Last (x) movies you saw (II)

Secret of the Blue Room (Neumann, 1933)
*Lost Horizon (Capra, 1937)
#A Kiss in the Dark (surviving reels) (Tuttle, 1925)
#Too Many Kisses (Sloane, 1925) (personal festival highlight)
#Your Technocracy and Mine (Benchley, 1933)
#The Mad Game (Cummings, 1933)
#We Faw Down (McCarey, 1928)
#The House That Shadows Built (unidentified Paramount drudges, 1931)
#On the Brink (Porter & Weber, 1911)
#Romola (King, 1924)
*#The Cocoanuts (Florey & Santley, 1929)
#Mamba (Rogell, 1930)
#The Circus of Life (Julian, 1917)
#The Stolen Ranch (Wyler, 1926)
#Princess Lady Bug (Barker, 1930)
#The Storm (Wyler, 1930)
*#Brats (Parrott, 1930)
#Bulldog Drummond Strikes Back (Del Ruth, 1934)
#A Daughter of the Law (Cunard, 1921)
#The Night of Love (Fitzmaurice, 1927)
#Television Highlights (Schwarzwald, 1936)
#School for Swing (Schwarzwald, 1937)
#It's Great To Be Alive (Werker, 1932)
*#The Coming of Sunbeam (Guy, 1913)
#Twenty Dollars a Week (Weight, 1924)
#Ed Sullivan's Headliners (Schwarzwald, 1934)
#Her First Mate (Wyler, 1933)
#Call of the Cumberlands (Lloyd, 1916)
#The Rescue (Brenon, 1929)

#Capitolfest 16, or J.Lu Yet Again Is Reminded that Not All Silent and Pre-Code Films Are Classics.

celebrating the new thread with some all timers (uk folks nuts in may is back on the iplayer!)

Late Autumn (Ozu, 1960) 9/10
Diary of a Country Priest (Bresson, 1951) 10/10
Pickpocket (Bresson, 1959) 9/10
* Nuts in May (Leigh, 1976) 8/10
* Love and Friendship (Stillman, 2016) 7/10
Hereditary (Aster, 2018) 5/10
Ordet (Dreyer, 1955) 10/10

I don't log short films like j.lu does, but I saw about 8 Sadie Benning videos (made in Pixelvision) that I last watched about 25 years ago; most of those would be 8-10/10.

Three Faces West (1940, Vorhaus) 6/10
*My Beautiful Laundrette (1985, Frears) 8/10
Flat Is Beautiful (1998, S Benning) (50min) 5/10
Swallow (1995, Subrin) (28min) 7/10
The Lovers of Montparnasse (1958, Becker) 9/10
The Young Savages (1961, Frankenheimer) 5/10
Another Girl, Another Planet (1992, Almereyda) (56min) 6/10
Wake of the Red Witch (1948, Ludwig) 7/10
A Girl’s Folly (1917, M Tourneur) 7/10
Gavagai (2016, Tregenza) 4/10
Les Amis (1971, Blain) 5/10

I'd suggest you watch more Davies as prep than Frears, but don't want to prescribe any other TV while yr still not moving forward on Twin Peaks

Davies? this guy?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Howard_Davies

Russell T. Davies, the writer of A Very British Scandal. Roughly every second of his works deals with different facets of men-attracted-to-men negotiating a homosociality within heteronormative culture - Very British Scandal is the first that is a period piece, rather than directly contemporary.

Cucumber, his previous main project (eight episodes, twinned with another series called Banana, and a docoseries called Tofu, all named for the hardness of erections), was the best thing he's done ime.

Laundrette's focus on gay stuff is at most 33%.

I just figured Frears was on yr slate because you'd said you were planning to watch Brit Scandal; to me he's a director who is efficient in service of a script's tone and agenda, rather than having an authorial throughline or preoccupations that can be tracked through his work.

if you watch the Laundrette Criterion supplements, he denies being an auteur while his producer insists that he is. Frears does say he considers his string from The Hit thru The Grifters to be a reaction to Thatcherism.

I'm not actually likely to watch that scandal show anytime soon... always drowning in things to watch.

Frears otm! The Grifters as the end of Thatcher reactions, vs the good first step into a bad period of Americana, is interesting, would be curious to rewatch with that in mind.

("gay stuff" is only 7% of AVBS at most, except for how the closet is the driver for every bad action across the fifteen years or so it covers. fascinatingly handled, re. it being a period piece, is how no "character" in it identifies as gay, it's not even an option to consider: those who come out to each other instead compare to what point their bedroom preference is for which gender, how much marriage is a thing they genuinely value vs are having to take on for optics, etc.)

Mississippi (2015), streaming on Netflix - 36/42

*Mississippi Grind

xp I’m not sure what I think of A Very English Scandal. It had a breezy quality, but it was in a very different key than I was expecting.

I loved how lizard-like Hugh Grant was, though. Was he wearing contacts? because there was something very creepy about his black irises

OK, I had no idea Frears directed A Very English Scandal (u have to spell things out, sic) -- because why would I? I haven't seen anything of his since Dirty Pretty Things in 2002. Then he started doing all that Peter Morgan royal shite.

Dream Tower (7.0)
Our Nixon (7.5)
20th Century Women (9.0)
Eighth Grade (6.5)
Demon Seed (5.5)
Quadrophenia (7.5)
McQueen (6.0)
Ocean’s Eight (4.0)
BlacKkKlansman (7.0)
A Stranger Among Us (6.5)

The last one is a late Lumet I saw at the time and completely forgot about. Relatively low key for him. Explicitly quotes from Hud when Melanie Griffith says "I already put in time with one cold-hearted bastard, I'm not looking to find another one." Good one for that last-line-should-have-been-the-title thread: Ask Your Rabbi.

Mission Impossible (Christopher McQuarrie, 2018) - yup, that's how badly my year is going.

It was fun etc.

I forgot to note earlier how amused I was that it was j.lu who pitched for an Electric Boogaloo subtitle on the new thread.

/The Counselor/ (Ridley Scott/Cormac McCarthy, 2013). I saw this in a theater and didn't like it much, but recently learned that the Blu-Ray included a director's cut that was 20 minutes longer. I bought it on eBay for $5 and miraculously, the long version is a really good movie! Recommended.

last batch for a while

Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (David Lynch, 1992) - 10/10
Heat (Michael Mann, 1995) - 9/10
Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday (Jacques Tati, 1953) - 8/10
This Happy Breed (David Lean, 1944) - 8/10
Ordinary People (Robert Redford, 1980) - 7/10
Fantastic Planet (René Laloux, 1973) - 3/10

China Gate (Fuller)
The Search (Zinnemann)
From Here to Eternity (Zinnemann)
A Man for All Seasons (Zinnemann)
The Longest Day (Annakin, Marton & Wicki)
The Army of Crime (Guédiguian)
La Vie en Rose (Dahan)
Grace of Monaco (Dahan)
Cop (A. Refn)
Once a Cop... (A. Refn)
R (Noer & Lindholm)
Key House Mirror (Noer)*
A Hijacking (Lindholm)*
A War (Lindholm)*
A Second Chance (Bier)
Summer With Monika (Bergman)
Sawdust and Tinsel (Bergman)
Smiles of a Summer Night (Bergman)
The Virgin Spring (Bergman)
Morvern Callar (Ramsay)
We Need to Talk About Kevin (Ramsay)
Katalin Varga (Strickland)
For Those in Peril (Wright)*
Hyena (Johnson)
Ex Machina (Garland)
Beast (Pearce)
Under the Skin (Glazer)
Her (Jonze)
Lucy (Besson)
Ghost in the Shell (Sanders)

All 3.5/5:
True Stories (1986)
Blackkklansman
Won’t You Be My Neighbor?
The Lost City of Z

Mission Impossible Fallout (McQuarrie, 2018) 8/10
the Happy Prince (Everett, 2018) 7/10
Yellow Submarine ( Dunning, 1968) 8/10
Unseeworld U.S.A (Fuller, 1960) 7/10
The Last Emperor (Bertolucci, 1987) 6/10
Paddington 2 (King, 2017) 9/10
Hostiles (Cooper, 2017) 7/10

Um, Underworld U.S.A. that should be.

Gone With the Wind (1939) 7.5/10
Iron Man (2008) 7/10
Tangerine (2015) 8/10

bunch of airplane streaming on the way to and from berlin, the only one i'd seen before is philadelphia story:

all about eve (mankiewicz, 1951) 10/10
paddington 2 (king, 2017) 8/10
rocky (avildsen, 1976) 8/10
the philadelphia story (cukor, 1940) 9/10
happy death day (landon, 2017) 6/10
inside out (docter, 2015) 8/10

honestly happy death day was surprisingly enjoyable for what it was

the gospel of the bear film has reached the troposphere

lol

The Raid: Redemption (Evans, 2011) 6
Mission: Impossible Fallout (McQuarrie, 2018) 7
Disney Christopher Robin (Marc Forster, 2018) 4
Marwencol (Jeff Malmberg, 2010) 8
Icarus (Bryan Fogel, 2017) 8

read that marwencol has been adapted & now will have steve carell in it

https://www.meta-sphere.com/wp-content/uploads/welcome-to-marwen_tete-600x220.jpg

yeah I watched it because i saw the trailer for the zemeckis movie. The trailer makes it out to be an "inspirational" true story but it's not really, not exactly.

baby driver (2017 edgar wright) 6.5/10
mollys game (2017 sorkin) 2/10
suburbicon (2017 clooney) 2/10
the killing of a sacred deer (2017 lanthimos) 6/10
angelo my love (1983 duvall) 3/10
eighth grade (2018 burnham) 8/10
thoroughbreds (2018 cory finley) 4/10

thoroughbreds (2018 cory finley) 4/10

I don't do the out of 10 thing but I'd give this at least a 6. It made me laugh a lot.

lil too try hard idk

*The Naked Spur : 7/10
Vampire's Kiss : 6/10
Dying Of the Light (Paul Schrader Edit): 7/10 -- only 7/10 because Nic Cage is in full on weirdo mode and Schrader's noodling around on Final Cut. The doctor accent is...wow...almost as great as the accent in "Vampire's Kiss"
*The Young One: 7/10 - minor Buñuel for me but still great

Crazy Rich Asians – kind of a riff on Philadelphia Story, but with better-looking people. Lots of film history embedded in it.

What Price Jazz (Baerwitz, 1934)
Felix Gets Broadcasted (Messmer, 1923)
High Flyers (Cline, 1937)
Inflation (Myers, 1933)
Felix in Fairyland (Messmer, 1923)
*Roast-Beef and Movies (Baerwitz, 1934)
*Big City Fantasy (Henabery, 1934)
The Magician (Bergman, 1958)
BlacKkKlansman (Lee, 2018)
Smiles of a Summer Night (Bergman, 1955)

Re-watching Whit Stillman's Barcelona tonight.

I was hoping for good things from Crazy Rich Asians, but found it fairly bland. I may have had the wrong expectations for a mainstream PG rom-com, but I felt like it needed sharper jokes.

kind of a riff on Philadelphia Story, but with better-looking people

!!! I'm sure this cast looks fine, but you are aware that Cary Grant and Kate Hepburn were considered pretty attractive, right?

in theaters July 26 - August 22

Killer’s Kiss (Stanley Kubrick, 1955) - 6/10
Summer Interlude (Ingmar Bergman, 1951) - 9/10
Eighth Grade (Bo Burnham, 2018) - 8/10
Three Identical Strangers (Tim Wardle, 2018) - 6/10
Blindspotting (Carlos López Estrada, 2018) - 7/10
Teen Titans Go! To the Movies (Peter Rida Michail, Aaron Horvath, 2018) - 3/10
BlacKkKlansman (Spike Lee, 2018) - 9/10

! at low rating for Three Identical Strangers

I knew nothing about the backstory before seeing it at SIFF but on a str8 narrative level it’s my favourite doco of the year

it is an incredible story. a documentary that makes itself, really. what bothered me was how much they reused the same footage from the same Donahue, NBC, + other TV appearances. the same lines. it kinda falls apart at the end, and felt padded even at ~95 minutes. that has nothing to do with the actual story being unresolved, i just thought with so much material to go through (and so many years passed over) the reuse of footage was bizarre.

and fwiw I knew not only the backstory but most of the twists before I saw it. I would've rated it higher if I had gone in completely cold, I wish I could've.

yeah fair enough! the repeated lines are very few & read in SUPER different context the second times around, but if you’re not seeing it / that footage cold, those won’t have the same kick

a documentary that makes itself, really.

this undermines the work they do in visuals and research and in editing the story though — I felt v impressed by how manipulative it was without cheats in the first half-hour, and how well the makers shift to mostly-archival telling thereafter.

i've seen much worse evaluations of 3IS

Apostasy (Dan Kokotajlo, 2017) - fairly ho hum drama around Jehovah's witnesses.
The Heiresses (Marcelo Martinessi, 2017) - this is going to be top 2/3 for the year. Loved the use of (de-)focus to mirror the main character's state of mind (which could've been too on the nose), the script really nails the intricacies of class mobility across a more Latin American milieu, and then the final encounter between Chela and the much younger Angy -- all that hidden passion and desire across age and class -- really was a terrific driver for the last 1/3 of the film.

that time of year when the xmas tv has finished and new season hasn't really started so i'm taping any film from tptv that looks even vaguely interesting to watch during the day

Not As A Stanger, robert mitchum and frank sinatra want to become doctors. two big name actors in a film i've not heard of.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0048432/

yesterday was Landfall, about an RAF pilot accused of bombing a british submarine. starring no-one you've ever heard of but "From the novel by Nevil Shute".

also spent the time between xmas and new year catching up on recent dvds

Agnus Varda - Cleo from 5 to 7
Bela Tarr - Turin Horse
Tomu Uchida - Mad Fox

all of which i enjoyed.

(actually, Not As A Stranger features Gloria Grahame, the third film i've seen with her in it in the last month (Human Desire, The Man Who Never Was) ((also, it's a wonderful life, which was on A LOT over christmas but which i didn't watch)))

Thirteen Women (Archainbaud 1932)
Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky (Lam Mai-Choi 1991)
Goodbye, Dragon Inn (Tsai 2003)
The Quick and the Dead (Raimi 1995)
Frontier Marshal (Dwan 1939)
Casino (Scorsese 1995)
May December (Haynes 2023)
The Grandmaster (Wong 2013)
Men (Garland 2022)
eXistenZ (Cronenberg 1999)
The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar (Anderson 2023)
High Anxiety (Brooks 1977)
*Being John Malkovich (Jonze 1999)
Maestro (Cooper 2023)
*L.A. Confidential (Hanson 1997)
Blast of Silence (Baron 1961)
The Equalizer 3 (Fuqua 2023)
The Equalizer (Fuqua 2014)
The Equalizer 2 (Fuqua 2018)
Birth (Glazer 2004)
Harry Brown (Barber 2009)
Little Odessa (Gray 1994)
Puss (Shore 2021)
The Diabolic Tenant (Méliès 1909)
India Song (Duras 1975)

* Altered States (1980) 3.5/5
The Iron Claw (2023) 4/5
Anatomy of a Fall (2023) 4/5
Panic in the Streets (1950) 3.5/5
An Accidental Studio (2019) 3/5. Doc on Handmade Films currently on Criterion.
Godzilla Minus One (2023) 4/5
The Holdovers (2023) 3.5/5
SubUrbia (1996) 2/5. Had this soundtrack on cd in the 90s but never saw the movie. Steve Zahn nearly carries it but kind of a botch job from Linklater.
* Mean Streets (1973) 4.5/5

The Invisible Ray (Hillyer, 1936)
Godzilla Minus One (Takashi Yamazaki. 2023)
The Johnstown Flood (Cummings, 1926)
Deluge (Feist, 1933)
*The Old Dark House (Whale, 1932)
One Day in Hollywood (Caldwell, 1924)
*From Soup to Nuts (Kennedy, 1928)

January:

The Long Hair of Death (Margheriti, 1964) 88 Films Blu Ray 6/10
The Vengeance of She (Owen, 1968) Hammer Film DVD Box Set 4/10
The Beguiled (Siegel, 1971) DVD 8/10
Saltburn (Fennell, 2023) Amazon Prime 6/10
Poor Things (Lanthimos, 2023) Cineworld 8/10
Jackass Forever (Tremaine, 2022) C4 4/10
Two Mules for Sister Sara (Siegel, 1970) DVD 7/10
Punch-Drunk Love (Anderson, 2002) DVD 7/10
Witchhammer (Vavra, 1970) Second Run DVD 7/10
Barbarian (Cregger, 2022) Amazon Prime 7/10
The Holdovers (Payne, 2023) Cineworld 6/10
Blood Work (Eastwood, 2002) DVD 5/10

Leave the World Behind (6.0)
A Promising Young Woman (6.0)
Past Lives (7.5)
Napoleon (6.0)
Funny Girl (7.0)
Anatomy of a Fall (7.0)
The Office (S1-S9 – 7.5)
The Reckless Moment (6.5)
The Zone of Interest (6.0)
Werner Herzog: Radical Dreamer (6.5)

A Touch of Sin (Zhangke Jia, 2013)
*Shotgun Freeway: Drives Through Lost L.A. (Morgan Neville, Harry Pallenberg, 1995)
*Like Water for Chocolate (Alfonso Arau, 1992)
Sex, Lies, and Videotape (Steven Soderbergh, 1989)
Prey (Dan Trachtenberg, 2022)
Deep Cover (Bill Duke, 1992)
Trespass (Walter Hill, 1992)
A Most Violent Year (J.C. Chandor, 2014)
Anselm (Wim Wenders, 2023)
Broadcast News (James L. Brooks, 1987)
Silvia Prieto (Martín Rejtman, 1999)
Leave The World Behind (Sam Esmail, 2023)
India Song (Marguerite Duras, 1975)
Stanley Kubrick's Boxes (Jon Ronson, 2008)
Albert Brooks: Defending My Life (Rob Reiner, 2023)
Ferrari (Michael Mann, 2023)
Det perfekte menneske (Jørgen Leth, 1968)
*Dekalog (Krzysztof Kieslowski, 1989)
Walking and Talking (Nicole Holofcener, 1996)
*Duck Soup (Leo McCarey, 1933)
That Summer! (Harley Cokeliss, 1979)

That Summer! noteworthy for having the best soundtrack album to a movie that no one saw
https://www.discogs.com/release/2177877-Various-That-Summer

Big Time Gambling Boss (1968) 4.5/5
Love Affair (1939) 4/5
The Zone of Interest 4/5
Chess of the Wind (1976) 4/5
Happy Hour (2015) 4.5/5
* Blackhat 3.5/5 Did not like this previously but found the director's cut enjoyable.
* A Tale of Winter (1992) 4/5

Fast X — reprehensibly stupid. 0/10
Inferno (Dario Argento, 1981) — felt like it was happening in slow motion; gave up halfway through. 3/10
King of New York — a fucking classic. Can't even count how many times I've seen it. 10/10

Inferno is one of the many kinds of slow I love. I could live in that movie, minus getting murdered

Inferno has the greatest bad score of all time - supplied to us, the viewers, by none other than Keith Emerson himself

laat month

little murders, dir. alan arkin, 1971 8/10
the hit, dir. frears, 1984, 7/10
the barefoot contessa, dir. the other mank, 1954, 6/10. tries to do the kane thing but the subject isn't very interesting. defines her in terms of what the men around her feel.
pearl, dir. west, 2023, 8/10
nimona, netflix, 2023, 6/10
*rewatch, galaxy quest, dir. parisot, 1999, 8/10. a comfort movie.
a bunch of old disney bullshit not worth mentioning

Calcutta, dir: John Farrow, 1946 - Middling
Scala, dir: Jane Giles, Ali Catteral, 2023 - Moving
Outside The Law, dir: Jack Arnold, 1956 - Solid
Brief Encounters, dir: Kira Muratova, 1967 - Engaging
The Fall Of Ako Castle, dir: Kinji Fukasaku, 1978 - Diverting
Fire And Ice, dir: Alain Cavalier, 1962- Unladingsticking
Hanuman, dir: Prasanth Varma, 2024- Fun
Ladies Man, dir: Jerry Lewis, 1961 - Baffling
The Bit Between The Teeth, dir:Laurent Heynemann, 1979 - Great
Night At The Crossroads, dir: Jean Renoir, 1932 - Ramshackle

JAN:

Ferrari (Mann, Martin 2023)
May December (Haynes, Burch, Mechanik 2023) 📺
Godzilla Minus One (Yamakazi 2023)
Poor Things (Lanthimos, McNamara, Gray 2023)
The Holdovers (Payne, Hemingson 2023) 📺
Somewhere In Queens (Romano, Stegemann 2023) 📺 0/10
How Do You Live? (Miyazaki 2023)
Theater Camp (Gordon, Lieberman, Platt, Galvin 2023) 📺
Saltburn (Fennell 2023)
All Of Us Strangers (Haigh after Yamada 2023)
Les Parapluies de Cherbourg (Demy, Legrand, et autres 1964)
The Happiness of the Katakuris [カタクリ家の幸福] (Miike, Yamagishi 2001)
Anyone But You (Gluck, Wolpert, Shaxberd 2023)
Safety Last! (Newmeyer, Taylor, Lloyd, Havez, Roach, Taylor, Whelan, Walker 1923)
Hairspray! (Shankman, Shaiman, Waters, Wittman, Dixon, O'Donnell, Meehan 2007)
A Woman Of Paris (Charles Chaplin 1923)
They Made Me A Fugitive (Cavalcanti, Langley, Budd 1947) 📀
The Kid (Charlie Chaplin 1920 / 1972)
Córki dancingu (Smoczyńska, Bolesto 2015)
* City Lights (Charles Chaplin 1931)
Master Gardener (Schrader 2023) 📀
The Beekeeper (Ayer, Wimmer 2024)
Modern Times (Charles Chaplin 1936)

Ladies Man, dir: Jerry Lewis, 1961 - Baffling

saw this at an unannounced screening a year or two ago and it makes total sense as a formal experiment on the big screen. although I'd already seen Pig In The City and Witches Of Eastwick (on purpose) the same day so my practical spectacletations may have been overly calibrated, and my logic receptors beaten to a nub. (My only Lewis to date.)

Re-watched Jim Jarmusch's STRANGER THAN PARADISE last night, and Richard Edson gives one of the great unsung comic performances of the '80s in that movie. Everyone else is in dry hipster mode; he goes full Bowery Boys.

YES

Berlinale-haul:

Dahomey (Mati Diop)
The Devil’s Bath (Veronika Franz & Severin Fiala)
L’Empire (Bruno Dumont)
My Favourite Cake (Maryam Foghaddam & Behtash Sanaeeha)
A Traveler’s Needs (Hong Sang-soo)
La Cocina (Alonso Ruizpalacios)
Pepe (Nelson Carlos De Los Santos Arias)
Who Do I Belong To (Meryam Jaabeur)
Shambhala (Min Bahadur Bham)
Vogter (Gustav Möller)
Langue Étrangère (Claire Burger)
A Different Man (Aaron Schimberg)
Small Things Like These (Tim Mielants)
Sterben (Matthias Glasner)
Gloria! (Margherita Vicario)
Architecton (Victor Kossakovsky)
Another End (Piero Messina)
From Hilde, With Love (Andreas Dresen)
Suspended Time (Olivier Assayas)
Black Tea (Abderrahmane Sissako)
Abiding Nowhere (Tsang Ming-liang)
Arcadia (Yorgos Zois)
Cidade; Campo (Juliana Rojas)
Demba (Mamadou Dia)
Favoriten (Ruth Beckermann)
Mãos no fogo (Margarida Gil)
Some Rain Must Fall (Qiu Yang)
Tú me abrasas (Matias Piñeiro)
Afterwar (Birgitte Stærmose)
Kottukkaali (PS Vinothraj)
All The Long Nights (Shô Miyake)
The Editorial Office (Roman Bondarchuk)
In The Belly Of A Tiger (Siddharta Jatla)
Shahid (Narges Kalhor)
La Hojarasca (Macu Machín)
What Did You Dream Last Night, Parajanov? (Faraz Fesharaki)

The keepers are the first eight or so + Kottukkaali, Tu me abrasas, Afterwar, Cidade; Campo and yeah, Abiding Nowhere, though it's once again just a monk walking slowly. This time in Washington DC, for 80 minutes.

How's the new Kossakovsky?

I'd like to see the new Ruizpalacios. I thought "A Cop Movie" was incredible.

The new Kossakovsky is like Aquarela but for concrete, so if you liked that, you'll like this. I didn't, so I don't.

I hope the new Ruizpalacios will be his breakthrough. It takes place in New York, and is a bit more mainstream than his earlier films. Reminded me quite a bit of a Spike Lee film.

Fargo (S5 – 6.5)
The Teachers’ Lounge (6.5)
One from the Heart (5.0)
Miss Americana (5.0)
Trans-Europ-Express (7.0)
New Waterford Girl (7.5)
Mid90s (7.5)
Let Them All Talk (6.5)
Who’s That Knocking at My Door? (6.0)
Midnight Cowboy (10.0)

Rep theatre three-quarters full today for the last one--felt good.

February:

Off Balance/Phantom of Death- decent giallo from Cannibal Holocaust's Ruggero Deodato starring Michael York
The Spider Labyrinth- long unavailable 80's Italian horror with some great paranoid/cult vibes, recommended
Freeway II: Confessions of a Trickbaby- almost as good as the first Freeway, somehow
Road House- I used to fuck movies like this in prison
The Boy and the Heron- perfect movie. no notes
Prague Nights- great Czech portmanteau folklore/horror
*Dredd- checking in periodically as I am wont to do. Still great
The Hourglass Sanatorium- Absolutely gorgeous but also incredibly difficult to parse compared with Has' Saragossa Manuscript; going to finally read Bruno Schulz and come back to this one later
*Possession- highly recommend seeing this one in a packed theater with a bunch of first-time viewers
The Wild Goose Lake- beautifully photographed, feels like a Chinese riff on a Coen brothers crime movie, reductive as that take is
Schizoid- Klaus Kinski is in it, it's directed by the guy who produced (iirc) Dallas, my memory of this movie is rapidly fading even as I type this
Tammy and the T-Rex- highly recommend seeing this one in a packed theater. I didn't do that, I streamed it at home, and it suffered for it
Leviathan (the dumb George Cosmatos monster movie one)- this and Deep Star Six were 1989's Volcano/Dante's Peak
Smile (the Michael Ritchie one)- unexpectedly great. "You've got to learn to expect a little less out of life"
The Tune- I like Bill Plympton in small doses but a feature-length musical is a big ask. Still technically astonishing as his work always is

pretty good February

The Zone of Interest
Anyone But You
*Blow Out (10)
Origin
Depeche Mode 101
Gidget
Out of Darkness
Bushman
Leila and the Wolves
*Modern Romance
*Turning Red
*Wonder Boys
Drylongso (10)
*Drop Dead Gorgeous
*Miss Congeniality
Lisa Frankenstein
Drive-Away Dolls
Gaza Ghetto: Portrait of a Palestinian Family

Birth (2004) 3/5
* The Conformist (1970) 4.5/5
The Book of Life (1998) 4/5
Dick (1999) 3.5/5
Loulou (1980) 4/5
Cane River (1982) 3/5
The 8 Diagram Pole Fighter (1984) 4/5
* Wanda (1970) 4/5
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947) 4/5

Sexy Beast (Glazer, 2003)
Groundhog Day (Ramis, 1993)
A Thousand and One (Rockwell, 2023)
The Teachers' Lounge (Çatak, 2023)
Anaconda (Llosa, 1997)
Terms of Endearment (Brooks, 1983)
Deep Blue Sea (Harlin, 1999)
A Matter of Life and Death (Powell and Pressburger, 1946)
Priscilla (Coppola, 2023)
BlackBerry (Johnson, 2023)

Found BlackBerry a little disappointing; liked Air (they came out at the same time) better.

Sinais de Fogo, dir: Luís Filipe Rocha, 1995 - gripping
The Man In Search Of His Murderer, dir: Robert Siodmark, 1931 - exhiliarating
The Prince & The Pauper, dir: William Keighley, 1937 - meh
The Moon Has Risen, dir: Kinuyo Tanaka, 1955- intriguing
Young Soul Rebels, dir: Isaac Julien, 1991 - exciting
Forever A Woman, dir: Kinuyo Tanaka, 1955- notforme
You Laugh, dir: Paolo & Vittorio Taviani, 1998 - grim
P'Tang Yang Kipperbang, dir: Michael Apted, 1982 - cute
The Wandering Princess, dir: Kinuyo Tanaka, 1960 - epic
Article 20, dir: Zhang Yimou, 2024- dumb

February:

Dreamworld (Barnard, Tennant, Lowe, Scutt 2024)
Mean Girls! (Jayne, Perez Jr., Fey, Richmond, Benjamin, Wiseman 2024)
Space Is The Place (Coney, Ra, Smith 1972)
She Is Conann (Mandico 2023)
Batman Forever (Schumacher, Scott-Batchler, Scott-Batchler, Ling, MacGregor-Scott, Goldsman 1995) 📺
Rollerball (Jewison, Harrison 1975) 📺
American Fiction (Jefferson, Everett 2023)
* Die Hard With A Vengeance (McTiernan, Hensleigh 1995) 📀
Street Of Chance (Hiveley, Fort, Woolrich 1942) 📽️
Odd Man Out (Reed, Sheriff, Green 1947)
Cairo Station [Bāb al-Ḥadīd] (Chahine, Youssef, Adib 1958)
Ganja & Hess (Gunn 1973)
Ascenseur pour l'Échafaud [Elevator To The Gallows] (Malle, Nimier, Calef 1958)
Strongroom (Sewell, Harris, Marquis 1962)
Our Uniform (Moghaddam 2023) 7min
Pachyderme (Clément, Rius 2022) 11min
Ninety-Five Senses (Hess, Hess, Bowman, Palmer 2023) 13min -1/10
War Is Over! (Mullins, Ono, Lennon, Ono Lennon 2022) 11min -15/10
Symphonie pour un massacre (Deray, Giovanni, Sautet, Reynaud-Fourton 1963)
Black Tuesday (Fregonese, Boehm 1954) 📽️
Le trou (Becker, Giovanni, Becker, Aurel 1960)
The Zone Of Interest (Glazer, Burn 2023)
The Asphalt Jungle (Huston, Maddow, Burnett 1950)
Missing Out (ARP 2024) 4min 📺
The Godfather Part II (Coppola, Puzo 1974)
Winter Kills (Richert, Condon 1979) 📽️
Jennifer's Body (Kusama, Cody 2009)
*The Hunt For Red October (McTiernan, Ferguson, Stewart, Clancy 1990) 📀
Divorzio all'italiana (Germi, De Concini, Giannetti, Incrocci, Arpino 1961) 📽️
Your Fat Friend (Jeanie Finlay 2023)

this year so far

Theorem, Pasolini, 1968, 7/10
Under the Cherry Moon, Prince, 1986, 5/10 i guess? looks great but that script
Morbius, 2022, 2/10
The Greatest Night in Pop, Nguyen, 2024, 5/10
Oppenheimer, Nolan, 5/10
Poor Things, Lanthimos, 8/10
Anatomy of a Fall, Triet, 7/10

not in a movie mood this year

February:

Belly (Williams, 1998) 7/10
*New Jack City (Van Peebles, 1991) 8/10
The Sweet East (Price Williams, 2023) 8/10
Dune:Part 2 (Villeneuve, 2023) 8/10
Demons (Matsumoto, 1971) 8/10

The First Slam Dunk (2022) 4.5/5. One of the great sports movies.
Out of the Blue (1980) 4.5/5. Finally saw this for the first time and it's gotta be the best thing Dennis Hopper ever did.
* Youth of the Beast (1963) 3.5/5
* Side Street (1949) 4/5
The Upturned Glass (1947) 3.5/5
Love Lies Bleeding (2024) 3/5
* Saint Omer (2022) 4.5/5
Saturday Fiction (2019) 4/5
Dune: Part Two 3.5/5
Keeping Secrets Will Destroy You (2023) 3.5/5 Bonnie Prince Billy "visual album" on Criterion Channel.
Meanwhile (2011) 2.5/5

Latest 10:

Girls Of The Night, dir: Kinuyo Tanaka, 1961 - powerful
Love Under The Crucifix, dir: Kinuyo Tanaka, 1962- sad
Premalu, dir: Girish A D, 2024- corny
Hell Dogs, dir: Masato Harada, 2022- mid
The Case Is Closed, Forget It, dir: Damiano Damiani, 1971- savage
I Want Him Dead, dir: Paolo Bianchini, 1968 - serviceable
TMNT: Mutant Mayhem*, dir: Jeff Rowe, 2023 - tubular
El Puro, dir: Edoardo Mulargia, 1969- boring/interesting
Sword Of The Beast*, dir: Hideo Gosha, 1965- programmer
Merry Christmas*, dir: Sriram Raghavan, 2024- beguiling

* means rewatch

Out of the Blue (1980) 4.5/5. Finally saw this for the first time and it's gotta be the best thing Dennis Hopper ever did.

I agree. Pretty gut-wrenching but an outstanding film.

Where Are You Going (2016) dir. Yang Zhengfan. Reminds me a lot of a CharlieBo313 YouTube video, but with more depth.

The Today Show (S4 – 6.0)
Drive-Away Dolls (4.0)
L.I.E. (7.0)
To Die For (7.5)
American Fiction (7.0)
Feud: Capote vs. the Swans (7.0)
Ozark (S1-S4 – 7.0)
Natural Born Killers (4.0)
Modernism, Inc. (7.5)
Eileen (5.0)

Abraham’s Valley (de Oliveira, 1993)
NYAD (Vasarhelyi/Chin, 2023)
Surviving Desire(Hartley, 1992)
Ambition (Hartley, 1992)
Theory of Achievement (Hartley, 1991)
Seven Psychopaths (McDonagh, 2012)
Cop Land (Mangold, 1997)
Once Upon a Time in the West (Leone, 1968)
Back and Forth (Snow, 1969)
Breakfast (Table-Top Dolly) (Snow, 1976)
Standard Time (Snow, 1967)
The Strange Case of Angelica (de Oliveira, 2010
Working on the Douro River (de Oliveira, 1931)
Jungle Fever (Lee, 1991)
The Prisoner of Second Avenue (Frank, 1975)
Carlito’s Way (De Palma, 1993)
Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World (Jude, 2023)

The Today Show (S4 – 6.0)

The Morning Show that should be...

Orion and the Dark (Kaufman script, 2024) 6/10
Riki-Oh (1991) subbed 8/10
Je Tu Il Elle (Akerman) 4/10
*My Dinner With Andre (Malle, 1981) 7/10

in cinemas, March:
* The Iron Giant (1999 Bird, McCanlies after Hughes )
Trollhunter (2010 Øvredal)
Tucker & Dale vs. Evil (2010 Craig, Jurgenson) 📽️
Hero [英雄] (2002 Zhang, Li, Wang)
Fresh (1994 Yakin)
Perfect Days (2023 Wenders, Takasaki)
The Pillow Book (1996 Greenaway )
Drive Away Dykes (2024 Coen & Cooke)
Kedi (2016 Torun)
Your Sister's Sister (2011 Shelton, Blunt, Duplass, DeWitt, Birbiglia)
the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn (2020 Yan, Hodson)
* Nope (2022 Peele)
* Matinee (1993 Dante, Jerico, Haas)
The Host (2006 Bong, Ha, Baek)
They Cloned Tyrone (2023 Taylor, Rettenmaier)
Tremors (1990 Underwood, Maddock, Wilson)
The Fly (1986 Cronenberg after Langelaan after Pogue)
The Creature From The Black Lagoon (2D) (1954 Arnold, Essex, Ross, Zimm)
I'm "George Lucas" (2024 Jacobi, Sofillas)
* Asteroid City (2023 Anderson, Coppola)
Godzilla [ゴジラ] (1954 Honda, Murata, Kayama)
Love Lies Bleeding (2024 Glass, Tofilska, Mansell)
Problemista (2024 Torres)
Wendell & Wild (2022 Selick, Peele, Chapman)

home viewing:
* The Terminator ( 1984 Cameron, Hurd, Wisher Jr. ) 📀
* Terminator 2: Judgment Day ( 1991 Cameron, Wisher Jr. ) 📀
* Last Action Hero ( 1993 McTiernan, Penn, Leff, Black, Arnott, Goldman, Fisher, Ferguson ) 📀
Dark ( 2024 ARP, Hawke ) 📺 4 min
A Swiss Trick ( 1931 Foster, Stallings ) 📺 7 min
* The Thomas Crown Affair ( 1968 Jewison, Trustman, Legrand, Ashby ) 📺

Ikarie XB1 (Polák 1963)
June (Vaurio 2024)
Safe in Hell (Wellman 1931)
The Raid 2 (Evans 2014)
24-Hour Party People (Winterbottom 2002)
The Munekata Sisters (Ozu 1950)
*The Red Shoes (Powell & Presburger, 1948)
*Barton Fink (Coen & Coen, 1991)
Beau Is Afraid (Aster 2023)
New Rose Hotel (Ferrara 1998)
Poor Things (Lanthimos 2023)
*Lone Star (Sayles 1996)
Dreadnaught (Yuen Woo-ping 1981)
The Zone of Interest (Glazer 2023)
True Romance (Scott 1993)
The Holdovers (Payne 2023)
The Marvels (DaCosta 2023)
Dune Pt. 1 (Villeneuve 2023)
Anatomy of a Fall (Triet 2023)
Road House (Liman 2024)
Dune Pt. 2 (Villeneuve 2024)
American Fiction (Jefferson 2023)
Ballerina (Lynch 2003)
Monkey Man (Patel 2024)
STEVE! (martin) (Neville 2024)