Last (x) movies you saw

Le Rouge est Mis (7/10)
Brimstone (3/10)
La Note Bleue (7/10)
Prometheus* (5/10)
Exorcist III (6/10)
The Kremlin Letter* (8/10)
Daughter Of the Nile (8/10)

*rewatch

oh and...

Logan (7/10)

Do the Right Thing (Lee, 1989)
What's Up, Doc? (Bogdanovich, 1972) - I'm trying to watch all the Pre-Focker Barbaras
Cavegirl (Oliver, 1985) - Arzt Origins
Grand Canyon (Kasdan, 1985) - I can see where this would would work well in a class, there are a lot of places to hang a discussion.
First Family (Henry, 1980) - A couple bits that worked but not really that great. Hard to believe that this is the only time Rip Torn and Fred Willard worked together.
Little Vegas (Lang, 1990)
Baby it's You (Sayles, 1983)
Teachers (Hiller, 1984)
The State of Things (Wenders, 1982)
King Kong (Cooper, 1933)
Aliens (Cameron, 1986)
Alien^3 (Fincher, 1992)
Throne Of Blood (Kurosawa, 1957)
Gardens of Stone (Coppola, 1986)
Slaves of New York (Ivory, 1989) - very 1985 paint splatter/Keith Haring squiggle-art/polka dot/loud color street style
The Wild Geese (McLaglen, 1978)
Cloak & Dagger (Franklin, 1984)
Round Midnight (Tavernier, 1986)

Cloak & Dagger (Franklin, 1984)

Loved this as a kid. Kind of want to revisit, but also kind of don't because I'm afraid of how it might look to me now.

I actually thought it held up OK. Better than D.A.R.Y.L. at least.

Midnight Run (Brest, 1988) 7
Lion (Garth Davis, 2016) 7
Get Out (Peele, 2017) 8
Logan (Mangold, 2017) 6
Florence Foster Jenkins (Frears, 2016) 5
Moonlight (Jenkins, 2016) 8
It Came From Outer Space (Jack Arnold, 1953) 5
Harvey (Henry Koster, 1950) 4

The Sense of an Ending - 2/10
Idiocracy (2006) - 6/10
Raw - 6/10
Wilson - 3/10
Personal Shopper - 9/10

Daughter Of the Nile (8/10)

L'Alliance (8/10) Karina marries Jean-Claude Carriére and paranoia ensues. Really great.

Soleil Rouge (5/10) Bronson, Mifune and Delon (and Ursula Andresssss) in a French sorta-spaghetti western. Very odd.

*Soylent Green (1973, Fleischer) 5/10
Route One USA (1989, Kramer) 8/10
The Love Witch (2016, Biller) 6/10
I Called Him Morgan (2016, Collin) 8/10
Being 17 (2016, Techine) 7/10
#Taipei Story (1985, Yang) 8/10
Beach Rats (2017, Hittman) 5/10
*Sunset Song (2015, Davies) 9/10
Numéro deux (1975, Godard) 7/10
*What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962, Aldrich) 9/10
*The Mortal Storm (1940, Borzage) 8/10
The Rubber Gun (1977, Moyle) 7/10

#I think it's possible I saw Taipei Story 25 years ago, but I don't remember it.

Working may way through the Weissmuller Tarzans with my kid. Last night we did Tarzan's Desert Mystery, which features Nazis, a slangy Stanwyck-alike gal magician stranded on a USO tour, huge reptiles and a giant spider. I had forgotten how silly these got, big fun.

Festival haul.

Hissein Habre - A Chadian Tragedy (Haroun)
Homo Sapiens (Geyrhalter)
All These Sleepless Nights (Marczak)
Eglantine (Salmon)
The Graduation (Simon)
The Cinema Travellers (Abraham & Madheshiya)
Untitled (Glawogger)
Machines (Jain)
Bitter Money (Wang Bing)
Spectator Records - Up In Smoke (Bro, Andersen, Schwarz-Nielsen & Schwarz-Nielsen)
A Modern Man (Mulvad)
France (Depardon)
1996 Lucy and the Corpses in the Pool (Migliavacca & Lahora)
Liberation Day (Traavik & Olte)
The Third Option (Fürhapter)

Tarrafal (Neves)
Janbal (Bozorgmehr & Moghadam)
Spin (G Seidl)
The Mærsk Opera (Superflex)
Voyage of Time: Life’s Journey (Malick)
Vi Lader Billedet Stå et Øjeblik (Wellejus)
I Promise You Never to Come Back (Gutierrez)

Janbal is best film of the year. 1996 Lucy and the Corpses in the Pool pretty damn masterful as well. The new Wang Bing is a bit disappointing :(

Appropriate Behaviour (5.5)
Certain Women (7.0)
Snowden (6.0)
Cinema Verite (6.5)
Brothers of the Black List (6.5)
Personal Shopper (6.5)
Adventureland (8.0)
Something Evil (7.0)
Class of ’63 (5.5)
The Founder (5.5)

I'm usually more or less in sync with David Edelstein on most films but thought The Founder was a major missed opportunity. The only pleasure I got out of it was recognizing Mad Men's Linda Cardellini under a blonde wig (I was positive it was one of Don's affairs--I did have to wait for the credits to be sure it was Sylvia).

only posting directly after Frederik henceforth

One More Time with Feeling (2016) 3.5/5
Hard Ticket to Hawaii (1987) 1/5
Voyage of Time: the IMAX Experience (2016) 4/5
Maborosi (1995; rewatch) 5/5
The Witness (2015) 3.5/5
Green Room (2015) 4/5

How did you feel about Kitty Genovese's brother in The Witness? For me, he was the drag on an otherwise interesting film.

I actually liked him. For someone with an obsession he had a pretty reasonable, calm demeanor. Not what I was expecting.

Appropriate Behaviour (5.5)

We just aren't agreeing lately!

Got it from the library, didn't know a thing about it but the cover looked intriguing. It just struck me as a lesbian version of generic Woody Allen. I did find the two student films funny, though.

Agreed. Tale of the Lost Fart was awesome.

I think that Akhavan is funnier than Woody has been in decades, though (or Lena Dunham ever).

the nice guys (2016) 6/10
elle (2016) 8/10
Submit to me now (1987) 5/10
alone. life wastes andy hardy (1998) 7/10
love & friendship (2016) 7/10
the kid with a bike (2011) 8/10
the young offenders (2016) 6/10
girlhood (2014) 7/10
the dogs of war (1980) 8/10
certain women (2016) 8/10
batman: mask of the phantasm (1993) 7/10

documentaries:

Accidental Courtesy: Daryl Davis, Race & America (2016) 6/10
The Wolfpack (2015) 4/10
lawrence of belgravia (2012) 7/10

we projected "Predator" (1987) last week. it really holds up. the effects are still very strange and alien and super cool. that infared camera with vector graphics for the Predator's eye view is so cool. i love how the Predator can playback audio. it is very creepy, they are being hunting while hearing their dead friends. the audio playback is a big part of the explosive and awesome finale. the whole cast is great. what can you say, Arnold is the man. "Stick around" and "Get to the choppa" are both grade-A action one liners. the way he has to shed all his guns and fight with hand-made spears and weapons like pre-civilized man in order to win is so great. this film is a modern myth.

something i didn't notice much as a kid was the team is all sort of nostalgic for Vietnam, hence the dirty jokes and Little Richard, and watching these guys that have a long history and have seen some shit together get brutally hunted by this space alien is wonderful fantasy drama. the cast is great. Jessie Ventura is there to crank up the testosterone while Carl Weathers is the badass company man (also full of testosterone, it flows freely here).

You made me want to rewatch "Predator" again. Tonight.

OK I'm watching it too then

Hard Ticket to Hawaii (1987) 1/5

Doesn't even get another .5 for the Frisbee scene?

heavy metal 3/5
lucifer rising 5/5
moonstruck 4/5
scarface 4.5/5
paris, texas 3.5/5
star trek ii: the wrath of khan 4.5/5
christine 4/5
valley girl 1.5/5
flash gordon 2.5/5

prefer Valley Girl to Moonstruck in the Cage canon

I think that Akhavan is funnier than Woody has been in decades, though (or Lena Dunham ever).

― some sad trombone Twilight Zone shit (cryptosicko),

Agreed. Made my list of 2015's best iirc

Victoria (Schipper, 2015)
The Flavor of Green Tea Over Rice (Ozu, 1952)
The Inheritance (Kobayashi, 1962)
A Story for the Modlins (short - Oksman, 2012)
Inside Llewyn Davis (Coen/Coen, 2013)
A Kid for Two Farthings (Reed, 1955)
The Kid With a Bike (Dardenne/Dardenne, 2011)
The Rite (Bergman, 1969)
Book of Days (Monk, 1989 -- Meredith Monk's personal 35mm print, projected at the Big Ears festival)
Superbia (short - Toth, 2016)

Silicon Cowboys (doc)
Bokeh
All Nighter
Guy And Madeline On A Park Bench
...all meh/10

Then a whole bunch of *rewatches, due to my current living situation...
Eagle vs Shark 7/10
Adventureland 7/10
Sin City: A Dame To Kill For 3/10
10 Cloverfield Lane 8/10
Cooties 5/10
Coherence 8/10
Take Shelter 9/10
My Son, My Son What Have Ye Done 7/10

The Time Machine (Pal, 1960) 7/10
Tab Hunter Confidential (Schwarz, 2015) 7/10
*The 400 Blows (Truffaut, 1959) 8/10
Wait Until Dark (Young, 1967) 7/10
*The Maltese Falcon (Huston, 1941) 8/10
The Edge of Seventeen (Craig, 2016) 8/10
*Kiss Me Deadly (Aldrich, 1955) 7/10
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Hooper, 1974) 5/10
*Halloween (Carpenter, 1978) 8/10
Manchester By the Sea (Lonergan, 2016) 7/10

5/10 for Texas Chainsaw is indefensible

Predator :( first rewatch since...I dunno...1991?) Hilarious and batshit fun. Something like this couldn't get made today without a ton of CG and way too much dialogue. Hail McTiernan! 6/10

Le Diable et les Dix Commandements : 6/10

Eight Women : 7/10

Entre Nous : 8/10

Thanks AdamVania for the "Predator" tip !

5/10 for Texas Chainsaw is indefensible

I didn't dislike it so much as it's simply "not my thing." I like my horror fun and stylish (like Halloween), and this is just kind of grisly, yucky and depressing. For anyone who likes this kind of thing, though, I can't say it isn't effective.

I did honestly wonder if the last shot in the film inspired Spielberg with the final shot of the T-Rex in Jurassic Park, but that may just be my crazy imagination.

Just go home

xp

Texas Chainsaw is insanely stylish though. Such a radical, unique, beautifully shot, and soundtracked film. "Fun"is admittedly debatable though.

As far as fully formed ~aesthetic~, hard to beat. Halloween close behind.

Definitely.

Texas Chainsaw is one of the better comedies of its era

That guy on the wheelchair is great.

There was an old guy who sat in the front row and laughed maniacally through an entire screening of TCM I caught a little while back. Morbs?

My grandmother is extremely sensitive, she seems hurt when people use coarse language onscreen and takes violence really badly but John Carpenter's The Thing was an an uproarious absurdist comedy to her.

I had TCM #1 on my ILX horror-film ballot five years ago, but I do understand cryptosicko's indifference. I saw it in a theatre at some point since then, and while its intensity and audaciousness (and humor) was still as clear as ever, it also, for lack of a better word, just wasn't a rewarding thing for me to watch anymore.

I also had that feeling at the last screening (which was maybe, who knows, the 7th time I've seen it?) but I've had that with literally every movie I've seen that extensively. Watched The Shining again the other week and the jazz wasn't there either. I don't know, getting older and seeing things a bunch weakens all impact.

Janbal is best film of the year.

This cute routine of yours never gets old.

Elle (Verhoeven, 2016) - pure Verhoeven Eurothrash (every scene seemed to be trolling something or other) but instead of Sharon Stone you have Isabelle Huppert in the lead. She was great but it was really odd seeing her in this setting. Given the lead its inescapable to see many similarities with "Things to Come" in the way the main lead navigated the post-marriage, grown-up children and grandchildren - that might be a great dbl bill. 'Moving on' with this rich past behind her. Except with the psycho-sexual mumbo-jumbo. Also you rarely get to see a 60 year old being so confident with her sexuality in a film (hard to recall this one).

The Salesman (Farhadi, 2016) - great script, performances. Its all so good to a clinical scary precision.

Also great cat performance in both

LOL yeah.

Forgot:

Aquarius (Mendonça Filho, 2016) - as I know my telenovelas from childhood it was nice to see Braga in the lead (of course this is a point of comparison with Huppert; Braga in her 70s but entirely understandable to see her lacking in confidence in establishing sexual relationships again - although she ahs an erratic journey) and yeah a couple of scenes just felt straight out of a telenovela to me as well. Probably nostalgic more than anything - even though the story is very London (very everywhere I suppose).

Janbal is best film of the year.
This cute routine of yours never gets old.

― xyzzzz__, 2. april 2017 11:33 (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I've written more on it elsewhere on ilx, and am currently working on a longer appreciation in English. Excuse me for not writing an essay every time I mention a film.

Seeing Aquarius next week! Have so far only watched half of it on a screener. Made me dance to Gilberto Gil for a week. Mendonca Filho is really great, if you haven't seen it, you should really check out Neighboring Sounds.