Last (x) movies you saw (II)

xpost Climax hasn't been getting panned, has it? it's actually getting some of his better reviews, iirc. It's definitely more of the same, but miles better than Love and better than Into the Void (as much as I can remember it), where the opening credits were the highlight.

As far as Noe goes it's an 8/10. I think the contained space in which the film takes place suited him, helped concentrate the direction - if that makes sense. I liked it much more than any of his previous films. Also: the soundtrack was absolute fire.

Yeah, even during the extended freakout section the non-stop music only adds to the manic hallucinogenic horror.

Brody for the New Yorker and Scott for NYT not positive:

https://www.newyorker.com/goings-on-about-town/movies/climax
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/28/movies/climax-review.html

i think the "as far as Noe goes" covers a lot of my question there; i think he's a fun time but he's sure not for everyone!

this was a good way to kill an hour last night; not much new to be learned but great archival footage of Ruth Brown (who has a lot of the performance tics and look of Cardi B, btw)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdOp3usR7sI

The Eyes Of Orson Welles - 7/10
Tokyo! - 7/10 (8/10 for Carax's segment)
Boy Meets Girl - 9/10

*Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956, Siegel) 10/10
*A Shot in the Dark (1964, Edwards) 8/10
Too Beautiful for You (1989, Blier) 6/10
*The Magnificent Ambersons (1942, Welles) 9/10
Hello, Sister! (1933, Stroheim, Crosland, Werker) 6/10
mother! (2017, Aronofsky) 6/10
Quick Millions (1931, Brown) 7/10
24 Frames (2017, Kiarostami) 5/10
Sweet Charity (1969, Fosse) 6/10
*Our Man in Havana (1959, Reed) 7/10

Thunder Road lived up to the hype; really well acted. On Amazon Prime now btw.

The Towering Inferno (Irwin Allen, 1974) 4/10
Airport (Seaton and Hathaway, 1970) 3/10; square and wooden; even the younger actors look old
Airport 1975 (Smight, 1974) 3/10; corn instead of wood; starring everyone alive in the 1970s
Earthquake (Robson, 1974) 4/10
Juggernaut (Lester, 1974) 6/10

I suspect that The Poseidon Adventure, which I watched last year, is the best of the 70s disaster movies.

Juggernaut!

Dan S: Have you seen The World of Apu, the third part of the trilogy? I give the whole trilogy a 10, especially if you're lucky enough to see all three films in one sitting; if I break it down by film, it's probably the weakest of the three, but only slightly--and it has Sharmila Tagore.

the wife (2017 bjorn runge) 7.5/10
three identical strangers (2018 tim wardle) 7.5/10
in a relationship (2018 sam boyd) 7/10
*michael clayton (2007 tony gilroy) 8/10
transit (2019 petzold) 6/10
struggle: the life and lost art of szukalski (2018 irek dobrowolski) 10/10
papillion (2017 michael noer) 5/10
dawson city: frozen time (2016 bill morrison) 10/10
leave no trace (2018 granik) 5.5/10

Xp No I’ve been so wanting to see it but haven’t been able to yet

dawson city: frozen time (2016 bill morrison) 10/10

I guess I gotta see this. was going to last summer but multiple friends told me (independently of each other) that the footage was cool, but the score drove them bananas and basically ruined it. but the other day a couple other people I know were raving about it, said it was amazing esp. if you're interested in archiving & film history.

yea def, its just a really cool story & terribly well assembled imo; i enjoyed the score, thought it was fitting, nothing abt it occurs to me that would possibly "ruin" the doc

*Les Amants du Pont Neuf : 8/10
*Mauvais Sang : 9/10
Puffball : 7/10
Seance On A Wet Afternoon : 7/10

dawson is on kanopy btw

La Salamandre -9/10

I was obsessed with this for a while 15 or 20 years ago. I even made a homemade soundtrack by recording all the music cues from a VHS rental. Listening to it right now in fact. Music was by "Patrick Moraz et le Main Horse Airline". Checking now, - two tracks from the soundtrack are on Spotify/iTunes/Youtube/etc. Must see it again some day. Don't recall much about it other than Bulle Ogier acting aloof and two journalists(?) trying to get her to act less aloof. I think maybe she was a murderer? Back then I also saw "Messidor" by the same director (Alain Tanner) and meant to explore his work more but his films just weren't that easy to see. A couple of years after I saw this I found a poster for it in Paris but I passed it up because it was a bit expensive and I doubted I could get it home without squishing it.

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BMzY5OGYxYjYtMTUyNi00M2MxLWFhMDctNjAxNmI4Yjc4YzAwXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNjUyMTgxNjA@._V1_.jpg

P.S. I guess I should ask - - how did you see it? If it's available somewhere I should get it

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965)

Everything was nailed from what is one of my newly favorited books, but the additions of emotional range really screwballed it for me. I've never been an elitist type to call for incessant comparisons b/w superior/inferiority of source material versus adaptation, but --- to depict Leamas as a hopeless romantic was such a downfall. He was a man who denied being in love, who adapted his same cynicisms of the ideological war to his newfound relationship. That it was pointless. It wasn't until his cynicism backfired in the end that he realized what he had lost. I don't accept this as an embrace ideology, but rather an acceptance that his life in England was so devoid of meaning that Ann was all he had. Anyways, the film forwent with all that and chose to depict Leamas as in love with her from time of meeting to the very end. Maybe that still works. I don't think so.

Thank you.

Watched The Fugitive with the kids. Very '90s, but held up pretty well thanks to some good performances, and just a complete happy coincidence we happened to watch the Chicago-set movie on the very calendar weekend in which it was taking place!

Triangle (Smith 2009)
The Talk Of The Town (Stevens, Van Every, Shaw, Buchman, after Harmon 1942)
Touch Of Evil (Welles after Masterson 1958) [DCP]
* Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song (Van Peebles 1971) [DCP]
Funny Face (Donen, Gershe, Gershwin & Gershwin 1957)
The Breaker Upperers (Madeleine Sami and Jackie van Beek 2018)
* Sorry To Bother You (Riley 2018) [DCP]
A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III (Coppola 2012)
Private Property (Stevens 1959)
* Wild Things (McNaughton, Peters 1998)
Scorchy (Avedis 1976)
Mississipi Grind (Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck 2015)
Rock 'N' Roll Cowboys (Stewart, Young 1987) [cinema projection of an NTSC VHS of a PAL telemovie]
The Fortune Cookie (Wilder, Diamond 1966)
They Live (Carpenter & fake Carpenter, after Wray-after-Nelson 1988) [DCP]

It's a been a while since a movie knocked me out like Birds of Passage did.

yea i saw that @ tiff, good stuff

So far it’s the best film I have seen this year and there’s been some good competition!

The Fatal Mallet (Sennett, 1914)
The Rounders (Chaplin, 1914)
Flirtation (Birinsky, 1934)
Newark Athlete (Dickson, 1891)
Edison Kinetoscopic Record of a Sneeze (Dickson, 1894)
The Corbett-Fitzsimmons Fight (Rector, 1894)
President McKinley and Escort Going to the Capitol (1901)
Berth Quakes (Yarbrough, 1938)
Snow-White (Fleischer, 1933)
False Faces (Sherman, 1932)
Dancing on the Moon (Fleischer, 1935)
Damaged Lives (Ulmer, 1933)
Captain Marvel (Fleck & Boden, 2019)

Dumplin' (Fletcher, 2018) 7/10
Boy Erased (Edgerton, 2018) 4/10
The Hate U Give (Tillman Jr., 2018) 6/10
*Jaws (Spielberg, 1975) 8/10
Caged (Cromwell, 1950) 6/10
Giant Little Ones (Behrman, 2018) 8/10
Upgrade (Whannell, 2018) 8/10
Never Steady, Never Still (Hepburn, 2017) 5/10
Paddington 2 (King, 2017) 7/10
*Atlantic City (Malle, 1980) 8/10

SuperClásico (Madsen)
Tarok (Riis)
The Ambassador (Brügger)
Cold Case Hammerskjöld (Brügger)
The Deposit (Kjartansdóttir)
Harajuku (Svensson)*
The Kindergarden Teacher (Lapid)
Michael (Schleinzer)
Ramen Teh (Eric Khoo)
The Living Desert (Algar)
Goodfellas (Scorsese)*
Rachel Getting Married (Demme)
Ahi Esta el Detalle (Bustillo Oro)
Los Tres Mosqueteros (Delgado)
Maria Candelaria (Fernandez)
Tizoc (Rodriguez)
Hellboy (del Toro)*
Pan’s Labyrinth (del Toro)*
Amores Perros (Iñárritu)
The Revenant (Iñárritu)

On the Basis of Sex
enjoyable emotive drama about Ruth Bader Ginsburg establishing herself. An RGB origin story.
I would like to see the film RGB now I've seen this since I think that was more of a documentary. Not sure if it passed through here yet.

Immoral Tales (if you can point me toward a print of the "X-rated Picasso" US poster for this film I will be eternally grateful)
*Zero for Conduct (supposedly a different restoration/cut than the Criterion disc I'm familiar with; I couldn't tell, honestly, and it's impossible for me to nitpick cuts while watching this movie)
The Flower Thief (I'm afraid I don't get Ron Rice, at least not yet)
*L'Atalante (see Zero for Conduct; I'm a latecomer to Vigo but I will never turn down the opportunity to see these films again)
The Beast (dryer than I was expecting, which is a good thing; reminds me I still need to see Juan Bunuel's Leonor)
The Third Part of the Night (holy shit, Zulawski really did arrive fully formed; devastating)
Man Is Not a Bird (finally starting in on Dusan Makavejev; this was absolutely charming)
The Legend of Hell House (INJECT THAT DEEP FOCUS RIGHT INTO MY VEINS)
The Entity (see above re: split diopter shots; also way more harrowing and affecting than I was expecting)
Death Walks on High Heels (it's okay, I guess? It's workmanlike in every sense of the word)
Death Walks at Midnight (it's better, but eh. Am I losing my love for gialli?)
Riki-Oh (somehow I hadn't seen this yet?)
The Strange Vice of Mrs Wardh (OH WAIT NO GIALLI CAN BE FUCKING AMAZING)
The Case of the Scorpion's Tale (not as revelatory as Wardh but still solid)
Premutos: Lord of the Living Dead (West German early Peter Jackson, kind of, only more mean-spirited and grubby and self-impressed)
*Mr. X (the Leos Carax documentary)
Black Christmas (LOVED THIS, holy shit. The best executed twist ending I've seen in ages, all before the rules of its genre were even close to codified)
*The Night Stalker
*The Night Strangler (both of these were to watch with Tim Lucas's predictably dry commentaries; there's valuable stuff, like learning just how extensive and acknowledged Dan Curtis's debt to Bava was, or the possible plagiarism of the original Jeff Rice novel, and it's not like I can pay much attention to anything new when I'm sick as hell and sneezing every 2-3 seconds)

Always enjoy your listings here telephone thing - the nice Shameless blu I have of Mrs Wadh now bumped to the top of my viewing pile.

Thanks! Also just want to pop in here and dump in the last couple films I watched (late last night and this morning) right away because hoooly shit:

Alice Sweet Alice (insanely grim even by the standards of, say, Black Christmas- I'm using podcast episodes to kind of motivate me through my backlog of classics, which is why these two are clustered together- but also has some really fascinating intertextual stuff; Psycho is thuddingly obvious- the score quotes Herrmann in places, there's a visible poster at a train station, who gives a shit- but Don't Look Now is *all over* this grubby New Jersey-set film and it's fucking wild)

Deadly Sweet (my first Tinto Brass; went into it misled into expecting a giallo, but it's far closer to early Godard, with Guido Crepax storyboards that really shine through in the finished film. And it predates Argento really permanently marrying the ideas of perception in the earliest gialli like Bava's Girl Who Knew too Much with the complementary aspects of Blow Up- the Blow Up homage is right on the surface, including Trintignant reading a direct quote from Antonioni on the soundtrack.)

The Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach (Huillet, Straub, 1968) 4/10
Othon (Huillet, Straub, 1970) 7/10
The Bridegroom the Actress and the Pimp (Huillet, Straub, 1968) 4/10
News From Home (Akerman, 1977) 10/10
If Beale Street Could Talk (Jenkins, 2018) 6/10
The Virgin Spring (Bergman, 1960) 6/10
The Lusty Men (Ray, 1952) 9/10
The Raid (Evans, 2011) 5/10
The Raid 2 (Evans, 2014) 3/10
Tokyo-Ga (Wenders, 1985) 6/10
Too Early/Too Late (Huillet, Straub, 1982) 7/10
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (Powell, Pressburger, 1943) 8/10
The Hitch-Hiker (Lupino, 1953) 7/10
Babylon (Rosso, 1980) 8/10

Oof. Thanks for taking that Huillet/Straub bullet for the rest of us. Like they say in the current vernacular: "I can't even..."

The Virgin Spring (Bergman, 1960) 6/10

I have seen literally nothing else among your recent watches, so I have no way of gauging how this film coincides (or doesn't) with your tastes, but I am curious about this rating.

same rating on The Bridegroom the Actress and the Pimp for me, but 7/10 for Anna Magdalena

loved News From Home, 10/10 for me too, but of the Eclipse Series 19 Hotel Monterey made even more of an impression

the virgin spring is top five imo

will definitely try anna magdalena again at some point but my complete ignorance of bach/classical music made it one of the most alienating and tedious cinema experiences i've had. (the applause at the end confirmed that the proms crowd had turned out)

re the virgin spring, will concede 6 is a little harsh but this is a way off from his best; being shame and smiles of a summer night.

loved News From Home, 10/10 for me too, but of the Eclipse Series 19 Hotel Monterey made even more of an impression

will seek it out! fyi other london folks, there's a barbican showing of je tu il elle in june

1) It's amazing how many threads there are apparently on Men In Black 3.

2) Rewatching the first one, I think it may be a perfect script, which helps it hold up. Though honestly the casting and direction and even FX are pretty good, too. I remember reading at the time that it cost $90 mil, so at 90 minutes runs an impressive $1 million a minute.

Streamers (Altman, 1983) - 7/10
Querelle (Fassbinder, 1982) - 6/10
Cruising (Friedkin, 1980) - 7/10
*ODDSAC (Perez, 2010) - 6/10
*Zabriskie Point (Antonioni, 1970) - 10/10
Fort Apache (Ford, 1948) - 9/10
All These Women (Bergman, 1964) - 4/10
She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (Ford, 1949) - 8/10
Tomorrow We Move (Akerman, 2004) - 6/10
A Married Woman (Godard, 1965) - 7/10
Compulsion (Fleischer, 1959) - 9/10
Despair (Fassbinder, 1978) - 4/10
Volver (Almodóvar, 2006) - 7/10
*Notorious (Hitchcock, 1946) - 9/10
Shirin (Kiarostami, 2008) - 4/10
Diabolique (Clouzot, 1955) - 10/10
Seconds (Frankenheimer, 1966) - 7/10

The Ramen Girl (5.5)
Mississippi Burning (6.0)
Snow Angels (6.5)
Garry Winogrand: All Things Are Photographable (7.5)
Malcolm X (10.0)
Jungle Fever (9.0)
American Beauty (8.5)
Welfare (10.0)
The Last Picture Show (7.0)
Us (6.0)
Down the Shore (5.5)
The September Issue (6.5)

Rampling is really incredible in Hannah imo, and I found the film overall impressive. Maybe it’s because it has barely any dialogue tho but the sound mix was kinda lol, it reminded me of the on the hour skit of the radio play that won an award for best sound design and it’s like “more tea?” *INSANELY LOUD FOLEY OF WATER POURING*

ftr I am entirely pro this

Also: dead whales kinda becoming an arthouse cliché at this point

Yeah, Hannah is absolutely incredible. The extreme closeups of the food, and all the weird daily details. It's an almost documentary film, and then there's just one of the best actors in the world creating an incredible character.

As soon as we went from the acting class (iirc) to that first scene with her husband at dinner I was like “oh boy, we’re in for something here”. An uncompromising 95 minutes

Street Angel (1928, Borzage) 8/10
Sollers Point (2017, Porterfield) 6/10
An Elephant Sitting Still (2018, Hu) 4/10
*I Walked with a Zombie (1943, Tourneur) 8/10
*Bedazzled (1967, Donen) 9/10
Apollo 11 (2019, Miller) 8/10
Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967, Hill) 5/10
Entertaining Mr. Sloane (1970, Hickox) 6/10
Winter Kept Us Warm (1965, Secter) 7/10
Zoo in Budapest (1933, Lee) 6/10
The Battle of Elderbush Gulch (1913, Griffith) 6/10
The Massacre (1912, Griffith) 7/10

Winter Kept Us Warm (1965, Secter) 7/10

Famous Canadian film--might even have been the first Canadian feature of any consequence. I saw it at the University of Toronto about 15 years ago, along with one of Cronenberg's early ones (Stereo or Crimes of the Future, can't remember which). Thought it was almost impossible to see...so of course it's on YouTube.

That's where I saw it, tho a NYC rep house recently showed a 16mm print.