Last (x) movies you saw (II)

Les Mistons (Truffaut, 1957) minor
The Last Jedi (Disney; Johnson, 2017) 3/10 finished it this time. i bailed at the casino planet last time. tonally the movie's a mess, but there's a few good ideas in there.
Won't You Be My Neighbor? (Neville, 2018) 8/10
A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (Heller, 2019) 7/10
Knives Out (Johnson, 2019) 7/10
The Irishman (Netflix; Scorsese, 2019) 6/10

xmas fest
A Christmas Carol (Marin, 1938) 4/10
The Bishop's Wife (Koster, 1947) 5/10
Scrooge (Hurst, 1951) 6/10
The Holly and the Ivy (O'Ferrall, 1952) 5/10
The Junky's Christmas (1993)

The Nightingale.
Pretty brutal. Intentionally dark and it seemed the aspect ratio was odd. In the cinema I was in the screen was kept square which I think is odd these days. Is that true everywhere.
Tasmanian revenge western that spends a lot of time in people's original languages. Here irish and aborigine.
Did wonder how western invented some of the guide's rituals were.
Pretty brutal yeah. Shows how utterly nasty colonisers could be. Does seem to get a bit amateur in places also seems to drift off at the end. But quite enjoyed it.
God those guys are wankers though.

The Nightingale is in "Academy ratio" of 1.375 to 1 (as were Cold War and First Reformed last year); also in current release now, The Lighthouse is in a silent-era ratio of 1.19 to 1, even closer to square.

the Academy Ratio trend is cool because hopefully more audiences will think about aspect ratios

The Lighthouse is in a silent-era ratio of 1.19 to 1, even closer to square.

It actually dates from early sound-on-film processes.</film pedantry>

Mommy (Dolin, 2014) was shot in 1:1 ratio, apparently to heighten the sense of claustrophobia. I'm just wondering what happens when the average viewer puts the DVD in their player and the image is automatically stretched to fill a modern widescreen TV.

ty jlu

xpost it's cool in a theatre with a projectionist, I saw First Reformed and Lighthouse in a multiplex that left grey on both sides in the latter, and grey on all four sides in the former, plus the house lights on

oh whoa! No no no no! yeah that sucks, I've noticed the less that people are in projection booths, the more botched projections and curtains that don't get moved

Wonder if that was why it was in the luxury screen in the cinema complex. They keep to cut price in the early afternoon anyway.
Couple in front of me walked out after the scene in the hut. May have been too much for them. Was yet another brutal scene so don't blame them.
But I think most of the audience stayed.
Just thinking I'm not sure at what point before it turns up on the screen pre film you get to see the age certificate thing.
Maybe it's not something that has attention brought to it that much. But this probably did earn the 18 cert it had. For some scenes at least & there are a few.

Hausner's Little Joe finally opened here. Reviews are meh. Should I bother?

When I saw the lighthouse in a big chain multiplex, the center of the image was a sepia brown and the edges were black & white, and it took me about halfway through the film to realize that it it wasnt a bold choice on Eggers' part and there was just something wrong with the shitty lens.

I'm just wondering what happens when the average viewer puts the DVD in their player and the image is automatically stretched to fill a modern widescreen TV.

Amazing to me how often I encounter people who claim not to notice or care abt aspect ratios on their home TV. Whenever I watch something with my dad at his house, if it starts and its stretched out in a weird way I'll pause it and take a sec to set the aspect ratio to whatever makes it look normal, which my dad finds so annoying and sees as comically pointy-headed pedantry on my part: "jeez, cant you just watch a movie, how do you notice this weird stuff?" I'll be like, you really didnt notice that everyone looks 4 feet tall and has football-shaped heads?

My point being, we're a real delightful couple of goofs to be around, yall should come over and watch a DVD sometime.

Just had the sybil shepherd / elliot gould lady vanishes on TV earlier this week and found it looked really weird.
Realised that aspect must be off so changed it. Early 70s must have been going for a square frame too. Or is that more like 1978.
Did leave me wondering if that was how they normally broadcast films with that aspect. Think I must only be catching more recent films or something. Though don't remember Top Hat doing the same.

prob watching little joe in the next day or two, will report back

I'll always watch a Hausner

xxxpost I once saw a Ghostbusters trailer projected so badly Sigourney Weaver looked like Roseanne Barr. How does that not look wrong to anyone?

A Letter to Elia (2010, Scorsese, Jones) 9/10
Margot at the Wedding (2007, Baumbach) 5/10
The Report (2019, Burns) 7/10
Santa Claus (1959, Cardona) 3/10
*The Last Emperor (1987, Bertolucci) 7/10
*Port of Shadows (1938, Carné) 9/10
Bodied (2017, Kahn) 6/10
*Local Hero (1983, Forsyth) 10/10
Parasite (2019, Bong) 7/10
*Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949, Hamer) 9/10
*Way Out West (1937, Horne) 9/10
Darling Lili (1970, Edwards) 5/10
*The Cloud-Capped Star (1960, Ghatak) 9/10
Atlantics (2019, Diop) 7/10

I'll always watch a Hausner

― Frederik B, Friday, December 13, 2019

...is how I feel now too

looking forward to Atlantics

it's a bit overrated (top ten lists etc; the horror and the social critique don't dovetail very gracefully)

you refer to Little Joe, Morbs?

to Atlantics

The new Michael Bay thing, 6 Underground, is bad even by Michael Bay standards (and I'm a guy who owns Pain & Gain on DVD and understands why The Rock and Armageddon are in the Criterion Collection). Ryan Reynolds is the biggest name he could rope in; the rest of the cast are no-names. In the opening car chase, the protagonists' car gets scraped by a passing truck in ultra slow motion, and its side-view mirror is torn off, flying through the air in a shower of sparks. In the very next shot, two seconds later, the mirror is back on the car and remains there for the rest of the scene. That's some weapons-grade contempt for the viewer.

MUBI:

Stavisky (Resnais, 1974)
You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet (Resnais, 2011)
Antichrist (Von Trier, 2009)
The Wind Will Carry Us (Kiarostami, 1999)
Prison (Bergman, 1949)
The Palm Beach Story (Sturges, 1942)

Christmas Eve (Frenguelli, 1915)
I Am a Thief (Florey, 1934)
L'X Noir (Perret, 1915)
The Race for the Sausage (Guy, 1915)
Onesime Loves Animals (Durand, 1913)
Petit Chantecler (Cohl, 1910)
Something Different (Chytilová, 1963)
You Don’t Know What You’re Doin’! (Ising, 1931)
Blast of Silence (Baron, 1961)

* Holy Motors (2012) 3.5/5
Come Back to the 5 and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean (1982) 3.5/5
Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019) 4.5/5
* The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On (1987) 4.5/5
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) 3.5/5
The Blob (1958) 3/5
The Inland Sea (1991) 4/5
The Fanatic (2019) 1/5
Apocalypse: a Bill Callahan Tour Film (2012) 3/5
Farewell, My Lovely (1975) 3/5
The Arbor (2010) 3.5/5
* Blow Out (1981) 4.5/5
Near Dark (1987) 3/5

Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (Kramer, 1967) - 8/10
Just Before Nightfall (Chabrol, 1971) - 9/10
A Prairie Home Companion (Altman, 2006) - 7/10
Daguerréotypes (Varda, 1976) - 8/10
The Dirty Dozen (Aldrich, 1967) - 10/10
Death in Venice (Visconti, 1971) - 10/10
Abigail’s Party (Leigh, 1977) - 10/10
Who’s That Knocking at My Door (Scorsese, 1967) - 8/10
Seven Beauties (Wertmüller, 1975) - 7/10
The Leopard (Visconti, 1963) - 9/10
Á double tour [Chabrol, 1959) - 6/10

The Story of Temple Drake (Roberts, 1933) - 7/10
Holy Motors (Carax, 2012) - 9/10
Lili Marleen (Fassbinder, 1981) - 6/10
Pleasure Party (Chabrol, 1975) - 10/10
There’s Always Vanilla (Romero, 1971) - 6/10
*The Godfather (Coppola, 1972) - 10/10
The Color of Lies (Chabrol, 1999) - 8/10
Rolling Thunder (Flynn, 1977) - 9/10
*The Godfather: Part II (Coppola, 1974) - 10/10
Now, Voyager (Rapper, 1942) - 9/10
*Alphaville (Godard, 1965) - 10/10

Aquarela and Monos are both late additions to my favorite films of the year.

Run Silent, Run Deep 6/10
Alan Partridge 8/10
Wild Tales 7/10
Army of Shadows 9/10
Planes, Trains and Automobiles 8/10
The Two Jakes 5/10
The Irishman 7/10
The Dirty Dozen 7/10
Design for Living 9/10
Variety Lights 7/10
Krampus 7/10
Black Christmas 5/10
Home Alone 2 3/10
Mon Oncle Antoine 10/10
Christmas in Connecticut 8/10
Rare Exports 5/10
Bad Santa (extended cut) 8/10

recently watched Patricio Guzman’s Nostalgia for the Light (2010) and The Pearl Button (2015), and really liked them both. Looking forward to seeing the third part of the trilogy The Cordillera of Dreams which was released this year (but won’t be out in US until Feb 2020)

*Mad Max: Fury Road (Miller 2015)
*Marathon Man (Schlesinger 1976)
Greenaway shorts: Intervals (1973), Windows (1974), H is for House (1976), Water Wrackets (1978)
*Once Upon a Time in the West (Leone 1968)
The Irishman (Scorsese 2019)
The Inland Sea (Corra 1991)
Meet Me in St. Louis (Minnelli 1944)
Border (Abbas 2018)
Knives Out (Johnson 2019)
*Cemetery of Splendour (Weerasethakul 2015)
The Lives of Others (von Donnersmarck 2006)
Parasite (Bong 2019)
The Lighthouse (Eggers 2019)
Scarlet Street (Lang 1945)
Marriage Story (Baumbach 2019)
30/30 Vision: Three Decades of Strand Releasing (various, 2019)
The Petrified Forest (Mayo 1936)
The Miracle of Morgan's Creek (Sturges 1944)
Mauvais sang (Carax 1986)
Tokyo Godfathers (Kon 2003)
Aves (short - Keene 1998)

Anybody's Woman (Arzner, 1930)
A Christmas Story (Clark, 1983)
*Hogfather (Jean, 2006)
National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (Chechik, 1989)

Atlantis (2019) 5/10
The Chills:The Triumph and Tragedy of Martin Phillips (2019) 6/10
Tabu (2012) 7/10
Frost/Nixon (2008) 6/10
The Irishman (2019) 8/10
Let The Sunshine In (2017) 7/10
The Program (2015) 4/10
High Flying Bird (2019) 7/10
The Nightingale (2019) 6/10
Colossal (2016) 6/10
Marriage Story (2019) 8/10
*Memento (2000) 8/10
Hustlers (2019) 7/10
The Last Black Man in San Francisco (2019) 7/10
Ken Park (2002) 5/10
Uncut Gems (2019) 8/10

Handmade Mountain (Clarke, 2019) 5/10
The Hook Up (Smith, 2019) 5/10
Woman Dress (Cuthand, 2019) 7/0
Reviving the Roost (Shraya, 2019) 7/10
The Bassinet (Hsiang, 2019) 6/10
Isn't It Romantic (Strauss-Schulson, 2019) 6/10
Never Sock a Baby (Fleischer, 1939) 7/10
*A Christmas Story (Clark, 1983) 8/10
Ash Is Purest White (Jia, 2018) 7/10
Us (Peele, 2019) 6/10
Beyond Tomorrow (Sutherland, 1940) 5/10

Moses und Aron (Straub-Huillet)
Class Relations (Straub-Huillet)
Chocolate (Denis)*
A Film for Friends (Jude)
The Marshal’s Two Executions (Jude)
Ecce Bombo (Moretti)
Bianca (Moretti)
The Son’s Room (Moretti)
Mia Madre (Moretti)*
The House on Trubnaya (Barnet)
Outskirts (Barnet)
A Good Lad (Barnet)
Pages of Life (Barnet)
Poet (Barnet)
The Wrestler and the Clown (Barnet & Yudin)
Annushka (Barnet)
Alyonka (Barnet)
Whistle Stop (Barnet)
Jesus Christ Superstar (Jewison)
Godspell (Greene)
The Night Falls (Gavaldon)
Straight Outta Compton (Gray)
The President’s Last Bang (Im)
Parasite (Bong)
Like Someone In Love (Kiarostami)*
Honey Boy (Har’el)
Trainwreck (Apatow)
Mad Max: Fury Road (Miller)*
Fight Club (Fincher)*
Black Book (Verhoeven)
Elle (Verhoeven)
Spotlight (McCarthy)
It’s a Wonderful Life (Capra)
Free Solo (Char Vasarhelyi & Chin)
American Sniper (Eastwood)
Infernal Affairs (Lau & Mak)
I am Not Your Negro (Peck)*
Tokyo Godfathers (Kon)

Boris Barnet. What a joy. I knew By the Blues of Seas, but his other early films are amazing as well. House on Trubnaya really a forgotten silent gem, as inventive as Vertov, and as crowd pleasing as Chaplin (ok, not quite, but closer than you'd think!). Outskirts the best early sound film I've seen since M, although the many sound jokes does take a bit of the grandeur out of the portrayal of glorious revolution. All the cannons sound like pratfalls, it's a bit confusing. The late ones aren't as good, Alyonka is even a bit overrated, but there's something about well made propaganda which is calming and fun to watch. 'All over glorious Soviet workers flock to the cities to be part of Stalins five year plan!'. That kind of thing. Boy, a lot of them end with big speeches...

Other than that. Like Someone In Love is really underrated, I think. I might prefer it to Certified Copy, even if the other one is more daring. But the mood in LSIL is just remarkable.

The Holly and the Ivy (1952, O'Ferrall) 8/10
Sweet Movie (1974, Makavejev) 4/10
Can You Ever Forgive Me? (2018, Heller) 7/10
Little Odessa (1994, Gray) 5/10
Nell Gwyn (1926, Wilcox) 6/10
Deadwood: The Movie (2019, Minahan) (TV) 8/10
Cold War (2018, Pawlikowski) 7/10
*Two for the Road (1967, Donen) 6/10
Rare Exports (2010, Helander) 4/10
*Touchez Pas au Grisbi (1954, Becker) 9/10

Little Women (Gerwig, 2019) 8/10
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (Abrams, 2019) 3/10
Queen & Slim (Matsoukas, 2019) 6/10
Uncut Gems (Safdie, 2019) 7/10
Bombshell (Roach, 2019) 4/10
The Two Popes (Meirelles, 2019) 4/10
A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (Heller, 2019) 4/10
The Stranger (Visconti, 1966) 7/10
* The Shop Around the Corner (Lubitsch, 1940) 10/10

Dolemite Is My Name (Craig Brewer, 2019)
Election (Alexander Payne, 1999)
Chronicle of a Summer (Edgar Morin, Jean Rouch, 1961)
Ad Astra (James Gray, 2019)
Detour (Edgar G. Ulmer, 1945)
Hell's Highway: The True Story of Highway Safety Films (Bret Wood, 2003)
Monks - The Transatlantic Feedback (Lucía Palacios, Dietmar Post, 2006)
Advise & Consent (Otto Preminger, 1962)
The Devil's Rain (Robert Fuest, 1975)
Your Vice Is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key (Sergio Martino, 1972)
Jojo Rabbit (Taika Waititi, 2019)

* Dark Star (Carpenter, O'Bannon 1974)
Knives Out (Johnson 2019) [DCP]
One Of My Wives Is Missing (Jordan, Marton, Thomas 1976)
Ghostbusters (extended version) (Paul Feig, Katie Dippold 2016)
* Knives Out (Johnson 2019) [DCP]
Parasite (Bong, Han 2019) [DCP]
A Friend In Deed (Gazzara, Fischer 1974)
The Last Of Sheila (Ross, Sondheim, Perkins 1973)
Marriage Story (Baumbach 2019)
* Mission: Impossible - Ghost; Protocol‽ (Bird, McQuarrie, Appelbaum, Nemec 2011)
The Man Who Haunted Himself (Dearden after Armstrong 1970)
Earth Girls Are Easy (Julien Temple, Julie Brown, Charlie Coffey, Terrence E. McNally 1988)

throwing a potato thru the windows of all the uk critics who panned peterloo

Peterloo (Leigh, 2018) 9/10
Private Fears in Public Places (Resnais, 2006) 4/10
To Catch a Thief (Hitchcock, 1955) 6/10
Le Petit Soldat (Godard, 1963) 8/10
The Death of Louis XIV (Serra, 2016) 8/10
*Goodbye, Dragon Inn (Tsai, 2003) 10/10
Picnic on the Grass (Renoir, 1959) 5/10
*Vive L’Amour (Tsai, 1994) 10/10
*No No Sleep (Tsai, 2015) 8/10
*The Apartment (Wilder, 1960) 10/10
*Yi Yi (Yang, 2000) 10/10
Clue (Lynn, 1985) 4/10
Marriage Story (Baumbach, 2019) 4/10
*Metropolitan (Stillman, 1990) 9/10
Riddles of the Sphinx (Mulvey, Wollen, 1977) 9/10
India Song (Duras, 1975) 8/10
Love Man Love Woman (Nguyen, 2007) 6/10
The Taking of Power by Louis XIV (Rossellini, 1966) 9/10
The Palm Beach Story (Sturges, 1942) 6/10
The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (Demy, 1964) 6/10

Ang Lee's version of Hulk which I was slightly surprised to find on TV
Thought it was now non canon so wouldn't be shown.

Limehouse Golem which wasn't great. Had me wondering if it was some kind of intended cash in on From Hell though not sure how well that did.

Oh yeah My Fair Lady.
Which had me thinking wasn't GBS some kind of socialist which this doesn't seem to show too well.
Also has anybody done a Feminist or class war version of this. Just seems to be too much angled to the upper class and women knowing their place. Unless it corrects itself in the last hour.
Funny seeing Jeremy Brett playing the wet sop who'd rather stand out in the street drinking in the street where she lives than accept an invitation in. 20 years later he played one of the more memorable Sherlock Holmes as I assume you are aware.

*Big Business (Horne & McCarey, 1929)
Waltzing Around (Sweet, 1929)
*The Thin Man (Van Dyke, 1934)
*There It Is (Muller & Bowers, 1928)
Knives Out (Johnson, 2019)
*Night After Night (Mayo, 1932)
The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms (Lourié, 1953)
Uncut Gems (Safdie & Safdie, 2019)
John's Gone (Safdie & Safdie, 2010)

National Gallery (2014) 3.5/5
The Raid 2 (2014) 3.5/5
Climax (2018) 2/5
* Night and the City (1950) 4/5
Muppet Christmas Carol (1992) 3/5
Uncut Gems 4.5/5
* Batman Returns 3.5/5
Murder on the Orient Express (1974) 3/5
Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker 2/5

GBS was a Fabian socialist, yes.

Pygmalion unadorned is moreso, but not really w/ the ending added for *that* film.

- Wiseman's The Market (less enthralling than most, still a fun look at Southern hypercapitalism in the 80s)
- Little Joe (abandoned right around the time i realized it just wasn't going to get smarter; i think when the kid brings his girl into the flowers. what the fuck was the dog doing in the clean room anyway?)
- Songwriter (1984, batshit hero fantasy about marauding country stars with Willie and Kris Kristoffersen in the lead roles and Rip Torn as the heavy; loads of fun for a half hour but eventually too stupid and sexist to maintain. Worth a Youtube glance tho')
- Ad Astra (James Gray's "inward-looking" sci-fi film AD ASTRA starring Brad Pitt)
- Seahorse (Rolling trans arts thread)
- Memories: Origin of Alien (enjoyable watch, stupified i never made the Bacon/Alien connection, not really necessary unless you're a series fan of the franchise but a fun bauble otherwise)
- The Proposal (2018, really more of a supporting element of a larger artwork and - as such - occasionally beautiful to look at but mostly self indulgent and better represented by a new yorker piece like this one: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/08/01/how-luis-barragan-became-a-diamond)
- Murder in the Zoo (1933, I recommend this for its OTT sequences of pre-slasher film sadism in thriller horror fashion... the film starts with our villain sewing a man's mouth shut and sending him into the jungle to die! Trigger warning that there are a lot of sequences where animals were clearly mistreated in the making, but i guess that's the 1930's)
- Little Women (2019, Let's have a fangirl freakout over Greta Gerwig's LITTLE WOMEN (Saoirse Ronan, Emma Watson, Florence Pugh, Laura Dern, Meryl Streep, Timothée Chalamet))

and since i have work to do, let's just put these here and if anyone's curious I'm happy to discuss:

Rabbi’s Cat (2011)
Beware Mr. Baker (2012)
Be Natural: Alice Guy (2019)
Framing John DeLorean (2019)
Where’d You Go Bernadette (2019)
Okko’s Inn (2019)
A Brother’s Love (2019)
Cutting my Mother (2019)- https://www.topic.com/cutting-my-mother
Father’s Kingdom (2017)
Testament of Dr. Mabuse (Rewatch, 1933)

After autumn's flurry of film watching, I've had very little time in November and December unfortunately.

The Report (Scott Z. Burns, 2019)
Strawberry and Chocolate (Tomás Gutiérrez Alea and Juan Carlos Tabío, 1993)
Marriage Story (Noah Baumbach, 2019)
Aquarela (Viktor Kosakovskiy, 2018)

Murder in the Zoo (1933, I recommend this for its OTT sequences of pre-slasher film sadism in thriller horror fashion... the film starts with our villain sewing a man's mouth shut and sending him into the jungle to die! Trigger warning that there are a lot of sequences where animals were clearly mistreated in the making, but i guess that's the 1930's)

Peak Lionel Atwill. Glorious, in the sickest way (not least how he seems to desire his wife all the more after...dispatching...her admirers). Gives Kongo (1932) a run for its money as the most over-the-top pre-Code film.

It's wacky! Also, it's short! The comic relief is an alcoholic publicist.

i guess i'll see Kongo now. What else falls under this category that you'd recommend?

Hmmmm....Footlight Parade is my all-time favorite movie period. The Scarlet Empress is a fever dream of sex, violence, and grotesqueness; anyone who has not seen it should do so IMMEDIATELY. Try to watch Kongo as a double-feature with West of Zanzibar (1928), a silent version (starring Lon Chaney) of the play on which Kongo was based. And if you haven't seen any of Erich von Stroheim's films, do so (if only as serious exercises in wish fulfillment).

okay! gonna do the von sternberg and Kongo shortly.

December:

The Irishman (Scorsese, 2019) 8/10
The Scalphunters (Pollack, 1968) 6/10
Face to Face (Sollima, 1967) 7/10
The Vikings (Fleischer, 1958) 8/10 - a surprisingly beautiful-looking film - Jack Cardiff!
The Gunfighter (King, 1950) 8/10
Minnie and Moskowitz (Cassavetes, 1971) 8/10
Shane (Stevens, 1953) 8/10
The Beyond (Fulci, 1981) 8/10
The Perfume of the Lady in Black (Barilli, 1974) 8/10
Two Rode Together (Ford, 1961) 7/10
What Have You Done to Solange? (Dallamano, 1972) 7/10
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (Abrams, 2019) 5/10
Support Your Local Sheriff (Kennedy, 1969) 7/10
Marriage Story (Baumbach, 2019) 7/10
Stranger on Horseback (Tourneur, 1955) 7/10