Last (x) movies you saw (II)

The Return (Zvyagintsev)*
The Banishment (Zvyagintsev)*
Elena (Zvyagintsev)*
Leviathan (Zvyagintsev)*
Loveless (Zvyagintsev)
Crossing the Line (Marcello)
The Mouth of the Wolf (Marcello)
The Silence of Pelesjan (Marcello)
No Fear, No Die (Denis)
I Can’t Sleep (Denis)
US Go Home (Denis)
Nenette and Boni (Denis)
Atlantics (Diop)*
Les Miserables (Ly)
Bad Company (Eustache)
Santa Claus has Blue Eyes (Eustache)
Frozen II (Lee & Buck)
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (Abrams)
1917 (Mendes)
Knives Out (Johnson)
Blade Runner (Scott)
Matchstick Men (Scott)
Logan (Mangold)
Ford v Ferrari (Mangold)
Jojo Rabbit (Waititi)
The Tiniest Place (Huezo)
Tempestad (Huezo)
Anima Mundi (Reggio)
Rome Wants Another Caesar (Jancso)
A Toute Allure (Kramer)
Muukalainen (Valkeapäa)
My God, How Low I’ve Fallen (Comencini)
Kagi (Ichikawa)
Extreme Private Eros: Love Song 1974 (Hara)
Daddy Longlegs (Safdie & Safdie)
Heaven Knows What (Safdie & Safdie)
Good Time (Safdie & Safdie)*
Uncut Gems (Safdie & Safdie)

If you get a chance, check out those Huezo films. They were on the list of 25 best Latin American films of the last decade we discussed a while back, and they are pretty incredible documentaries.

tempestad is on my list.

2020 so far:

So Long, My Son (Wang, 2019) 6/10
*Terrorizers (Yang, 1986) 10/10
*Yi Yi (Yang, 2000) 10/10
Out-Takes From the Life of a Happy Man (Mekas, 2012) 8/10
Visions of an Island (Hopinka, 2016) 4/10
Malni – Towards the ocean, Towards the shore (Hopinka, 2020) 7/10
Une femme est une femme (Godard, 1961) 7/10
All the Corners of the World (Tsai, 1989) 6/10
Nothing Sacred (Wellman, 1937) 6/10
The Women (Cukor, 1939) 8/10
*Love and Friendship (Stillman, 2016) 8/10
Uncut Gems (Safdie, Safdie, 2019) 8/10
It Has to be lived Once and Dreamed Twice (Kohlberger, 2019) 7/10
Humming, Fast and Slow (Kohlberger, 2013) 6/10
Not Even Nothing can be Free of Ghosts (Kohlberger, 2016) 7/10
Keep that Dream Burning (Kohlberger, 2017) 8/10
To Sleep With Anger (Burnett, 1990) 8/10
Twentieth Century (Hawks, 1934) 8/10
Elena and Her Men (Renoir, 1956) 5/10
Five Year Diary (Reels 22, 23, 80,81) (Robinson) 9/10
As I was Moving Ahead… (Mekas, 2000) 9/10
Le Mepris (Godard, 1964) 8/10
Goldman v Silverman (Safdie, Safdie, 2020) 2/10
What did Jack Do? (Lynch, 2017) 5/10
Calypso (Tait, 1955) 6/10
The Drift Back (Tait, 1957)
Palindrome (Tait, 1964) 7/10
Walden (Mekas, 1969) 4/10
*Jeanne Dielman… (Akerman, 1975) 10/10
*Akira (Otomo, 1988) 6/10
Sebastian and Jonas Leaving the Party (Jacobs, 2019) 6/10
The Georgetown Loop (Jacobs, 1996) 7/10
Only Angels Have Wings (Hawks, 1939) 10/10
*Phantom Thread (Anderson, 2017) 10/10
Rio Bravo (Hawks, 1959) 10/10
*Porco Rosso (Miyazaki, 1992) 9/10
Le Beau Mariage (Rohmer, 1982) 5/10
Alphaville (Godard, 1965) 6/10

Good Intentions (short - Mantzaris, 2018)
God Told Me To (Cohen, 1976)
Le Corbeau (Clouzot, 1943)
Sorry, Wrong Number (Litvak, 1948)
Ash Is Purest White (Jia, 2018)
Separate Tables (Mann, 1958)
The Last Details (Ashby, 1973)
The Swimmer (Perry, 1968)
What Did Jack Do? (short - Lynch, 2017)
Begone, Dull Care (short - McLaren, Lambart, 1949)
Chinese Roulette (Fassbinder, 1976)
The Fugitive Kind (Lumet, 1960)
Dragged Across Concrete (Zahler, 2019)
L'assassin habite au 21 (Clouzot, 1942)
My Best Fiend (Herzog, 1999)
Fata Morgana (Herzog, 1971)
The Image Book (Godard, 2018)
The Naked Prey (Wilde, 1965)
Hot Biskits (short - Williams, 1931)
Big in Vietnam (short - Diop, 2012)
Liberian Boy (short - Diop, 2015)
A Married Woman (Godard, 1964)

Missile (Wiseman, 1988) - 10/10
*Tout Va Bien (Godard, Gorin; 1972) - 9/10
Letter to Jane (Godard, Gorin; 1972) - 6/10
Not Wanted (Lupino, 1949) - 9/10
*The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (Fassbinder, 1972) - 10/10
Daisy Miller (Bogdanovich, 1974) - 7/10
*Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Gondry, 2004) - 9/10
Targets (Bogdanovich, 1968) - 8/10
Le Petit Soldat (Godard, 1963) - 7/10
Perfect Love (Breillat, 1996) - 9/10
*The Terminator (Cameron, 1984) - 9/10
Kaili Blues (BI, 2015) - 8/10
The Swimmer (Perry, 1968) - 10/10
In Another Country (Hong, 2012) - 8/10
Innocents with Dirty Hands (Chabrol, 1975) - 7/10
The Green Ray (Rohmer, 1986) - 10/10

Domestic Violence (Wiseman, 2001) - 10/10
Hotel by the River (Hong, 2018) - 8/10
Rebels of the Neon God (Tsai, 1992) - 9/10
The Friends of Eddie Coyle (Yates, 1973) - 9/10
Becky Sharp (Mamoulian, 1935) - 6/10
Madame Bovary (Chabrol, 1991) - 8/10
Point Blank (Boorman, 1967) - 7/10
Goodbye, Dragon Inn (Tsai, 2003) - 8/10
The Stationmaster’s Wife (Fassbinder, 1977) - 7/10
Isabelle Huppert, une vie pour jouer (Toubaina, 2001) - 8/10
The Naked and the Dead (Walsh, 1958) - 7/10
Fallen Angels (Wong, 1995) - 10/10
Ossessione (Visconti, 1943) - 8/10
Inspector Bellamy (Chabrol, 2009) - 6/10
Domestic Violence 2 (Wiseman, 2002) - 10/10

Parasite (6.0)
El Camino (6.0)
Little Women (7.5)
Woodstock: Three Days That Defined a Generation (7.0)
Uncut Gems (5.0)
Bombshell (6.0)
Richard Jewell (6.5)
Dark Waters (6.5)
Making Waves (7.0)
What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael (7.5)

I thought 10 movies in two months (I last posted here Dec. 6) was a snail's pace, but that works out to 60 a year, which is normal for me, so moving out of the city hasn't changed much at all in terms of numbers--the change is that Bombshell and Richard Jewell probably would have been replaced by a couple more documentaries.

Finally got around to Knives Out; had no idea it had so much in common with Parasite in its own (very mannered, solidly entertaining, well cast) way

Boy, "Honeyland" was some rough stuff, like watching a live action Biblical (Old Testament) parable.

she calls a fucking plague on them!

Egoyan's new one, "Guest of Honor," is not good. Well acted, loopy and silly script.

Every time someone disses Guest of Honor I'm going to mention that it premiered at Venice last year, where there were only two women in competition, and the festival director refused critique because he only chooses the best art.

my first egoyan! unless someone argues otherwise, likely my last egoyan.

No! See his first ... 7? 8?

All great, iirc.

Remember honestly wasn't bad either. Very late style film, but the camerawork was good, and the script was insane enough to work. But boy has Egoyan made a lot of crap over the last, what, fifteen years? I suspect Where the Truth Lies will be horrifying on a rewatch.

Atlantics (2019) 9/10
Daddy Longlegs (2010) 8/10
Pickup on South Street (1953) 7/10
Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation (2015) 6/10
A Hidden Life (2020) 8/10
Mission Impossible 2 (2000) 2/10
Good Time (2017) 8/10
Mission Impossible: Fallout (2018) 6/10
Zama (2017) 9/10
Mad Monkey Kung Fu (1979) 7/10
Funeral in Berlin (1966) 7/10
The Third Man (1949) 10/10
On the Bowery (1957) 8/10
Bob le Flambeur (1959) 9/10
The Color Out of Space (2020) 2/10
A Matter of Life and Death (1946) 7/10
Touchez Pas au Grisbi (1954) 9/10
The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (1975) 7/10
Mission Impossible 3 (2006) 6/10

its been a weird month

what is the essential egoyan? Sweet Hereafter?
Guest of Honor was frankly bad; the twist in the middle literally had me shaking my head.

Sweet hereafter or Exotica which is a very odd but great film

Either of those two for sure. His first several movies have a lot of thematic consistency, so if you like those two you will like his earlier films as well.

will try at some point.

Saw Barbara Kopple's new documentary for the History Channel, "Desert One," about the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis and the failed 1980 rescue attempt that ended with eight dead Delta Force members. I thought it was great; not sure how it could have been done any better without much discussing Reagan or the politics of that moment and our moment more closely... but that's honestly a different film. What she got out of the amazing lineup of interviewees (including Carter, who she said she had all of 20 minutes with) and the declassified phone calls between the white house and the military is stunning. Highly recommended when it comes to the teevee.

At the talkback, they had two of the helicopter pilots and one of the hostages onstage; it was real intense.

Legendary Weapons of China (SB; Liu Chia-Liang, 1982) 5/10 couldn't follow the story but the magic boxing was rad
Little Women (2019) 6/10
What Did Jack Do? (Lynch, 2017)
Marriage Story (white people, 2019) 6/10
Parasite (Joon-ho, 2019) 9/10

calendar is my favorite egoyan. but sweet hereafter is a better starting point.

The Tree of Life (2011, Malick; expanded version) 8/10
Georgia, Georgia (1972, Bjorkman) 5/10
It Happened to Jane (1959, Quine) 6/10
*The Tree of Life (2011, Malick; theatrical version) 9/10
Lions Love (1969, Varda) 5/10
*Matewan (1987, Sayles) 7/10
Afternoon (2007, Schanelec) 7/10
*Girl Shy (1924, Newmeyer, Taylor) 8/10
Fast Trip, Long Drop (1994, Bordowitz) 6/10
*Holiday (1938, Cukor) 9/10
An Affair of the Skin (1963, Maddow) 4/10
The Tamarind Seed (1974, Edwards) 6/10
Sextool (1975, Halsted) 4/10
Uncut Gems (2019, Safdie, Safdie) 8/10

The Panic Is On (Parrott, 1931)
The Hasty Marriage (Pratt, 1931)
The Phantom Fiend (Elvey, 1932)
A Honeymoon Adventure (Elvey, 1931)
The Mole People (Vogel, 1956)
Shirin (Kiarostami, 2008)
Ten (Kiarostami, 2002)

The Gentlemen (Ritchie, Atchinson, Davies 2020) [DCP] 1/10
* Death To Smoochy (DeVito, Resnick 2002) 4/10
Le Mans '66 (Ford x Ferrari) (Mangold, Butterworth, Butterworth, Keller 2019) [DCP] 4/10
* Aliens (Cameron, Giler, Hill 1986) 7/10
* True Romance (Scott, Tarantino 1993) 7/10
The Audition (Scorsese, Winter 2015) 2/10
By Dawn's Early Light (Hart, Berk 1974) 8/10

death to smoochy is a classic

I've probably said this elsewhere, but Le Mans 66, if done right, would have been a more effective anti-capitalist film than Parasite.

it really whiffed the opportunities that were there

attempts to gesture at some "maybe underdog narratives only exist because of the strictures of capitalism" themes but is terrified of actually having a point, let alone considering that glorifying motor vehicle production & wildly recreational burning of fossil fuels is plainly endorsing a death cult in 2019.

― Fantastic. Great move. Well done (sic), Monday, February 10, 2020 7:50 AM (one week ago)

MUBI:

Pierrot Le Fou (Godard, 1965)
Made in USA (Godard, 1966)
Suzaki Paradise: Red Light District (Kawashima, 1956)
The Devil's Eye (Bergman, 1960)
Clockers (Lee, 1995)

Cinema:

Portrait of a Lady on Fire (Sciamma, 2019)

Ragin (Serebrennikov)
Leto (Serebrennikov)*
She’s Gotta Have It (Lee)
School Daze (Lee)
Mo’ Better Blues (Lee)
Jungle Fever (Lee)
Malcom X (Lee)
Clockers (Lee)
25th Hour (Lee)
Chi-raq (Lee)
Black Coal, Thin Ice (Diao)
The Wild Goose Lake (Diao)
What Time Is It There? (Tsai)*
The Skywalk is Gone (Tsai)
The Wayward Cloud (Tsai)
Afternoon (Tsai)
Water Lillies (Sciamma)
Tomboy (Sciamma)
Girlhood (Sciamma)
Portrait of a Woman on Fire (Sciamma)
Badlands (Malick)*
Days of Heaven (Malick)*
The New World (Malick)*
Voyage in Time (Malick)*
A Hidden Life (Malick)
Triumph of the Will (Riefenstahl)
Klovn (Nørgård)
Klovn Forever (Nørgård)
Klovn: The Final (Nørgård)
Untitled (Glawogger & Willi)*
Angelo (Schleinzer)*
Fill Her Up With Super (Cavalier)
Tom of Finland (Karukoski)
Microphone Test (Daneliuc)
Monty Python’s the Meaning of Life (Jones)*
The Lighthouse (Eggers)
White Heat (Walsh)
Happy as Lazzaro (Rohrwacher)*
The Florida Project (Baker)*

Don't go out of your way to watch the Klovn trilogy... The Florida Project, on the other hand, might be my favorite American film of the decade at this point. That or Leviathan or Madeline's Madeline.

*Mother Küsters Goes to Heaven (Fassbinder, 1975) - 10/10
Billy Two Hats (Kotcheff, 1974) - 7/10
Paris is Burning (Livingston, 1990) - 9/10
*Frownland (Bronstein, 2007) - 8/10
Abuse of Weakness (Breillat, 2013) - 7/10
Pauline at the Beach (Rohmer, 1983) - 9/10
Ludwig (Visconti, 1973) - 9/10 **full 4 hour TV version, highly recommended**
Ms. 45 (Ferrara, 1981) - 8/10
8½ Women (Greenaway, 1999) - 9/10
Death Wish 3 (Winner, 1985) - 6/10
L’humanité (Dumont, 1999) - 8/10
The Beguiled (Siegel, 1971) - 8/10
Bad Lieutenant (Ferrara, 1992) - 9/10
Lola Montès (Ophuls, 1956) - 8/10
Nada (Chabrol, 1974) - 7/10
Home Sweet Home (Leigh, 1982) - 9/10
Masques (Chabrol, 1987) - 8/10
The Headless Woman (Martel, 2008) - 8/10
Welfare (Wiseman, 1975) - 10/10
Brief Crossing (Breillat, 2001) - 10/10
Marty (Mann, 1955) - 9/10
The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover (Greenaway, 1989) - 9/10
In Praise of Love (Godard, 2001) - 6/10
Aspen (Wiseman, 1991) - 10/10

Dangerous Paradise (Wellman, 1930)
Pointed Heels (Sutherland, 1929)
Just Like Heaven (Neill, 1930)
Midnight Club (Hall & Somnes, 1933)
The Traitor (Bellochio, 2019)
Portrait of a Lady on Fire (Sciamma, 2019)
24 Frames (Kiarostami, 2017)
Like Someone in Love (Kiarostami, 2012)

Pain and Glory (2019) 3.5/5
The Little Girl Who Sold the Sun (1999) 4/5
* The Piano (1993) 4/5
Three on a Match (1932) 3/5
Honeyland (2019) 4/5
Hustlers (2019) 2/5
Honey Boy (2019) 3/5
Visitation (2011) 3.5/5
Mad Mad: Fury Road Black & Chrome 4.5/5
Hollywood Shuffle (1987) 2.5/5
* Written on the Wind (1956) 4.5/5
All Through the Night (1942) 3.5/5
Logan's Run (1976) 2.5/5

I now consider the Black & Chrome edition of Fury Road the only way to watch it.

will try at some point.

Saw Barbara Kopple's new documentary for the History Channel, "Desert One," about the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis and the failed 1980 rescue attempt that ended with eight dead Delta Force members. I thought it was great; not sure how it could have been done any better without much discussing Reagan or the politics of that moment and our moment more closely... but that's honestly a different film. What she got out of the amazing lineup of interviewees (including Carter, who she said she had all of 20 minutes with) and the declassified phone calls between the white house and the military is stunning. Highly recommended when it comes to the teevee.

At the talkback, they had two of the helicopter pilots and one of the hostages onstage; it was real intense.

― Fuck the NRA (ulysses), Friday, February 14, 2020 11:11 AM

and those Reagan people were likely involved in a deal with the Iranians.

I was disappointed bcz it had been discussed in advance as a different cut, with even less dialogue, and as far as I could tell was just a straight conversion

would totally watch again, though

I really liked Honeyland

and those Reagan people were likely involved in a deal with the Iranians.

One more:
A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (2019) 2/5

Honeyland reminds me of one of Herzog’s fiction films, even though it’s a documentary.

That's a great point

A Study in Natural Magic (Pryce, 2013) 8/10
Journey to the West (Tsai, 2014) 8/10
No No Sleep (Tsai, 2015) 8/10
The Lighthouse (Eggers, 2019) 3/10
Gerry (Van Sant, 2002) 8/10
Pierrot le Fou (Godard, 1965) 10/10
Ringu (Nakata, 1998) 4/10
The Beguiled (Siegel, 1971) 8/10
O Nosso Homen (Costa, 2010) 7/10
Fragment of Seeking (Harrington, 1947) 8/10
The Assignation (Harrington, 1953) 8/10
The Fall of the House of Usher (Harrignton, 1942) 4/10
The Wormwood Star (Harrington, 1956) 6/10
Suzaki Paradise: Red Light (Kawashima, 1956) 7/10
Song of Avignon (Mekas, 1998) 6/10
Aberhart’s House (Margaret Paul, 1975) 7/10
Napkins (Margaret Paul, 1975) 7/10
Love (AI) (Iimura, 1962) 7/10
Song of Love (Genet, 1950) 10/10
Fuses (Schneeman, 1967) 10/10
Moment Dworskin, 1968) 3/10
Thorndon (Margaret Paul, 1975) 7/10
Point Blank (Boorman, 1967) 7/10
Pauline at the Beach Rohmer, 1983) 9/10
*Nuts in May (Leigh, 1976) 8/10
You Only Live Once (Lang, 1937) 8/10
Made in U.S.A. (Godard, 1966) 5/10
Yama – Attack to Attack (Sato, Yamaoka, 1985) 9/10
Full Moon in Paris (Rohmer, 1984) 7/10
Lost in the Mountains (Hong, 2009) 8/10
Lemon (Frampton, 1969) 10/10
The Green Ray (Dean, 2001)
They Live by Night (Ray, 1948) 10/10
On the Occasion of Remembering the Turning Gate (Hong, 2002) 9/10

*Avanti! (1972, Wilder) 8/10
*When We Were Kings (1996, Gast) 8/10
I Was at Home, But… (2019, Schanelec) 6/10
*All About Eve (1950, Mankiewicz) 9/10
*Fear of Fear (1975, TV, Fassbinder) 7/10
The Daytrippers (1996, Mottola) 7/10
Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019, Sciamma) 7/10
*Skidoo (1968, Preminger) 3/10
*The Fabulous Baker Boys (1989, Kloves) 7/10
Partner (1968, Bertolucci) 4/10

new shanelec not as good as people are saying then?

You'll love it if you like Berlin schule film

I was lukewarm on it; otoh, an elderly Lincoln Center patron said it was the worst film she had ever seen

Under the Silver Lake (Mitchell, 2018) 9/10
The Sound of Fury (Endfield, 1950) 7/10
Pasolini (Ferrara, 2014) 6/10
*The Apartment (Wilder, 1960) 9/10
Destroyer (Kusama, 2018) 6/10
Booksmart (Wilde, 2019) 7/10
Bull Durham (Shelton, 1988) 5/10
The Anderson Tapes (Lumet, 1971) 7/10
When Worlds Collide (Maté, 1951) 6/10
Wagon Master (Ford, 1950) 6/10

looking forward to The Whistlers tonight.

Jealous!! Keep us updated :)

Saw parasite last night.
Found it really funny in places. But nobody else in the cinema seemed to be laughing .
Feels a bit self conscious to be laughing when others don't in a place like that.

Am reminded of going to see The Shape Of Water and laughing when the new car that the main enemy has been making a big deal of gets smashed in the escape attempt and facing dead silence or worse.

The Whistlers was nothing like The Treasure (which is my only other exposure to Porumboiu) but it was also great! An often quite funny and glamorous gangster movie about language that effectively/recursively uses movies inside movies to play with film tropes, quote other films (The Searchers and Psycho most blatantly) and to spit in the direction of the surveillance state. We never really get to know anyone beyond their brutality, cunning and desperation, which makes the delicacy and unpredictability of the ending (shades of 1984) so very sweet. Very well acted, cunningly written, consistently clever in its framing and generally a half step ahead of the audience. Amazing use of sound throughout: I won't soon forget how loud the opera album was, how resonant the bell, how flat and final the cough of the pistol. Not as laden with DEEP MEANING as I think the critics wanted but, as a genre exercise, I think it's on par with Chinatown. Lining up "Police Adjective" to watch shortly and am pretty excited about it.