Last (x) movies you saw (II)

The Emperor’s Naked Army Marches On (1987, Hara) 9/10

astonishing film

you all have access to such obscure films

I'm envious

ok, The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On appears to be available on netflix dvd, so I will watch it

Gonna see it tomorrow at the MoMA

Morbius, why didn't you like Becket?

Gassy talk and risible gayness.

MoMA is having a Kazuo Hara retro, and he was there for the Emperor's Naked Army Marches On post-screening discussion the other night with... Michael Moore (long a champion of the film). In the Q&A, a gent got up and offered that the protagonist of the doc, having shot and nearly killed the son of one of the former army officers, was not a crusader. "This guy is a NUT!"

The speaker was the avant-garde filmmaker Ken Jacobs. Only in New York.

Gassy talk and risible gayness.

New board description.

For the Birds was a devastating portrait of mental illness and end of empire america; bummed me out for days
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfUY9lraOKU

*Quiet Please! (Stevens, 1933)
Tango Tangles (Sennett, 1914)
Microhabitat (Jeon, 2017)
Men in Black: International (Gray, 2019)
45 Minutes From Hollywood (Guiol, 1926)
The Matrimaniac (Powell, 1916)
The Dead Don't Die (Jarmusch, 2019)

MUBI:

Madeleine's Madeline (Decker, 2019)
Eyes Do Not Want to Close at All Times, or, Perhaps One Day Rome Will Allow Herself to Choose in Her Turn (Straub/Huillet, 1970)

Cinema:

Terrorizers (Yang, 1986)

Funeral Parade of Roses(Matsumoto, 1969) 8/10
Madeline’s Madeline (Decker, 2018) 5/10
Not Reconciled... (Huillet, Straub, 1965) 9/10
Nervous Translation (Seno, 2017) 8/10
Birds of Passage (Guerra, 2018) 7/10
L’Intrus (Denis, 2004) 9/10
Flores (Jacome, 2017) 5/10
*The Rules of the Game (Renoir, 1939) 10/10
North by Northwest (Hitchcock, 1959) 9/10
Dust in the Wind (Hou, 1986) 8/10
Norte: The End of History (Diaz, 2014) 8/10
Stray Dogs (Tsai, 2013) 10/10

The Beach Bum 4/5
Rolling Thunder Revue: a Bob Dylan Story 4/5
Avengers: Endgame 3.5/5
Smithereens (1982) 4/5
They Were Expendable (1945) 3.5/5
Our Man in Havana (1959) 3.5/5
The Two Killings of Sam Cooke (2019) 3.5/5
Captain Marvel 3/5
Godzilla: King of the Monsters 2/5
Cat People (1982) 2.5/5
Deadwood: The Movie 4.5/5

Oops, Our Man in Havana should be 3/5. Very important.

The Raft is worth a gander; great post-script from the perspective of women in their 70s to a floating skinner box gone right somehow... notably the story mentioned in this article never comes up!
https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-i-plotted-a-murder-on-the-infamous-sex-raft

relaxer (2019 potrykus) 4/10
burning (2018 lee chang-dong) 7/10
basquiat (1996 schnabel) 8/10
fool's mate (1956 rivette) 5/10
camille claudel (1989 bruno nyutten) 7.5/10
baby boy (2001 singleton) 8/10
*suspiria (1977 argento) 6/10
at the heart of gold: inside the usa gymnastics scandal (2019 carr) 8/10
white boy rick (2018 yann demange) 3/10

Deadwood (Minahan, 2019) 7/10
Support the Girls (Bujalski, 2018) 7/10
*BlacKkKlansman (Lee, 2018) 8/10
The Time of Their Lives (Goldby, 2017) 3/10
Mid90s (Hill, 2018) 6/10
Burning (Lee, 2018) 8/10
Halloween (Green, 2018) 4/10
Ava (Foroughi, 2017) 5/10
Wildlife (Dano, 2018) 7/10
The Chocolate War (Gordon, 1988) 6/10

His First Flame (Edwards, 1927)
Pure Feud (Henabery, 1934)
Flirting With Fate (Cabanne, 1916)
The Furs (Sennett, 1912)
Uncle (Jires, 1959)
Framing Father (Roberts, 1942)
Mail Trouble (French, 1942)
Reaching for the Moon (Emerson, 1917)
1900 (Bertolucci, 1976)
*Take a Chance (Goulding, 1918)
Entr'acte (Clair, 1924)
Feeling Good (Etaix, 1966)
As Long as You've Got Your Health (Etaix, 1966)

*Wanda (Loden, 1970) - 10/10
The Star (Heisler, 1952) - 7/10
*The Image Book (Godard, 2018) - 10/10
The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum (Mizoguchi, 1939) - 8/10
The Thin Man Goes Home (Thorpe, 1945) - 7/10
A Perfect Couple (Altman, 1979) - 6/10
Street of Shame (Mizoguchi, 1956) - 8/10
Documenteur (Varda, 1981) - 7/10
Quintet (Altman, 1979) - 5/10
ABC Africa (Kiarostami, 2001) - 9/10
I Am Wanda (Raganelli, 1991) - 8/10
*American Psycho (Harron, 2000) - 9/10
The Gay Bride (Conway, 1934) 6/10
4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (Mungiu, 2007) - 9/10
*Dog Day Afternoon (Lumet, 1975) - 10/10
La Ciénaga (Martel, 2001) - 4/10
I Hate But Love (Kurahara, 1962) - 7/10
Le Plaisir (Ophüls, 1952) - 8/10
Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (Cimino, 1974) - 7/10
The Beaches of Agnès (Varda, 2008) - 8/10

Nights of Cabiria (1957)
Point Break (1991)
Papillon (1973)
Tangerine (2015)
Hail Caesar (2016)
The Devil & Daniel Webster (1941)
John Wick 3 (2019)
Mystery Train (1989)
The Dead Don't Die (2019)
Where Danger Lives (1950)

Hail Caesar quickly climbing up my favorite Coens list. Point Break still sucks but I'll never not enjoy watching Anthony Kiedis get smacked around. Where Danger Lives a serviceable but fun noir with Robert Mitchum and a surreal interlude involving some kind of rural moustache festival(?). Tangerine and Nights of Cabiria both much funnier than I was expecting, Giulietta Masina was outrageously fun to watch. Anyone have any recs on what of hers to see next? I guess La Strada?

yes, followed by Variety Lights, then I guess Il Bidone, Juliet of the Spirits, Ginger & Fred. She did a prison film (non-Fellini) w/ Anna Magnani, Hell in the City, if you can find it.

She's in Europa '51 as well.

so I saw, but I don't remember her!

*The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956, Hitchcock) 8/10
A Bigger Splash (1973, Hazan) 8/10
*Conversation Piece (1974, Visconti) 8/10
The Fall of the House of Usher (1928,Epstein) 8/10
Time Stood Still (1959, Olmi) 6/10
The Nun (1966, Rivette) 7/10
FM (1978, Alonzo) 3/10
The Sundowners (1960, Zinnemann) 6/10
The Dancing Masters (1943, St. Clair) 6/10
The Souvenir (2019, Hogg) 9/10

Toy Story 4 (Cooley, 6/10)
Giant Little Ones (Behrman, 2019) 6/10
Ward 5B (2019) 7/10
The Souvenir (Hogg, 2019) 8/10
Dark Money (Reed, 2018) 8/10
* Fox and His Friends (Fassbinder, 1975) 8/10
Medea (Pasolini, 1970) 5/10
* Playtime (Tati, 1967) 9/10
* Le Samourai (Melville, 1967) 9/10
The Prisoner (1955, Glenville) 4/10

*Monty Python and the Holy Grail (Gilliam and Jones - 1975) 7/10
*Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (Roach - 1997) 7
What Price Hollywood (Cukor, 1932) 8
The Lineup (Don Siegel, 1958) 7; terrible police sections based on a forgotten tv show
Rocketman (Fletcher, 2019) 7; better as jukebox musical than biopic
Teen Titans Go To the Movies (Michail and Horvath, 2018) 6
The Decline of Western Civilization (Spheeris, 1981) 8
The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years (Spheeris, 1988) 8

I expected Den of Thieves to suck - it's 2 hours 20, it stars Gerard Butler and 50 Cent, and it seems like a made-for-basic-cable Heat knockoff. But it's actually a lot smarter and better written than that; as heist movies go, you could do a lot worse.

Medea (Pasolini, 1970) 5/10

I thought this film was fascinating and it was so visually beautiful

Pasolini is a recent discovery for me. I've seen 4 of his films now and they've all been fantastic

Heh -- I've had the opposite impression. I got Teorema and can't understand why he chose such portentous framing.

Medea (Pasolini, 1970) 5/10

I thought this film was fascinating and it was so visually beautiful

Wait- so 5/10 is a good rating??

Oh, wait never mind. Now I see that was a quote.

My favorite Pasolini is "Hawks and Sparrows" fwiw.

I loved The Hawks and the Sparrows. Medea has a quality similar to Oedipus Rex for me, but I think I like it more. I haven't seen Teorema yet

also loved Accattone and Mama Roma, I guess I've seen 5 of his films

may + june in theaters

Long Shot (Levine, 2019) - 8/10
Holiday (Cukor, 1938) - 7/10
Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project (Wolf, 2019) - 10/10
Other Music (Basu, Hatch-Miller; 2019) - 8/10
The Mountain (Alverson, 2018) - 4/10
Poms (Hayes, 2019) - 3/10
Amazing Grace (Pollack, Elliott; 2018) - 7/10
Rafiki (Kahiu, 2018) - 7/10
Pokémon Detective Pikachu (Letterman, 2019) - 8/10
Booksmart (Wilde, 2019) - 8/10
Non-Fiction (Assayas, 2018) - 6/10
I Am Cuba (Kalatozov, 1964) - 7/10
Rocketman (Fletcher, 2019) - 3/10
The Souvenir (Hogg, 2019) - 1/10
*The Virgin Spring (Bergman, 1960) - 10/10
The Flavor of Green Tea Over Rice (Ozu, 1952) - 8/10
Late Night (Ganatra, 2019) - 2/10
The Dead Don’t Die (Jarmusch, 2019) 6/10
The Last Black Man in San Francisco (Talbot, 2019) - 6/10
Yesterday (Boyle, 2019) - 8/10

Flappy where'd you see the Other Music doc? Made by two good friends of mine. Really proud of them.

The Stage Hand (Langdon, 1933)
I'll Take Milk (Yates, 1946)
Tramway (Kieślowski, 1966)
Bought! (Mayo, 1931)
The Seahorse (Painleve, 1934)
The Marriage Circle (Lubitsch, 1924)
Over The Fence (Lloyd & MacDonald, 1917)
The Bluffer (Sennett, 1930)
American Aristocracy (Ingraham, 1916)

xp
Maryland Film Festival! as of a month and a half ago they were still looking for a distributor unfortunately, I wish them all the best.

I haven't seen the former but I refuse to believe anyone could enjoy Yesterday more than Holiday.

Cukor confounds me... every movie I've seen of his I've felt could've been better executed by another director, like McCarey, Hawks, Capra... most of his contemporaries... they are all so stiff and and distant, I always feel like he's out of step. tons of stuff I haven't seen but I'm talking about Little Women, Gaslight, The Actress, The Philadelphia Story, and Holiday.

xxpost I have a feeling they'll find one. Fingers crossed.

May/June:

Birds of Passage (Guerra/Gallego, 2018) 7/10
Lucky Jim (Boulting, 1957) 5/10
Brigadoon (Minnelli, 1954) 7/10
Dracula Prince of Darkness (Fisher, 1966) 7/10
Ash is Purest White (Jia, 2018) 8/10

The Stranglers of Bombay (Fisher, 1959) 6/10
The Velvet Vampire (Rothman, 1971) 7/10
Malatesta's Carnival of Blood (Speech, 1973) 7/10
Not Reconciled (Straub-Huillet, 1965) 8/10
Legend of the Werewolf (Francis, 1975) 6/10
The Andromeda Strain (Wise, 1971) 6/10
Terror by Night (Neill, 1946) 6/10
The Lovers! (Wise, 1973) 5/10
Joy Division (Gee, 2007) 7/10
Eyes Do Not Want to Close at All Times, or, Perhaps One Day Rome Will Allow Herself to Choose in Her Turn (Straub-Huillet, 1970) 7/10
The Mummy's Hand (Cabanne, 1940) 6/10
Teresa Venerdì (De Sica, 1941) 6/10
Fear in the Night (Sangster, 1972) 6/10
Apollo 11 (Miller, 2019) 7/10

In Fabric (2019) 5/10 - this was disappointing and easily the least of Strickland's films so far. Looks and feels great but the story is too flimsy, the comedy too broad. The portmanteau structure doesn't work with only two stories, makes it feel cobbled together after they ran out of money or whatever

Birds of passage (Gallego and Guerra 2018) 8/10
La collectionneuse (Rohmer 1967) 5/10
Through a glass darkly (Bergman 1961) 9/10
Hana-bi (Takeshi 1997) 8/10
A tale of winter (Rohmer 1992) 8/10
The straight story (Lynch 1999) 7/10
Love streams (Cassavetes 1984) 7/10
The territory (Ruiz 1981) 5/10
First man (Chazelle 2018) 6/10
X: the man with x-ray eyes (Corman 1963) 7/10
Journey to italy (Rossellini 1954) 9/10
Silent light (Reygadas 2007) 7/10
Blissfully yours (2002 Weerasethakul) 8/10
McCabe & mrs miller (Altman 1971) 9/10
*Amour fou (Hausner 2014) 8/10
The other side (Minervini 2015) 7/10
*Carrie (Depalma 1976) 8/10
Next of kin (Williams 1982) 7/10
Tropical malady (Weerasethakul 2004) 9/10
13 Tzameti (Babluani 2005) 3/10
Stray dogs (Tsai 2013) 8/10
Shadow of a doubt (Hitchcock 1943) 9/10
Paris is burning (Livingston 1990) 8/10
The koumiko mystery (Marker 1965) 7/10
Minding the gap (Bing 2018) 8/10
The decameron (Pasolini 1971) 7/10
Tag (Sion 2015) 6/10
The double life of veronique (Kieslowski 1991) 7/10
In fabric (Strickland 2019) 5/10

Woman in the Dunes (Teshigahara, 1964) 10/10 - the most perfect bonding of image and music in all cinema (imo)
Nights of Cabiria (Fellini, 1957) 9/10
The Decameron (Pasolini, 1971) 6/10 - probably had my fill of Pasolini bawdiness now
Paisa (Rossellini, 1946) 6/10 - 9/10 for the rooftop chase segment
Election (Payne, 1999) 7/10
Sunset (Nemes, 2018) 7/10 - do all his films end up with everything outside of close-up faces reduced to a de-focused blob?
Dirty Hearts (Amorim, 2011) 5/10 - overly-melodramatic telling of an interesting story I didn't know about (murderous tensions in post-war Brazil among the large Japanese ex-pat community)
High Life (Denis, 2018) 5/10 and that's generous

A Star is Born (Cooper, 2018) 5/10
The River (Tsai, 1997) 9/10
Keep it for Yourself (Denis, 1991) 7/10
Vive L'Amour (Tsai, 1994) 10/10
A Tiny Place that is Hard to Touch (Silver, 2019) 6/10
Shin Godzilla (Anno, 2016) 8/10
Three Times (Hou, 2005) 8/10
Minding The Gap (Liu, 2018) 8/10

The Queen (1967) - Now in re-release; totally worth a watch and fascinating. Camera is occasionally lascivious and it can be uncomfortable watching some of the participants panic when they're being filmed in straight guy drag but a vital document made all the better by it's lack of explicit message and narration.

Little - I feel like I thought I would watch anything with Issa Rae in it, but not this.

Mission Impossible: Fallout - I think they thought I was meant to care about this or have any memory of prior episodes and, as neither applied, I mostly found this to be slapstick and more than occasionally stupid. When does Tom Cruise get to start doing old guy movies? Soon?

Too long a list, covering a too long period, but I waited until I'm going on vacation. No film for me for several weeks now :)

Kino-Pravda 1-23 (Vertov)
Mother (Pudovkin)
The End of St Petersburg (Pudovkin)
Little Vera (Pichul)
The Needle (Nugmanov)
Assa (Solovyov)
Boris Godunov (Zulawski)
Francofonia (Sokurov)
A Gentle Creature (Loznitsa)
The Major (Bykov)
The Fool (Bykov)
Yuri’s Day (Serebrennikov)
Betrayal (Serebrennikov)
The Student (Serebrennikov)
Leto (Serebrennikov)
See How They Fall (Audiard)
A Self Made Hero (Audiard)*
A Prophet (Audiard)*
Rust & Bone (Audiard)*
Dheepan (Audiard)
The Sisters Brothers (Audiard)
A Woman’s Life (Brizé)
At War (Brizé)
The Mischief Makers (Truffaut)
The 400 Blows (Truffaut)
Jules et Jim (Truffaut)
Fahrenheit 451 (Truffaut)
Day for Night (Truffaut)
Round Midnight (Tavernier)
Trans-Europ-Express (Robbe-Grillet)
The Ceremony (Mannheimer)
The Raft (Lindeen)
Together (Moodysson)
Lilja 4-ever (Moodysson)
The Guitar Mongoloid (Östlund)
Involuntary (Östlund)
The Square (Östlund)*
Bombay Talkies (Kashyap, Akhtar, Banerjee & Johar)
Lust Stories (Kashyap, Akhtar, Banerjee & Johar)
The Human Condition: No Greater Love (Kobayashi)
The Human Condition: Road to Eternity (Kobayashi)
The Human Condition: A Soldier’s Prayer (Kobayashi)
Shoplifters (Kore-eda)
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (Powell & Pressburger)
A Canterbury Tale (Powell & Pressburger)
The Tales of Hoffmann (Powell & Pressburger)
Booksmart (Wilde)
Pripyat (Geyrhalter)
Abendland (Geyrhalter)*

The Human Condition was a 35mm marathon screening. That was a good saturday. Though it's really a stone cold bummer, and the first part is by far the best.

Witness for the Prosecution (Wilder, 1957) - 7/10
Our Little Sister (Kore-eda, 2015) - 8/10
*The Image Book (Godard, 2018) - 10/10
Hereditary (Aster, 2018) - 8/10
First Name: Carmen (Godard, 1983) - 5/10
Changer d’Image (Godard, 1982) - 9/10
The Flame of New Orleans (Clair, 1941) - 8/10
Détective (Godard, 1985) - 4/10
Golden Earrings (Leisen, 1947) - 6/10
Zama (Martel, 2017) - 5/10
Mogambo (Ford, 1953) - 8/10
Cold Water (Assayas, 1994) - 7/10

I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who was unimpressed by Zama

Jubal (Daves, 1956)
*Miller's Crossing (Coen, 1990)
Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese (Scorsese 2019)
*Hedwig and the Angry Inch (Mitchell, 2001)
Craig's Wife (Arzner, 1936)
Experiment in Terror (Edwards, 1962)
Drive a Crooked Road (Quine, 1954)
Swing Time (Stevens, 1936)
La vie de Jésus (Dumont, 1997)
*Time Bandits (Gilliam, 1981)
Cold Water (Assayas, 1994)
Dreams (Kurosawa, 1990)