Last (x) movies you saw

Zero for Conduct (1933, Vigo) A-
Campaign, the (2012, Roach) C : leave the improv to the rehearsals next time please
Hereafter (2010, Eastwood) D- : a slow nothing of a film
Muppets, the (2011, Bobin) B
Tron: Legacy [2D] (2010, Kosinski) B : love the future fantasy look, killer ziggy was fun, shame about the plot, dialogue, pace, etc.

Ornette was hella dated but interesting. dude is a genius. and crazy. the castration story!

is that when ornette contemplated cutting his balls off to avoid lustful urges?

yep. went for a circumcision instead.
spoke with someone who went to a party at his house and said he was running body mod videos around the house. apparently it's a thing.
anyways, i'm going to see wayne white's beauty is embarrassing doc soon after hanging out at a pr/art weirdo event last night with him and like fifty other nudniks in bushwick. good times.

I watched Serial the other night, the Martin Mull film from 1980. Pretty bad, but in an interesting way. I have a really vague memory that when it came out, someone provided a blurb that gushed it was the first great film of the '80s. Seems to be what they were aspiring to make--or the last great film of the '70s--and they only missed by several light years. Strains for an Altman feel, but the director was a TV guy, and it really shows. (Lots of TV stalwarts in the cast.) One fascinating performer: Stacey Nelkin, who was supposedly the basis for the Tracy character in Manhattan.

http://www.wearysloth.com/Gallery/ActorsN/12723-7921.jpg

lol clemenza giving Knuckleball! the same rating as La Jetee and better than Hearts and Minds. (I saw it and it's a good sports doc, but come onnnn.)

the Italian clip in Precious is of de Sica's Two Women.

Expressing my own personal reaction. Like George Costanza says: what am I, trying to win an Academy Award here? I wrote a bit about why I liked Knuckleball so much on the baseball movies thread.

Girl Model is fucking brutal.
http://www.girlmodelthemovie.com/trailer.html
the fibroid scene is some serious madness. the lead character is somewhere between insane and evil.
will be on POV eventually but be warned, it's a tough watch.

Citizen Kane
Zodiac
Fallen Angels
Shallow Grave

Red Dog (2011) Now I want my very own Kelpie!

Beauty is Embarrassing is cool, a little too feel good for my taste but fun. Wayne White is an awesome dude.

Girl in Progress (2012)

The Stranglers Of Bombay
Amarcord (Blu)
Stardust Memories
Two English Girls
The Avengers

Carnival Of Souls (Henk Harvey, 1962)
Eyes Without A Face (Georges Franju, 1960)
Threads (Mick Jackson, 1984)

^comments on the Horror movie poll thread.

Total Recall (Len Wiseman, 2012). So Beckinsdale has a great arse. Must we do this again?
Berberian Sound Studio (Peter Strickland, 2012) - comments on the thread.

Lawless
Dredd

what was Dredd like?

I posted about it after I goit home, I thought it was great. Look up my entry under Best Dredd (I think). i have to head out for a bus or I'd look up the URL.

Best Dredd

Dredd has a leanness to it that is missing from many current action movies. Loved it.

Yeah a lot of my FB friends are giving it kudos. I thought the trailer looked good but I was skeptical that it might be all action and no plot though.

watched 'arbitrage' - is bad, & teal 'n orange

best line is by gere - "what's an applebees?"

Before Sunrise (lots of talking)
In The Loop (funny)
Tintin (disappointing)

Summer Wars is nutjob crazy; major climax is a virtual hanafuda card game... with THE HUMAN RACE AT STAKE
great animation, solid voice acting and a fun film overall tho

watched Marley last night - lots of good footage

Crank
not seen it before but one of first things that occured to me was 'did somebody see Speed and think they could use the same idea' but instead of using a bus we'll use a person and instead of him taking speed we'll use another drug.
Very B but pretty watchable I guess, I don't think the sequel or 2 was as watchable if I remember it right.
But watching the guy chasing half way across LA or wherever that was with his ass hanging out of a hospital gown without him being stopped by the law seemed dubious. As did him being able to get across town still wearing the hospital robe but now riding a stolen police motorcycle. Even after he's crashed it into a restaurant table.
I do expect some concession to reality from my B movies, I mean.

Detropia is well worth seeing; nicely balanced look at a city on the brink. Would've liked another two hours of it for greater depth and exploration but excellent for what it was.

Crash (3/5)
Guerrilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst (4/5)
Martha Marcy May Marlene (3.5/5)
Free Angela Davis and All Political Prisoners (4/5)
Alex in Wonderland (2.5/5)
Manhunter (3/5)
Fallen Angel: Gram Parsons (4/5)
The Color of Money (4/5)
From the Other Side (3/5)
Playtime (#43 on the Sight & Sound list)

Crash was as cumbersome as I'd remembered, especially the last 15 minutes, but I still found the scene where Matt Dillon rescues Thandie Newton very moving, and there are other good moments here and there.

A New Leaf (1971, 3.5/5)
Sleepwalk with Me (2012; 3/5)
Real Life (1979; 3rd viewing; 4/5)
The Descendants (2011; 2.5/5)
Genius Within: The Inner Life of Glenn Gould (2009; 3.5/5)
Seven Men From Now (1956; 4/5)
La Promesse (1996; 4/5)
Man on Fire (2004; 2/5)
The Master (2012; 3.5/5)

xp, Clemenza yr spot on about the rescue scene in Crash; I'm not much bothered by the rest of it but that bit is terrific.

Killing Them Softly - I'd give this a solid 8/9 out of 10. The plot's pretty threadbare and seems to only really exist as something to hang the characters and setpieces from, but some great dialogue and surprisingly funny throughout. As a whole it's more of a return to Dominik's style in Chopper than ...Jesse James, and it looks fantastic esp. in a series of choreographed sequences that pepper the film. Prob worth noting that it's *very* violent in parts.

Salmon Fishing in the Yemen (Hallstrom, 2011) C-
The Cold Light of Day (El Mechri, 2011) C
Ted (MacFarlane, 2012) C+
Leaving Las Vegas (Figgis, 1995) B
Kafka (Soderbergh, 1991) B
Mirror, Mirror (Singh, 2011) C+
Lifeboat (Hitchcock, 1944) A-
Avengers Assemble (Whedon, 2012) C

Intolerable Cruelty (title sums it up)
Life Aquatic (average)
Stalker (best film ever)
Spirited Away (crazy)

Intolerable Cruelty is hilarious and underrated.

that's an interesting run of films!

This appears to be a spiritual sequel to Intolerable Cruelty. Looks horrible too

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBkR43TSzZ4

The Bourne Legacy, thought it was pretty decent as a runaround thriller. Maybe didn't need the reminders that it supposedly fit into an existing story.
I did spend an age at the beginning of the film trying to remember which superhero film I'd seen the guy in. Took me way too long to get it.

But did enjoy it, now got to remember what I saw her in. Wasn't a very B space opera or something? She does look a bit like both Famke Jansen and I think Margot Kidder too.

A Swedish Love Story (Roy Andersson, 1970) - So this is what summer looks like. A languid, tender film of young love in the hazy shimmer of a Swedish summer. 5/5.

Moonrise Kingdon (Wes Anderson, 2012) - Kara Haywood looks like a cross between Lana Del Ray and Kristen Stewart. 4/5

Lawless (John Hillcoat, 2012) - The craziest thing about this is that Shia LaBeouf may well be the best thing in it. 3/5

The Prince of Darkness (John Carpenter, 1987) - Carpenter's final wave to his fans before sinking below the sands of mediocrity. 3/5

Dredd (Pete Travis, 2012) - Zarjazz. 4/5

Total Recall (Len Wiseman, 2012) - 1st half: Blade Runner with the Total Recall script. 2nd half: generic, noisy action scenes. The Bryan Cranston/Bill Nighy showdown is a particular letdown. 2.5/5

London Belongs to Me (Sidney Giliat, 1948) - Great performances from Richard Attenborough and Alistair Sim, but an uneven film. 3/5

Holy Motors - It doesn't all work but it's terrific fun. I seemed to be the only one laughing though

Killing Them Softly - All over the place. The pared-down robbery sequence at the start is terrific but all the over-stylised stuff (complete with incongruous pop soundtrack) later on is basically Guy Ritchie level

The French Connection - better than i remembered

Suspicion - Didn't work for me at all. You never actually believe Cary Grant as a potential killer and the cop out ending confirms it

I Confess - Cool use of locations. The contrast between Montgomery Clift and O. E. Hasse's performances is pretty jarring.

Strangers on a Train - Classic obv. Robert Walker is amazing

archangel (maddin)
samsara (fricke)
steamboy (otomo)
zéro de conduite (vigo)
the hunger (t. scott)
a corner in wheat (griffith)

The Waiting Room is a documentary (likely soon to be on PBS based on the funding) that shows 12 hours in an Oakland ER waiting room and is one of the more affecting and effective films I've seen this year. Really powerful and moving, non-didactic and apolitical except insofar as it levies the damning truth that this system is broken. Also functions as an excellent and eloquent response to Mitt's blase and foolish comment that "all Americans have health care, they can always go to the emergency room".

I want to see that ^ doc.
Frederick Wiseman's Hospital (1970)
The Letter (2012)

Hospital is fucking amazing
can anyone recommend a good resource (karagarga or similar torrents withstanding) for Wiseman? None of the streaming services have his stuff and netflix has fuck all.

I liked Hospital (I did too), try to see Welfare--one of the greatest films I've ever seen.

Should say "If you liked..."

Moneyball (Bennett Miller, 2009) - left me wanting more more. I think (said think here) I got that the quality of baseball being played by Oakland was not that great to watch but effective. I wanted a flavour of that by the actions carried out on the field.

About Elly (Asghar Farhadi, 2009). The script is masterful in its literary manipulation. Great to see this while reading some Henry James - both about concealement, women's indepedent actions and thoughts in a male led society that disapproves of them, etc.

People at work are trying to drag me to see Taken 2. I must get out of it.

taken 2 taken 2

the last films i watched were

the passenger
white material
sans soleil
cosmopolis

idk about his old films but right now david cronenberg is the worst name director working

i could watch sans soleil every day of the year

seen it several times but i think i have seen it enough now, the first half an hour or so is seared into the retina

the passenger i have seen before and i didn't like it quite as much this time either

tho both of them have 'virtuoso sequences' that will never not be astonishing

actually one thing that intrigued me this time is how japanese people received sans soleil, if they did at all, but i couldn't really find any anecdotes about this