Last (x) movies you saw

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

You Belong to Me (Werker, 1934)
The Way of All Pants (McCarey and Jones, 1927)
*Should Husbands Be Watched? (McCarey, 1925)
The Gay Nighties (Sandrich, 1933)
The Druggist's Dilemma (Sandrich, 1933)
Should Second Husbands Come First? (McCarey, 1927)
Troubles of a Grasswidower (Linder, 1912)
Kickin' the Crown Around (White, 1933)
Snug in the Jug (Holmes, 1933)
Everything's Ducky (Holmes, 1934)
Move On (Gilbert and Pratt, 1917)
Lady Bird (Gerwig, 2017)

found footage compilation 2014
wilson
fubar

The Steamroller and the Violin (Tarkovsky, 1961)
Raffles (Wood, 1939)
Fat Girl (Breillat, 2001)
Pickle (short - Nicholson, 2016)
A Nous la Liberté (Clair, 1931)
71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance (Haneke, 1994)
The Lost City of Z (Gray, 2016)
City Walk (short - Morrison, 1999)
The Film of Her (short - Morrison, 1997)
The Mesmerist (short - Morrison, 2003, after Young, 1926)
Outerborough (short - Morrison, 2005)
Frenzy (Hitchcock, 1972)

I have now watched all six Resident Evil movies.

There's a ton of short films just been uploaded on BFI's youtube channel, so it might be worth a look for anyone not already subscribed.

Coogans Bluff (Siegel, 1968) 6/10
Daphne (Mackie Burns, 2017) 7/10
Blade Runner 2049 (Villeneuve, 2017) 4/10
Murder on the Orient Express (Branagh, 2017) 4/10
Paddington 2 (King, 2017) 7/10
Battle of the Sexes (Dayton, Faris, 2017) 7/10
Blade of the Immortal (Takashi Miike, 2017) 8/10
Call Me By Your Name (Guadagnino, 2017) 7/10
The Human Factor (Preminger, 1979) 8/10
It's a Wonderful Life (Capra, 1946) 4/10

i caught the start of it's a wonderful life on tv. that sequence with the pharmacist really hit me emotionally. even if i kinda hate the rest of the movie including the dumb scene with the banker in the middle of the sequence.

It's a Wonderful Life is a pretty good, dark film that ppl love to throw mud at bcz of overexposure

The Square (2017) 7/10
Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead (2014) 6/10
Steve Jobs (2015) 6/10
Brawl in Cell Block 99 (2017) 7/10
The Edge of Seventeen (2016) 7/10
The Florida Project (2017) 7/10
The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017) 4/10

documentaries:

Jim and Andy: The great beyond (2017) 6/10
Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films (2014) 7/10

Call Me By Your Name (Guadagnino, 2017) 9/10
The Assassin (Hsiao-Hsien, 2015) 8/10
*Heathers (Waters, 1988) 6/10
Good Time (Safdie Brothers, 2017) 8/10
*Step Brothers (McKay, 2008) 6/10
The Florida Project (Baker, 2017) 4/10
The Mirror (Tarkovsky, 1975) 8/10
Get Out (Peele, 2017) 7/10
The Lost City of Z (Gray, 2017) 7/10
Knock on Any Door (Ray, 1949) 5/10
Arabian Nights Vol. 1: The Restless One (Gomes, 2015) 8/10
Arabian Nights Vol. 2: The Desolate One (Gomes, 2015) 7/10
Arabian Nights Vol. 3: The Enchanted One (Gomes, 2015) 8/10
Zigeunerweisen (Suzuki, 1981) 7/10
A Matter of Life and Death (Powell and Pressburger, 1946) 9/10

Did anyone watch any of those "lost" films on MUBI that were restored & presented by Refn? My FireTV app was playing up so I only saw one in full (the name of which escapes me) but my impression was that like a lot of B "gems" it boils down to a handful of really strange & arresting sequences but the films aren't up to that much

Is there a list?

https://mubi.com/specials/bynwr

I guess it was just 2 films

The one I saw in full (though in fits & starts) was nest of the cuckoo birds, which is definitely worth a watch

Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017) 4/5
Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World (2017) 3/5
Local Hero (rewatch; 1983) 4/5
The Disaster Artist (2017) 3.5/5
Lady Bird (2017) 3/5
My Twentieth Century (1989) 4/5

Stalker (--)
Last Night (6.0)
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (7.0)
Andrei Rubelev (7.5)
The Squid and the Whale (10.0)
It (5.0)
Wall Street (7.5)
The Florida Project (6.5)
Hard Eight (7.0)
The Da Vinci Code (3.0)

What was I hoping for with The Da Vinci Code? A couple hours of semi-absorbing diversion, some old-fashioned something or other...I did laugh out loud when Tom Hanks, on the run from the law and various religious fanatics, grimly turned to Audrey Tautou and said, "I've got to get to a library, quick." I once wrote a fanzine piece on library scenes in movies: The Graduate, Breakfast at Tiffany's, All the President's Men, there are some good ones. I don't know if The Da Vinci Code was marketed as an action film, but if it was, I'm thinking that "I've got to get to a library, quick" must be the least promising invitation to watch an action film ever.

nothing for Stalker?

I made note of that a few weeks ago...(--) basically means I'm baffled by something a lot of people revere, that a low rating would be meaningless and just draw attention to itself, and that I haven't abandoned all hope that one day I'll get it.

Or: I'm confident enough of my familiarity with Scorsese to give The Wolf of Wall Street a really low rating--where it stands in relation to his other films, how much I trust my initial reaction--but not with Stalker. As much as it might seem so, it's really not meant as a dodge.

I don't know if The Da Vinci Code was marketed as an action film, but if it was, I'm thinking that "I've got to get to a library, quick" must be the least promising invitation to watch an action film ever.

It was, and among the many baffling things about The Da Vinci Code are that anyone thought Tom Hanks was an action star, or that Ron Howard was an action filmmaker.

xp no i understand that completely, clemenza. i like Stalker but don't get why so many people rate it higher than Solaris. i'm not as into the fucked up grimy urban/apocalyptic environment of Stalker vs. lush transcendent heavenly afterlife glow of Solaris... feel the same way with Eraserhead vs. Mulholland Drive

(xpost) Howard actually began as an action director for Corman in the '70s. (Haven't seen those films, but they're supposed to be pretty good.) But yeah, he's ill-equipped for that now. The Da Vinci Code was ludicrous enough that it might have worked as Corman-like camp, but Howard seemed to take it all very seriously. And not that you could have made that film anyway with such a high-priced property.

Watched Scorpio last night; a semi-forgotten early 70s paranoid thriller with Burt Lancaster, Paul Scofield (playing a Russian with ridiculous facial hair), and Alain Delon. A little long (115 minutes) but very well done.

Lancaster and Scofield liked working together, it seems.

wait i thought The Da Vinci Code was insanely camp?

psycho self-flagellating albino monk, low speed car chase in a Renault Clio, dinky little graphics explaining the puzzles to you, big macguffin had zero stakes, Hanks's hair etc etc

i mean i'd never watch it again it's boring as hell but still

If we're cataloguing the ludicrous details of The Da Vinci Code, I must quote Walter Chaw here:

Start in The Da Vinci Code with the mythical discipline of "symbology": a malapropism invented by idiots so as not to confuse their flock with real words like "semiotics" or "epistemology." It's like calling psychiatry "talk-about-it-ology." (Defenders of the text beware, because the thing you defend purports to be in love with the importance of language.) Our good Harvard professor Langdon (Tom Hanks, acting throughout like he's trying to pass a stone) is a professor of "Symbology," you see, and he opens The Da Vinci Code giving a Power Point lecture in Paris about how first "symbology" is the study of symbols (duh), and then--those who don't read (or drive, or walk around their town), prepare to be startled--how symbols are a form of language.

NV: It had lots of what I thought was accidental camp (e.g., the line I quoted above), but it was hard to be sure of intent, and hard to know if some of the overkill was bad acting or knowing sabotage by some bored actors (Paul Bettany especially). I thought you could detect the trace of a smirk on Hanks's face sometimes. I do think Howard tried to make an earnest, prestige film, though.