Last (x) movies you saw (II)

Thoughts on Laundromat? Babadook? VVitch? Highlife?

― Fuck the NRA (ulysses), 13. november 2019 20:06 (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

We discussed Laundromat a bit on the Soderbergh thread. I really didn't like it, and I've turned into a massive Soderbergh fan the last few years :( Watch High Flying Bird instead, if you haven't already. Babadook and VVitch just really isn't my thing. I liked how pure the emotions of Babadook felt, but I'm just a bit bored. And VVitch I just don't care for, it's fine, nothing wrong with it, I like that young directors are doing stuff like that all over the world, digging into weird local stories, I just can't get excited by it when it's not more aesthetically original, and it's weird how big A24 indie is even in Denmark. I watched it to prepare for a festival starting tomorrow (I watched so much of this to prepare for work, unpaid work in a lot of cases, for different reasons, sigh) and it's sold out and they don't want to send me a screener, so who cares. High Life... It has good things in it, Binoche in a box, all the flashbacks, but I wasn't that taken with it. I miss her usual cinematographer Agnes Godard, the whole thing was just that bit more conventional on a granular level? Also, I'd just read too much about it, and knew too much, and was let down. Pattinson is really good. But even Let the Sunshine In had more surprises for me, and a relationship drama should not be more mysterious than sci-fi?

And also, how is Poetry?

i was thinking high life couldn't be as good as let the sunshine in; been sort of dragging my heels on it.
i'm more of a babadook/vvitch guy myself; i like weird creepy miniatures.

Poetry was devastating, never sadistic but just spirit breaking in its relentless pressure on the wonderful lead actress and, by extension, the audience. It suckered me into thinking it was ultimately an optimistic view of life in which we can find poetry and beauty even in the harshest and saddest of moments and then got me at the end with the rather stinging rejoinder of "but so what?" Recommended watching but tough sledding.

incidentally of those four white people documentaries, the standout was likely Mike Wallace... what a carefully constructed and provocative life he built! A rare opportunity to tell a story that absolutely required no narration or talking heads because he spent his entire life filming his documentary for you. Plus, love the choice of theme music.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWD7k6TrJ-g

(the alice guy-blache story was fascinating and i very much want to see her work but it was so poorly executed that I almost walked away multiple times. stop showing me how you made the documentary! Show the documentary! And chill out with the graphics!)

But I’m a Cheerleader (Babbit, 1999) - 8/10

*high fives flappy*

― american bradass (BradNelson)

no one involved in Boy Erased watched this movie and it shows
So good

In the last couple weeks:

Parasite
Paddington 2
Mr. Klein (Losey, 1975)
L’Assassin Habite au 21 (Clouzot, 1942)
Urusei Yatsura 2 - Beautiful Dreamer (Oshii, 1982)

They were all worth seeing in some way or another.

yesss beautiful dreamer is so good

It was wild! I went in knowing nothing about the source material but it was a blast as long as I resigned myself to being baffled most of the time. The, uh, Third Reich Cafe thing was a bit o_O.

thought The Witch had a compelling story, was innovative, and was extremely visually appealing. it is one of my favorite films of the last several years

also think Poetry is an amazing film

Secret Sunshine too

The Witch had an ending that I still think about frequently

Bend of the River (1952) 6/10
The Lighthouse (2019) 6/10
Ed Wood (1994) 9/10
Living on Soul (2017) 8/10
The Train (1964) 8/10
Save the Tiger (1973) 7/10
The White Diamond (2004) 7/10
Giant (1956) 3/10
Parasite (2019) 8/10

Ed Wood rewatch was inspired by finally reading the Nightmare of Ecstasy bio, which was I hadnt realized was an oral history and really fun to read. I was worried Save the Tiger would be corny but aside from some really dated Important Issues talk I enjoyed it a lot, I always really like films with that Sweet Smell of Success '36 hours in 1 persons life' structure.

I cant believe how dumb and bad Giant was, what a complete waste of time.

I'm gonna story including shorts in my round-ups, 'cause shorts are movies too.

*The Witches (Roeg, 1990) 7/10
The Little Shop of Horrors (Corman, 1960) 7/10
Pennies from Heaven (Ross, 1981) 7/10
*Best in Show (Guest, 2000) 6/10
Armored Car Robbery (Fleischer, 1950) 6/10
*The Bank Dick (Cline, 1940) 7/10
Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (Meyer, 1970) 5/10
Ghosks Is the Bunk (Fleischer, 1939) 7/10
Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (Barton, 1948) 7/10
Image Makers: The Adventures of America’s Pioneer Cinematographers (Raim, 2019) 7/10

*START including

*Midnight Run (1988) 8/10
Cobra (1986) 4/10
*Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988) 9/10
Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017) 6/10
Our Man In Havana (1959) 7/10
Daybreakers (2009) 3/10
Toy Story 4 (2019) 7/10
*W (2008) 5/10
*Dr Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love The Bomb (1964) 10/10
Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975) 6/10
Central Intelligence (2016) 6/10
Dolemite is My Name (2019) 6/10
The Laundromat (2019) 7/10
A Hidden Life (2019) 8/10

haven't seen Picnic at Hanging Rock since I was a kid. I don't remember that much about the story but do remember being entranced by it

Deerskin, the new one from Dupieux, is a funny fast and sleight comedy with a really really great jacket. probably best not to know any more than that going in as the purpose of watching the film is to tease out what it is.

Peaux de vaches aka Thick Skinned (1989, Mazuy) 7/10
The Midnight Man (1974, Lancaster, Kibbee) 6/10
Wheel of Ashes (1968, Goldman) 7/10
Harlan County U.S.A. (1976, Kopple) 10/10
That Touch of Mink (1962, D Mann) 6/10
Dark Waters (2019, Haynes) 7/10
Lost, Lost, Lost (1976, Mekas) 7/10
Mike’s Murder (1984, Bridges) 5/10
The Irishman (2019, Scorsese) 8/10
Marriage Story (2019, Baumbach) 8/10
*Casino (1995, Scorsese) 7/10

Hoopla (Lloyd, 1933)
Show Kids (Staub, 1935)
Dumb Daddies (Yates, 1928)
The Crooked Circle (Humberstone, 1932)
The Benson Murder Case (Tuttle, 1930)
The Studio Murder Mystery (Tuttle, 1929)
*One Week (Keaton & Cline, 1920)
*Sherlock Jr. (Keaton, 1924)
*#Metropolis (Lang, 1927)
#The Gallery of Monsters (Catelain, 1924)
*#Variety (Dupont, 1925)

# Accompanied by the Alloy Orchestra

Short little festival:

Uncle (Petersen)
Resin (Borgman)
Giraffe (Hartmann)
Psykosia (Grahtø)
Fever (Da-Rin)
Maternal (Delpero)
Monos (Landes)
Take Me Somewhere Nice (Sendijarević)
Disco (Syversen)
Twelve Thousand (Trebal)
Mosaic Portrait (Zhai)
The Verdict (Guttierez)
Son-Mother (Mohammadi)

Monos is fantastic, I'd reckon it will be on all the revised lists of best latin american cinema of the decade. Take Me Somewhere Nice crazy Jarmusch like view of Bosnia as this neon-pastel overdetermined lawless world. Those were the clear best in show.

Where'd You Go Bernadette is a well-filmed, highly mannered opportunity for tons of good acting (most of it Blanchett; she's awesome) to work through one of the dumber scripts I've sat through in recent years. Even taking into account this thing's screwball film context, it's still a dog of a film that i couldn't turn off because the lead was so goddam magnetic.

Hacked Circuit (short - Stratmen, 2014)
Near Dark (Bigelow, 1987)
The Devil's Backbone (del Toro, 2001)
Les dames du Bois de Boulougne (Bresson, 1945)
*Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (Weerasethakul, 2010)
I Like Killing Flies (Mahurin, 2004)
Elle (Verhoeven, 2016)
*Caché (Haneke, 2005)
Homework (Kiarostami, 1989)
Terror of Mechagodzilla (Honda, 1975)
The Laundromat (Soderbergh, 2019)
The Plague Dogs (Rosen, 1982)
Amazing Grace (Pollack, Buchanan, 1972/2018)
Dolemite Is My Name (Brewer, 2019)
I Walk Alone (Haskin, 1947)
Death in Venice (Visconti, 1971)
Kes (Loach, 1970)
Suzan Pitt shorts: Crocus (1971), Jefferson Circus Songs (1973), Visitation (2011), Pinball (2013)
The Old Dark House (Whale, 1932)
The Ballad of Jack and Rose (Miller, 2005)
Perfect Understanding (Gardner, 1933)
Stories We Tell (Polley, 2013)

Doctors' Wives (Borzage, 1931)
Klondike (Rosen, 1932)
The Phantom Broadcast (Rosen, 1933)
*A Fool There Was (Powell, 1915)
The Old Man of the Mountain (Fleischer, 1933)
The Snowman (Eshbaugh, 1933)
The Wheels of Chance (Shaw, 1922)
Song of the Scarlet Flower (Stiller, 1919)
Sir Arne's Treasure (Stiller, 1919)
Goofy Movies Number Nine (1934)
Little Cheeser (Ising, 1936)
Male and Female (de Mille, 1919)
Don't Change Your Husband (de Mille, 1919)

Dolemite (Martin, 1975) something like both 3/10 and 8/10 at the same time
Dolemite Is My Name (Netflix, 2019) 7/10
Living in Oblivion (DiCillo, 1995) 6/10
Terminator: Dark Fate (Miller, 2019) 6/10
The Last Jedi (Disney; Johnson, 2017) abandoned
The Concorde... Airport '79 (Rich) 5/10

halloween leftovers:
Happy Death Day (Landon, 2017) 6/10
Happy Death Day 2U (Landon, 2019) 7/10
The Incredible Shrinking Man (Arnold, 1957) 6/10
The Devil-Doll (Browning, 1936) 5/10
White Zombie (Halperin, 1932) 4/10
When a Stranger Calls (Walton, 1979) 7/10
The People Under the Stairs (Craven, 1991) 7/10
The Cars That Ate Paris (Weir, 1974) 7/10
*Hocus Pocus (Disney; Ortega, 1993) 6/10

seasonal movies:
*The Grinch (Comcast, 2018) 7/10
29th Street (Gallo, 1991) 6/10
3 Godfathers (Ford, 1948) 6/10
Christmas in July (Sturges, 1940) 6/10 not a christmas movie lol
It Happened on Fifth Avenue (Del Ruth, 1947) 5/10

Chronopolis (1982, Kamler) 8/10
Three Sisters (1970, Olivier) 7/10
Tales from the Golden Age (2009, Mungiu, Popescu, Hofer, Uricaru, Marculescu) 8/10
It Happened in Brooklyn (1947, Whorf) 6/10
Documenteur (1981, Varda) 7/10
Flight Command (1940, Borzage) 7/10
*The Image Book (2018, Godard) 8/10
Stuff and Dough (2001, Puiu) 6/10
Equation to an Unknown (1980, de Velsa) 4/10
The Makioka Sisters (1983, Ichikawa) 6/10

La Rupture (Chabrol, 1970) - 9/10
For Ever Mozart (Godard, 1996) - 6/10
Punishment Park (Watkins, 1971) - 8/10
Numéro Deux (Godard, 1975) - 9/10
Ten Days’ Wonder (Chabrol, 1971) - 7/10
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (Ford, 1962) - 10/10
Pickup on South Street (Fuller, 1953) - 9/10
The Glass Key (Heisler, 1942) - 7/10
*I’m Still Here (Affleck, 2010) - 10/10
*Life is Sweet (Leigh, 1990) - 10/10
Forty Guns (Fuller, 1957) - 8/10
The Book of Mary (Miéville, 1985) - 7/10
Hail Mary (Godard, 1985) - 7/10
*La Chambre (Akerman, 1972) - 10/10
*Changer d’image (Godard, 1982) - 9/10
*Pierrot le Fou (Godard, 1965) - 9/10
Godard, l'amour, la poésie (Lagier, 2007) - 7/10
Sweet Movie (Makavejev, 1974) - 6/10
Clockers (Lee, 1995) - 7/10
The Late Show (Benton, 1977) - 8/10
The Company (Altman, 2003) - 8/10
The Unfaithful Wife (Chabrol, 1969) - 7/10

The Great Wall Matt Damon and the Mandalorian get involved in fighting off alien invasion in 11th Century China.
Quite visual, a lot of colour, a little cliched possibly.
Has the somewhat stilted style of some of the directors other Western made medieval martial arts films.
Kind of enjoyed it, helped pass the time. A Film4 evening action film this week.

A Single Girl (Jacquot, 1995)
Beanpole (Balagov, 2019)

MUBI: 70 Fragments (Haneke, 1994)

Clio Barnard's The Arbor was notable for its novel execution but was so bleakly and painfully one-note it's hard to be enthusiastic about. Barnard's expert touch made this worth the watch but - between the thick accents, general fait accompli thrust and constant casual misery - it was not easy to comfortably engage with.

On the other hand, Hustlers surprised me. It's a cleverly constructed and scripted gangster movie that resolutely (and I'd argue properly) refrains from both male gaze and easy rah-rah girl power speechifying throughout. Most everyone is equal parts con artist and prey. Far better than I expected with several great performances and by far the best acting work Jennifer Lopez has done since Out of Sight... she's pure steel and sinew, totally convincing as a motherly piranha. I had disregarded Scafaria as a filmmmaker; are any of her other movies worth the trouble?

Also, how was Beanpole?

*Poisoned Ivory (Goulding, 1934)
Girls Will Be Boys (Watson, 1931)
A Holiday Pageant at Home (1901)
A Winter Straw Ride (McCutcheon & Porter, 1906)
A Trap for Santa Claus (Griffith, 1909)
A Christmas Accident (Shaw, 1912)
The Grasshopper and the Ant (Starewicz, 1913)
Shakespearian Spinach (Fleischer & Crandall, 1940)
Le Petit Cafe (Berger, 1931)
The Adventure of the Wrong Santa Claus (Seay, 1914)
Santa Claus Vs. Cupid (Louis, 1915)
Attack of the 50 Foot Woman (Juran, 1958)
Santa Claus (Kleinschmidt, 1925)
Interference (Mendes & Pomeroy, 1928)

Tokyo Twilight (Ozu, 1957)

last man to the party here but Once Upon a Time in Hollywood was very masterfully done, loads of fun, a love letter to an era and quite sweet.

the opening credits are finally online. "Treat Her Right" coming up with LD & BP's title cards is my favorite music cue in years.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRoGuopnFzw

owner my local deli/restaurant was talking about OUaTiH as I walked in today and was loudly opining about how glad he was that the film treated the Tate murders the way it did. I asked if he liked Sharon Tate and he yelled "WHO DOESN'T LOVE SHARON TATE?!?!?"

hahaha that is awesome

November:
Black Sunday/Mask of Satan (Bava, 1960) 8/10
Logan (Mangold, 2017) 6/10
Jeannette: the Childhood of Joan of Arc (Dumont, 2017) 5/10
Scarface (Hawks, 1932) 7/10
Sorry We Missed You (Loach, 2019) 8/10
Man About the House (Robins, 1974) 5/10
The Salamander (Tanner, 1971) 8/10
The Uncanny (Heroux, 1977) 6/10
The Face of Fu Manchu (Sharp, 1965) 6/10
Doctor Sleep (Flanagan, 2019) 5/10
Dracula (Badham, 1979) 6/10
The Byrd Who Flew Alone: The Triumphs and Tragedy of Gene Clark (Kendall & Kendall, 2013) 7/10
Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (Jires, 1970) 8/10
I, Monster (Weeks, 1971) 6/10
The Bakery Girl of Monceau (Rohmer, 1963) 7/10
Knives Out (Johnson, 2019) 7/10
Suzanne's Career (Rohmer, 1963) 8/10
Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story (Scorsese, 2019) 8/10

Also, how was Beanpole?

― Fuck the NRA (ulysses), Friday, 29 November 2019 bookmarkflaglink

Very good. Shades of Fassbinder and maybe even something like 'Single White Female' (!!) in the way power ebbs and flows in the central relationship.

Hello How Am I (Fleischer, 1939) 6/10
The Petrified Forest (Mayo, 1936) 7/10
Satan Met a Lady (Dieterle, 1936) 6/10
Things to Come (Hansen-Løve, 2016) 6/10
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (Weerasethakul, 2010) 7/10
Bedknobs and Broomsticks (Stevenson, 1971) 6/10
*Metropolitan (Stillman, 1990) 8/10
It's the Natural Thing to Do (Fleischer, 1939) 7/10
*It's a Wonderful Life (Capra, 1946) 9/10
Lady in the Lake (Montgomery, 1947) 5/10

The Irishman (Scorsese, 2019) 7/10
Sign of the Lion (Rohmer, 1962) 4/10
Zombi Child (Bonello, 2019) 4/10
The Bakery Girl of Monceau (Rohmer, 1963) 6/10
Suzanne’s Career (Rohmer, 1963) 7/10
Claire’s Knee (Rohmer, 1970) 8/10
The Marquis of O (Rohmer, 1976) 8/10
Perceval (Rohmer, 1978) 8/10
*The End of Evangelion (Anno, 1997) 9/10
Cuadecuc, Vampyr (Portabella, 1971) 6/10
Heimat is a Space in time (Heise, 2019) 7/10
Weekend (Godard, 1967) 6/10
La Chinoise (Godard, 1967) 9/10
On Dangerous Ground (Ray, 1951) 9/10
Kansas City Confidential (Karlson, 1952) 7/10
24 Frames (Kiarostami, 2017) 6/10
Last Year at Marienbad (Resnais, 1961) 10/10

The Lighthouse (Eggers major, Eggers minor 2019) [DCP]
Publish Or Perish (Butler, Fischer 1973) 📺
The Illumination Of Jim Woodring (Brandt 2019) [projected from laptop]
Swan Song (Colosanto, Ross, Rayfiel 1974) 📺
Escape From New York (Carpenter, Castle 1981) [DCP]
Jojo Rabbit (Waititi after Leunen 2019) [DCP]
The Raid (Evans 2011) [DCP]
Brittany Runs a Marathon (Colaizzo 2019) 📺

x-post: Too low for Heimat :( Much too low

i might agree but i tend to err on the side of underrating. it's remarkable, one of my faves of the year for sure

Might be my #1. But I really don't feel I have any idea about the year yet, the Danish film festival had a scaled down year, so I've missed almost everything.

Is it really obvious what I've been reviewing these weeks?

Kicking and Screaming (Baumbach)
The Squid and the Whale (Baumbach)
While We’re Young (Baumbach)
Mistress America (Baumbach)
The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) (Baumbach)
Marriage Story (Baumbach)
The Aviator (Scorsese)
I Heard You Paint Houses (Scorsese)
Rank and File (Loach)
The Price of Coal (Loach)
Looks and Smiles (Loach)*
Raining Stones (Loach)
Bread and Roses (Loach)*
The Wind That Shakes the Barley (Loach)*
I, Daniel Blake (Loach)*
Sorry We Missed You (Loach)
A White White Day (Palmason)
The Devil is a Woman (von Sternberg)*
Red River (Hawks)
The Baron of Arizona (Fuller)
High Noon (Zinnemann)
Wagon Master (Ford)
The Jungle Book (Favreau)
The Empress Dowager (Li)
King of the Children (Chen)
Shanghai Dreams (Wang)
Blind Shaft (Li)
Atlantics (09) (Diop)*
Snow Canon (Diop)
Big in Vietnam (Diop)
A Thousand Suns (Diop)*
Atlantics (19) (Diop)
Bombay (Ratnam)
We Have Many Names (Zetterling)
The Cannibals (Cavani)
The Pumpkin Eater (Clayton)
Saladin the Victorious (Chahine)
Cria Cuervos (Saura)
The Dark Night (Saura)

The new Loach is such an old man's film, it's pretty incredible. Late style, even more than The Irishman! But I found some of his early tv-work from the seventies, and it's so great! Basically straight up trotskyist agit-prop. Wish people still made films like that :)

Anyone see The Nightingale? The first 20 minutes were the most brutal I've seen in a long time. Not entirely sure if I liked the film as a whole or not. Definitely reminded me of The Chant of Jimmy Blacksmith a bit

I watched it last night! Brutal throughout. I stuck with it. Despite a few missteps it's a weird, sad and beautiful film.

Friday Night Lights (5.5)
Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe (7.5)
Ad Astra (7.0)
Joker (7.0)
The Descendants (6.5)
Sisters (the dumb comedy--5.5)
The Irishman (7.0)
Mildred Pierce (the remake--8.0)
Tootsie (8.5)
Marriage Story (7.0)
The Music of Chance (6.0)
And Then I Go (7.0)

"Stalker" and "Meek's Cutoff" have both been on my watch list for years (in the case of the former, years and years and years). I had a vague inkling of each, but I knew enough to know I'd love them, so stayed clear of details. I just watched them more or less back to back, complete coincidence, and boy were the similarities eerie.

I really loved Meek's Cutoff