Last (x) movies you saw

Praise (1998, John Curran) 4/5
The Organizer (1963, Mario Monicelli) 4/5
Metropolitan (1990, Whit Stillman) 4/5
Alambrista! (1977, Robert M. Young) 4/5
Keep the Lights On (2012, Ira Sachs) 4/5
The Gang's All Here (1943, Busby Berkeley) 3/5
Payback (2012, Jennifer Baichwal) 3/5
Bernie (2011, Richard Linklater) 2/5
Henry & June (1990, Philip Kaufman) 2/5
Police Story (1985, Jackie Chan) 4/5

Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol (Bird, 2011) 3.5/4
Star Trek: The Motion Picture (Wise, 1979) 2/4
Star Trek 3: The Search for Spock (Nimoy, 1984) 3/4
Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Kahn (Meyer, 1982) 3/4
Strange Days (Bigelow, 1995) 4/4
Shame (McQueen, 2011) 2/4
I Saw The Devil (Kim, 2010) 1.5/4
Hesher (Susser, 2011) 2.5/4
The Last Waltz (Scorsese, 1978) 3.5/4
The Iron Lady (Lloyd, 2011) 1.5/4
Trust (Schwimmer, 2010) 4/4 (!!!)

Strange Days, really?

oh, I forgot

L'Argent (1983, Bresson) 5/5

enter the void
collateral
clean (assayas)
once upon a time in anatolia
king of new york

I absolutely fucking love Strange Days. Admittedly might have something to do with first having seen at at 16 years old, but really, even watching it again now I don't get why anyone wouldn't like it (feel free to prove me wrong). Holds up completely.

Strange Days is brilliant

Lymelife (Derrick Martini, 2008) 4/5
Big Fan (Robert D. Siegel, 2009) 3.5/5
Paul (Greg Motolla, 2011) 3/5
Drive (Refn, 2011) 3.5/5
Pendas Fen (Clarke, 1974) 4.5/5
Nuts In May (Leigh, 1976) 4/5

Strange Days is probably underrated, and certainly one of the more successful cyberpunk/tech-noir movies of the '90s, but it's still pretty messy. iirc, it's been a while.

Who's That Knocking at my Door? (Scorsese, 1967) streamed. 3/5
Mean Streets (Scorsese, 1973) TV. 3/5
The Sugarland Express (Spielberg, 1971) DVD. 3/5
Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Fran Rubel Kuzui, 1992)TV. 1.5/5
La Grande Illusion (Renoir, 1937) Blu-ray. 2.5/5

strange days is great

little tony (van warmerdam '98) 2/5
the double hour (capotondi '09) 4/5
ladies and gentlemen the fabulous stains (joe adler '81) 3.5/5
anton chekhov's the duel (kosashvili '10) 2/5
paris is burning (jennie livingston '90) 3/5
everyone else (maren ade '09) 3/5
eyes without a face (franju '60) 3/5

3/5 for Mean Streets? 2.5/5 for Grand Illusion?! Neither of these are exactly unfuckwithable classics in my eyes but still, harsh!

yeah, I like The Sugarland Express, but it's not better than LaGI on any planet.

Yeah those ratings are nuts.

and anyway 1.5 for Buffy wtf

The Grand Illusion rating is pretty harsh I suppose, but it's a film I admired more than liked. Had it had more of Captain von Rauffenstein in it I may have bumped it up a notch.

The Buffy movie is pretty hopeless though. Almost endearingly so at times. It's closer to being a Saved by the Bell movie than anything else, and everyone is so bad in it, save Paul Reubens. His comically over-egging of his death scene is the best bit of the entire movie.

i saw LGI for the first time recently. the tonal turn it takes from prison-sitcom to affecting-journey is really something.

oasis (lee chang-dong '02) 4.5/5
aguirre, the wrath of god (herzog '72) 3/5
nanami, the inferno of first love (susumi hani '68) 3/5
a man escaped (bresson '56) 3.5/5
hardcore (dennis iliadis '04) 2.5/5

The Rules Of The Game (Blu ray) - <heart> x 1000
Avengers - a fun center surrounded by tedious bs
Puss In Boots - fun and charming

Bottle Rocket (Wes Anderson, 1996) - Breezier and less suffocatingly ornate than his later films. 3.5/5
Wisconsin Death Trip (James Marsh, 1999) - Darkly humorous documentary on tales of American gothic found in archive news stories. 3/5
Ronin (John Frankenheimer, 1998) - Nobody on set had the balls to correct DeNiro's pronunciation of Hereford. 3.5/5
Strangers on a Train (Hitchcock, 1951) - Robert Walker's flamboyant Bruno is one of Hitchcock's best crazies. 3.5/5
Hugo (Scorsese, 2011) - No-one's idea of a kids film. 2/5
The Old Dark House (James Whale, 1932) - the Cabin in the Woods of its day. 3/5
The Silent House (Gustavo Hernández, 2011) - Decent minimalist horror, let down by lame ending. 3/5
Curse of the Crimson Alter (Vernon Sewell, 1968) - Anticipates The Wicker Man, otherwise creaky nonsense, partially saved by Boris Karloff in his last English film. 2/5
Fatal Attraction (Adrian Lyne, 1987) - 1987:sex=death. Sexist, brash, and total trash. Glen Close is a great movie villainess tho. 3/5
Cop Land (James Mangold, 1998) - Seeing Sly Stallone struggling to be heard, be patronised, a big man made small, is still something to behold. 4/5
The Raid (Gareth Edwards, 2012) - An oppressive blue-grey gloom occasionally enlivened by some thrilling violence. 3/5

McKenna's Gold, late 60s ultra-b western with dodgy premise, dodgy effects. A lot of minor characters receiving rather too convenient grisly deaths.
I think I had seen this as an early teen and not since, so i was intrigued by it.
Some oddly high profile names in it though, Gregory Peck and Omar Sharif as the 2 leads. Eli Wallach, Telly Savalas, Anthony Quayle, Keenan Wynn, Lee. J. Cobb, Burgess Meredith, Edward G Robinson as some of those minor characters. & Julie Newmar as an Indian old flame of Peck. thought I recognised her but only just realising who it was on checking the castlist at IMDB.
Castlist makes it look like the equivalent of one of Sinatra's Rat Pack movies so I wonder if there was a more complex production story or if all of these people just needed money at the same time.

I've never seen that, even tho it was on TV a ton in my youth. All-star casts were all the rage in that period... and they were expecting a lot, as the writer was Carl Foreman of High Noon, The Guns of Navarone (also w/ Peck and same director).

iMdB trivia:

One of George Lucas's projects while a student in film school was documenting the making of this film. While he was on set, he actually made suggestions (which were used) on how to rehearse and shoot some scenes.

The film was originally planned to be shown in single lens Cinerama with reserved seat roadshow engagements, but Columbia execs changed their minds and pulled the plug on that idea. The film was drastically cut down from nearly three hours plus an intermission to just over two hours. Although most of the film was photographed on 65mm stock, to save a buck, a handful of scenes were filmed in 35mm anamorphic and then optically blown up with disastrous results. The blown-up scenes are exceedingly grainy and have bad color.

Putney Swope (1969, Robert Downey) 3/5
The Family Jewels (1965, Jerry Lewis) 3/5
No More Excuses (1968, Robert Downey) 3/5
Chafed Elbows (1966, Robert Downey) 4/5
Babo 73 (1964, Robert Downey) 3/5
A River Runs Through It (1992, Robert Redford) 3/5
The Death of Maria Malibran (1971, Werner Schroeter) 3/5
The Kid with a Bike (2011, Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne) 4/5
The Vortex (1928, Adrian Brunel) 2/5
Dark Shadows (2012, Tim Burton) 2/5
The Observers (2011, Jacqueline Goss) 3/5
Une Femme Douce (1969, Robert Bresson) 4/5

Bad Lieutenant: Port Of Call New Orleans (Werner Herzog, 2009) 4/5
Shame (Steve McQueen, 2011) 3.5/5
The Damned United (Tom Hooper, 2009) 3.5/5
Beowulf (Robert Zemeckis, 2007) 3/5
Kevin and Perry Go Large (Ed Bye, 2000) 3/5

la dolce vita ('60, fellini) 3.5/5
love in the afternoon ('72 rohmer) 4/5
hour of the wolf ('68 bergman) 2.5/5
the passion of anna ('69 bergman) 3/5
phase iv ('74 saul bass) 2/5
10 ('79 edwards) 2.5/5
bad teacher ('11 kasdan) 2.5/5
hiroshima mon amour ('59 resnais) 3/5

psycho ('60 hitchcock) 5/5
mauvais sang ('86 carax) 2/5
the lovers on the bridge ('91 carax) 2.5/5
autumn sonata ('78 bergman) 4/5
art history ('11 swanberg) 2.5/5
take this waltz ('11 polley) 0.5/5
toy story 3 ('10 lee unkrich) 3/5
out of the blue ('80 hopper) 2.5/5

The Wicker Man 3.5/5
Inception 2/5

Man, Inception was way whinier than I expected. Was hoping for dumb fun, instead got a bunch of dull moping about a dead wife. Christopher Nolan remains my favorite Hollywood example of the difference between clever and smart.

Also I'm probably being a half-star generous with Wicker Man, but it was fun. (the original, obv)

i dont think id want to see Inception again, i enjoyed it in the cinema but i bet it would suck if i saw it again

The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (Cassavetes, 1976) 4/5

An odd movie but brilliant. sloppy yet so naturalistic. what was up with that strip joint? who would pay money to go to a place like that? i wasnt even dissapointed by the unresolved ending.

Chronicle (Trank, 2012) 2/5

This had its moments but the whole found footage thing became annoying and overly contrived after a while.

A History of Violence (Cronenberg, 2005) 3.5/5

This is my second time watching this and the comic book style in which he dispatches people is like something from a different movie. Neverthless, the rest of the movie is well done and its a great story.

One Upon a Time in Anatolia (Nuri Ceylan, 2011) - 3/5
Le Quai Des Brunes (Marcel Carne, 1939) - 442399777201/5.*
Pepe Le Moko (julien Duvivier, 1937) - ((332937010-1)/83759275020)/5
Alice in the Cities (Wim Wenders, 1974) - 83649142421-489-14-1248-124-24-12-124-1248-248-184-184/////5
Wings of Desire (Wim Wenders, 1987) - hfahejwgqoje83-2-1u/5**
Xala - (Sembene, 1975) - 6746293419/78
While the City Sleeps (Fritz Lang, 1956) - xxxxxxx/5
Ashes of Time (Wong Kar-wai, 1994)***

* = the Gabin retrospective was a good opportunity to make my way through French film in the 40s, really liking it so far. They are great date films, despite the somewhat tragic endings, but who cares about endings?
** = This was a Wenders dbl bill and I guess you can map what happened to Euro art cinema from this.
*** = possibly Kar-wai's best film.

aw it's his prettiest film, visually, but far from his best i think. i found it pretty trying, though'd concede some of that's my tastes; i prefer all of hou's modern stuff to his historical epics

have to admit I had a hard time staying awake during Ashes of Time.

The Pornographers
Coriolanus
Man of the West
Wild Reeds

ashes of time redux screening i attended was improved considerably by christopher doyle galloping on stage uninvited, after, & pulling mic from MC

I often have a hard time staying awake during slow cinema screenings and I also feel this is part of the pleasure I get from this kind of cinema. Although I saw Ashes of Time at 11pm last night, no problems. Looks incredible, even by kar-wai/Doyle's very high standards.

Today, at the cinema: The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp: very moving, "very much".

La Religieuse
Duelle
L'Amor Fou

Keeping the apparently seriously ill Rivette in my thoughts this week. Sad.

ashes of time redux screening i attended was improved considerably by christopher doyle galloping on stage uninvited, after, & pulling mic from MC

― blossom smulch (schlump)

this reminds me of the q&a after the fallen angels premiere at the berlinale. wong kar wai was asked why the camera was so shaky all the time, and he replied, well, the cameraman was drunk. everybody laughed. wkw looked quizzically at the interpreter, the interpreter shrugged.

Downhill (Hitchcock, 1927) 3/5
Frankenstein (J. Searle Dawley, 1910) 3/5
The Darkest Hour (Chris Gorak, 2011) 2/5
28 Weeks Later (Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, 2007) 3/5
Prometheus (Ridley Scott, 2012) 4/5
Shame (Steve McQueen, 2011) 1.5/5
Lucifer Rising (Kenneth Anger, 1972) 1.5/5
The Designated Victim (Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, 1971) 2.5/5

Haven't done one of these for a few weeks:

21 Jump Street (Phil Lord, Chris Miller, 2011) 3.5/5
Shame (Steve McQueen) 4/5
The Green Man (Robert Day, 1956) 3.5/5
Slade in Flame (Richard Loncraine, 1975) 4/5
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (David Fincher, 2011) 4.5/5
The Debt (John Madden, 2011) 3/5
The Descendants (Alexander Payne, 2011) 3/5
Paths of Glory (Stanley Kubrick, 1957) 4/5
Resistance (Amit Gupta, 2011) 2.5/5
Prometheus (Ridley Scott, 2012) 4/5
Poor Cow (Ken Loach, 1967) 4/5

Ghost Dog (Jim Jarmusch, 1999) 3.5/5 - A bad comedy made bearable by beautiful cinematography and a kick-ass soundtrack.
Social Network (David Fincher, 2010) 4/5 - Magnificently competent.
Get Shorty (Barry Sonnenfeld, 1995) 4/5 - Pretty good despite iffy pacing
All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace (Adam Curtis, 2011) 4.5/5 - The kind of documentary that is entirely absorbing even thought it may well all be fiction.
Young Frankenstein (Mel Brooks, 1974) 4/5 - lol bulgy eyes

New Adam Curtis?!

not that new, I saw it... last fall?

Days of Being Wild (1991, Wong Kar-wai) 4/5
Django Kill ... If You Live, Shoot! (1967, Giulio Questi) 3/5
Kicking and Screaming (1995, Noah Baumbach) 3/5
Oslo, August 31st (2011, Joachim Trier) 3/5
The Color Wheel (2011. Alex Ross Perry) 3/5
Hide Away (2011, Chris Eyre) 2/5
Pink Ribbons, Inc. (2011, Lea Pool) 3/5
Passion Fish (1992, John Sayles) 4/5
Thundercrack! (1975, Curt McDowell) 3/5
Two Tons of Turquoise to Taos Tonight (1975/2011?, Robert Downey Sr) 3/5

Passion Fish is such a great movie

not quite, but it stands up very well. Had forgotten the "anal probe" actress monologue.

"i didnt ask for an anal probe!"....isnt that line uttered by someone in 'Communion' also?

The last few weeks, almost all rep & netflix (haven't disturbed the personal collection much as of late):

Come Back To The Five & Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean (1982, Robert Altman) 3.5/5
Reality Bites (1994, Ben Stiller) 3/5 (would have been a 2, but added a point for Winona--you forget how purely engaging she was in her prime(and also because that doily dress on the big screen will not be easily forgotten))
Walking and Talking (1996, Nicole Holofcener) 4/5 (one of the best films showing the true dynamics of friendship)
Pardners (1956, Norman Taurog) 3/5 (cool prologue)
Hollywood or Bust (1956, Frank Tashlin) 3/5 (cool Chrysler)
Film (1965, Alan Schneider) 3.5/5
Play of The Week: "Waiting For Godot" (1961, Alan Schneider) 3/5 (Burgess Meredith & Zero Mostel as the leads, but overall kind of a slog seeing it all at once)
Lovely & Amazing (2002, Nicole Holofcener) 3.5/5
Shame (2011, Steve McQueen) 3/5 (didn't find this boring; funny if anything, even when it wasn't supposed to be)
Haywire (2011, Steven Soderbergh) 3.5/5 (Fun!)
David Holzman's Diary (1967, Jim McBride) 4.5/5

so hard to correlate nicole holofcener films w/the titles of nicole holofcener films & remember which i've seen. walking & talking sounds good.

love crime (2010, corneau) 3/5
full moon in paris (1984, rohmer) 4.5/5
who'll stop the rain (1978, reisz) 4/5
what happened was... (1994, noonan) 4/5
suzanne's career (1963, rohmer) 3/5
hemingway & gelhorn (2012, kaufman) 2/5
moonrise kingdom (2012, wes anderson) 2.5/5
that's my boy (2012, sean anders) 1.5/5

American Graffiti (Lucas, '73) 2.5/5
Nightwatch (Ole Bornedal, '98) 3/5
Haywire (Soderbergh, '11) 3.5/5
The Wicker Tree (Robin Hardy, '11) 1.5/5
There Will Be Blood (PTA, '07) 3.5/5
Equilibrium (Kurt Wimmer, '02) 1.5/5
Take Shelter (Jeff Nichols, '11) 4/5

guys, the whole point of 5-star scale is you don't get to use halves.

decimals?

i am legit gonna start using π/5