Never Coming to a Cinema Near You - Arthouse Cinema 2015

Sounds good with Tale of Tales! Looking forward to that one.

Hong Sang-soo wins Golden Leopard. Zulaswski Best Director. Script and Actress goes to Japanese five-hour film Happy Hour.

http://www.pardolive.ch/pardo/pardo-live/today-at-festival/2015/day-11/LOC68-Palmares/palmares-2015.html

on the Hong film (hope to see it at NYFF)

https://www.fandor.com/keyframe/daily-locarno-2015-hong-sang-soos-right-now-wrong-then

He has sorta been on a roll this decade. Though I wasn't as big a fan of Hill of Freedom as many others, and prefer him when he's at his most loose and least willfully experimental. But Our Sunhi and Nobody's Daughter Haewon were great examples of that as well.

Last three Leopard winners: Albert Serra, Lav Diaz, Hong Sang-soo. That's pretty good. Much better than any of the big three festivals, imo.

Neil Young points out on twitter, that Hong has made three films with jury-member Moon So-ri. Locarno has been accused of nepotism before as well. But they consistently award great films, so I guess I'm ok with it.

I recommend The Mend, one of the livelier films ever about adult brothers -- kinda True West in whitepeople Harlem -- men together, acting in utterly disgusting primal ways. Also a career performance by sex machine Josh Lucas!

http://www.slantmagazine.com/features/article/interview-josh-lucas

Queen of Earth was...I'm not sure what it was, but it ruffled my feathers slightly.

just saw a v funny pan on Letterboxd that put me off watching it, for now

Which one?

it was Simon Abrams'

I wish Perry was able to synthesize his influences into something that didn't feel like a collection of neat stuff. And good god, stop it with the fucking extreme close-ups. We get it, Cassavetes is your homeboy.

Alternatively: WORST GRIM AND GRITTY WHAT ABOUT BOB REBOOT EVER!

I mean, seriously, how do you fuck up a film that, on paper, could be described as "Elizabeth Moss plays Klaus Kinski in: Daughter of Repulsion and Deathtrap?"

No red flags in that review for me.

but those are not favorable comparisons he's offering.

(admittedly none of that stuff rings my bell particularly except a couple JC films, and i have to see What About Bob)

Just watched Hard To Be A God. As impressively realised as the world is (which makes it worth watching, it really is a big achievement in this aspect), I did find most of the duration quite dull but always visually interesting enough.

Hey, has anyone seen Time Out of MInd starring Richard Gere and written/directed by Oren Moverman (screenwriter of I'm Not There, Rampart, The Messenger, Jesus' Son)?

It's showing at a suburban arthouse near me and I hope to catch it, especially after reading these reviews:

http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/time-out-of-mind/Film?oid=19116458

Richard Gere stars as an elderly man forced out on the streets of New York City. There isn't much more to the story than that, but for the talented writer-director Oren Moverman (The Messenger, Rampart) it's more than enough. Like no other movie I've seen, this communicates the nothingness of being homeless: the empty days, the banal conversations with fellow losers, the crushing tedium of walking the streets or riding the subway with nowhere to go. The movie was a passion project for Gere, who's had a rough time in Hollywood since aging out of the silver-haired-romance parts; he delivers a sober, subdued, resolutely unglamorous performance. Ben Vereen shines as the Gere character's cagey street buddy of necessity, and there are unobtrusive cameos from Steve Buscemi, Kyra Sedgwick, and Michael Kenneth Williams.

http://www.vulture.com/2015/09/movie-review-time-out-of-mind.html

It's on pay per view but haven't bothered b/c Gere is homeless.

CPH:DOX is showing Wang Bing's West of the Tracks during the festival, and I can't make it :( But other than that, there's the new films by Miguel Gomes - all three parts of Arabian Nights will be shown in a row on a saturday - Zhao Liang, Guerin, Loznitsa, Gitai, Castaing-Taylor, Rivers, Anderson and Wiseman. As well as old stuff by Denis, Rivette, Weerasethakul, and loads of others. I'm unsure how I'll ever fit in all the good stuff, but yeah.

Saw Field Niggas last night in Brooklyn. Remarkable hourlong doc/street portraiture shot entirely at 125th & Lex, keep an eye out. (Given a boost by the True/False fest and erstwhile ILXor Tape Store last spring; see interview below.)

http://nymediacenter.com/events/event/?id=E970FD8D-3799-449C-A91854CC81923AB4&slugid=ifp-screen-forward-presents-field-niggas

http://truefalse.org/news/stimulating-life-a-conversation-with-khalik-allah-of-field-niggas/

the times loved it; i'd really like to see it.

Ilx needs to see the new Porumboiu, I think a lot of you would love it. Exactly the film I needed from him after his last two nearly collapsed under their layers of meaning; this time it's just an exquisitely filmed yarn which refuses to give up it's idleminded yarniness. And the final sequence is sheer perfection, in such an ilx way.

I've also seen the other big Romanian film of the year Aferim! which is also very good and beautiful. A black and white western but otherwise quite typical Romanian...

v hyped for the treasure! seeing next week. interesting hearing you describe the last as collapsing; it felt so diffuse & wide-ranging as to just be like pleasant and absorbing, for me, like just kinda zen & spacious.

I did def like When Evening Falls on Bucharest, but it had so much going on, meta-layers, discussions, film style that did or didn't live up to what the director said, that it was almost too much for me. It was quite a short film for so much information. And coming after a four year wait, I would have been disappointed if that was his new style. The Second Game was just crazy, a single metaphor - rules of football = rules of society, as also seen briefly in Police, Adjective - explored through the most boring example ever... Porumboiu is probably my favorite youngish European director right now, and I love how each of his films adds so much to the discussion of his themes, but I needed a breather, I think. These last two were also bordering on self-parody, and I think that this latest proves that he was in on the joke all along. It's just a lovely film, basically.

field niggas = kind of film i would have to book online to avoid saying the title at the desk.

saw quite a few really great little movies at the london film fest this year - kothnodi, paulina, chevalier, others i cant think of right now. evolution, im not sure about. i think she ran out of ideas and padded a lot of it out TBH. but it had some lovely moments. they were just nearly all stretched to the point of boredom. and she didnt quite explore the concept enough either. bit dissapointing. johnnie to's the office, also looked stunning, started off brilliantly, but then seemed to lose it (or me at least) as i started to get very confused about WTF was going on and to whom and why i was meant to care. started to dart all over the place and end up in sort of lazy sentimentalish territory. or maybe i was just too tired.

looking forward to seeing gaspar noes love in a few weeks too.

FN is the kind of film that will likely be booked at single-screen cinemas/museums.

its only at the ICA in london. title seems like a shortcut to provocation TBH.

The Glaagow Film Theatre has a small season of new French films this month - any recommendations among these?

- All About Them (Bonnell)
- The Lady in the Car with Glasses and a Gun (Sfar)
- Diary of a Chambermaid (Jacquot)
- Tokyo Fiancee (Liberski)
- A Perfect Man (Gozian)
- Standing Tall (Bercot)
- The Anarchists (Wajeman)
- Macadam Stories (Benchetrit)
- Microbe & Gasoline (Gondry)
- The Sweet Escape (Podalydes)
- All Cats are Grey (Dellicour)
- The Measure of a Man (Brize)
- Family for Rent (Ameris)
- Wild Life (Kahn)
- SK1 (Tellier)
- My King (Maiwenn)

I really want to see The Measure of a Man, but that's all I can say, have seen none of them.

To mark the 20th anniversary of the murder of Yitzhak Rabin, CPHDOX showed Rabin, the Last Day yesterday. Has anyone seen it? I don't really know what to say, it's a powerful story, but I'm not sure the drama-scenes doesn't take away from the power of it. Also, Benjamin Netanyahu comes off spectacularly awful in it, I have a feeling that Amos Gitai probably knew what he was doing, with that.

wild life was really good.

I saw all three parts of Gomes' Arabian Nights yesterday. That is one wild and weird experience... Overlong and boring in parts, but heartily recommended.

this indie western w/ Kurt Russell, Richard Jenkins came and went in a flash in NYC... showing on VOD

http://filmmakermagazine.com/96324-if-you-move-in-a-hasty-manner-ill-put-a-bullet-in-you-s-craig-zahler-on-bone-tomahawk/

looking forward to the new jafar panahi film, which im going to see tomorrow... i thought this is not a film was somewhat overrated (if accurately evaluated in its title ho ho), but this one looks good, if only because i doubt you can go wrong with the format.

i liked it better than his last one.

I think Taxi is merely good. The girl drove me mad.

Good, as in better than Girlhood.

The little girl in Taxi is wonderful, and really the key to the whole film ("sordid realism").

I recommend this humble indie tree-selling dramedy, Christmas, Again (shot by the ubiquitous Sean Price Williams):

http://www.moma.org/calendar/film/1598?locale=en

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZGHw3uJJAk

Pinkerton on Nathan Silver’s Stinking Heaven, a tale of rehabbed junkies set in “Passaic, New Jersey 1990” (when i lived there!)

http://www.artforum.com/film/#entry56672

Bone Tomahawk was really good!

seeing that at MoMA in 2 weeks w/ director q&a

finally caught The Lobster, which turned out to be essentially Animal Farm meets OKCupid. Considerably funnier and less oppressive than I was expecting

should we have a 2016 thread?

Sissako's Timbuktu is certainly worth seiing, but i don't find the filmmaking as forceful as it should be at times. The violence only does upsets once or twice.

― touch of a love-starved cobra (Dr Morbius), Monday, March 16, 2015 1:57

Finally saw this and also saw it on some year-end top lists (Bob Mondello, NPR & others). Worth seeing but main characters still didn't seem fleshed out enough.

that gunshot in the marsh though

terrible and heartbreaking even if one saw it coming. People buried in sand and stoned was pretty upsetting too.

http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-35220419

The US National Society of Film Critics has named Spotlight the best film of 2015.

Timbuktu, by Mauritanian director Abderrahmane Sissako, won best foreign language film.

I've never seen Sissako's earlier effort: "Bamako", mentioned below--

http://www.alternet.org/culture/2015-years-best-movies-classic-screen-romance-ghosts-auschwitz-delusional-tv-stardom

Andrew O'Hehir, Salon

Yes, African director Abderrahmane Sissako’s wry, rich, tragic and spectacular tale of life under the rule of Islamic militants in northern Mali’s legendary “library city” was nominated for the foreign-language Oscar last year. (It didn’t win, but I don’t begrudge “Ida” the prize.) That’s because the academy’s rules make no sense; “Timbuktu” did not play anywhere in the United States until late January of 2015. I have previously argued that a confluence of talent and circumstance have rendered Sissako — who was born in Mauritania, raised in Mali, educated in Russia and now lives in France — a figure of unique cultural importance. Far more to the point, he’s a great artist: Watch “Timbuktu” and then “Bamako,” his outrageous Brechtian assault against the Western banks and financial powers, and find out how his films speak to the mind, the heart and the spirit all at once.

I saw Tale of Tales yesterday and it's pretty amazing. So many beautiful shots. And it has a nice light touch when it comes to any interconnections between the different stories.