Last (x) movies you saw (II)

Gonna try to get back into watching movies again this year.

The African Desperate was worth the watch as a microbudget Art School Confidential... NOW! through the eyes of a contemporary fine arts gallerist but I'd temper expectations to "first film" and "proof of concept" if you wanna give it a go.

A whole bunch of stuff popped up on HBO Max last night. I watched The Man From U.N.C.L.E., which I had heard was kinda good even though it was a failed attempt to big-screen reboot a TV series nobody gave a shit about anymore by the time it came out. And it was kinda good. Henry Cavill's essential dickishness was well used, Armie Hammer was a solid glowering antagonist and the fact that he's even bigger than Cavill (which I didn't realize) was important. Alicia Vikander was a placeholder, but when is she not? There were some good chase scenes and a few decent jokes. All in all, I don't regret watching it but the final scene, which promises/begs the studio for a sequel, feels lame as hell in retrospect.

The Cathedral (D'Ambrose, 2022) 7/10
Armageddon Time (Gray, 2022) 8/10
After Yang (Kogonada, 2022) 6/10
Glass Onion (Johnson, 2022) 6/10
The Eternal Daughter (Hogg, 2022) 8/10
Saint Omer (Diop, 2022) 9/10
The Whale (Aronofsky, 2022) 2/10
White Noise (Baumbach, 2022) 4/10
* The Magnificent Ambersons (Welles, 1942) 9/10

The Whale (Aronofsky, 2022) 2/10

Cursed movie

I awarded it an extra point thanks to Fraser's endurance.

Morbius canon (cont.)

Othello (Orson Welles, 1950)
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (Seigel, 1956)
Mikey and Nicky (May, 1976)
The heart of the World (Maddin, 2000)

I also got into:

The Kingdom part I & II (Von Trier, 1994-97)

Adrienne (2021). Documentary about the life and murder of Adrienne Shelly, doesn't really feel appropriate to rate it here. Lots of great/heartbreaking footage of her.
This Gun for Hire (1942) 3.5/5 - Cold-blooded protagonist who we're supposed to think is redeemable because he likes cats, which a lot of people online also hope for.
* Strange Days (1995) 4/5. We had no clue in 1995 how few movies would be this audacious 28 years later.
Kamikaze '89 (1982) 3.5/5 - Fassbinder stars as the New German Cinema equivalent of MST3K's Mitchell.
* Theodora Goes Wild (1936) 3/5. It finally happened to me. I rewatched a movie I had zero memory of until I saw I had logged it 4 years ago.
Le Camion (The Truck) (1977) 3.5/5. This entire movie is Marguerite Duras describing another movie that won't be made to a bemused/confused Gerard Depardieu, interspersed with footage of the bleak countryside and a blue truck. https://images.app.goo.gl/xEA2UwbjHkNLS5z66
* The Unbelievable Truth (1989) 4/5
The Round-Up (1966) 4/5
* The Boss of It All (2006) 3/5. Funny/odd movie from Lars Von Trier but I forgot about some dumb homophobia in it.

I should add I watched Strange Days on HBO Max, as I understand it's been hard to find for a while.

Holiday season watching

*The Talented Mr Ripley (Minghella, 1999) My mum rarely watches films anymore but we watched this together and she really liked it

Paddington 2 (King, 2017) It was alright if a bit jolly hockeysticks

Quantum of Solace (Forster, 2008) I found this a bit of a chore to sit through. Woated action scenes too esp compared to Casino Royale

Jingle All The Way (Levant, 1999) A searing indictment of crass Christmas commercialism

Glass Onion (Johnson, 2022) This was enertaining. Decent post Xmas dinner fare.

Wonder Woman 1984 (Jenkins, 2020) Not exaggerating but this might be the worst movie Ive ever seen.

*Munich (Spielberg, 2005) This was much better than I remembered. Spielberg at his bleakest. The sex scene near the end was so stupid though

Death View (Roth, 2018) I thought with Eli Roth directing this would be outrageous and shocking but its just run of the mill straight to video shite

Babylon (Chazelle, 2022) Its good wildly indulgent stuff like this can still get made imo. I dont think it ever clicked with me though. I liked the Tobey Maguire scene (v Boogie Nights) and the ending. The non stop manic debauchery reminded me of Wolf of Wall Street (not as good though)

*Raging Bull (Scorsese, 1980) One of Marty's best.

White Noise (Baumbach, 2022) This is a mess

The Switchblade Sisters (Hill, 1975) Trash but very enjoyable trash. Kinda tame for an exploitation film though.

Wild Company (McCarey, 1930)
The Shadow Laughs (Hoerl, 1933)
Hell's Headquarters (Stone, 1932)
In Old Arizona (Walsh & Cummings, 1928)
Benny, From Panama (Parrott, 1934)
Household Blues (White, 1929)
EO (Skolimowski, 2022)
Corsage (Kreutzer, 2022)
The Raven (Corman, 1963)
Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (Akerman, 1975)

2022 Letterboxd stats:
Most watched actor: Harry Langdon
Most watched director: Dave Fleischer

EO (7.0)
Tar (7.0)
Vinyl (Warhol – 8.0)
Empire of Light (6.5)
Play Misty for Me (6.0)
Scorpio Rising (7.0)
Pink Flamingos (7.0)
Daisy Miller (7.0)
Revival69: The Concert That Rocked the World (6.0)
Memoirs of a Geisha (6.0)
Escape from Alcatraz (6.0)

The last is well made, and Eastwood's good, but--as silly as this might sound--once they got into the minutiae of the escape, my interested started to wander.

interest...attention...whatever

Woman Trap (Wellman, 1929)
Those Who Dance (Beaudine, 1930)
Manhattan Love Song (Fields, 1934)
Port of Lost Dreams (Strayer, 1934)
That Certain Thing (Capra, 1928)
Fellini's Casanova (Fellini, 1976)
*The Invisible Man (Whale, 1933)
Broker (Kore-eda, 2022)

The Menu (2022) 2.5/5
Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022) 2.5/5
Naked Killer (1992) 1.5/5
Tar (2022) 4/5
China 9, Liberty 37 (1978) 3.5/5 Not the best Warren Oates/Monte Hellman collab but hits some nice notes. You can tell how much nudity the producers demanded.
Caliber 9 (1972) 3.5/5
The Fabelmans (2022) 4/5
Yokai Monsters: 100 Monsters (1968) 3/5
* Deep End (1970) 3.5/5

since Christmas:

short: The Stolen Heart (Lotte Reiniger, 1934)
short: Christo's Valley Curtain (Maysles, Giffard, 1974) i thought this might have been their project that killed people and i was tense throughout
short: Pinball (Suzan Pitt, 2013)
*The Red Shoes (Powell-Pressburger, 1948) 8/10 up from 5/10 circa 2000; 2/3rds great
Johnny Corncob (1973) 7/10 inspired by yellow submarine and the restoration looks fantastic; i didn't follow all of the story
This Place Rules (Callaghan, 2022) 5/10
The Far Country (Anthony Mann, 1954) 6/10 3rd james stewart movie i know of that ends with a bell ringing
short: Accidence (Guy Maddin, Johnsons, 2018)
short: Stump the Guesser (Guy Maddin, Johnsons, 2020) good stuff
The Love Witch (Anna Biller, 2016) no rating; original and entertaining, but too anti-/post- comedy/satire for me

A Wireless Lizzie (Rodney, 1929)
Our Gang at Home (1925)
*Putting Pants on Philip (Bruckman, 1927)
The Golf Nut (Edwards, 1927)
The Waning Sex (Leonard, 1926)
Those Were the Days (Bentley. 1934)
The Silver Lining (Crosland, 1932)
The Lady From Nowhere (Thorpe, 1931)
The Patent Leather Kid (Santell, 1927)
The Kiss of the Vampire (Sharp, 1963)
Night Work (Mack, 1930)

After Love is a stunner as a first film but the main attraction is Joanna Scanlon fucking killing it.

The Long Gray Line -- A Ford I'd somehow never managed to watch and I pretty much revere the man. What a strangely affecting film. Irish yokels making their way through the decades inside West Point Military Academy; practically a semi-closed society. It could've happened inside a cavalry fort and the Fordian dynamics would've been the same. Tyrone Power and Maureen O'Hara hold down the center. 8/10

History Of The World, Part I - Dated as all hell but I'm still a sucker for the cornball old New York Jewish Humor that pops up here and there. Had me rolling. Moses/Last Supper Waiter are classics. 6/10

Pacifiction - Benoit Magimel plays sleazy French dude like few others. This entire seductive, confounding film pivots around his performance. 7/10

Coming Out Party (Blystone, 1934)
Stolen Sweets (Thorpe, 1934)
Defenders of the Law (Levering, 1931)
The Swan (Buchowetski, 1925)
Impatience (Dekeukeleire, 1928)
Laughing Heirs (Ophuls, 1933)
All Quiet on the Western Front (Berger, 2022)
*Godzilla (Honda, 1954)
2 a.m. in the Subway (1905)
Bob Kick, L'Enfant Terrible (Melies, 1903)
Basket Ball, Missouri Valley College (1904)
The Enchanted Drawing (Blackton, 1900)
Pan-American Exposition by Night (Porter & Smith, 1901)
The Girl from Montana (Anderson, 1907)
Crossing Ice Bridge at Niagara Falls (1904)
As in a Looking Glass (1903)
Won By a Fish (Sennett, 1912)

Nobody - had no idea Christopher Lloyd was going to be in this and what a delightful surprise

cha cha real smooth (raiff, 2022) 9/10
city hall (becker, '96) 6.5/10
falling in love (grosbard, '84) 6/10
roman holiday (wyler, '53) 6.5/10
emily the criminal (john patton ford, 2022) 7.5/10
cruising (friedkin, '80) 5.5/10
the worst person in the world (trier, 2021) 9/10
triangle of sadness (ostlund, 2022) 8/10
sharp stick (dunham, 2022) 6.5/10
another day in paradise (clark, '98) 8/10
ruby in paradise (nunez, '93) 6.5/10
postcards from the edge (nichols, '90) 5/10
the drop (sarah adina smith, 2022) 10/10
tar (field, 2022) 9/10

January:

The Boss (Di Leo, 1973) 7/10 DVD
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (Johnson, 2022) 6/10 NETFLIX
Mildred Pierce (Curtiz, 1945) 8/10 DVD
*The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (Hooper, 1986) 6/10 DVD
*Zombie Holocaust (Girolami, 1980) 5/10 BLU-RAY
Nightmare City (Lenzi, 1980) 6/10 BLU-RAY
Sword of Sherwood Forest (Fisher, 1960) 7/10 BLU-RAY
Quick Billy (Baillie, 1971) 8/10 YOUTUBE
The Draughtsman's Contract (Greenaway, 1982) 8/10 DVD
The Pale Blue Eye (Cooper, 2022) 4/10 NETFLIX
Tár(Field, 2022) 8/10 CINEWORLD

I watched Marcel the shell with shoes on while falling in and out of sleep. Seemed to be a good way to watch it.

it was better than it shoulda been!

January:

Great!
* All the Beauty and the Bloodshed
* The Surrogate
* Kimi
* After Love
* Parallel Mothers
* Deep Listening: The Story of Pauline Oliveros
* I Married a Witch
* The Marriage Circle

Good!
* The African Desperate
* Actresses
* Natives
* Black Slide
* An Ostrich Told Me the World Is Fake and I Think I Believe It
* A Fish Called Wanda
* My Year of Dicks

Okay!
* Ari Aster Shorts: Beau (2011), Munchausen (2013)
* Tropic Thunder

Uh.
* Skinamarink
* When You’re Finished Saving the World
* Night Ride
* Steakhouse
* Louis CK: Back to the Garden

ahh veronica lake in I married a witch.

omg she is fucking OUTRAGEOUSLY sexy in that film.

I Married A Witch/The Marriage Circle was a fun double feature at MoMA this past Monday, both with newly cleaned copies

Marriage Circle opened up with a freshly remastered razor-sharp version of Chaplin's The Adventurer with live piano accompaniment, which was fuckin' great too, forgot about that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INNy1djLW9Q

also, here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfJi62oJiO8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LaCnazvLusI

January:

Avatar: The Way of Water (Cameron, 2022) 7/10
Parallel Mothers (Almodovar, 2021) 7/10
Julieta (Almodovar, 2016) 6/10
Lightyear (MacLane, 2022) 6/10
*One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest (Forman, 1975) 10/10
Joint Security Area (Park Chan-wook, 2000) 6/10
The General (Keaton/Bruckman, 1926) 8/10
Bullitt (Yates, 1968) 8/10
Close (Dhont, 2022) 8/10
*Dirty Harry (Siegel, 1971) 8/10
Knights of The Teutonic Order (Ford, 1960) 8/10

January was good, my moviest month in a while. The Cathedral was best.

The Menu (2022)
Peter Von Kant (2022)
Hit the Road (2022)
Strange World (2022)
Great Freedom (2021)
EO (2022)
Dodgeball (2004)
The Cathedral (2022)
Buck & the Preacher (1972)
The Whale (2022)
The Sword in the Stone (1963)
War of the Worlds (2005)
Eating Raoul (1982)
Women Talking (2022)
Songs for Drella (1990)
Saint Omer (2022)
World of Tomorrow eps. 1-3 (2015-2020)
Skinamarink (2022)
The Sweet Hereafter (1997)
Nowhere (1997)
Female Trouble (1974)
The Ice Storm (1997)
Looper (2012)

Rest of December and then January. Yella the standout of all of these.

Fast Food Nation (Richard Linklater, 2006)
Miss Tulip Stays the Night (Leslie Arliss, 1955)
House of Cardin (P. David Ebersole, Todd Hughes, 2019)
Quintet (Robert Altman, 1979)
Harry Dean Stanton: Partly Fiction (Sophie Huber, 2012)
Kairo (Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 2001)
Yella (Christian Petzold, 2007)
The Price of Fear (Abner Biberman, 1956)
The Souvenir (Joanna Hogg, 2019)
The Souvenir: Part II (Joanna Hogg, 2021)
The Visitors (Elia Kazan, 1972)
Kimi (Steven Soderbergh, 2022)
Tony Conrad: Completely in the Present (Tyler Hubby, 2016)
The Counselor (Ridley Scott, 2013)
Licorice Pizza (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2021)
Good Kill (Andrew Niccol, 2014)
Two for the Seesaw (Robert Wise, 1962)
Murder in a Blue World (Eloy de la Iglesia, 1973)
*Eyes Wide Shut (Stanley Kubrick, 1999)
City of Ghosts (Matt Dillon, 2002)
Eva (Joseph Losey, 1962)
Dirty Ho (Chia-Liang Liu, 1979)
Schneider vs. Bax (Alex van Warmerdam, 2015)
Close-Up (Abbas Kiarostami, 1990)
Happy Hour (Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, 2015)
Angel Terminators (Lieh Wei, 1992)
Angel Terminators II (Lau Chan, Chun-Ku Lu, 1992)
Elvis (Baz Luhrmann, 2022)

Hardcore (6.0)
Milton Glaser: To Inform and Delight (7.5)
Witch Hunt (5.0)
Adult Adoption (5.0)
Born on the Fourth of July (7.5)
Easy Rider (7.0)
Searching for Mr. Rugoff (7.5)
Daisies (--)
When You Finish Saving the World (5.0)
Black Widow (--)

Walter Hill has directed 22 movies. I've seen 15 of them; some were amazing and some just okay, but I've never been bored by one until tonight. DEAD FOR A DOLLAR is aimless and, worse, visually inert — a waste of everyone involved's time. Watch THE PROFESSIONALS instead.

Chilly Scenes of Winter (1979) 4/5
We Are Fugazi from Washington DC (2023) 4/5
Conquest (1983) 3.5/5
Rouge (1987) 4/5
Man Hunt (1941) 3/5
Beat the Devil (1953) 3/5
Fascination (1979) 2/5
Decision to Leave (2022) 4.5/5

I was going to ask you how you managed to see Chilly Scenes of Winter, but I see it's on YouTube for nothing. Good memories of that--will watch if for sure this week.

Yeah, that was where. Criterion are also releasing it next month, fyi.

still working through S&S list with the odd other thing thrown in because it was in the same box when i was digging through them

Daisies
Portrait of a Lady on Fire
Playtime
Hourglass Sanitorium
Ugetsu Monogatari
Sherlock Jr

also the last two in the truffaut box that has been sat there for about 5 years, the one that isn't 400 blows. The Woman Next Door and Suddenly Sunday

Watched Black Rain (late 80s Ridley Scott movie — Michael Douglas and Andy Garcia go to Japan to hunt a yakuza) last night. Dumb in many ways, but could have been much worse. Significantly less racist than, say, Rising Sun.

Glad I watched Chilly Scenes of Winter. One of those late '70s American films that really does feel like a bridge between New Hollywood and the coming decade (I mean in terms of style and tone--in terms of the calendar, obviously). I was thinking about how both John Heard and Peter Riegert were in The Sopranos; Mary Beth Hurt is excellent, and I literally had no idea she was married to William Hurt (duh) or Paul Schrader (she plays Nolte's ex-wife in Affliction).

saw a showing of the 1977 Mexican (in English!) cult horror movie Alucarda last night with star Tina Romero (no relation to George) in attendance for a talkback. The film is a nonsense mishmash of lesbian makeout sessions and people catching fire and is sorta plot optional but Romero was magnetic! A real trip in person too, lots of fun stories.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHokoP1dXP0

here's a recommended taste that had the audience hooting
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k91WYulStck

SATAN SATAN I PROMISE THEE THAT I WILL DO AS MUCH EVIL AS I CAN

*Lost Highway (Lynch 1997)
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (Coogler 2022)
Thirst (Park 2009)
Rising Tones Cross (Jahn 1985)
Prince of Darkness (Carpenter 1987)
Call Northside 777 (Hathaway 1948)
A Prophet (Audiard 1009)
Bullet Train (Leitch 2022)
8 1/2 (Fellini 1963)
Emily the Criminal (Ford 2022)
Sherlock Jr. (Keaton 1924)
Glass Onion (Johnson 2022)
The Banshees of Inisherin (McDonagh 2022)
The Great Silence (Corbucci 1968)
They Live (Carpenter 1988)
Shaolin Soccer (Chow 2001)
PlayTime (Tati 1967)
The Worst Person in the World (Trier 2021)
Forty Guns (Fuller 1957)
TÁR (Field 2022)
Flux Gourmet (Strickland 2022)
The Dark Corner (Hathaway 1946)
*The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (Fassbinder 1972)

not thrilled about how much my movie watching has slowed down, maybe I'll pick up the pace

un beau matin (8.0)
godland (7.0)
go west (9.0)
flux gourmet (5.0)
sharper (6.0)

oh and Walter Hill’s “Dead For A Dollar”. An ugly looking, cliché-ridden lost opportunity. 2.0

oh and Walter Hill’s “Dead For A Dollar”. An ugly looking, cliché-ridden lost opportunity. 2.0

THANK YOU. Such a complete waste.

Pillow Talk (Gordon, 1959) 6/10
Wanda (Loden, 1970) 8/10 #48
Dark Star (Carpenter, 1974) 4/10
Mirror (Tarkovsky, 1975) 8/10 #31
Return to Oz (1985) 7/10 those heads!

The Suicide Squad (Gunn, 2021) 7/10 first superhero movie i've liked since... thor ragnarok?
Strange World (Disney co., 2022) 5/10
Wendell & Wild (Selick, 2022) 7/10
The Banshees of Inisherin (McDonagh, 2022) 5/10
Hocus Pocus 2 (Disney co., 2022) 5/10
See How They Run (George, 2022) 6/10
Bodies Bodies Bodies (A24, 2022) 6/10
short: James Baldwin: From Another Place (1973)
short: The Flying Sailor (2022)
short: The Martha Mitchell Effect (2022)
short: Donks (Colgrave, 2023)

Bank of Dave (Foggin, 2023) 6/10
The Place Without Limits (Ripstein, 1978) 8/10
Knock at the Cabin (Shyamalan, 2023) 8/10
Ali: Fear Eats The Soul (Fassbinder, 1974) 9/10
Pulse (Kurosawa, 2001) 8/10
Finder's Fee (Probst, 2001) 6/10
*Happy Gilmore (Dugan, 1996) 7/10
The Death of Louis XIV (Serra, 2016) 5/10
Skinamarink (Ball, 2022) 7/10
Joe (Avildsen, 1970) 9/10
Pacifiction (Serra, 2022) 8/10
Tomorrow I’ll Wake Up and Scald Myself with Tea (Polak, 1977) 8/10
Double Down (Breen, 2005) 1/10
Fateful Findings (Breen, 2013) 2/10
*The Third Generation (Fassbinder, 1979) 7/10
When the Cat Comes (Jasny, 1963) 7/10

The Day the Music Died: The Story of Don McLean’s “American Pie” (6.5)
Peeping Tom (8.0)
Roman Holiday (9.0)
Is That Black Enough for You?!? (7.0)
Chilly Scenes of Winter (7.0)
Bill Russell: Legend (7.0)
One Fine Morning (6.5)
The Offer (7.0)
Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams (6.5)
They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead (7.0)

Sacrilege, I guess, but I was more interested in the story of The Other Side of the Wind than in watching the film itself; between the clips in They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead, though, and finding out it's on Netflix too (accidentally started it when I was trying to resume the documentary), I will watch it. Found the last 10 minutes of Spurlock's film very moving. (Didn't really get Alan Cummimng as a narrator, and the use of Suicide's "Cheree" for some circa 1970 footage was really weird...and Rich Little?!)

Alan Cumming...

The doc is much better than the film.