Last (x) movies you saw (II)

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

We've had a lot of movie nights lately. Because everyone liked Knives Out they asked for more like that, so I queued up some of the usual suspects: Murder By Death, Sleuth, Deathtrap, etc. But last night we watched Murder on the Orient Express, which I'd read but never seen, and ooof, I cannot believe they made it through that. It's sooooooo slow, and about an hour too long, and everyone struggled to understand everybody's broad accents. I've actually never seen Sleuth, or Murder By Death, so I'm wondering if it's a mistake to suggest either of them.

Anyway, the night before I showed them Moonrise Kingdom, and everyone liked that one.

which Murder on the Orient Express? the '74 one has some camp/upholstery value.

'74. Camp is one thing, slooooooooooow camp sort of hampers the enjoyment.

It's sooooooo slow, and about an hour too long, and everyone struggled to understand everybody's broad accents. I've actually never seen Sleuth, or Murder By Death, so I'm wondering if it's a mistake to suggest either of them.

Death On The Nile and Evil Under The Sun are the Agatha Christies that Johnson especially likes and recommends (both have Ustinov as Poirot). Sleuth is fantastic, and is directly Easter-egged in Knives Out. Deathtrap is basically a Sleuth tribute band, so separate them as far as possible and make sure to watch Sleuth first.

Johnson also especially recommends The Last Of Sheila (a 1973 collab between Stephen Sondheim and Anthony Perkins) and Gosford Park for more-in-this-vein type viewing.



Murder By Death is a parody of country-house mysteries and of various specific page-to-screen detectives, so your audience probably isn't best served by going straight to it, especially if it's your nuclear family. (If you think the kids can sit through The Thin Man, though, take a swing at it.)

imo a good order to mix up styles and settings:

The Last Of Sheila
Sleuth
Evil Under The Sun
The Thin Man
Gosford Park
Brick (for another Johnson pastiche with mystery)
Death On The Nile
After The Thin Man
Deathtrap

last of sheila is very good as a mystery, not so good as a movie

It's fun, and gets carried a long way by the cast evidently having a great time living in the south of France together for many months.

We have Gosford Park (which I've seen and like) ready, plus Sleuth, Deathtrap (which yeah, I've heard is Sleath redux) and Death on the Nile (if we want to go more Christie). I've seen Brick; It's been so long but I'm not sure I want to see it again, and for the kids it's another one that riffs on movies (or types of movies) they've never seen. I've heard mixed things about The Last of Sheila, yeah, and dunno if my kids will be into the Thin Man series. One is juuuuuust young enough that b&w movies are like work.

fwiw the cleanse them of Orient Express I'm going to show them One Cut of the Dead tonight, which if they can make it past the first 20 or so minutes I'm sure they will love (as would anyone).

lol "Sleath."

i gotta admit that even though i have hundreds of movies on deck to watch, i can't seem to keep my attention anywhere for longer than an hour if that.

Last Of Sheila is definitely a great Knives Out connection for the tricksiness of the mystery, too.

I threw Brick in because kids don't need to understand that it's riffing on anything to get it - either way, it's a high school movie with a weird tone. Murder By Death is nine direct parodies.

Dunno how old your kids are, but Clue was probably my sister and I’s most watched movie from about ages 8-10.

Also (again, not knowing the demographics), I would think that kids would dig The Thin Man more that Gosford Park or Brick.

Kids are 12 and 15, so old enough for Brick and Gosford. And they've seen plenty of Clue!

A Shot in the Dark is one you could try.

One Cut of the Dead won me back into everyone's good graces, which is good news, because if I picked another one they didn't like I'm afraid they would have gone with "Cats." Which is inevitable, I suppose.

i'm with Edmund Wilson on the murder mystery: "Who Cares Who Killed Roger Ackroyd?"

MAD mag Orient Express parody is wonderful. don't think it's online.

Watching minute-long Lumiere bros films to drive up my Letterboxd stats.

One Cut is great fun.

Latest hits are:
Recorder: The Marian Stokes Project - fascinating but overlong, driven a bit much by her son's agenda i think.
Fantastic Fungi - fun but mostly introductory stuff. if you've never heard of Paul Stamets though, by all means, go see this ASAP.
Who Framed Roger Rabbit? - i haven't seen this in over a decade and I still know most of the script by heart. goddamn, this holds up!
Metropolis - with live accompaniment by the Metropolitan Ensemble... this was the last show I got to before the venues all shut down. It was wonderful.

lol coincidentally I recently started that Michael Pollen book about psychedelic mushrooms, and Stamets plays a big part early on. I don't know if he continues to play a big part, because folks like him seem so smart and so colorfully eccentric and yet, in the end, I just dgaf. I wish it was a book on mushrooms, period, rather than just psilocybin. Maybe it is! But I think I'm moving on.

Laura is a good noir/thriller

i'm with Edmund Wilson on the murder mystery: "Who Cares Who Killed Roger Ackroyd?"

you realise that Knives Out shows Who Killed Harlan Thrombey in the first twenty minutes of a 130 minute movie

it is, excellent book too xp

"Laura" is great, but I totally understand why my whole family might not want to watch it. The older movies get, great or no, the bigger the ask it becomes. A bit like making them listen to, say, Louis Armstrong and his Hot Five. Some of the most essential music ever made, but I totally understand why a 15 or 12 (or 45) year old in 2020 might not want to hear it. On one hand, they might surprise me and go on a noir streak. On the other, I might lose their trust, which means weeks of shit and reality shows and "The Office." I've got to strike the right balance of quality and novelty and entertainment.

I think we're going for "Sleuth" tonight, which sounds like a sure thing, though I've never seen it.