Last (x) movies you saw (II)

I would never have watched any of these movies had I not been on a plane. The Meg had some decent jump scares, and, you know, Jason Statham fighting a giant shark. And with the Mission: Impossible movie, at least you knew Tom Cruise actually fucked himself up doing his own stunts. But that Avengers thing, holy fuck.

xxxp otm, also saw it this week. thought it was interesting that Wang only becomes a visual presence when he interviews the cadre.

*A Story of Water (Truffaut et Godard, 1961)
Les Mistons (Truffaut, 1957)
Broadway Love (Park, 1918)
Off the Record (Henabery, 1934)
*Leap Year (Cruze & Arbuckle, 1921)
Old Czech Legends (Trnka, 1953)
My Grandfather's Clock (Feist, 1934)
There Ain't No Santa Claus (Parrott, 1926)

thought it was interesting that Wang only becomes a visual presence when he interviews the cadre.

yes, and shot at this angle where Wang was looking at him at all times.

will have to catch Wang's Dead Souls at some point. I love Lanzmann and lots of the important work he did, but he could be a ruthless interviewer, and I think it's fair to say that you shouldn't do that any more. Not meant as a criticism of Lanzmann because it was a different era, a different scale of atrocity he was chronicling, a different generation etc...

in theaters past month & a half

A Clockwork Orange (Kubrick, 1971) - 9/10
The Old Man & the Gun (Lowery, 2018) - 7/10
Mid90s (Hill, 2018) - 5/10
Beautiful Boy (Van Groeningen, 2018) - 3/10
Smiles of a Summer Night (Bergman, 1955) - 10/10
Can You Ever Forgive Me? (Heller, 2018) - 7/10
Wanda (Loden, 1970) - 10/10
Wildlife (Dano, 2018) - 4/10
Boy Erased (Edgerton, 2018) - 2/10
Widows (McQueen, 2018) - 4/10
Instant Family (Anders, 2018) - 6/10
The Seventh Seal (Bergman, 1957) - 10/10
Nobody’s Fool (Perry, 2018) - 4/10
Green Book (Farrelly, 2018) - 4/10
Playtime (Tati, 1967) - 10/10
Mirai (Hosoda, 2018) - 6/10
Baby Doll (Kazan, 1956 / 35mm) - 5/10
Casque d’Or (Becker, 1952 / 35mm) - 9/10

flappy bird your passion for Bergman has convinced me to explore his films

Aniki Bóbó (de Oliveira)
No, or the Vainglory of Command (de Oliveira)
Voyage to the Beginning of the World (de Oliveira)
Mandala (Im Kwon-taek)
Sopyonje (Im Kwon-taek)
The Housemaid (Im Sang-soo)
The Net (Kim)
The Day a Pig Fell Into the Well (Hong)
Yourself & Yours (Hong)
On the Beach at Night Alone (Hong)
Claire’s Camera (Hong)
Five Boys from Barska Street (A. Ford)
Knights of the Teutonic Order (A. Ford)
The First Day of Freedom (A. Ford)
Dear Wendy (Vinterberg, script by von Trier)
The House That Jack Built (von Trier)
Titicut Follies (Wiseman)
Ex Libris (Wiseman)
A Bomb Was Stolen (Popescu-Gopo)
Opera Jawa (Nugroho)
Gosford Park (Altman)
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (Coen & Coen)
The Other Side of the Wind (Welles)

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (Huston, 1948) 9/10
Three (To, 2016) 6/10
No Home Movie (Akerman, 2010) 9/10
Predators (Antal, 2010) - a spanish dub, seemed ok?
Suspiria (Argento, 1977) 7/10
Dead Souls (Wang, 2018) 8/10
Shoplifters (Kore-eda, 2018) 7/10
Bram Stoker’s Dracula (Coppola, 1992) 7/10
* The Red Shoes (Powell, Pressburger, 1948) 8/10

what's the streaming service to watch like bergman and ozu again? that exists right

no art house w/in 300 miles of me and i want to check some of these out. have no idea who kore-eda even is.

Kanopy.

Korla (Turner, 2015): Documentary about the musician and personality Korla Pandit. He had a pretty interesting story, and the doc was low-key enough to not get in the way. Interviews with Santana, Harry Edwards, Ben Fong-Torres, the Muffs, etc. Really changed the way I think about Liberace.

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (Coens, 2018) 9/10
*Gilda Live (Nichols, 1980) 8/10
The Great McGinty (Sturges, 1940) 7/10
*The Fog (Carpenter, 1980) 7/10
The Mortal Storm (Borzage, 1940) 6/10
BlacKkKlansman (Lee, 2018) 7/10
*The Shop Around the Corner (Lubitsch, 1940) 10/10
The Incredibles 2 (Bird, 2018) 7/10
The Other Side of the Wind (Welles, 2018) 5/10
They'll Love Me When I'm Dead (Neville, 2018) 6/10

flappy bird your passion for Bergman has convinced me to explore his films

― Dan S, Monday, December 3, 2018 11:58 PM (six days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

get the box 😈

The Secret Bride (Dieterle, 1934)
Next Aisle Over (1919)
Triumph of the Heart (Molander, 1929)
A Little Hero (Sennett, 1913)
Woman Haters (Gottler, 1934)
Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (Yates, 2018)
The Night Before Christmas (Jackson, 1933)
The Emperor's Nightingale (Trnka, 1949)
Smash Your Baggage (Mack, 1932)
The Ascent (Shepitko, 1977)

how did you like The Ascent? I saw Wings and wasn't really into it

Terribly grueling, although certainly true to the subject and period. I saw Wings so long ago I don't trust my memories of it. (It does end with the teacher taking a plane for a joyride?)

Re-watching Carpenter's The Thing tonight.

xp yes, and that's pretty much exactly what I thought of Wings (although I do love that ending, but more in concept than execution)

* Pickup on South Street (1953) 4/5
Roma 3.5/5
Gotti (2018) 0/5
Shirkers (2018) 4.5/5
Deceptive Practice: The Mysteries and Mentors of Ricky Jay (2012) 4/5
The Favourite 3.5/5

saw the Roger Ailes doc DIVIDE AND CONQUER, v good, catch it in theaters if you can bc it's doing terrible business. likability of subject never occurred to me as a factor but runaway success of Mr. Rogers, Gila Radner, and Ruth Bader Ginsberg docs this year gives me pause (and depresses me - Ailes is inarguably one of the most important and influential people of the last 50 years).

College Swing (1938, Walsh) 6/10
Filmworker (2017, Zierra) 6/10
For Heaven’s Sake (1926, Taylor / Lloyd) 9/10
*Love Songs (2007, Honore) 7/10
White Lightning (1973, Sargent) 4/10
*Porcile aka Pigsty (1969, Pasolini) 6/10
Wolfsburg (2003, Petzold) 7/10
Yella (2007, Petzold) 7/10
Vester-Vov-Vov aka People of the North Sea (1927, Lauritzen) 6/10
Bisbee ’17 (2018, Greene) 8/10
Son premier film (1926, Kemm) 5/10
The Hitch-Hiker (1953, Lupino) 7/10

Tried watching Eastwood's Hoover movie on a plane. Holy shit, what a smoking trash pile.

First Reformed (Schrader, 2018)
Mandy (Cosmatos, 2018)
Sorry to Bother You (Riley, 2018)
Deep Red (Argento, 1975)
You Were Never Really Here (Ramsay, 2018)
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (Coen/Coen, 2018)
Zama (Martel, 2018)
Let the Sunshine In (Denis, 2017)
Revenge (Fargeat, 2017)
The Other Side of the Wind (Welles, 2018)
The Polymath (Taylor, 2009)
Theory of Obscurity (Hardy, 2016)
The Night Comes for Us (Tjahjanto, 2018)

The Magnificent Ambersons (Welles, 1942) - 9/10
M (Lang, 1931) - 10/10
Topaz (Hitchcock, 1969) - 3/10
Sisters of the Gion (Mizoguchi, 1936) - 9/10
Career Girls (Leigh, 1997) - 8/10
Trafic (Tati, 1971) - 9/10
The Thing Called Love (Bogdanovich, 1993) - 5/10
A Report on the Party and the Guests (Němec, 1966) - 8/10
Intimidation (Kurahara, 1960) - 9/10
Blue is the Warmest Color (Keciche, 2013) - 7/10
American Honey (Arnold, 2016) - 10/10
Brewster McCloud (Altman, 1970) - 9/10
Mouchette (Bresson, 1967) - 9/10
Roma (Fellini, 1972) - 6/10
Claire’s Knee (Rohmer, 1970) - 4/10
Parade (Tati, 1974) - 6/10
Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne (Bresson, 1945) - 4/10
El Norte (Nava, 1983) - 8/10

Making Christmas Crackers (1910)
Santa Claus (Smith, 1898)
The Masquerader (Wallace, 1933)
Bubbling Over (Jason, 1934)
Shoplifters (Kore-eda, 2018)
The Favourite (Lanthimos, 2018)
L'Innocente (Visconti, 1976)

(xpost) Ratings are ratings, everyone has different taste, and I hate having a solitary rating of my own cherry-picked and held up ridicule here, so I'm not trying to doing that. But I'd be interested in hearing some elaboration on the 4/10 for Claire's Knee.

not only boring but contemptible, a film revolving around an absurd conceit and a 'moral tale' that gives too much (any) credit to the protagonist's dilemma. it's the first Rohmer I've seen and I will continue to plug away, but wow, after trying to see Claire's Knee for the better part of a year, it was a real letdown.

Loving You (To, 1995) 6/10
Miami Vice (Mann, 2006) 9/10
Don’t Go Breaking My Heart (To, 2011) 6/10
*Breathless (Godard, 1960) 7/10
The 15:17 to Paris (Eastwood, 2018) 7/10
Cosmopolis (Cronenberg, 2012) 6/10
*His Girl Friday (Hawks, 1940) 9/10
An Elephant Sitting Still (Hu, 2018) 8/10
Shirkers (Tan, 2018) 7/10
xXx: State of the Union (Tamahori, 2005) 5/10
Patience (After Sebald) (Gee, 2011) 7/10

MUBI run:

Lovers of the Artic Circle (Medem, 1998)
Room in Rome (Medem, 2010)
Chaudhvin Ka Chand (Sadiq, 1960) - this was really great: utterly farcical plot pushed to the limit.

not only boring but contemptible, a film revolving around an absurd conceit and a 'moral tale' that gives too much (any) credit to the protagonist's dilemma. it's the first Rohmer I've seen and I will continue to plug away, but wow, after trying to see Claire's Knee for the better part of a year, it was a real letdown.

― flappy bird,

lol I understand. My favorite Rohmers aren't even CK or My Night at Maud's. His writing and filmmaking got better in the eighties.

Yeah, I saw Love in the Afternoon and Claire's Knee first, probably due to the Criterion stamp. It was years before I tried again and realized the actual breadth of his work.

yeah i just find men intellectualizing their horniness to be really tedious. I'll see if the video store has The Green Ray this weekend

Its probably his best film - there was a switch in his writing and he focused on women a lot more, and his films are perhaps better for it.

I like Claire's Knee a lot. But I'm like the Don, may he rest peace--my way of doing things is over.

the film he made before it, Full Moon in Paris, is almost as good as a record of the young chattering classes.

I like Claire's Knee now. I was just under a misconception that this was his whole shtick. It's more palatable knowing that he can also write amazingly sympathetic and natural female-centered stories.

are all of the moral tales m/l similar to Claire's Knee in approach?

I guess my favourite is Maud's, though. I've six or seven in all, some of them later.

"seen"

are all of the moral tales m/l similar to Claire's Knee in approach?

― flappy bird,

It's hard to say. Love in the Afternoon is my favorite of the batch in part because the male protagonist's confusion about Zouzou's character was honestly rendered; also, she makes it clear she doesn't need him.

It's been many years, though.

i own the moral tales box but i've only seen la collectionneuse and love in the afternoon, both of which are tremendous though i prefer love. every rohmer short i've seen is also excellent. boring but contemptible is my thing i guess

I like when his characters go to the beach. Rohmer's good at beach sequences.

That's the side of Rohmer that really won me over.

yeah i just find men intellectualizing their horniness to be really tedious.

Maybe that's why I like Triple Agent best of the Rohmer's I've seen?

Body Melt (Brophy 1993) [TV]
Batman Returns (Burton, Waters 1992) [TV]
Ralph Breaks The Internet (Moore, Johnston, Ribon, Reardon, Trinidad, Younger, Reilly 2018) [3D DCP]
Computer Chess (Bujalski 2013) [TV]
Results (Bujalski 2015) [TV]
Gräns [Border] (Abbasi, Eklöf, Lindqvist 2018) [DCP]
Gremlins (Dante, Columbus 1984) [DCP]
Never Goin' Back (Frizzell 2018) [TV]
* Role Models (Wain, Dowling, Herron, Rudd, Marino 2008) [gym]
Faces Places [Visages, Villages] (Varda et R 2017) [gym]
Nancy (Choe 2018) [TV]
Heat (Mann 1995) [DCP]
The Favourite (Lanthimos, Davis, McNamara 2018) [DCP]
* The Informant! (Soderbergh, Burns 2009) [TV]
Roma (Cuarón 2018) [Laser]
Burning [버닝] (Lee, Oh 2018) [DCP]

Vox Lux (Corbet, 2018) 6/10
Green Book(Farrelly, 2018) 2/10
The Favourite (Lanthimos, 2018) 7/10
Shoplifters (Kore-eda, 2018) 9/10
Hereditary (Aster, 2018) 7/10
Widows (McQueen, 2018) 6/10
Mirai (Hosoda, 2018) 8/10
Beautiful Boy (Van Groeningen, 2018) 3/10
Roma (Cuaron, 2018) 5/10
* A Day in the Country (Renoir, 1936) 9/10
* Boudu Saved from Drowning (Renoir, 1932) 9/10

Ex Machina (Garland, 2014) 4/5
*Mandy (Cosmatos, 2018) 4/5
*Opera (Argento, 1987) 4/5 (I like these films ok)

*A Blade in the Dark (Bava the lesser, 1983) 1.5/5. The ending is- rot13 to blank out spoilers for this insanely mediocre giallo- genafcubovp nf fuvg; seeing it in Italian (with the surrounding films, as part of Philly's Exhumed Films birthday screening) also made it obvious that what little enjoyment could be found came almost entirely from the infamously shitty dubbing ("Is it possible you're such a vacant nerd that your pleasure is to bake like a frog in the sun?!") Just a dreary film- boring locations (shot in a producer's villa on the cheap and it shows), a sub-Friday the 13th score that Bava thinks is compelling enough to put front and center (remember the amazing crane shot in Tenebrae where the music is suddenly revealed as diegetic? now imagine that it's almost two hours long and it fucking sucks) and no visible care or passion put into anything but the kills, which- with the twist mentioned earlier- make it feel even more misogynist than your average giallo. Garbage. Avoid.

Formula for a Murder (de Martino, 1985) 2.5/5. this, on the other hand! Also a minor giallo from the tail end of the genre, also cops some moves from American slasher movies, but it's so fucking coocoo bananas that it's kind of fun. Also much more pleasant to listen to because instead of beating us over the head with a single uninspiring cue for nearly two (!) hour (!!) it just recycles the score from The New York Ripper instead.

*Inferno (Argento, 1980)- 4/5. I'm back at the point in my cycle where I think this movie is brilliant again? I'm definitely past the point of wishing there was any strong central presence like Jessica Harper and embracing the confusion of viewpoints as the point of the thing. Emerson's score (with the one awesome exception still hasn't grown on me, which is a shame.

The Muppet Christmas Carol (Henson the lesser, 1992)- 4/5. OH MY GOD THIS WAS A PURE DELIGHT. I grew up in kind of a non-Muppet household so this was, believe it or not, the first mainline Muppet movie I've ever seen. And it's so good! Caine commits entirely to the part without a single wink to camera (not even at "Why, it's Mr. Fozziwig's rubber chicken factory!") and it's a surprisingly faithful adaptation, retaining most of Dickens' chewiest dialogue. The only complaint I could possibly have is the songs aren't up to the standard of like, "Rainbow Connection" or the Phantom of the Paradise soundtrack, but come on, it has the greatest kiss in screen history.

The Marleys were dead: to begin with...

Continuing my past year media dump; here's my 2018 seen and wanna see; would welcome any that I missed on the list:

Best Movies 2018:
Monrovia, Indiana
Hereditary
Zama
The Guilty
The Death of Stalin
Kusama: Infinity
Private Life
Life and Nothing More
Mama Africa

No:
Sorry To Bother You
Damsel

To See:
Free Solo* - Will likely see in theaters shortly
Shoplifters* - Will likely see in theaters shortly
The Favourite* - Will likely see in theaters shortly
Unsane (Amazon)
First Reformed (Amazon/Kanopy)
Grace Jones: Bloodlight and Bami (Kanopy)
Let the Corpses Tan (Kanopy)
The Other Side of the Wind (Netflix)
Roma (Netflix)
Black Panther (Netflix)
Shirkers (Netflix)
Filmworker (Netflix)
Mary and the Witch’s Flower
Eighth Grade
Burning
Mirai
We the Animals
Have a Nice Day
Can You Ever Forgive Me?
Isle of Dogs
Three Identical Strangers
A Quiet Place
I Am Not a Witch
Incredibles 2
Leave No Trace
Won’t You Be My Neighbor
Vice
The Sisters Brothers
Paddington 2
Love, Gilda
Loveless
Annihilation
BlacKkKlansman
Amazing Grace