Last (x) movies you saw

Grizzly Man, or does that count as something he didn't actually direct?

uh he totally directed that

Wasn't sure if it was gonna be argued that he more "assembled" it or not.

truly the bear is the auteur

Beautiful Kate (7/10)
Your Friends & Neighbors (7/10)
Auggie Rose (Beyond Suspicion) (6/10)
Extract (7/10)
Lucky You (6/10)
City of Industry (6/10)
The TV Set (7/10)
Mystic River (7/10)
Conspiracy Theory (6/10)
True Crime (5/10)

I've been plowing through stuff at home all summer. By the time I finish the 10th, the first four or five have blurred together.

Period of Adjustment (1962) Jane Fonda and Jim Hutton are sexy gorgeous in this...
Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) The NYC I wanted to see that was featured in this film, I feel I found in Baltimore, MD last year. Loved seeing this again.
A Life of Her Own (1950) Loved the dialogue
PeeWee's Big Adventure (1985) Truly love this movie the older I get

The Great Beauty (Sorrentino, 2012) - i get why it gets compared to La Dolce Vita but its a much, much better film, although I am sure it will strike a few bum notes with many (the first affair was *the one*/the ennui only well paid hacks seem to feel/the journo who could've made immortal art and instead settles to scribble ephemeral thrash) but you know this starts with a quote by Celine - can't even remember the line, but that's perfect in intention. And Celine was a writer who feels throaway a lot of the time.

Onto the party and its magnificent series of shots, movement and moves, an ott intro to the main cast of character that almost (the transition from the Japansese tourist visiting to the party doesn't quite do it) but somehow doesn't fall on its arse.

Never thought he'd make a good film after Il Divo. Pulls it off with room to spare, although I wouldn't say its any comment on Berlusconi's Italy. Nothing like that, more a bunch of people having a good and getting tired of it. You'd say bullshit but try it after 40 years.

rewatched a.i. (spielberg) — 's been probably about 10 yrs since i last saw it. i remember liking it, but now i just feel angered and repulsed by it.

The mark of a vital film.

nb: "alternative" music 300 years in the future will still sound like shitty ministry ripoffs from 1995

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcByE-q9Al8

sounds like 80s tangerine dream!

the only thing i remember about AI is that near the last fifth of the film, there's a pause and a narrator intones "and so, a million years passed" and I believe i started laughing in the theater
that's always going to be my gold standard for poor plotting, when you need to jump forward a million years to get to the next scene

It was 2,000 years. Your laughter was for nothing, loser.

2000, 1mil, whatever's clever

It's a fine line between 2,000 and 1,000,000.

what's a millennia between friends
so my silver standard for poor plotting is when you need to jump forward two thousand years to get to the next scene

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mI3s5fA7Zhk

^^^

ruined cinema forever

THANK YOU

really forks & clouds, tsk tsk tsk

admittedly today's "geniuses" can't even do "no plotting" properly

I loved AI the second time around

I'm still trying to work up the mental energy to give it a second look.

I'm with numbers one and two on this.

I don't usually list shorts, but have seen programs 1 and 3, 4 and 5 this weekend.

http://www.cruelandunusualcomedy.com/2013/09/program-3-food-fights-chaos-la-carte.html

(alas print mixup for Feed 'Em and Weep was a sound Our Gang film w/ same title -- it was funny tho)

comparing 2001 and AI is like comparing The Killers and Jurassic Park II

except that in the first case, the same guy was the primary scenario author.

great Kubrick film : great Spielberg film :: lesser Kubrick film : lesser Spielberg film

The math checks out.

there are two movies called the killers and neither are by kubrick

The Killing?

or Killer's Kiss

Which one has Yvonne De Carlo?

killers is siodmak right?

The House of the Devil 2.5/5
Upstream Color 3.5/5
Holy Motors 3.5/5
The Grandmaster 3/5
Margaret 4/5

(All of those are better on form than content except Margaret, which reverses that.)

Along Came a Spider (6/10)
Even Money (5/10)
Borderline (4/10)
Please Give (8/10)
Fracture (7/10)
At Berkeley (8/10)
Little Rock (6/10)
John Q (5/10)
Kill Me Again (5/10)
Fruitvale Station (7/10)
Walking and Talking (7/10)
The Accidental Tourist (6/10)
Ask the Dust (5/10)
Extreme Measures (5/10)

I'm probably underrating Fruitvale Station a notch. It did have some beautiful sequences (the father running with his daughter springs to mind). Michael Apted has made some good mainstream films besides the Up series--Coal Miner's Daughter, Class Action--but Extreme Measures is quite silly. Amusing to catch a moment in time where Hugh Grant was billed ahead of Gene Hackman, though.

The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (Sargent 1974)
Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe (Blank 1980)
Behind the Candelabra (Soderbergh 2013)
The Descendants (Payne 2011)

i would be interested in anyone's les blank recommendations if anyone's enthusiastic, there's a retro here soon & he's kinda off my map

Criterion has added several of his to their Hulu+ list. Garlic Is As Good As Ten Mothers was entertaining enough, but I haven't found anything of his that was really beyond ok yet.

L'Enfance Nue (Pialat 1968) 4/5
The Look of Love (Winterbottom 2013) 2/5
Greenberg (Baumbach 2010) 3/5
Bernie (Linklater 2012) 3/5
Cold Fish (Sono 2010) 3/5
The Wrong Man (Hitchcock 1956) 3/5
Killer of Sheep (Burnett 1979) 3/5
The Squid and the Whale (Baumbach 2005) 3/5
Viridiana (Bunuel 1961) 4/5
Tropical Malady ( Weerasethakul 2004) 3/5
Melancholia (Von Trier 2012) 3/5
Cleo from 5 to 7 (Varda 1962) 3/5
2 or 3 Things I Know About Her (Godard 1967) 3/5
Little Murders (Arkin 1971) 5/5
Woman of Tokyo (Ozu 1933) 4/5
Blue Jasmine (Allen 2013) 3/5
Prisoners (Villeneuve 2013) 3/5

The Last Time I Saw Macao (2012, Rodrigues, Guerra da Mata) 8/10
The Act of Killing (2012, Oppenheimer) 7/10
Antoine et Antoinette (1947, Becker) 7/10
*Medium Cool (1969, Wexler) 7/10
Dark City (1998, Proyas) 7/10
The Hanging Tree (1959, Daves) 6/10
Il Futuro (2013, Scherson) 5/10
The Prodigal Son (1981, Hung) 5/10
Jayne Mansfield's Car (2012, Thornton) 5/10
Hotel Normandy (2012, Nemes) 3/10

*rewatch

The Incredible Burt Wonderstone (Scardino, 2013) 5/10
Hiroshima Mon Amour (Resnais, 1959) 9/10
Fallen (Hoblit, 1998) 4/10
Shut Up and Play The Hits (Lovelace/Southern, 2012) 8/10
The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (Herzog, 1974) 8/10
*Rita, Sue and Bob Too (Clarke, 1987) 9/10
*The Battle of Algiers (Pontecorvo, 1966) 10/10
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (Alfredson, 2011) 7/10

*rewatch

Dinosaur (2000, various)
Quartet (2012, Hoffman)
Wreck-it Ralph (2012, Moore)
Intouchables (2011, Nakache & Toledano)
Man with the Iron Fists, the (2012, RZA)
Santa Sangre (1989, Jodorowsky) <-- best of the month
Lincoln (2012, Spielberg)
Tom Jones (1963, Richardson)
Romeo + Juliet (1996, Luhrmann)
Gertrud (1964, Dreyer)
Keyhole (2011, Maddin)
Ordinary People (1980, Redford)
Paris, Texas (1984, Wenders)
Terms of Endearment (1983, Brooks)
Chicago 10 (2007, Morgen)
Brothers Bloom, the (2009, Rian Johnson)

3 more minor Best Picture winners down, 12 to go.

To The Wonder (2013; 4/5)
The Happiness of the Katakuris (2001; 3.5/5)
Manhattan (1979; repeat viewing; 4.5/5)
Mud (2012; 3.5/5)
Ulzana’s Raid (1972; 4/5)
This Must Be the Place (2011; 3/5)
The Big City (1963; 4/5)
Man with a Movie Camera (1929; 5/5)
Stories We Tell (2012; 4/5)
Medium Cool (1969; 4/5)

id hate to count yr standard 'majors' xp

Enough Said 4/5
House of Cards 3/5

Grad school starts so movie watching time has temporarily dwindled down to almost nothing. Still, two absolute classics which I'd somehow never managed to see until now and one piece of crap that I could have happily gone without ever having seen:

The Big Heat (Lang, 1953) 10/10
The Grapes of Wrath (Ford, 1940) 10/10
Smokey and the Bandit (Needham, 1977) 2/10

Cleo from 5 to 7 (Varda 1962) 3/5

Come the fuck on, you monster.

^docked a point for unbearable silent movie pastiche

...that's like two minutes long.

Finally got to see Let's Get Lost the Chet Baker bio that was filmed just before his death. Had been told about it by a girlfriend in late 89 & turned onto the vocal side of his music at the same time. I saw the boxing film that was soundtracked with his material.
Very touching film I thought. Not sure exactly what the objective story is with the various families' in-fighting and I did miss the beginning. But yeah thought it pretty evocative.
Just wondering if Ruth Young was supposed to be a sympathetic character or not. Since some other people were rather scathing about her and i thought she seemed interesting. Wondered if I'd missed a reason not to sympathise with her by missing the beginning. But also sounds like she suffered from the relationship.
Wonder if the Italian film he was in in the late 60s is worth checking out?

Meant to add that I hadn't realised that Fine Young Cannibals presumably took their name from a film that was based on a fictionalisation of his life. All The Fine YOung Cannibals which was made starring Robert Wagner in a role that Baker was intended to play but couldn't because he was getting busted or at least had been.