MOVIES!

"New York Nights", 1929 gangster movie, seemed to be not quite complete, but story was intact. Archetypal early talkie, somewhat stagy & stilted. Jean Harlow briefly visible as an extra in a party scene. Gilbert Roland ridiculously handsome. Couple of scenes where the silent movie style acting & talking actually works surprisingly well. Probably of limited interest TBH. I kind of enjoyed it though.

"Her Sister from Paris", 1925 romantic farce w Ronald Colman & Constance Talmadge. Viennese couple are always arguing, Helen, the somewhat frumpy wife leaves her argumentative husband then pretends to be her twin sister, a parisian dancer called "La Perry" to win him back. Both roles played by Talmadge w clever trick photography. Colman is all bluster but Talmadge runs rings around him. Very very funny. The ending, where the fake "La Perry" reveals to Colman that she is actually Helen, is brilliant. Strongly recommended, a treat!

Repulsion
A Single Man
Get Him to the Greek

i watched repulsion last nite!

Visages d'enfants (1922) dir. Jacques Feyder

gorgeous silent family drama set in the swiss alps — amazing scenery and a beautifully emotional ending — the only silent other than Sunrise to make me tear up.

Goupi Mains Rouges
Montparnasse 1919 (both of these Jacques Becker. One of my fave directors. "Goupi..." Really shows the influence of his mentor Renoir but still v. weird n'fun. "Montparnasse 1919" kind of yr typical melodramatic 50's artist biopic and also a tremendously moving and handsomely produced piece of work. And Anouk Aimee is bee-yoo-t in this.)
Golgotha - Jesus flick from "Pepe Le Moko" director with Jean Gabin as Pontius Pilate (!). Pretty great.

i watched repulsion last nite!

ha I figured, I saw it start showing up on 3frames, that's partly what reminded me to bump this thread

I watched it last Thursday

<3 young catherine deneuve

watched this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKzBTsWE0LQ

its pretty noize!!

Deneuve intro'd Repulsion last night at BAM, I didnt go

the killer inside me - enjoyable, until bill pullman showed up; not his fault though. i wish i had seen this with an enraged berlinale crowd, as caek did.

The Clockmaker of St. Paul (1974) dir. Tavernier

Some nice fluid camerawork and the lead (Philippe Noiret) is great — the politics of the film seemed confused however

The Damned (1969) dir. Visconti

baroque, hysterical — great mise en scène and Helmut Berger is gorgeous

Recently watched a 4 episode French miniseries of "Fantomas" from the 80s - based on Feuillade's serials and directed by Chabrol and Bunuel's son Juan Luis. Berger played a great Fantomas. Straight up evil.

Ha, I have one of the Feuillade Fantômas on hold at the library!

watched Les Bonnes Femmes (Chabrol) — beautiful photography by Henri Decae; plot seemed kind of aimless

The End of Summer (Ozu) — the best-looking Ozu in color I've seen — the shots last few minutes are incredibly composed.

Fassbinder's Martha — the most disturbing Fassbinder I've seen. It's basically a horror movie.

the lincoln lawyer - the dad from malcolm in the middle was in this

two:

The Crime of Monsieur Lange (Renoir) — the cheeky editing and dark humor (one joke based on a baby being stillborn!) make this seem like a film from the 60s rather than the 30s, and the character of Batala oozes sleaze.

Europa (von Trier) — the B&W photography is gorgeous and the exaggerated breaks from realism add coherence and come off as genuinely surreal rather than pretentiously polystylistic as other attempts to do the same can be. Max Von Sydov's narration is great.

pretty much exclusively awesome classic stuff the past week or so:
come and see (klimov)
"life" (peleshian)
in a lonely place (ray)
taste of cherry (kiarostami)
god's country (malle)

and, uh, not at all awesome (but somehow sticking w/ me): road to nowhere (hellman)

i watched Il Sorpasso last year and fuckin loved it and was just thinking i hadn't seen any good italian 60's stuff since

what's good?

accattone and mamma roma

l'avventura and l'eclisse

http://images.hitfix.com/photos/479372/Young-Eglantine-in-Legend-of-the-Guardians-The-Owls-of-GaHoole_gallery_primary.jpg

LEGEND OF THE GUARDIANS THE OWLS OF GAHOOLE

I liked it

xp to gr80 Antonioni's La Notte

Nostalgia de la luz at the IFC Center

Really really good. I was worried that the astronomy = archaeology = investigation of Chile's recent troubled past metaphor was going to be a bit laboured/on the nose (whatever that means), but I was totally sold. Unusually for this sort of thing (i.e. pop astronomy) the main astronomer was capable of speaking articulately and ~poetically~ about what he does. Guzman's v/o almost Mallickian at times. Personally I totally agree with the astronomy = very important and very trivial at the same time thesis, especially compared to disappeared political prisoners, etc. Also of note: I enjoyed it despite serious pizza indigestion, which is impressive. See this movie.

Cedar Rapids at BAM

this was rubbish

new yorkers you have until tuesday to see nostalgia

i remember thinking of you when i was reading abt nostalgia de la luz last year, glad to hear it has your seal of approval

i have not watched any movies lately :/

Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work - first 2 opening scenes were the best part. Melissa joke o_0 ... I lolled
Kings of Pastry - pretty good DA Pennebaker doc about impossibly tough French pastry competition the MOF
The New World - started out slow but ok, got worse after Christian Bale came in

joan rivers doc bummed me out

http://27.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l1mv22s5qE1qbvx0xo1_500.gif

awes film

saw this lil jammy called Of Gods And Men - its about some cool french bros wearing comfy robes and hangin out in algeria - pretty good, would recommend

Nakh wtf is that?

joan rivers

lol

pretty much

limitless - lol at this movie

eraserhead baby ;_;

oh shit it HAS been a long time since I've seen that and now I know why!

Also that is the second time that's come up on ilx today. weird.

I watched MACHETE over the weekend and lol'd real hard when he grabbed that dude's small intestine then jumped out the window.
Would lol again.

Gonna watch In A Lonely Place tonight..

i watched CARNY recently- young Gary Busey and Jodie Foster love story set in a traveling carnival-- some pretty cool Busey freakouts

joan rivers doc bummed me out

really? I dunno. she's doin what she wants to do. grindin' hard. I got tired just watching it and I'm def. going to be kicking back at age 75 but to each her own I guess

giant file cabinet of jokes was pretty wild the way they were cataloged by topic

COMMUNISTS -
TONY DANZA

Rivette's last one "36 Vues du Pic Saint Loup" (sic?): OK Rivette I think. Jane Birkin's face now looks like she just woke up from a 48 hour bender.

"A Game Of Chess": 60s intvw w/ Marcel Duchamp. Badass 4evah.

La Chienne/The Two Of Us/ Boudu ... Had a Michel Simon fest the other night. Wish he was my granddad or something.

yeah it was interesting to see how Rivers lived and worked but the way the whole thing came with a "I'm Joan Rivers and I Approve This Docu-Comedy" feel that turned me off in the end

i guess i went in hoping for something more like Valentino: The Last Emperor and got let down

I just find Joan Rivers to be a tiresome, pathetic creature, at 45 or 75

Damn I still need to watch that Valentino one.