'm glad bc I unconditionally love/appreciate the premise anyway

"Beggars of Life" (1928) and "Hotel Imperial" (1927) both really outstanding.

saw furry vengeance today with the kids. best part was definitely when the raccoon pissed into brendan frasier's mouth.

http://images.allmoviephoto.com/2010_Furry_Vengeance/2010_furry_vengeance_004.jpg

thought it was brave of BF to be so chubby onscreen too.

http://www.boston.com/ae/celebrity/more_names/blog/fraser.jpg

sorry, FRASER.

SCREWBALLS
NAVAJO JOE

Army of Shadows
A Serious Man

should i go see easy rider, i don't remember if i liked it or not when i saw it when i was 11

actually it's prob too late now but it's showing again on thursday

Carlos - still not sure how I feel about this one. Other than the aw3soem prod. values it just seemed like a 5 hour movie about an arrogant dude
who was kind of a lame terrorist. But ... I feel like watching all 5 hours again because it was all somehow very rad. And the use of New Order and Wire on the sndtrk is totally random and hilarious.

Red Riding Trilogy - Dug this, esp. the first two films. Third one not so much but still good stuff.

Wallace and Gromit: A Matter of Loaf and Death - had a few laffs but not up to their previous high standards imo

saw the secret in their eyes (el secreto de sus ojos) last weekend, argentinian murder mystery featuring an intense futbol arena manhunt scene and an unpredictable twist ending, very very good

Miller's Crossing - hadn't seen this since college, even better than I remembered it
The International - started out ok, turned nonsensical
Sunshine Cleaning - was only half paying attention while this was on, that was a half too much

this weekend:
Shutter Island - pretty crap, nearly gave up just before the big 'twist'.
Hot Tub Time Machine - so much fun.

psychomania
the keep
the outfit
the lusty men

Miller's Crossing

dave, do you like '30s gangster films? serious Q.

I like the ones I've seen, which ain't many ... pretty obvious ones like Little Caesar and Public Enemy, probably some other Cagney movies I'm forgetting ...

anyone seen this?

http://www.youtube.com/user/EarsplitPR#p/f/63/9oWhW4mVctM

um, this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9oWhW4mVctM

just watched the hunger. catherine deneuve is the classiest vampire ever.

dirty harry

should i go see easy rider

I watched ER for the very first time only last week. It wasn't as bad or as messy as I'd feared it was going to be, but no masterpiece either. Interesting how none of the characters - even the two 'heroes' of the piece - really get along. A lot of barely suppressed antagonism going on. Just a bad mood generally.
This movie is like a Homeric Odyssey across a spoiled John Ford's America with a couple of unlikeable dicks. Hopper and Fonda are best when they have someone to play off, like Luke Askew's glib hippie (Fonda: "Ever thought you could be someone else?" Hippie: "Think I might try Porky Pig"), and Nicholson ("Nik nik nik fuh fuh fuh... INDIANS!"), who it is left to provide the movie some heart, namely his "they talk about individual freedom, but when they see a free individual they get scared" speech.

And Phil Spector! And Toni Basil!

Also watched Bloody Kids (1979), an early work for Stephen Poliakoff and Stephen Frears. I remember very distinctly seeing the first half hour or so when it was shown on TV (1980 or so) when I was quite young, especially a scene where two bloody kids stage a fight where one was to pretend to stab the other, bursting a concealed bag of blood. He ends up (accidentally) stabbing him for real. I was quite shaken by it at the time. What I didn't see was the kid them going on the lam, eventually hooking up with a older ne'r-do-well played by Gary Holton (later Wayne in Auf Wiedersehen, Pet)(and replacing Richard Beckinsale who died during filming).
Problem I had with this is we never get to the bottom of what motivates any of the actions of these characters, especially Holton's going off the rails at the end. Most of it makes little sense, but it works as a time capsule of the period. It captures the listless boredom b'dum-b'dum of a tatty late '70s Britain quite well. And I liked the bit in a caff when Holton points to a table of glum youths and says "look, punks wearing last year's clothes".

crazy heart - was fine I guess, don't really understand why it won oscars but I liked it

i didn't end up seeing easy rider after all

is your new screenname a reference to the director of the feminist fantasy Nekromantic 2?

who me? sounds cool but no, it's a reference to german goalkeeper Hans-Jörg Butt

watched a very bad, very precious movie last night about an aspie electrical engineer who really really likes amy's organic frozen macaroni and cheese, anyway there's a scene where he gets laid off and i recognized his boss as cousin larry from perfect strangers