Last (x) movies you saw

a zed and two noughts (greenaway, 1986)
weekend (godard, 1967)
two or three things i know about her (godard, 1967)
the virgin spring (bergman, 1960)
the vanishing (sluizer, 1988)

Happy People, the new Herzog (sorta, it's mostly his voiceover and input on other people's work; less a film he did than grizzly man really) is good but not great, kinda minor. Grim and beautiful though. The lives of Russian trappers living in the most remote hearts of Siberia. Engaging. Light on wow.
Kinda interesting that one of A Tarkovsky's relatives is one of the trappers. Wonder if that's how the filmmakers connected?

clouds is such a cool guy, need ur hand held for weekend.

The General (Keaton, 1926) 4/5
Sherlock Jr. (Keaton, 1924) 5/5
Beau Travail (Denis, 1998) 1.5/5
Zero Dark Thirty (Bigelow, 2012) 3.5/5
Breathless (Godard, 1960) 4/5

Amour
Forty Shades of Blue
Keep The Lights On
The Gospel According to St Matthew

Life Of Pi (Lee, 2012) 4/5
Contact (Clarke, 1984) 4/5
Christine (Clarke, 1986) 4/5 (rewatch)
Django Unchained (Tarantino, 2012) 4/5

howdya like the Sachs movies, alfred?

KTLO more than Forty Shades of Blue. The latter doesn't survive the casting of the Russian woman and doesn't know what to do with Rip Torn's character and performance; tonally it's off.

I thought she was great! in Last Resort too.

I remember spending the entirety of Forty Shades of Blue thinking "ok, I SHOULD like this..."

Liked Married Life pretty well, though, and wanna see his latest.

Rip Torn as a country songwriter-producer -- how can the results be so uninvolving?

Thieves Like Us (3.5/5): If someone else gave it 5/5, I wouldn't argue. It's basically a perfect film--certainly less scattershot than The Long Goodbye or California Split. Which is also its limitation; it just didn't engage me the way those two films do. (I think this was my third viewing, separated by many years.) Great performances all around, sad ending.

California Split (4.5/5): The buddy-buddy knowingness crosses the line a couple of times into Husbands territory (for me, not a good thing), Ann Prentiss and Gwen Welles are cartoonish (Welles is affecting anyway), and even though the Bert Remsen scene still makes me laugh, I realize it's also dated and probably deeply offensive. But I continue to love all the rest. One example of a kind of perfection found here and nowhere else that I can think of: Gould and Segal's back-and-forth on the Lakers-Suns game.

Women in Revolt (1971, Morrissey) 6/10
The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith (1978, Schepisi) 8/10
Sleepless Night (2011, Jardin) 7/10
The Magnificent Ambersons (1942, Welles, RKO hacks) 9/10
Hors Satan (2011, Dumont) 3/10
Something Wild (1961, Garfein) 7/10
The Face Behind the Mask (1941, Florey) 6/10
Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948, Ophuls) 10/10
Haywire (2011, Soderbergh) 7/10
The Cool World (1963, Clarke) 9/10
Sweet Love, Bitter (1967, Danska) 6/10
The Day He Arrives (2011, Hong) 6/10
The Living Koheiji (1982, Nakagawa) 7/10
The Arabian Nights (1974, Pasolini) 7/10
Wreck-It-Ralph 6/10
The Queen of Versailles 5/10

The Kid with a Bike (2011) 4/5
Miami Connection (1987) 2/5
Lincoln (2012) 3.5/5
A Man Vanishes (1967) 3/5
Footnote (2011) 4/5
Gueule d'amour (1937) 3.5/5
Boudu Saved from Drowning (1932) 3.5/5
Black Girl (1966) 3/5
The Blade (1995; 2nd viewing) 4.5/5
The X From Outer Space (1967) 1/5

Black Girl is a masterpiece of Sembene's

I watched Punchline last night and realized once again that I am likely the only person on earth who likes Punchline.

Who wouldn't believe Sally Field as a comic?

All of the Oscar short film nominees in animated and live action categories + Inocente in the doc short category. Not a crazy distinguished lot this year, if you ask me.

Oh, and as good as Letter to an Unknown Woman is, it will never be as close to my heart as Women in Revolt.

well, i'd assume

Jackie Curtis has p much all the great moments tho

Jackie and Holly are a fantastic team in their big two-hander.

J: "There are certain social structures, Holly, that we have to adhere to that we dont."
H: "I HATE YOU YOU MOTHERFUCKER!"

yeah and some of Holly's sex scenes are hair-tossing fits, but I like Jackie under Mr America: "I think i'm gonna go."

Of all your grades, the one I most can't parse is 7 for the movie Soderbergh made last year for the straight guys.

boy a (2007, john crowley) 3.5/5
the pursuit of happiness (1971, mulligan) 3/5
a safe place (1971, jaglom) 2/5
la promesse (1996, dardennes) 4/5
out of sight (1998, soderbergh) 3.5/5
rust and bone (2012, audiard) 3.5/5
somersault (2004, cate shortland) 3.5/5
wake in fright (1971, ted kotcheff) 2.5/5
little birds (2012, elgin james) 3/5
ploy (2007, ratanaruang) 3.5/5
friday night (2002, denis) 3/5

Of all your grades, the one I most can't parse is 7 for the movie Soderbergh made last year for the straight guys.

I enjoyed seeing Michael Fassbender get the death penalty for Shame.

Of course, Women in Revolt gets docked a bit for reactionary anti-feminism and an unusually misogynistic tone even for drag.

That comes part and parcel with all Paul Morrissey movies, though. They are all wholly reactionary works of art. That also happen to work fantastically as camp. In fact, the one hand washes the other on that account afaic.

well i hate camp

but Sontag defined camp as being UNINTENTIONAL, right?

Pretty sure she disowned everything about that article the moment the first drag queen read it.

well i hate camp

H: "I HATE YOU YOU MOTHERFUCKER!"

The last movie I saw was "Ten Canoes" on DVD a few days ago. It is a fable set in pre-Westernized Australia and all the characters are aboriginal. The story is told extremely simply, but its simplicity is so whole and complete that it becomes a great virtue. I really liked it.

The last few movies before that were... I forget.

http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/102165/1302233/eternal-sunshine-of-the-spotless-mind.jpg

Zero Dark Thirty, pretty good though I don't feel over-sympathetic to the main protagonists, torturers etc.
Wondered where I recognised th eguy who's doing the torturing in the first scene from but remembered he was th e3rd brother in Lawlesss on the way home.
Thought it was a pretty well-made film but maybe the politics just disagreed with me.

Continuing my trek through childhood faves that there is no way I should have ever been allowed to watch at the time, tonight I reconfirmed that The Last Boy Scout is still awesome.

ikiru is as good as i remembered it

Good run with a couple of turkeys for good measure.

Dredd (Travis, 2012) B+
Now Voyager (Rapper, 1942) B
Annie (Houston, 1982) D
Down By Law (Jarmusch, 1986) A
Henry Fool (Hartley, 1996) B. Keen to see the sequel 'Fay Grim', which looks interesting to say the least.
Detached (Kaye, 2011) C-
Babylon (Rosso, 1980) B (A for the soundtrack)
Tabu (Gomes, 2012) B
The Lady Vanishes (Hitchcock, 1938) B+
Back Stages (Arbuckle, 1919) B
Holy Motors (Carax, 2012) A-

There is very little to recommend Fay Grimm, unfortunately, and I say this as someone who considers Henry Fool one of the best films if the 90s.

That's a shame. What's the problem with it? Do the dutch angles ruin it or is something more systemic?

Ridiculous plot, forced political "commentary," no need to exist.

Part-time Work of a Domestic Slave (Kluge, 1971) - this has a harrowing abortion scene with the rest of the story placing the protagnist right in the middle of gender/class politics and activism. Its told in an elliptic fashion and the last scene I can't even make up an interpretation for, which makes it all the more interesting to me.

Some other stuff which I can't remember (6/10)

End of Watch (David Ayer, 2012) - Fairly standard buddy cop movie elevated by fine performances, a shakycam immediacy, and Anna Kendrick doing the moves to "The Birdie Song". 4/5

Damsels in Distress (Whit Stillman, 2012) - Loved Greta Gerwig as a Tracy Flick/Max Fischer style campus busybody going into a "tailspin". Uneven but endearing.3.5/5

Fists in the Pocket (Marco Bellocchio, 1965) - Italian New Waver about a crazy, dysfunctional family that fights and fucks one another.The pug-like Lou Castel is riveting in the central role. 3.5/5

Take This Waltz (Sarah Polley, 2012) - The moment I heard the strains of some twee, sensitive indie guitar being plucked on the soundtrack in the opening seconds, I knew I was in for a tough time. I like pretty much everyone involved, but this was so grating and naff. 1/5

Castle of Cagliostro (Miyazaki, 1979) - Not up there with Spirited Away or Porco Rosso, but this caper is still one of my favourite Miyazaki films. Slightly overpopulated with good guys, but it's breakneck paced good fun all the way. 3.5/5

Moonrise Kingdom (Anderson, 2012) - Holds up brilliantly on rewatch. It delivers a neat dose of Anderson's neat-and-tidy dollhouse aesthetic, but is also one of his warmest, wittiest and human films. 4/5

The Girl From Rio (Jess Franco, 1968) - Ineptly made sleazy kitsch about an all female city called Femina, where the women dress in go-go boots, capes and not much else and dream of overthrowing the patriarchy, but not if a charmless, Bond like ladykiller hero has anything to do with it. Not sexy/funny enough by far and amateurishly made. Shirley Eaton and George Sanders look depressed. 1.5/5

Django Unchained (Tarantino, 2012) - "Hello, little troublemaker". His best looking film? I liked the use of different Western locations: the muddy one-horse towns, the open prairie, snowy mountain trails, hissing swamps, and of course the cotton fields. 4/5

Lincoln (Spielberg, 2013) - Surprised by the amount of humour and the Machiavellian political chicanery going on in this. It's 'In the Loop, 1865'. Enthralling, great ensemble cast, beautifully shot and all the rest, and Spielberg still managing to find his favourite subplot involving a boy who has a troubled relationship with his father. 4/5

Not much lately, but I have been leaving TCM on for long stretches, so --

Lord of the Flies (Brook, 1963)
The 39 Steps (Hitchcock, 1935)
The Lady Vanishes (Hitchcock, 1938)
Sabotage (Hitchcock, 1936)

Sabotage was surprisingly grim, with the heroine's little brother getting blown to bits by a bomb he unknowingly carried on a London bus.

Hitch regretted that scene -- http://youtu.be/-dhbSUP9mhk?t=2m28s

Primer (Carruth, 2004)
World of Apu (Ray, 1959)
Play Time (Tati, 1967)

the big lebowski for the x time while drunk and doing other stuff is much fun

Cabaret (Fosse, 1972)

Dumbo (Sharpsteen, 1941) Was kind of surprised to see any of the classic Disneys available to stream on Netflix...

Cloud Atlas : Impenetrable and uninteresting. The team behind this should've watched something like Raul Ruiz' "Combat d'amour en songe" to see how intertwining character arcs and storylines are carried out. I couldn't hang.
The Last Temptation Of Christ : Gets better every time for me.

Lincoln on THursday
& The IMpossible on Monday

Lincoln has DDL doing a convincing portrayal. I guess it's a good film did leave me wanting to check a couple of historic facts. Who was the native American in Sherman's party & what happened with the confederate peace delegation.

Found The Impossible pretty moving though maybe a tad melodramatic. Won't go into the racial supposed controversy but the nationality of the family did strike me as odd when I heard where the originals came from at the end of the film.
Find it difficult to believe that the 2 characters you see close ups of the immediate effects of the tsunami hitting were actually moving afterwards and as intact as they were. Thought when you see where Naomi was standing when the wave hit was a pretty terrible place to be & also Lucas diving under the swimming pool at that point seemed to be asking for trouble.

Buck Privates (1941, Lubin)
Help, the (2011, Taylor) I just watched shit.
Artist, the (2011, Hazanavicius) Really lazily constructed with many purposeless shots. the kind of movie you might enjoy more while being distracted.
Meek's Cutoff (2011, Reichardt)
Contraband (2012, Kormakur) Script is great trash but the movie takes itself seriously.
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010) might have been better with a smaller budget

snowed in & watched for the 1st time -

tiptoes - 3/5 - wish i could see the 2.5 hr directors cut; feel like, among other things, mcconaghey leaving his wife/kid is really chopped 2 shit; oldman is really good in this, too bad ppl think its a joke, it is not really a comedy @ all

lawrence of arabia - 4.5/5 - is really dope, love the arc of the character & how dark and drained out it is @ the end; otoole is amazing

teeth (mitchell lichtenstein, 2007)
gozu (takashi miike, 2003)
memories of murder (bong joon-ho, 2003)
the fearless vampire killers (polanski, 1967)
the neverending story (petersen, 1984)