Last (x) movies you saw

hey xyzzzz- was yr reygedas pick prompted by catching post tenebras lux? curious what you made of it if so

― schlump, Monday, 18 March 2013 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'll be catching that sometime soon (think it opens in london in a week or two), will post if I have anything...

Side by Side (2012) - Felt kinda bad for Keanu when he's earnestly bemoaning the death of film and most of the directors seem to already be over it. Love the way David Lynch says his name though. Also, Christopher Nolan comes off as a dick even though he's ostensibly on the side of good

there is a guy in this movie who blindly proselytises for digital in a really disgusting way. he is the industry stooge. he is feeding cigarettes to your children. he is pouring waste into your water supply.

nb not george lucas

is it Danny Boyle

i have mostly been 'catching up' on alleged british classics i've never actually seen, from this list:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BFI_Top_100_British_films

the 39 steps 4/5
madness of king george 2/5
saturday night and sunday morning 3/5
parker 2/5
wreck-it ralph 3/5
brighton rock 3/5
brief encounter 4/5
4 months, 3 weeks, 2 days 4/5
the full monty 2/5

(xpost) I think all the gambling-related scenes in California Split are fantastic. There's a Cassavetes film playing alongside all that stuff, and I don't think some of that dates especially well. But there's a lot more of the first than the second, so it's probably my second favorite Altman film.

the scene where Gould sizes up the players at the big poker game is all-time

Shut Up and Play the Hits 4/5
Last Days of Disco 3/5
Django Unchained 3/5
Cabin in the Woods 5/5

love California Split

moneyball
the passion of joan of arc

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

"If you see your chips floating up and away from you, you know the game is too tough for us."

'california split' has one of the best endings too

skyfall - 3/5 not bad but overlong and sick of this post-nolan thing where we have to get into the psychological motivations of the hero (he was an orphan zzzz). not as good as 'casino royale' either

lemmy - 2/5 ok i guess but the amount of celebrity fawning can be a bit sickening

the filth and the fury - 4/5 this is how you do a rock documentary

From Up on Poppy Hill was... worth it if you're a Ghibli fan? Maybe not if you're not.

Bit of a minor Ghibli that one, probably a solid 3/5 though.

Kes - (5/5) My first viewing. One of the most remarkable films about childhood I've seen. Up there with "400 Blow" for me, maybe even surpasses it. Poetry.

Cloud Atlas - (2.5/5) Dunderheaded ambition. And ugly as sin to boot. But oddly entertaining.

Born to Be Bad - (3.5/5)

He Ran All The Way - (3/5) Nobody played "messed up" like John Garfield. I also enjoyed Shelley Winters' proto-Lorraine Bracco.

Robert Altman film festival chez moi:

Thieves Like Us (1974): 4/5 -- why isn't this one more highly regarded by Altman stans?!?
Popeye (1980): 3/5 -- kinda crap, but fun
OC & Stiggs (1985): 2/5 -- definitely crap and not fun; neat car, though
Vincent & Theo (1990): 3.5/5 -- nice pictures
Gosford Park (2001): 3/5 -- "Downton Abbey" bored me, too. overrated snoozefest.

tonight's batch:

Crash (Paul Haggis, 2004): 2/5 -- nb: i didn't think much of magnolia, either.
The Man Who Wasn't There (Ethan & Joel Cohn, 2001): 4.5/5
Armadillo (Janus Metz, 2010): 4.5/5 -- the Danish Restrepo

Side Effects, I thoughty the denouement was a bit of a cop out. But it does get a little better.
Funny that i see this the same week Michelle Shocked has top dig herself out of a hole, that turned out to be a bbit of a storm in a teacup.

Did enjoy quite a bit of it though.

& I thought this was going to be a bit cleverer than Ocean's Eleven etc. Turns out it ain't really.

Tree of Life. Still ?

Broken (Norris): Brit depress-fest starring an excellent Tim Roth & Cillian Murphy but carried by an equally excellent child actor, Eloise Laurence. That's "broken" as in "broken britain", and the way the film piles on absurd levels of misery & dysfunction onto the residents of one cul-de-sac sorta reminded me of watching stuff like brookside back in the day. I liked it, until it got mawkish.

Killing Them Softly (Dominik, 2012): This had its moments & James Gandolfini, but from the title on down it was sorta lol/eyeroll at how DO YOU SEE & impressed with itself it was. That thing where bog-standard crime fiction aspires to be Great Crime Fiction, and ooh look how tough & cynical we are, and brad pitt has a big speech about Amurrca at the end, when actually the film is egregiously dumb & by-the-numbers (bone-crunching violence soundtracked by obligatory incongruous pop song, heroin-taking scene soundtracked by "Heroin" I shit you not) also brad pitt sux.

A Royal Affair (Arcel, 2012): v pretty period drama, also about ~the enlightenment~ & how denmark became civilised & that. My granny liked it.

today's batch:

the robber (benjamin heisenberg, 2010): 3.5/5 -- Austrian "berliner Schule" (which is German for "slow film") about a marathon runner who also robs banks
treeless mountain (kim so-yong, 2008): 3.5/5 -- another "slow film," only it's Korean
adaptation (spike jonze, 2002): 4.5/5 -- still holds up, but not quite as good as being john malkovich
the emperor jones (dudley murphy, 1933): 2.5/5 -- interesting mostly as a historical curiosity, icky 1930s racial stereotypes and paul robeson overracting
top gun (tony scott, 1986): 2.5/5 -- flight scenes still exciting all these years later, rest of film still LOL all these years later

The Return of the Living Dead (Dan O'Bannon, 1985) - 8/10 - Zombies! Streetpunks! Boobies! Lols!
Django Unchained (Quentin Tarantino, 2012) - 7/10 - My least favourite Tarantino. The last 20 mins is draggy bullshit.
The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (Fritz Lang, 1933) - 10/10 - Totally awesome proto-film-noir. Loved every minute of it.
I Heart Huckabees (David O. Russell, 2004) - 6/10 - I'm sure I'd feel warmer towards this film if everyone in it wasn't a jerk. I'd have loved it if I had seen it as a 15y/o.
UHF (Jay Levey, 1989) - 5/10 - Weird Al Yaankovic vehicle, kinda like Kentucky Fried Movie but with a plot bolted on. Al wrote it and stars in it. He is not a funny man. I guess this is all people had before they invented Family Guy.
Kind Hearts and Coronets (Robert Hamer, 1949) - 9/10 - Charming Ealing comedy about a serial killer. They don't make 'em like this anymore.
Sound City (David Grohl, 2013) - 7/10 - If you like VH1 Classic Albums docs, you'll love this.
Don't Look Back (D.A. Pennebaker, 1967) - 8/10 - I'm a sucker for wired electric dylan anyway, so this was kinda fascinating. Fly-on-the-wall style makes everything feel super-contemporary.
Looper - (Rian Johnson, 2012) - 9/10 - I sorta loved this! The film Inception wishes it could be; superficially brainy, self-aware nonsense with guns.
The Perks of Being a Wallflower (Stephen Chbosky, 2012) - 3/10 - I am so not the market for this crap.

paul robeson overracting

go to hell

Morbes on overreacting

I Heart Huckabees (David O. Russell, 2004) - 6/10 - I'm sure I'd feel warmer towards this film if everyone in it wasn't a jerk. I'd have loved it if I had seen it as a 15y/o.

― give me back my 200 dollars (NotEnough), Friday, March 22, 2013 4:18 AM (13 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I did, and I did.

How is wahlberg a jerk

Sanshiro Sugata Part II (Akira Kurosawa, 1945) - 3/5 - fairly redundant if you've already seen Pt.1, and the anti-American propaganda is awkwardly shoehorned in. Great fight scenes though and the evil brothers are awesome.

Possession (Andrzej Żuławski, 1981) - 4/5? - at last, a horror film that makes less sense than Inferno. Sam Neill and Isabelle Adjani bark non-sequiturs at each other in pidgin English and everyone bleeds copiously. Pretty great!

Shell (Scott Graham, 2012) - 3/5 - strangely similar to Bela Tarr's "The Turin Horse", dunno if that's coincidence or not. Slips into melodrama a bit towards the end, promising debut from the lad Graham though.

Beyond The Hills (Cristian Mungiu, 2012) - 5/5 - I guess this could be viewed as a political film, a film about the failure of humans to connect in a meaningful way or a film about the absence of God (if you want to get all Bergman about it). Mungiu's strength is that he leaves the interpretation up to the viewer and refuses to pass judgement. I can't see how a better film will be released this year.

good description of the mungiu imo; i went for absence of god myself

Wahlbergs part of the Unholy Jerk Trio at the ♥ of this movie. He's a terrible boyfriend/husband/dad/whatever who messily destroys what looks like a happy home because he's read a self-help look and gone all awesomefest.

latest batch -- mostly lol 1980s/early 1990s:

beverly hills cop (martin brest, 1984): 4/5
beverly hills cop 2 (tony scott, 1987): 3/5
top secret! (jim abrahams/david zucker/jerry zucker): 3.5/5 -- this made it into ILX's top 100 comedy films?!?
naked gun: from the files of police squad! (david zucker, 1988): 4.5/5 -- still holds up
naked gun 2 1/2: the smell of fear (david zucker, 1991): 4.5/5 -- better than i remembered it
naked gun 33 1/3: the final insult (peter segal, 1994): 2.5/5 -- this one was worse than i remembered it
prince of darkness (john carpenter, 1987): 3.5/5 -- kinda neat Carpenter horror film that i slept on but apparently no-one else did

A Useful Life (Federico Veiroj, 2010) - one for cinema buffs, though you'd be hard pressed to say this is a 'tribute'. To its credit this does examine why that arthouse cinema culture failed beyond a magical disappearance of the audience -- the dryness with which the films are presented is dramatized. Quietly witty.

The Silence (Baran Bo Odar, Pat Collins, 2010) - compared to The Killing and European crime procedurals but I'd also put this alongside Zodiac (also shown on TV in the same eve on a diff channel) and Memories of Murder. Crimes unsolved, haunted cops, hurt of time's passage, blood drips upon an elegaic landscape but on this one it didn't get the balance right. The shots of the landscape felt like an intrusion and a detraction from focus. Besides, the crime's chief perpetrator lived in a housing estate - you were asked to sympathise with his loneliness w/out actually spending enough time in the company of his day-to-day (non-) existence. Did like how it unfolded with back-and-forth switch, had a proper seamless-ness to it.

Joint Security Area (Park Chan-wook)
i can see why tarantino liked this so much. i think you can kind of sense that he's still figuring things out, maybe could use some editing down..

Daughters of the Dust / Diary of An African Nun (Julie Dash)
so great. you really have to focus to understand most of the dialogue in 'daughters'! i liked that
why hasn't she made a ton more films, julie dash is a genius

To the Wonder (Malick)
i don't even know.

Fox and His Friends (Fassbinder, 1975): Fassbinder's blase attitude toward homosexuality is pretty refreshing. I liked Rainer's performance as Fox. (4/5)

Zeitgeist (Peter Joseph, 2007): This is the first truther documentary I've watched. Incredibly incoherent, pathetic, but sort of hilariously inept? A terrible and very long slideshow presentation. (-5/5)

The Bitter Buddha (2012) 3/5
Stop Making Sense (1984; repeat viewing) 5/5
Decasia: The State of Decay (2002) 3.5/5
Touki Bouki (1973) 3.5/5
Bridesmaids (2011; 2nd viewing) 3.5/5
Zigeunerweisen (1980) 3/5
Ministry of Fear (1944) 3.5/5
Wake in Fright (1971) 4/5
Leviathan (2012) 4/5

The Conformist (Bertolucci, 1970) 3.5/5 this had amazing vivid colours. watched it over two days which never seems to work.
Margaret (Lonergan, 2011) 4.5/5 awesome. great characters and acting. top class film.
The Spirit of the Beehive (Erice, 1973) 3.5/5 ok but i found it almost too slow. loved the first post-film chat tho: "in the movies its all fake. its all a trick." it had some really striking visuals
This Is Not A Film (Panahi, 2010) 3.5/5 fun, made me want to see more of his films, especially the one where the little girl stops acting. it was called 'the circle' i think.
Where Is The Friend's House (Kiarostami, 1987) 4.5/5 simple but great
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (Alfredson, 2011) 3.5/5 saw this originally at the cinema. maybe its cos I'm dumb but the great reveal didn't really work for me.

Oz The Great and Powerful

enjoyed it for the most part, quite psychedelic in the odd place. Wonder if its the start of a series?
Might read acouple of the Baums not having previously done so.

mini-Billy Wilder film fest:

the seven year itch (1955): 3.5/5 -- lol Tom Ewell
love in the afternoon (1957): 4.5/5 -- a sleeper
one, two, three (1961) -- 4.5/5 -- yay Jimmy Cagney & nihilist/cynical view of early-1960s international politics.

"one, two, three" has a great torture scene

one, two, three is great all around.

Numbers Station: Xanax the movie. Even stupider than it looks. Felt like everyone on set just arbitrarily agreed to end the movie

Heathers: Hadnt seen it in years, was bummed to find it kinda boring? Winona's cute tho.

Clueless: 900,000 views later & it's still funny.

Pretty In Pink: Suspending my disbelief that Andrew McCarthy was a dreamboat was always a huge problem for me. Still is. Young Jon Cryer though! :) Also lol that James Spader has his shirt unbuttoned to the waist for the entire movie.

Heathers: Hadnt seen it in years, was bummed to find it kinda boring? Winona's cute tho.

yeah :/ it doesnt hold up as well as you'd want

the last time i saw it i was kinda stunned by how nightmarish it becomes in the second half. veronica and j.d. making jokes at the jocks' funeral after murdering them (winona's 'oh shit' expression when one of the family members notices her snickering is great), the unpopular girl trying to kill herself, the actually pretty scary fight they get into at the end -- all pretty harsh stuff.

Stop Making Sense (1984; repeat viewing) 5/5

This never, ever gets old; just reading the title means I'm now humming the synth line from the start of "Girlfriend is Better" in my head. Don't know how you watched this time, but will stan for the blu-ray with uncompressed audio every time, it sounds superb even on my humble system.

When you get to the millionth view of clueless you attain nirvana

Uh, viewing. For real though, every time I watch it I find new things to laugh at. Alicia's performance is note-perfect.

today's batch 'o films:

theater of blood (douglas hickox, 1973): 4.5/5 -- surprisingly (and lol wonderfully) grisly even for a Vincent Price film. did this make it onto ILX's Top 100 Horror Films list -- i hope so!
reality bites (ben stiller, 1994): 1.5/5 -- unbearable even in 1994 -- back then, i had enough to sense to jet after Ethan Hawke's wretched rendition of add it up but sat through it this time, so i'm getting dumber as i get older. st. elmo's fire w/t the poodle-rock goodness of John Parr.
night of the comet (thom eberhardt, 1984): 3/5 -- neat, but not as awesome a bad movie as i was hoping (or expecting after the first 20 minutes). i'd still rather watch this than the Fresh Prince version of i am legend or the walking dead, though.

Blast of Silence: 4/5
The Avengers (Joss Whedon/RDjr et al): 2.5/5
Day Night Day Night: 3.5/5

The Pruitt-Igoe Myth (8.5/10)
The House I Live In (7.5/10) -- This and the previous one would make a perfect double-bill: it's all about race.
Consenting Adults (5.5/10)
Personal Velocity (6.5/10) -- A little clumsy, but I liked this; directed by Arthur Miller's daughter, who's actually in the mildly entertaining piece of junk above.
Nothing Can Hurt Me (9/10) -- Best music documentary I've seen since the Spector film.
Secret Window (6/10) -- Boy, Turturro can ham it up.

Tyrannosaur (2011) 7/10
Not an easy watch, very well acted though.

looking forward to Dodsworth tonight.