Last (x) movies you saw (II)

xxp
Young Winston is not great at all, but Robert Shaw is a ledge!

Ward, what's yr beef w/ Ford's Ireland?

Irish ham sliced too thicky; a stout that soured over 129 long minutes. There's more twinkling and twirling than in a late Malick film, and Wayne seems hefty and charmless.

To Sir With Love.
Don't remember seeing this since my teens. Sidney Poitier as Guyanese teacher trying to tame an unruly mob.
Emotive I guess. Do like the music.
Title track played here by Lulu fronting the Mindbenders at the school prom thingy.

all your Tourneur questions amswered before I forget these films

Easy Living (1949, Tourneur) 7/10
The Fearmakers (1958, Tourneur) 4/10
Timbuktu (1958, Tourneur) 5/10
Stranger on Horseback (1955. Tourneur) 7/10
Wichita (1955, Tourneur) 8/10
Appointment in Honduras (1953, Tourneur) 6/10
Anna Boleyn (1920, Lubitsch) 6/10
*Canyon Passage (1946, Tourneur) 9/10
Libel (1959. Asquith) 7/10
Happy as Lazzaro (2018, Rohrwacher) 8/10
*A Star Is Born (1937, Wellman) 7/10
No No: A Dockumentary (2014, Radice) 7/10
Way of a Gaucho (1952, Tourneur) 7/10
Anne of the Indies (1951, Tourneur) 6/10
*The Young Lions (1958, Dmytryk) 7/10
The Favourite (2018, Lanthimos) 5/10

Irish ham sliced too thicky; a stout that soured over 129 long minutes. There's more twinkling and twirling than in a late Malick film, and Wayne seems hefty and charmless.

― Ward Fowler, Monday, December 31, 2018 9:23 AM

more like Spam. I like many Ford films; this one is blarney.

Hokey and Oirish as it is, I still love The Quiet Man

Impetuous! Homeric! Love it very much as well. There's always corn with Ford.

quiet man is great

the rest of 2018

in theaters:

The Favourite (Lanthimos, 2018) 9/10
Divide and Conquer: The Story of Roger Ailes (Bloom, 2018) - 8/10
Burning (Lee, 2018) - 9/10
Barry Lyndon (Kubrick, 1975 / 35mm) - 10/10
Vox Lux (Corbet, 2018) - 3/10
The Hitch-Hiker (Lupino, 1953) - 8/10
Eyes Wide Shut (Kubrick, 1999) - 10/10
All That Heaven Allows (Sirk, 1955) - 9/10
Second Act (Segal, 2018) - 4/10
Roma (Cuarón, 2018) - 3/10
Vice (McKay, 2018) - 2/10
Shoplifters (Kore-eda, 2018) - 9/10
If Beale Street Could Talk (Jenkins, 2018) - 5/10
The Mule (Eastwood, 2018) - 4/10
The Thin Man (Van Dyke, 1934 / 35mm) - 9/10

at home:

Synecdoche, New York (Kaufman, 2008) - ∞
Brink of Life (Bergman, 1958) - 9/10
One Day Pina Asked… (Akerman, 1983) - 8/10
F for Fake (Welles, 1973) - 5/10
The Firemen’s Ball (Forman, 1967) - 8/10
A Wedding (Altman, 1978) - 9/10
35 Shots of Rum (Claire Denis, 2008) - 9/10
Chantal Akerman by Chantal Akerman (Akerman, 1997) - 8/10
Greaser’s Palace (Downey Sr., 1972) - 6/10
The Misfits (Huston, 1961) - 8/10
Miami Blues (Armitage, 1990) - 9/10
Welcome to the Dollhouse (Solondz, 1995) - 8/10
Love Exposure (Sono, 2008) - 10/10
Julien Donkey-Boy (Korine, 1999) - 7/10
My Darling Clementine (Ford, 1946) - 10/10
From the Other Side (Akerman, 2002) - 9/10

Disobedience (Leilo, 2018) - I liked Leilo's Gloria (about a disco loving woman in her 50s on the look out for a partner). The script in this English language film is not as good: Rachel Weisz is often the woman someone falls in love with, except this time its forbidden - although the reveal had the Terminator II novelty value! Its very hard to get anything out of films set in closed-off communities. At this point I kinda want to see one where everything is just fine and dandy.
Image Book (Godard, 2018) - its on MUBI for a few more hours and in line with much of his essay film work in the last 30 years. The range of images, colour, subject (questionable or otherwise), sound - no one does fragmentation quite like him.

Other People (Kelly, 2016) 8/10
Black Christmas (Clark, 1974) 8/10
Roma (Cuarón, 2018) 5/10
Meet Me in St. Louis (Minelli, 1944) 7/10
The Informer (Ford, 1935) 8/10
*Love, Simon (Berlanti, 2018) 7/10
Remember the Night (Leisen, 1940) 7/10
Backfire (Sherman, 1950) 6/10
Paddington (King, 2014) 7/10
*Ordinary People (Redford, 1980) 7/10

end of December: all but 3 on a TV screen

Black Christmas (Clark, Moore 1974) 🎅
Night Moves (Penn, Sharp 1975)
What's Up, Doc? (Bogdanovich, Henry, Newman, Benton 1972)
36.15 code Père Noël [Dial Code Santa] (Manzor 1989) [DCP] 🎅
* The Apartment (Wilder, Diamond 1960) 🎅
Girlfriend's Day (Stephenson, Odenkirk, Zlotorynski, Hoffman 2017)
Dracula AD 1972 (Gibson, Houghton 1972)
* The Ballad Of Buster Scruggs (Coen x Coen 2018)
* It's A Wonderful Life (Capra, Goodrich, Hackett, Swerling, Van Doren Stern 1946) [📽️ 35mm] 🎅
The Killing Of A Sacred Deer (Lanthimos, Filippou 2017)
Diner (Levinson 1982)
Bandersnatch (Brooker, Slade 2018)
Madeline's Madeline (Decker 2018)
Behind The Candelabra (Soderbergh, LaGravenese 2013)
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (Lord, Rothman, Persichetti, Ramsey 2018) [DCP]
* Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (Black 2005) 🎅

Videodrome (re-watch; I own the Criterion edition)

a lot of inspirational posts

*Love, Simon (Berlanti, 2018) 7/10

crypto, it's rare you like a movie more than I did, and you re-watched it!

Love, Simon was a 6/10 when I saw it in theatres, but I kept thinking back fondly on it throughout the year, so when I saw it on cable during the holidays I decided to give it another go. I still don't like the climactic scene at all; the novel handled the same revelation in a less cringe-y way. The young cast is likeable, the plot contrivances are effectively handled, and the scene between Simon and his mom is genuinely poignant (I prefer it to the similar, overrated scene in Call Me By Your Name).

On the whole, I tend to be harder on newer movies than classics, and while I rarely end up re-watching things, if I do, they're score is likely to go up. The only time I ever tend to give something a lower score upon re-watch is when I'm taking a fresh look at something that I saw when I was younger and was curious about revisiting.

agree the scene between Simon and his mom in Love, Simon was the highlight of the film, but thought the scene between Elio and his dad in Call Me By Your Name was heart-stopping

I agreed with my mate when he said that the dad’s speech felt like it was meant to be performed by robin Williams (not a compliment). But that film is not for me in general.

Meet Me in St. Louis (Minelli, 1944) 7/10

Can I ask what you didn't like about this one, because to me it's about as perfect as American movies get (opinion bolstered by a recent big screen viewing).

I liked it! Another illustration of the arbitrariness of ratings, I suppose--my 7/10 is more an indication of my level of enthusiasm rather than objective quality. The best answer I can give you is that I'm new to the film; I totally get how it is a film that people love and watch every Christmas, but I'm not there yet. The second best answer I can give you is that, when it comes to classic Hollywood, I tend to lean more favourably toward noirs and westerns than musicals (again, arbitrary). It's certainly something I can see growing on me with repeat viewings, and I envy your big screen viewing (the movie is gorgeous, and feels like it is most ideally seen on a big screen with a crowd during the holiday season).

I always think of 7/10 as a good rating too. I save 9s and the occasional 10 for anything I've seen numerous times and I consider one of my favourite films ever. (I gave 20th Century Women a 9 on second viewing--I rarely do that.) An 8 means I really liked it and, if it's new, will be high on my year-end list, probably #1 or #2. A 7 means I liked it and I think it's worth your time.

Tree of Knowledge (Malmros)
Sorrow and Joy (Malmros)
The Guilty (Möller)
The Distant Barking of Dogs (Wilmont)
Skjold & Isabel (Hansen)
Bird Box (Bier)
Papillon (Noer)
Before the Frost (Noer)
Report From the Aleutians (Huston)
The Battle of San Pietro (Huston)
Let There Be Light (Huston)
Thunderbolt & Lightfoot (Cimino)
White Hunter, Black Heart (Eastwood)*
Unforgiven (Eastwood)*
The Bridges of Madison County (Eastwood)
Gran Torino (Eastwood)
The Night of the Hunter (Laughton)
All Is Lost (Chandor)
Oasis (Lee)
Burning (Lee)
Rocco and His Brothers (Visconti)
Death in Venice (Visconti)
The Innocent (Visconti)
Germany, Year Zero (Rossellini)*
Django (Corbucci)
Burn! (Pontecorvo)*
The Marriage of Maria Braun (Fassbinder)
Rock ’n’ Roll Wolf (Bostan)
Ugetsu Monogatari (Mizoguchi)*

Wonder Bar (Bacon, 1934)
Ship Cafe (Florey, 1935)
King Kelly of the USA (Fields, 1934)
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (Persichetti et al, 2018)
Strangers of the Evening (Humberstone, 1932)
The Ragtime Band (Sennett, 1913)
*Dickson Experimental Sound Film (Dickson, 1894)
Never Kick a Woman (Fleischer, 1936)
Plane Nuts (Cummings, 1933)
The Women in His Life (Seitz, 1933)
Beauty for Sale (Boleslawski, 1933)

If Beale Street Could Talk 4/5
Class of 1984 (1982) 0/5
The Lighthouse (2006) 3.5/5
Western (2017) 4/5
To Sleep with Anger (1990) 4/5
Brewster McCloud (1970) 3.5/5
The Czech Year (1947) 3/5
Shoplifters (2018) 4.5/5
Bros: After the Screaming Stops (2018) 3/5
Paddington 3.5/5

Avengers: Infinity War, 16/21

Hale County This Morning, This Evening (2018, Ross) 7/10
Leave No Trace (2018, Granik) 7/10
Support the Girls (2018, Bujalski) 7/10
Days of Glory (1944, Tourneur) 6/10
*Night of the Demon (1957, Tourneur) 8/10
Experiment Perilous (1944, Tourneur) 8/10
^Maîtresse (1975, Schroeder) 7/10
The Flame and the Arrow (1950, Tourneur) 8/10
The Comedy of Terrors (1963, Tourneur) 6/10
They All Come Out (1939, Tourneur) 6/10

His Day Out (Gillstrom, 1918)
Roma (Cuaron, 2018)
Pack Up Your Troubles (Marshall & McCarey, 1932)
I'll Tell the World (Sedgwick, 1934)
College (Horse & Keaton, 1927)
Busy Bodies (French, 1933)
Cash (Korda, 1933)
El Orador (Vitores, 1928)
Flirting in the Park (Stevens, 1933)
If Beale Street Could Talk (Jenkins, 2018)
A Fool There Was (Powell, 1915)
A Film Johnnie (Nichols, 1914)
Mabel's New Hero (Sennett, 1913)
Are Crooks Dishonest? (Pratt, 1918)
Should Sailors Marry? (?, 1925)
*I Was Born, But (Ozu, 1932)

Nothing Sacred (Wellman, 1937) - 9/10
You Never Know Women (Wellman, 1926) - 8/10
School Daze (Lee, 1988) - 5/10
Trouble Every Day (Denis, 2001) - 7/10
Shoeshine (De Sica, 1946) - 8/10
Secret Honor (Altman, 1984) - 7/10
Gentleman’s Agreement (Kazan, 1947) - 9/10
Through a Glass Darkly (Bergman, 1961) - 10/10
Thieves Like Us (Altman, 1974) - 6/10
Winter Light (Bergman, 1963) - 9/10
Friday Night (Denis, 2002) - 10/10
Night on Earth (Jarmusch, 1991) - 7/10
The Silence (Bergman, 1963) - 10/10

L'Innocente ( Visconti ) 8/10
Suspiria (Guadagnino) 7/10
Cold War 8/10
Twentieth Century (Hawks ) 8/10
Bad Timing (Roeg) 9/10
La Perla (Fernandez) 9/10

*Woman Is the Future of Man (2004, Hong) 6/10
Fragment of an Empire (1929, Ermler) 7/10
Eyes of Laura Mars (1978, Kershner) 6/10
Surreal Estate (1976, de Gregorio) 5/10
The Chaser (1928. Langdon) 7/10
Three’s a Crowd (1927, Langdon) 8/10
Forbidden Paradise (1924, Lubitsch) 7/10
The Wildcat (1921, Lubitsch) 8/10
Blindspotting (2018, Estrada) 6/10
Inserts (1975, Byrum) 6/10

If Beale Street Could Talk was a tragic melodrama with little interest or time in characterization or character development. i got the sense that there was overdevotion to Baldwin's text but regardless, the script is floral and turns a good phrase without giving any insight to any characters. Everybody is stuck in a one-dimensional slot, generally with only the barest of explanation or presentation: vulpine white cop is evil, young hipster jew is cool, long-suffering black magic mom is a tormented angel. Jenkins direction gives some of his actors room to indulge in their worst tendencies and others (bt henry among them) to shine but it's pretty tenuous. Mostly he's fascinated by these amazingly beautiful people and their faces and their bodies and their clothes. The DP did an amazing job though; the color scheme is really gorgeous and super saturated... scarlets and greens and tans and mahogany everywhere. It gets to where you can play a game where you try to see how all the colors onscreen fit the theme at any given moment. That's helpful because the film is boring and manipulative enough that you'll lose interest in the story pretty quickly. Great score by Britell though; recalled Michael Nyman. This track in particular has followed me out of the theater:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MOgE892j4E

lizzie (2018 craig william macneill) 6.5/10
never goin' back (2018 augustine frizzell) 9/10
charade (1963 donen) 6.5/10
a simple favor (2018 feig) 2/10
mcqueen (2018 bonhote/ettedgui) 7.5/10
call me by your name (2017 guadagnino) 8/10
galveston (2018 laurent) 6/10
papillion (1973 franklin j shaffner) 8.5/10
*melancholia (2011 lvt) 5/10
on the basis of sex (2018 mimi leder) 8/10
vice (2018 mckay) 2/10
fear (1954 rossellini) 7/10
the mule (2018 eastwood) 5/10
trumbo (2014 roach) 7.5/10
ah, wilderness (1935 clarence brown) 6/10
the kindergarten teacher (2018 sara colangelo) 5/10
the unspeakable act (2012 dan salitt) 9/10
bandolero! (1968 andrew v mclaglen) 5/10

Ex Libris - The New York Public Library (Wiseman, 2017)
Happy As Lazzaro (Rohrwacher, 2018)
Bird Box (Bier, 2018)
*sex, lies and videotape (Soderbergh, 1989)
Disobedience (Lelio, 2018)
Western (Grisebach, 2017)
BlacKkKlansman (Lee, 2018)
Roma (Cuarón, 2018)
Eighth Grade (Burnham, 2018)
The Touch (Bergman, 1971)
Support the Girls (Bujalski, 2018)

The Polka King (Maya Forbes, Wallace Wolodarsky 2018)
You Were Never Really Here (Lynne Ramsay 2018)
Shirkers (Sandi Tan 2018)
Murder Party (Saulnier 2007)
Cargo (Yolanda Ramke and Ben Howling 2018 )
The Miseducation Of Cameron Post (Desiree Akhavan, Cecilia Frugiuele 2018)
Bros: After the Screaming Stops (Joe Pearlman and David Soutar 2018)
Dude (Olivia Milch, Kendall McKinnon 2018)
Catfight (Onur Tukel 2017)
* Gremlins 2: The New Batch (Dante, Haas 1990)
* Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (Lord, Rothman, Persichetti, Ramsey 2018) [DCP]
Happy As Lazzaro (Alice Rohrwacher 2018)
* Children Of Men (Cuarón, Sexton, Arata & al. 2006) [Laser]
Ghost Stories (Dyson & Nyman 2017 )
The Fate Of The Furious (Gray, Morgan & al. 2017)
The Man Who Would Be King (John Huston and Gladys Hill after Rudyard Kipling 1975) [DCP]
Support The Girls (Bujalski 2018)
Duck Butter (Miguel Arteta, Alia Shawkat 2018)
Phantasm [4K restoration] (Coscarelli 1979) [DCP]

there's a point in Phantasm where a kid uses a hammer and a shotgun shell to blow open a door lock; at this exact moment, something fell from the rafters above the screen onto the wooden stage below, crashing loudly. For a few minutes, I thought this was a William Castle-esque trick designed to enhance the screening, which had also included free "embalming fluid" shots, a pre-show presentation and a burlesque performance. Once the next spoken line was mouthed, it turned out that the speaker which carried the dialogue had straight-up crashed out of the ceiling.

lol

(I got on the Letterboxd train.)

Stan & ollie
2001 A Space Oddyssey

xp nice

Finally started Les Diaboliques. God I love Simone Signoret.

Watched Fantastic Beasts w the kids. Meh

The General (Keaton, 1926) 8/10
Sorry to Bother You (Riley, 2018) 5/10
*Metropolitan (Stillman, 1990) 9/10
Dogville (Von Trier, 2003) 5/10
*My Night at Mauds (Rohmer, 1969) 10/10
*The Muppet Christmas Carol (Henson, 1992) 7/10
The Grand Budapest Hotel (Anderson, 2014) 7/10
Good Morning (Ozu, 1959) 7/10
The Farmer’s Daughter (Potter, 1947) 6/10
Carnival of Souls (Harvey, 1962) 9/10
*Taipei Story (Yang, 1985) 10/10
Carol (Haynes, 2015) 6/10
Ludwig (Visconti, 1973) 7/10
Hale County, This Morning This Evening (Ross, 2018) 7/10
The Favourite (Lanthimos, 2018) 6/10
*Miami Vice (Mann, 2006) 9/10

I watched a couple of ghost stories that have been on my watch list forever; The Innocents, and the Changeling.

The Innocents was great - really strong performances, especially the creepy kids; great cinematography etc.

The Changeling was...meh. It had that clumsy, 70s, made-for-TV feel, though it had a couple of great scenes. I appreciated it's critique of inherited power, the right etc., but it was just so sloppy most of the time.

I also finally caught up with The Changeling a while back and had a similar pleasantly meh reaction.

Leave No Trace (Granik, 2018)

I got around to watching this on dvd last night. Morbs gave it 7/10, which feels about right. It has a nice pace, subtle but clear exposition, understated and effective camera work, good acting. The script has some weaknesses, but nowhere near fatal. Just a very nice film all the way around.

I saw a Changeling restoration at SIFF last year, and the main audience reaction was for the office building with the narrow bottom (which is still downtown), rather than any scares or reveals or confrontations

Hollywood Steps Out (Avery, 1941)
The Fall Guy (Pearce, 1930)
The Canary Murder Case (St. Clair & Tuttle, 1929)
Advice to the Lovelorn (Werker, 1933)
Aquaman (Wan, 2018)
Border River (Jones, 1919)
All Night Long (Dearden, 1962)
Stan & Ollie (Baird, 2018)
Cold War (Pawlikowski, 2018)
Fatty's Chance Acquaintance (Arbuckle, 1915)
The Gold Ghost (Lamont, 1934)
*The Paleface (Cline & Keaton, 1922)

x-post

Yeah, there were some interesting bits - I like the automatic writing, and some of the architectural shots. But so much of it was ugly.

It’s overlong, too - the audience catch on to the situation an hour before Scott does, but the protracted pace of the film never picks up its heels to increase from the initial “mild dread” to “tension”

Watched in January so far

Black Mirror: Bandersnatch (2018) 5/10
Mom and Dad (2017) 6/10
Birdbox (2018) 6/10
The Favourite (2018) 7/10
Happy New Year, Colin Burstead (2018) 6/10
The Eyes of Orson Welles (2018) 7/10
The Deep Blue Sea (2011) 8/10
Killer Joe (2011) 7/10
Three Identical Strangers (2018) 7/10
*True Grit (2010) 8/10
Eighth Grade (2018) 8/10