Last (x) movies you saw (II)

damn straight thank it

charming but kinda dull. finale on Big Ben makes it worth it

wait, did you edit your post? I've never read this before

need to get around to "ending things"

xp Finale's got cool Cary-Grant-Mount-Rushmore vibes but otherwise I didn't really take to any of the characters (scottish mouse girl excepted), and since the animation looks kinda cheap there's nothing for me to gawk at, hence me finding it a touch dull in places.

forks did you like S,NY? It really is the last half hour of all that kaleidoscopic meta shit stretched to a whole movie.

(I was elegantly and deftly shoehorning the Big Ben bongs bit in)*

tonight I will be captain obliviousness

Dredd (Pete Travis, 2012) - top-tier comic book-to-movie IMO

ya it's good (though doesn't adapt much of what Dredd's about), saw it in 3D on release so fear that rewatching on a TV would be a disappointment.

icyc, Alex Garland is totally the "author" of the film: as well as writing and producing, he was on set throughout, and Urban openly said in promo that he ignored Travis and asked all his questions of Garland (then came out six years later and said "be clear, Garland directed that movie and it should 100% be the first thing on his filmography.") Travis was locked out of post and the edit, and Garland only agreed to not formally seek a co-director credit after press leaks & some negotiating that ended up with a teeth-gritted press release, eleven months before the film came out, saying that Travis had agreed to "an unorthodox collaboration" when taking the job and everybody was proud of their work.

I didn't know any of this until Urban went fuck it, mask helmet off in 2018, but! Garland and (Beach producer) Andrew Macdonald had done the press tour in Australia. A reporter or three asked why Travis wasn't there to answer their questions, like they were being shortchanged. MacDonald started saying (pp) "filmmaking is a delicate weft of many skills and collaborators, a tapestry crafted by many hands," and Garland cut in with "look, if you've got someone who wrote the thing and produced the thing and hired the designers and worked with them for a year before hiring someone to run the camera department for a few weeks, then carried on making the film for over a year afterward, why not accept that they might know something about it, and ask him?"

Which was such an otm decentering of the default conceit of director as author that it was almost a letdown to read Urban go "nah he directed it."

*((also I'm not watching any of the M&C movies - 100% cannot concentrate on an animated feature 51 weeks into lockdown - so genuinely was surprised by the reference here: would have been mostly tuned out & waiting for the box office game if they did the bit on the ep))

NotEnough are you following along with the Blank Check podcast?

Last (x) movies you saw (II)

forks did you like S,NY?

I didn't know any of that about Dredd! I love how we get straight into Dredd just doing his job, like this is just another day on the beat. Turns out we don't need 45mins of teenage Dredd becoming a cop because a gang member shot his dad.

Following along with blank check is a good exercise in calibration for me. I usually only watch movies that have a good rep or I'm otherwise predisposed to like, and BC's stubbornness in watching a whole filmography, even the shit ones, forces me to reckon with bad movies on an contextual level, rather than the tediousness of HDTGM or the like.

I love how we get straight into Dredd

"filmmaking is a delicate weft of many skills and collaborators, a tapestry crafted by many hands,"

Save it for the AVN Awards speech, pal.

xpost Earned a lot of comparisons to "The Raid" for that reason, didn't it? It's a funny coincidence, since "The Raid" had only just come out the year before, so it's not like someone (let alone Garland) saw that and immediately decided to make a movie about a badass storming an apartment tower.

you're right about that.

Seeing The Raid in a crowded theater was a great movie experience.

Dredd was shot before The Raid was.

Journey to the Beginning of Time (1955) 4/5
* Beau Travail (1999) 4.5/5
My Little Chickadee (1940) 2/5 the anti-Native American racism is off the scale here.
Innocent Blood (1992) 2.5/5 Seeing Don Rickles and various Sopranos actors deal with vampirism is fun but John Landis brings nothing to this.
Can't Get You Out of My Head: An Emotional History of the Modern World (2021) 4/5
Green Snake (1993) 4.5/5
Judas and the Black Messiah (2021) 3.5/5
Angel Heart (1987) 3.5/5
The Tall Target (1951) 4/5
The Loveless (1981) 3/5 Even though she co-directed it, hard to believe Kathryn Bigelow's first film is so languidly paced.
Morocco (1930) 3.5/5

Friends Of Mr. Sweeney (Ludwig, 1934)
Hula (Fleming, 1927)
The Flying Ace (Norman, 1926)
High Stakes (Sherman, 1931)
The Phantom of the Air (Taylor, 1933)
Moran of the Lady Letty (Melford, 1922)
Nomadland (Zhao, 2020)
Devil Doll (Shonteff, 1964)
An Expensive Visit (Louis, 1915)
The Serenade (Louis, 1916)
Collars and Cuffs (Jeske, 1923)
When Knights Were Cold (Fouce?, 1923)

second half of february

The Big Short (McKay, 2015) 5/10 feels like homework
Sons of the Desert (William A. Seiter, 1933) 8/10
*Saboteur (Hitchcock, 1942) 6/10 the one with the statue of liberty, not the one with the bomb on the bus

criterion channel:
Bell Book and Candle (Quine, 1958) 7/10 mostly for being made right after vertigo
The Chase (Arthur Ripley, 1946) 7/10
She Done Him Wrong (Lowell Sherman, 1933) 5/10
My Little Chickadee (Cline, 1940) 5/10 love seeing margaret hamilton
Journey to Italy (Rossellini, 1954) 9/10
The Golden Coach (Renoir, 1952) 10/10 english language version, my first 10/10 on first watch in quite a while
Images (Altman, 1972) 6/10 a dry run for 3 women
The Great Mouse Detective (Clements & Musker, 1986) 4/10
Disney Howard (Disney, 20Disney) 5/10

shorts
A Fraternity Mixup (1926) on ben model's live show
My Dad is 100 Years Old (Maddin, 2005)
*Diatoms (Painlevé, 1968)
Lick the Star (Sofia Coppola, 1998)

Feb:

Born to Win (Passer, 1971) 7/10 YOUTUBE
Devil Girl From Mars (MacDonald, 1954) 5/10 DVD
King Rocker (Cumming, 2021) 7/10 SKY ARTS
Boomerang! (Kazan, 1947) 7/10 DVD
The Painted Bird (Marhoul, 2019) 6/10 MUBI
Whistle and I'll Come to You (Miller, 1968) 8/10 YOUTUBE - part of the Scorsese/Wright/Tarantino British cinema list
Fantastic Planet (Laloux, 1973) 7/10 MUBI
Strongroom (Sewell, 1962) 8/10 YOUTUBE - part of the Scorsese/Wright/Tarantino British cinema list
Mothra vs Godzilla (Honda, 1964) 7/10 DVD
Death in Venice (Visconti, 1971) 8/10 DVD
I Bury the Living (Albert Band, 1958) 7/10 YOUTUBE - an ILX old horror film thread recommendation
Thelma (Trier, 2017) 6/10 DVD - an ILX new horror film thread recommendation
A High Wind in Jamaica (Mackendrick, 1965) 7/10 YOUTUBE - part of the Scorsese/Wright/Tarantino British cinema list
Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster (Honda, 1964) 7/10 DVD
*Stalker (Tarkovsky, 1979) 9/10 BLU-RAY

Gotta go back to Fantastic Planet. I remember loving it in all its hippy-dippyness - in my memory its a 9.

Love Stalker. The way it was described to me before my first watch made it sound like the Dark Souls of movies but its really not. It manages to avoid being a slow movie by somehow making the audience's universe slow down to match its pace.

Ward, I also looked up Strongroom as the most compellingly-discussed film in that podcast - but startled you'd not seen Whistle And before! I was shown it the only time I visited HC near Christmas, on the grounds that it was an essential part of the season.

Trees Lounge (Buscemi 1996)
How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying (Swift, Fosse, Loesser, Burrows, Weinstock, Gilbert, after Mead 1967)
The Silent Partner (Duke, Hanson 1978) ⚰️⚰️⚰️⚰️
The Sound Of Music (Wise, Lehman, Lindsay, Crouse, Rodgers, Hammerstein, von Trapp, Hurdalek 1965) ⚰️
Citizen Ruth (Payne, Taylor 1996)
* Goodfellas (Scorsese, Pileggi 1990)
* Pulp Fiction (Tarantino, Avary 1994)
Thief (Mann after "Hohimer" 1981)
The Misfits (Huston, Miller 1961)
Mikey And Nicky (second director's cut) (Elaine May 1976)
* Submarine (Ayoade after Dunthorne 2010)
Small Axe: Education (McQueen, Siddons 2020)
Barb & Star Go To Vista Del Mar (Josh Greenbaum, Annie Mumolo, Kristen Wiig 2020/21)
* Mad Max:Fury Road (Miller, McCarthy, Lathouris 2015)
The Kid Detective (Morgan 2020)
* Magic Mike (Soderbergh, Carolin 2012)
* The Invisible Man (Whannell 2020)
* Sunset Boulevard (Wilder, Brackett 1950)

NON-FICTION
In & Of Itself (DelGaudio, Oz 2020)
Easy Riders, Raging Bulls (Bowser after Biskind 2003)
* Not Quite Hollywood (Hartley 2008)

SHORTS:
Sunday Dinner (Mead, Fanelli 2021)
Wise Girl (Swinfen 2019)
Bald (Lucas 1971)
Khaite (Baker 2021)

Sic, yes, Whistle And is fairly frequently shown on UK TV and I'd certainly seen bits of it before, but had probably not actually sat down and watched it all in one go until I went through the Scorsese list recently, adding things to my YouTube likes. I did see the later BBC version when it was broadcast a few years ago - it wasn't v good!

coffins: how many times you fell asleep?

how good this Christopher Plummer movie was

Sylvie et le Fantôme (Autant-Lara, 1946) - 6/10
*L’argent (Bresson, 1983) - 10/10
The Big Fix (Kagan, 1978) - 6/10
*Pierrot le Fou (Godard, 1965) - 9/10
Mamma Roma (Pasolini, 1962) - 8/10
Bush Mama (Gerima, 1979) - 9/10
*Weekend (Godard, 1967) - 8/10
Becky (Milott, 2020) - 4/10
Smooth Talk (Chopra, 1985) - 8/10
Platinum Blonde (Capra, 1931) - 5/10
*À nos amours (Pialat, 1983) - 8/10
*Inside Man (Lee, 2006) - 8/10
*Vagabond (Varda, 1985) - 8/10
Bringing Out the Dead (Scorsese, 1999) - 8/10
*Satan’s Brew (Fassbinder, 1976) - 9/10
The Last Mistress (Breillat, 2007) - 9/10
*Eating Raoul (Bartel, 1982) - 10/10
The Gospel According to Matthew (Pasolini, 1964) - 9/10
Figures in a Landscape (Losey, 1970) - 6/10

Vittorio de Seta shorts: Islands of Fire (1954), Orgosolo's Shepherds (1958), Golden Parable (1955), Solfatara (1955), Easter in Sicily (1955), The Age of Swordfish (1954)
Neat (Altrogge, 2018)
M le maudit (Chabrol, 1982)
My Dad Is 100 Years Old (Maddin, 2005)
Holiday (Cukor, 1938)
Vitalina Varela (Costa, 2019)
Accidence (Maddin, Johnson, Johnson, 2018)
Stump the Guesser (Maddin, Johnson, Johnson, 2020)
Glorious (Maddin, 2008)
The Tall Target (Mann, 1951)
Bringing Up Baby (Hawks, 1938)
Home of the Brave (Anderson, 1986)
Joker (Phillips, 2019)
Vendetta of a Samurai (Mori, 1952)
Only Dream Things (Maddin, 2012)
*How to Take a Bath (Maddin, 2009)
*Lady Vengeance (Park, 2005)
Paris Is Burning (Livingston, 1990)

Bringing Out the Dead (Scorsese, 1999) - 8/10

was just thinking about this the other day, how it was a few years too soon for the memification of gonzo cage performances, whereas if the exact same project was announced today it would be pretty much all the internet would talk about for a year

Completely. Very good movie. Don't make me take off my sunglasses

Atlanta (S1/S2--7.5)
Inventing the Abbotts (7.0)
The Royal Tennenbaums (7.5)
The Sunshine Makers (6.5)
Capote (7.5)
Shirley (6.5)
Everybody Wants Some!! (5.0...I mean, 5.0!!)
Dead to Me (S1/S2--6.0)
A Man for All Seasons (7.0)
Morvern Callar (--)

I finished Morvern Callar but don't feel like I can rate it. I watched a DVD at home with no captioning: between that, poorly mixed sound (the music was twice as loud as the voices, so I had the volume down a bit), and, always tough for me, accents, I'm lucky if I picked up 30% of the dialogue. I think it's a film I could like, but hearing it would be the first step.

The Love Trap (Wyler, 1929)
A Blasted Event (Goulding, 1934)
Walk Cheerfully (Ozu, 1930)
That Night's Wife (Ozu, 1930)
Woman of Tokyo (Ozu, 1933)
Submarine (Capra, 1928)
A Merchant of Menace (Sweet, 1933)
The Thing That Couldn't Die (Cowan, 1958)
Bashful (Goulding, 1917)
Ice Cold Cocos (Lord, 1926)
One A.M. (Chaplin, 1916)

working on a longer post, because it's been a long time since I did this and I want to write more, but posting this in advance/separately because a) I want to emphasize it and b) the offer is open:

The Dancing Hawk (Królikiewicz, 1978)- THIS MOVIE FUCKS. Hadn't seen it or even heard of it before my current Polish cinema seminar (apart from a lauded repertory showing at Berlinale 2009 it's basically unreleased on home media; I think this was a rip from Polish TV with subtitles by my professor) but it's shot by Zbigniew Rybczyński and has the same careening lunatic energy as his work on Gerard Kargl's Angst, maybe even more so with Królikiewicz's scrambling of perspective, time, etc. For real, if that sounds remotely interesting to you hit me up and I will share a copy; this movie deserves to be seen.

Thought "Judas and the Black Messiah" was pretty average, which I guess makes it a missed opportunity, given the quality of the actors and the importance of the story. Nitpick: we kept watching thinking, huh, for a period piece set in Chicago, with classic cars and perfect period fashions, it's awfully strange that there's not been a single shot identifying this *as* Chicago. And indeed, it was filmed in Cleveland.

* The Lady Eve (1941) 4.5/5
Killing Them Softly (2012) 2/5. The Studio 60 of mob movies
The Hole (1998) 4/5
The Seventh Curse (1986) 4/5. the logic of this movie is insane. Like they let a 9-year-old boy with a gory imagination plot an Indiana Jones movie.
* Brief Encounter (1945) 5/5
Blonde Venus (1932) 3/5

*Numbered Men (LeRoy, 1930)
The Trumpet Blows (Roberts, 1934)
Behind the Mask (Dillon, 1932)
So This Is Marriage (Barker, 1929)
High Hats and Low Brows (Sweet, 1932)
The New Gentlemen (Feyder, 1929)
*The Mystery of the Wax Museum (Curtiz, 1933)
Carmen, Jr. (Goulding, 1923)
He Wouldn't Stay Down (Chase, 1915)
The House of Flickers (Stoloff, 1925)

A little overwhelmed by research right now so...just gonna dump my Letterboxd

https://letterboxd.com/ryanhupp/films/diary/

what made Halloween 6 get half a star better on the rewatch?

The producer's cut, which is marginally less crap? It's missing the charming goofiness of the big room full of evil fetuses and Michael being full of Nickelodeon Gak, but the cult angle is better developed, there's more Pleasance, and a more traditional Howarth score instead of the HEY KIDS! GUITARS! dogshit in the theatrical cut. It's a pretty substantial difference- 38 minutes of alternate takes & footage, iirc.

I've been going through them (slowly, as fewer are available to stream without a rental than F13) for Matt Gourley and Paul Rust's podcast, which has been a decent impetus to sit down and watch something instead of just staring at the ceiling this year.

RELEASE THE MYERS CUT

Bamako (Sissako, 2006) - 8/10
La truite (Losey, 1982) - 7/10
*Let the Sunshine In (Denis, 2017) - 9/10
Gwendoline (Jaeckin, 1984) - 7/10
Deaf (Wiseman, 1986) - 10/10
*Hardcore (Schrader, 1979) - 10/10
Nationtime (Greaves, 1972) - 8/10
The Set-Up (Wise, 1949) - 8/10
*Rebels of the Neon God (Tsai, 1992) - 9/10
Billy Bathgate (Benton, 1991) - 5/10
*Les Rendez-vous d’Anna (Akerman, 1978) - 10/10
Epicentro (Sauper, 2020) - 8/10
Blind (Wiseman, 1987) - 9/10
Medea (Pasolini, 1969) - 7/10
*Taste of Cherry (Kiarostami, 1997) - 10/10
The Mother and the Whore (Eustache, 1973) - 10/10
The Wayward Cloud (Tsai, 2005) - 10/10
The Eye of Vichy (Chabrol, 1993) - 8/10
*Certified Copy (Kiarostami, 2010) - 9/10
Private Parts (Bartel, 1972) - 7/10
*They All Laughed (Bogdanovich, 1981) - 10/10
Jasper Mall (Whitcomb, Thomason; 2020) - 7/10
Absolute Power (Eastwood, 1997) - 8/10
The Addiction (Ferrara, 1994) - 8/10
The Suspect (Siodmak, 1944) - 8/10
*Baal (Schlöndorff, 1970) - 8/10
*Wet Hot American Summer (Wain, 2001) - 10/10
Purple Noon (Clément, 1960) - 9/10
Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song (Van Peebles, 1972) - 6/10
I Don’t Want to Sleep Alone (Tsai, 2007) - 10/10

Morbs didn't

i have learned to love living and sleeping and alone

The Infernal Cauldron, The Pillar of Fire, The Diabolic Tenant, Inventor Crazybrains and his wonderful airship, Whimsical Illusions (Méliès)
Lovers Rock (McQueen 2020) 6/10
Goke, Body Snatcher from Hell (Hajime Sato 1968) 4/10
The Kid (not Disney's, 1921) 7/10
Class Action Park (2020) 6/10
Pokemon Detective Pikachu (the shark tale director, 2019) 5/10
Doctor Sleep (Flanagan 2019) 3/10 oddly terrible as a horror movie, basically alcoholic vs. vampires with a half hour of fanservice at the end
First Cow (Reichardt 2019) 8/10 i usually don't like slow-paced movies but i was rapt during this one
Son of Paleface (Tashlin 1952) 7/10 rip morbs
Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (Tashlin 1957) 9/10
Scoob! (WB, made in 2018, released 2020) 2/10 the first 12 minutes are fine
Spies in Disguise (2019) 5/10 i like that the kid really is weird
The Three Caballeros (some Disney guy, 1944) 5/10 donald duck sure is horny in this one
Uptight (Dassin 1968) 9/10 i watched this scene five times
The Verdict (Lumet, written by Mamet, 1982) 6/10 totally watchable despite newman's overacting and the unrealistic courtroom scenes

i watched this scene five times

tyvm

forgot to log in February:

Coming To America (Landis, Murphy, Blaustein, Sheffield 1988) 7/10

March:

* Cop Land (Mangold 1997) Gentleman's 6, ACAB
Coming 2 America (Brewer, Blaustein, Sheffield, Kanew, Barris 2020/21) maybe 3/10 on actually being good, and fucks up its own intent by making the plot about the journey of a previously unknown-to-anyone-in-the-fiction son of Eddie Murphy, when the plot motivator is the sexist tradition of the fictional kingdom. just make it about the eldest daughter, and Akeem changing the laws out of actual growth and love - the whole point of the first movie is that he broke the rules and could be changed by respect for women! BUT this followed on from Barb & Star (and to a degree, Kid Detective) in new releases that rubbed in how fucked over comedies are by the pandemic. the movie is mostly fanservice, but it is funny, and would have been great to sit in a roomful of people laughing and enjoying being serviced. Barb & Star though... I'd've gone back three times to catch missed jokes and enjoy people laughing if it had run a few weeks.
The Ratings Game (DeVito, Mulholland, Barrie 1984) - accidentally prescient now that TV ratings are literally fake. Gentleman's 6.
Teeth (Lichtenstein 2007) - accidentally great pick (made by the TV) for International Women's Day viewing: vagina dentata teen horror movie.
* How To Murder Your Wife (Quine, Axelrod 1965) - 7/10, best movie about the life of a comics artist ever. looked up Jack Lemmon's brownstone while watching and the decor was way more sterile last time it was sold, 48 years after filming
Judas And The Black Messiah (King, Lucas, Lucas, Berson 2021) - 2/10 some dece digital cinematography but really has nothing substantially distinct to say about Hampton or Hoover or the moment. would have been fun to spend more time with the fake FBI hustler version of Lakeith first, have him on his uppers and celebrate his rascality for a while, and then appreciate his altererd circs as a stooge and better see the Panthers through his eyes.
* What's So Bad About Feeling Good? (Seaton, Pirosh, McHugh 1968) - 8/10 second-best pandemic movie ever, best animal actor in a movie ever
Supercop (Weinsteined version of Police Story III) (Tong, Tang, Ma, Yee 1992/96) - the setpieces kinda just follow each other without ever selling the emotional repositioning of Jackie's character, but it's fine that Tong isn't concerned with this and 10/10 for the climactic car/scooter/helicopter/foot/train chase anyway
* My Blue Heaven (Herbert Ross, Nora Ephron 1990) - deliberately watched after last month's Goodfellas revisit to see how it plays as a sequel: pretty great tbh! Steve Martin's cartoon Mobtalian plays better in this sequence than Schwarzenegger would have, and the rest of the cast are likeable enough and universally annoyed by him that the clowning doesn't go too OTT. Gentleman's 6.
Looney Tunes: Back In Action (Dante, Doyle, Goldberg 2003) - speaking of Steve Martin going OTT with clowning. the goofery in this is good enough that if Dante had actually been in charge instead of fighting with Warner suits for 18 months it'd probably be 10/10, and on a big screen it probably plays as a 9 as is.
Sing Street (Carney, Clark &al. 2016) - 8/10 best movie about teenagers in the 1980s forming a band ever. Carney's other musicals looked cloying from ads/reviews, but came across this on TV (accidental St Patrick's Day viewing) and it's some kind of masterpiece. the songs and the hair/makeup/costuming might be a bigger part of this than the script.
The Heartbreak Kid (Elaine May, Neil Simon, after Bruce Jay Friedman 1972) - speaking of movies that would be better in a clean print in a room full of laughing people

NON-FICTION
Robert Zemeckis on Smoking, Drinking and Drugging in the 20th Century: In Pursuit of Happiness (Zemeckis 1999) - if Bobby had gotten more commissions for dementedly hyper-edited collage documentaries it might have saved us mocap superhero movies. curse you Showtime
For Madmen Only: The Stories of Del Close (Heather Ross 2020/21) - see comics thread

SHORTS
Kenzo World (Jonze 2017)
I Want To Get Into The Movies (Wright 1991)

There are a lot of gritty French crime movies on Netflix. This week I watched Burn Out, about a wannabe motorcycle racer who gets strong-armed into running packages for a drug dealer. Lots of excellent high-speed motorcycle footage, naturally, so worth watching if that's your thing.

Last night I tried to watch Spectral, which was a blatant Aliens ripoff (squad of soldiers enters isolated zone, gets attacked by Creatures) but with ghosts instead of aliens. There's even a precocious little kid who shows them the territory, teaches them about the ghosts' strengths and weaknesses, etc. It wasn't awful — James Badge Dale is the lead, and he's always good — but I gave up about an hour in.

Berlin: Symphony of a Great City (Ruttmann, 1927)
The Belle of Broadway (Hoyt, 1926)
Love on a Ladder (White, 1934)
The Whispering Shadow (Herman & Clark, 1933)
No Blood Relation (Naruse, 1932)
Sinister Hands (Schaefer, 1932)
The Shadow of the Cat (Gilling, 1961)
*An Eye for Figures (1920)
*Fadeaway (Fleischer, 1926)
Queen of Aces (Watson, 1925)