Last (x) movies you saw

My 20th Century is kinda incredible in it's own way, black/white counter narrative of the 20th century which includes digressions told by a chimpanzee or two stars in the sky. Winter Campaign is a really strange experimental documentary which is worth seeing if you can find it. On Body and Soul is fine for what it is, not the best Golden Bear winner ever, but a sweet art film with beautiful imagery. Avoid The Magic Hunter, even though it was executive produced by David Bowie.

Streaming:

Requiem for a Village (David Gladwell, 1975) - has elements of film, doc and a curious use of slow-motion. There is a reclamation of a radical English countryside here. I loved the two sequences, one after another: 1) a colonel agitating the elderly troops in a church followed by 2) villagers rising up from their graves. Politics and magic side-by-side.

Film:

Still Life (Shoaib Shahid Saless, 1974) - saw it in a retro yesterday and its an increadible work. This is a year before Jean Dielman and there are connections to be drawn in the static shots of a very sterile domesticity that is transformed under the microscope. What is underneath is never far away, the outside world is never kept fully out - and when this hits a rupture is created. The last shot is unforgettable.

Requiem for a Village is on youtube as well, getting good Le Quattro Volte vibes from that opening sequence.

It's very good so far, but the grave stuff reminds me of those appalling Stanley Spencer paintings.

Never come across them before..

He did lots of ugly, muddy brown paintings of people climbing out of their graves. Or self portraits with his cock out. An absolute dud.

Champagne (Hitchcock, 1928)
*Battleship Potemkin (Eisenstein, 1925)
The Uneasy Three (McCarey, 1925)
Children of Divorce (Lloyd, 1927)
*The Lodger (Hitchcock, 1927)
*Blackmail (silent version, Hitchcock, 1929)
Be Your Age (McCarey, 1926)
*Wings (Wellman, 1927)
*The Kid Brother (Wilde, 1927)
Humoresque (Borzage, 1920)

Blade Runner 2049 (2017)
The plot for this was ridiculous but hey nice cinematography and music was great 6/10

Gerald's Game (2017)
This was great but jesus that ending 6/10

Senna (2010)
I enjoyed this but maybe not as much as Amy or Supersonic which I was more emotionally invested in 7/10

A Separation (2011)
This really is as good and heart-wrenching as I was led to believe. A simple story but really well delivered through rich characterisation 8/10

Shot! The Psycho-Spiritual Mantra of Rock (2016)
Mick Rock talks a lot of old bollocks occasionally but it was engaging

The Chase (1966)
It starts very slow but it really kicks into gear in the last 80 minutes. Quite ahead of its time in its depiction of fractured America 7/10

Mindhorn (2016)
Brit comedy along the lines of Garth Merenghi. washed up actor who plays a secret agent with a bionic eye, returns to the Isle of Man, the area where his most famous role was set, to help catch a killer. Good fun I guess 6/10

Safe (1995)
I've been meaning to catch this one for a long time. Its pretty good although very chilly. Some images really stayed with me. Its almost like a horror movie in many regards 7/10

Cameraperson (2016

A Quiet Passion (2017)
Cynthia Nixon might be a bit old to play Emily Dickinson but man is she good in this 7/10

The Meyerowitz Stories (2017)
This movie is really uneven. I think Alfred might be onto something when he said that the Baumbach movies that dont feature Greta Gerwig lack something 6/10

Good Time (2007)
Wow, this is realy good. Probably the best movie Ive seen so far this year. Robert Pattinson is excellent and I love the Carpenter-esque Oneohtrix Point One score 8/10

The Big Heat (1953)
Top drawer noir. Audience audibly gasped at *that* scene and also the car bomb scene 8/10

at home

A Man Escaped - 9/10
The Seventh Seal - 8/10
L’Argent - 9/10
The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant - 7/10
I Married a Witch - 9/10
Marnie - 7/10
Nashville - 10/10
Ivan’s Childhood - 9/10
Make Way for Tomorrow - 8/10
Sullivan’s Travels - 7/10
Bicycle Thieves - 8/10
Blue - 9/10

Crazy Like a Fox (McCarey, 1926)
The Mortal Storm (Borzage, 1940)
Long Fliv the King (McCarey, 1926)
His Wooden Wedding (McCarey, 1925)
Our Heavenly Bodies (Kornblum, 1925)
Behind the Door (Willat, 1919)
Prix de Beaute (silent version, Genina, 1930)
Cops (Keaton & Cline, 1922)
Plane Crazy (Disney, 1928)
*Casanova (Volkoff, 1927)
*A Modern Musketeer (Dwan, 1917)

Lucky (6.0)
Norte, the End of History (6.5)
Perfect Stranger (4.5)
Ex Libris (8.0)
California Typewriter (7.0)
More Than the Rainbow (6.5)
The Mirror (--)
LBJ (5.5)
The Meyerowitz Stories (6.0)
Lady Bird (7.0)

(--) is my new shorthand for "grappled with, may grapple again."

El Sur/The South by Victor Erice - very cosy. Aside from this and Beehive are any of his other films similar?

Those are his only two feature films (there's also a superb documentary about a painter, The Quince Tree Sun, and a short film from 2006 that I've never seen).

The Devil Strikes at Night (1957, Siodmak) 7/10
Black Gravel (1961, Kautner) 9/10
Lady Macbeth (2016, Oldroyd) 6/10
Blade Runner 2049 (2017, Villeneuve) 4/10
*The Headless Woman (2008, Martel) 8/10
*Blade Runner (1982, Scott) 7/10
*The Paradine Case (1947, Hitchcock) 6/10
BPM (aka 120 Beats Per Minute) (2017, Campillo) 9/10
Hercules in the Haunted World (1961, Bava) 6/10
*They Live by Night (1948, Ray) 10/10
*Secrets & Lies (1996, Leigh) 9/10

Lady Bird (Gerwig, 2017) 9/10
BPM (Beats per Minute) (Campillo, 2017) 7/10
The Killing of a Sacred Deer (Lanthimos, 2017) 8/10
Nocturama (Bonello, 2017) 6/10
The Square (Östlund, 2017) 3/10
Taipei Story (Yang, 1985) 8/10
* An Osaka Story (Mizoguchi, 1957) 8/10
Floating Clouds (Naruse, 1955) 7/10
Late Chrysanthemums (Naruse, 1954) 7/10
* In a Lonely Place (Ray, 1952) 8/10
*Gaslight (Cukor, 1944) 7/10
* Rebecca (Hitchcock, 1940) 8/10

L'Humanite (1999) 4.5/5
Chappie (2015) 3/5
Every Everything: The Music, Life & Times of Grant Hart (2013) 3/5
Thor: Ragnarok (2017) 3.5/5
30 for 30: Nature Boy (2017) 2.5/5
Days and Nights in the Forest (1970) 4/5

The Killing of a Sacred Deer (Lanthimos, 2017) 8/10

Killing to killing.

Lol, has they really translated that line from The Square into 'Don't be so Swedish?' That's hilarious since 1) that's not at all what is said and 2) the whole joke of the line is that neither of them are Swedish, both of them are from Denmark.

I didn't get that either

There was a couple of clunkers in the Danish translation as well. The publicists speak of problems in the world including 'politicies from the Sweden Democrats' which are the right-wing populists. That just became 'political policies'. And they want to get the art to other people than usual, but in Swedish they use a specific gendered insult to the regular cultural crowd, which was made gender neutral in Danish. It's sad that such a sharp and pointed piece satire is being hurt by bad translations :(

You didn't get what?

I thought, "Well, maybe Danes know something about Swedish parochialism that escapes me."

Well, yeah, it's a giant Danish assumption about Swedes that theyr're politically correct and boring.. It's just, the line is 'The Swedes aren't here', rather than 'Don't be so Swedish', which is kinda nonsense.

I only just now caught up with "John Wick," and that might be the dumbest movie of its OTT sort I've seen since "Punisher: War Zone." Almost didn't finish watching it, it was so surreally silly.

and yet critics under 40 seem to agree it's an action "classic" with near-unanimity

MUBI:

Dead or Alive (parts 1 and 2, Miike, 1999/2000) - surrealism is a proper thing, not even ashamed to spell that word out.
Ley Lines (Miike, 1999)
Autumn Leaves (Aldrich, 1956) - I could Joan Crawford for a long time to come. The film was possibly an early attempt to deal wtih the stigma of mental illness. It has a half-shocking/half-laughable scene of abuse.

Cinema:

Akitsu Springs (Yoshida, 1962) - this is a melodrama with an existential black hole at its core, in beautiful colours.

John Wick 2 >>>>>>> John Wick

Both John Wick movies are great. The choreography is fantastic in both (ignore the gun in his hand and Keanu Reeves is a Gene Kelly-level dancer, whirling partners around and never missing a step), they're shot and edited in a way that keeps the action comprehensible at all times, and it's the best example of macho fantasy world-building since Road House.

Watched Sam Fuller's House of Bamboo last night, on Blu-Ray (Twilight Time). Filmed in Japan, looks amazing, and the two Roberts - Ryan and Stack - are great antagonists. Highly recommended if you've never seen it.

Lady Bird was good if not revelatory. Quality TV has kind of spoiled me when it comes to this kind of stuff. Would totally watch another episode of Lady Bird. I hear season 2 is awesome!

booo. that's why i try not to watch TV. turns you into a drug addict

But there's lots of great tv! Anyway, I would recommend Lady Bird in a second, like a modern Pretty in Pink. Looking forward to more from Gerwig.

I know that's the problem, it's such a time sink and the inevitable depression once it's over and the urge to binge as you're watching it, I experienced it before I did drugs and after, and yeah it's the exact same feeling, 'binge watching' is such a spot on term. Breaking Bad is amazing, Twin Peaks obviously, I know there are others but personally it can't be part of my daily diet because then it's like cigarettes. Movies, it's the perfect portion. And good movies, great movies, they stick with you for months or years without having to see them again or craving another installment.

Too many would-be or supposedly great shows have low points or slow seasons that seem to be issues w/artificially extended lifespans leading to creative miscalculations or time-wasting til the big finish.

I couldn't handle another two hours of Lady Bird the character; 92 minutes is enough.

Yeah, but I season 2 is all about her friend back in Sacramento.

landline (Robespierre 2017) 7/10
lady bird (gerwig 2017) 8/10
family plot (Hitchcock '76) 7/10
indivisible (Eduardo de angelis 2017) 8/10
the beguiled (coppola 2017) 3/10
mother! (aranofsky 2017) 5/10
the lovers (malle '58) 8/10

Watched another Twilight Time Blu-Ray last night - John Frankenheimer's The Train. I don't ever want to hear anybody talk about modern actors "doing their own stunts" again. I've seen all kinds of Entertainment Tonight/Access Hollywood footage of Tom Cruise jumping around attached to six different safety cables, and I've seen Burt Lancaster slide down a 50-foot ladder to the ground, then run and jump aboard a moving train, all in one unbroken shot. Seriously, this movie is fucking amazing. They blow up an entire trainyard set!

I realized while watching this that I own a surprising number of train-related movies: The Train, Runaway Train, Unstoppable, Emperor of the North, and Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (yeah, it counts).

shorts:
Swallowed (Baldwin, 2016)
A Day with the Boys (Gulager, 1969)
The Vampire (Painlevé, 1945)
a bunch by Jim Henson:
- Cat and Mouse, 1960
- Drums West, 1961
- Shearing Animation, 1961
- Alexander the Grape, 1965
- Run, Run, 1965
- Ripples, 1967

features:
Amour (Haneke, 2012)
Thor: Ragnarok (Waititi, 2017)
Insignificance (Roeg, 1985)
Meantime (Leigh, 1983)
I Called Him Morgan (Collin, 2016)
Life During Wartime (Solondz, 2009)

Meantime was my favorite of that batch.

Kong: Skull Island was better than I thought it would be.

Allied would have been good if anyone but Brad Pitt had been the male lead. Fuck, Brad Pitt really is a useless pile of meat, isn't he?

not in the past, no

The Square (Östlund, 2017)
Chicago (Urson, 1927)
Bad Boy (McCarey, 1925)
7th Heaven (Borzage, 1927)
The Caretaker's Daughter (McCarey, 1925)
Sittin' Pretty (McCarey, 1924)
Bromo and Juliet (McCarey, 1926)
The Big Night (Losey, 1951)
That Little Band of Gold (Arbuckle, 1915)
Blue Jeans (Collins, 1917)
Kid Boots (Tuttle, 1926)
The Dixie Flyer (Hunt, 1927)
It (Badger, 1927)
Get Your Man (Arzner, 1927)

The Beguiled (Coppola, 2017) 5/10
*My Bodyguard (Bill, 1980) 10/10
My Fair Lady (Cukor, 1964) 6/10
*Soapdish (Hoffman, 1991) 5/10
Mary Poppins (Stevenson, 1964) 5/10
Gilbert (Berkeley, 2017) 7/10
Personal Shopper (Assayas, 2016) 7/10
The Breaking Point (Curtiz, 1950) 8/10

My Scientology Movie (2015) 3/10
The Lost Boys (1987) 3/10
Mindhorn (2016) 7/10
Gerald's Game (2017) 8/10
The Quatermass Xperiment (1955) 5/10

Stake Land is one of those "the people are as bad as the monsters" horror movies. It takes place in upstate New York following a plague of vampires. Worth watching.

Call Me By Your Name (Guadagnino, 2017) 7/10
The Killing of a Sacred Deer (Lanthimos, 2017) 8/10
Romanzo Criminale (Placido, 2005) 4/10
Redoubtable (Hazanavicius, 2017) 4/10
Eight Hours a Day Don't Make (Fassbinder, 1972) 8/10
The Florida Project (Baker, 2017) 7/10
The Raven (Corman, 1963) 6/10
Tales of Terror (Corman, 1962) 6/10
Die Schwarze Sonne (Hammel, 1992) 6/10
Death Wish (Winner, 1974) 7/10
Intruder (Spiegel, 1989) 6/10
Tout va Bien (Godard/Gorin, 1972) 8/10
Dog Eat Dog (Schrader, 2016) 6/10
Cash on Demand (Lawrence, 1961) 7/10
Across 110th Street (Shear, 1972) 8/10

Knock on Any Door (Ray, 1949) 7/10
Prevenge (Lowe, 2016) 6/10
Good Time (Safdie, 2017) 8/10
An Inspector Calls (Hamilton, 1954) 8/10
The Wages of Fear (Clouzot, 1954) 9/10
Terri (Jacobs, 2010) 7/10
A Hard Day's Night (Lester, 1964) 9/10
Wet Woman in the Wind (Akihito, 2016) 4/10
Sleepless (Bodar, 2016) 5/10
Tom of Finland (Karukoski, 2017) 8/10

Too Many Mammas (McCarey, 1924)
The Power of the Press (Capra, 1928)
The Life and Death of 9413, a Hollywood Extra (Florey & Vorkapich, 1928)
Dog Shy (McCarey, 1926)
*Goofy Movie Number One (White, 1933)
Moulin Rouge (Dupont, 1928)
A Woman's Man (Ludwig, 1934)
Julius Sizzer (Ludwig, 1931)
Murder on the Orient Express (Branagh, 2017)
Thor: Ragnarok (Waititi, 2017)
Dream Stuff (Beaudine, 1933)
Doctor Bull (Ford, 1933)
Visages Villages (Varda et JR, 2017)

Currently wading through the Resident Evil series after buying the whole set - six movies - on Blu-Ray for $6 from Amazon on Black Friday. I saw 1 and 2 on home video years ago, 3 and 4 in theaters, and have never seen 5 or 6.

Happy Days (Haneke, 2017)
The Florida Project (Baker, 2017) - this had probably the worst ending of almost any film I've seen all year (just dispassionately take the kid away thanks). A loss of nerve, otherwise it was all very American Honey, gripping and yet average-feeling as soon as the credits rolls (the ending probably was the reason). I liked the shots of the kids eating and enjoying food, and the purple walls.

Throw Away Your Books, Rally in the Streets (1971, Terayama) 6/10
*The Devil’s Backbone (2001, del Toro) 9/10
The Loves of Ondine (1968, Warhol, Morrissey) 6/10
Mayerling (1936, Litvak) 8/10
The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017, Lanthimos) 7/10
Emergency Kisses (1989, Garrel) 5/10
Logan Lucky (2017, Soderbergh) 6/10
I Can No Longer Hear the Guitar (1991, Garrel) 7/10
The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) (2017, Baumbach) 8/10
Der gläserne Turm (1957, Braun) 7/10
On the Beach at Night Alone (2017, Hong) 7/10