Last (x) movies you saw

War Horse (Spielberg, 2011) 3/10
The Lady Vanishes (Hitchcock, 1938) 8/10
Limitless (Burger, 2011) 6/10
Lego Movie (Lord, 2014) 7/10
Carnage (Polanski, 2011) 7/10

war horse more like bore horse

I quit halfway through, I couldn't take it

I bet even the horse had that sack of shit expunged from it's imdb entry.

Just watched Snowpiercer 5/10

Very disappointing coming from the director of The Host and Memories of Murder, love Tilda Swinton's performance and accent tho.

I watched it with people so i had to watch it all the way through. I made sure my yawns were audible tho.

xxpost

I've started a Letterboxd account to help me track my film viewing (and encourage me to do more; it had really fallen off for a few years):
http://www.letterboxd.com/ryanhupp/films/diary/

Nothing too exciting there, and I wish it would let me add unique notes for each time a film appears in the diary- stuff like where I saw it, or if I watched it with commentary, or whatever, but that's a minor quibble.

I've started on a Takashi Miike project; I'm not viewing everything, or everything in order, since that would be insane and I don't have access to anywhere near enough, but I'm trying to concentrate on roughly 1996-2001 for now. I've seen a few before, but the only one I've watched as part of the current binge prior to starting the Letterboxd account was the first Dead Or Alive last week. I'll be moving on to the MPD Psycho miniseries and Black Society trilogy next week.

bird people is a good time.

on tap for this week: Ernest and Celestine, Jodorowsky's Dune, Errol Morris' The Unknown Known

yeah cajunsunday, Limitless is 2x as good as War Horse. Use yr eyes in the future.

^^^ with Morbs on this

Lost Weekend - Not the biggest Wilder fan here but this was terrific - bar some of the terrible dialogue. This one and "Double Indemnity" are now my go-to Wilders.
Sex Shop - Silly yet fascinating Claude Berri examination of the Sexual Revolution. Dubbed in English, Gainsbourg score and Juliet Berto as a blond! + Nathalie Delon as a swinger wife.
Avé

The Seven-Ups (D'Antoni, 1973) - Came for the car chase, stayed for the incredibly stupid everything else. One of the worst films I've seen in the last few years.
Before Midnight (Linklater, 2013)
Early Summer (Ozu, 1951)
Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (Peckinpah, 1973)
40 Naughty Girls (Cline, 1937)
Mud (Nichols, 2012)
Rome, Open City (Rossellini, 1945)
I Married a Witch (Clair, 1942)
Premium Rush (Koepp, 2012)
Without Pity (Latuada, 1948)

What'd you think of Pat Garrett? I just watched it for the first time and while it wasn't the unjustly derided masterpiece I was hoping for, I still liked it quite a bit.

I wanted to like it, approached it with all the good will in the world. I'd seen it 30-ish years ago for the Dylan stunt casting but didn't remember anything so didn't call the other night a rescreen. Ultimately it was a good looking letdown imo. The long languid tracking shots look great, but they're at least partially a cover for Dylan's score and songs, most of which aside from "Knockin'" are sub-Dylan. If Garrett's reasons for going lawman and putting himself in direct opposition to his ex-best-friend are ever explained, I missed them.

I get the symbolism in Garrett's ability to just snap his fingers and send decent men to dangerous situations and/or their deaths (Jack Elam, Slim Pickens, Richard Jaeckel) -- it's a film from 1973, I mean duhhh. It's not a total failure, but the script and editing have a lot of slack in their slacks. Kristofferson was great -- reminded me a little of Brad Pitt in Thelma & Louise, this beautiful package of star-power suddenly on the scene, almost too pretty to look at.

"Ultimately it was a good looking letdown"--basically agree. It was towards the end of a long cycle of elegiac westerns (more came later, but they started to slow down), so the general mood is familiar. It does look great, and I love "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" (memorable sequence by a pond, I remember).

try The Ballad of Cable Hogue next

It Always Rains On Sunday - 1947

Really great British film from the late fortys, made by the same director as two of my favorite films, Kind Hearts and Coronets and Dead of Night. Reminded in parts of some of the neorealist Italian films of the postwar period, both in the way it was relatively lacking in the glamour so commonly associated with cinema of the time, and the way it didn't shy away from the seamier sides of life in post-war Britain. Definitely recommend to anyone who hasn't already seen it.

Governor Wallace (Robards) doing the same thing to Garrett that Garrett does to his fellow sheriffs and deputies, but trying and failing to motivate him with money, is an interesting splinter under the skin in the script, but that brings it back to Garrett's reasons for being willing to kill his friend. "Times have changed"? I think the allegory needs a little more rigor than that. Just a little, not much.

Looking at the credits, I see Rudy Wurlitzer also wrote Two-Lane Blacktop and Walker. Heh.

xp to myself & clemenza

I've just started watching MPD Psycho in my Miike-a-thon and I defy anyone to tell me what the fuck is going on

(please do not actually do that I reserve judgment until the series is over but still man what the SHIT)

morris' Unknown Knowns is very very him. as in he has a lot in common with rumsfeld. both believe they are much smarter than you and take a great deal of time underlining the obvious. worth seeing but not a knockout filmwise. sure does make a lot of hay with the BANALITY OF EVIL schtick tho'

I had my fill of that w/ McNamara

he called them "his salt and pepper shakers" so if you don't like one you ain't gonna like the other. he just has less patience for rumsfeld. called him a war criminal at the q&a

Does he go hard on Rumsfield, or just let him waffle on, giving him just enough rope to hang himself?

The latter but rumsy is presented as a blathering ball of pointless self deception

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BjrA-OsCYAADhag.jpg

The question is, as with McNamara, why I want to listen for a bloodstained, washed-up professional liar for 2 hours.

It was somewhat enlightening to me to see the afterimage of someone so convinced they were right. Few people are deceivers or self-deceivers to that level, but it's enlightening to see.

Jean-Christophe Averty's Ubu Roi- so fucking good! It's on Youtube if you're curious (which you should be):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FznOszLTsfg

I still don't get why Rumsfield would agree to be interviewed by Morris. I mean presumably he's seen "Fog of War",or at least heard of it, and knows he's unlikely to receive a warm reception, but goes along with it anyway. Crazy!

maybe he heard that Fog of War made McNamara look a tiny, tiny bit less like a cold-blooded being

(lizard people!!!)

that was sorta my take as well, that rumsy was motivated by hubris and the desire to be commemorated and that fog of war was an oscar winning piece so that acclaim was really all that mattered. Spoilers i guess, but that's the last question of the movie: morris asking rumsfield why in the world he would talk to him in the first place. Rumsy's answer is "That's a vicious question.... Darned if I know why!" and then that fucking jackolantern grin of his

old joy

tambien la lluvia

both were really good. old joy in particular was really subtle and wonderfully done

Well any good this film will do for his image, should be instantly cast aside by his remarks about Obama in the past week.

anyone who sees unknown knowns and doesn't come away from it thinking less of him either wasn't paying attention or already had their minds made up anyway. based on the q+a, morris is absolutely of the opinion that he nailed the dude and this is the pelt; you just have to squint a little.

A programme of short films s/dtracked by Bernard Parmegiani from the late 50s and 60s. In some ways its the best presentation for any live electroacoustic music. His wit is still there in may scenes, when the films allow for that.

Under the Skin (Glazer, 2013) - the games we play..

Salvo (Fabio Grassadonia, Antonio Piazza, 2013) - Me and a friend were slightly bemused by the people walking out of this. I liked that it used the slow pace and ruthless framing to show the brutality, that it didn't make much of an angle for the love story, nor that it made anything out of the blindness-as-metaphor, or much of a play for any existentialism. I also liked watching the leads for their stillness. Its a film that kept saying no by not taking the easy option and anyone who walks out of this should stop going to the cinema.

Wake in Fright (Ted Kotcheff, 1971) - boys boys...worth it for the presence of Mista Pleasance.

Journey to the West (Tsai, 2014)
Collateral (Mann, 2004)
The Conformist (Bertolucci, 1970)
Shoah (Lanzmann, 1985)
Sound of the Mountain (Naruse, 1954)
The Competition (Borrego, 2013)
16 Acres (Hankin, 2013)
The Monastery (Rose Grønkjær, 2006)
casting a glance (Benning, 2007)
The Crowd (Vidor, 1928)

The last three were at an architecture film festival that I've helped curate. Benning was on 16 mm. Really beautiful! I've worked on this festival for three months, and I managed to see five of the films. Now I'm going to sleep for a loooong time.

The last five, sorry.

Home:
A Canterbury Tale (Powell, 1944) 7/10
There Will Be Blood (Anderson, 2006) 5/10
Wall-E (Stanton, 2008) 4/10
Sexy Beast (Glazer, 2000) 6/10
The Gospel According to Matthew (Pasolini, 1964) 8/10
Van Gogh (Pialat, 1991) 8/10
The Insect Woman (Imamura, 1963) 7/10

Away:
Touki-Bouki (Diop Mambety, 1973) 7/10
Stranger By The Lake (Guiraudie, 2013) 8/10
The Grand Budapest Hotel (Anderson, 2013) 5/10
Under the Skin (Glazer, 2013) 8/10

There Will Be Blood (Anderson, 2006) 5/10

really?

Enough Said (Holofcener, 2013) 4/5
Geography Club (Entin, 2013) 0.5/5
*Goin' Down the Road (Shebib, 1970) 5/5
Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (Peckinpah, 1973) 3.5/5
Going to Pieces: The Rise and Fall of the Slasher Film (no director credited (?!), 2006) 3/5
20 Feet From Stardom (Neville, 2013) 3.5/5
The Spectacular Now (Ponsoldt, 2013) 4/5
Rewind This! (Johnson, 2013) 3.5/5
Tenebre (Argento, 1982) 4/5

*rewatches

There Will Be Blood (Anderson, 2006) 5/10

really?

― everyday sheeple (Michael B), 31. marts 2014 21:52 (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^^

5/10 is way too high. Better than Wall-E? Really?

Morris did 'humanize' McNamara in that fucking doc, it made me mad

*Goin' Down the Road (Shebib, 1970) 5/5

Love seeing this.

Nymph()maniac (2014) - 9/10 I'm just dumb enough to appreciate the 'on-the-nose' philosophy. And Stacey Martin is just... whew.

Night Moves (1975) - 10/10 The height of American New Wave '70s cinema. How was Melanie Griffith able to do nude scenes at 17? Loved that The Wire bit the line "one side loses more slowly" from this.

Rolling Thunder (1977) - 10/10 Another stunner of the era. Freaked when I heard the 'Superwolf' sample.

and...

Goin Down The Road (1970) 10/10 Perfection. Loved the Satie in the record store scene.

Room at the Top (1959) 7/10
All About My Mother (rewatch) 8/10
Nymphomaniac Pt. 1 2/10
A Letter to Three Wives (rewatch) 7/10

*Goin' Down the Road (Shebib, 1970) 5/5

Love seeing this.

― clemenza, Monday, March 31, 2014 5:25 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

:-)

While you can't exactly claim that you introduced me to the film, it was your constant championing of it 'round these parts that finally nudged me into giving it a proper viewing (had seen bits of it in a class years ago), so thanks!

Goin Down The Road (1970) 10/10 Perfection. Loved the Satie in the record store scene.

― viacom dios, Monday, March 31, 2014 5:44 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Watching it a second time this month, I actually tried to see if I could get a clear view of the record cover. Would love to track down a copy of whichever version it was of the Satie piece that was featured in the film. Unfortunately, I couldn't spot it.

"Beautiful, isn't it?"--if that clerk wasn't made for High Fidelity (or at least a job at the original Record Peddler), no one was. HOF record-store-clerk superciliousness.