Last (x) movies you saw

Flight (Zemeckis, 2012) 7/10
High Hopes (Leigh, 1988) 7/10
T2 Trainspotting (Boyle, 2017) 6/10
Thief (Mann, 1981) 9/10

documentaries:

Author: The JT Leroy Story (Feuerzeig, 2016) 8/10
We Are Twisted Fucking Sister! (Horn, 2014) 6/10
Amanda Knox (McGinn/Blackhurst, 2016) 7/10

Haven't done one of these in a while:

Don't Deliver Us From Evil (Seria, 1971)
Two Evil Eyes (Romero/Argento, 1990)
Ghostbusters (Feig, 2016)
*Mad Max: Fury Road (Miller, 2015)
Turbo Kid (Simard/Whissell/Whissell, 2015)
*Deep Red (Argento, 1975)
Tales from the Darkside: The Movie (Harrison, 1990)
*Inferno (Argento, 1980)
*House (Miner, 1986)
House 2: The Second Story (Wiley, 1987) (THIS IS ONE OF THE WORST FUCKING THINGS I HAVE EVER SEEN)
*Tenebre (Argento, 1982)
Yellow Fever: The Rise and Fall of the Giallo (Waddell, 2016) (this is a bonus feature on Synapse's recent Tenebre blu-ray, but it is really startlingly good- way better than it had to be)
Hunt for the Wilderpeople (Waititi, 2016)
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (Edwards, 2016)
Demons 2 (Bava, 1986)
*World of Tomorrow (Hertzfeldt, 2015)
Dreams in the Witch House (Gordon, 2005)
Castle Freak (Gordon, 1995)
I Am Love (Guadagnino, 2009)
Eden and After (Robbe-Grillet, 1970)

Watched two Korēda films over the weekend - Hana, a light jidai-geki about a son seeking vengeance but being much more suited to schoolteaching than samurai skills. It was really terrible, just twee and cutesie without any point that I could discern. This surprised me because I love his work usually. And then Maboroshi no Hikari the following night, K's debut feature and utterly, distractingly beautiful but also so well told I remembered everything I loved. And absolutely littered with Ozu nods, so much for his later claim that he didn't see the comparison and felt more akin to Naruse.

― attention vampire (MatthewK), 13. februar 2017 12:42 (five hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Have you seen his Air Doll? That one is quite terrible as well. I think he floundered a bit in the years after Distance, some hits (Still Walking is from this period), some misses, as he tried to find his place in the larger Japanese film-business. But he has never quite recaptured what he had in his first three ones, in my view.

White Girl. It was pretty good. The message got lost between all the dicks 'n' coke though.

Thanks Frederik. I love Still Walking pretty hard, and After Life and Nobody Knows are masterpieces. Yet to see Distance, but some of the later period ones like I Wish and Like Father Like Son are a bit meh to me. But his most recent, After the Storm, was just wonderful I thought. His TV series Going My Home is also great if you can find it.

I much prefer Distance to Nobody Knows, which in my view is the one where he gives up on his 'indieness' and begins floundering a bit. Like Father, Like Son is meh in my opinion as well, but it was a really big succes, which is kinda what I meant with him trying to find his place. It's a broad and populist prestige-film, which is okay for what it is. Our Little Sister is better, and now I'll look forward to see After the Storm this spring!

Yeah I liked OLS too but it's a minor work, in my opinion.

christine, last night. thought it was great. rebecca hall was brilliant, not sure how she isn't nominated for an oscar. tracy letts was great too. thought it was a really downbeat and sensitive portrayal of a person and their problems.

last sunday i watched childhood of a leader, thought it was slightly ridiculous. it was like it wanted to shock or horrify, but mostly the kid's awful behaviour was sort of one-note and comical, it reminded me of the childhood monte burns giggling as he rams his dodgem car into the irishman.

John Wick: Chapter 2

ridiculous movie, probably a shade below the first one but still a solid 8/10. i guess i'm most impressed by the set design and overall creativity of the world depicted in this series, as well as its good-natured take on an ultraviolent hitman story. i think a good thirty minutes of this movie is just John Wick running from room to room and double-tapping anonymous bad guys and occasionally getting into a close quarters knife fight. it's just extremely stylishly done and it's nice to see a movie that steers clear of teal and orange and instead heads right for blue and red and purple and black.

the JW series to date i guess is probably most like the Crank movies w/Statham but it doesn't leave a bad taste in my mouth nor feel like Gavin McInnes' favorite action movies nor have a generally unlikable dude at its center, which are the big problems with those flicks.

I enjoyed it but those thirty minutes should really be a third of the film's running time rather than a quarter of it, cause man do these films get a little boring when they stop to take you through the (delightfully stooopid) workings of Assassin Club. Just really long scenes of being told the same joke over and over. If this was 90 minutes instead of 120 I'd watch it a second time, instead I'll prob just rewatch the action scenes on youtube

never seen a crank film, the rockstar games hurr he shot him in the dick hurr aspect puts me off a bit

i like the continental club shit, i guess for me it helps that Ian McShane and Lance Reddick are the dudes who are running it. where the movie stopped dead for me a bit was the scene with Fishburne, which took too long and felt stretched out (prob bc they were excited to have Neo and Morpheus together again and wrote it long.)

yeah the Crank films are way more like rockstar games, that's pretty accurate. Statham's problem is he never evolved into a likable screen presence after he became a star. i recognize that people really do like him but after awhile i was just like, man i don't want to see this prick in anymore movies. maybe in Spy he did a good job, i've heard good things, idk i never saw it.

I wasn't thinking of the stuff with lovejoy & cedric daniels (call them by their names pls) so much as like the "getting dressed" scene and the putting out a contract/people receiving text messages. I was like, we get it move on

Agree re fishburne scene. Liked the tango & cash homage at the end.

stathams muppet voice is a problem too

yeah i get that...at least the text messages and the contract stuff. i think these guys are really in love with their own world-building and want to show all the details. i respect that, but probably only needed to see a bit of it. two whole identical scenes was a bit much.

i liked the sommelier, good to see peter serafinowicz in that role. after that scene i feel like he could actually be a dark horse for Bond, as ridiculous as that might sound.

Statham's muppet/Bruce Willis/Krays henchman thing wore out its welcome for me after The Transporter.

peter serafinowicz as bond would bring me back to bond

THAT'S who that was! I knew I knew him from somewhere

I was like hmm it's not dale winton but who then?

he'll never be bond obv, they'll hire some boring mfer.

Multiple Maniacs (Waters, 1970)
Le Havre (Kaurismäki, 2011)
The Gleaners and I (Varda, 2000)
John Wick Chapter 2 (Stahelski, 2017)
Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart to Hades (Misumi, 1972)
Bone Tomahawk (Zahler, 2015)
The Grifters (Frears, 1990)
From the East (Akerman, 1993)

shorts:
Wasp (Arnold, 2003)
24 Heures de la Vie d'un Clown (Melville, 1946)
Love You More (Taylor-Johnson, 2008)

The Dirty Dozen (Aldrich)
The Bridge on the River Kwai (Lean)
Ryan’s Daughter (Lean)
Once Upon a Time in the West (Leone)*
This Man Must Die (Chabrol)
Le Boucher (Chabrol)*
La Ceremonie (Chabrol)*
The Swindle (Chabrol)
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (Jackson)*
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (Jackson)*
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (Jackson)*
Yellow Earth (Chen)
Raise the Red Lantern (Zhang)
The Story of Qiu Ju (Zhang)
To Live (Zhang)
Shanghai Triad (Zhang)
The Road Home (Zhang)
A Woman a Gun and a Noodle Shop (Zhang)
Gone With the Bullets (Jiang)
Saint Laurent (Bonello)*
Moonlight (Jenkins)
The Necessary Death of Charlie Countryman (Bond)
Thumbsucker (Mills)
Beginners (Mills)
20th Century Women (Mills)
The Big Short (McKay)
The Place Beyond the Pines (Cianfrance)
The Butler (Daniels)
The Messenger (Moverman)

A bunch of preparation for an article on Zhang Yimou that then never happened... Such a weird thing that has happened to the fifth generation directors, they've been almost completely co-opted. Not that Zhang ever was that radical, but there was at least some kind of critique earlier on.

Oh, and Gone With the Bullets is fun. Only after I'd put it on did I realize it was meant to parody Gone With the Wind, probably because the opening scene parodied The Godfather, except with a white rabbit. A weird postmodern mishmash loosely based on the filming of the actual first Chinese feature film.

20,000 Leagues Under The Sea (Fleischer, 1954) - Love it, with the exception of the "cannibals" scene
Silverado (Kasdan, 1985)
I Died A Thousand Times (Heisler, 1955)
The Goodbye Girl (Ross, 1977)
The Outsiders (Coppola, 1983)
With Honors (Keshishian, 1994) - Reminded me of watching something just because it wast the last VHS at Blockbuster. Not really good except for the soundtrack and Moira Kelly
Black Robe (Beresford, 1991) - Great great movie
Excalibur (Boorman, 1981)
Lone Wolf McQuade (Carver, 1983)
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (Buñuel, 1972)
Secret Honor (Altman, 1984)

Oh also btw I am watching everything on Laser Disc unless otherwise noted

Everybody Wants Some!! - 8/10
Blackhat - 6/10

if the next Bond isn't black i'll puke. given Anthony Horowitz's quote about Idris Elba being "too street" and Trump succeeding Obama as prez it's fucking high time, as if it hasn't been for a couple of decades now

Just saw I Am Not Your Negro, the James Baldwin film. Very good and very sad. It was sold out and I had no idea the film was going to be that big a deal. Is this being discussed on another thread?

James Baldwin - Search and Destroy

*Beat the Devil (1953, Huston) 9/10
*The Decalogue (1989, Kieslowski) 10/10
One Way or Another (1978, Gomez) 7/10
*Hallelujah I’m a Bum (1933, Milestone) 8/10
Ulysses in the Subway (2017, Downie, Kaiser, Jacobs, Jacobs) 6/10
Fences (2016, Washington) 7/10
Without Anesthesia aka Rough Treatment (1978, Wajda) 8/10
I Am Not Your Negro (2016, Peck) 8/10
High-Rise (2015, Wheatley) 5/10
*GoodFellas (1990, Scorsese) 10/10
*Everyone Else (2009, Ade) 7/10
Anatahan (1953, Sternberg) 6/10
*Tess (1979, Polanski) 7/10
Starless Dreams (2016, Oskouei) 8/10
*Time Bandits (1981, Gilliam) 8/10
Paths to Paradise (1925, Badger) 7/10
Young Man with a Horn (1950, Curtiz) 5/10

Shout At The Devil (Hunt, 1976) - I guess I liked the biplane
Swept Away... by an Unusual Destiny in the Blue Sea of August (Wertmüller, 1974)
White Palace (Mandoki, 1990) - Actually liked this way more than I expected to
Shampoo (Ashby, 1975)
Another Time, Another Place (Allen, 1958)
Unfaithfully Yours (Zief, 1984)
Night Shift (Howard, 1982) - wow, can't believe I hadn't seen this. One of those VHS covers burned into my brain.
Without a Clue (Eberhardt, 1988)
True Colors (Ross, 1991)
Romance With a Double Bass (Young, 1974)

Get Out (2017) 4/5
Streets of Fire (1984; rewatch) 3/5
Daughters of the Dust (1991) 3.5/5
I Am Not Your Negro (2016) 4/5
He Walked by Night (1948) 3/5
Donkey Skin (1970) 4/5
John Wick: Chapter 2 (2017) 3.5/5
Bad Education (2004) 3.5/5
Cameraperson (2016) 4.5/5
Dead Man (1995; rewatch) 4/5
This Was the XFL (2017) 3/5
The Embassy (1973) 4/5
The Apple (1998) 2.5/5

February:

Cameraperson (Johnson, 2016) 8/10
Denial (Jackson, 2016) 5/10
Toni Erdmann (Ade, 2016) 9/10
Les Vampires pts 1-10 (Feuillade, 1915-16) 8/10
The New Centurions (Fleischer, 1972) 6/10
Midnight (Leisen, 1939) 9/10
Hugo (Scorsese, 2011) 5/10
The Woman Who Left (Diaz, 2016) 8/10
Moonlight (Jenkins, 2016) 6/10
The Other Side of Hope (Kaurismaki, 2017) 8/10
Stuff and Dough (Puiu, 2001) 7/10

I Am Not Your Negro - 7/10
Superstar (1999) - 6/10
A Cure for Wellness - 0/10
Polyester (1981) - 8/10
Get Out - 9/10
A United Kingdom - 4/10

*McCabe & Mrs. Miller (Altman, 1971) 9/10
The BFG (Spielberg, 2016) 4/10
*Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (Spielberg, 1984) 8/10
The Fits (Holmer, 2015) 7/10
Ararat (Egoyan, 2002) 6/10

Did you go to that screening of McCabe at the Royal last week? I wanted to, just didn't have the energy that night.

20th Century Women 6.5/10 - Annette Bening and Greta Gerwig turned in good performances

I liked that it seemed so much like Norwegian directors like Joachim Trier and Eskil Vogt, except a lot more feminine.

Did you go to that screening of McCabe at the Royal last week? I wanted to, just didn't have the energy that night.

Nah, just watched the new-ish Criterion disc from the library (feat. Kael on The Dick Cavett Show!). I totally gotta catch a screening of something or other next time I'm in Toronto, though.

Witches of Eastwick (George Miller, 1987)

this was really crazy. what do people make of this movie?

Cher, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Susan Sarandon are all BFFs intellectuals and artists nerdy/outcast witches that don't know they are witches. Jack Nicholson is "The D" as Aladdin's genie as pony tailed liberal arts educated cokehead billionaire. outcasts in crackerville (a town mostly defined by scenes of a school band rehearsing The Star Spangled Banner), together they live a fantasy of decadence and messy 80s sexual politics. its also a superhero team origin story! of feminism! or something!

It is super weird, including that weird little thing Nicholson turns into.

i recall the fx in the tennis match being super embarrassing; the novel is good

in "hit & run" it's described how the pitch to jon peters went. he seemed to not be paying attention, then suddenly he has an epiphany and says "witches! i get it!"

I haven't seen it since I was like 11 or so, but I remember it being pretty nuts. The scene with Cher and the snakes really freaked me the eff out at the time.

Clouds of Sils Maria (Assayas, 2014)
Yakuza Apocalypse (Miike, 2015)
Death of Cyclist (Bardem, 1955)
Hangmen Also Die (Lang, 1943)
Something Wild (Garfein, 1961)
The Mirror (Tarkovsky, 1975)
Do the Right Thing (Lee, 1989)
Gangs of New York (Scorsese, 2003)
Ace in the Hole (Wilder, 1951)
Ossos (Costa, 1997)
The Shower (short - San Martin, 2011)

Eastwick is a mess, and quite unfaithful to the Updike novel.

SPO
I
LER

In the book, Jack's
character
doesn't turn out to be
Satan
but
just gay.

Close enough.

i recall the fx in the tennis match being super embarrassing; the novel is good

― johnny crunch, Wednesday, March 1, 2017 7:39 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah, this was lame af. the creature at the end was totally awesome and weird. Cher's snakes in bed = Adam nightmare fuel.

the movie succeeded most when it was just the three of them hanging out, or dealing with the stuck-up town. like they are in line at the grocery store and someone calls them sluts and they don't take that shit. there was a point where Cher calls somebody a nazi, not sure if it was the same scene or not.

I only remember barfing cherry pits. 80s were good for barf.

Re-watching A Simple Plan tonight. Haven't seen this since it was in theaters.

toni Erdmann (ade 2016) 6/10
moonlight (Jenkins 2016) 6/10
postcards from the edge (Nichols 90) 7/10
Christine (campos 16) 5/10
hell or high water (Mackenzie 2016) 9/10
tickled (david farrier / Dylan reeve 2016) 7/10
I love you Phillip morris (requa / ficarra 2009) 5/10
ruby sparks (jonathan Dayton / Valerie faris) 4/10
get a job (Dylan kidd 2016) 4/10
mommy (dolan 2014) 9/10