Last (x) movies you saw (II)

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.

Wow, sounds absolutely great! Police, Adjective is a fantastic film as well.

Apparently whistlers is a sequel to police adjective? Same actors and characters

(Minor spoiler but such a pity about the American filmmaker...)

Not having seen it, but don't think so. Vlad Ivanov was the villain of Police, Adjective, not the one named Cristi. I don't want to watch a film following that character around, brrr.

Ivanov also the abortion doctor in 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days. He is a very good actor, whom I mostly know from playing characters I want to beat up.

i was under the impression he was playing a different character from police adjective but one from that film, carrying over to this one.
He's admirably blank in this.

Oh, okay. Intriguing!

oh man. he's so good in 432

Feb:

Hell is a City (Guest, 1960) 7/10
Beyond the Darkness (D'Amato, 1979) 6/10
The Lighthouse (Eggers, 2019) 7/10
Parasite (Bong, 2019) 8/10
In Fabric (Strickland, 2018) 7/10
The Viking Queen (Chaffey, 1967) 5/10
The Bargee (Wood, 1964) 4/10
Dick Barton: Special Agent (Goulding, 1948) 3/10
Triumph of the Will (Riefenstahl, 1935) - impossible to 'mark' - aside from the fact that I'd never seen it before, mainly watched because I thought Malick had used footage from TotW in A Hidden Life, and was, through that choice, making a comment about Nazi aestheticism (and by implication, interrogating his own complicated relationship with visual beauty)
Dellamorte Dellamore (Soavi, 1994) 7/10
Long Day's Journey into Night (Bi Gan, 2018) 3D version 5/10 - my first major disappointment of the year!
Uncut Gems (Safdi Bros, 2019) 8/10
Little Joe (Hausner, 2019) 7/10
Dark Waters (Haynes, 2019) 5/10 - another disappointment - seemed to be almost a deliberate exercise in bland anonymity

The Thirteenth Guest (Ray, 1932)
Kiev Frescoes (Parajanov, 1966)
The Color of Pomegranates (Parajanov, 1969)
Four Acts for Syria (Mourad, 2019)
Arabesques on the Pirosmani Theme (Parajanov, 1985)
Hakob Hovantanyan (Parajanov, 1967)
No Limit (Tuttle, 1931)

*Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (Tarantino, 2019)
Mind Game (Yuasa, 2004)
Panique (Duvivier, 1946)
35 Shots of Rum (Denis, 2008)
Mercy, the Mummy Mumbled (short - Phillips, 1918)
Two Knights of Vaudeville (unknown, 1915)
Atlantiques (short - Diop, 2009)
The Fountain (short - Dunham, 2007)
Two Men in Manhattan (Melville, 1959)
*The Master (Anderson, 2012)
Samurai Spy (Shinoda, 1965)
Shampoo (Ashby, 1975)
A Woman Is a Woman (Godard, 1961)
*I Know Where I'm Going! (Archers, 1945)
The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (Curtiz, 1939)
Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool (Nelson, 2019)
Made in U.S.A (Godard, 1966)
Vanya on 42nd Street (Malle, 1994)
The Letter (Wyler, 1940)
Le doulos (Melville, 1962)
Leviathan (Castaing-Taylor, Paravel, 2012)
3 Faces (Panahi, 2018)

* The Thing (Carpenter, Lancaster after Campbell Jr 1982) [DCP]
* Dolemite Is My Name (Brewer, Karazewski Bros 2019)
Alien³ (assembly cut) (Fincher, Ward, Fasano, Twohy, Hill, Giler, Fincher, Pickett 1992)
* Stalag 17 (Wilder, Blum, after Bevan and Trzcinski 1953)
Ace In The Hole (Wilder, Samuels, Newman 1951)
Victim (Basil Dearden, Janet Green, John McCormick 1961) [📽️ 35mm]
Joe Versus The Volcano (Shanley 1990) [DCP]
* Alien: Resurrection (extended cut) (Jeunet, Whedon 1997)
Okja (Bong, Ronson 2017)
* Attack The Block (Cornish 2011) [DCP]
* Small Soldiers (Dante, Scott, Rifkin, & al. 1998)
Troubled Waters (Gazzara, Gillis, Driskill 1975)
Missing Link (Butler 2019)
Body Heat (Kasdan 1981)
Hair Wolf (Mariama Diallo 2018)
Contagion (Sodes & Burns 2011)

Invisible Man. Really, really liked it. Very taut and well-executed thriller.

January + February in theaters

Queen & Slim (Matsoukas, 2019) - 8/10
Midnight Family (Lorentzen, 2019) - 6/10
Footlight Parade (Bacon, 1933) - 9/10
*Uncut Gems (Safdie Brothers, 2019) - 9/10
1917 (Mendes, 2019) - 1/10
Like a Boss (Arteta, 2020) - 5/10
*Through a Glass Darkly (Bergman, 1961) - 10/10
Bad Boys for Life (Arbi, Fallah; 2020) - 4/10
The Gentlemen (Ritchie, 2019) - 6/10
The Rhythm Section (Morano, 2020) - 2/10
*Groundhog Day (Ramis, 1993) - 8/10
Downtown '81 (Bertoglio, 2000) - 7/10
Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) (Yan, 2020) - 5/10
*Winter Light (Bergman, 1963) - 9/10
Downhill (Faxon, Rash; 2020) - 5/10
Sonic the Hedgehog (Fowler, 2020) - 4/10
*The Blue Angel (Sternberg, 1930 / 35mm)
The Assistant (Green, 2019) - 7/10
*The Silence (Bergman, 1963) - 9/10

good reason to go to pornhub:
https://hyperallergic.com/545944/shakedown-streaming-pornhub-leilah-weinraub

Downhill (2020) 5/10
All the Presidents Men (1976) 9/10
The Education of Sonny Carson (1974) 8/10
Shock Corridor (1963) 3/10
Of Human Bondage (1934) 7/10
American Dharma (2018) 7/10
Dark Passage (1947) 6/10
Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr (1999) 8/10
Twelve O'Clock High (1949) 8/10

MUBI:

First Name: Carmen (Godard, 1983)
Detective (Godard, 1985)
Mother (Bong, 2009)

Cinema:

Parasite (Bong, 2019)

*Fail Safe (1964, Lumet) 8/10
Holiday (1930, Griffith) 7/10
The Passing of the Third Floor Back (1935, Viertel) 6/10
*Through a Glass Darkly (1961, Bergman) 9/10
*The China Syndrome (1979, Bridges) 7/10
Paprika (2006, Kon) 7/10
Montenegro (1981, Makavejev) 7/10
*Winter Kills (1979, Richert) 8/10
*Heaven Can Wait (1978, Beatty, Henry) 7/10
Gone Are the Days! (1963, Webster) 6/10
One Mile From Heaven (1937, Dwan) 7/10
The Little Theatre of Jean Renoir (1970, Renoir) 7/10
Vitalina Varela (2019, Costa) 8/10
The Oscar (1966, Rouse) 3/10
*Some Like It Hot (1959, Wilder) 10/10

btw EE Horton is possibly funnier playing the same role in the earlier, lesser version of Holiday

Jane Fonda really could've become a "soft news" gal, as in China Syndrome, if Ted Turner had asked her

Just watched Motorama (1991), from the writer of After Hours and Vampire's Kiss, one of the more inexplicable movies I've seen in a while. Follows a 10-year-old boy who runs away from his abusive home, steals a Mustang, and attempts to win millions through a promotional gas station card game. Set in an alternate America that is all desert wasteland and oil derricks; it gets even bleaker once he enters Essex, "The Last State." Lots of pretty brutal treatment of our protagonist, very impressive performance from an actor who did basically nothing else. Meat Loaf, Flea, and Drew Barrymore all show up briefly.

I sure hope Scarecrow Video stays alive, probably the only place in a thousand miles where I could find a physical copy of this sort of early-90's ephemera.

OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies (Hazanavicius)*
OSS 117: Lost in Rio (Hazanavicius)
The Search (Hazanavicius)*
The Emperor and the Assassin (Chen)
Together (Chen)
The Go Master (Tian)
Dong (Jia)
Useless (Jia)
Cry Me a River (Jia)
Rebels of the Neon God (Tsai)*
Vive l’Amour (Tsai)*
The River (Tsai)
The Hole (Tsai)*
Goodbye Dragon Inn (Tsai)*
Face (Tsai)
I’m the one you want (Haugerud)
I Belong (Haugerud)
Beware of Children (Haugerud)
Vice (McKay)
Bombshell (Roach)
71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance (Haneke)*
The Day We Died (Madsen)
Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (Akerman)*
Taste of Cherry (Kiarostami)*
In the City of Sylvia (Guerin)
Some Photos in the City of Sylvia (Guerin)
The Good Life (Mulvad)
Field Niggas (Allah)
Two Years at Sea (Rivers)
A Spell to ward off the Darkness (Rivers & Russell)
Cameraperson (Johnson)
Darwin’s Nightmare (Sauper)
We Come as Friends (Sauper)
In Vanda’s Room (Costa)
Where Does Your Hidden Smile Lie? (Costa)
Ne Change Rien (Costa)
Horse Money (Costa)*
Maidan (Loznitsa)*
The Event (Loznitsa)*
Mundane History (Suwichakornpong)
By the Time It Gets Dark (Suwichakornpong)
Araya (Benacerraf)
Mondovino (Nossiter)

Mostly preparation for CPH:DOX, some of which is lost labor, because the festival is moving to an online edition with a lot less films on offer. Other than that, a Tsai retrospective which should have culminated with Stray Dogs, but that got cancelled, sigh. Goodbye Dragon Inn in the cinema was a major experience, as was watching Jeanne Dielmann on the big screen with a room full of people riveted by the drama of the bad milk etc. Great great film. Oh, and is Maidan the best documentary of the last decade? Might be, I continue to be amazed that it even exists.

O Lucky Man (1973) 2/5
I Walk Alone (1947) 4/5
* Kingpin (1996) 4/5
Light Sleeper (1992) 2.5/5
Prince of Darkness (1987) 3/5
Marie Antoinette (2006) 3.5/5
ZZ Top: That Little Ol' Band from Texas (2019) 3/5
Color Out of Space (2019) 2.5/5
The Bad and the Beautiful (1952) 4/5
* The Naked Kiss (1964) 3/5
Field N----s (2015) 3.5/5
* Devil in a Blue Dress (1995) 4/5

smdh at that O Lucky Man rating