Last (x) movies you saw (II)

Scott Walker: 30 Century Man (2006, Kijak) 6/10
God Told Me To (1976, Cohen) 6/10
The Mechanic (1972, Winner) 4/10
*The Most Dangerous Game (1932, Schoedsack, Pichel) 7/10
Genesis (2018, Lesage) 7/10
Projections of America (2014, Miller) 7/10
The Wild Horse Stampede (1926, Rogell) 6/10
*Shampoo (1975, Ashby) 9/10
Indiscreet (1958, Donen) 6/10
Birds of Passage (2018, Guerra, Gallego) 7/10

Re-watched Kaufman's Invasion of the Body Snatchers again last night. Now that's what I call a PG-rated movie!

The 10th Victim (1965, Petri)- didn't like this as much as I was expecting to, to be honest. The production design and costumes are incredible (in particular Mastroianni's bleach job and use of sunglasses to cover incredibly exhausted-looking eyes, and his wife's creepy lack of eyebrows), it incorporates Rome as a setting remarkably well, but it also feels weirdly static and stagey and Petri's recurring themes feel blunted by some retrograde gender politics. Still liked it, and I'll rewatch it at some point (it's becoming obvious that I need to do a Mastroianni-focused deep dive; besides, it's a gorgeous film to look at)

Surfer: Teen Confronts Fear (2017, a certifiable fucking lunatic)- I'd read a Vice article about this but I was totally unprepared to see it as a screening choice at Philly's Psychotronic Film Society. I haven't seen any of them- no, not even The Room; I keep meaning to make it to a midnight show but not really caring enough- but it feels of a piece with the Neil Breen/Wiseau kind of B-movie where it's an ego-stroking star vehicle for one man's very dubious talents. Here it's nominally to show off writer/director/goddamn maniac Greg Burke's son Sage and his surfing skills (approximately 40% of the movie is GoPro footage of Sage surfing) but Sage either cannot or does not care to act- fair- and Greg just eats the scenery, just shoveling handfuls of it into his mouth and flailing and shouting and making a goddamn fool of himself, including a TWELVE

MINUTE

MONOLOGUE conducted in a single take with no cuts or camera movement, with several obviously flubbed lines left in (I listened to as much as I could take of the Projection Booth episode on this thing and Burke revealed that he regularly used cue cards, asking someone to move them around in his and Sage's line of sight to make their performances seem more natural; it works about as well as you'd think). Full of bizarre violations of film language throughout, ranging from the static no-cuts approach to a totally unmotivated flurry of cuts in a totally unnecessary scene featuring a character who has no lines and no import; a badly green-screened background that includes the same loop of footage with the same seagull swooping towards the camera three times; the most egregious continuity error I have *ever* seen in a film...it's a treat if you can see it with an audience, but sitting through it solo would be absolute hell

*A Fistful of Dollars (Leone, 1964)- I haven't watched this in years but it's still shockingly great. It's definitely the first time I've watched it knowing who Gian Maria Volonte is; having a better idea of his persona made the antagonist that much easier to care about, though the other crime family remains weirdly underdeveloped. I hadn't seen this on anything but the ancient, kind of shitty MGM dvd, and this is the first time I've really seriously tried to get into spaghetti westerns, so I didn't know about Monte Hellman's bizarre prologue for network TV, starring Harry Dean Stanton and the back of someone who's about six inches shorter than Clint Eastwood, and saved from oblivion by one very dedicated fan who took out a bank loan to buy a Betamax recorder for $1500 in 1977 for the express purpose of recording Fistful.

Knife in the Water (Polanski, 1962)- Criterion's (assuming that's the version Kanopy uses) subtitles for this are absolute dogshit, fwiw; the general ethos seems to be if lines are short enough or their content can be reasonably guessed at from context, there's no need to bother, which makes tracking conversations understandably difficult. Anyway: ground zero for Skolimowski as well as for Polanski the feature director, some great deep focus cinematography, Krzysztof Komeda rules (and is dearly missed in the next Polanski film on my list), Polanski is fucking scum but at least his films aren't banal pastiche like Woody Allen's

A Quiet Place in the Country (Petri, 1968)- This is brilliant and shockingly underappreciated. I knew virtually nothing going in- just the cast, principal crew (Petri, Morricone and Gruppo di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza, cinematographer Luigi Kuveiller, who also shot Deep Red) and very misleading poster and tagline, which led me to expect some kind of revenge/captivity thriller- but its closest relatives are things like The House With Laughing Windows (Quiet Place's tenuously "giallo" elements are closer to Avati's film, where the trauma isn't so much Freudian as it is that left by fascism), as well as Petri's own Investigation of a Citizen etc (with its unhinged male lead and hallucinatory/delusional elements). Highest possible recommendation, and it doesn't hurt that Franco Nero and Vanessa Redgrave are one of the most attractive screen couples I've ever seen.

M*A*S*H (Altman, 1970)- I had never seen this! Altman is something of a blind spot for me still; The Long Goodbye and Brewster McCloud are some of my favorite films of all time, and I have a little mini-festival lined up at home based on an article by Samm Deighan for Diabolique lining up his gothic/"women's pictures" influenced films (That Cold Day in the Park, Images and 3 Women) but my first was Gosford Park, which would've been a poor point of entry even if it hadn't been during one of the deepest depressions I've ever experienced. MASH, though: problematic, sure, also super fucking funny and an interesting test of the Truffaut chestnut about war films. And again, just really, really goddamn funny; Sutherland or Gould are usually enough for me to check out a film on their own but they're unstoppable as a comedy duo.

Repulsion (Polanski, 1965)- On my to-watch list for over a decade and finally done; left me surprisingly cold compared to, say, The Tenant (which remains my favorite Polanski film). Remarkably empathetic toward its protagonist coming from a rapist. To be totally honest this was watched more for context for other films (the Altman trio mentioned above, Jose Larraz's Whirlpool and Symptoms) than on its own terms, which is probably a factor in how cold it left me. It's still an achievement and a landmark and etc, just not doing it for me this morning.

Polanski is fucking scum but at least his films aren't banal pastiche like Woody Allen's

Username officially up for grabs.

Remarkably empathetic toward its protagonist coming from a rapist

expecting (or ruling out) this kind of correspondence in art is childish

Annie Hall is not a banal pastiche

Baby Driver. Loved it.

Watched that last night too. It took me a while to get to it because I expected the focus on the soundtrack to be way too cutesy, but it actually wasn't, and as a crime movie and a car chase movie it was better than I expected.

Guilty as charged. It's been a rough few viewing weeks trying to reconcile my ability to enjoy work by Klaus Kinski and Polanski; I'll absolutely concede that Annie Hall is a good (or even great) film and I'm taking that unease out on the easiest/most socially acceptable target. I'd still rather watch video of my own upcoming sinus surgery than ever see Shadows and Fog again.

The Working Man (Adolfi, 1933)
I'll Be Suing You (Meins, 1934)
Time on My Hands (Fleischer, 1932)
Open All Night (Bern, 1924)
The Delicious Little Devil (Leonard, 1919)
The Blacksmith (Keaton & St. Clair)
*The Black Pirate (Parker, 1926)

Limelight (Chaplin, 1952) - 7/10
*Melancholia (Von Trier, 2011) - 8/10
*Le Gai Savoir (Godard, 1969) - 6/10
Titicut Follies (Wiseman, 1967) - 9/10
*The Last Picture Show (Bogdanovich, 1971) - 10/10
Saute ma ville (Akerman, 1968) - 9/10
Only Angels Have Wings (Hawks, 1939) - 8/10
The Music Room (Ray, 1958) - 8/10
Trances (Maanouni, 1981) - 7/10
La Pointe Courte (Varda, 1955) - 7/10
Cléo from 5 to 7 (Varda, 1962) - 9/10
Mikey and Nicky (May, 1976) - 9/10
*Ici et Ailleurs (Godard, 1976) - 9/10
Modern Times (Chaplin, 1936) - 10/10
Red River (Hawks, 1948) - 9/10
High School (Wiseman, 1968) - 10/10
Who Are You, Polly Maggoo? (Klein, 1967) - 7/10
Tokyo Chorus (Ozu, 1931) - 5/10
Mr. Freedom (Klein, 1968) - 8/10
Kamikaze 1989 (Gremm, 1982) - 7/10
Dial H for Hitchcock (Haimes, 1999) - 9/10
Histoire(s) du Cinéma (Godard, 1988-1998) - 10/10
Ministry of Fear (Lang, 1944) - 8/10
Rio Grande (Ford, 1950) - 7/10
Law and Order (Wiseman, 1969) - 10/10
*Au Hasard Balthazar (Bresson, 1966) - 10/10

Unperson, completely agree!

Synecdoche, N.Y. (Kaufman, 2008)
The Favourite (Lanthimos, 2018)
The Heart of the World (Maddin, 2000)
Manuelle Labor (Losier, Maddin, 2007)
Windows (Greenaway, 1974)
The Raid (Evans, 2011)
Us (Peele, 2019)
The Fabulous Baron Munchausen (Zeman, 1962)
The Highwaymen (Hancock, 2019)
Shoplifters (Kore-eda, 2018)
Lick the Star (Coppola, 1998)
*L'opéra-mouffe (Varda, 1958)
24 Frames (Kiarostami, 2017)

continuing to watch some 70s disaster movies:
The Hindenburg (Wise, 1975) 6/10
The Big Bus (Frawley, 1976) 4/10
The Swarm (Irwin Allen, 1978) extended version, 3/10, entertainingly bad
Meteor (Neame, 1979) 3/10 just a terrible idea

misc:
Source Code (Duncan Jones, 2011) 7/10
ARQ (Tony Elliott, 2016) 7/10, can't get enough of these time loop stories recently
Cold Pursuit (Moland, 2019) 7/10, much better than I expected
Free Solo (Chin, 2018) 8/10
Meru (Chin 2015) 7/10

*Get Out (Peele, 2017) 6/10
Bright Future (Kurosawa, 2002) 6/10
Us (Peele, 2019) 4/10
No Man of Her Own (Leisen, 1950) 6/10
Black Panthers (Varda, 1968) 8/10
*Orlando (Potter, 1992) 9/10
Johnny Guitar (Ray, 1954) 10/10
Inland Sea (Soda, 2018) 7/10
*The Green Ray (Rohmer, 1986) 10/10
Light (Tsai, 2018) 6/10
Your Face (Tsai, 2018) 8/10
The Skywalk Is Gone (Tsai, 2002) 7/10
No No Sleep (Tsai, 2015) 8/10
Autumn Days (Tsai, 2016) 5/10
Goodbye, Dragon Inn (Tsai, 2003) 9/10
Afternoon (Tsai, 2015) 7/10
Detour (Ulmer, 1945) 8/10
The Deserted (Tsai, 2017) 7/10

Bel Ami
2012 version of a 1885 novel by Guy de Maupassant which I picked up and started reading a couple of weeks ago. Have been enjoying the book, film diverges quite a bit at points I've read. Was wondering if i would want to be continuing to read the book after having seen the film, assume it is quite different though.
Film looks good anyway.

Light (Tsai, 2018) 6/10
Autumn Days (Tsai, 2016) 5/10
Afternoon (Tsai, 2015) 7/10
The Deserted (Tsai, 2017) 7/10

― devvvine, 9. april 2019 12:43 (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I need a lot more info on these. Pleasepleaseplease... Saw You Face a couple of weeks ago, found it quite good but I can't stop wishing Tsai would make something as big as Stray Dogs again. Film of the decade, quite often.

will caveat this and say i've not seen any other tsai, so can't really speak to proper narrative features beyond dragon inn

Light (Tsai, 2018) 6/10 - the compostition of this is beautiful and tsai's reverence for the hall shines through, but think it works best as context / a companion to 'your face'.

Autumn Days (Tsai, 2016) 5/10 - i liked this but it didn't leave much of an impact, mostly a black screen with a recording of a casual conversation in a cafe with nogami teruyo - about translation/adaptation/what she likes about tsai's work, broken up some with a couple pieces of footage; the first: portraiture, a la your face, the second: alongside lee kang-sheng.

Afternoon (Tsai, 2015) 7/10 - this is really good, sweet and fascinating dive into tsai and lee's relationship. little disconcerting how close to death he thinks he is (he was around most of the weekend and seemed like the most content, healthy man alive)

The Deserted (Tsai, 2017) 7/10 - not sure this has as much depth as some of the stuff i saw at the weekend but this still kinda blew me away; the novelty of vr probably a factor. he does make use of the 360 degrees in a couple of breathtaking ways while retaining a sort of central framing for the most part. there's a central scene as a typhoon comes in, as other stuff happens in the room in front of you. that is astonishing.

wrote a little about the weekend/masterclass on the tsai thread

Recommend some Tsai Ming-Liang

Oh, right, The Deserted is the VR thing? He is making so much stuff, it seems. Is the hall in Light the same one as in Your Face?

deserted is very much vr and yes, same hall! about the same age as the elderly interviewees in 'your face', used to be common for people to go watch films there and also tsai ran a cafe there

I can't stop wishing Tsai would make something as big as Stray Dogs again

this seems unlikely in the near future, given how enthused he is about making works primarily for galleries atm. but said nothing that would explicitly rule a large project out; talked a great deal about the stray dogs exhibition he put on in taipei.

Starting to come around to the idea that Straw Dogs is his greatest work.

lol, Stray Dogs...

(Before I forget: re shit subtitles for Knife In The Water busted upthread, I saw it with good subs in a 70s theater; maybe that edition is still around somewhere)(no clue how true those 70s subtitles were to the spoken, but the whole thing was effective.)
Red Dust (Fleming, 1932): Harlow is a harlot on the lam but she ain't no sheep; Gable is useful to in several ways, while operating a rubber plantation way up the river from "Say-gon," as all the white people call it, with Gable and his fellow Men agreeing that you gotta watch the "coolies." Then Gene Raymond, an old friend of Gabe's, a little eager beaver who's talked his way into a job on Gabe's old home place and can't shut up, shows up with his blushing bride, omg Mary Astor, a classical poster child (Harlow calls her "the Duchess"), horny and picky and understandably flustered by this place and the whole situation---Hubby promptly catches jungle fever and there's no doctor and he won't stay the fuck in bed, he's gotta go work and prove himself.
All of these people have been programmed to prove themselves, and are becoming aware of it---except Jean Ho apparently found it a given long ago; in any case, she's practical about living each moment as enjoyably as possible, incl. call other people on BS when it gets too tiresome (although delivering sermons would be at least as tiresome).
Implications of the ending are satisfying enough to spin your own sequel.
6/10, docked a couple of points for pro forma racism, speaking of whoring.
Jean Harlow's husband, MGM executive Paul Bern, committed suicide midway through filming (some biographies suggest he was murdered and the studio covered it up) and MGM mogul Louis B. Mayer, fearing a scandal, appealed to Tallulah Bankhead to step into Harlow's role. She refused out of respect for Harlow and the blonde bombshell was soon back on the set, though considerably subdued. During her first day back at work, Fleming reportedly said to Mary Astor, "how are we going to get a sexy performance with that look in her eyes?" But Harlow proved herself the ultimate trooper...
Co-star Gene Raymond agreed it was a difficult picture to shoot and said, "...the whole thing was done at MGM. Stage 6 was now a jungle with a hut in it, and it stank to high heaven. The rain would seep in and all of a sudden you had mud. Then they put the hot lights on and it steamed up. So it was not a pleasant picture; it was hard for everybody, especially the crew." Regardless of the hardships, Red Dust was a hit and would later inspire a remake - Mogambo (1954) - directed by John Ford and with Gable repeating his original role opposite Ava Gardner (in the Harlow part) and Grace Kelly (in the Astor role).

A final bit of trivia: Jean Harlow would later marry Harold "Hal" Rosson, the cinematographer on Red Dust. Thanks, TCM!

her monologue on cheese makes it at least 8/10

don't know which subtitles I saw it with, but I loved Knife in the Water

xpost She's great---also from TCM: When Time Magazine covered the film, the reviewer wrote: "The best lines go to Harlow. She bathes hilariously in a rain barrel and reads Gable a bedtime story about a chipmunk and a rabbit. ("Say I wonder how this comes out?" her character wisecracks). Her effortless vulgarity, humor, and slovenliness make a noteworthy characterization, as good in the genre as the late Jeanne Eagels' Sadie Thompson." Gable: "People have to drink that!"

he's her straight man, and perfectly so (he's Astor's too, in a weirder, Astory-as-hell way).

I don't normally like or endorse movies about children, but COP CAR is a fun way to spend 85 minutes.

The Birthday Party (Friedkin, 1968)- baby's first Pinter; I've been wanting to dive in for like...Jesus, 20 years at this point, but never got around to picking up any of the readily available complete works, or tracking down any of the Losey movies, or etc. That's going to change; I've started tracking down anything else I can because this just ruined me for a day.

Lost in La Mancha (Fulton & Pepe, 2002)- another one from the "too depressed to watch for 10+ years" pile. Makes the business of 1st AD gripping and terrifying and for all its flaws (see below) at least makes me glad Adam Driver stepped in to fill the Johnny Depp part

*Towers Open Fire / The Cut Ups (Balch, 1963, 1966)- I'd seen these years ago at the Whitney's Brion Gysin exhibit; the former is a loose sort of Burroughs sci-fi routine in film form, and the latter a demonstration of the titular technique with Gysin, dreamachines, Ian Somerville, etc.

The Man Who Killed Don Quixote (Gilliam, 2018)- wanted to love it, I think I at least liked it; it's the best film he's made since Fear & Loathing, which is not a particularly impressive claim. Still has no idea what to do with women; kind of tiresomely self-aware re: Gilliam's own enfant terrible schtick without necessarily any real reflection on the subject; but at least it's often successfully funny

Secrets of Sex/Bizarre (Balch, 1970)- absolutely bugshit anthology film of shaggy dog stories loosely tied together by sex; weirdly prim, very British, shades of early Scientology in places, a Burroughsian twist in the last story, and one segment that will stick with me long after I've forgotten the rest of it (with the unforgettable line "Oh! My contact lens has dropped amongst your charms")

*The Long Goodbye (Altman, 1973)- perfect film will not be taking arguments at this time

Horror Hospital (Balch, 1973)- Michael Gough; weirdly anticipates the Rocky Horror Picture Show but drawing more on Hammer/Amicus productions of the very recent past for camp value instead of classic Hollywood. Fun, stupid.

The Octopus (Painlevé, 1927)
Hyas and Stenorhynchus (Painlevé, 1927)
Wise Girls (Hopper, 1929)
*Bright Eyes (Del Ruth & St. Clair, 1921)
*Thundering Fleas (McGowan, 1926)
The Best Man (Edwards, 1928)
Stickleback Eggs (Painlevé, 1925)
The Clairvoyant (Elvey, 1935)
Feel My Pulse (La Cava, 1928)
Bare Knees (Kenton, 1928)
The Texan (Cromwell, 1930)
The Border Legion (Brower & Knopf, 1930)
Us (Peele, 2019)
Shazam! (Sandberg, 2019)

*The Beaches of Agnès (2008, Varda) 9/10
Portrait of a Young Man in Three Movements (1931, Rodakiewicz) 6/10
Road to Life (1931, Ekk) 7/10
Panelstory or Birth of a Community (1981, Chytilova) 7/10
The Ghost Ship (1943, Robson) 7/10
*The Leopard Man (1943, Tourneur) 8/10
Juha (1999, Kaurismaki) 8/10
Something Different (1963, Chytilova) 8/10
*Nenette and Boni (1996, 7/10)
No Fear, No Die (1990, Denis) 9/10
Drifting Clouds (1996, Kaurismaki) 8/10
Tea and Sympathy (1956, Minnelli) 7/10
Take Care of Your Scarf, Tatiana (1994, Kaurismaki) 7/10
Claire Denis, The Vagabond (1996, Lifshitz) 8/10
U.S. Go Home (1994, Denis) 9/10
*Manila in the Claws of Light (1975, Brocka) 8/10

Spotlight (7.0)
Leaving Neverland (7.5)
The Grey Fox (8.0)
The Mean Season (5.5)
Greta (5.0)
Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (7.0)
Catwalk (7.5)
The X Files (6.5)
On the Waterfront (10.0)
The Hummingbird Project (6.5)

Them Thar Hills (Rogers, 1934)
On Demande une Brute (Barrois, 1934)
The Masquerader (Chaplin, 1914)
Two-Gun Gussie (Goulding, 1918)
Along the Coast (Varda, 1958)
The Woman Disputed (King & Taylor, 1928)
The Garden of Eden (Milestone, 1928)
Ramona (Carewe, 1928)
Felix Wins Out (Messmer, 1923)
The Passing of the Third Floor Back (Viertel, 1935)

i lasted fifteen minutes of Her Smell, jesus fuck that's a dumb film
theater hopped to Red Joan and managed ten minutes of sexy communists then gave up
re-watched Hail Satan? and can confirm it's an A+ documentary.

Also jumped into the Criterion film class and watched Foreign Correspondent and Lydia; both superb.

Hook - **
Treasure Island (1934) - ****
Midnight Cowboy - ***
Star 80 - ****

The Big Heat (Lang, 1953)
N.U. (short - Antonioni, 1948)
The Short & Curlies (short - Leigh, 1987)
*Mishimi: A Life in Four Chapters (Schrader, 1985)
Yearbook (short - Britto, 2014)
Bugsy Malone (Parker, 1976)
Destroyer (Kusama, 2018)
The Silence (short - Asgari, Samadi, 2016)
Smithereens (Seidelman, 1982)
Kaili Blues (Bi Gan, 2015)
So Dark the Night (Lewis, 1946)
Pearls of the Deep (Menzel, Chytilová, Jireś, Němec, Schorm, 1966)

MUBI:

LA Plays Itself (Thom Andersen, 2004)
Alps (Lanthimos, 2011)
Microhabitat (Jeon Go-woon, 2018)

LA Plays Itself is kinda amazing - an essay film that sees into all that afflicts us - battles over urban space and transportation, de-industrialisation, climate crisis, Black Lives Matter (his discussion of Gerima's Bush Mama) with an added dose of the crankiness of a local, LA native. This is what Mark Cousins' Story of Film lacked: thee it was just film, the world in it was often missing. Microhabitat was a great little millenial film, a bunch of friends drifting apart from one another and what became of them. Was only half-watching the Lanthimos, just not much to grab me...

Recovering from surgery and not watching nearly as many movies as I had intended:

True Stories (Byrne, 1986)- loved it. I think it falls just barely on the side of genuine affection for its subject matter; not that cynicism about middle America is bad or something, just that it wouldn't be nearly as interesting. Especially loved the cast recordings of stuff like "Radio Head," "People Like Us" and "Papa Legba"- they're so perfectly suited to the performers I can't imagine being upset that they're not Talking Heads tracks.

Touch of Evil (Welles, 1958/1976)- to my eternal shame I still hadn't seen this. After some thought I decided to go with the '76 rediscovered "preview" cut on my first watch; after seeing it, I think I understand why some purists have problems with the Murch cut. I'm looking forward to diving into the different versions for a closer comparison soon, and because I make poor life decisions, sprang for a copy of the Masters of Cinema R2 disc, which is mostly identical to the US blu-ray (which I now need to sell...) with the exception of actually including the original 1.33:1 aspect ratio. (If anyone else has a multi-region player and is curious it's quite cheap on Amazon; I got mine for about $12).

Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro (Miyazaki, 1979)- Monkey Punch died this past week, and I was reminded that despite loving both Miyazaki and every other incarnation of Lupin I've seen I never got around to watching this. It's a sweet little caper movie that suffers a little from competing impulses (there are some surprisingly grisly deaths for a Miyazaki film, and conversely this is the cuddliest Lupin I've ever seen) but has some A+ slapstick and Miyazaki's trademark European settings, flying machines, etc.

*Duffy (Parrish, 1968)- Hardly a great film but some of Donald Cammell's nastiness survives; it looks great, Jameses Coburn, Fox and Mason are all in fine hammy form (Mason is obviously phoning it in but even then he's still fucking James Mason). Some great sets and wonderfully overbaked dialogue ("So long, you groovy old hooker"). Definitely not the worst thing Robert Parrish directed in the late 60s, at least

Mystery Street (Sturges, 1950) 7/10
1985 (Tan, 2018) 8/10
The Narrow Margin (Fleischer, 1952) 7/10
Let the Sunshine In (Denis, 2017) 5/10
Simon (Brickman, 1980) 6/10
Singin' in the Rain (Donen and Kelly, 1952) 9/10
Night Train to Munich (Reed, 1940) 8/10
Kubo and the Two Strings (Knight, 2016) 7/10
*Seems Like Old Times (Sandwich, 1980) 7/10
Can You Ever Forgive Me? (Heller, 2018) 7/10

i saw Seems Like Old Times in '80, didnt realize it was helmed by a sandwich. rye?

oh, legendary MTM/sitcom director Jay Sandrich, forgot that truly

old Cosby Show hand too

xp

Nah, its actually pretty broad.

But seriously--Sandrich. I hate autocorrect.

Especially loved the cast recordings of stuff like "Radio Head," "People Like Us" and "Papa Legba"- they're so perfectly suited to the performers I can't imagine being upset that they're not Talking Heads tracks.

they're in fact way better than the actual talking heads recordings!

oh, legendary MTM/sitcom director Jay Sandrich, forgot that truly

Didn't know that! Seems Like Old Times was apparently his only theatrical feature, which is kind of a shame--its one of the few post-Golden Age attempts at screwball that gets the genre mostly right.

High Life (Denis, 2019) 7/10
Sunset (Nemes, 2019) 5/10
Ash is Purest White (Jia, 2019) 6/10
The Package (Davis, 1989) 4/10
* Shampoo (Ashby, 1975) 7/10
* Laura (Preminger, 1944) 9/10

Stranger Than Paradise (Jarmusch, 1984) - 3/10
The Model Couple (Klein, 1977) - 7/10
Permanent Vacation (Jarmusch, 1980) - 9/10
No Home Movie (Akerman, 2015) - 10/10
Goodbye to Language (Godard, 2014) - 6/10
Hospital (Wiseman, 1970) - 9/10
*Persona (Bergman, 1966) - 10/10
Crash (Cronenberg, 1996) - 6/10
Primate (Wiseman, 1974) - 6/10
Sanjuro (Kurosawa, 1962) - 8/10
The Cranes Are Flying (Kalatozov, 1957) - 9/10
Monsieur Verdoux (Chaplin, 1947) - 7/10
British Sounds / See You at Mao (Godard & Roger, 1970) - 8/10
Le Samouraï (Melville, 1967) - 9/10
Bringing Up Baby (Hawks, 1938) - 9/10
A Matter of Life and Death (Powell & Pressburger, 1946) - 10/10
Lotte in Italia (Godard & Roger, 1971) - 4/10
Le Beau Serge (Chabrol, 1958) - 9/10
Crooklyn (Lee, 1994) - 9/10
Morocco (Von Sternberg, 1930) - 10/10

Crooklyn is an 8/10... the first hour is fantastic, a mosaic, but once Troy goes south it gets derailed and like so many Spike Lee movies ends up so frustratingly uneven and lopsided. the anamorphic distortion is a great idea - genuinely disorienting - but improperly applied & for too long. his best moments are always the pure cinema/magical realist bits at the end, and most of Crooklyn is just these bits strung together. hypnotic but he breaks the spell in the south. still often great despite itself and so much more fluid than any other movie of his I've seen.

Stranger Than Paradise (Jarmusch, 1984) - 3/10

why?

Recollections of the Yellow House (Monteiro)
The Pelvis of J.W. (Monteiro)
Come and Go (Monteiro)
Dans Paris (Honoré)
Love Songs (Honoré)
Sorry Angel (Honoré)
The Price of Fame (Beauvois)
Slack Bay (Dumont)
Far From Men (Oelhoffen)
Things To Come (Hansen-Løve)
Monsieur Hire (Leconte)
Intimate Strangers (Leconte)
Three Seats for the 26th (Demy)
Uranus (Berri)
Bungalow (Köhler)
In My Room (Köhler)*
Transit (Petzold)*
Wakolda (Puenzo)
The Clan (Trapero)*
El Angel (Ortega)
The Rose Seller (Gaviria)
Sumas y Restas (Gaviria)
The Hidden One (Gavaldón)
Raíces (Alazraki)
La Cucaracha (Rodriguez)
Roma (Cuarón)
Dumbo (Sharpsteen)
Spider-Man: Homecoming (Watts)
High Flying Bird (Soderbergh)
A Land Imagined (Hua)
The Asthenic Syndrome (Muratova)
The Return (Choi)*
Madalena (Dimopoulos)