Last (x) movies you saw (II)

I haven't posted on this thread since June but here's the best movies I've seen since then

The Passenger (Antonioni, 1975)
Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk (Lee, 2016)
World On A Wire (Fassbinder, 1973)
Country (Eyre, 1981)
Pauline at the Beach (Rohmer, 1983)
Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets (Ross Brothers, 2020)
Bacurau (Filho, 2019)

Up for Murder (Bell, 1931)
The Vanishing Shadow (Landers, 1934)
The Girl in 419 (Hall, 1933)
Journey’s End (Whale, 1930)
Kiss and Make-Up (Thompson, 1934)
Illegal (McGann, 1932)
Tumultes (Siodmak, 1932)
*Teddy at the Throttle (Badger, 1917)
*Papa's Boy (Taurog, 1927)
Corruption (Roberts, 1933)

absolutely baffled how anyone could do anything but laugh at how terrible On The Rocks was. a good new york movie? if you're into the tightly circumscribed habits of rich tribeca fuckheads, i guess. my wife and i put it on last night because of the novelty of having a PS4 app for our (free) AppleTV subscription, and hey, rashida jones. bill murray! but... oh my god. we kept with it because the movie kept promising a payoff. when it came we were like, no. we turned to each other. no! are they really doing this?? this is...... it?? there isn't a B-plot. there's nothing. i will give coppola credit that the photography is outstanding. but everything else... my god. absolutely zero chemistry between the wife and husband (who is written as a monumental douchebag, regardless of his fidelity or not, so any happy reconciliation between them feels totally slimy). jones seemingly existing to tee up murray to deliver totally snoozeful theories about biology as destiny. and to fret in her zillion dollar tribeca apartment about whether she'll ever make progress on her 'book' - what's it about, who knows, who cares. they're all just so hateful, the stakes are so low, murray totally phones it in. just pitiful. sub-beginner level filmmaking.

i can only guess that the reason it got made is that after lost in translation murray told coppola he'd do anything else she asked. this was it, and murray's involvement guaranteed investors. otherwise it's just.. it's gobsmacking

Journey's End
which was quite moving.
interplay between men in the trenches in WWI.
Probably because i t was Remembrance Day weekend, I think this was Saturday night.

Red Sparrow
which I was thinking of watching since I hadn't seen it before.
Russian intrigue with an ex ballerina.
Caught most of it in a +1 channel.
Nowhere near as good. so glad i watched Journey's End through

Legend of the Mountain (1979) 4/5
* The Servant (1963) 4.5/5
* Girlfriends (1978) 3.5/5
The Color of Money (1986) 3/5
Demons (1985) 3.5/5
The Blackcoat's Daughter (2015) 3/5
In Fabric (2018) 3.5/5
* The Parallax View (1974) 4/5
Haxan (1922) 3/5
Black Christmas (1974) 3.5/5
Borat Subsequent Moviefilm (2020) 3/5
The Velvet Vampire (1971) 3/5

Shorts:
The Barbershop (1933) 3.5/5
The Fatal Glass of Beer (1933) 3/5
The Cruz Brothers and Miss Malloy (1980) 3.5/5
Street of Crocodiles (1986) 4/5
575 Castro Street (2009) 3.5/5
Blue Diary (1997) 3.5/5

I grew up in tribeca so yes xxp

i'm kinda with Tracer, but i only lasted 15 minutes so i don't feel like i have much room to jump in and complain.

I'm a big Coppola defender - I like almost all of her movies, including The Beguiled - but this new one just looks like complete garbage.

Watched two space horror movies this weekend: Sputnik (Russia, 2020) and The Last Days on Mars (US, 2013). Both very good. Sputnik is on Hulu, The Last Days on Mars is free on Amazon Prime.

*Three Days of the Condor (Pollack, 1975) - 8/10
Obsession (De Palma, 1976) - 9/10
Tenebrae (Argento, 1982) - 9/10
Bodyguard (Fleischer, 1948) - 7/10
Parenthood (Howard, 1989) - 0/10
Two Rode Together (Ford, 1961) - 6/10
*Cléo from 5 to 7 (Varda, 1962) - 8/10
This is the Army (Curtiz, 1943) - 8/10
The Servant (Losey, 1963) - 7/10
Brute Force (Dassin, 1947) - 9/10
La Grande Bouffe (Ferreri, 1973) - 10/10
Rooster Cogburn (Millar, 1975) - 6/10
10 Rillington Place (Fleischer, 1971) - 7/10
*Pioneers in Ingolstadt (Fassbinder, 1971) - 9/10
Time Bandits (Gilliam, 1981) - 7/10
Dodge City (Curtiz, 1939) - 7/10
*Beau Travail (Denis, 1999) - 8/10
Blind Date (Losey, 1959) - 5/10
The Shootist (Siegel, 1976) - 8/10
*Sisters (De Palma, 1973) - 9/10
*Election (Payne, 1999) - 10/10
Greetings (De Palma, 1968) - 8/10
The Psychic (Fulci, 1977) - 8/10
Vampyros Lesbos (Franco, 1971) - 6/10

Parenthood (Howard, 1989) - 0/10

Here's where I have my Ebert hat on about "is it as good as a movie of its type could be?" to which in this case I unequivocally say hell yes.

the movie kept promising a payoff

I posted about the Coppola film a few weeks ago. I didn't think it was inept, but yeah, it just didn't go anywhere at all. (The big father-daughter confrontation almost felt like Coppola was aware of that too and tried to gin up something--though I did wonder if Jones was airing specific grievances Sofia harbored towards her own father.) Bill Murray used to surprise regularly, now he plays Bill Murray; Jones was very good in her small Social Network role--capturing her character's arm's-length sympathy for Zuckerberg--but to me didn't have anywhere near enough presence to carry the movie.

Parenthood (Howard, 1989) - 0/10

Here's where I have my Ebert hat on about "is it as good as a movie of its type could be?" to which in this case I unequivocally say hell yes.

― On average, this critic grades 8.3 points lower than other critics (Eric H.), Tuesday, November 17, 2020 4:22 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

You're right, but this specific type of family film is something I find not only bad but objectionable and malicious at every level. Poison.

Haven't seen it since 1989, but on memory I'd at least give it 1/10 for Keanu in goofy teen mode.

In practice I found Parenthood the vulgar American equivalent of an Ozu comedy ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Obviously not remotely the hill I’m willing to die on, tho.

The cultural & language barrier cannot be understated but I could see that. My problems with Parenthood are with the kind of film it is, and how it promotes and reinforces malignant American family dynamics, even as it lightly criticizes some of them (the Rick Moranis character, for example). As you said, it's the A1 version of this type of movie, great cast and competently made as almost everything Howard has done is competently made (I don't mean that as an insult, I think he gets ragged on too often). I just find the specific relationships, dynamics, and values it presents and promotes as hideous and damaging and disgusting.

Agree on Keanu tho

Phantasm (Coscarelli, 1979) - 4/5
Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Hooper, 1973) 5/5
Rabid (Cronenberg, 1978) 4/5
Shivers (Cronenberg, 1975) 3/5
Let’s Scare Jessica to Death (Hancock, 1971) 4/5
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (Kaufman, 1978) 3.5/5

Ash is Purest White (Zhangke, 2018) 4.5/5
Close Encounters of the Third Kind (Spielberg, 1977) 4/5
Beau Travail (Denis, 1999) 4.5/5

Rabid, Close Encounters and Texas Chainsaw were rewatches, though it'd been decades. TCM actually surprised me at how scary it still was. Visceral, sticky, sweaty...from what I read the conditions were rough during filming; it comes across. Also mobiles out of human bones. Rabid seemed like a more refined version of Shivers, fewer straggly threads and tighter editing. Body Snatchers was missing something. Maybe it was a plot? Or that they kept hiding under stairs? I felt like the tension could have been ramped up far better and Nimoy was wasted. Awesome effects, though. Also Donald Sutherland's creamy voice sometimes bugs me.

Phantasm was a pleasant surprise...excellent atmosphere, the tall man was chilling and great fx.

oh, I thought you gave Phantasm a negative 4 out of 5 lol

Memories of Murder (6.0)
Halloween (8.0)
Jimmy Carter: Rock & Roll President (7.0)
The Social Dilemma (6.5)
The Untouchables (7.0)
Lovelace (6.5)
The New Corporation (7.0)
Gas Food Lodging (7.5)
Casualties of War (10.0)
Picture My Face: The Story of Teenage Head (6.0)

*Say it With Songs (Bacon, 1929)
Zaza (Dwan, 1923)
The Spieler (Garnett, 1928)
It Pays to Advertise (Tuttle, 1931)
So's Your Old Man (La Cava, 1926)
After Dark (Parker, 1933)
*Abbott and Costelle Meet Frankenstein (Barton, 1948)
A Ten-Minute Egg (McCarey, 1924)
The Misfit (Austin & Cook, 1924)
*Bumping Into Broadway (Roach, 1919)

The Falcon and the Snowman (Schlesinger, 1985) - 8/10
Dollar (Mollander, 1938) - 7/10
*The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (Fassbinder, 1972) - 10/10
Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets (Ross Brothers, 2020) - 9/10
*Only Angels Have Wings (Hawks, 1939) - 10/10
Scarlet Street (Lang, 1945) - 9/10
*California Split (Altman, 1974) - 10/10
The Moment of Truth (Rosi, 1965) - 8/10
*Young Mr. Lincoln (Ford, 1939) - 10/10
The Beast (Borowczyk, 1975) - 8/10
*Lola (Fassbinder, 1981) - 10/10
I Used to Go Here (Rey, 2020) - 4/10
*Veronika Voss (Fassbinder, 1982) - 10/10
*The Social Network (Fincher, 2010) - 8/10
Dillinger is Dead (Ferreri, 1969) - 10/10
Les Creatures (Varda, 1966) - 7/10
Tootsie (Pollack, 1982) - 8/10
Variety (Gordon, 1983) - 8/10
*L’avventura (Antonioni, 1960) - 9/10
Ham on Rye (Taormina, 2020) - 8/10
*The King of Comedy (Scorsese, 1983) - 10/10
Vitalina Varela (Costa, 2020) - 7/10
The Silent Partner (Duke, 1978) - 8/10

1/2 Japanese The Band That Would Be King
Biography of the band . Came out in 92 and I just found it on Demonoid which I only discovered was running again last week.
Quite interesting I guess. Makes me want to listen to some of their stuff.
Hadn't realised Penn Jilette was one of the people behind 50 Squidillion Watts.
The Fairs seem resolutely geeky.
& Don Fleming seemed surprisingly young as anew interviewee.
Also not sure if I've seen Byron Coley on screen before or if he was playing a part here instead of being more directly himself. Same with Gérard Cosloy.

That was supposed to be an interviewee not sure where anew came from.

didn't realise demonoid was still going in a meaningful sense - as in the unique torrents that weren't anywhere else, where are they these days?

That 1/2 Japanese doc is really good. Same guy who did the Daniel Johnston one. The DVD had a big pull quote on the front from a critic that was like “The funniest rock movie since Spinal Tap!” which always irritated the fuck out of me and really misrepresented the band and doc. It is funny. And they’re goofy. But I’ve met the Fair brothers a few times, know people who have worked with David for years, and that childlike sense of play and joy in creativity they exude is very real and fucking dope.

first man (2018 chazelle) 9/10
the nest (2020 durkin) 5.5/10
possessor (2020 b cronenberg) 5/10
on the rocks (2020 s. coppola) 6/10
the human stain (2003 benton) 6/10
*rebecca (1940 hitchcock) 8/10
rebecca (2020 wheatley) 5/10
*the 39 steps (1935 hitchcock) 9/10
*the tenant (1976 polanski) 8.5/10
brief encounter (1945 lean) 9/10

the nest really didn't do much for me

Young Romance (Melford, 1915)
Oh, Doctor! (Pollard, 1925)
Thanksgiving Day (Foy, 1928)
Glorious Betsy (Crosland, 1928)
The Last Vermeer (Friedkin, 2019)
The Thing From Another World (Nyby, 1951)
*It's Me (Sweet, 1927)
*Won in a Closet (Normand, 1914)
*Jus' Passin' Through (Chase, 1923)

November:

The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On (Hara, 1987) 9/10 DVD
Pulse (Kurosawa, 2001) 6/10 DVD
The Witch Who Came From the Sea (Cimber, 1976) 6/10 BLU-RAY (part of the American Horror Project 1 box)
Slow Motion (Godard, 1980) 8/10 DVD
Raw Deal (Mann, 1948) 8/10 (John Alton the star once again) YouTube
Eyeball (Lenzi, 1975) 6/10 (travelog-giallo is my new favourite kind of giallo) BLU-RAY
How Green Was My Valley (Ford, 1941) 7/10 YouTube
House of Bamboo (Fuller, 1955) 8/10 (again, 8 out 10 as much for the widescreen technicolour travelog aspects, 50s Japan looking amazing throughout) DVD
The Chase (Ripley, 1946) 7/10 YouTube
Mikey and Nicky (May, 1976) 8/10 YouTube (cheeky upload of the Criterion print)
M (Losey, 1951) 7/10 YOUTUBE (Again, a pristine print of a film that has never had a proper physical media release in the UK)
They Drive by Night (Walsh, 1940) DVD 7/10
The Reckless Moment (Ophuls, 1949) YouTube 7/10
Attack of the Crab Monsters (Corman, 1957) YouTube 6/10
At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul (Marins, 1964) 6/10 DVD (first Coffin Joe)
Way Out West (Horne, 1937) 8/10 (L&H) YouTube
Blonde Cobra (Jacobs, 1963) 8/10 YouTube
Hold Me While I'm Naked (Kuchar, 1966) 8/10 YouTube
Report (Conner, 1965) 9/10 YouTube
The Damned (Visconti, 1969) 6/10 - with all the zoom shots and all the Nazipoitaton, this is more like a Jess Franco film than anything else DVD
The Ox-Bow Incident (Wellman, 1942) 7/10 YouTube
And Now the Screaming Starts! (Baker, 1973) 6/10 DVD
Not of this Earth (Corman, 1957) 7/10 YouTube
West Side Story (Wise, Robbins 1961) 6/10 - some of the colours/sets reminded me of original series Star Trek DVD
Alligator (Teague, 1980) 7/10 Robert Forster in the lead, great John Sayles script, def a superior giant X movie YouTube

Waaaay too low for "How Green Was My Valley"

M (Losey, 1951) 7/10 YOUTUBE (Again, a pristine print of a film that has never had a proper physical media release in the UK)

I don't know about the UK, but in the US the rights reverted from Columbia to the Nebenzal family, who for whatever reason have not authorized a legitimate release.

*Duck Soup (McCarey, 1933)
Parting Glances (Sherwood, 1986)
Dames (Enright, 1934)
Lenny (Fosse, 1974)
*Modern Romance (Brooks, 1981)
Suspense (Tuttle, 1946)
The Count of Monte Cristo (Lee, 1934)
*Dressed to Kill (De Palma, 1980)
High Plains Drifter (Eastwood, 1973)
Ugetsu (Mizoguchi, 1953)

(it was purely by accident that I happened to watch two covert ghost stories back to back)

We watched Crip Camp, which was inspiring.

At the Party (Foy, 1929)
Hell's Heels (Lantz, 1930)
Mickey's Orphans (Gillett, 1931)
Summer Daze (Ray, 1932)
I Take This Woman (Gering, 1931)
Christmas Inventory (Gomes, 2000)
Snow Time (Davis & Foster, 1930)
Lady and Gent (Roberts, 1932)
A Little Girl Who Did Not Believe in Santa Claus (Dawley & Porter, 1907)
White Woman (Walker, 1933)
A Christmas Carol (Greenwood, 1923)
Family Life (Kerr, 1924)
Pants (Becker, 1919)

I thought "Shithouse" was really good, super sweet. I hope whoever is in charge of marketing, as well as being capable of getting over the hurdle of the terrible title, can find a way to push it as well as "Palm Springs," wherever it lands, because it's got a very similar vibe despite being less silly and all around much better.

Don’t Touch the White Woman! (Ferreri, 1974) - 10/10
*Shock Corridor (Fuller, 1963) - 9/10
*The Niklashausen Journey (Fassbinder, 1970) - 9/10
War on Everyone (McDonagh, 2016) - 7/10
*The Naked Kiss (Fuller, 1964) - 9/10
Army of Shadows (Melville, 1969) - 9/10
*The Searchers (Ford, 1956) - 10/10
Possessor (Cronenberg, 2020) - 10/10
Othello (Welles, 1952) - 10/10
*The Other Guys (McKay, 2011) - 8/10
Murder Rock: Dancing Death (Fulci, 1984) - 9/10
Tales of Ordinary Madness (Ferreri, 1981) - 10/10
The Woman in the Window (Lang, 1944) - 7/10
The Verdict (Lumet, 1982) - 8/10
*The Third Generation (Fassbinder, 1979) - 10/10
Out of the Past (Tournier, 1947) - 8/10
City Hall (Wiseman, 2020) - 10/10
*Death in Venice (Visconti, 1971) - 10/10
*La Cérémonie (Chabrol, 1995) - 9/10
The Landlord (Ashby, 1970) - 7/10
Millenium Mambo (Hou, 2001) - 8/10
The Taking of Pelham One, Two, Three (1974, Sargent) - 9/10
Séance on a Wet Afternoon (Forbes, 1963) - 6/10
Straight Time (Grosbard, 1978) - 9/10

Possessor is 9/10

*Shock Corridor (Fuller, 1963) - 9/10
*The Naked Kiss (Fuller, 1964) - 9/10
*The Searchers (Ford, 1956) - 10/10
Othello (Welles, 1952) - 10/10
City Hall (Wiseman, 2020) - 10/10
*La Cérémonie (Chabrol, 1995) - 9/10

goddamn, you went through a handful of some of my favorite films just lately!

Lovers Rock (2020) 4/5
* Masque of the Red Death (1964) 4/5
* Robocop 5/5
Mank (2020) 2/5
* Space is the Place (1974) 3.5/5
* Rapture (1965) 3.5/5
Law and Order (1969) 3.5/5
A Touch of Sin (2013) 4/5
* Housekeeping (1987) 4.5/5
The Joy of Life (2005) 3.5/5
* Soul Power (2008) 3.5/5
* When We Were Kings (1996) 5/5
Blondie Johnson (1933) 3.5/5
Gold Diggers of 1933 4/5
The Comfort of Strangers (1990) 3/5
The Most Dangerous Game (1932) 4/5
Black Mother (2018) 4/5

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

― brooklyn suicide cult (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, September 22, 2020 10:42 AM

I wish we knew what Morbs watched after these. For closure's sake, I'm going to imagine that his sister found a scrap of paper with the name of a single Spielberg film and "(10/10)." Rosebud. Please tell me if that comes across as weird or insensitive; I don't have a good gauge for those things.

According to his Letterboxd log here's everything he watched following the batch quoted above:

Sons of the Desert (Seiter, 1933) 5/5
A Fistful of Dollars (Leone, 1964) 4/5
Adoration (Egoyan, 2008) 2/5
Graduate First (Pialat, 1978) 3.5/5
The Crowd Roars (Hawks, 1932) 3.5/5

Ah, I never think of Letterboxd, thanks.

ty for the update

I am pleased he got to see duck soup one more time

And Sons of the Desert!

Citizen Kane (10.0)
Mank (6.0)
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (7.0)
Hillbilly Elegy (5.5)
Affairs of State (2.0)
Blume in Love (6.5)
Mario Puzo's The Godfather, Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone (5.0)
The Parallax View (7.0)
The Killing of a Sacred Deer (6.5)
The Net (6.5)

I have no excuse for last rating, other than to say it’s an example, for me, of some of what I was trying to say in this thread: NYT: The 25 Greatest Actors of the 21st Century. Early in her career, I really liked Sandra Bullock.

The Loveless (Bigelow, Montgomery, 1981)
Joint Security Area (Park, 2000)
Influenza (Bong, 2004)
Rabid (Cronenberg, 1977)
Season of the Witch (Romero, 1973)
The Killers (Tarkovsky, Beiku, Gordon, 1956)
Camera (Cronenberg, 2000)
Trouble in Paradise (Lubitsch, 1932)
Pool Sharks (Middleton, 1915)
The Servant (Losey, 1963)
Stand Up (Pierre, 2008)
Beau Travail (Denis, 1999)
The Underneath (Soderbergh, 1995)
*The Host (Bong, 2006)
The Fatal Glass of Beer (Bruckman, 1933)
Bacurau (Filho, Dornelles, 2019)
Jimi Could Have Fallen from the Sky (Nance, 2017)
Audience (Hammer, 1983)
Night Nurse (Wellman, 1931)
Ordinary People (Redford, 1980)
The Vast of Night (Patterson, 2020)
The Barber Shop (Ripley, 1933)
Zappa (Winter, 2020)
*House (Obayashi, 1977)
Robots of Brixton (Tavares, 2011)
The Awful Truth (McCarey, 1937)

Boy, which of you recommended "Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets"? I loved it. These brother filmmakers, or the Safdie brothers ... there are apparently a lot of brothers making these weird pseudo-verite movies that blur the edges of documentary and narrative.