Last (x) movies you saw (II)

xp did you forget to rate Body Heat or was it that bad?

Cairo Station 1958
Realist film about vendors at the main station in Cairo. A newsagent semi adopts a simple minded lame orphan and has him work for him. He has a fixation on one of the soft drink sellers which is not healthy. I think the portrayal of mental conditiions is a bit archaic but it is 60+ years old.
Good film, not sure if I got the full cut.

Black & White iN Colour 1976 Jean-Jacques Annaud
A group of French ex pat colonists in early 1915 discover there is a war on a little after the fact thanks to a bunch opf newspapers appearing in a package sent to a scientist who is living at the trading post. They decide to put a local platoon together and enlist the local native tribe members to join up with tehm to go and fight the Germans who live in the vicinity. The Germans have better technology and better military training for teh natives tehy have enlisted.
Kind of fun film I guess.
I was looking for films based in Africa during the First World War at the time I was reading David Olusoga's The World's War and i think this was one of theh titles I saw at the time but didn't watch until today. Interesting , shows the pointlessness of some local attempts ta aiding teh war effort.
Oddly this was a film that had initial titles in English so it presumably got a British release though it didn't have hardcoded subtitles apart from some for translating song lyrics from both the local tribal language and French. NOt sure why taht would be.

Cruella 2021 Craig Gillespie
prestory for the character famous from 101 Dalmations showing why she became what she is or the reinvention of that.
Weird sense of chronology and I think geography. I think it starts in 1961 and goes forward 10 years to somewhen around 1968.
Maybe that isn't as noticeable to people who haven't had 60s fixations and things but does seem not to really make sense.
Kind of groovy and fun and things and a bit knowing.
I enjoyed it for the most part though.
THough dunno about the invention of punk in school in whatever year that was. 61? & Bowie & the Stooges in 1968 or is it supposed to be early 70s? and a hint or 2 of punk .

Stella 1955 Michael Cacoyannis
Melina Mercouri's debut film where she plays a taverna singer and free spirit of the film title.
Sad film though it shows the extent of her free spirit and constraints presumably of the time. Wonder if things like the ending would be maintained if the film was made now. If gender imbalance has changed enough and so on, The film also hinges on things like jealousy and I'm not sure who comes out of this looking like they're living their best., BUt may reflect culture of the time I don't know.
Love the s/trk music. Hadjikadis is sublime.
Another Greek film where the subtitles are actually too fast when other things tend to be too slow. Or at least they turn up before the translated comment . Is that coincidence cos the other place I came across it was Never On Sunday. Thankfully got a different version of the same film that had the subtitles hardcoded. & then couldn't rewind. Not sure what the story is on that. if i tried to do so it kept going to the same spot in the film, timing totally messed up. Like its fixed on a landmark spot and is referencing from there not where i had watched to. ho hum.

Ascenseur Pour L'eschafaud 1958 Louis Malle
Thriller about an ex paratrooper who is having an affair with his boss's wife. He pulls a scam and makes his escape but when outside he notices an oversight so goes to return to the scene of teh crime to correct it, oddly enough this somehow gets corrected later anyway if you pay attention to the minor details in various scenes. When he goes to correct his mistake he leaves his car running and the hoodlum boyfriend of the local flower shop assistant goes to have a closer look at the car creating a 2nd plot. The boss's wife has been waiting for the ex-paratrooper who is otherwise stranded she spends a lot of the film looking for him.
I guess there is some level of atmosphere in the film and i has a famous improvised score by a Miles Davis band which it is famous for.
I'm not sure how classic a film it is. I even seem to have drifted off for 20 minutes when i was watching it so tried to catch that bit in a 2nd sitting. Or that is to say I fastforwarded to a bit I didn't recognise and it seemed to last about 20 minutes.
I think its well liked though.

Ali Fear Eats The Soul 1974 Renee Werner Fassbinder
An older German woman walks into an unfamiliar bar to escape the rain . A young Moroccan man comes over to talk to her. When she leaves he offers to walk her home. THings develop from there and she has to deal with the racism of mid 70s Germany.
Interesting film I guess. Interesting to see mid 70s attitudes which were presumably similar all across the First World and elsewhere.
I think the performances were decent. & i loved the music. Want to find out what it was especially that really liquid track that was playing when the group were playing whatever the game was in the bar later on in in the film.
Fassbinder appears as the slobby thuggish son-in-law who is first pictured being less than gentlemanly to his wife.

Baala 1978 Souleyman E Cisse
Film about characters in Mali in the late 70s. Hinghes around firstly a young porter who seems to be being heavily taken advantage of by his regular clients and then meets a young manager of a factory that makes waxed cotton fabric. Because of their interrelationship the young manager looks into the way workers are treated in his factory. Which annoys his boss who is having a negative relationship with his own wife.
It hung together quite well and had a pretty decent soundtrack. I liked the clothing design in this too.
& as a film it was quite good. Will check out more by the director since i have a couple more by him.

Bande A Parte 1964 Jean-Luc Godard
started watching this but I wasn't feeling it so may return to this shortly.
2 guys meet a girl at an English language course and decide to rob the place she lives in .
Think I will get back to this.

went onto
The Visit 1964 Bernhard Wicki
which is based on teh same play that the Senegalese film Hyenas was. THis is a European film with an international cast. I found the voices seemed to be processed . & the performances a bit stilted.
I thought I would compare the handling of the same source but again wasn't feeling it, may or may not get back to this.
which was when I looked through what i had on my memory stick and found

Battle of Algiers 1966 Gillo Pontecorvo
French language film by Italian film crew or at least Italian director, cinematographer and soundtrack writer.
Showing the liberation struggle for the country then colonised by France. A bunch of paratroopers lead by a war hero who has been in the resistance and Indochina and things have been brought in to defeat the FLN liberation group. Apparently forgetting that they had fought the Nazis to get to the point, though they do consciously address this did seem like becoming the oppressor is too easy for some people.

I don't think I had seen this before somehow, not sure how.
I think this was being shown quite regularly at the Scala when I was living in London.

MUna Moto 1975 Jean-Pierre Dikongue-Pipa
Sad story about a pair of lovers who want to get married trying to get money together to do so when the girl's father wanted a massive dowry including several comestibles and bottles of licquor and things.
Beautiful film I thought but pretty sad. Shows abuse of family dynamics and things. The guy has been promsed that his uncle will pay his dowry then something goes awry. Won't go any further into what cos taht would be a spoiler.
Interesting soundtrack which suddenly breaks into a biut of electric jazz that I think i recognise but couldn't quite place.

American Interior 2014 Dylan Goch Gruff Rhys
Documentary about teh ex Super Furry Animals singer's tour where he told the story of John Evans the late 18th century Welsh explorer who mapped teh Missouri while looking for a legendary Welsh Indian tribe descendents of 12th century Prince Madoc who had escaped Court intrigue by sailing to the New World apparently.
I've wanted to see this for a while but its been sitting incomplete on my torrent server for an age . So great, finally got to see it.

Re-watched Paul Schrader's Light Sleeper tonight via Amazon Prime. It's such an early 90s NYC time capsule it almost gave me vertigo. The cast is absolutely stacked with people who get one or two scenes, knock it out of the park, then vanish: David Spade, Sam Rockwell, Victor Garber, Jane Adams... If it wasn't for the overbearing songs on the soundtrack, it would be one of my favorite Schrader movies. Honestly, it still is.

Light Sleeper's soundtrack really ruined it for me. Pure Leonard Cohen-wannabe dreck.

Ta kokkina fanaria 1963 Vasilis Georgiadis
A film about the brothels in Troumba whose title translates as The Red Lights. Quite moving I thought , shows the love lives of several of those involved in one particular brothel on a street of them.
So a bit soapy possibly. One woman has a bit of an affair with a client she took the virginity of, one girl has been stranded in the brothel after having been jilted in a local hotel and is having to pay off a supposed debt to the madame and the pimp, one has been asked to marry a longterm client who agrees to adopt her son.
This wound up with the one copy of the film I could get hold of being a pretty large filesize, one of the largest I've come across at 2.4GB so had to have special provision made to clear space for it. So I watched it pretty much as soon as I had it on the memory stick or rather teh next day. Enjoyed it.

Symbiopsychotaxiplasm.Take.One 1968(?) William Greaves
Experimental film which was not released at the time and it seems that this version must have been worked up after that date. I sat watching it thinking it was odd that it featured parts of In A Silent Way as the soundtrack a year before it was released. I think it gives a date of 1971 in Roman numerals at the end as the version that has been restored too.
This basically shows several actors auditioning for a role for a supposed film which may or may not be actually being made as well as some focus on the film crew. I Think there wound up with 3 different film units being used to film each other.
Seems that the story being filmed is about a wife realising her husband is having a gay affair and challenging him about it.
IT looks like the film was not released at the time and only given a wider release when Steve Buscemi discovered teh film and got behind it in the early 90s. There wasa second part filmed in 2006 featuring the main 2 actors who were filmed as teh married couple. I haven't seen that bit.

Tabataba 1988 Raymond Rajaonarivelo
Village life is disturbed heavily by the Independence movement in post war Malagasy in 1947 as well as teh colonial backlash.
Short film at about 75 minutes. THis was the 2nd film I have managed to watch since finding an SRT translating programme. I think the translating works for the most part. Though it is obviously a machine translation and you do need to give it a bit of leeway and rethink phrasing in places.
Quite moving since the Malagasy attempting to rebel are stuck with really primitive weapons including wooden guns that are made effective by having bayonets attached as well as rocks being thrown and things.
Glad i saw this and managed to find the translation device.
Main character is a young ambitious boy who wants to be more of an adult and be more involved.

La ley de Herodes 1999 Luis Estrada
Mexican film about corruption.
An inept garbage dump manager is promoted to the role of mayor of a small backwater town through the agency of an old schoolfriend after the previous one has been decapitated by the locals after major grift. He is at first too honest to become involved in local bribery but then finds out how little funding he has without it and is told to try a bit of grift by the corrupt politician who had hi placed in the role.
He goes absolutely overboard .
KInd of amusing. Features Alex Cox as a Gringo engineer or conman who has conned the inept mayor into giving him a share of the graft over supposedly fixing a car that the mayor knows nothing about maintaining.

La ley de Herodes 1999 Luis Estrada

Saw this a million years ago, probably when it first popped up on home video. Had forgotten all about it until you described it.

Yeah. I should have added it seems like a Jim Thompson story. Cos that was an impression I was getting throughout.

Istoria mias kalpikis liras 1955 Yorgos Tzavellas
Slow omnibus film about the people who come in contact with a coin that a craftsman is conned into making . So includes 4 different stories , that of the counterfeiting the guy is conned into by an alluring woman pretending to be interested in him, causing him to spend all of his own money in the process of making the coin. THat's followed by a story about a fake blind beggar who gets involved with a prostitute that is vying for his regular begging pitch he's introduced by having the counterfeit coin dropped in his hand. Next a young girl who finds the coin on the street after it has dropped through a hole in a pocket, she is the daughter of a poor whitewasher and gives a rich miser a rethink. Final story is about a pair of young newlyweds who have married in a hurry to move into a garret flat and pursue his artistic vision.
NOt sure about this film. Seemed really slow but I didn't get a lot of sleep last night. BUt not sure about how fast a Greek film audience would want things at the timne. Maybe its a cultural thing , not sure yet.

The Spook Who Sat By The Door 1973 Ivan Dixon
A black agent is trained but initially only usedas a clerk before being reassigned and starting a race revolution.
I kept falling asleep during this so need to rewatch.
Seemed pretty cool though.
I just watcheda Black History Walks thing on 20 Black Films that had been banned which tied in with a BFI program that's been going on for th elast 15 years, So thought I would stick this on since i had it and it was talked about. But realising the lack of sleep was catching up with me.

when that ended it flowed into the next film on my memory stick
Cooley High 1975 Michael Schultz
pretty good thing about a group of black teens and their time in and around and ditching the school of teh title.
Seems anarchic, energetic and so on . Probably has too many things happening in too short a time that would be morer realistically spread out over longer time but that's like telescoping time in film innit.
Took this off about half way thropugh to go to bed.
Will get back to it though cos it is pretty great.

24 Hours To Live (Paul Anderson, but not either of the ones you're thinking of, 2017): Once again, the presence of Ethan Hawke proves to be a guarantee that what seems like a trashy genre movie will in fact be much better than expected.

Princess Charming (Elvey, 1934)
A Cuckoo in the Nest (Walls, 1933)
Stage Struck Susie (Burns, 1929)
Walking the Baby (Scotto, 1933)
A Lady to Love (Sjöström, 1930)
Lawrence of Arabia (Lean, 1962)
Call the Wagon (Sidney, 1923)
You're Next (Perez, 1919)

The Sparks Brothers (2021) 2.5/5. I really like these guys, so it sucks that Edgar Wright nearly ruined them for me. Covering every album gets to be an interminable approach when you have to hear a bunch of random dorks and comedians who haven't seemed cool since 2005 weigh in with comments like "woah... great album cover."
* Le Cercle Rouge (1970) 4.5/5.
Pandora and the Flying Dutchman (1951) 3.5/5. Mostly for Jack Cardiff. Gets off to an interesting, trancelike start before lagging at times.
The Street Fighter (1974) 3.5/5
A Very Curious Girl (1969) 4/5. Caught this before it left Criterion Channel. An almost shockingly modern sex worker revenge fantasy with Bunuel-like satirical elements. Wish I had gotten around to the other Nelly Kaplan films they had up.
Croupier (1998) 4/5
Johnny Mnemonic (1995) 3/5

Shorts:
Washingtonia (2014) 3.5/5
A Running Jump (2012) 3/5. Mike Leigh short funded to loosely tie in with the Olympics that year.

Cooley High 1975 Michael Schultz
Events surrounding some schoolfriends in Chicago in 1964. Mainly black cast, I think most of the white people represented are cops and authority figures though most of the figures of authority in the film are black too.
Enjoyed it greatly, great Motown soundtrack, seemed like a life to live though everybody is just getting by. One of the character's mothers is depicted as very tired from having to work 3 jobs.
A lot of their behaviour verges on the criminal which backfires on them but won't go into any further details.
I think it is regarded as a classic film now for good reason. Worth seeing if you haven't already.

Borom Sarret 1963 Ousmane Sembene
Short film about a peasant on the outskirts of Dakar trying to make a living with a horse and cart. NOt sure why it didn't have an English subtitle available so I had to run it through the srt translator. & again not that conspicuous for the most part but still trips over grammar in a couple of places.
Moving film I thought, won't give spoilers but seems like Sembene has a theme of treating his main characters as needing to deal with futility. THought it was a great film anyway and have enjoyed all of his that I've seen so far.

MIracolo A Milano 1951 Vittorio De Sica
Magical semi surrealist fimm from Italy from the early 50s. A baby is found in the cabbage patch by an old lady who brings him up to the age of about 6 before dying. He grows up in an orphanage which isn't shown and then leaves at the age of maturity , walks out and has his bag taken by an absent minded beggar. Like stolen but seems like the beggar doesn't quite seem to recognise rules of property. He's given the bag and then lets teh orphan who is called Toto a place to stay on the local wasteland where a lot of homeless people live. The film shows the relationship between the homeless and the elements by having a little scene where they chase the little bit of sun that comes through the clouds around to get warm. Shortly later wind hits and blows the existing structures apart. Toto organises rebuilding and creates a more planned shanty town with streets and things. THis seems to make people a lot happier and there is a queue of people shown wanting to move in to the town. They are allocated places by Toto and his friends.
A little later 2 fat cat building tycoons appear and try to change ownership of the land . One of them appears to have a change of heart and walks away from the deal saying that everybody is a person after all . He will appear a bit later with a different opinion.
He tries to get the shanty town moved using a group of security whose uniforms look oddly like British bobbies. THere si a lot of chasing back and forth wit thsi group especially when Toto's mama appears from heaven with a gift.
Can't go any further into that without further spoilers.
Magical film as I said, quite heartwarming if you're into that kjind of thing. But again suffers from incidental racism, does at least show a black character for most of teh film but his fate is very very iffy. Overall glad i saw this .

Vivre Sa Vie 1963 Jean Luc Goddard
A young woman finds navigating life difficult, wants to break into the movies but is being lead astray. She winds up owing money to her landlady and is given the opportunity to go into prostitution. Which she does, she later meets an old friend whose circumstances have lead her into the profession though i thought she had been able to get back out.
She introduces her to her friend who has a better set up though it remains unclear for a while as to what this is , it turn sout to be a more organised set up with prostitution. This leads to the girls downfall eventually.
I'm not sure what to make of this, it seems to be trying to be consciously non judgmental about the act of prostitution and what the factors are involved are. But it tacks on a really dodgy ending.
It's Godard so for the most part it looks pretty good and it stars Anna Karina as the girl so it looks even better.
& it has the scene where the girl is dancing around the pool room Which I think I've seen elsewhere but had no context for. Was it even part of a title sequence for something?

I tried giving Princesas a spanish film on prostitution a go but found out that I didn't have subtitles for it. Then tried giving La vaquilla the film about the Spanish Civil War a go but found that the subtitles weren't being synched which si probably why I haven't already watched it over the last few weeks. Do want to get back to both. So looked through the memory stick and found

Ecstacy Of The Angels 1972 Kôji Wakamatsu
An early 70s experimental film with a lot of gore and nudity in. Has a semi coherent story about a bunch of underground revolutionary units trying to have a little wave of terror aiming to overthrow capitalist society with some explosives they've stolen from a Weapons Wearhouse they've broken into. Killing off half their unit on the way. & seriously disabling some of the survivors who stil insist on soldiering on.
So it's semi pornographic overacted stuff supposedly with a revolutionary message. NOt sure if i can recommend this beyond the soundtrack by Yōsuke Yamashita et al . They appear on the soundtrack doing a great Cecil Taylor impression which had me wondering if i knew the recording being used, and then appear in a nightclub scene which is cool.
I saw this on a list recommending japanese films so wonder what the list-makers criteria was. I think I had it on the memory stick prior to Emperor Tomato ketchup which I watched the day after having seen it talked about somewhere, possibly here.
May be of interest I guess. has a weird way of switching between black and white and colour and semi realistic acting and seriously over the top. I dunno.

Xala 1975 Ousmane Sembene
Satire on corruption after Senegal gains independence. Centres on a corrupt politician spending the funds he has got from the French on losing power to help them become more covert n their political machinations so ministers have become henchmen. He is goiong to spend the money on marrying a 3rd wife, which goes disastrously since he becomes impotent. That is what the title refers to it translates as teh Curse and is treated like an actual one. But this politician has overextended his credit lines so a number of his cheques simply bounce apparently including teh one he has given to a witch doctor to help lift this curse.
INteresting film, starts with people in traditional African garb leaving a revolutionary crowd to move into the beauracratic offices of teh French and remove cultural artefacts and then the French beauracrats themselves. Next time you see these revolutioonaries they are dressed in Western garb in the samne office, the French beauracrats come in with attache cases filled with funds. Then this guy getting married invites his cronies to his wedding.
Time is spent at the guy's first wife's place where his feminist daughter attacks the idea of polygamy and is herself physically attacked.
So you get to see the idea of liberty from several perspectives and on several issues. Also the idea of corruption similarly.
& you get a soundtrack and short onscreen appearance by the Star Band of Dakar one of the earliest bands playing music in the style, their later offshoots include Orchestra baobab, Super Star band and Etoile De dakar . My first reacton on seeing teh name of teh band was to think they must be related to that last group , I should know more about the interrelation of bands from taht scene. Would have also thought that in Francophone Senegal the initial band name would have been the French one and Star is English. Maybe it made them look more international I don't know. Great stuff though.
ONe theme heavily explored throughout the film is about traditional belief being contrasted with what was taken to be modern.
I like the films i've seen By Ousmane Sembene and will be looking out for more. May try to get hold of some of his writing too.

Pierrot Le Fou 1965 Jean Luc Goddard
experimental poetic meditation on something. A bit disconnected like.
Looks quite good but messes around with narrative, dialogue and fun things like that.
Finally got around to watching a different copy of the film I tried to watch a couple of months ago which had the subtitles working right from the start.
Well not exactly coherent, ends with a bang though.
May capture that zeitgeist thingy of the time like

The Charlatan (Melford, 1929)
His Royal Highness (Thring, 1932)
Gigolettes (Arbuckle, 1932)
Curtain at Eight (Hopper, 1933)
Cheating Blondes (Levering, 1933)
Inside Information (Hill, 1934)
Sally of the Sawdust (Griffith, 1925)
Abbott and Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Lamont, 1953)
The Card Counter (Schrader, 2021)
Who You Think I Am (Nebbou, 2019)

Al Mummia 1969 Chadi Abdel Salam
Egyptian film about a member of a tribe that has traditionally sold the artefacts from the time of teh Pharaohs that they have graverobbed who does not like the practise. He wants to be more preservative.
An official from the Egyptian Museum service is sent with a group of soldiers to police the graverobbing in the area. Slow film with some real atmosphere. I watched it in 2 bits which probably wasn't the best idea. But may rewatch it right through at some point.
I seem to have a very blurry edition of this so may need to see if i can get the version that was restored.

Putney Swope 1969 Robert Downey Sr.
Very chaotic anarchic movie about a black executive taking over an advertising firm in the wake of the boss dying and the rest of teh executive board putting his name as the candidate because they think its so funny that they would be the only person to do so. backfires o them as he turns the advertising firm in to an outrageous gonzoid group who make shocking ads for $1,000,000 up front.
Has a number of well known faces at a very early point. Antonio Fargas as a black radical member of the entourage.
Not sure how black gaze this is,, if at all and how much projected white. I think it seemed controversial at the time. Some of it does seem to be very much of its time in a Laugh In type of way or something.
I guess this depicts the onset of corruption . Is it overly rose tinted to want the firm to have actually succeeded. or is the idea of commercial advertising already too hopelessly sunk that cut and run is probably the best policy.
oh well it was an interesting film with some laughs. But I'm left with something of an aftertaste of blacks can't succeed so why not depict them as wreckers of civilisation?

Africa Addio 1966 Gualtiero Jacopetti, Franco Prosperi
Italian documentary from the mid 60s showing brutality on the African continent. I think it shows events from right across the continent, spends time looking at the Mau mau and genocide in Zanzibar as well as some heavy environmental stuff poaching of various wildlife.
I'm really not sure how completely white gazed this si , i think quite heavily.
Seems to have dubbed in posh idiot English voices to a few officials from BEA so not sure what original distribution was. That seems to be done for comic effect in an otherwise heavy hitting film. A lot of this seems to be showing things being done that one would hope were already seen to be negative so wondering where the filming came from. Occurring to me that the on hand filming is not necessarily being done by the film makers maybe they got hold of it in that way. A camera held by somebody in the jeep of a bunch of people scything through wildlife herds with a rope strung between 2 cars and presumably strimming the vegetation that is between the 2 cars at the same time. Hate to think this was an Italian film team complicit in the actions being done. That scything/tripping of wildlife, millionaires having elephants set up to shoot as part of expensive safaris. helicopters piloted to help someone shoot elephants from the air , thousands of Zanzibarean muslims being herded to execution based on a propagandistic lie from centuries old information, Afrikaans recreating the Vortrekkers covered wagon trip and not being massacred unfortunately.
I got through an hour of a 2 hour film , may go back and have another look but it is a bit overwhelming.

Turks Fruit 1973 Paul Verhoeven
Film showing the relationship between a very egocentric artist and his love object.
They meet after he has shown what an absolute jerk he is several times then decided that he needs to hitch out of town , she picks him up in an expensive car which they proceed to total. her parents try to keep them apart but apparently they are supposed to be in LOVE.
Hard hitting semi soft pornographic film. I thought might be worth a look since it turned up on a recommended list on IMDB. Apparently one of the highest grossing Dutch films ever still.
I guess its ok but does remind me rather heavily of the Confessions of films mixed with a driller killer thing which is how it starts.
He later has to deal with her having a debilitating illness and his own egocentricity. I guess its ok , does seem a bit over the top in places. Not sure how ethical I find him ho ho.

Rafiki 2018 Wanuri Kahiu
Quite moving film showing the then current Kenya's teen population centring on a tomboy type who is the daughter of a teacher and a local politician. She meets and falls in love with the daughter of one of his rivals. This shows the expectations and mores of contemporary youth in all its homophobia and aspirations etc. I know Uganda the neighbouring country was notoriously homophobic, haven't really known what to expect of my dad's home country.
Nicely acted, not sure what language the non-English bits were in but there are a lot of them so you would need to make sure you get subtitles with it. Hope the making of this indicates some steps forward with homophobia, not sure how unlikely taht is.
Want to see a lot more Kenyan films though. I keep seeing West African stuff I think.

then caught the start of Umut 1970 Serif Gören, Yilmaz Güney
Depiction of a poor kurdish cart driver who has his cart broken and horse killed by a car driver . I think I was falling asleep so thought i'd get back to this. Wound up watching the end of Al Mummia instead

Faust (Murnau, 1926). The Kino Lorber Blu-Ray looks incredible, and the movie has a manic energy that in combination with the pretty astonishing special effects really make it into something. Emil Jannings as Mephistopheles is amazing; I had no idea he became a Nazi later.

is there a thread where people are talking about pig? tremendous film

oh wait probably the cage thread sorry

Europa '51 (Rossellini, 1952) 7/10 strong start then it turns into a christ metaphor
An Affair to Remember (McCarey, 1957) 7/10 one of those rare movies where the melodramatic violins work.
Super Fly (Parks Jr., 1972) 5/10 incompetent audio. movie gets better as the plot gets going.
Night Moves (Arthur Penn, 1975) 6/10 too many characters! had to watch the first half a second time.
Cutter's Way (Ivan Passer, 1981) 7/10
Mortdecai (Koepp, 2015) 4/10 i enjoyed depp's performance
Evangelion 3.0+1.0 (Hideaki Anno, 2021) 8/10 the best evangelion movie? even though the answer to every mystery is that seele did it

Phaedra 1963 Jules Dassin
Modern retelling of the Hypolytus story. A shipping tycoon marries a younger wife (Melina Mercouri as titular figure) who he gets to contact his son who is studying in London. THey meet and hit it off rather too well, have a passionate affair. I had to warn her not to doit cos he was a psycho(Anthony Perkins as Aleksis). The father has sent his new wife to try to get his estranged son to come to Greece for the summer. He eventually does and is given the gift of a new Aston martin which the supposedly artitstic son has fallen in love with while in london.
The atmosphere gets dark . Melina Mercouri smoulders for weeks as she refuses her husbands attentions, Aleksis meets the daughter of a competitor ship tycoon who his father is trying to set up a wedding with , Phaedra doesn't like it.
Well it smoulders and intrigues and stuff. It's in English and it has a Theodarakis score that is more Western than i've heard him elsewhere. Kimda cool I guess.

Umut 1970 Serif Gören, Yilmaz Güney
Turkish film depicting a poor coach driver who is just scraping by when a car driver smacks into his parked coach and kills one of his horses. He tries to find a way to get out of his situation but it isn't forthcoming.
Film starts apparently pretty realistic , possibbly stays taht way but depicts a quixotic project he gets involved with thanks to a friend of his.
INteresting film. I saw it in a cut taht seemed on the verge of solarisation and sound was weird. But yeah good film .May look at others by the same director

Den Muso 1975 Souleymane Cissé
A mute girl gets seduced and impregnated by a young guy who has turned to a life of petty crime after feeling exploited by the girl's father who is his ex boss. She is kicked out of her home.
decent film with good soundtrack. It has teh members of the Salif Keita era Les Ambassedeurs suddenly appearing on screen playing though it doesn't really show a perfromnace which is a shame. Do love that band.

Still A Brother: Inside teh Negro Middle Class 1968 William Greaves
Documentary looking at the phenomenon of the black bourgeois. Kind of interesting to look back at and wonder if its been progressed from.

Once in a Lifetime (Mack, 1932)
The Dude Ranger (Cline, 1934)
California Straight Ahead (Pollard, 1925)
He's in Again (Chase, 1918)
*His New Mamma (del Ruth, 1924)

La Ilusion Viaja En Tranvia 1954 Luis Bunuel
A couple o fmisfit garage workers in Mexico City go for a ride on a streetcar they've fixed not knowing it was going to be retired. Somewhaty gentle comedy with no real surrealist touches, possibly closest to that is an irreverent Morality Play staged for a neighborhood party. Quite funny in places if you like the kind of thing.
Once they have drunkenly taken the streetcar out for a ride they get stuck trying to get it back to the depot and things get worse when the ex-streetcar service busybody gets involved. But serious family feelgood tropes throughout.

A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night 2014 Ana Lily Amirpour
Iranian Vampire Western filmed in Taft California. A young guy with a James dean vibe has his car taken as payment by his dad's dealer, he winds up involved with a strange young looking woman. B+W film made 7 years ago based on the Vampire myth, possibly with an Iranian twist.
Atmospheric and stuff. Quite enjoyed it,
Why do I know the name Taft is it a place that turns up in Kerouac or Steinbeck or something?

Celui Qui Doit Mourir 1957 Jules Dassin
1921 , A Greek village under Turkish occupation holds an annual Passion Play. The conservative orthodox priest names the main players that have been picked by the village council and these are all people who wouldn't have picked the roles themselves but find having done so to be really fitting over the course of the play. Lead character is probably the shepherd Manolios who has been picked to play Jesus, he is thought to be simple minded and speaks with a stammer he will gain confidence over the course. People are also picked for James, Peter, John , Judas and Mary Magdalene. I think all of these are supposed to have character traits that fit the role, I'm not sure about the character traits of teh apostles though. But the last 2 mentioned, Judas is a family man who had wanted the role of Jesus and winds up absolutely betraying the character playing Jesus. He is a frequent visitor to the widow who winds up playing Mary Magdalene and enjoys a lot of male company. She is played by Melina Mercouri who was pretty delectable in the mid 50s.
The film starts with the surviving members of a village that has been destroyed by the Turks for their support of the Greek army trying to find a new home. They appear at the village that is holding the Passion Play and are offered some food and the ability to recuperate while they prepare to hit the road again. They protest saying they could take over some unused land in the vicinity. Shortly afterwards one of the women from this refugee village dies and the priest from the Passion Play Village starts hollering cholera. The refugees move on but don't go very far. They actually set up on a nearby hillside and go to layout their new village but have no supplies so conti8nue to starve. Trying to correct this leads to further tragedy.
I found the film pretty moving but sometimes moving bit too far into melodrama. I think the setting of it being around the staging of a Passion Play may set the tone pretty heavily. Shows up the hypocrisy of people supposedly being fervent believers while allowing people who could be helped to suffer.
Film is mainly in French but I think made in Greece with some Greek actors. It certainly looks really good, but the copy i watched hasa lot of noise issues. It sounds like there is a wind blowing through the set even when they are inside. Not sure how popular the film is , might look for another copy but have seen it now so may not be rushing to rewatch it. It is oretty good though.

I've seen 7 of Dassin's movies and all of them were good to great. I should seek out the rest of them.

yeah he's done some good stuff.

THe Green Knight 2021 David Lowery
Dream like multiracial reimagining of the medieval myth of Sir Gawain. It's pretty slow but I enjoyed it greatly.
Have been wanting to see this for a while, think I tried to get a d/ld a while back that wasn't perfect.
Gawain takes a mushroom at one point that had me wondering if they were citing psilocybin and that atmosphere seems to be running through the film.
Wonder how this will stand up over the years. I may have another look at the early 70s version of the story which I saw sometime during that decade i think but not very recently.
Worth a watch i would say but my copy came with very quiet dialogue which I had to turn up a lot.

Stroszeck 1977 Werner Herzog
An alcoholic musician leaves prison and gets involved with a prostitute he knew before going to jail. He has some nasty run ins with her pimp and his enforcer. Th eold man who has been looking after his flat and his mynah bird is going to relocate to the US thanks to his nephew. The other 2 go with him and stay in a mobile home on his nephew's land. They run into trouble with finances.
THis was apparently the last film that Ian Curtis watched before he killed himself, did he associate himself with a dancing chicken or was that already prewritten to happen.,
Anyway, weird film with an odd cast including a lot of Wisconsin public who otherwise hadn't acted. & Bruno S who had an interesting past of institutionisation and things. He is a real presence in the film .
I think I enjoyed this but it is a bit weird, wonder if it is likely to trigger people. NOt sure if I've seen this before.
Also wondering how Curtis got to see it. Was it on tv, seems a bit early for it to be around on vhs May 1980.

It was on BBC 2 on Saturday May 17th. https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/schedules/service_bbc_two_england/1980-05-17

Used to show a terrific selection of foreign and art house films back in the day.

yeah I remember that being a feature of my youth

i had a week off recently and spent it catching up on the dvds sat under the tv:

Twenty Four Eyes (Kinoshita, 1954)
Silence (Scorcese remake)
Madadayo (minor Kurosawa, his last apparently)
Woman Of Tokyo (1933, Ozu)
Early Spring, (1956, Ozu)
Tokyo Twilight (1957, Ozu, those last 3 are the bfi melodrama box)
Fitzcarraldo
Aguierre (finishing off the Herzog box i've had for years)
and two feature length episodes of Beck from bbc4

Bonjour Tristesse (Preminger 1958) 9/10 gorgeous
The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (Cassavetes 1976) 8/10
Thief (Mann 1981) 8/10
*Oliver & Company (Disney co. 1988) 3/10
Dirty Work (Saget 1998) 4/10 coffin emoji
Pig (Sarnoski 2021) 8/10

a good week! now my goal is to finish the tsptd top 100. Criterion Channel has the mirror, late spring, viridiana, close-up. the only other ones I need to see are greed and the last two thirds of shoah, which might take a while.

I re-watched Thief this week myself. Amazing movie, but I wish I still had the Anchor Bay DVD instead of the Criterion Blu-Ray, which is much darker and bluer than the theatrical release.

Her Secret (Millais, 1933)
Waltzes From Vienna (Hitchcock, 1934)
The Defense Rests (Hillyer, 1934)
The Scotland Yard Mystery (Bentley, 1934)
Bedlam (Robson, 1946)
The Loudspeaker (Santley, 1934)

Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison (1957) 4/5. Supposedly Mitchum's favorite role of his own and he's clearly invested in the character (and in Deborah Kerr).
Gregory's Girl (1980) 4.5/5
Jennifer's Body (2009) 2.5/5
Project A (1983) 4/5
To the Ends of the Earth (2019) 3.5/5
Drunken Master II (1994) 4.5/5
* Collateral (2004) 4/5
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005) 2/5. I wonder how many of the people who like this one have seen it recently. The humor is aging poorly. Conversely, I liked The Nice Guys better on second viewing.

Shorts:
Gap-Toothed Women (1987) 2.5/5. At one point one of the interviewees says that straight-toothed women all skate easily through life. Ok.
Good Intentions (2018) 3/5
Glorious (2008). A ghost does something here I've never seen a ghost do in a movie before. Check it out on Criterion Channel to see what I mean.
Man Rots from the Head (2016) 2/5

The Enigna Of Kaspar hauser 1974 Werner Herzog
Herzog's treatment of the true story of a young man being found who had apparently spent all of his life chained up in a cellar. He was therefore without reference for most of the everyday practises and objects of contemporary life.
Hauser is portrayed here by Bruno S who himself had a strange upbringing which is presumably why he was chosen.
Slow moving story as Hauser becomes acquainted with mid 19th century germany and winds up in a Freak show.
Florian Fricke has a cameo.
I know I saw this once in I think my late teens and possibly again when i was studying philosophy but not sure about that latter one. Have thought about Hauser and his lack of referents to the outside world definitely when epistemology has been discussed.
Took me several goes to fgind the correct subtitles taht actually played in sync but definitely benefits from having that. First tired watching this the day after Stroszeck since it has the same lead as well as a couple of more minor supports.

The Lord of The Rings The Battle fo teh Five Armies 2014 Peter Jackson
the last part of jackson's expansive Hobbit trtlogy. I'#m a bit confused about chronology within the story I thought Smaug was in this though maybe he gets dispatched towards the beginning. Could be that he is being set up for the same at the end of the previous film.
BUt this is where the Dwarfs have reached the end of their mission and then the forces of darkness arrive.
Enjoyed it but then realised that the Blondie OGWT live set from Glasgow in 79 was on the other side so caught that and then came back for the end.
Quite epic innit?

Windfall In Athens 1954 Michael Cacoyannis
I think this is probably typical of its time. NOw seems pretty conservative. Greek Roamntic comedy. I guess it has its moments but it may just show its age.
Starts off ok but really not sure about the underlying message. But I guess its just an entertainment.
Male lead is a cad and a bounder. Female lead should grow up.

The Dead Don't Die 2019 Jim Jarmusch
All Star b movie celebration. I guess Jarmsuch wanted to make a zombie film . He did so.
THought I ought to watch this and i guess it's ok. But would hope for more.

Weekend 1967 Jean-Luc Godard
A married couple drive across a near apocalyptic vision of France. They don't get off to a great start as there is action in the car park tehy start out from. & the end is even worse. Pretty surrealistic I guiess.
I know i saw this in my teens and possibly not since. But bits of it have stuck in my mind ever since. The endless gridlock for one.
Very deep I guess. Godard being pretty avant. Satirising contemporary French Society. Not sure how well it stands up now but it looks pretty good.

Paris Is Burning 1990 Jennie Livingston
Documentary on the gay balls that were being held within the trans community at the time. Shows the state of the art where voguing is concerned, hadn't realised quite how energetic, gymnastic etc that dance form was until I saw this.
Entertaining, the extents to which posing can be pushed etc.Interesting now that mainstream tv series have been set in the milieu.
I assume it was quite popular at the time and does have some popular names attached to it if the thanks lists are to go by.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNdgYBCnW-8

The Panic In Needle Park 1971 Jerry Schatzberg
A look into the underlife of a section of NYC where the junkies hang out. Nt sure to what extent the subject would have been looked at before this. Man With a Golden Arm is a decade plus earlier but I don't think it looks at the junk bit to anything like the same extent. THis has needlemarks, vein scars and people nodding out throughout.
Lead girl often looks a little bit too clean but she has bits where she semi convincingly nods out.
I thought this was Pacino's screen debut but it doesn't seem to be, maybe his first lead. Apparently it was this that lead to him playing Michael in the Godfather.
Quite good, quite dark. I enjoyed it and hadn't seen it before somehow.
Oddly as i type this the podcast I'm listening to brings up the name Pacino from another film out of the blue

Pacino's actual debut was in Me, Natalie (1969), a lightly comedic character study of a young Greenwich Village bohemian (Patty Duke). Very worth watching but difficult to find.

Kino put out Me, Natalie on Blu-Ray last year: http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film9/blu-ray_review_123/me_natalie_blu-ray.htm

AUG:

*Murder by Decree (Clark, 1979) BLU-RAY 7/10 - superb Holmes/Ripper mash-up let down by a clunky expository finale
Octopussy (Glen, 1983) DVD 4/10
Calling Dr Death (Le Borg, 1943) BLU-RAY 5/10 - part of Eureka's Inner Sanctum set w/ Lon Chaney
The Black Cat (Ulmer, 1934) BLU-RAY 8/10 the best Boris and Bela by far
The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds (Newman, 1972) BLU-RAY 8/10 - amazing performance from Newman and Woodward's daughter as the youngest child in this
The Suicide Squad (Gunn, 2021) CINEMA!! 7/10
The Raven (Landers, 1935) BLU-RAY 7/10
Possessor (Cronenberg, 2020) DVD 7/10
Rising Damp (McGrath, 1980) DVD 4/10 - unofficial Hammer film
Never Say Never Again (Kershner, 1983) DVD 5/10
The Invisible Ray (Hillyer, 1936) BLU-RAY 6/10
Black Widow (Shortland, 2021) CINEMA 5/10
John Wick (Stahelski, 2014) DVD 6/10
*The Belles of St Trinian's (Launder, 1954) IPLAYER 8/10
Seven Blood-Stained Orchids (Lenzi, 1972) BLU-RAY 7/10 one of the great Giallo titles
Blue Murder at St Trinian's (Launder, 1957) IPLAYER 6/10

Black Friday (Lubin, 1940) BLU-RAY 6/10
The Pure Hell of St Trinian's (Launder, 1960) IPLAYER 5/10
The Legacy (Marquand, 1978) BLU-RAY 7/10 - w/ Rog Daltrey as a rock star who gets an emergency tracheotomy, in the film's best death scene; Jimmy Sangster credit
Silent Cry (Dwoskin, 1977) file sent to me by a friend 9/10
Murders in the Zoo (Sutherland, 1933) BLU-RAY 7/10 - includes horrific real big cat fight footage, as well as an especially chewy Lionel Atwill
Daimajin (Yasuda, 1966) BLU-RAY 8/10
*A Clockwork Orange (Kubrick, 1971) New 4K 'restoration' at the CINEMA 7/10
The Mad Ghoul (Hogan, 1943) BLU-RAY 7/10 - love me some George Zucco
Kansas City (Altman, 1996) BLU-RAY 8/10
*The Maltese Falcon (Huston, 1941) New 4k restoration at the CINEMA 9/10
*Iron Man (Favreau, 2008) BLU-RAY 7/10
The Big Fix (Kagan, 1978) YOUTUBE 6/10

and SEPT:

Late Spring (Ozu 1949) 6/10 i guess i don't get it
Viridiana (Bunuel 1961) 5/10 bunuel's return to europe is 0 out of 5 for me so far

i had to watch some silly movies to cheer me up:
The Gang's All Here (Berkeley 1943) 6/10 that ending though
Looney Tunes: Back in Action (WB execs/Dante, 2003) 4/10
Hellzapoppin' (H.C. Potter 1941) 8/10

Close-Up (Kiarostami 1990) 8/10
That Uncertain Feeling (Lubitsch 1941) 7/10
The Kid Detective (Evan Morgan 2020) 8/10

Bienvenido, Mister Marshall! 1953 Luis García Berlanga
Machinations within a Spanish village when tehy think an American group with funding is going to visit.
Satirical stuff from early 50s small town Spain.
I think it may have some moments and looks ok but I also think I dozed off during it.

The Man Who Sold His Skin 2020 Kaouther Ben Hania
Story of a young couple in Syria falling afoul of the authorities for the way he frames a comment made in public when she says she loves him. I think her family had disliked him from an early point. In consequence of him being brought in by the police he flees the country , she takes off to Belgium and marries a man taht her family likes who works in the embassy there. he takes to ligging at art openings in Lebanon to see about food and stuff there. Doing this he meets a Belgian artist who tattoos his back with an art piece and makes him into the exhibit. Fun ensues.
Quit enjoyed it but it may be a bit romanticised. I thought the girl in the couple was incredibly tasty so may need to track down other performances by her. Ending may be a little too deus ex machina

Me. Natalie 1969 Fred Coe
story about a female misfit trying to find herself. Looks like it wasa bit allstar, or maybe everybody in it is more famous later.
i got told about thsi because it was the actual Al Pacino screen debut not Panic In Needle Park which I watched last week.
It is a little cloying but maybe that's the interim 52 years. THough it may be a bit soapy, probably does have some controversial bits and pieces in it. Reminds me of things like Barefoot In The Park, a bit too middle class white gazey like.
Like, would have preferred it if the ugly duckling wound up as a strong lesbian or something. & this girl being the ugly duckling reminded me of the trope about the way too goodlooking ugly best friend from sitcoms etc. I think this actress went onto being more widely recognised over the next couple of decades and seen as not being an ugly duckling type.
I found it a bit cloying/Hallmark. BUt it has some ok bits i guess

"This actress" = Patty Duke, who'd already won an Oscar for The Miracle Worker (1962) and had a starring role in the blockbuster Valley of the Dolls so she was already famous before Me, Natalie, but you're right that she was unreasonably cast as an ugly duckling there and that wasn't the only time. She was short (5'0") but always nice looking I thought.

Incoherence (Bong 1994)
Streetwise (Bell 1984)
Preparations to Be Together for an Unknown Period of Time (Horvát 2020)
The Cremator (Herz 1969)
Comanche Station (Boetticher 1960)
The Fate of Lee Khan (King Hu 1973)
Tiny: The Life of Erin Blackwell (Bell 2016)
Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison (Huston 1957)
The Ox-Bow Incident (Wellman 1942)
King of New York (Ferrara 1990)
Titus (Taymor 1999)
Twentieth Century (Hawks 1934)
Seven Men from Now (Boetticher 1956)
Days of Being Wild (Wong 1990)
After Hours (Scorsese 1985)
Crimson Gold (Panahi 2003)
A Cat in Paris (Gagnol, Felicioli, 2010)
Cutter's Way (Passer 1981)
A Touch of Sin (Jia 2013)
Ride Lonesome (Boetticher 1959)
Bumping Into Broadway (Roach 1919)
Nude on the Moon (Wishman, Phelan, 1961)
Please Speak Continuously and Describe Your Experiences as They Come to You (B. Cronenberg 2010)
E•pis•to•lar•y: letter to Jean Vigo (Sachs 2021)
Vacation from Marriage (Korda 1945)

The Oil Raider (Bennet, 1934)
Paradise Island (Glennon, 1930)
No More West (Grinde, 1934)
Makers of Melody (Kaufman, 1929)
The Loves of Carmen (Walsh, 1927)
One Year Later (Hopper, 1933)
Young and Beautiful (Santley, 1934)
The Avenging Conscience (Griffith, 1914)
Cartoon Carnival (Smith, 2021)
The Boxing Kangaroo (Fleischer, 1920)
The Reunion (Fleischer, 1922)
The Cartoon Factory (Fleischer, 1924)
Vacation (Fleischer, 1924)
Come Take a Trip in My Airship (Fleischer, 1924)
It's the Cats (Fleischer, 1926)
Hurry Doctor! (Fleischer, 1931)
Betty Boop's Crazy Inventions (Fleischer, 1933)
Let's Sing With Popeye (Fleischer, 1934)
Betty Boop and Grampy (Fleischer, 1935)
*Dancing on the Moon (Fleischer, 1935)
8The Fraidy Cat (Parrot, 1924)
*Barney Oldfield's Race for a Life (Sennett, 1913)
*The Rough House (Arbuckle & Keaton, 1917)

Better Call Saul (S5: 7.5)
It’s My Turn (5.5)
The Ice Storm (9.0)
The Card Counter (5.0)
Carlito’s Way (6.0)
The Deuce (S3: 7.0)
Best Sellers (2.0)
Six Feet Under (S1-S5: 7.5)
The Guilty (--)
The Many Saints of Newark (6.0)

Really disliked The Guilty (the new remake--never saw the original), but I did fall asleep for 10-15 minutes, so I'll give it a ratings pass.

Third or fourth time through, Six Feet Under felt like more of a mess than ever...Not sending Claire to art school would have been a big improvement: no Olivier, no Russell, no Edie, less Billy. One thing still holds me, though, from start to finish, the most obvious thing in the world: it's a great show on the subject of death.