Last (x) movies you saw

jungle fever (91 lee) 6/10
bully* (01 larry clark) 10/10
the lobster (16 lanthimos) 5/10
paper towns (15 jake schreier) 4/10
butterfly (82 matt comber) 4/10
an oversimplification of her beauty (12 Terence nance) 5/10
everybody wants some!! (16 linklater) 6/10
digging for fire (15 swanberg) 7/10
a bigger splash (16 guadagnino) 8/10
the riot club (14 lone scherfig) 3/10
the carter (09 adam bhala lough) 8/10

why so down on an oversimplification of her beauty?

Chevalier (2015, Tsangari) 6/10
The President (2014, Makhmalbaf) 5/10
Girl with a Suitcase (1961, Zurlini) 6/10
Impulse (1990, Locke) 7/10
Salomé (1923, Bryant) 5/10
*Tale of Cinema (2005, Hong) 7/10
Lost in the Mountains (2009, Hong) (31m) 8/10
Virgin Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors (2000, Hong) 8/10
The Power of Kangwon Province (1998, Hong) 7/10
The Day a Pig Fell into the Well (1996, Hong) 5/10
Sunset Song (2015, Davies) 9/10
Back Street (1932, Stahl) 8/10
The Lobster (2015, Lanthimos) 8/10
Buck and the Preacher (1972, Poitier) 6/10
Love & Friendship (2016, Stillman) 7/10
l'Amore (1948, Rossellini) 8/10
Afraid to Talk (1932, Cahn) 6/10
Laughter in Hell (1932, Cahn) 7/10

The Nice Guys (2016, Black) 8/10 - started off really strong, I saw it bc of a recommendation from a friend who said it was like The Long Goodbye/Chinatown/Inherent Vice for the multiplex... sorta lost me 3/4 thru but still great. loved the art direction and wardrobe. Gosling frequently hilarious, & loved the very mean sense of humor.

Weiner (2016, Kriegman & Steinberg) 7/10 - had high hopes, heard lots of great things from Sundance, but it felt a little flat, and yeah, it's pretty excruciating spending an hour and a half with this guy. Easy to imagine the panoply of medications Huma Abedin has to take to deal with being around him. Best moment is at the end when the cameraman asks Weiner "why are you letting me film this?"

Dial M for Murder (1954, Hitchcock) 9/10 - gripping, saw it in 3D, was a bit nervous at first but it looked fine. Ray Milland is a centipede. I was locked in.

'bully' a masterpiece?

Sweet Bean (Kawase, 2016) 6/10
The Lobster (Lanthimos, 2016) 7/10
Sunset Song (Davies, 2016) 7/10
Love & Friendship (Stillman, 2016) 9/10
Weiner (Steinberg-Kriegman, 2016) 5/10
Neon Bull (Mascara, 2016) 7/10
Arabian Nights, Pt. 1 (Gomes, 2015) 6/10
* Jackie Brown (Tarantino, 1997) 8/10
* A Tale of Winter (Rohmer, 1992) 8/10
A Brighter Summer Day (Yang, 1991) 9/10
* The Freshman (Bergman, 1990) 8/10
Noon Wine (Peckinpah, 1966) 7/10
The Young Girls of Rochefort (Demy, 1966) 7/10
* Charade (Donen, 1963) 7/10
Victim (Deardon, 1961) 7/10
Love and Breakfast (Lang, 1936) 7/10
Liliom (Borzage, 1930) 6/10

why so down on an oversimplification of her beauty?

idk it's a lot millennial/bloggy?

'bully' a masterpiece?

100%

The Nice Guys (Black, 2016) 6/10
Love & Friendship (Stillman, 2016) 7/10
Symptoms (Laraz, 1974) 7/10
Macbeth (Polanski, 1971) 9/10
I Know Where I'm Going! (Powell & Pressburger, 1945) 7/10
Master of the House (Dryer, 1925) 6/10
The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (Ritchie, 2015) 4/10
Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush (Donner, 1968) 7/10
The Yellow Balloon (Thompson, 1953) 7/10
Sparrows Can't Sing (Littlewood, 1963) 8/10

Over the last month or so:
Portrait of a Young Girl at the End of the 1960s in Brussels (Akerman, 1994) 8/10
When a Woman Ascends the Stairs (Naruse, 1960) 9/10
The Castle of Cagliostro (Miyazaki, 1979) 6/10
Grave of the Fireflies (Takahata, 1988) 9/10
Porco Rosso (Miyazaki, 1992) 7/10
The Lobster (Lanthimos, 2016) 8/10
Out 1: Noli Me Tangere (Rivette, 1971) 8/10 (but this feels hard to evaluate so soon after a first watching; 10/10 for concept)

Brooklyn (Crowley, 2016): on What Are You Reading?, Alfred answered my query about original novel, "well-executed minor work," which is what I thought of this (he added that Tobin is "one of my favorite writers"). Hope the original will also have the flick's unpretentious detail and momentum, expertly distracting me from immediate notice of (or at least from letting sink in) the use of conventional elements like coincidence (which is applied sparingly---I think!).
Ronan didn't make less a bore, but embodied the plot's required character development with a minimum of fuss. Cohen's Eyetalian prole was a little too young Revolta Franco vocally and facially, with some young Mickey Rourke (glossing young Brando in The Diner), and Norman Rockwell time when he's with his family etc., though I believed it when his kid brother has the book brains among them all.
Wondered what novelistic nuance might be filtered out, via Nick Hornby's screenplay, but pretty no-BS for him (low bar, but still). Also wonder if it might have been more intriguing ending if she'd chosen the guy she didn't end up choosing---but figure she'll be asking herself that from time to time (one cul-de-sac vs. another, perhaps)

In the Realm of the Senses (Oshima, 1976) - on a 2nd viewing on the big screen (ten years after the first on DVD) and full of admiration for the achievement here. The script is pretty much astonishing, full of nuance that needs revisiting - the play of knives is there form the off: Abe and Kichi's first meeting has Kichi witness to Abe threatening a Geisha with a knife. That is steadily revisited as we progress from their relationship, which is also gradually run through from the first encounters to play (with food, with others) to experimentation (and that bit is also gradual too - when is the line to be crossed? what is that line? Where is the point of no return at? and none of this is verbalised, its to be felt and played with). There is plenty of pillow talk, full of intimacy and feeling and touches of light humour as they go places and the obsession becomes all-consuming.

In the cinema though its a threesome - they are constantly watched. In three dimensions we are watching but in two its the Geishas. There is some staggering actual surrealism at play as that Shamisen is strummed several times to intercourse - culminating in Abe 'offering' Kichi to the older Geisha - the talk before and after is perfectly scripted (the only time you feel they are on a 'date' = they talk about their mothers! Something approaching normal everyday conversation is happening). The outside is constantly there - on a first viewing it was all chamber, now you see how that isn't true. They need to live so jobs need to be performed (Abe has an 'arrangement' to see a 'respectable' man). Kichi is married (and is married to Abe in a ceremony that er moves to an orgy with some Butoh (?) dancer). The music is almost always traditional, which dates the film pre-20th century, but the phone rings once and there are trains and a beginning of a rusty industrial landscape - which is pre-20th but more 1870s, an approaching blasted modernity. As the film ends Kichi is walking back to his place - seemingly oblivious to the military parade, rifles on show - Japan's men are ready for war. Post that the couple do not leave the room anymore and start experimenting with strangulation. This is so carefully plotted - all of the symbolism there. It would be too on the nose but its also tightly done - elements that turn the 'real' into a fiction.

There are some beautiful compositions throughout. On the outside there is a landscape - which as I said is sorta half-industrial, on the flip-side one of a depleted nature. The camera follows diligently as they walk (and fuck) around the village and scandalise everyone (well sort of - the granny doesn't mind watching, nor does the shop owner mind Abe's offer to fuck for a drink in front of Kichi ("only good for peeing"), its only later the couple hear from a servant they are thought of as perverts - and while there are some looks/remarks they all take place inside the house/room...working this one through as I type). The penultimate encounter is incredible as photography: the couple are in the middle. Kimono's are mostly reds and blacks. Big kitchen knife placed just off to the right-side. The light is a sort of fake sunset. The performances are something too - Abe has to be near the edge and madness constantly but also vulnerable enough so she can transmit her complete happiness. Kichi is the more restrained when they are together but just as violent and moody when they are not - most demonstrably when he rapes a woman who questions the turn their relationship is taking when she is away. Its important to say that while the moments they are not together are few they are always made to count.

The final scene is one of exhaustion - I thought Kichi's death was going to happen one scene earlier than it did - so it wasn't just them. The script searches for a final full-stop, a narrator talks about the aftermath with a factual "This happened in 1936". We need to end somewhere.

During the culture shift of pitch, pre-War, eh? And the Depression might be in there somewhere too. Will have to see that, duh.

Heart of a Dog (Anderson, 2015) - A film by someone who has lived a long time. Laurie chews over lots of Western and Eastern modes of philosophy, music, art and encounters. This is a mix of film, biography, documentary, animation, with her dog in the middle (although idk how much that also stands for Lou Reed). A lot of it is clumsily done, she hasn't got many filmmaking chops (the snow falling on trees just didn't have kick at all), but there are moments here and there, but a lot of it is undermined.

― xyzzzz

heart of a dog is so audio/voiceover-intensive, i think would work better as a radio documentary. some touching shots (and interesting/moving thoughts on death) of the dog, but otherwise, no, shes no filmmaker, not on this evidence anyway.

― StillAdvance
The audio-only version is an amazing, immersive (over-used term maybe, but) experience, well-described by xgau (who ends doubts about movie):

The soundtrack to a film I missed is also Anderson's simplest and finest album, accruing power and complexity as you relisten and relisten again: 75 minutes of sparsely but gorgeously and aptly orchestrated tales about a) her beloved rat terrier Lolabelle and b) the experience of death. There are few detours--even her old fascination with the surveillance state packs conceptual weight. Often she's wry, but never is she satiric; occasionally she varies spoken word with singsong, but never is her voice distorted. She's just telling us stories about life and death and what comes in the middle when you do them right, which is love. There's a lot of Buddhism, a lot of mom, a whole lot of Lolabelle, and no Lou Reed at all beyond a few casual "we"s. Only he's there in all this love and death talk--you can feel him. And then suddenly the finale is all Lou, singing a rough, wise, abstruse song about the meaning of love that first appeared on his last great album, Ecstasy--a song that was dubious there yet is perfect here. One side of the CD insert is portraits of Lolabelle. But on the other side there's a note: "dedicated to the magnificent spirit/of my husband, Lou Reed/1942-2013." I know I should see the movie. But I bet it'd be an anticlimax. A PLUS

Hmm I loved it but yeah it's def album with accompanying images, sometimes the images add to the experience & sometimes not but I never really felt they detracted from it; loved seeing the dog & Anderson's video diaries are obv gonna be of interest aside from any formal qualities. Xga otm that the song is somehow much better in this context

Xp that is a great post on itrots

never abbreviating that film's title again

Maggie's Plan (Miller, 2016) 5/10 - Rich New York academics complaining in brownstones. I like Greta Gerwig but she's not showing very much range.

I like Gerwig as much as any comic actress of her (our) generation, but this really looked cringe-inducing from the trailer.

I agree, she's frequently great, but she's gotta get out of New York.

The plot of Maggie's Plan is pretty much what happened between her and Noah Baumbach.

1001 nights (amano yoshitaka) - animated short by the artist for the final fantasy series, really stunning animation but the score seemed to ape "daphnis et chloe" a bit too closely

were you cleaning one of their houses, flappy?

well Eames chairs don't dust themselves

Lady Snowblood: Love Song of Vengeance (1974, Toshiya Fujita) 7/10 - Not all that much vengeance, really, and Lady Snowblood is fairly superfluous to the plot, but it looks great.

Creepy (2016, Kyoshi Kurosawa) 5/10 - Starts promising, becomes kind of unpleasant and nonsensical in its last half. I haven't seen Cure, but my girlfriend said that it basically reused a lot of the elements of Cure in a much less satisfying manner. Lots of pissed-off festival-goers on our way out.

horns (aja, 2013) 4/10
margaret (lonergan, 2011) 8/10
*watchmen (snyder, 2009) 8/10
clouds of sils maria (assayas, 2014) 7/10
breathless (mcbride, 1983) 7/10
mary and max (elliot, 2009) 7/10
exotica (egoyan, 1994) 8/10

documentaries

red army (polsky, 2014) 6/10
heroin cape cod usa (okazaki, 2015) 6/10
evocateur: the morton downey jr. movie (kramer/miller, 2013) 7/10
the decline of western civilisation: the metal years (spherris, 1988)

the metal years 8/10

dow - yes the music to Heart of a Dog was p/gd.

How did you like Belladonna of Sadness?
Absolutely loved it. It gets a lot of mileage about the combination of limited animation (mostly still frames, really), with a lot of weird pattern/decorative stuff that plays with the 2D film frame in a way that reminds me of Klimt and Schiele. Sounds pretentious as shit, I know, but I think there's something there.

Just be aware that if you see it, the devil is shaped like an evil penis and people will giggle.

― You guys are caterpillar (Telephone thing), Sunday, May 29, 2016 11:47 PM (3 weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yea i saw this too, wow
i am real far from an anime or even animation guy but this was a work of art
aren't there some deep soundtrack heads around here? id rec seeking this out by any means nec'y; the skronky jazz/noize sections were amazing

I liked Sing Street. (Thought there might be a John Carney thread, but no.) A couple of sappy parts, maybe some overreach (the economy, divorce, brothers, priests), but some of the original music is period-perfect, as is the band's first video, and the girl's as fetching as Clare Grogan in Comfort and Joy. I don't think it matters whether you loved or hated this stuff at the time, this is great:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8VtbULzJTU

*Woman Is the Future of Man (2004, Hong) 6/10
The Passionate Thief (1960, Monicelli) 7/10
*It (1927, Badger) 7/10
Dust in the Wind (1987, Hou) 7/10
The Moon’s Our Home (1936, Seiter) 6/10
Under the Cherry Moon (1986, Prince) 4/10
Broadway (1929, Fejos) 6/10
Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye (1950, Douglas) 6/10
There’s Always Tomorrow (1934, Sloman) 6/10
Only Yesterday (1933, Stahl)

Only Yesterday (1933, Stahl) 7/10

Margaret Sullavan's film debut... She's great, and Billie Burke warbles a few bars of "Tiptoe Through the Tulips." Also, it opens with an upscale Manhattan party on the day of the '29 crash, and Franklin Pangborn shows up with a young male date.

a real swingin' party down the line

The Measure of Man (Stéphane Brizé, 2015) - my one French social realist flick for the year. Maybe I should stop that.
Tale of Tales (Matteo Garrone, 2015) - bollocks.
Embrace of the Serpent (Ciro Guerra, 2015) - this was diverting enough and I felt like reading the travel journals this was based on. In another life.

LOL I think we have seen the same last three films - enjoyed all of them more than you, by the sounds of things, tho' none are w/out their problems major or minor. I saw Measure of a Man after the other two, so was prob in the right frame of a mind for a dose of cleansing Dardennes-esque social realism (w/, it has to be said, a pretty masterful lead performance) - thought everything from the human resources big meeting onward edged into melodrama, or at least something rather too obviously structured/plotted, but worth seeing just for that long mobile home sale scene - also liked the way that Brizé entered and exited scenes from slightly odd lines of approach.

what the hell did you expect from tale of tales, xyzzzz? :D

yeah deffo more movies like The Measure of Man required, I thought Embrace of The Serpent was ok until the cliched death cult showed up.

Just saw Tale Of Tales tonight. Obviously I loved it. Love Shirley Henderson. Tightrope scene was so great.

I'm watching Embrace of The Serpent tonight, liked The Measure of a Man very much; it grew in the mind.

Ward - a jaded viewing but looking at your post you are totally right re: Measure of Man. The long-ish scenes where dialogue is stretched beyond a point of no return: the first meeting with the woman who tries to convince the man to sell his home (v well contrasted with the 2nd wheres she gives him that loan after he gets a job). The Skype interview was horrifying but works on you.

aren't there some deep soundtrack heads around here? id rec seeking this out by any means nec'y; the skronky jazz/noize sections were amazing

It's out on vinyl from Finders Keepers! It's gorgeous, too, I just can't be importing records right now :/

Just a few this time:
Dogtooth (Lanthimos, 2009) Really disturbed by this, more than I was expecting. Not just the content, too; the framing of important characters at the edge of frames or off screen entirely just put me on edge. Thoroughly unpleasant, highly recommended if you're an idiot like me who hasn't seen this yet.
Valley of the Dolls (Robson, 1967) Watched this basically as homework for a podcast discussion (comic artists/critics Katie Skelly and Sarah Horrocks's Trash Twins, a round table on this, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls and Kyoko Okazaki's manga Helter Skelter). Enjoyable, though the total lack of any counterculture presence in the movie was deeply weird- all the pop culture and SHOWBIZ! in the movie is the squarest, boringest warmed-over 1950s shit you can imagine. Too much distance between high points (roughly in order: "SPARKLE, Neely, SPARKLE"; "Boobies, boobies, boobies!"; The Snatching of the Wig)
The Neon Demon (Refn, 2016) WHAT THE FUCK. I greatly enjoyed this; wasn't quite the camp masterpiece I was hoping for but it is definitely funnier than you'd expect. It also takes a hard, hard swerve from suggestion and vaguely Zardoz-y trippiness into full-on Drive/Only God Forgives/giallo-esque nastiness, so be prepared for that. The friend I saw it with almost puked.

embrace of the serpent - 7.5/10
one floor below - 6/10
aferim - 8.8/10
fire at sea - 5.5/10
the cockettes - 7/10
little dieter needs to fly - 8/10
wings of hope - 8/10
three exercises of interpretation - 6.5/10

Also, THE EXQUISITE CORPUS. 9/10

watched North by Northwest with the kids last night. they dug it. the DVD we watched looked amazing. man, those colors. those red caps. those taxis. eva's hair on the train. so shiny. very mesmerizing.

oh, 9/10

did they like the closing train-in-tunnel joke?

yeah, i don't think they really caught that.

definitely a movie that is even better than you remember if you haven't seen it in years.

North by Northwest was my fave Hitch when I was a kid (maybe still is), so its kid-appeal makes perfect sense to me. There's a wit and a precision to it that make it enjoyable for kids to follow even when they don't totally understand what's going on, and Grant seems to be playing it as at least 3/4 comedy. Also, "You're no fake, you're a genuine idiot" made/makes me LOL at any age.

just entertaining fluff though, no?

so many great images. you could blow up stills from that movie and hang them in a gallery.

"just"

Also, "You're no fake, you're a genuine idiot" made/makes me LOL at any age.

one of the better representations of screen embarrassment, and I love how the scene's irony depends on thinking Cary Grant would know exactly how to conduct himself in such settings.

this never fails to make my jaw drop:

https://freaksreviews.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/large_north_by_northwest_blu-ray2.jpg

NO, StillAdvance, you're thinking of the James Bond films that ripped it off for 50 years.

here: http://www.slantmagazine.com/film/review/north-by-northwest