Last (x) movies you saw

FACTS, claire denis was an assistant director or something like that

Enjoyed Jack Reacher last night, much better than I'd expected. Pretty atmospheric, visceral, even violent for a 12A cert.
Cruise just about pulled it off but I did wonder who else would have made a better Reacher. Might just prompt me to reading some of the books if I didn't already have a major stack of stuff to read.
Well if anything turns up cheap somewhere I probably will but do have quite a backlog.

& I think I'll go & see the 3D Hobbit on Wednesday, enjoyed the 2D one.

kinda excited on seeing 56 up

i like the ratings because when i see someone give la belle noiseuse 2 out of 5 i know we prob don't have v much in common as cineastes

I like other people's ratings b/c mine are never as interesting as theirs.

DVD Screener Season so caught up on a bunch of things the past few days:

Lincoln : excellent
The Hobbit : Manic, colorful. Like a Richard Dadd fantasia on speed. Amazed how fake some of the CG looked compared to the previous "LOTR" films but
it wasn't too distracting. Also loved when it shot off into past battles/history.
Berberian Sound Studio: Very good and strange.

lol.

― turds (Hungry4Ass), Friday, January 4, 2013 12:39 PM (4 hours ago)

what? you don't like my ratings? u_u

Safety Not Guaranteed: Really liked it

i thought he was being sarcastic. i dunno man, numbers next to words, i dont get it i guess! i mean i have a Criticker but i just use it to remind myself what ive seen...

that's mostly why i post here too; also maybe someone will comment and we can talk abt rad movies

schwecater (kubelka, 1958)

http://25.media.tumblr.com/7ff21a9b40ed9f6c36bcaff9565b9d82/tumblr_mg4hjlDSEx1r69ctuo1_250.gif

bourne legacy (?, 2012)

http://25.media.tumblr.com/b7b5d991504d6850db8055c554e00afe/tumblr_mg4bcuvxoS1rnzplqo1_250.gif

analyze this (ramis, 1999)

http://i55.tinypic.com/20tigpe.gif

berberian sound studio (strickland, 1999)

http://i.imgur.com/stIh5.gif

holy motors (carax, 2011)

http://cdn2.cagepotato.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/PE1_proelite3.gif

now thats what im talkin about

best rating system ever

I noticed Shane Carruth gets a 'special thanks' credit on Looper. I thought his 2004 film Primer was far superior tbh. Not that I am dissing Looper, it was a decent movie.

Not exactly from reading reviews, more like gliding across them, I've got an overwhelming sense that Holy Motors is not for me.

prob not

Night Shift - yay, but the Henry Winkler character was a lot more boring than i remember. Edible garbage tho
Beetlejuice - double yay. never gets old for me
Mr Mom - yay. not as funny as i remembered. but mk v handsome
Pitch Perfect - kinda yay? i thought i could cope with the Glee-e-ness but it did wig me out quite a bit. I like Anna Kendrick tho.

The Bourne Identity (Liman, 2002) - finally caught this on TV a few nights ago. "Oh yeah that guy from Oz is in it?" was about all I could manage.

On TV just now: All that Heaven Allows (Sirk, 1955) - nice angles, colour, and oh look the TV IS A MIRROR aside the chemistry between the leads is great, all those gestures are made to count, and you can see what Fassbinder saw in the viciousness of the people around Cary (except here there is unexpected turn of kindness as the daughter somehow understands and the doctor turns psychologist -- and how funny is the daughter's psychobabble?) Incredible re-working of the last shot in Fear Eats the Soul, OR IS IT NOW? Maybe life won't be happy after all...

Above all though, and its interesting after-life, and despite the non-dilemma (laughable now) its the two leads that would make you go back to it.

Also amazed that this film has class out there in the open...was trying to think of more US films that had that in there. Guess that must every Britisher's reaction to this film.

And one more thing I thought of was terence Davies, esp. Deep Blue Sea, the need for passion, perhaps...

the hobbit: way too long, actually had to hold myself back from booing at the end
happy accidents: rewatched, still awesome, def top 5 of last year
the campaign: decent mainstream commedy, i laughed several times, 7/10
ted: v funny mainstream comedy, 8/10
seeking a friend for the end of the world: not non-stop hilarious but occasional blasts of truly fucked up black humor. worth a watch on date night if your date gets the warm cuddlies from laughing at everyone dying and stuff

Charade

― Justyn Dillingham (Justyn Dillingham)

Arsenic and Old Lace

― Sarah McLusky (coco)

to catch a thief! it was a few months back but i was pleasantly surprised how well it stands up still, 10/10

Some Like It Hot (Wilder, 1959) funny/5
As Tears Go By (Wong Kar Wai, 1988) violent/5 (surprisingly enjoyable if lesser wkw)
Dancer In The Dark (Von Trier, 2000) sad/5

True Grit (Joel and Ethan Coen, 2010)
The Raid: Redemption (Gareth Huw Evans, 2012)
Girl Walk // All Day (Jacob Krupnick, 2012)
Detective Dee And The Mystery Of The Phantom Flame (Tsui Hark, 2010)

Border Radio (Anders, Lent, Voss, 1987) - 1/10. What an utter waste of film stock. Gets one point for managing to catch a few decent California desert still-lifes.

Django Unchained : Liked this. Very creepy turn by DiCaprio i thought. Bloody fun. I had read the leaked script a couple of years ago and never thought
it had a chance in hell of being filmed; but he did it.

I watched The Impossible in the cinema last night. Much much better than I expected.

56 up was lovely, totally humanistic and entrancing.
Left the theater and the jockey was outside shaking hands, clearly loving the attention.
Def worth seeing regardless how familiar you are with the series

Finally saw Moonrise Kingdom. It seems like Wes Anderson is kind of turning into Tim Burton.

variety (1983, bette gordon) 3/5
alphabet city (1984, amos poe) 1/5
dont come knocking (2005, wenders) 2/5
dark horse (2012, solondz) 2.5/5
shame (2012, mcqueen) 2/5
the kid w/ a bike (2011, dardennes) 4/5
not fade away (2012, chase) 4/5
the new world (2005, malick) 3/5

how was dark horse, i thought about seein that

it's pretty slight, not nearly as funny as it ought to be, idk it's not bad u might dig it

I wanna see it cause I like Solondz, but I have yet to hear a single good thing about it.

Watched something tonight that I've wanted to see since it was in theatres in 1978: Claudia Weill's Girlfriends. (Ordered it online a few weeks ago.) Don't know why I didn't see at the time--it wasn't that difficult to get into an R-rated film at 17 then. Anyway, excellent. Melanie Mayron, who never really had a film career to speak of afterwards (seems to do well in television), is very fetching. Maybe the only subdued performance I've ever seen from Eli Wallach, and Christopher Guest is really good too. I can't remember if I saw Weill's It's My Turn, which got the cover of Rolling Stone a couple of years later.

Komal Gandhar aka A Soft Note on a Sharp Scale (Ghatak, 1961) - the version here has some nasty subs: some dialogue is missing and some of what remains is awkwardly rendered too. The theme of a divided creative unit(s) (two theatre groups that come together that fails) and a divided nation is quite clear but any nuance in plot and the relationships between the members of the group is missing due to the current condition of the subs.

Still though happy to have watched is if you've as I know the themes hes explored: there are glimpses of the visual flair to come, it has a mix of these erratically edited images coupled w/an overloaded music. Incredible, beautiful music and I don't mean just the soundtrack - the way he uses music and diegetic sounds must've been utterly unique for its time. Its a feature that has been observed across his oeuvre, but a peak is reached here. There is a marvellous scene of the soundtrack tape going wrong in one the part of the shambolic performance of the play, recalling Jacques Rivette (of all people) in that regard. I doubt he watched any French new Wave, he was already using sound like that in 1959 (there is a film of his about a runaway boy that I think was released a year before 400 Blows and yet he is interested in politics in a way that the catholics of the French New Wave wouldn't be.

Japanese Summer: Double Suicide (Oshima, 1969)
The Master (Thomas Anderson, 2012) - saw it as a sequel of sorts to A Dangerous Method. Now I'm going to hunt for a thread on this film.
The Hunt (Vinterberg, 2012)
Hors Satan (Dumon, 2012) - FILM OF THE YEAR, and only 2nd week of 2013 too.

Zero Dark Thirty: 4
Sleepwalk With Me: 2

Saw the 3D version of The Hobbit, cos it was my Birthday . Looks quite impressive in 3D too. 2D was pretty good too, wish it wasn't a full year before the next one.

Well got Django next week and probably a few other things about to happen.

The Cat Returns is not ghibli's strongest. good fun for, i imagine, the 8 to 12 year old crowd.

the cook, the thief, his wife, and her lover - found this amazing, really one of my favourite things i've ever seen, just such a lurid intensity about it.

insignificance - quite enjoyed this but it was a bit insubstantial in parts.

berberian sound studio - faded away a bit into vagueness near the end, but it had a really gripping mood nonetheless.

The Impossible - found this really moving. theres a lot to be said for real staged effects over CGI too

Happiness - theres a part of me that thinks this movie is too mocking and patronising to its characters to ever really love. a powerful movie all the same

The Dark Knight Rises - nowhere near as good as the previous two but entertaining nevertheless.

Rosemarys Baby - i havent seen this in years. still unsettling.

Catfish - this was amazing

Iron Lady - yes meryl streep is great in it but this flew through most of her reign in a five minute montage while most of the movie was her walking around her house in a demented haze shouting after Denis. using dementia as a plot device is beyond dodgy as well. awful.

Silver Linings Playbook. Very good, even though I missed the beginning.
Thought I'd go and see it anyway to take my mind off the not as good as i'd've liked exam result.
Certainly seems to elevate above the genre it probably gets classed with Romcom. Very good film indeed and very glad I saw as much of it as I have, now just want to see the first 20 odd minutes.

The Impossible - sobfest galore. Whole cinema sniffling from beginning. First half of movie is stunningly well done. I do understand all the racism critiques, as asians pretty much relegated to background, without any real acknowledgement of the scale of their suffering.

Silver Linings Playbook - Loved it from the get go, even the dance contest at the end.

The Hobbit: yawn. could only muster excitement for late appearance of gollum.

Life of Pi: Gorgeous movie. Tiger was the don. Go see.

Home Alone: annual xmas movie.

Sightseers: watched with boyfriend's caravanning parents. Not the best idea as I kept laughing and they were taken aback.

Network (Lumet, 1976) - I knew about 2 minutes into it that this wasnt my thing so I didnt finish it. I did enjoy the "I'm mad as hell" bit tho.
Once Upon A Time In Anatolia (Ceylan, 2011) - Loved this. Loved all the Tarkovsky/Malick type bits of the fields and the apple rolling into the river. I went to that region (eastern turkey/n. iraq) last year so some of the scenes, esp. the scene of them eating and drinking at the farmhouse made me v. nostalgic.

i watched http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51yXkMwDwuL._SX500_.jpg

p bad, but it does achieve that shambolic 70s ensamble feel so i guess thats something. schwartzmann as a combo of tony roberts in annie hall and lenny bruce is good, should be in it way more

Undercurrent (Minnelli 1946), 90% melodrama/10% noir with Hepburn/Robt Taylor/Mitchum. Freeze-dried genre powder, Just Add 3 Stars and 1 Cup of Marjorie Main for a Vaguely Satisfying Soup. 4/10

Lincoln (Spielberg 2012). Really loved this, but don't have many coherent thoughts on it yet. I did like how Spielberg kept John Williams reined in this time around. 8/10

Jack Reacharound (some guy who signed Tom Cruise's I Don't Believe Dave Sim Is a Misogynist I don't believe Scientology Is Evil Petition, 2012). I'm a fool for police procedural stuff + "eat justice, sucker!" trash, so I confess to mostly enjoying this despite Cruise channeling Frank Miller channeling I'm the Goddamn Batman. 5/10

The Adversary (Satyajit Ray, 1971) - Film about a student suffering paralysis from his idealism. Its a mid-way between Pasolini's Pigsty (nothing will get done, we won't even get out of bed) and Fassbinder's Third Generation (something utterly stupid will be done). Interesting to see this now, with so many stories of grad unemployment - his protagonist's 'defiance' at the end is v appropriate for a humanist like Ray. This is also a departure for him, there are flashbacks and nightmares stretching to the almost Bunuel-like.

The 17th Parallel (Joris Ives, 1968) - where commie activist Ivens travels to document the struggle of the North Vietnamese peasant against the US (footage taken from this was used by Chris Marker in Far From Vietnam which is THE Vietnam film imo). What's striking is the role of women in the day-to-day running of the village to digging shelters to caring for their children: great shot of a mother putting a few babies to sleep as the bombs ring around, and no mistake the bombs are ALWAYS ringing around. The film has a physicality. You could accuse Ivens of an 'unreconstructed' communism and what not but he went EVERYWHERE: there are dispatches from the Spanish civil war, China (fighting the Japanese), Indonesia, Chile, films of strikes in Belgium, the condition of the poor in post-depression in the US and in among the Italian peasantry, but also short films capturing the movement of the wind and nature; and you can see also the peculiar silences learnt from those early films falling through here, where, all of a sudden a break falls upon the fairly functional narration ans testimony where he lets the camera happily record people simply doing things and living in their day-to-day grind. This is a film after all.

The end is chilling: a class of children are taught English phrases to deal with American soldiers if they are captured, as they will soon be out there, on the field of battle..

Both sound very worth seeing!

I am doing three on a match tonight in the theater, kinda excited

Shoah

Magnificent Obsession 3/5
Berberian Sound Studio 3/5
The Story of the Late Crysanthemums 5/5
Madame De... 3/5
Journey to Italy 4/5
La Grande Bouffe 4/5
Silent Night Deadly Night 3/5

story of late chrysanthemums is so good

is shoah accessible anywhere via torrentz or anything? or is it something you gotta buy?