Last (x) movies you saw

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

John Wick Chapter 2. I really like the way, when he's not kicking the shit out of an army of henchmen, Keanu Reeves walks around like he's old, tired, in constant pain, and just really, really wants a nap.

Moonlight (Jenkins, 2016) - 7/10
Battle of Algiers (Pontecorvo, 1966) - 10/10. I mean fuck, 100/10

Jackie (5/10) - Movie looked beautiful but this just felt like a bunch of disparate conversations in search of a film. It had its moments, but it felt like it was over before it got anywhere.

Downhill Racer (6.5)
Grand Canyon (7.5)
The Perks of Being a Wallflower (8.5)
Paterson (7.0)
What Remains: The Life and Work of Sally Mann (7.0)
The Witness (7.0)
Eva Hesse (6.5)
I Am Not Your Negro (7.5)
The Way Way Back (5.0)
Fish Tank (6.5)

I don't much like Lawrence Kasdan's two most famous films, and I avoided Grand Canyon forever--figured it would either be unbearably sappy or unbearably smarmy. (Bearded Steve Martin--yikes.) Either it benefited from setting the bar so low or I was just in the right frame of mind, but I thought it was surprisingly good.

The Way Way Back (5.0)

:-(

Yeah, I didn't like it. The biggest problem for me was the scenery chewing from Sam Rockwell and Allison Janney--I thought Rockwell was awful. The kid was interesting.

A Monster Calls
which was beautiful and moving.
But I'm puzzled about Sigourney Weaver playing a Brit when there's loads of real Brit actresses around.

LOGAN
also pretty moving. Does it map to any comic run directly? Also did I miss explanation as to why no more mutants or did they give it? Or throw it away in one line?
Odd to see Steve wassisname Ricky Gervais buddy as Caliban.
Also odd timing for this film story, presumably must have been filmed and almost completely edited before the November Trump win?

I saw a lot, thanks to Miami Film Festival:

Harmonium (Fukada, 2017) 8/10
Frantz (Ozon, 2017) 7/10
It's Only the End of the World (Dolan, 2017) 6/10
The Unknown Girl (Dardennes, 2017) 5/10
Afterimage (Wadja, 2016) 5/10
Santa & Andres (Lechuga, 2017) 5/10
Are We Not Cats? (Robin, 2017) 5/10
Handsome Devil (Butler, 2017) 4/10
El Amparo (Calzadilla, 2017) 6/10
Cargo (Mortimer, 2017) 7/10
The Daughter (Stone, 2017) 4/10
Embargo (Rice, 2017) 7/10
The Dark Wind (Hassan, 2017) 6/10
The Salesman (Farhadi, 2016) 7/10
The Fits (Holmer, 2016) 7/10
Hacksaw Ridge (Gibson, 2016) 3/10
The Confession (Costa-Gavras, 1970) 8/10
* The Jewel of the Nile (Teague, 1985) 4/10
* Apocalypse Now (Coppola, 1979) 8/10
Hatari! (Hawks, 1962) 5/10
* Casablanca (Curtiz, 1943) 8/10
* Only Angels Have Wings (Hawks, 1940) 9/10

clem: I'm starting to think I'm alone on The Way Way Back. Rockwell didn't even bother me, mostly because I saw him as doing Bill Murray in Meatballs (I look at TWWB is basically a remake of that film from the perspective of the Chris Makepeace character).

Alfred: Your rating of The Jewel of the Nile doesn't surprise me at all. I remember thinking it sucked even when I was 8. I do wonder if Romancing the Stone holds up at all, though.

It does.

(xpost) I can see the Meatballs comparison--Adventureland, too, obviously, the water park replacing the amusement park. I think Murray's so much funnier, though; Rockwell crudely hammers away at one obvious point--"I really hate this job and myself"--while Murray has some fun with his mock-sincerity.

@clemzo - I accidentally picked up Grand Canyon last week in a lot I don't remember bidding on, I'll bump it up closer in the queue

I was originally interested in the lot for b/ccs reasons
http://i.imgur.com/IovDjub.jpg

(xpost) Accidentally buying Grand Canyon is a good start, but I've probably ruined it for you already--the kind of film where you want to get caught by surprise.

All I really remember of Grand Canyon is watching it with my grandparents and them getting upset because they didn't immediately catch on that the bus massacre scene (I think it was) was a movie-within-the-movie.

Grand Canyon, which I used to own on used VHS purchased at Blockbuster, is larded with a lot of L.A. psychobabble, which is Lawrence Kasdan's idea of profundity; he has no idea how to stage his ideas except to give his characters monologues. I'm not sure what Kevin Kline's character is; I'm not sure he knew either, for it's a blank performance. Mary McDonnell and Danny Glover are top-notch, though.

Fascinating movie. I'd teach it.

Thought Kevin Kline was very good.

(xpost) Funny! Grand Canyon actually scooped the fake Bruce Willis-Julia Roberts movie in The Player by a year, although I imagine you can find earlier Stallone-Schwarzenegger parodies than that.

There's a flying sequence, right? Kline flying across the city? Or am I thinking of another movie?

There is--I think both he and his wife get dream/daydream sequences...Other parts of the film reminded me not of The Player but Short Cuts (which is definitely the superior film).

"Also did I miss explanation as to why no more mutants or did they give it? "

the scientist put a mutant inhibitor into corn. which makes it odd that the movie features product placement for Corn Flakes.