Last (x) movies you saw (II)

Finally saw The Rain People last night on TCM< during a night of road trip movies. This was a true road trip movie, made via 18 states, three or more months (Caan quoted as saying five), incl improv and cool stuff they encountered, like maybe that parade. Yet the story developed pretty coherently, with dynamics and momentum, no overselling. Prob an orig plot point that seemed most questionable: would the college really turn/cut the football player loose like that, give him a plate in his head and an envelope of cash and let him or tell him to walk away, like step to the road and stick out his thumb---? Caan and Shirley Knight and Duvall and everybody else, incl. chickens, rabbits, the horse, do fine.

The following feature, Harry and Tonto, was more of the quirky, cute-to-poignant. anecdotal 70s-type road movie I expected, pretty watchable though, with several surprises, such as Larry Hagman effectively portraying this big stiff middle-age-crisis Donny Osmond in a Swingin' Singles apartment complex he can't afford, wanting Dad to split the rent. (This be Harry's chronologically isolated, adrift middle child, I'm guessing, since he looks-acts older, tho not more grown-up, than wryly durable-seeming, much-married Ellen Burstyn.)
Mazursky usually incl. at least one scene that makes me nauseous, but not here, although the one where Harry dances with Geraldine Fitzgerald ("She may not remember you") comes closest, could have been to less sappy movie music at least. But even that scene is good before the dance, and the whole sequence is the right length.
Like the rest of that cast, Carney's good, though I'm a little startled to find that he beat Al Pacino in Godfather II, Hoffman in Lenny, and Finney in Murder On The Orient Express, and especially Nicholson in Chinatown, but, though that one and II were better movies (Hoffman's impression of Lenny unwisely begged comparison w LB books and records, never saw Orient), whatever, who remembers these things for long. The cat was real good too (TCM says back-up cats weren't needed, and Carney said first good cat he'd come across).

Today I saw most (?) of Going Home (Herbert B. Leonard, 1971) with Robert Mitchum's tough, character-*trying*-to-be-offhanded-and-terse, nuanced performance the best of his 1970s work, far as I know (better check The Friends of Eddy Coyle again). Dad killed Mom, comes home after a sentence not so long for those days and his class status (circumstanced delved into very late in this story). Brenda Vaccaro, somehow set to marry him, also seems tough, charming, in over her head.
The notorious Jan-Michael Vincent is equally believable as traumatized, shadowy son (who was very small when it happened, and maybe asleep; I didn't see enough to make that clear, or maybe it wasn't). TCM sez it was hated by studio head, the notorious James T. Aubrey, ----dubbed "The Smiling Cobra" during, I think, his time at CBS---who ordered cuts and dumped it in four (?!) theaters. Hope this was the uncut (TCM usually shows such when they can), anyway it worked.

"circumstances," that is.

Oh, and re "mitigating factor" (also "status," but in this connection gender, not class): a dark irony can be inferred while imagining what will happen to these characters later, how they will handle incidents leading to the movie's end.

Bad Company (Garnett, 1931)
Four Parts (Chase & Dunn, 1934)
Apples to You! (Jason, 1934)
The Bargain of the Century (Chase, 1933)
His Silent Racket (Chase, 1933)
Fallen Arches (Meins, 1933)
*Too Many Women (McGowan & French, 1932)
Girl Shock (Horne, 1930)
Air-Tight (Stevens, 1931)
Call a Cop! (Stevens, 1931)
You're Telling Me (McGowan & French, 1932)
Paris Bound (Griffith, 1929)
Tenet (Nolan, 2020)
Dr. Cyclops (Schoedsack, 1940)
70,000 Witnesses (Murphy, 1932)
Yes, Yes, Nanette (Laurel & Hennecke, 1925)
Bunny's Dilemma (North, 1913)
The Boat (Keaton & Cline, 1921)

Interstellar - dumb but watchable
Birds of Prey/Harley Quinn - dumb and unwatchable
Lying and Stealing - store-brand Paul Walker and Emily Ratajkowski do crimes

*The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (Ford, 1962) - 10/10
Beyond Therapy (Altman, 1987) - 6/10
Lust in the Dust (Bartel, 1984) - 7/10
Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (Potter, 1948) - 6/10
Ruby Gentry (Vidor, 1952) - 8/10
Melvin and Howard (Demme, 1980) - 7/10
The War Game (Watkins, 1965) - 8/10
Boom! (Losey, 1968) - 8/10
Culloden (Watkins, 1964) - 9/10
*Eureka (Roeg, 1983) - 8/10
Head (Rafelson, 1968) - 9/10
*Ugetsu (Mizoguchi, 1953) - 9/10
The Comancheros (Curtiz, 1961) - 7/10
Life with Father (Curtiz, 1947) - 8/10
Velvet Smooth (Fink, 1976) - 5/10
*Blonde Venus (von Sternberg, 1932) - 9/10
*American Psycho (Harron, 2000) - 9/10
Fleshpot on 42nd St. (Milligan, 1973) - 6/10
Alphabet City (Poe, 1984) - 6/10
Alias the Doctor (Curtiz, 1932) - 8/10
*Grosse Point Blank (Armitage, 1997) - 6/10
The Ox-Bow Incident (Wellman, 1943) - 8/10
*Le Boucher (Chabrol, 1970) - 9/10
The Trial (Welles, 1962) - 10/10 <------ this is one of the best movies I've ever seen
*Stagecoach (Ford, 1939) - 9/10

I haven’t seen The Trial, will try

special spinal surgery edition

Lured (1947, Sirk) 6/10
The Violent Men (1955, Maté) 7/10
Closely Watched Trains (1966, Menzel) 7/10
*Duck Soup (1933, McCarey) 10/10
The Golem: How He Came into the World (1920, Wegener, Boese) 7/10
*The Squid and the Whale (2005, Baumbach) 8/10
Tennessee’s Partner (1955, Dwan) 7/10
*The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920, Wiene) 9/10
The Manxman (1929, Hitchcock) 7/10
Blood on the Moon (1948, Wise) 7/10

good lineup!

I am currently going through Bondarchuk's "War And Peace" and I am in awe, people. In awe.

O saisons, ô châteaux (Varda, 1958)
La Chambre (Akerman, 1972)
Sailor’s Holiday (Newmeyer, 1929)
On the Loose (Roach, 1931)
The Speckled Band (Raymond, 1931)
You'd Be Surprised (Rosson, 1926)
Ménilmontant (Kirsanoff, 1926)
A Few Moments with Eddie Cantor (De Forest, 1923)
The Man from Yesterday (Viertel, 1932)
Son of Dracula (Siodmak, 1943)
Be Reasonable (Del Ruth, 1921)
Remember When? (Edwards, 1925)

Stuck on You (Farrelly & Farrelly, 2003) - the surgeon who separates them is, for some reason, Ben Carson

wow

Watched Source Code as a family last night, turned out to be a pretty solid pick!

Good movie!

The Violent Men (1955) 3/5
Storefront Hitchcock (1998) 3.5/5
* Exotica (1994) 4/5
A Touch of Zen (1971) 3/5. Some knockout stuff here but they're fairly tedious to get to.
Merrily We Go to Hell (1932) 3/5
The Booksellers (2019) 2.5/5 assembled with all the passion of some tv show about flipping houses or something.
Smokey and the Bandit (1977) 3.5/5
Freddy Got Fingered (2001) 2.5/5. I put this off for 19 years; RBG's death was announced while I was watching it.
* All That Jazz (1979) 4/5

(Grammar in Touch of Zen blurb there due to switching "scenes" for "stuff").

Ashes and Diamonds (Wajda, 1958)
Bamboozled (Lee, 2000)
Invocation of My Demon Brother (Anger, 1969)
Next of Kin (Egoyan, 1984)
The Squid & the Whale *Baumbach, 2005)
Imagine the Sound (Mann, 1981)
a bunch of Bill Plympton shorts
The Widow Couderc (Graniere-Deferre, 1971)
*The Grand Budapest Hotel (Anderson, 2014)
Only Angels Have Wings (Hawks, 1939)
Phantom Lady (Siodmak, 1949)
Sissy-Boy Slap-Party (Maddin, 2004)
Rabbits (Lynch, 2002)
Criss Cross (Siodmak, 1949)
Certain Women (Reichardt, 2016)
The Gleaners and I: Two Years Later (Varda, 2002)
Plaisir d'amour en Iran (Varda, 1975)
7 p., cuis, s. de b. (à saisir) (Varda, 1975)
Réponse de femmes (Varda, 1975)
The Violent Men (Maté, 1955)
Devil's Doorway (Mann, 1950)
Thank You and Good Night (Oxenberg, 1991)
Home Movie (Oxenberg, 1973)
Man with the Gun (Wilson, 1955)
Ulysse (Varda, 1983)
Doodlebug (Nolan, 1997)

Freddy Got Fingered (2001) 2.5/5. I put this off for 19 years; RBG's death was announced while I was watching it.

surely just a coincidence though

can’t watch a movie with that title

Ronald Got Rimmed has less depth but is more enjoyable

lol

Dieter Got Diddled was the superior film

man i didn't watch much of anything in September, mostly teevee

Consistently Pretty Good to Very Very Good:
Watermelon Juice (2020, Moray, short)
Note by Note: The Making of Steinway L1037 (2007, Niles)

Almost Okay to Occasionally Pretty Good:
Biography: I Want My MTV (2020, Waldrop and Meason)
Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets (2020, Ross, Ross IV)
All In: The Fight for Democracy (2020, Cores and Garbus)
The Fandom (2020, Kries)
Salvage (2019, Elliott)
The Donut King (2020, Gu)

No:
My Octopus Teacher (2020, Ehrlich and Reed)
I’ve Got Issues (2020, Collins)

September:

The Big Clock (Farrow, 1948) 8/10
Lady in the Lake (Montgomery, 1946) 6/10
Border Incident (Mann, 1949) 7/10 - the John Alton cinematography is the real star here
Birds, Orphans and Fools (Jakubisko, 1969) 7/10
What Have They Done to Your Daughters? (Dallamano, 1974) 7/10
Almost Human (Lenzi, 1974) 8/10 - Tomas Milian!
The Mad Dog Killer (Grieco, Milloni, 1977) 7/10 - Helmut Berger!
Nothing but the Night (Sasdy, 1973) 5/10
Corridors of Blood (Day, 1958) 7/10
I'm Thinking of Ending Things (Kaufman, 2020) 7/10
House of Usher (Corman, 1960) 8/10
The Lady Vanishes (Page, 1979) 5/10
Doomwatch (Sasdy, 1972) 6/10
India Song (Duras, 1975) 8/10
The Most Dangerous Game (Schoedsack, Pichel, 1932) 7/10 - Leslie Banks!
Terror Train (Spottiswoode, 1980 7/10 - cinematography by John Alcott, fresh from shooting The Shining for Kubrick
Hysteria (Francis, 1965) - 5/10
Five Dolls for an August Moon (Bava, 1970) 7/10

The Trout (Losey, 1982)
The Mourning Forest (Kawase, 2007)
Lolita (Lyne, 1998)
Sicilia! (Straub, Huillet, 1999)
Tie me up! Tie me Down! (Almodovar, 1990)
A Couch in New York (Akerman, 1996)

Front Page Woman (Curtiz, 1935) - 7/10
The End of Summer (Ozu, 1961) - 10/10
*Sugar & Spice (McDougall, 2001) - 7/10
*We Won’t Grow Old Together (Pialat, 1972)
Hell Bent (Ford, 1918) - 7/10
A Girl in Every Port (Hawks, 1928) - 9/10
Nancy Drew… Reporter (Clemens, 1939) - 8/10
The Strawberry Blonde (Walsh, 1941) - 8/10
True Colors (Ross, 1991) - 5/10
The New York Ripper (Fulci, 1981) - 9/10
Prime Cut (Ritchie, 1972) - 8/10
…And the Pursuit of Happiness (Malle, 1986) - 9/10
*Half Nelson (Fleck, 2006) - 9/10
Land of the Pharaohs (Hawks, 1955) - 6/10
The Crowd Roars (Hawks, 1932) - 6/10
El Dorado (Hawks, 1966) - 5/10
Hondo (Farrow, 1953) - 6/10
The Last Performance (Fejos, 1929) - 8/10
Housekeeping (Forsyth, 1987) - 7/10
The Fire Within (Malle, 1963) - 9/10
The King of Marvin Gardens (Rafelson, 1972) - 6/10
Syndromes and a Century (Weerasethakul, 2006) - 7/10

The Darktown Revue (Michaeux, 1931)
The Girl in the Pullman (Kenton, 1927)
Morocco (von Sternberg, 1930)
The Bells (Young, 1926)
Crime Without Passion (Hecht et al, 1934)
Island of Terror (Fisher, 1966)
The Lost Laugh (Roberts, 1928)
Robinet Is Jealous (Perez, 1914)
The Pawnshop (Chaplin, 1916)

Introduced my child to Hitchcock by way of The Birds and she loved it. Followed it with Rear Window. She now loves discussing mise en scène in regard to these films. She was calling it layering. I was impressed she noticed that. So now we have ongoing discussions of both films. She’s only 8 so... that’s sort of it for now.

Sadie McKee (Brown, 1934) 7/10
Baby It's You (Sayles,1 983) 6/10
Matewan (Sayles, 1987) 6/10
Sunshine State (Sayles,2002) 6/10
Two Drifters (Rodrigues, 2005) 8/10
Beanpole ( Balagov,2020) 9/10

As you can see, Sayles is, with exceptions (Passion Fish), 6/10 director.

She now loves discussing mise en scène in regard to these films. She was calling it layering. I was impressed she noticed that. So now we have ongoing discussions of both films.

:D

Amazing.

Fixing typo up there:

*We Won’t Grow Old Together (Pialat, 1972) - 10/10
― flappy bird, Thursday, October 1, 2020 11:42 PM (four days ago) bookmarkflaglink

The Scoundrel (Hecht & MacArthur, 1935)
Mystery Liner (Nigh, 1934)
A Modern Cinderella (Dawley, 1911)
Felix Gets the Can (Messmer, 1925)
Japanicky (Messmer, 1928)
Forty Winks (Messmer, 1930)
6 Hours to Live (Dieterle, 1932)
The Drums of Jeopardy (Seitz, 1931)
The Vanishing Legion (Beebe & Eason, 1931)
A Daughter of Destiny (Galeen, 1928)
Tarantula (Arnold, 1955)
Out Bound (Edwards, 1924)
*Now or Never (Roach & Newmeyer, 1921)
The Skeleton Dance (Disney, 1929)
The Fall of the House of Usher (Watson & Webber, 1928)

Started "Satantango" the other night. I enjoyed the first hour and will get around to the rest of it in chunks, but so far its epic runtime seems like it may be an unnecessary (or at least arbitrary) hurdle. Though I suppose equally effective in its imposing impact.

Watched the original "Suspiria" with my older daughter last night. She liked it! It's so goofy and garish. When it was over she turned to me and said "I liked that, but it didn't really make a lot of sense. Now I want to know what the witches were doing there, what was their plan, etc." But she's smart and mature enough to simultaneous recognize that none of that really matters. Also to find the exposition dump about witches in the middle of the movie hilarious.

Da 5 Bloods (Lee, 2020)
The Invisible Man (Whannell, 2020)
Old Acquaintance (Sherman, 1943)
They Won't Believe Me (Pichel, 1947)
Wasp Netwrok (Assayas, 2019)
I’m Thinking of Ending Things (Kaufman, 2020)
Where the Sidewalk Ends (Preminger, 1950)
*Real Life (Brooks, 1979)
Häxan (Christensen, 1922)
The Racket (Cromwell, 1951)

Re-Animator (1985) 3/5
* Real Life (1979) 4.5/5
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) 4/5
The Witch Who Came From the Sea (1976) 2.5/5 Has a strong Manos: The Hands of Fate vibe.
Galaxy Quest (1999) 4/5
Blonde Crazy (1931) 3.5/5
Dick Johnson is Dead (2020) 2/5 I've liked the director's previous docs but I could not relate to what she was doing here.
Night of the Demon (1957) 3.5/5
Queen of Diamonds (1991) 3/5

Josh: keep plowing through Satantango and you'll be rewarded with a scene where a cat is abused for several minutes.

Real cat?

Yes.

Hmm. I guess that puts it in rare company. Well, I don't know how I feel about that. Just googling, Tarr does not sound terribly convincing in his defense(s) that the cat is real but the abuse is not:

ROSENBAUM: I know, but it’s still significant to me that many people who see Sátántangó get very upset about the cat, because they think this was really done to the cat. And it wasn’t. The point is that they are seduced into the narrative in a way that it feels very real.

TARR: But you know, this is my job. I just do that. 1 just wanted to make some tension. You know, the cat is still alive….

ROSENBAUM: And it’s your cat.

TARR: No, it’s not my cat. But I have a cat at home and I have two dogs, it is impossible for me to kill or destroy any animal.

ROSENBAUM: I thought you said it was one that actually you adopted after the film…

TARR: No, no. It was one cat of a friend of mine. She just slept a little. She just got an injection, and she slept. There was an animal doctor and it was very safe. When the girl is jumping with the cat, they also just played. And all of the sound that was used was artificial, it was from the sound archive.

So it's a real cat ... sedated and tormented, with sound effects? " She just slept a little. She just got an injection, and she slept" sounds like something Trump would tell his kid after he killed their cat.

Yeah, I've never believed Tarr on this (and Rosenbaum is content here to go along with it). The cat was obviously in distress as you watch the little girl wrestling it for a long time. If it came out of it ok I doubt it was because of any precautions they took.

Young Man with a Horn (Curtiz, 1950) - 8/10
*Fox and His Friends (Fassbinder, 1975) - 10/10
Bottle Rocket (Anderson, 1996) - 4/10
Bat Pussy (?, 197?) - 5/10
Robot Love Slaves (?, 1971) - 5/10
Claudine (Berry, 1974) - 8/10
The Whole Town’s Talking (Ford, 1935) - 7/10
Girl, Interrupted (Mangold, 1999) - 7/10
Bucking Broadway (Ford, 1917) - 9/10
Gold is Where You Find It (Curtiz, 1938) - 8/10
The Battle of Algiers (Pontecorvo, 1966) - 9/10
Napoli Napoli Napoli (Ferrara, 2009) - 7/10
The Breaking Point (Curtiz, 1950) - 9/10
Man of the World (Wallace, Goodman; 1931) - 6/10
True Grit (Hathaway, 1969) - 6/10
Man’s Favorite Sport? (Hawks, 1964) - 7/10
Arabian Nights (Pasolini, 1974) - 8/10
Rio Lobo (Hawks, 1970) - 6/10
Red Line 7000 (Hawks, 1965) - 4/10
The Long Voyage Home (Ford, 1940) - 8/10
*Night Moves (Penn, 1975) - 7/10
Score (Metzger, 1974) - 7/10
There’s Always Tomorrow (Sirk, 1956) - 7/10
City Hall (Becker, 1996) - 5/10
The Canterbury Tales (Pasolini, 1972) - 9/10
Nancy Drew: Detective (Clemens, 1938) - 6/10
Ms. Purple (Chon, 2019) - 5/10
The Decameron (Pasolini, 1971) - 8/10

The Breaking Point (Curtiz, 1950) - 9/10

Isn't this one great? Better than the Bogie and Bacall version, I say, and one the most heartbreaking closing shots in any film.

Bingo all the way. Knocked me out

Long Gone Summer (6.5)
Jazz on a Summer’s Day (7.5)
Festival (1967) (8.0)
The Trial of the Chicago 7 (5.5)
Girlhood (7.0)
Hairspray (7.0)
Help! (6.5)
On the Rocks (6.0)
Meeting the Beatles in India (6.5)
The Nest (7.0)

Plus a few others since I posted in August--I stopped keeping a running list. Long Gone Summer (the McGwire/Sosa 30 for 30) isn't a film, but I couldn't remember anything else for an even 10. Hadn't seen Help! in ages. "Ticket to Ride," "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away," and "I Need You" are incredible; when music isn't playing, a lot of the rest das dreary as people have been telling me for years.

"is as dreary" (Das Dreary was a band).

+ White Riot (6.5)

Ad Astra - first movie in a while that has really bummed me out to have seen on a 40" TV instead of a big screen.

Koko-di Koko-da (Nyholm) 7
Sonatine (Kitano) 7
Little Joe (Hausner) 5
Female Human Animal (Appignanesi) 5
Death In The Garden (Bunuel) 7
*Audition (Miike) 7
Garnet's Gold (Perkins) 8
A Scene At The Sea (Kitano) 9
Saint Maud (Glass) 9