letterboxd, the vexing and sometimes OK film logging website

lol

I only recently started using the rating system again after abandoning it about a year ago in favour of either "liking" a film or not. Most of this was motivated by discovering that I have a pretty bad memory even for things that I've watched in the fairly recent past--did I only sorta like The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry when I watched it a few months ago, or did I actually dislike it?--but I kind of like believing that history will care about what I vaguely thought about some second-tier noirs and 80s teen films, so I'll play along.

I think of the star ratings as snapshots of how I felt on a certain day and fully expect them to change with every watch.

Every movie I see is a five-bagger tbrr

yeah but six bags is the highest rating, we talked about this

1950s version, from Yasunari Kawabata's Snow Country (which, truthfully, is boring me):

But even more than at the diary, Shimamura was surprised at her statement that she had carefully catalogued every novel and short story she had read since she was fifteen or sixteen. The record already filled ten notebooks.

"You write down your criticisms, do you?"

"I could never do anything like that. I just write down the author and the characters and how they are related to each other. That is about all."

"But what good does it do?"

"None at all."

stop yucking her yum, Kawabata

this is pretty self-indulgent but I'm enjoying the "how I letterboxd" profiles, this dude in particular has some great lists:

https://letterboxd.com/crew/story/how-i-letterboxd-justin-laliberty/

Blame me, not him--I cut the passage off before this:

He knew well enough for her that it was in fact no waste of effort, but somehow the final determination that it was had the effect of distilling and purifying the woman's existence.

There's a whole ad campaign right there. Letterboxd: distilling and purifying the existences of film lovers since 2011.

Justin's an interesting dude.

https://letterboxd.com/film/may-1-2020/

is this a real clusterfuck or a Kauffmanian bit?

have to admit I still haven't found the attention span to read a whole nathaxnne review

Last December, we followed each other on @letterboxd after posting five-star reviews of Mank. Five months later after 900 miles apart, we finally met up. Thank you Letterboxd and David Fincher! pic.twitter.com/xOuPUuPAa4

— Ben Crew - Muppets Great Gatsby (@BenjaminCrew1) May 3, 2021

it's nice that the only two Mank lovers found each other

I want to say that's better than coming together via their shared enthusiasm for Zodiac, but it's not.

If it was Zodiac that would be... ok, not awesome, but a lot better.

Everyone knows that true love can only bloom via a shared passion for Benjamin Button.

Love, forged through the fires of having endured The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo together.

I'd like to think I live in a world where nathaxnne is getting paid to write but I suspect that this world is not that world: https://letterboxd.com/unawarewolf/film/religulous/

good horror thesis here: https://letterboxd.com/mmmonty/film/friday-the-13th-the-final-chapter/

imo nathaxnne is low key doing her best work rn

https://letterboxd.com/unawarewolf/film/elvira-mistress-of-the-dark/
https://letterboxd.com/unawarewolf/film/desperately-seeking-susan/

I don't know that I've ever watched an 80s slasher and thought "these teens are cool"

I think the "paradox" in that Friday the 13th review is also just the hypocrisy at the heart of so much grindhouse entertainment, from slashers to gangster films to sexploitation: the viewer gets their vicarious kicks from characters breaking norms in ways they secretly would want to but also gets to see bourgeois morality win out in the end as the characters are punished for their infractions.

eh i personally do not think most of the villains in slasher films represent bourgeois morality

or that that’s even the dominating view of the filmmakers

eh i personally do not think most of the villains in slasher films represent bourgeois morality

No of course not, they represent the horrible forces of the id that bourgeois morality manages to oppress unleashed by the hedonistic behaviour of the sex crazed teens.

I don't think it's a "dominating view" in that I don't think most directors in the genre necessairly believe that, it's just a trope that's taken on a life of its own, which doesn't mean it doesn't reinforce that worldview.

more Acid Horror...

extremely deep (and short) cuts recommended as "acid horror" by the most dedicated (and intimidatingly knowledgeable) film nerd i know, V. Bercasi.

"It Has to Be Lived Once and Dreamed Twice," by Rainer Kohlberger, in the very new genre/movement of noise film:
info | interview | on ltrbxd

"Ms Hillsonga," by Arthur Jafa, a piece of 4 minutes' duration, soundtracked by Jeff Mills' "Medicine Man":
essay/critique | on ltrbxd | video

i tried to find any host for the first of those two. if someone more resourceful than i am could find a way to see it anywhere or how, i'd be thankful to know. Bercasi t*rrents them raw-dog via public trackers. also, because wow, here is his canon, the one accomplishment he's proud of on ltrbxd. i've seen 0% of it so far: baby's on fire.

i like LB but two things i find funny/annoying on there are

1. people who give a thorough breakdown of what their rating mean, like i know what five stars "means" dude
2. i would like it if there were some way to distinguish between between actually useful lists (if i see that a film is on a list called "acid horror" i know what that means and i can look at that list to find other films that have certain qualities in common with it) and ones that are entitled things like "makes u think" "films that just hit different" or whatever (which all seem to share about 80% of films in common). i also have a certain beef with the way that there are dozens of 'directed by women' lists, which just clogs up any film that is directed by a woman and can make it hard to wade through all that to find out more about it

the jafa film is on ubuweb

yeah as a new LB user, the proliferation of comprehensive lists like "every film that features a book" or "all european movies" or w/e has given me a pretty low appetite for spending time trawling through to find useful/interesting lists. would be nice if there was a way to filter lists by size, to avoid being shown lists w/more than 1000 entries or something

Has anyone made one of those lists along the lines of "movies with scenes inside a classroom"? And if so, can you drop a link here?

Some great short Acid Horror here, https://letterboxd.com/film/autoscopy/

well worth tracking down.

There's so many lists, there's really no need to hunt them down on your own. Just follow enough people and they'll show up organically in your feed.

clem: Movies Featuring Royal Dano as a Country Bumpkin Befuddled by an Invasion of Ridiculous Aliens

Yes, I'm just as obnoxious on other sites.

imo nathaxnne is low key doing her best work rn

https://letterboxd.com/unawarewolf/film/elvira-mistress-of-the-dark/
https://letterboxd.com/unawarewolf/film/desperately-seeking-susan/

― mellon collie and the infinite bradness (BradNelson), Friday, June 11, 2021 5:15 PM (three days ago) bookmarkflaglink

their review of ali: fear eats the soul made me tear up a little

https://letterboxd.com/adamt/list/movies-where-people-are-covered-in-molten/

xpost Oh sorry, maybe you specifically meant a list of movies featuring classroom scenes and not just any generic annoyingly hyperanal list that no one could possibly give two cares about.

The Lists function on mobile just keeps giving me the same six or five lists with v little turnover - and it's not like there aren't enough being published.

https://letterboxd.com/unawarewolf/film/celtic-frost-live-at-the-hammersmith-odeon-3389/

cold lake 4ever

The letterboxd top25 highest rated movies of the year so far list is interesting; combination of an international audience and the pandemic means there's lots of non-western fare on there.

https://letterboxd.com/crew/list/top-25-highest-rated-for-first-half-of-2021/

Enjoyed this review of The Great Indian Kitchen; more reviews should provide info as to whether the characters should be force-fed cow dung.

She is getting stuck in that filthy dirty fluid of expired beliefs, but the man too busy enjoying his sense of entitlement wouldn't bother to fix the sink. These patriarchal religious clowns really deserve to be forced to gulp fresh cow dungs down their throats in the name of old customs.

Shiva baby blows ass

that means it's great right?

I'll watch anything with Toronto & Reform Jews but Shiva Baby was pretty dire. Not much of Toronto (it's all indoors, moreorless, from ten minutes in) and the Jewishness was shticky and stereotyped. Reminded me of a bad fringe festival show that gets lucky with a good cast.

i liked Shiva Baby a lot!

in terms of (self-hating) Jewishness how does it rank compared to Uncut Gems

There’s nothing self-hating in Uncut Gems!!

Perfect Passover movie

There’s not enough insight about Jewishness in it to even begin self-hating

I didn't mind Shiva Baby, but I would have been just as happy watching Appropriate Behaviour again.

There’s nothing self-hating in Uncut Gems!!